Brandon of the Engineers Part 17

"It's not an illogical conclusion when he imagines that he lost his papers in our house."

Clare got up with a red flush in her face and her eyes sparkling. "It's absurd!" she exclaimed. "He must have been delirious when he said so."

"He didn't say so in as many words; Brandon has some taste. But he was perfectly sensible and intended me to see what he meant."

The girl stood still, trembling with anger and confusion, and Kenwardine felt sorry for her. She was worse hurt than he had expected, but she would rally.

"But he couldn't have been robbed while he was with us," she said with an effort, trying to understand d.i.c.k's point of view. "He hadn't an overcoat, so the plans must have been in the pocket of his uniform, and n.o.body except myself was near him."

She stopped with a gasp as she remembered how she had slipped and seized d.i.c.k. In doing so her hand had caught his pocket. Everything was plain now, and for a few moments she felt overwhelmed. Her face blanched, but her eyes were hard and very bright.

Kenwardine left her, feeling that Brandon would have cause to regret his rashness if he ever attempted to renew her acquaintance, and Clare sat down and tried to conquer her anger. This was difficult, because she had received an intolerable insult. Brandon thought her a thief! It was plain that he did so, because the change in his manner bore out all her father had said, and there was no other explanation. Then she blushed with shame as she realized that from his point of view her unconventional behavior warranted his suspicions. She had asked him to come into the garden and had written him a note! This was horribly foolish and she must pay for it, but she had been mistaken about his character.

She had, as a rule, avoided the men she met at her father's house and had shrunk with frank repugnance from one or two, but Brandon had seemed different. Then he had watched for her when he was ill and she had seen his heavy eyes get brighter when she came into the room. Now, however, she understood him better. She had some beauty and he had been satisfied with her physical attractiveness, although he thought her a thief. This was worse than the coa.r.s.e admiration of the men she had feared. It was unthinkably humiliating, but her anger helped her to bear the blow. After all, she was fortunate in finding out what Brandon was, since it might have been worse had the knowledge come later. There was a sting in this that rankled, but she could banish him from her thoughts now.

CHAPTER XII

d.i.c.k KEEPS HIS PROMISE

Twinkling points of light that pierced the darkness lower down the hill marked the colored laborers' camp, and voices came up faintly through the still air. The range cut off the land breeze, though now and then a wandering draught flickered down the hollow spanned by the dam, and a smell of hot earth and damp jungle hung about the veranda of d.i.c.k's iron shack. He sat near a lamp, with a drawing-board on his knee, while Jake lounged in a canvas chair, smoking and occasionally glancing at the sheet of figures in his hand. His expression was gloomily resigned.

"I suppose you'll have things ready for us in the morning," d.i.c.k said presently.

"Francois' accounts are checked and I'm surprised to find them right, but I imagine the other calculations will not be finished. Anyhow, it won't make much difference whether they are or not. I guess you know that!"

"Well, of course, if you can't manage to do the lot----"

"I don't say it's impossible," Jake rejoined. "But beginning work before breakfast is bad enough, without going on after dinner. Understand that I don't question your authority to find me a job at night; it's your object that makes me kick."

"We want the calculations made before we set the boys to dig."

"Then why didn't you give me them when I was doing nothing this afternoon?" Jake inquired.

"I hadn't got the plans ready."

"Just so. You haven't had things ready for me until after dinner all this week. As you're a methodical fellow that's rather strange. Still, if you really want the job finished, I'll have to do my best, but I'm going out first for a quarter of an hour."

"You needn't," d.i.c.k said dryly. "If you mean to tell the engineer not to wait, he's gone. I sent him off some time since."

"Of course you had a right to send him off," Jake replied in an injured tone. "But I don't quite think----"

"You know what your father pays for coal. Have you reckoned what it costs to keep a locomotive two or three hours for the purpose of taking you to Santa Brigida and back?"

"I haven't, but I expect the old man wouldn't stand for my running a private car," Jake admitted. "However, it's the only way of getting into town."

"You were there three nights last week. What's more, you tried to draw your next month's wages. That struck me as significant, though I'd fortunately provided against it."

"So I found out. I suppose I ought to be grateful for your thoughtfulness but can't say I am. I wanted the money because I had a run of wretched luck."

"At the casino?"

"No," said Jake, shortly.

"Then you were at Kenwardine's; I'll own that's what I wanted to prevent.

He's a dangerous man and his house is no place for you."

"One would hardly expect you to speak against him. Considering everything, it's perhaps not quite in good taste."

d.i.c.k put down the drawing-board and looked at him steadily. "It's very bad taste. In fact, I find myself in a very awkward situation. Your father gave me a fresh start when I needed it badly, and agreed when your sister put you in my charge."

"Ida's sometimes a bit officious," Jake remarked.

"Well," d.i.c.k continued, "I promised to look after you, and although I didn't know what I was undertaking, the promise must be kept. It's true that Kenwardine afterwards did me a great service; but his placing me under an obligation doesn't relieve me from the other, which I'd incurred first."

Somewhat to his surprise, Jake nodded agreement. "No, not from your point of view. But what makes you think Kenwardine _is_ dangerous?"

"I can't answer. You had better take it for granted that I know what I'm talking about, and keep away from him."

"As a matter of fact, it was Miss Kenwardine to whom you owed most," Jake said meaningly. "Do you suggest that she's dangerous, too?"

d.i.c.k frowned and his face got red, but he said nothing, and Jake resumed: "There's a mystery about the matter and you know more than you intend to tell; but if you blame the girl for anything, you're absolutely wrong. If you'll wait a minute, I'll show you what I mean."

He went into the shack and came back with a drawing-block which he stood upon the table under the lamp, and d.i.c.k saw that it was a water-color portrait of Clare Kenwardine. He did not know much about pictures, but it was obvious that Jake had talent. The girl stood in the patio, with a pale-yellow wall behind her, over which a vivid purple creeper trailed.

Her lilac dress showed the graceful lines of her slender figure against the harmonious background, and matched the soft blue of her eyes and the delicate white and pink of her skin. The patio was flooded with strong sunlight, but the girl looked strangely fresh and cool.

"I didn't mean to show you this, but it's the best way of explaining what I think," Jake said with some diffidence. "I'm weak in technique, because I haven't been taught, but I imagine I've got sensibility. It's plain that when you paint a portrait you must study form and color, but there's something else that you can only feel. I don't mean the character that's expressed by the mouth and eyes; it's something vague and elusive that psychologists give you a hint of when they talk about the _aura_. Of course you can't paint it, but unless it, so to speak, glimmers through the work, your portrait's dead."

"I don't quite understand; but sometimes things do give you an impression you can't a.n.a.lyze," d.i.c.k replied.

"Well, allowing for poor workmanship, all you see here's harmonious. The blues and purples and yellows tone, and yet, if I've got the hot glare of the sun right, you feel that the figure's exotic and doesn't belong to the scene. The latter really needs an olive-skinned daughter of the pa.s.sionate South; but the girl I've painted ought to walk in the moonlight through cool forest glades."

d.i.c.k studied the picture silently, for he remembered with disturbing emotion that he had felt what Jake suggested when he first met Clare Kenwardine. She was frank, but somehow remote and aloof; marked by a strange refinement he could find no name for. He was glad that Jake did not seem to expect him to speak, but after a few moments the latter wrapped up the portrait and took it away. When he came back he lighted a cigarette.

"Now," he said, "do you think it's sensible to distrust a girl like that?

Admitting that her father makes a few dollars by gambling, can you believe that living with him throws any taint on her?"

d.i.c.k hesitated. Clare had stolen his papers. This seemed impossible, but it was true. Yet when he looked up he answered as his heart urged him:

"No. It sounds absurd."

"It is absurd," Jake said firmly.

Neither spoke for the next minute, and then d.i.c.k frowned at a disturbing thought. Could the lad understand Clare so well unless he loved her?