Part 16 (2/2)
”You defend her. I wonder at that.” Tisdale pa.s.sed her and turned to offer his help down the first abrupt pitch. ”How you, who are the one to censure her the most, can speak for her always, as you do. But there you are like Weatherbee. It was his way to take the losing side; champion the absent.”
”And there is where your resemblance stops,” she answered quickly. ”He lacked your streak of iron. Of course you know about your strange likeness to him, Mr. Tisdale. It is so very marked; almost a dual personality. It isn't height and breadth of shoulder alone; it's in the carriage, the turn of the head; and it creeps into your eyes sometimes; it gets into your voice. The first time I saw you, it was startling.”
Tisdale moved on, picking up the trail they had made in ascending; the humor began to play reminiscently at the corners of his mouth. ”Yes, I know about that resemblance. When we were on the Tanana, it was 'Tisdale's Twin' and 'Dave's Double.' A man has to take a name that fits up there, and we seemed to grow more alike every day. But that often happens when two friends who are accustomed to think in the same channels are brought into continual touch, and the first year we spent in the north together we were alone for weeks at a stretch, with no other human intercourse, not a prospector's camp within a hundred miles. The most incompatible partners, under those circ.u.mstances, will pick up subconsciously tricks of speech and gesture. Still, looking back, I see it was I who changed. I had to live up to Weatherbee; justify his faith in me.”
Miss Armitage shook her head slowly. ”That is hard to believe. Whoever tried to mould you would feel through the surface that streak of iron.”
They had come to another precipitous place, and Tisdale turned again to give her the support of his hand. The position brought his face on a level with hers, and involuntarily she stopped. ”But whatever you may say, Mr.
Tisdale,” she went on, and as her palm rested in his the words gathered the weight of a pact, ”whatever may--happen--I shall never forget your greatness to-day.” She sprang down beside him, and drew away her hand and looked back to the summit they had left. ”Still, tell me this,” she said with a swift breathlessness. ”If it had been David Weatherbee's wife up there with you when the thunderbolt struck, would it have made a difference? I mean, would you have left her to escape--or not--as she could?”
Tisdale waited a thoughtful moment. The ripple of amus.e.m.e.nt was gone; the iron, so near the surface, cropped through. ”I can't answer that,” he said. ”I do not know. A man is not always able to control a first impulse, and before that pine tree fell there wasn't time to hesitate.”
At this she was silent. All her buoyancy, the charming camaraderie that stopped just short of intimacy, had dropped from her. It was as though the atmosphere of that pocket rose and clung to her, enveloped her like a nimbus, as she went down. In the pent heat her face seemed cold. She had the appearance of being older. The fine vertical line at the corner of her mouth, which Tisdale had not noticed before, brought a tightness to his throat when he ventured to look at her. How could Weatherbee have been so blind? How could he have missed the finer, spiritual loveliness of this woman? Weatherbee, who himself had been so sensitive; whose intuition was almost feminine.
They had reached the final step from the bench to the floor of the vale when Hollis spoke again. ”If you do decide to buy this land and open the project, I could recommend a man who would make a trusty manager.”
”Oh, you don't understand,” she replied in desperation ”You don't understand. I should have to stay, to live in this terrible place for weeks, months at a time. I couldn't endure it. That dreadful mountain there at the gap would forever be watching me, holding me in.”
Tisdale looked at her, knitting his brows, ”I told you it was dangerous to allow yourself to feel the personality of inanimate things too much.”
”I know. I know. And this terrible beast”--she paused, trying to steady her voice; her whole body trembled--”would remind me constantly of those awful Alaska peaks--the ones that crowded--threatened him.”
Tisdale's face cleared. So that was the trouble. Now he understood. ”Then it's all right”--the minor notes in his voice, vibrating softly, had the quality of a caress--”don't worry any more. I am going to buy this land of David's. Trust me to see the project through.”
CHAPTER XII
”WHOM THE G.o.dS WOULD DESTROY”
Hope is an insistent thing. It may be strangled, lie cold and buried deep in the heart of a man, yet suddenly, without premonition, he may feel it rise and stretch small hands, groping towards a ray of light. So in that reminiscent hour while the train labored up through the Cascades to the great tunnel, Tisdale told himself this woman--the one woman for whom he must have been waiting all these years, at whose coming old and cherished memories had faded to shadows--was very near to loving him. Already she knew that those mysterious forces she called Fate had impelled them out of their separate orbits through unusual ways, to meet. Sometime--he would not press her, he could be patient--but sometime she would surely pay him that debt.
He dwelt with new interest on his resemblance to Weatherbee, and he told himself it was her constancy to David that had kept her safe. Then it came over him that if Weatherbee had married her instead of the Spanish woman, that must have been an insurmountable barrier between them to-day. As long as they lived, she must have remained sacred on her pedestal, out of reach. But how n.o.bly partisan she was; how ready to cross swords for Weatherbee's wife. That was the incredible test; her capacity for loving was great.
The porter was turning on the lights. Tisdale moved a little and looked across the aisle. For that one moment he was glad Weatherbee had made his mistake. She was so incomparable, so adorable. Any other woman must have lost attractiveness, shown at least the wear and tear of that mountain journey, but her weariness appealed to him as her buoyancy had not. She had taken off her hat to rest her head on the high, cus.h.i.+oned back of the seat, and the drooping curves of her short upper lip, the blue shadows under those outward curling black lashes, roused a new emotion, the paternal, in the depths of his great heart. He wished to smooth her ruffled hair; it was so soft, so vital; under the electric light it seemed to flash little answering blue sparks. Then his glance fell to her relaxed palms, open in her lap, and he felt a quick solicitude over a scratch the barbed fence must have made on one small, determined thumb.
They had had trouble with the horses in the vale. Nip, who had broken away during the storm, had been rounded in by the goat-woman and her returning collie. The travelers found her trying to extricate his halter which had caught, holding him dangerously close, in the wire fencing. It had taken caution and long patience to free him, and more to hitch the excited team.
The delay had caused them to miss the westbound evening train; they were forced to drive back and spend the night at Wenatchee. And the morning Oriental Limited was crowded with delegates from some mystic order on an annual pilgrimage. There was no room in the observation car; Tisdale was able to secure only single seats on opposite sides of the sleeper.
The train rumbled through the great tunnel and came to a brief stop outside the west portal. It was snowing. Some railroad laborers, repairing the track, worked in overcoats and sweaters, hat brims drawn down, collars turned up against the bitter wind. The porter opened the transoms, and a piercing draught pulled through the smoky, heat-laden car. Miss Armitage sat erect and inhaled a full breath. She looked across at Tisdale, and the sparkles broke softly in her eyes. ”It's Wellington!” she exclaimed. ”In a moment we shall be racing down to Scenic Hot Springs and on along the Skykomish--home.” Then she stopped the porter. ”Bring me a telegraph blank, please. I want to send a message from the Springs.”
The limited, under way again, dropped below the cloud. Great peaks and shoulders lifted everywhere; they began to make the loop around an incredibly deep and fissure-like gorge. It was a wonderful feat of railroad engineering; people on the other side of the car got to their feet and came over to see. The girl, with the yellow blank in her hand, drew close to Tisdale's elbow. ”Oh, no,” she demurred, when he rose to offer his seat, ”I only want standing room just a moment. There's going to be a delightful view of Scenic.”
The pa.s.senger beside Hollis picked up his bag. ”Take my place,” he said.
”I am getting off at the Springs.”
Then presently, when she had moved into the vacated seat next the window, the peaks stood apart, and far, far below the untouched forest at the summer resort stood out darkly, with the gay eaves and gables of the hotel etched on it like a toy Swiss chalet on a green plateau.
<script>