Poor Man's Rock Part 24

"Getting lonesome?" he inquired after a minute. "It seems to me you've been restless the last day or two. Want to go back to town, Betty?"

"I wonder why we come here and stay and stay, out of reach of everything and everybody?" she said at last.

"Blest if I know," Gower answered casually. "Except that we like to.

It's a restful place, isn't it? You work harder at having a good time in town than I ever did making money. Well, we don't have to be hermits unless we like. We'll go back to mother and the giddy whirl to-morrow, if you like."

"We might as well, I think," she said absently.

For a minute neither spoke. The fire blazed up in a roaring flame.

Raindrops slashed suddenly against the windows out of a storm-cloud driven up by the wind. Betty turned her eyes on her father.

"Did you ever do anything to Jack MacRae that would give him reason to hate you?" she asked bluntly.

Gower shook his head without troubling to look at her. He kept his face steadfastly to the fire.

"No," he said. "The other way about, if anything. He put a crimp in me last season."

"I remember you said you were going to smash him," she said thoughtfully.

"Did I?" he made answer in an indifferent tone. "Well, I might. And then again I might not. He may do the smashing. He's a harder proposition than I figured he would be, in several ways."

"That isn't it," Betty said, as if to herself. "Then you must have had some trouble with his father--long ago. Something that hurt him enough for him to pa.s.s a grudge on to Jack. What was it, daddy? Anything real?"

"Jack, eh?" Gower pa.s.sed over the direct question. "You must be getting on. Have you been seeing much of that young man lately?"

"What does that matter?" Betty returned impatiently. "Of course I see him. Is there any reason I shouldn't?"

Gower picked up a bra.s.s poker. He leaned forward, digging aimlessly at the fire, stirring up tiny cascades of sparks that were sucked glowing into the black chimney throat.

"Perhaps no reason that would strike you as valid," he said slowly.

"Still--I don't know. Do you like him?"

"You won't answer my questions," Betty complained. "Why should I answer yours?"

"There are plenty of nice young fellows in your own crowd," Gower went on, still poking mechanically at the fire. "Why pick on young MacRae?"

"You're evading, daddy," Betty murmured. "Why _shouldn't_ I pick on Jack MacRae if I like him--if he likes me? That's what I'm trying to find out."

"Does he?" Gower asked pointblank.

"Yes," Betty admitted in a reluctant whisper. "He does--but--why don't you tell me, daddy, what I'm up against, as you would say? What did you ever do to old Donald MacRae that his son should have a feeling that is stronger than love?"

"You think he loves you?"

"I know it," Betty murmured.

"And you?" Gower's deep voice seemed harsh.

Betty threw out her hands in an impatient gesture.

"Must I shout it out loud?" she cried.

"You always were different from most girls, in some things," Gower observed reflectively. "Iron under your softness. I never knew you to stop trying to get anything you really wanted, not while there was a chance to get it. Still--don't you think it would be as well for you to stop wanting young MacRae--since he doesn't want you bad enough to try to get you? Eh?"

He still kept his face studiously averted. His tone was kind, full of a peculiar tenderness that he kept for Betty alone.

She rose and perched herself on the arm of his chair, caught and drew his head against her, forced him to look up into eyes preternaturally bright.

"You don't seem to understand," she said. "It isn't that Jack doesn't want me badly enough. He could have me, and I think he knows that too.

But there is something, something that drives him the other way. He loves me. I know he does. And still he has spells of hating all us Gowers--especially you. I know he wouldn't do that without reason."

"Doesn't he tell you the reason?"

Betty shook her head.

"Would I be asking you, daddy?"

"I can't tell you, either," Gower rumbled deep in his throat.

"Is it something that can't be mended?" Betty put her face down against his, and he felt the tears wet on her cheek. "Think, daddy. I'm beginning to be terribly unhappy."

"That seems to be a family failing," Gower muttered. "I can't mend it, Betty. I don't know what young MacRae knows or what he feels, but I can guess. I'd make it worse if I meddled. Should I go to this hot-headed young fool and say, 'Come on, let's shake hands, and you marry my daughter'?"

"Don't be absurd," Betty flashed. "I'm not asking you to _do_ anything."

"I couldn't do anything in this case if I wanted to," Gower declared.

"As a matter of fact, I think I'd put young MacRae out of my head, if I were you. I wouldn't pick him for a husband, anyway."

Betty rose to her feet.

"You brought me into the world," she said pa.s.sionately. "You have fed me and clothed me and educated me and humored all my whims ever since I can remember. But you can't pick a husband for me. I shall do that for myself. It's silly to tell me to put Jack MacRae out of my head. He isn't in my head. He's in my--my--heart. And I can keep him there, if I can't have him in my arms. Put him out of my head! You talk as if loving and marrying were like dealing in fish."

"I wish it were," Gower rumbled. "I might have had some success at it myself."

Betty did not even vouchsafe reply. Probably she did not even hear what he said. She turned and went to the window, stood looking out at the rising turmoil of the sea, at the lowering scud of the clouds, dabbing surrept.i.tiously at her eyes with a handkerchief. After a little she walked out of the room. Her feet sounded lightly on the stairs.

Gower bent to the fire again. He resumed his aimless stirring of the coals. A grim, twisted smile played about his lips. But his eyes were as somber as the storm-blackened winter sky.

CHAPTER XVI

En Famille

Horace Gower's town house straddled the low crest of a narrow peninsula which juts westward into the Gulf from the heart of the business section of Vancouver. The tip of this peninsula ends in the green forest of Stanley Park, which is like no other park in all North America, either in its nature or its situation. It is a sizable stretch of ancient forest, standing within gunshot of skysc.r.a.pers, modern hotels, great docks where China freighters unload tea and silk. Hard on the flank of a modern seaport this area of primitive woodland broods in the summer sun and the winter rains not greatly different from what it must have been in those days when only the Siwash Indians penetrated its shadowy depths.

The rear of Gower's house ab.u.t.ted against the park, neighbor to great tall firs and ma.s.sive, branchy cedars and a jungle of fern and thicket bisected by a few paths and drives, with the sea lapping all about three sides of its seven-mile boundary. From Gower's northward windows the Capilano canyon opened between two mountains across the Inlet. Southward other windows gave on English Bay and beach sands where one could count a thousand swimmers on a summer afternoon.