The Fighting Shepherdess Part 57

But now the wild impulse he felt to crawl through the aperture and embrace Kate told him otherwise.

Kate watched the play of emotions over his face in deep satisfaction.

There was no need of words to express his grat.i.tude--which was mostly relief.

"I appreciate this, Miss Prentice, I do indeed. I am glad that you do not hold it against us because upon a time we were not able to accommodate you."

"A bank must abide by its rules, I presume," she replied noncommittally.

"Exactly! A bank must protect its customers at all hazards."

"And the directors."

Mr. Wentz colored. Did she mean anything in particular? He wondered. He continued to speculate after her departure. It was a random shot, he decided. If it had been otherwise she scarcely would be giving him her business now, especially to the extent of this deposit--which he was needing--well, n.o.body but Mr. Wentz knew exactly how much.

There was a quizzical smile upon Kate's face as she pa.s.sed down the steps of the bank and turned up the street on another errand. She was walking with her eyes bent upon the sidewalk, thinking hard, when her way was blocked by Mrs. Abram Pantin extending a high supine hand with the charming cordiality which distinguished her best social manner. Mrs.

Pantin slipped her manner on and off, as the occasion warranted, as she did her kitchen ap.r.o.n.

The suddenness of the meeting surprised Kate into a look of astonishment.

"This is Miss Prentice, isn't it?"

"That's the general impression," Kate answered.

Mrs. Pantin registered vivacity by winking rapidly and twittering in a pert birdlike fashion:

"I've so much wanted to know you!"

The reply that there always had been ample opportunity seemed superfluous, so Kate said nothing.

"I've been reading about you, you know, and I want to tell you how proud we all are of you and of what you have accomplished. This is Woman's Day, isn't it?"

Since she seemed not to expect an answer, Kate made none and Mrs. Pantin continued:

"I've been wanting to see you that I might ask you to come to me--say next Thursday?"

Mrs. Pantin's manner was tinged with patronage.

Kate's silence deceived her. She imagined that Kate was awed and tongue-tied in her presence. The woman was, as Prissy had a.s.sured Abram, "tickled to pieces."

In the meanwhile, interested observers of the meeting were saying to each other cynically:

"Nothing succeeds like success, does it?"

This time, apparently, Mrs. Pantin expected an answer, so Kate asked bluntly:

"What for?"

"Luncheon. At one--we are very old-fashioned. I want you to meet some of our best ladies--Mrs. Sudds--Mrs. Neifkins--Mrs. Toomey--and others."

As she enumerated the guests on her fingers the tip of Mrs. Pantin's pink tongue darted in and out with the rapierlike movement of an ant-eater.

Kate's face hardened and she replied curtly:

"I already have had that doubtful pleasure upon an occasion, which you should remember."

Mrs. Pantin flushed. Disconcerted for a moment, she collected herself, and instead of protesting ignorance of her meaning, as she was tempted, she said candidly:

"We must let bygones be bygones, Miss Prentice, and be friends. We are older now, and wiser, aren't we?"

Kate clasped her hands behind her, a mannerism with which offending herders were familiar, and regarded Mrs. Pantin steadily.

"Older but not wiser, apparently, else you would have known better than to suggest the possibility of friendship between us. You are a poor judge of human nature, and conceited past my understanding, to imagine that it is a matter which is entirely optional with you." With the slow one-sided smile of irony which her face sometimes wore, she bowed slightly. Then, "You will excuse me?" and pa.s.sed on.

CHAPTER XXVI

TAKING HER MEDICINE

The moon was up when Kate got in from town, for she had not hurried.

There was no one there to greet her except the sheep dog that ran out barking. She unsaddled, turned the horse in the corral, and picked up the mail sack heavy with Bowers's missives.

She had not eaten since noon, but she was not hungry, and she went to her wagon immediately. Opening the door she stood there for a moment.

The stillness appalled her. How could such a small s.p.a.ce give forth such a sense of big emptiness, she wondered. Everything was empty--her life, her arms, and, for the moment, even her ambitions. Unexpectedly the thought overwhelmed her.

Throwing down the mail sack and tossing her hat upon it, she sank on the side bench where she folded her arms on the edge of the bunk and buried her face in them. For a long time she remained so, motionless, in the silence that seemed to crush her.

When Kate arose finally it was as if she were lifting a burden.

Undressing slowly, she lay down on the bunk and looked out through the window at the white world swimming in moonlight. Ordinarily, she shut her eyes to moonlight, it had a way of stirring up emotions which had no place in her scheme of life. It always made her think of Disston, of the light in his eyes when he had looked at her, of the feeling of his arms about her, of his lips on hers when he had kissed her. At such times it filled her with a longing for him which was a kind of sweet torture that unnerved her and made the goal for which she strove of infinitesimal importance.

But that was one of the tricks of moonlight, she told herself angrily, to dwarf the things which counted, and with its false glamour give a fict.i.tious value to those which in reality were but impediments.

To-night the arguments were hollow as echoes. It was like telling herself, she thought, that she was going to sleep when she knew she was not. She yearned for Disston with all the intensity of her strong nature, and her efforts to conquer the longing seemed only to increase it.

"G.o.d!" She sat up suddenly and struck her breast as though the blow might somehow stop the pain there, and asked herself fiercely: "Must I live forever with this heartache? Isn't there some peace? Some way of dulling it until my heart stops beating?" She stretched out her arms and her voice broke with the sob that choked her as she cried miserably:

"Oh, Hughie! Hughie! I love you, and I can't help it!"

She felt herself stifling in the wagon and flung aside the covering.

Thrusting her bare feet into moccasins and slipping on a sweater, she stepped into the white world that had the still emptiness of s.p.a.ce.

The sheep dog got up from under the wagon and stood in front of her with a look of inquiry, but she gave no heed to him; instead, after a moment's indecision, she walked swiftly to the hillside where a shaft of marble shone in the moonlight. The sheep dog was at her heels, and when she crawled beneath the wire that fenced the spot where Mormon Joe had turned to dust, it followed.

Mormon Joe was only a name, a memory, but he had loved her unselfishly and truly. Kate clasped her arms about the shaft and laid her cheek against it as if in some way she might draw consolation from it. But its coldness chilled her. Then, with her face upturned in supplication, as though his soul might be somewhere in the infinite s.p.a.ce above her, she cried aloud in her anguish as she had in another and different kind of crisis:

"Uncle Joe, I'm lost! I don't know which way to go--there's no signboard to direct me. Please, please, if you can, come back and help me--please--help Katie Prentice!"

The sheep dog with his head on his paws watched her gravely. In the corral below there was the sound of stirring horses; otherwise only silence answered her. No light, no help came to her. Her hands dropped gradually to her sides. It was always so--in the end she was thrown back upon herself. Nothing came to her save by her own efforts. There were no miracles performed for Kate Prentice. A sullen defiance filled her. If this was all life had for her she could stand it; she could go on as usual taking her medicine with as little fuss as possible. That's all life seemed to be--taking the medicine the Fates doled out in one form or another. To live bravely, to die with all the courage one could muster, were the princ.i.p.al things anyhow. She got up from her knees by the sunken grave slowly and stood erect once more, holding her chin high in self-sufficient arrogance. She would take the best out of life as it offered and be done with ideals that ended in emotional hysteria like this present experience. Life was a compromise anyhow. If she couldn't have the substance, she would have the shadow. If she couldn't have friendships given her, she'd buy imitations that would answer. If love and romance were not for her, she'd accept the expedient that offered and be satisfied!