The Trail of Conflict Part 32

His voice was tenderly exultant, his eyes disconcertingly possessive as he reminded huskily:

"About that honeymoon I promised to show you, Mrs. Courtlandt----Can I interest you in a silver mine?"

CHAPTER XXII

The two men were in striking contrast. Glamorgan, ma.s.sive, shrewd-eyed, of big affairs and world interests and Peter Courtlandt patrician, dreamy-eyed, who dwelt largely in the realm of books and art, were smoking on the terrace of the Manor. They could look down the box-bordered paths of the garden to where stone steps led to a small landing on the sh.o.r.e of the river. A tender swung at its moorings.

Motor-boats and steam-boats plied busily back and forth on the water which rippled into scales of gold. From a man-o'-war anch.o.r.ed down-stream came the sound of a ship's band. The sun was setting with lavish prodigality of color, spreading great swaths of crimson and gold and violet above the hills. One steady brilliant star shone in the west.

From the garden drifted the scent of heliotrope. The light breeze stirred the awning over the terrace, gently lifted the soft rings of white hair on Peter Courtlandt's head, impertinently flicked the sheets of the letter Glamorgan held.

Courtlandt withdrew his eyes from the river and looked at his guest.

The large man was smiling broadly, at his thoughts, doubtless, as his eyes were fixed unseeingly on the star. His host suddenly remembered that he had not seen the oil-king smile like that since Jerry and Steve had left the Manor; he had appeared like a man spiritually burdened.

Could his furious indignation because his daughter had gone West with her husband have accounted for his gravity? Courtlandt tossed the remains of his cigar over the terrace wall and addressed his companion.

"You said that you had a letter to read to me," he suggested.

Glamorgan's eyes flashed to his--was there a hint of tears in them?--the smile on his lips spread and spread until his host was reminded of the moon in all the glory of its fullness. He laughed in sympathy. "It must be amusing, if one judges by your expression." The oil-king indulged in a throaty chuckle; it sounded like the delight of a boy in some satisfactorily accomplished bit of mischief.

"It isn't the letter which is so amusing, though I'll hand it to Peg when it comes to expression that has punch, it is what I can read between the lines. Listen to what she writes and you'll understand." He settled huge horn-rimmed eye-gla.s.ses in place and began to read from the letter in his hand.

"DEAR DAD:

"By this time you must have received my letter about the near hold-up, _poor_ Mr. Denbigh, Beechy, Tommy (Benson the Bluffer the outfit call him now) and your she's-a-hero daughter. I penned that throbbing epistle on the morning after our return from Slippy Bend when my mind was a red hot molten ma.s.s of _thrills_. Well, to quote Scripture (don't give me the credit of this, Tommy Benson reeled it off when I expressed amazement at what was happening and I copied it from the Bible), 'There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.' It is that last phrase which has to do with the situation here. When I first came Steve had _about_ as much expression in his face when he looked at Jerry as has that granite civil war veteran in the park at Oil City.

Jerry was as bad. They were the nearest to cold-storage newly-weds that I had ever seen. Now--ye G.o.ds!--when I look up and see Steve's eyes on Jerry my heart _stampedes_. I feel as though I had made the unpardonable break of opening a closed door without knocking. Jerry behaves a little better. She keeps her eyes to heel but her _voice_----

"'The devil hath not in all his quiver's choice an arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.' Tommy Benson again. He is a more liberal education than English 27 at College. I asked him if the lines were Shakespeare or the Bible and he said that a gentleman named Byron wrote them but that I was _not_ to cultivate his acquaintance indiscriminately. I have sent east for _all_ of Mr.

Byron's poems. But I digress.

"To return to Steve and Jerry. They start on a camping trip to-morrow, up into the wilderness to inspect some silly old silver mine. Steve has sent Marcelle O'Neil ahead with packhorses, guns, provisions, and rods. Thank heaven they didn't ask _me_ to go. I'm to stay at the Double O with Tommy Benson's mother, who arrived yesterday. She's a stylish-stout of about fifty with wonderful skin and teeth, eyes that make you feel you'd like to _drown_ in them they are so like clear-blue pools; hair like dull gold and a smile--well, I walked _straight_ into her arms when she turned it on me.

"I wrote you that Jerry seemed terribly short of money. You _must_ do something about it. Her Tiffany flame has found an Alexandrite that she wants. When I told her the price, a _miserable_ little two thousand dollars, you would have thought I'd mentioned the amount of the Allied war debt. Why don't you send her the ring?

"From my limited observation (there's been something doing every minute since I set foot on the Double O), I should say that ranching was a great life when the coyotes didn't steal your chickens, when the Shorthorns didn't break away, or when a disgruntled fragment of your outfit didn't shoot up the neighborhood. Jerry says that she and Steve will spend their winters at the Manor after they have been here a year, something to do with Uncle Nick's will, _you_ probably know about it. Steve will take Tommy Benson into partnership and he will be manager-in-chief. It's a _great_ chance for Tommy. He is the poor-man-with-a-future type. He's _super_-sensitive about his lack of money, though. Bruce Greyson brought a perfectly _stunning_ man to call the other day, heir to a fortune. Of course I had to be nice to him. Ye G.o.ds! You should have seen Tommy while he was here. After the plutocrat had departed I asked him why he had looked as though he could have crunched mountain lion in the raw. He just _glowered_ and quoted:

"'O what a world of vile, ill favoured faults Looks handsome in three thousand pounds a year.'

"From my window I can see Sandy's flivver in the distance; that means that I must wind up this letter--p.r.o.nto. That carrier is the _funniest_ sight. He wears a tall white hat and a linen duster and looks for all the world like the Mad Hatter in 'Alice.' I almost expect to hear him snap when he sees me coming, 'Your hair needs cutting,' the way the Hatter does in the story. _Heaps_ of love,

"PEG.

"P.S. Praise be! Careful Cosmetics has departed. That's what I call the Denbigh woman."

Glamorgan removed his gla.s.ses and threw back his head with a chuckling laugh. Courtlandt laughed with him.

"Peggy certainly wields a facile pen. I--I am glad of what she writes about Steve and Jerry. I confess that I feared----"

"I want to talk to you about that, Courtlandt," interrupted Glamorgan eagerly. "It has taken all my strength of will and then some, not to take you into my confidence but--but I promised your brother-in-law that----"

"Nicholas Fairfax!"

"I don't wonder you are astonished. You see, from the moment I saw him I fell for him. I'd known a lot of men like him. Chestnut burrs outside but sound and sweet in their hearts. He must have felt that I understood him for he hadn't been at the Manor long before he confided his doubts and hopes to me. Old Nick was keener than you or I. He hadn't been here twenty-four hours before he had sized up the situation between Jerry and Steve. He realized that they were heading straight for the matrimonial reefs where so many of their friends had come to grief. I guess he realized also that I was a little more anxious for that marriage to turn out a success than even he was. The Lord only knows the burden of guilt I would have carried the rest of my life if it hadn't."

"You wouldn't have been the only one."

"I know that, Courtlandt. Nick realized that he hadn't long to live. He felt sure of Jerry's loyalty, that all that was needed to right matters between the two was to give Steve money and make the girl dependent on him. He knew the boy well enough to know that his pride would stand between them as long as Jerry was spending my money. That was where I came in. He had me cast for the stern parent act. I was to oppose Jerry's going to the ranch. Opposition, he figured, would steel her determination to go with her husband, if she was tempted to waver. I knew my girl better. I knew that she would keep the covenant but I consented to please Old Nick. I almost caved in the day she went away, when I saw her watch the gate wistfully until the train started, but I kept out of sight."

"Who would have believed to have seen Nick in those last days that he was planning so shrewdly."

"That wasn't all he planned. He had the d.i.c.kens of a time with Greyson.

He wanted him to invite Mrs. Denbigh to the X Y Z for the summer as a sort of acid test for Steve."

"What a diabolical idea."

"I'm not so sure of that. His argument was that if the woman had the slightest lure for Steve----"

"But she hadn't," Courtlandt denied sharply.

"I couldn't see how she could have, but then vamps aren't in my line.

Nick was possessed by the idea. Greyson kicked like a steer against it but finally gave in. You can't tell. Fairfax may have had other reasons up his sleeve. Denbigh was at the Bear Creek ranch. He might have thought, have hoped, that he and Felice would come together again. In spite of his ill-health and absorption in his ranch, your brother-in-law was a profound thinker on social and economic questions. I spent hours arguing with him. He contended that the great weakness of the American people lay in their lack of stability, that they could be swept along on a wave of enthusiasm but that when it came to the steady tide of determination they wouldn't even tread water; that lack of stability was at the root of the divorce habit, which if it wasn't checked would insidiously undermine the character of the nation."

"He was right, but," with a profound sigh of relief, "it looks as though Jerry and Steve had escaped the reefs, doesn't it?"

"I'll say it does," with a reminiscent chuckle. "Now you know why I gloated over that letter of Peg's. The child didn't realize how she was easing my mind. Do you know, I like what she writes about that Benson boy. Next to a man with family background I have a deep and abiding respect for a man who has the best in literature at his tongue's end.

He's a rare bird these days."

"Then you wouldn't object if Peg and Tommy--he hasn't the kind of family you want behind him."

"I don't care who Peggy marries if he is clean and upstanding, with self-respect and love for my girl. I'm through meddling, though I'm not sorry for what I did with Jerry. She stood nine chances out of ten of marrying a fortune-hunter; Steve wasn't that; he had to be forcibly fed with money. In spite of that fact I haven't drawn an easy breath since Nick told me his suspicions, until now." He glanced at the letter. "I think I'll send that Alexandrite as a sort of peace offering."

"You're too late. Steve wired to me to have it sent."

"He did! Then you knew all I have been telling you?"

"No. I only put two and two together when I got Steve's message."

Glamorgan rose, shook himself like a bear and extended one hand to his host. His voice was curiously rough as he laid the other on his shoulder and confided awkwardly:

"Good-night! I--I hope they'll name the first son Peter, Courtlandt."

Courtlandt put his free hand on the big man's shoulder. His laugh was unsteady but his voice was vibrant with feeling as he countered:

"And I--I hope they'll name the second one--Dan. Good-night." They stood shaking hands furiously, laughing boyishly, and patting one another's shoulders as the lights flashed up on the river and night rang down the curtain of dusk.

BOOKS BY EMILIE LORING