The Second Latchkey Part 41

"I must see him! I must see him!" The words spoke themselves in her head.

But when she had hurried out of the enclosure walled in by the cactus hedge, the brilliant moonlight seemed to pierce her brain, and make a cold, calm appeal to her reason.

"You can't tell him what you have heard," it said. "He would be humiliated. Or"--the thought was sharp as a gimlet--"what if he _saw_ you, and knew you were listening? What if he talked just for effect? He is so clever! He is subtle enough for that. And wouldn't it be more _like_ the man, than to say what he said _sincerely_?"

She stopped, and was thankful not to see her husband returning. There was time to go back if she hurried. And she must hurry! If he had seen her in her hammock, and made that theatrical attempt to play upon her feelings, he would laugh at his own success if she followed him. And if he had not seen her, and were in earnest, it would be best--indeed the only right way--not to let him guess that the scene on the veranda steps had had a witness.

Annesley turned to fly back faster than she had come. But pa.s.sing the cactus hedge her dress caught. It was as if the hedge sentiently took hold of her.

She bent down to free the thin white material; and suddenly colour blazed up to her eyes in the rain of silver moonlight. The buds had opened since she noticed them last.

No longer was the hedge a grim barricade of stiff, dark sticks. Each stalk had turned into a tall, straight flame of lambent rose. From a dead thing of dreary ugliness it had become a thing of living beauty.

Knight's allegory!

He had said, perhaps she might understand when the time came; and perhaps not.

She _did_ understand. But she had not faith to believe that the miracle could repeat itself in life--her life and Knight's. She shut her eyes to the thought, and when she had freed her dress ran very fast to the house.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE THREE WORDS

Knight was generally far away long before Annesley was up in the morning, and often he did not come in till evening. She thought that on Easter Day, however, he would perhaps not go far. She half expected that he would linger about the house or sit reading on the veranda; and she could not resist the temptation to put on one of the dresses he had liked in England.

It was a little _pa.s.se_ and old-fashioned, but he would not know this.

What he might remember was that she had worn it at Valley House.

And the wish to say something, as if accidentally, about the flaming miracle of the cactus hedge was as persistent in her heart as the desire of a crocus to push through the earth to the sunshine on a spring morning. She did not know whether the wish would survive the meeting with her husband. She thought that would depend as much upon him as upon her mood.

But luncheon time came and Knight did not appear.

Annesley lunched alone, in her gray frock. Even on days when Knight was with her, and they sat through their meals formally, it was the same as if she were alone, for they spoke little, and each was in the habit of bringing a book to the table.

But she had not meant it to be so on this Easter Day. Even if she did not speak of the blossoming of the cactus, she had planned to show Knight that she was willing to begin a conversation. To talk at meals would be a way out of "treating him like a dog."

The pretty frock and the good intention were wasted. Late in the afternoon she heard from one of the line riders whom she happened to see that something had gone wrong with a windmill which gave water to the pumps for the cattle, and that her husband was attending to it.

"He's a natural born engineer," said the man, whose business as "line rider" was to keep up the wire fencing from one end of the ranch to the other. "I don't know how much he _knows_, but I know what he can _do_.

Queer thing, ma'am! There don't seem to be much that Mike Donaldson _can't_ do!"

Annesley smiled to hear Knight called "Mike" by one of his employees. She knew that he was popular, but never before had she felt personal pleasure in the men's tributes of affection.

To-day she felt a thrill. Her heart was warm with the spring and the miracle of the cactus hedge, and memories of impetuous--_seemingly_ impetuous--words of last night.

If she could have seen Knight she would have spoken of his allegory; and that small opening might have let sunlight into their darkness. But he did not come even to dinner; and tired of waiting, and weary from a sleepless night, she went to bed.

Next morning a man arrived who wished to buy a bunch of Donaldson's cattle, which were beginning to be famous. He stayed several days; and when he left Knight had business at the copper mine--business that concerned the sinking of a new shaft, which took him back and forth nearly every day for a week. By and by the cactus flowers began to fade, and Annesley had never found an opportunity of mentioning them, or what they might signify.

When she met Knight his manner was as usual: kind, un.o.btrusive, slightly stiff, as though he were embarra.s.sed--though he never showed signs of embarra.s.sment with any one else. She could hardly believe that she had not dreamed those words overheard in the moonlight.

Week after week slipped away. The one excitement at Las Cruces Ranch was the fighting across the border; the great "scare" at El Paso, and the stories of small yet sometimes tragic raids made by bands of cattle stealers upon American ranches which touched the Rio Grande. The water was low. This made private marauding expeditions easier, and the men of Las Cruces Ranch were prepared for anything.

One night in May there was a sandstorm, which as usual played strange tricks with Annesley's nerves. She could never grow used to these storms, and the moaning of the hot wind seemed to her a voice that wailed for coming trouble. Knight had been away on one of his motoring expeditions to the Organ Mountains, and though he had told the Chinese boy that he would be back for dinner, he did not come. Doors and windows were closed against the blowing sand, but they could not shut out the voice of the wind.

After dinner Annesley tried to read a new book from the library at El Paso, but between her eyes and the printed page would float the picture of a small, open automobile and its driver lost in clouds of yellow sand.

Why should she care? The man was used to roughing it. He liked adventures. He was afraid of nothing, and nothing ever hurt him. But she did care. She seemed to feel the sting of the sharp grains of sand on cheeks and eyes.

She was sitting in her own room, as she was accustomed to do in the evening if she were not out on the veranda--the pretty room which Knight had extravagantly made possible for her, with chintzes and furnishings from the best shops in El Paso. On this evening, however, she set both doors wide open, one which led into the living room, another leading into a corridor or hall. She could not fail to hear her husband when he came, even if he left his noisy car at the garage and walked to the house.

A travelling clock on the mantelpiece--Constance Annesley-Seton's gift--struck nine. The girl looked up at the first stroke, wondering if serious accidents were likely to happen in sandstorms; and before the last note had ended she heard steps in the patio.

"He has come!" she thought, with a throb of relief which shamed her. But the step was not like Knight's. It was hurried and nervous; and as she told herself this there sounded a loud knock at the door.

There was an electric bell, which Knight had fitted up with his own hands, but it was not visible at night. No one except herself could hear this knocking, for the servants' quarters were at the far end of the bungalow. A little frightened, recalling stories of cattle thieves and things they had done, Annesley went into the hall.

"Who is there?" she cried, her face near the closed door, which locked itself in shutting. If a man's voice--the voice of a stranger--should reply in "Mex," or with a foreign accent, the girl did not intend to let him in. A man's voice did reply, but neither in "Mex" nor with a foreign accent. It said: "My name is Paul Van Vreck. Open quickly, please. I may be followed."

Annesley's heart jumped; but without hesitation she pulled back the latch, and as she opened the door a rush of sand-laden wind wrenched it from her hand. She staggered away as the door swung free, and there was just time to see a tall, thin figure slip in like a shadow before the light of the hanging-lamp blew out. The girl and the newcomer were in the dark save for a yellow ray that filtered into the hall from her room, but she saw him stoop to place a bag or bundle on the floor, and then, pulling the door to against the wind, slammed it shut with a click.

Having done this, the tall shadow bent to pick up what it had laid down.

"Thank you, Mrs. Donaldson, for letting me in," said the most charming voice Annesley had ever heard--more charming even than Knight's.

"Evidently you've heard your husband mention me, or you might have kept me out there parleying, if you're alone, for these are stirring times."

"Yes, I--I've heard you mentioned by--many people," the girl answered, stammering like a nervous child. "Won't you come in--into the living room? Not the room with the open door. That's mine. It's another, farther along the hall. I'm sorry my husband's out."

As she talked she wondered at herself. She knew Van Vreck for a super thief. He did not steal with his own hands, but he commanded other hands to steal, and that was even worse. Or she had thought it worse in her husband's case, and for more than a year she had punished him for his sins. Yet here she was almost welcoming this man.

She did not understand why she felt--even without seeing him except as a shadow--that she would find herself wishing to do whatever he might ask.

It must be, she thought, the influence of his voice. She had heard Paul Van Vreck spoken of as an old man, but the voice was the voice of magnetic youth.

He opened the door of the living room, and, carrying his bundle, followed her as she entered. There was only one lamp in this room, a tall reading-lamp with a green silk shade, which stood on a table, its heavy base surrounded by books and magazines. A good light for reading was thrown from under the green shade on to the table, but the rest of the room was of a cool, green dimness; and, looking up with irresistible curiosity at the face of her night visitor, it floated pale on a vague background, like a portrait by Whistler.

It was unnaturally white, the girl thought, and--yes, it _was_ old! But it was a wonderful face, and the eyes illumined it; immense eyes, though deepset and looking out of shadowed hollows under level brows black as ink. Annesley had never seen eyes so like strange jewels, lit from behind.

That simile came to her, and she smiled, for it was appropriate that this jewel expert should have jewels for eyes. They were dark topazes, and from them gazed the spirit of the man with a compelling charm.

Under a rolled-back wave of iron-gray hair he had a broad forehead, high cheekbones, a pointed prominent chin, a mouth both sweet and humorous, like that of some enchanting woman; but its sweetness was contradicted by a hawk nose. Had it not been for that nose he would have been handsome.

"I guessed by the startled tone of your voice, when you asked, 'Who is there?' that your husband was out," explained the shadow, now transformed by the light into an extremely tall, extremely thin man in gray travelling clothes. "I had a moment of repentance at troubling a lady alone; but, you see, the case was urgent."

He had carelessly tossed his Panama hat on to the table, but kept the black bag, which he now held out with a smile.