Part 22 (2/2)

”Some people would beg in any case, Grant. They are incapable of anything better.”

”Then they are defectives, and should be cared for by the State.”

”Then the State may practise charity--”

”It is not charity; it is the discharge of an obligation. A father may support his children, but he must not let anyone else do it.”

”Well, I give up,” said Jones. ”You're beyond me.”

Grant laughed and extended a cigar box. ”Don't hesitate,” he said, ”this doesn't come out of the two hundred. This is entertainment expense. And you must come and see me when I get settled.”

”When you get settled--yes. You won't be settled until you're married, and you might as well do some thinking about that. A man in your position gets a pretty good range of choice; you'd be surprised if you knew the wire-pulling I have already encountered; ambitious old dames fis.h.i.+ng for introductions for their daughters. You may be an expert with rope or branding-iron, but you're outcla.s.sed in this matrimonial game, and some one of them will land you one of these times before you know it. You should be very proud,” and Mr. Jones struck something of an att.i.tude. ”The youth and beauty of the city are raving about you.”

”About my money,” Grant retorted. ”If my father had had time to change his will they would every one of them have pa.s.sed me by with their noses in the air. As for marrying--that's all off.”

The lawyer was about to aim a humorous sally, but something in Grant's appearance closed his lips. ”Very well, I'll come and see you if you say when,” he agreed.

Grant found what he wanted in a little apartment house on a side street, overlooking the lake. Here was a place where the vision could leap out without being beaten back by barricades of stone and brick. He rested his eyes on the distance, and a.s.sured the inveigling landlady that the rooms would do, and he would arrange for decorating at his own expense.

There was a living-room, about the size of his shack on the Landson ranch; a bathroom, and a kitchenette, and the rent was twenty-two dollars a month. A decorator was called in to repaper the bathroom and kitchenette, but for the living-room Grant engaged a carpenter.

He ordered that the inside of the room should be boarded up with rough boards, with exposed scantlings on the walls and ceiling. No doubt the tradesman thought his patron mad, or nearly so, but his business was to obey orders, and when the job was completed it presented a very pa.s.sable duplicate of Grant's old quarters on the ranch. He had spared the fireplace, as a concession to comfort. When he had gotten his personal effects out of storage, when he had hung rifle, saddle and lariat from spikes in the wall; had built a little book-shelf and set his old favorites upon it; had installed his bed and the trunk with the big D. G.; sitting in his arm chair before the fire, with Fidget's nose snuggled companionably against his foot, he would not have traded his quarters for the finest suite in the most expensive club in the city.

Here was something at least akin to home.

As he was arranging the books on his shelf the clipping with the account of Zen's wedding fell to the floor. He sat down in his chair and read it slowly through. Later he went out for a walk.

It was in his long walks that Grant found the only real comfort of his new life. To be sure, it was not like roaming the foothills; there was not the soft breath of the Chinook, nor the deep silence of the mighty valleys. But there was movement and freedom and a chance to think.

The city offered artificial attractions in which the foothills had not competed; faultlessly kept parks and lawns; splashes of perfume and color; spraying fountains and vagrant strains of music. He reflected that some merciful principle of compensation has made no place quite perfect and no place entirely undesirable. He remembered also the toll of his life in the saddle; the physical hards.h.i.+p, the strain of long hours and broken weather. And here, too, in a different way, he was in the saddle, and he did not know which strain was the greater. He was beginning to have a higher regard for the men in the saddle of business.

The world saw only their success, or, it may be, their pretence of success. But there was a different story from all that, which each one of them could have told for himself.

On this evening when his mind had been suddenly turned into old channels by the finding of the newspaper clipping dealing with the wedding of Y.D.'s daughter, Grant walked far into the outskirts of the city, paying little attention to his course. It was late October; the leaves lay thick on the sidewalks and through the parks; there was in all the air that strange, sad, sweet dreariness of the dying summer.... Grant had tried heroically to keep his thoughts away from Transley's wife. The past had come back on him, had rather engulfed him, in that little newspaper clipping. He let himself wonder where she was, and whether nearly a year of married life had shown her the folly of her decision.

He took it for granted that her decision had been folly, and he arrived at that position without any reflection upon Transley. Only--Zen had been in love with him, with him, Dennison Grant! Sooner or later she must discover the tragedy of that fact, and yet he told himself he was big enough to hope she might never discover it. It would be best that she should forget him, as he had--almost--forgotten her. There was no doubt that would be best. And yet there was a delightful sadness in thinking of her still, and hoping that some day--He was never able to complete the thought.

He had been walking down a street of modest homes; the bare trees groped into a sky clear and blue with the first chill presage of winter. A quick step fell unheeded by his side; the girl pa.s.sed, hesitated, then turned and spoke.

”You are preoccupied, Mr. Grant.”

”Oh, Miss Bruce, I beg your pardon. I am glad to see you.” Even at that moment he had been thinking of Zen, and perhaps he put more cordiality into his words than he intended. But he had grown to have considerable regard, on her own account, for this unusual girl who was not afraid of him. He had found that she was what he called ”a good head.” She could take a detached view; she was absolutely fair; she was not easily fl.u.s.tered.

Her step had fallen into swing with his.

”You do not often visit our part of the city,” she essayed.

”You live here?”

”Near by. Will you come and see?”

He turned with her at a corner, and they went up a narrow street lying deep in dead leaves. Friendly domestic glimpses could be caught through unblinded windows.

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