Out of the Primitive Part 43

"Hey! what!--after this?" demanded Griffith, his voice sharp with apprehension. He could not see the face of his companion, but the manner in which Blake's head bent forward between his hunching shoulders was more than enough to confirm his alarm.

"Come, now, Tommy!" he reproached. "Don't be a fool--just when things are coming your way."

"Think so?" muttered Blake. "What d'you suppose I care for what I'd get out of this or the dam? Good G.o.d! You can't see it--yet you had Mollie!"

For a moment the older man was forced to a worried silence. It ended in an outflashing of hope. "I told you what she said about you--almost her last words. You'll win out--she said it!"

Blake halted and turned about to his friend, his face convulsed with doubt and a despondency that verged on despair. They were still half way out on the overhang of the extension arm. He pointed down to the crashing, tumbling ice far beneath his feet.

"Do you know what I'd do if I had any nerve?" he cried. "I'd step over ... end it! ... You could tell her I slipped. There wouldn't be any need to tell her about--yesterday. She would remember me as she knew me there in Mozambique. After a time she'd make Jimmy happy--and be happy herself. Trouble is, I'm what she suspected. I haven't the nerve, when it comes to the real showdown."

"d.a.m.nation!" swore Griffith. "Have you gone clean dotty? You're not the kind to quit, Tom!--to slide out from under because you haven't the grit to hang on!"

"That's it. I'm booked for the D. T. route," muttered Blake. "Wasn't born for a watery end. Whiskey for mine!"

"Rats! You're over the worst of this b.u.mp already. You're going back to-morrow and dig in to make good on the dam."

"The dam! What's it to me now?"

"Fifty thousand dollars, the credit for your bridge, and a place among the top-notchers."

"Much that amounts to--when I've lost her!" retorted Blake.

He turned about again and plodded heavily sh.o.r.eward, his chin on his breast and his big shoulders bowed forward.

CHAPTER XXII

CONDEMNED

Though he sank into a taciturn and morose mood from which no efforts of his friends could rouse him, Blake sullenly accepted the continued treatment that Griffith thrust upon him. In the morning he muttered a confirmation of the statement of Lord James that he was looking better and that the attack must be well over.

Ashton, forced probably by an irresistible impulse to learn the worst, followed Lord James to the room occupied by the engineers. Blake cut short his vacillating in the doorway with a curt invitation to come in and sit down. Having satisfied what he considered the requirements of hospitality, Blake paid no further attention to the Resident Engineer.

As nothing was said about the bridge, Ashton soon regained all his usual a.s.surance, and even went so far as to comment upon Blake's attack of biliousness.

When, beside the car step, an hour later, Ashton held out his hand, Blake seemingly failed to perceive it. Ashton's look of relief indicated that he mistook the other's profound contempt for stupid carelessness. To one of his nature, the fact that Blake had not at once denounced him as a thief seemed proof positive that the sick man had failed to recognize in the bridge structure the embodiment of his stolen plans.

He turned from Blake to Lord James. "Ah, my dear earl, this has been such a pleasure--such a delight! You cannot imagine how intolerable it is to be cut off from the world in this dreary hole--deprived of all society and compelled to a.s.sociate, if at all, with, these common brutes!"

"Really," murmured Lord James. "For my part, y' know, I rather enjoy the company of intelligent men who have their part in the world's work.

Though one of the drones myself, I value the 'Sons of Martha' at their full worth."

"Oh, they have their place. The trouble is to make them keep it."

"'Pon my word, I scarcely thought you'd say that--so clever an engineer as yourself!"

Ashton glanced up to be certain that both Griffith and Blake had pa.s.sed on into the car.

"Your lordship hasn't quite caught the point," he said. "One may have the brains--the intellect--necessary to create such a bridge as this, without having to lower himself into the herd of common workers."

"Ah, really," drawled the Englishman, swinging up the car steps.

Ashton raised his hat and bowed. "_Au revoir_, Earl. Your visit has been both a delight and an honor. I shall hope soon to have the pleasure of seeing you in town."

"Yes?" murmured Lord James with a rising inflection. "Good-day."

He nodded in response to Ashton's final bow, and hastened in to where Blake and Griffith were making themselves comfortable in the middle of the car. The three were the only pa.s.sengers for the down trip.

"So he didn't get you to stay over for the winter?" remarked Griffith as the Englishman began to shed his topcoat.

"Gad, no! He couldn't afford it. Tried to show me how to play poker last night. I've his check for two thousand. He insisted upon teaching me the fine points of the game."

"Crickey!--when you've travelled with T. Blake!" cackled Griffith.

"Hey, Tommy? Any one who's watched you play even once ought to be able to clean out a dub like Lallapaloozer Laf. Say, though, I didn't think even you could keep on your poker face as you have this morning. It's dollars to doughnuts, he sized it up that you had failed to get next."

"Told you I wasn't going to show him my cards," muttered Blake.

Lord James looked at him inquiringly, but he lapsed into his morose silence, while Griffith commenced to write his report on the bridge, without volunteering an explanation. Lord James repressed his curiosity, and instead of asking questions, quietly prepared for his friend one of the last of the grapefruit.

An hour or so later Blake growled out a monosyllabic a.s.surance that he was now safely over his attack. Yet all the efforts of Lord James to jolly him into a cheerful mood utterly failed. Throughout the trip he continued to brood, and did not rouse out of his sullen taciturnity until the train was backing into the depot.

"Here we are," remarked Lord James. "Get ready to make your break for cover, old man. What d' you say, Mr. Griffith? Will it be all right for him to keep close to his work for a while--to lie low?"

"What's that?" growled Blake.

"Young Ashton's a bally a.s.s," explained Lord James. "He bolted down whole what I said about your attack of bile. Others, however, may not be so credulous or blind. You'd better keep close till you look a bit less knocked-up. There's no need that what's happened should come to Miss Leslie."

"Think so, do you?" said Blake. "Well, I don't."

"What's that?" put in Griffith.

"There's not going to be any frame-up over this, that's what," rejoined Blake, reaching for his hat and suitcase. "Soon 's I get a shave I'm going out to tell her."

"Gad, old man!" protested Lord James. "But you can't do that--it's impossible! You surely do not realize--"

"I don't, eh?" broke in Blake bitterly. "I'm up against it. I know it, and you know it. You don't think I'm going to do the baby act, do you?

I've failed to make good. Think I'm going to lie to her about it?

No!--nor you neither!"

His friends exchanged a look of helplessness. They knew that tone only too well. Yet Lord James sought to avert the worst.

"Might have known you'd be an a.s.s over it," he commented. "Best I can do, I presume, is to go along and explain to her my view of what started you off."

"Best nothing. You'll keep out of this. It's none of your funeral."