Part 36 (1/2)

”I 'll have to admit it.”

”Why, he's with her now,” she laughed. ”That's why I stayed at home to-day.”

Monte held his breath for a second, and then he said:--

”You mean, the woman Peter loves is--is Marjory Stockton?”

”No other. I thought he must have told you. If not, I thought you must have guessed it from her.”

”Why, no,” he admitted; ”I did n't.”

”Then you've had your eyes closed.”

”That's it,” he nodded; ”I've had my eyes closed. Why, that explains a lot of things.”

Impulsively the girl placed her hand on Monte's arm.

”As an old friend of hers, you'll use your influence to help Peter?”

”I 'll do what I can.”

”Then I'm so glad I told you.”

”Yes,” agreed Monte. ”I suppose it is just as well for me to know.”

CHAPTER XX

PAYING LIKE A MAN

Everything considered, Monte should have been glad at the revelation Beatrice made to him. If Peter were in love with Marjory and she with Peter--why, it solved his own problem, by the simple process of elimination, neatly and with despatch. All that remained for him to do was to remove himself from the awkward triangle as soon as possible.

He must leave Marjory free, and Peter would look after the rest. No doubt a divorce on the grounds of desertion could be easily arranged; and thus, by that one stroke, they two would be made happy, and he--well, what the devil was to become of him?

The answer was obvious. It did not matter a picayune to any one what became of him. What had he ever done to make his life worth while to any one? He had never done any particular harm, that was true; but neither had he done any particular good. It is the positive things that count, when a man stands before the judgment-seat; and that is where Monte stood on the night Marjory came back from Cannes by the side of Peter, with her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed as if she had come straight from Eden.

They all dined together, and Monte grubbed hungrily for every look she vouchsafed him, for every word she tossed him. She had been more than ordinarily vivacious, spurred on partly by Beatrice and partly by Peter. Monte had felt himself merely an onlooker. That, in fact, was all he was. That was all he had been his whole life.

He dodged Peter this evening to escape their usual after-dinner talk, and went to his room. He was there now, with his face white and tense.

He had been densely stupid from the first, as Beatrice had informed him. Any man of the world ought to have suspected something when, at the first sight of Peter, she ran away. She had never run from him.

Women run only when there is danger of capture, and she had nothing to fear from him in that way. She was safe with him. She dared even come with him to escape those from whom there might be some possible danger.

Until now he had been rather proud of this--as if it were some honor.

She had trusted him as she would not trust other men. It had made him throw back his shoulders--dense fool that he was!

She had trusted him because she did not fear him; she did not fear him because there was nothing in him to fear. It was not that he was more decent than other men: it was merely because he was less of a man.

Why, she had run even from Peter--good, honest, conscientious Peter, with the heart and the soul and the nerve of a man. Peter had sent her scurrying before him because of the great love he dared to have for her. Peter challenged her to take up life with him--to buck New York with him. This was after he had waded in himself with naked fists, man-fas.h.i.+on. That was what gave Peter his right. That right was what she feared.

Monte had a grandfather who in forty-nine crossed the plains. A picture of him hung in the Covington house in Philadelphia. The painting revealed steel-gray eyes and, even below the beard of respectability, a mouth that in many ways was like Peter's. Montague Sears Covington--that was his name; the name that had been handed down to Monte. The man had shouldered a rifle, fought his way across deserts and over mountain paths, had risked his life a dozen times a day to reach the unknown El Dorado of the West. He had done this partly for a woman--a slip of a girl in New York whom he left behind to wait for him, though she begged to go. That was Monte's grandmother.

Monte, in spite of his ancestry, had jogged along, dodging the responsibilities--the responsibilities that Peter Noyes rushed forward to meet. He had ducked even love, even fatherhood. Like any quitter on the gridiron, instead of tackling low and hard, he had side-stepped.