Part 21 (1/2)
Presently he spoke thickly. ”I suppose you have heard that he was a squawman.”
His friend joined battle promptly with him. ”That's ridiculous. Don't be absurd, Gordon.”
”It's the truth. I've seen the woman. She was pointed out to me.”
”By old Gideon Holt, likely,” she flashed.
”One could get evidence and show it to Miss O'Neill,” he said aloud, to himself rather than to her.
Diane put her point of view before him with heated candor. ”_You_ couldn't. n.o.body but a cad would rake up old scandals about the man who has beaten him fairly for a woman's love.”
”You beg the question. _Has_ he won fairly?”
”Of course he has. Be a good sport, Gordon. Don't kick on the umpire's decision. Play the game.”
”That's all very well. But what about her? Am I to sit quiet while she is sacrificed to a code of honor that seems to me rooted in dishonor?”
”She is not being sacrificed. I'm her cousin. I'm very fond of her. And I'd trust her with Colby Macdonald.”
”Play fair, Diane. Tell her the truth about this Indian woman and let your cousin decide for herself. You can't do less, can you?”
Mrs. Paget was distinctly annoyed. ”You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Gordon Elliot. You take all the gossip of a crack-brained old idiot for gospel truth just because you want to believe the worst about Mr.
Macdonald. Don't you know that people will say anything about a man who succeeds? Colby Macdonald is too big and too aggressive not to have made hundreds of enemies. His life has been threatened dozens of times. But he pays no attention to it--goes right on building-up this country.
Yet you'd think he had a cloven hoof to hear some people talk. I've no patience with them.”
”The woman's name is Met.e.e.t.se,” Gordon said in an even voice, just as if he were answering a question. ”She is young and good-looking for an Indian. Her boy is four or five years old. Colmac, they call him, and he looks just like Macdonald.”
”People are always tracing resemblances. There's nothing to that. But suppose his life _was_ irregular--years ago. This isn't Boston. It used to be the fringe of civilization. Men did as they pleased in the early days. We don't ask a man up here what he has been, but what he is.
You ought to know that by this time.”
”This wasn't in the early days. It was five years ago, when Macdonald was examining the Kamatlah coal-field. I'm told he sends a check down the river once a month for the woman.”
”All the more credit to him if he does.” Diane rose and looked stormily down at her friend. ”You're about as broad as a clam, Gordon. Can't you see that even if it's true, all that is done with? It is a part of his past--and it's finished--trodden under foot. It hasn't a thing to do with Sheba.”
”I don't agree with you. A man can't cut loose entirely from his past.
It is a part of him--and Macdonald's past isn't good enough for Sheba O'Neill.”
Diane tapped her little foot impatiently on the floor. ”Do you know many men whose pasts are good enough for their wives? Are you a plaster-cast saint yourself? You know perfectly well that men trample down their pasts and begin again when they are married. Colby Macdonald is good enough for any woman alive if he loves her enough.”
”You don't know him.”
”I know him far better than you do. He is the biggest man I know, and now that he is in love with a good woman he'll rise to his chance.”
”She ought to be told the truth about Met.e.e.t.se and her boy,” he insisted doggedly.
”I'm not going to disturb her with a lot of old maids' gossip. That's flat.”