Part 2 (2/2)
But when she asked him such an innocent thing as what he was after in California--an inquiry, by the way, put more in idleness than out of curiosity--Freeman stroked his yellow moustache with the thumb of the hand that held his Cuban cigarette, gazed with narrowed eyelids at the horizon, and for some time made no reply at all. Finally he said that California was a place he had never visited, and that it would be a pity to have been so near it and yet not have improved the opportunity of taking a look at it.
Grace instantly scented a mystery, and was not less promptly resolved to fathom it. And what must be the nature of a mystery attaching to a handsome man, unmarried, and evidently no stranger to the gentler s.e.x?
Of course there must be a woman in it! Her eyes glowed with azure fire.
”You have some acquaintances in California, I suppose?” she said, with an air of laborious indifference.
”Well,--yes; I believe I have,” Freeman admitted.
”Have they lived there long?”
”No; not over a few months. I accidentally heard from a person in Panama. I dropped a line to say I might turn up.”
”She----you haven't had time to get an answer, then?”
Freeman inhaled a deep breath through his cigarette, tilted his head back, and allowed the smoke to escape slowly through his nostrils. In this manner, familiar to his deep-designing s.e.x, he concealed a smile.
Grace was, in some respects, as transparent as she was subtle. So long as the matter in hand did not touch her emotions, she had no difficulty in maintaining a deceptive surface; but emotion she could not disguise, though she was probably not aware of the fact; for emotion has a tendency to shut one's own eyes and open what they can no longer see in one's self to the gaze of outsiders.
”No,” he said, when he had recovered his composure. ”But that won't make any difference. We are on rather intimate terms, you see.”
”Oh! Is it long since you have met?”
”Pretty long; at least it seems so to me.”
Grace turned, and looked full at her companion. He did not meet her glance, but kept his profile steadily opposed, and went on smoking with a dreamy air, as if lost in memories and antic.i.p.ations, sad, yet sweet.
”Really, Mr. Freeman, I hardly thought--you have always seemed to care so little about anything--I didn't suspect you of so much sentiment.”
”I am like other men,” he returned, with a sigh. ”My affections are not given indiscriminately; but when they are given,--you understand,--I----”
”Oh, I understand: pray don't think it necessary to explain. I'm sure I'm very far from wis.h.i.+ng to listen to confidences about another,--to----”
”Yes, but I like to talk about it,” interposed Freeman, earnestly.
”I haven't had a chance to open my heart, you know, for at least six months. And though you and I haven't known each other long, I believe you to be capable of appreciating what a man feels when he is on his way to meet some one who----”
”Thank you! You are most considerate! But I shall be additionally obliged if you would tell me in what respect I can have so far forgotten myself as to lead you to think me likely to appreciate anything of the kind. I a.s.sure you, Mr. Freeman, I have never cared for any one; and nothing I have seen since I left home makes it probable that I shall begin now.”
”I am sorry to hear that,” said Freeman, slowly drawing another cigarette out of his bundle, and beginning to re-roll it with a dejected air.
”Indeed!”
”Yes: the fact is, I had hoped that you had begun to have a little friendly feeling for me. I am more than ready to reciprocate.”
”I hope you will spare me any insults, sir. I have no one to protect me, but----”
”I a.s.sure you, I mean no insult. You cannot help knowing that I think you as beautiful and fascinating a woman as I have ever met; but of course you can't help being beautiful and fascinating. Do I insult you by having eyes? If so, I am sorry, but you will have to make the best of it.”
With this, he turned in his seat, and calmly confronted her. Beautiful she certainly was, at that moment; but it was the beauty of an angry serpent. She had a pencil in her hand, with which, a little while before, she had been sketching heads of some of the pa.s.sengers in her little notebook. She was now handling this inoffensive object in such a way as to justify the fancy that, had it been charged with a deadly poison in its point, instead of with a bit of plumbago of the HH quality, she would have driven it into Freeman's heart then and there.
<script>