Part 32 (2/2)
Bas had started to draw himself up over the sill when caution prompted him to turn first for a look at the road.
He ground his teeth and abandoned his intention of immediate entry for there swinging around the turn, with her buxom vigour of stride, came Elviry Prooner.
Rowlett scowled as he folded his arms and leaned by the window, and then he saw Dorothy appear in the back door of the room and he cautioned her in a low voice: ”Elviry's comin' back. I warns ye not ter make no commotion.”
But to his astonishment Dorothy, whose face was as pale as paper no longer, wore in her eyes the desperation of terror or the fluttering agitation that seemed likely to make outcry. In her hand she held a kitchen knife which had been sharpened and re-sharpened on the grindstone until its point was as taperingly keen as that of a dirk.
She laid this weapon down on the table and hastily rearranged her dishevelled hair, and then she said in a still and ominous voice, more indicative of aggressive temerity than shrinking timidity:
”Don't go yit, Bas, I'm comin' out thar ter hev speech with ye--an' ef ye fails ter hearken ter me--G.o.d knows I pities ye!”
Waiting a little while to recover from the pallid advertising of her recent agitation she opened the front door and went firmly out as Elviry, with a toss of her head that ignored the visitor, pa.s.sed around the house to the rear.
Dorothy's right hand, armed with the blade, rested inconspicuously under her ap.r.o.n, but the glitter in her eyes was unconcealed and to Bas, who smiled indulgently at her arming, she gave the brief command, ”Come out hyar under ther tree whar Elviry won't hear us.”
Curious and somewhat mystified at the transformation from helplessness to aggression of bearing the man followed her and as she wheeled to face him with her left hand groping against the bark, he dropped down into the gra.s.s with insolent mockery in his face and sat cross-legged, looking up at her.
”Ef I'd hed this knife a minute ago,” she began in a low voice, throbbing like a m.u.f.fled engine, ”I'd hev cut yore heart out. Now I've decided not ter do hit--jest yit.”
”Would ye ruther wait an' let ther man with siv'ral diff'rent names ondertake hit fer ye?” he queried, mockingly, and Dorothy Thornton shook her head.
”No, I wouldn't hev him dirty his hands with no sich job,” she answered with icy disdain. ”Albeit he'd t'ar hit out with his bare fingers, I reckon--ef he knowed.”
Bas Rowlett's swarthy face stiffened and his teeth bared themselves in a snarl of hurt vanity, but as he started to speak he changed his mind and sat for a while silent, watching the splendid figure she made as she leaned against the tree with a breast rising and falling to the storm tide of her indignation.
Rowlett's thoughts had been active in these minutes since the craters of his sensuous nature had burst into eruption, and already he was cursing himself for a fool who had prematurely revealed his hand.
”Dorothy,” he began, slowly, and a self-abasing pretence of penitence sounded through his words, ”my reason plum left me a while ago an' I was p'int blank crazed fer a spell. I've got ter crave yore pardon right humbly--but I reckon ye don't begin ter know how much I loves ye.”
”How much ye loves me!” She echoed the words with a scorn so incandescent that he winced. ”Love's an honest thing, an' ye hain't nuver knowed ther meanin' of honesty!”
”Ye've got a right good license ter git mad with me, Dorothy,” he made generous concession, ”an' I wouldn't esteem ye ef ye hedn't done hit--but afore ye lets thet wrath settle inter a fixed hate ye ought ter think of somethin' ye've done fergot.”
He paused but received no invitation to present his plea in extenuation, so he proceeded without it:
”I kissed ye erginst yore will, an' I cussed an' d.a.m.ned yore husband, but I did both them things in sudden heat an' pa.s.sion. Ye ought ter take thought afore ye disgusts me too everlastin'ly much thet I've done loved ye ever since we was both kids tergither. I've done been compelled ter put behind me all ther hopes I ever hed endurin' my whole lifetime an'
hit's been makin' a h.e.l.l of tormint outen my days an' nights hyar of late.”
He had risen now, and into his argument as he bowed a bared and allegedly stricken head he was managing to put an excellent semblance of sincerity.
But it was before a court of feminine intuition that Bas Rowlett stood arraigned, and his specious contriteness fell flat as it came from his lips. Dorothy was looking at him now in the glare of revelation--and seeing a loathsome portrait.
”An hour ago,” she declared with no relenting in the deep blaze of her eyes, ”I believed all good of ye. Now I sees ye fer what ye air an' I suspicions iniquities thet I hedn't nuver dreamp' of afore. I wouldn't put hit past ye ter hev deevised Cal's lay-wayin' yoreself. I wouldn't be none astonished ef ye hired ther man thet shot him ... an' yit I'd nigh cut my tongue afore I'd drap a hint of thet ter him.”
That last statement both amazed and gratified the intriguer. He had now two avowed enemies in this house and each stood pledged to a solitary reckoning. His warfare against one of them was prompted by murder-l.u.s.t and against the other by love-l.u.s.t, but the cardinal essence of good strategy is to dispose of hostile forces in detail and to prevent their uniting for defence or offence. It seemed to Bas that, in this, the woman was preparing to play into his hands, but he inquired, without visible eagerness:
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