Part 13 (1/2)
”Not long since, you rather cultivated people like that and tried to use their rules,” she said. ”I think you made some progress.”
”Oh, well, I own I was a fool and I owe you something because you helped me see my folly. To take the proper line at a ball and a dinner party, to shoot straight and play a useful game at cards is perhaps a sound ambition, but I begin to doubt if it's worth the effort it costs. In the woods, one gets another ambition.”
Laura smiled. ”You're impulsive. When one indicates the way for you to go, you go much faster than one thinks, but we won't philosophize. Did it not cost you something to leave your ranch?”
”I wanted to see you,” said Jimmy in a quiet voice. ”I'd better state my object, because in a minute or two I expect your friends will come along--”
Laura thought not. The end of the terrace was not lighted. She and Jimmy were in the gloom and the others were not very dull.
”Well?” she said.
”I wanted to ask if you will marry me?”
For a few moments Laura said nothing and Jimmy noted that her pose was very quiet. Then she looked up.
”You are very young, Jimmy.”
”I'm not younger than you. Besides, I don't see what my youth has to do with it.”
”Your youth is a drawback,” said Laura thoughtfully. ”You will inherit a large fortune, but I am poor, and if I married you, your trustees would imagine I, and my father, had planned to capture you.”
”Now you are ridiculous!” Jimmy declared. ”You have talent, beauty, and cultivation: I'm raw and know nothing but the cotton mill. You ought to see, if I can persuade you, the gain is altogether mine.”
Laura gently shook her head. ”I don't see it, Jimmy, and others would not.”
”d.i.c.k Leyland might grumble,” Jimmy admitted with a frown. ”For all that, he has nothing to do with my marrying, and Sir Jim is another type. He'd fall in love with you--”
He stopped and Laura pondered. She must make a good marriage and the marriage Jimmy urged was good, but she saw some obstacles. For one thing, she did not love Jimmy. Ambition called, but she calculated. If he would take the line she thought he ought to take, she might agree.
”If you were at the cotton mill and claimed your proper post, all would be easier,” she said. ”Your uncles could not then dispute your right to marry whom you liked.”
Jimmy's laugh was scornful. ”My uncles control my fortune for a year or two; that's all. However, if you hesitate, I won't urge you to marry me yet. If you engage to do so when I get my inheritance, I'll be satisfied.”
The blood came to Laura's skin. Jimmy's keenness was not remarkable, but she knew his sincerity and she forced a smile.
”You are philosophical.”
”Oh, well,” said Jimmy with some embarra.s.sment, ”I feel I ought not to urge you now. I wanted to know you belonged to me, and then I needn't bother when I'm at the ranch-- The trouble is, if I waited, somebody might carry you off. So long as you agree--”
Laura's look got rather hard. When she wanted him to go back to England she was not altogether selfish. Although she did not love him, she liked Jimmy, and felt he ought not to stay in Canada with Stannard and Deering.
”Then, you mean to go on at the ranch?” she said.
”Of course. You declare I'm young. I feel I must take a useful job and, so to speak, make good. Besides, I can't go back to Lancas.h.i.+re to be ruled by Uncle d.i.c.k. When I take my inheritance, it will be another thing. Then, when you own a ranch, there's something about the woods that calls. You get keen; to plan and work is not a bother.”
”But is the reward for your labor worth while?”
”In money, the reward is not worth while; but that's not important.
Somehow I know d.i.c.k Leyland is not carrying on the house's business as it ought to be carried on. We are getting rich, but we cannot much longer use his old-fas.h.i.+oned parsimonious rules. Jim's at Bombay, and there's no use in my making plans for d.i.c.k to oppose. You see, I have nothing to go upon. For five years I was a clerk, like our other clerks; afterwards I was a careless slacker, and d.i.c.k would sternly put me down.