The Forfeit Part 24

Her back was turned when Bud responded to the summons. The cold sluice he had just indulged in seemed to have entirely restored his equanimity. His voice came cheerily.

"Guess we best set in, little gal," he said, moving to his place at the table. "We'll need to get busy after."

Nan turned. She watched Maimie deposit the hot dishes. Then, when the girl had withdrawn, she took her place opposite her father.

"There's a deal of mail for Jeff," she said, as she sat down. "There's some for you, too, Daddy. There's a letter and--a newspaper. Maybe you'd feel like reading them right away. Guess there won't be time after."

With all her might she struggled for indifference. With all her might she desired that her father should miss the fears which prompted her.

But she only succeeded in telling him of them in every word she spoke.

Bud agreed readily. He rose and fetched his letter--and the newspaper which Nan so feared.

Nan went on with her food. Her father tore open the covering of the letter. She was watching him covertly and silently whilst he read page after page. She was searching for confirmation of her worst fears.

She was torturing herself.

Bud's dissimulation was never great. Nan watched the play of his expression. There was no smile. As the silent moments pa.s.sed his brow became heavier. The furrow deepened between his eyes, and once there came that rather helpless raising of his hand to his forehead. Then, too, she observed the compression of his lips, and the occasional dilation of his nostrils. Each observation carried conviction, and the weight upon her heart grew almost insupportable.

Finally he laid the letter down and went on with his meal. But he did not even glance at the wrappered newspaper.

In self-defense Nan was forced to break the silence. If it had remained she felt she must scream. Instead she smiled over at him, and indicated the newspaper.

"The _Calthorpe Times_, isn't it?" she said without a tremor.

"Can't say."

The harsh tone was intended to convey indifference.

"Won't you open it?" she asked. "Maybe Jeff's marked a piece."

Then Bud gave a display such as Nan had never witnessed in him before.

"Say, ain't we never to get food a feller ken eat?" he cried. "That n.i.g.g.e.r s.l.u.t needs firin' right away. Guess she couldn't cook a dry hash on a round-up. I'm quittin'. This stew 'ud choke a she-wolf."

His eyes were hot. He thrust his plate away from him and pushed back his chair. But Nan's calmness defeated his almost childlike subterfuge.

"Say, my Daddy, you don't need to quit. Sure," she added, a pathetic smile lighting her brown eyes, "I guess the stew's pretty good to any hungry folks, and Maimie's just the dandiest cook anywhere around."

She paused. Bud stood yearning for five minutes of unrestrained blasphemy as he read the understanding lying behind her words.

"I don't guess it's the food worrying, or Maimie's cooking," Nan went on, almost at once. "It's your letter. Maybe there's a heap of things in it you aren't yearning to hand over to me." A sigh escaped her.

"Will I tell you of them? Maybe one'll be sufficient. It's the one worrying you most. It's--it's his marriage. It's fixed. The date--I mean."

Then she pointed at the unopened paper.

"Likely it's in that. And that's why he's sent it. Shall I see?"

She reached out and picked up the offending packet, and, with a swift movement, ripped the fastening open with one finger. Without a word she unfolded the sheet, seeking a marked pa.s.sage. It was there, as she knew it would be. It was found in a twinkling. No one could have missed it. Heavy ink outlined it in the column of "City Chatter," and she read the paragraph aloud without a tremor of voice. Her deliberateness nearly drove the ranchman to distraction.

"The friends of Mrs. John D. Carruthers will be interested to learn that the marriage of her daughter, Mrs. Elvine van Blooren, widow of the late Robert van Blooren, to Jeffrey Masters, of the celebrated 'Obar' Ranch, and this year's President of the Western Union Cattle Breeders' a.s.sociation, is to be solemnized at the Church of St. Mary in this city on August 4th next. The Rev. Claude I. Carston, M. A., will----"

There was more of it, much more, referring in the usual local journalistic fashion to the "happy event," and dwelling upon the important "social standing" of the bride and bridegroom. But Nan read no further then. There was no need to. Was not the completeness of her disaster contained in those lines? The courage of the front she displayed before the sympathetic eyes of her father was superlative.

There was just a pause. It was the tragic pause under a staggering blow. Then she forced a smile into the brave eyes, which never for a moment fell before the other's regard.

"There! There, my Daddy," she said, with a studied calm which did not conceal the dry-throated swallow which accompanied the words. "I guess it was how I thought. You were scared. Scared to tell me." She shook her head. "It's--it's not very brave, is it? I wonder why you were scared? You needn't have been. Folks don't need to be scared of--anything. What you need most is just to--to grit your teeth and--die hard."

Her manner was becoming abstracted. It seemed as if she were addressing herself, warning herself, and fighting down a weakness which was threatening to overwhelm her.

Presently she went on, while the man stood by utterly robbed of the power to comfort her:

"August the fourth," she murmured. "August--that's six weeks from now.

Six weeks of--sunshine and--and warmth. When the harvest's ripening, and all the world's just--glad. And he'll be glad, and--and happy, too. Yes, Jeff will be very, very happy because--she's going to make him happy."

Quite suddenly she started up from her chair. A dreadful panic had leaped to her eyes. The delicious, healthy color had been swept from her pretty downy cheeks. The corners of her sweet mouth were drooping, and her hands were held out in a gesture of despairing appeal.

"Daddy, Daddy, he will--he will be happy, won't he?" she cried. "I--I just need him to be happy, more--yes, more than anything in the world.

Sure, sure, she'll make him happy? Oh, if she doesn't!"

Still the man looked on, a helpless spectator of the girl's suffering.

Nor did it seem that his own was any less. But Nan seemed to realize the weakness in her momentary display. Her hands dropped to her side.

There was even a visible effort in the manner in which she strove for self-mastery. Her smooth brow puckered in an intense frown, and, to Bud, it almost seemed that she was literally clenching her teeth to hold back the pa.s.sionate distress which was seeking to find expression.

After a moment something of full self-possession seemed to return to her. She smiled. But it was a smile that lacked conviction. A smile that almost broke her father's heart.

"Tell me, Daddy," she pleaded. "Do you think--he'd--he'd have me be a--a bridesmaid? Would it sort of help him any?" she hurried on. "You see, I--I want him to be real happy. I want him to feel that we just love him, and that--that--we're just glad for him, and--and nothing in the world else matters--to anybody. I'm so----"

There was a little catch of breath. The words she would have spoken died upon her lips. She reeled. Every vestige of color left her pretty face, and her eyes half closed. Just for one weak instant her hands groped behind her for the chair. Then, the next, Bud was at her side, and one strong arm was supporting her.

"Don't, Nan!" he cried, in his heavy c.u.mbersome way. And the sound of his deep voice alone served to ward off the encroachment of that final weakness which, in spite of all her courage, the girl was at last compelled to yield to.

Bud drew her to him, and one hand smoothed her pretty brown hair with rough tenderness. For a moment her head rested against his broad bosom. Then a deep sigh came, and Nan looked up, smiling into the steady gray eyes gazing down at her, through a mist of welling tears.

"My dear--dear old Daddy," she murmured, as the tears finally overflowed and slowly rolled down her cheeks.

CHAPTER XIV

THE KNOCKING ON THE DOOR

It seemed like the hand of Destiny that Elvine van Blooren should wander across the path of Jeffrey Masters at a moment when all the fruits of his ambition seemed to be falling into his outspread-hands.

It was surely the work of Fate that instant recognition of her desirability leaped in his heart, so that some six weeks later they should set out on their life's journey together on the eastward bound mail train, which bore, in its foremost van, the mails for the world outside, gathered in from every district in the region of Calthorpe.

Their happiness was perfect. In six weeks' time the metamorphosis in the woman had been as complete as it was in the case of the man.

For the man it seemed that life had opened out an entirely new vista.