Beth Norvell Part 6

"There is no 'good angel' of the Gayety--the very atmosphere of that place would soil an angel's wing," he exclaimed hotly. "Besides, you are not driven by necessity to any such choice. There is another way out. As you gently suggested, I am a mining engineer possessing a bank account at Denver. I will most gladly draw a sight draft to-morrow, and pay your expenses back to that city, if you will only accept my offer. Is this fair?"

"Perfectly so; yet supposing I refuse?"

"And deliberately choose the Gayety instead?"

"Yes, and deliberately choose the Gayety instead--what then?"

She asked the momentous question calmly enough, her mouth rigid, her eyes challenging him to speak the whole truth. He moistened his dry lips, realizing that he was being forced into an apparently brutal bluntness he had sincerely hoped to avoid.

"Then," he replied, with quiet impressiveness, "I fear such deliberate action would forfeit my respect."

She went instantly white before the blow of these unexpected words, her fingers clasping the door, her eyes as full of physical pain as if he had struck her with clinched hand.

"Forfeit your respect!" she echoed, the slender figure quivering, the voice tremulous. "Rather should I forever forfeit my own, were I to accept your proffer of money." Her form straightened, a slight tinge of color rising to the cheeks. "You totally mistake my character. I have never been accustomed to listening to such words, Mr. Winston, nor do I now believe I merit them. I choose to earn my own living, and I retain my own self-respect, even although while doing this I am unfortunate enough to forfeit yours."

"But, Miss Norvell, do you realize what the Gayety is?"

"Not being deprived of all my natural powers of observation, I most certainly believe I do--we were there together last evening."

She puzzled, confused him, outwardly appearing to trifle with those matters which seemed to his mind most gravely serious. Yet, his was a dogged resolution that would not easily confess defeat.

"Miss Norvell," he began firmly, and in the depth of his earnestness he touched her hand where it yet clung to the door, "I may, indeed, be presuming upon an exceedingly brief friendship, but my sole excuse must be the very serious interest I feel in you, especially in your undoubted ability and future as an actress. It is always a great misfortune for any man to repose trust and confidence in the character of a woman, and then suddenly awaken to discover himself deceived.

Under these circ.u.mstances I should be unworthy of friendship did I fail in plain speaking. To me, your reckless acceptance of this chance engagement at the Gayety seems inexpressibly degrading; it is a lowering of every ideal with which my imagination has heretofore invested your character. I am not puritanical, but I confess having held you to a higher plane than others of my acquaintance, and I find it hard to realize my evident mistake. Yet, surely, you cannot fully comprehend what it is you are choosing, I was with you last night, true, but I considered it no honor to appear upon _that_ stage, even with the 'Heart of the World,' and it hurt me even then to behold you in the midst of such surroundings. But deliberately to take part in the regular variety bill is a vastly more serious matter. It is almost a total surrender to evil, and involves a daily and nightly a.s.sociation with vice which cannot but prove most repugnant to true womanhood.

Surely, you do not know the true nature of this place?"

"Then tell it to me."

"I will, and without any mincing of words. The Gayety is a mere adjunct to the Poodle-Dog saloon and the gambling h.e.l.l up-stairs. They are so closely connected that on the stage last evening I could easily hear the click of ivory chips and the clatter of drinking gla.s.ses. One man owns and controls the entire outfit, and employs for his variety stage any kind of talent which will please the vicious cla.s.s to which he caters. All questioning as to morality is thoroughly eliminated.

Did you comprehend this?"

The young girl bowed slightly, her face as grave as his own, and again colorless, the whiteness of her cheeks a marked contrast to her dark hair.

"I understood those conditions fully."

"And yet consented to appear there?"

She shook back her slightly disarranged hair, and looked him directly in the eyes, every line of her face stamped with resolve.

"Mr. Winston, in the first place, I deny your slightest right to question me in this manner, or to pa.s.s moral judgment upon my motives.

I chance to possess a conscience of my own, and your presumption is almost insulting. While you were absent in pursuit of Albrecht, the manager of the Gayety, having chanced to learn the straits we were in, called upon me here with his proposal. It appeared an honorable one, and the offer was made in a gentlemanly manner. However, I did not accept at the time, for the plain reason that I had no desire whatever to appear upon that stage, and in the midst of that unpleasant environment. I decided to await your return, and learn whether such a personal sacrifice of pride would be necessary. Now, I believe I recognize my duty, and am not afraid to perform it, even in the face of your displeasure. I am going to deliver the parting scene from the 'Heart of the World,' and I do not imagine my auditors will be any the worse for hearing it. I certainly regret that the Gayety is an adjunct to a saloon; I should greatly prefer not to appear there, but, unfortunately, it is the only place offering me work. I may be compelled to sink a certain false pride in order to accept, but I shall certainly not sacrifice one iota of my womanhood. You had no cause even to intimate such a thing."

"Possibly not; yet had you been my sister I should have said the same."

"Undoubtedly, for you view this matter entirely from the standpoint of the polite world, from the outlook of social respectability, where self rules every action with the question, 'What will others say?' So should I two years ago, but conditions have somewhat changed my views.

Professional necessity can never afford to be quite so punctilious, cannot always choose the nature of its environments: the nurse must care for the injured, however disagreeable the task; the newspaper woman must cover her a.s.signment, although it takes her amid filth; and the actress must thoroughly a.s.sume her character, in spite of earlier prejudices. The woman who deliberately chooses this life must, sooner or later, adjust herself to its unpleasant requirements; and if her womanhood remain true, the shallow criticism of others cannot greatly harm her. I had three alternatives in this case--I could selfishly accept my handful of money, go to Denver, and leave these other helpless people here to suffer; I could accept a.s.sistance from you, a comparative stranger; or I could aid them and earn my own way by a.s.suming an unpleasant task. I chose the last, and my sense of right upholds me."

Winston watched her earnestly as she spoke, his gray eyes brightening with unconscious appreciation, his face gradually losing its harshness of disapproval. A spirit of independence always made quick appeal to his favor, and this girl's outspoken defiance of his good opinion set his heart throbbing. Back of her outward quietness of demeanor there was an untamed spirit flashing into life.

"We may never exactly agree as to this question of proprieties," he acknowledged slowly. "Yet I can partially comprehend your position as viewed professionally. Am I, then, to understand that your future is definitely decided upon? You really purpose dedicating your life to dramatic art?"

She hesitated, her quickly lowered eyes betraying a moment of embarra.s.sment.

"Yes," she answered finally. "I am beginning to find myself, to believe in myself."

"You expect to find complete satisfaction in this way?"

"Complete? Oh, no; one never does that, you know, unless, possibly, the ideals are very low; but more than I can hope to find elsewhere.

Even now I am certainly happier in the work than I have been for years." She looked up at him quickly, her eyes pleading. "It is not the glitter, the sham, the applause," she hastened to explain, "but the real work itself, that attracts and rewards me--the hidden labor of fitly interpreting character--the hard, secret study after details.

This has become a positive pa.s.sion, an inspiration. I may never become the perfected artist of which I sometimes dream, yet it must be that I have within me a glimmering of that art. I feel it, and cannot remain false to it."

"Possibly love may enter to change your plans," he ventured to suggest, influenced by the constantly changing expression of her face.

She flushed to the roots of her hair, yet her lips laughed lightly.

"I imagine such an unexpected occurrence would merely serve to strengthen them," she replied quickly. "I cannot conceive of any love so supremely selfish as to r.e.t.a.r.d the development of a worthy ideal.

But really, there is small need yet of discussing such a possibility."

She stood aside as he made a movement toward the open door, yet, when he had stepped forth into the hall, she halted him with a sudden question:

"Do you intend returning at once to Denver?"

"No, I shall remain here."

She said nothing, but he clearly read a farther unasked question in her face.

"I remain here, Miss Norvell, while you do. I shall be among your audiences at the Gayety. I do not altogether agree that your choice has been a correct one, but I do sincerely believe in you,--in your motives,--and, whether you desire it or not, I propose to const.i.tute myself your special guardian. There is likely to be trouble at the Gayety, if any drunken fool becomes too gay."

With flushed cheeks she watched him go slowly down the stairway, and there were tears glistening within those dark eyes as she drew back into the room and locked the door. A moment she remained looking at her reflected face in the little mirror, her fingers clinched as if in pain.

"Oh, why does n't he go away without my having to tell him?" she cried, unconsciously aloud. "I--I thought he surely would, this time."

CHAPTER VI

THE "LITTLE YANKEE" MINE

A wide out-jutting wall of rock, uneven and precipitous, completely shut off all view toward the broader valley of the Vila, as well as of the town of San Juan, scarcely three miles distant. Beyond its stern guardianship Echo Canyon stretched grim and desolate, running far back into the very heart of the gold-ribbed mountains. The canyon, a mere shapeless gash in the side of the great hills, was deep, long, undulating, ever twisting about like some immense serpent, its sides darkened by clinging cedars and bunches of chaparral, and rising in irregular terraces of partially exposed rock toward a narrow strip of blue sky. It was a fragment of primitive nature, as wild, gloomy, desolate, and silent as though never yet explored by man.

A small clear stream danced and sang over scattered stones at the bottom of this grim chasm, constantly twisting and curving from wall to wall, generally half concealed from view by the dense growth of overhanging bushes shadowing its banks. High up along the brown rock wall the gleam of the afternoon sun rested warm and golden, but deeper down within those dismal, forbidding depths there lingered merely a purple twilight, while patches of white snow yet clung desperately to the steep surrounding hills, or showered in powdery clouds from off the laden cedars whenever the disturbing wind came soughing up the gorge.

Early birds were beginning to flit from tree to tree, singing their welcome to belated Springtime; a fleecy cloud lazily floating far overhead gave deeper background to the slender strip of over-arching blue. It all combined to form a nature picture of primeval peace, rendered peculiarly solemn by those vast ranges of overshadowing mountains, and more deeply impressive by the grim silence and loneliness, the seemingly total absence of human life.

Yet in this the scene was most deceptive. Neither peace nor loneliness lurked amid those sombre rock shadows; over all was the dominance of men--primitive, fighting men, rendered almost wholly animal by the continued hardships of existence, the ceaseless struggle after gold.

The vagrant trail, worn deep between rocks by the constant pa.s.sage of men and mules, lay close beside the singing water, while here and there almost imperceptible branches struck off to left or right, running as directly as possible up the terraced benches until the final dim traces were completely lost amid the low-growing cedars. Each one of these led as straight as nature would permit to some specific spot where men toiled incessantly for the golden dross, guarding their claims with loaded rifles, while delving deeper and deeper beneath the mysterious rocks, ever seeking to make their own the secret h.o.a.rds of the world's great storehouse. Countless centuries were being rudely unlocked through the ceaseless toil of pick and shovel, the green hillsides torn asunder and disfigured by ever-increasing piles of debris, while eager-eyed men struggled frantically to obtain the hidden riches of the rocks. Here and there a rudely constructed log hut, perched with apparent recklessness upon the brink of the precipice, told the silent story of a claim, while in other places the smouldering remains of a camp-fire alone bespoke primitive living. Yet every where along that upper terrace, where in places the seductive gold streak lay half uncovered to the sun, were those same yawning holes leading far down beneath the surface; about them grouped the puny figures of men performing the labors of Hercules under the galling spur of hope.

On this higher ledge, slightly beyond a shallow intersecting gorge shadowed by low-growing cedars, two men reclined upon a rock-dump, gazing carelessly off six hundred feet sheer down into the gloomy depths of the canyon below. Just beyond them yawned the black opening of their shaft-hole, the rude windla.s.s outlined against the gray background of rock, while somewhat to the left, seemingly overhanging the edge of the cliff, perched a single-roomed cabin of logs representing home. This was the "Little Yankee" claim, owners William Hicks and "Stutter" Brown. The two partners were sitting silent and idle, a single rifle lying between them on the dump. Hicks was tall, lank, seamed of face, with twinkling gray eyes, a goat's beard dangling at his chin to the constant motion of his nervous jaws; and Brown, twenty years his junior, was a young, sandy-haired giant, limited of speech, of movement, of thought, with freckled cheeks and a downy little moustache of decidedly red hue. They had been laboriously deciphering a letter of considerable length and peculiar illegibility, and the slow but irascible Stutter had been swearing in disjointed syllables, his blue eyes glaring angrily across the gully, where numerous moving figures, conspicuous in blue and red shirts, were plainly visible about the shaft-hole of the "Independence," the next claim below them on the ledge. Yet for the moment neither man spoke otherwise. Finally, shifting uneasily, yet with mind evidently made up for definite action, Hicks broke the prolonged silence.

"I was thinkin' it over, Stutter, all the way hoofin' it out yere," he said, chewing continually on his tobacco, "but sorter reckoned ez how yer ought ter see the writin' furst, considerin' ez how you're a full partner in this yere claim. It sorter strikes me thet the lawyer hes give us the straight tip all right, an' thar 's no other way fer gittin' the cinch on them ornary fellers over thar," and the speaker waved his hand toward the distant figures. "Yer see, it's this yere way, Stutter. You an' I could swar, of course, thet the d.a.m.ned cusses hed changed the stakes on us more 'n onct, an' thar 's no doubt in our two minds but what they 're a-followin' out our ore-lead right now, afore we kin git down ter it. h.e.l.l! of course they are--they got the fust start, an' the men, an' the money back of 'em. We ain't got a darn thing but our own muscle, an' the rights of it, which latter don't amount ter two b.u.mps on a log. Fer about three weeks we 've been watchin' them measly skunks take out our mineral, an' for one I 'm a-goin' ter quit. I never did knuckle down ter thet sort, an' I 'm too old now ter begin. The lawyer says ez how we ain't got no legal proof, an' I reckon it's so. But I 'm d.a.m.ned if I don't git some. Thar ain't a minin' engineer in San Juan that 'll come up yere fer us. Them fellers hes got 'em all on the hip; but I reckon, if we hunt long 'nough, we kin find some feller in Colorado with nerve 'nough to tackle this yere job, an' I 'm a-goin' out gunnin' for jist that man."