A Damaged Reputation Part 42

Brooke, who felt too languid to make another protest, went with him, and when they reached the house on the hillside, Devine led him into a room which looked down on the inlet.

"Sit down," he said, pointing to a big lounge chair. "I'll send somebody to look after you, and, unless you look a good deal better than you do now, you'll stay right here to-morrow. In the meanwhile, you'll excuse me. There are one or two folks I have to see in the city."

He went out, and Brooke, who let his head, which ached a good deal, sink back upon the soft upholstery, wondered vacantly what Mrs. Devine would think when she saw him there. He still wore the garments he was accustomed to at the mine, and, though they were dry now, and, at least, comparatively clean, he felt that long boots and soil-stained jean were a trifle out of place in that dainty room. That, however, did not seem to matter. He was drowsy and a trifle dizzy, while the room was warm, and it was with a little start he heard the door-handle rattle a few minutes later. Then, while he endeavored to straighten himself, Barbara came in.

"I feel that I ought to offer you my excuses for being here, though I am not sure that I could help it," he said. "Grant Devine is of a somewhat determined disposition, and he insisted on bringing me."

Barbara did not notice him wince as with pain when he turned to her, for she was not at that moment looking at him.

"Then why should you make any? It is his house," she said.

This was not very promising, for Brooke felt it suggested that, although the girl was willing to defer to Devine's wishes, they did not necessarily coincide with hers.

"It is!" he said. "Still, I seem to have acquired the sense of fitness you once mentioned, and I feel I should not have come. One is, however, not always quite so wise as he ought to be, and I was feeling a trifle worn out when your brother-in-law invited me. That probably accounted for my want of firmness."

Barbara glanced at him sharply, and noticed the gauntness of his face and the spareness of his frame, which had become accentuated since she had last seen him. It also stirred her to compa.s.sion, which was probably why she endeavored, as she had done before, to harden her heart against him.

"No doubt you spent last night in the saddle, and the trails would be bad," she said. "I believe they are getting some tea ready, and, in the meanwhile, how are you progressing at the mine?"

Brooke realized that she had heard nothing about his ride or the jumping of the Canopus, and determined that she should receive no enlightenment from him. This may have been due to wounded pride, but it afterwards stood him in good stead. Nor would he show that her chilly graciousness, which went just as far as the occasion demanded and no further, hurt him, and he accordingly roused himself, with an effort, to talk about the mine. The girl had usually appeared interested in the subject, and it was, at least, a comparatively safe one.

She, on her part, noticed the weariness in his eyes, and found it necessary to remind herself of his offences, for the story he told was not without its effect on her. It was, though he omitted most of his own doings, a somewhat graphic one, and she realized a little of the struggle he and the handful of men Devine had been able to send him had made, half-fed, amidst the snow. Still, for no very apparent reason, his composure and the way he kept himself in the background irritated her.

"One would wonder why you put up with so much hardship. Wasn't it a little inconsequent?" she said.

Brooke's gaunt face flushed. "Well," he said, "one is under the painful necessity of earning a living."

"Still, could it not be done a little more easily?"

"I don't know that it is, under any circ.u.mstances, a remarkably simple thing, but that is not quite the question, and, since you seem to insist, I'll answer you candidly. In my case, it was almost astonishingly inconsequent--that is, as I expect you mean, about the last thing any one would naturally have expected from me. Still, I felt that, after what I had done, I had a good deal to pull up, you see; though that is a motive with which, as I noticed when I mentioned it once before, you apparently can scarcely credit me."

Barbara smiled. "It was your own actions that made it difficult."

"I admitted on another occasion that I am not exactly proud of them, but there was some slight excuse. There usually is, you see."

"Of course!" said Barbara. "You need not be diffident. In your case there were the dollars of which my brother-in-law plundered you."

Brooke looked at her with a little glint in his eyes. "You," he said, slowly, "can be very merciless."

"Well," said Barbara, who met his gaze with quiet composure, "I might have been less so had I not expected quite so much from you. After all, it does not greatly matter--and here is the tea."

"I think it matters a good deal, but perhaps we needn't go into that,"

said Brooke, who took the cup she handed him. "You have poured out tea for me on several occasions now, but still, each one recalls the first time you did it at the Quatomac ranch."

The same thing had happened to Barbara, but she laughed. "It, presumably, made no difference to the tea, and yours runs some risk of getting cold."

Brooke appeared to be holding his cup with quite unnecessary firmness, and she fancied his color was a trifle paler than it had been, but he smiled.

"I really do not remember that it tasted any the worse," he said.

"Perhaps you can remember how the sound of the river came in through the open door that night, and the light flickered in the draughts. It showed up your face in profile, and I can still picture Jimmy sitting by the stove, with his mouth wide open, watching you. He had evidently never seen anything of the kind before."

Barbara noticed the manner in which he pulled himself up, and realized that the sentence had deviated from its natural conclusion. It was, though he had certainly been guilty of obtaining what she was pleased to consider her esteem by a course of disgraceful imposition, gratifying that he should be able to recall that evening. That, however, was not to be admitted.

"I remember that the two candles were stuck in whisky bottles," she said. "You removed them somewhat suddenly when you came in."

Brooke smiled, but his face was a trifle grey in patches now, and the cup was shaking visibly. "I really shouldn't have done," he said.

"Still, you see, I was a trifle flurried that night, and like Jimmy in one respect, in that I had never----"

"You, at least, had been handed tea by a lady before," said Barbara, severely.

"I had, but the incomplete explanation still holds good. Well, it was, no doubt, unwise of me to take those candlesticks away, since to disguise one's habits for a stranger's benefit naturally implies a deficiency of becoming pride, and it could, in any case, only have made the thing more palpable to you."

"One's habits?" said Barbara, who would not admit comprehension.

Brooke nodded. "Men," he said, "do not, as a rule, buy whisky bottles to make candlesticks of, and there were, as I believe you noticed, a good many more of them already on the floor. Still, you see, your good opinion--was--important to me, and I was willing to cheat you into bestowing it on me even then. It matters--it really does matter--a good deal."

Then there was a crash, and Brooke's cup struck the leg of the chair, while his plate rolled across the floor, and Barbara's dress was splashed with tea. The man sat gripping the chair arm hard, and blinking at her, while his face grew grey; but when she rose he apparently recovered himself with an effort.

"Very sorry!" he said, slowly. "Quite absurd of me! Still, I have had a good deal to do--and very little sleep--lately."

Barbara was wholly compa.s.sionate now. "Sit still," she said, quietly. "I will bring you a gla.s.s of wine."

"No," said Brooke, a trifle unevenly. "I must have kept you here half an hour already, and I am afraid I have spoiled your dress into the bargain. That ought to be enough. If you don't mind, I think I will go and lie down."

He straightened himself resolutely, and Barbara, who called the house-boy, stood still, with a warm tinge in her face, when he went out of the room. The man was evidently worn out and ill, and yet he had endeavored to hide the fact to save her concern, while she had found a most unbecoming pleasure in flagellating him. He had met her very slightly-veiled reproaches with a composure which, she surmised, had not cost him a little, even when his strength was melting away from him.

Then she flushed a still ruddier color as she remembered that, in any case, dissimulation was a strong point of his, for she felt distinctly angry with herself for recollecting it.

She had engagements that evening, and did not see him, while he had apparently recovered during the night, for, when she came down to breakfast, Mrs. Devine told her that he had already gone out with her husband. In point of fact, an eight-hours' sleep had done a good deal for Brooke, who lunched, or rather dined, with Devine in the city, and then went with him to his office to wait until the Pacific express came in.

"The train's up to schedule time. I sent to ask them at the depot,"

said Devine. "I guess we'll have Mr. Saxton here in another ten minutes."

The prediction was warranted, for he had about half smoked the cigar he lighted when Saxton was shown in. The latter was dressed tastefully in city clothes, and wore a flower in his b.u.t.tonhole. He also smiled as he glanced at Brooke.

"It was quite a good game you put up, and you got away five minutes before I did," he said. "Still, three men are a little too many to jump a claim when I'm one of them."

Brooke's face grew a trifle grim, for he saw Saxton's meaning, but Devine regarded the latter with a faint, sardonic smile.

"Sit down and take a cigar," he said. "I guess you came here to talk to me, and Mr. Brooke never meant to jump the claim."

"No?" and Saxton a.s.sumed an appearance of incredulity very well. "Now I quite figured that he did."

"You can fix it with him afterwards," said Devine. "It seems to me that we're both here on business."

"Then we'll get down to it. I have put in a record on the Canopus mine.

I guess you know your patent's not quite straight on a point or two."

"You're quite sure of that?"