Part 26 (1/2)
His hostess claimed Thode at that juncture and bore him away to fresh introductions, and Willa started across the room to Mrs. Halstead when Starr Wiley intercepted her coolly.
”How do you do?” he asked. Then, without waiting for her reply, he went on: ”But that is a superfluous question, isn't it? You are looking as distractingly charming as ever. So our knight errant has put in an appearance once more! He looks a little the worse for wear.”
”Mr. Thode has been ill,” Willa remarked through stiffened lips.
”There was an accident----”
”A hootch bottle in the hands of a jealous Senorita becomes an effective weapon, but I would call it more like fate than accident.”
Wiley laughed unpleasantly. ”There were some interesting rumors afloat about our friend's conquests after your departure from Limasito. He'd be an expert porch-climber if his practice in gaining access to certain balconies on certain back streets counted for anything. I could have told you before, but I did not want to shatter your illusions concerning the local Paul Revere.”
”You are trying to now, however.” Willa looked straight into his eyes and then quickly away in immeasurable disdain. ”I have no ears for idle, malicious slander, Mr. Wiley. Please, let me pa.s.s.”
”It does rather jar on one, doesn't it? A reminder of the low, primitive life down there is out of place in this highly esthetic atmosphere.” He made no move to step aside, and a shade of deeper meaning crept into his tones. ”It would be a pity if one were compelled to return to it. The charms of Limasito would pall, I fancy, after all this; yet such things sometimes happen.”
”I trust not, for your sake,” Willa responded. ”You would scarcely find the climate of Limasito a healthy one, if your activities were fully comprehended there.”
”I was not thinking of myself----” he smiled once more--”but of an old fairy tale which I mentioned to you in the Park. You look a very confident Cinderella, but midnight is not far off, and only you can stop the hands of the clock, remember.”
”I am not fond of riddles.” Willa shrugged and turned away to greet her host, who came forward with one of the inevitable callow youths in tow.
Dinner was announced almost immediately and Willa sat through it with the food untouched before her. Wiley's insinuations against Kearn Thode she had dismissed utterly from her thoughts, but his renewed taunt of the morning filled her in spite of herself with dread foreboding. Could fate have indeed been playing with her after all, and was it possible that Wiley held within his hands the strings of her future destiny?
She was Willa Murdaugh, of course. Mason North and the Halsteads had satisfied themselves of that beyond a shadow of a doubt. But what if Wiley had really stumbled upon some facts unknown to them all which might throw a shadow across her t.i.tle? Was it an idle threat to coerce her or a very tangible menace?
She raised troubled eyes to meet Kearn Thode's smiling ones across the table and her native courage came back in a swift rush. Surely she had nothing to fear; she would meet Wiley and beat him at his own game, and then . . . she smiled again into Thode's eyes. What did anything else matter, now that he had returned?
An informal dance was the order of the evening and Willa and the young engineer gravitated to a seat on the stairs after a romping fox-trot.
Both were flushed and sparkling, but when they found themselves alone together a diffident silence fell upon them.
”It must seem good to you to get back,” Willa ventured at last when the pause had become oppressive.
”It is.” His glance rested upon her with a world of contentment. ”I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it seems!”
”And your work down there?” she pursued hurriedly. ”You have finished it? You will not have to return again?”
The contentment faded and in its place there came a look of bitterness and dogged determination.
”It has scarcely begun. I wonder if you ever heard an old legend around Limasito concerning the lost location of a marvelous oil well?”
Willa laughed nervously, a little taken aback by the abruptness of the question.
”One hears so many legends in every country of lost or buried or hidden treasure,” she parried. ”Scarcely anyone pays attention to them except the tenderfoots. You know up in the mining country one is forever hearing such tales of vast deposits of ore, but n.o.body can ever find the lead.”
”This particular one concerns a well in a mysterious pool of water where a ma.s.sacre is supposed to have taken place. It dates back to the time of the Spaniards' coming.”
He paused, but Willa said nothing. She was striving to mask her thoughts in continued composure lest his quick mind grasp the significance of her interest.
”The place is spoken of as the Pool of the Lost Souls,” Thode went on.
”Surely you have heard of it? The people to whom you were so kind, old Tia Juana and her grandson, knew more than anyone else about it. Did they not mention it to you?”
”Tia Juana?” Willa glanced up quickly, but she could not meet his eyes. ”She is very secretive, you know, and jealous of the old legends which to her form the sacred history of her beloved country. Suppose you tell me the legend yourself.”