Part 32 (1/2)
They both laughed, a cheerful ba.s.s and a gay treble, sweeping out across the unquiet water.
”It's going to be the Golden Age,” she said, in the joy of her respite pressing her lips on the hand she held. ”A cottage covered with vines to the roof and you and I and Daddy John inside it.”
”And David, don't forget David.”
”Of course, David,” she a.s.sented lightly, for David's occupancy was removed to a comfortable distance.
After supper she and David climbed to the top of the bank to see the sunset. The breeze had dropped, the dust devils died with it. The silence of evening lay like a cool hand on the heated earth. Dusk was softening the hard, bright colors, wiping out the sharpness of stretching shadows the baked reflection of sun on clay. The West blazed above the mountains, but the rest of the sky was a thick, pure blue. Against it to the South, a single peak rose, snow-enameled on a turquoise background.
Susan felt at peace with the moment and her own soul. She radiated the good humor of one who has faced peril and escaped. Having postponed the event that was to make her David's forever, she felt bound to offer recompense. Her conscience went through one of those processes by which the consciences of women seek ease through atonement, prompting them to actions of a baleful kindliness. Contrition made her tender to the man she did not love. The thought that she had been unfair added a cruel sweetness to her manner.
He lay on the edge of the bluff beside her, not saying much, for it was happiness to feel her within touch of his hand, amiable and gentle as she had been of late. It would have taken an eye shrewder than David's to have seen into the secret springs of her conduct. He only knew that she had been kinder, friendlier, less withdrawn into the sanctuary of her virgin coldness, round which in the beginning he had hovered. His heart was high, swelled by the promise of her beaming looks and ready smiles. At last, in this drama of slow winning she was drawing closer, shyly melting, her whims and perversities mellowing to the rich, sweet yielding of the ultimate surrender.
”We ought to be at Fort Bridger now in a few days,” he said. ”Courant says if all goes well we can make it by Thursday and of course he knows.”
”Courant!” she exclaimed with the familiar note of scorn. ”He knows a little of everything, doesn't he?”
”Why don't you like him, Missy? He's a fine man for the trail.”
”Yes, I dare say he is. But that's not everything.”
”Why don't you like him? Come, tell the truth.”
They had spoken before of her dislike of Courant. She had revealed it more frankly to David than to anyone else. It was one of the subjects over which she could become animated in the weariest hour. She liked to talk to her betrothed about it, to impress it upon him, warming to an eloquence that allayed her own unrest.
”I don't know why I don't like him. You can't always tell why you like or dislike a person. It's just something that comes and you don't know why.”
”But it seems so childish and unfair. I don't like my girl to be unfair. Has he ever done anything or said anything to you that offended you?”
She gave a petulant movement: ”No, but he thinks so much of himself, and he's hard and has no feeling, and-- Oh, I don't know--it's just that I don't like him.”
David laughed:
”It's all prejudice. You can't give any real reason.”
”Of course I can't. Those things don't always have reasons. You're always asking for reasons and I never have any to give you.”
”I'll have to teach you to have them.”
She looked slantwise at him smiling. ”I'm afraid that will be a great undertaking. I'm very stupid about learning things. You ask father and Daddy John what a terrible task it was getting me educated. The only person that didn't bother about it was this one”--she laid a finger on her chest-- ”She never cared in the least.”
”Well I'll begin a second education. When we get settled I'll teach you to reason.”
”Begin now.” She folded her hands demurely in her lap and lifting her head back laughed: ”Here I am waiting to learn.”
”No. We want more time. I'll wait till we're married.”
Her laughter diminished to a smile that lay on her lips, looking stiff and uncomfortable below the fixity of her eyes.
”That's such a long way off,” she said faintly.