Part 38 (2/2)
So Dorothy had stayed anxiously at home.
One crisp and frosty morning she went over to Jake Crabbott's store where she found the usual congregation of loungers, and among them was Bas Rowlett leaning idly on the counter.
Dorothy made her few purchases and started home, but as she left the store the man upon whom she had declared irreconcilable war strolled out and fell into step at her side. She had not dared to rebuff him before those witnesses who still accounted them friends, but she had no relish for his companions.h.i.+p and when they had turned the bend of the road she halted and faced the fellow with determined eyes.
About them the hills were taking on the slate grays and chocolate tones of late autumn and the woods were almost denuded of the flaunting gorgeousness which had so recently held carnival there, yet the sodden drabness of winter had in nowise settled to its monotony, for through the grays and browns ran violet and ultramarine reflexes like soft and creeping fires that burned blue, and those few tenacious leaves that clung valiantly to their stems were as rich of tone as the cherry-dark hues that come out on well-coloured meerschaum.
”I didn't give ye leave ter walk along with me, Bas,” announced the girl with a spirited flash in her eyes, and her chin tilted high. ”I've got a rather es ter ther company I keeps.”
The man looked at her for a hesitant interval without answering, and in his dark face was a mingling of resentment, defiance, and that driving desire that he thought was love.
”Don't ye dast ter trust yoreself with me, Dorothy?” he demanded with a smile that was half pleading and half taunt, and he saw the delicate colour creep into her cheeks and make them vivid.
”I hain't afeared of ye,” she quickly disavowed. ”Ever sence thet other time when ye sought ter insult me, I've done wore my waist bloused--a-purpose ter tote a dirk-knife. I've got hit right now,” and her hand went toward her bosom as she took a backward step into the brittle weed-stalks that grew by the roadside.
But Bas shook his head, and hastened to expound his subtler meaning.
”I didn't mean ye war skeered of no bodily vi'lence, Dorothy. I means ye don't das't trust yoreself with me because ye're affrighted lest ye comes ter love me more'n ye does ther man ye married in sich unthoughted haste. I don't blame ye fer bein' heedful.”
”Love ye!” she exclaimed, as the colour deepened in her cheeks and neck, then went sweeping out again in the white and still pa.s.sion of outraged indignation. ”I hain't got no feelin' fer ye save only ter despise ye beyond all measure. A woman kain't love no craven an' liar thet does his fightin' by deceit.”
Bas Rowlett looked off to the east and when he spoke it was with no reference to the insults that cut most deeply and sorely into mountain sensibilities.
”A woman don't always know what she loves ner hates--all at onc't.
Betwixt them two things thar hain't no sich great differ noways. I'd ruther hev ye hate me then not ter give me no thought one way ner t'other.... Ye're liable ter wake up some day an' diskiver thet ye've jest been gittin' ther names of yore feelin's mixed up.” He paused in his exposition upon human nature long enough to smile indulgently, then continued: ”So long es ye won't abide ter let me even talk te yer, I knows ye're afear'd of me in yore heart--an' thet's because ye're afeared of what yore heart hitself mout come ter feel.”
”Thet's a right elevatin' s'armon ye preaches,” she made scornful answer, ”but a body doesn't gentle a mad dog jest ter show they hain't skeered of hit.”
”Es fer Parish Thornton,” he went on as though his musings were by way of soliloquy, ”ye kain't handily foller him whar he's goin' ter, nohow.
He's done run his course already.”
A hurricane gust of dizzy wrath swept the woman and her voice came explosively: ”Thet's a lie, Bas Rowlett! Hit'll be _you_ thet dies with a rope on yore neck afore ye gits through--not him!”
”Ef I does,” declared the man with equanimity, ”hit won't be jest yit. I grants him full an' free right of way ter go ahead of me.”
But abruptly that cool and disconcerting vein of ironic calm left him and he bent his head with the sullen and smouldering eyes of a vicious bull.
”But be thet es. .h.i.t may. I claims thet ye kain't stand out erginst my sweetheartin' ef ye trusts yoreself ter see me. _You_ claims contrariwise, but ye don't dast test yore theory. I loves ye an' wants ye enough ter go on eatin' insults fer a spell.... Mebby ther Widder Thornton'll listen ter reason--when ther jury an' ther hangman gits done.”
The girl made no answer. She could not speak because of the fury that choked her, but she turned on her heel and he made no effort to follow her.
The steeply humped mountains on either side seemed to Dorothy Thornton to close in and stifle her, and the bracing, effervescent air of the high places had become dead and lifeless in her nostrils, as to one who smothers.
That evening, when Sim Squires came in to supper, he made casual announcement that he understood Bas had gone away somewhere. His vapid grin turned to a sneer as he mentioned Rowlett's name after the never-failing habit of his dissembling, but Dorothy set down his plate as though it had become suddenly too hot to hold.
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