The Coast of Adventure Part 27

"None of them are very strong, and I know that you go farther in everything than I can. You're elusive, but I've felt, for a long time, that if I could reach and win you, you'd help me along. That's my strongest argument and what I really meant to say. Surely, you have seen that I wanted you."

Evelyn felt guilty, because she had seen this and had not repulsed him.

She did not love the man, but love was not thought essential in her circle and she had never been stirred by pa.s.sion.

"I felt that I couldn't get hold of you," he went on; "you were not ready. We were friends and that was something, but I was looking for a change in you, some hint of warmth and gentleness."

"And do you think I am ready now?"

"No; I only hoped so. I feared I might be wrong. But I began to find holding myself back was getting too hard, and I was afraid somebody else might come along who had the power to rouse you. I believe you can be roused."

"I wonder!" she said in a curious tone.

"You make people love you," he broke out. "That's a proof that when the time comes you're capable of loving. But I only ask to be near you and surround you with what you like best. There's a rare aloofness in you, but you're flesh and blood. When you have learned how I love you, you can't hold out."

Evelyn was silent, hesitating, with a troubled face. She liked him; he was such a man as her mother meant her to marry and, until the last few weeks, she had acquiesced in her obvious fate. Now, however, something prompted her to rebel, although prudence and ambition urged her to yield.

As he watched her in keen suspense, Gore suddenly lost his head. The next moment his arm was round her and he drew her forward until she was pressed against him with her face crushed against his. At first she did not struggle, and he thought she was about to yield, until he felt her tremble and her face was suddenly turned away. Then she put her hand on his shoulder and firmly held him back while she slipped from his relaxing grasp. Gore knew that he had blundered. Letting his arms drop, he waited until she turned to him, without anger, although her eyes were very bright and her color was high.

"I'm sorry, Reggie, but it's impossible for me to marry you."

"You are sure?" he asked rather grimly. "This is important to me, you know."

"Yes," she said with signs of strain; "I am sure. I think I wish it had been possible, but it isn't. You have convinced me."

He was silent for a moment.

"It cuts pretty deep," he said slowly. "I've been afraid all along that even if you took me you'd never be really within my reach. I guess I've got to bear it and let you go."

He rose and stood looking at her irresolutely, and then, with a gesture of acquiescence, abruptly turned away.

When he had gone, Evelyn sat still in the gathering dusk. She had, at first, submitted to his embrace, because she wished to find in any emotion he was capable of arousing an excuse for marrying him. But she had felt nothing except repulsion. Then in a flash the truth was plain; any closer relationship than that of friend would make her loathe the man she in some ways admired. This was disturbing, but little by little she began to realize that his touch had a strange after-effect. It had stirred her to warmth, but not toward him. Longings she had not thought herself capable of awoke within her; she was conscious of a craving for love and of a curious tenderness. Only, Reggie was not the man. He had roused her, but she did not know whether she ought to be grateful for that. She blushed as she struggled with her rebellious feelings, and then resolutely pulled herself together. Her mother must be told.

Mrs. Cliffe was resting before dinner when Evelyn entered her room and sat down without speaking.

"What is the matter?" Mrs. Cliffe asked with a premonition that something had gone wrong. "Why do you come in, in this dramatic way?"

"I didn't mean to be dramatic," Evelyn answered quietly. "Still, perhaps I was rather highly strung. Reggie asked me to marry him, and I told him I could not."

Mrs. Cliffe sat up suddenly, and there was an angry sparkle in her eyes.

"Then I think you must be mad! What led you to this absurd conclusion?"

"It's hard to explain," Evelyn answered with a faint smile. "I suppose I couldn't give you any very logical reasons."

"Then it may not be too late to put things right!" Mrs. Cliffe saw a ray of hope.

"I'm afraid it is. I think Reggie knows that--he was very considerate.

There is no use in your trying to do anything; I must have my own way in this."

Mrs. Cliffe was painfully surprised. The girl had suddenly developed and revealed unsuspected capacities. She had grown like her father, who, for all his patience, was sometimes immovable. There was inflexibility in Evelyn's att.i.tude; her face was hard and determined.

"Very well," she acquiesced. "Your father must be told, and I don't know what he will do about it."

"I would rather tell him myself," Evelyn said.

This was not what Mrs. Cliffe wanted, but the girl moved to the door as she finished speaking, and her mother sat down, burning with indignation. Her authority had been outraged, she felt overcome, and did not leave her room all evening.

Evelyn found Cliffe on the veranda, and took him down the steps before she told him what she had done. He listened without surprise; indeed, she thought his manner was rather curiously sympathetic.

"Well," he said, "in a way I'm sorry. Reggie's a good fellow as far as he goes. But I imagined you liked him. Why did you refuse?"

"It isn't very plain," Evelyn answered. "I felt I had to. Perhaps Long Mountain had something to do with it."

Cliffe smiled, but not with amus.e.m.e.nt, and Evelyn saw that he understood. Somehow she had expected him to do so and she was touched when he gently pressed her arm.

"After all, you're the person most interested, and you must please yourself--though your mother will be badly disappointed," he said. "It's possible we're wiser in the woods than in the city. One sees the things that matter more clearly away from the turmoil."

CHAPTER XIX

THE CUBAN SPY

Gore left Banner's Post abruptly, to Evelyn's relief, and on the morning after his departure she and Cliffe stood on the steps before the other guests had come down to breakfast. It had rained all night, the mist hung low about Long Mountain's side, and a fresh wind woke waves of sound from the rustling pines. A creel hung round Cliffe's shoulders, and he contemplated the dripping woods with a smile of half-apologetic satisfaction.

"The fishing should be great to-day!" he exclaimed. "But I feel that I'm playing truant. I ought to be back at the office. Guess the trout I catch will cost me high; but the temptation is pretty strong when I see the water rise."

"I'm glad you have been rash for once," Evelyn replied. "Besides, you have an office full of people who can look after things for you."

Cliffe shook his head.

"That's the excuse I tried to make, but it won't quite work. If you want to be a successful operator, you have to sit tight with your finger on the pulse of the market. A beat or two more or less makes a big difference. Finance soon gets feverish."

"And you are one of the doctors who send its temperature up or down."

"No; that's a wrong idea. Once on a time the big men did something of the kind, but now the dollar's a world-force that's grown too strong for them. We gave it a power we can't control; it drives us into combines and mergers we didn't plan. It's a blind force that rolls along undirected, over our bodies if we get in its way. All we can do is to try to guess its drift. The successful man is the one who does so first."

"I wonder whether you're to be pitied or envied. The work must be absorbing, and it's simple, in a way."

"Simple!" Cliffe exclaimed.

"Well, you have an object; your aims are definite and you know, more or less, how to carry them out. We others, who have no purpose in life, spend our time in amus.e.m.e.nts that leave us dissatisfied. When we stop to think, we feel that we might do something better, but we don't know what it is. The outlook is blank."

Cliffe gave her a sharp glance. Evelyn had changed in the last few months, and she had been strangely quiet since her refusal of Gore.

Seeing his interest, she laughed.