The Westerners Part 32

Then her blood told. She dried her eyes and in her inmost heart she declared war against this woman, war to the knife and to the uttermost.

The momentary defeat dashed her at first, then it nerved her. After all nothing definite had occurred. This creature had planted several stinging thrusts which had hit home because Molly, in the innocence of her heart, was not expecting them. She was on her guard now. It would not happen again. Cheyenne Harry had known the woman before, evidently, and surely it was natural that in the first surprise of seeing her so unexpectedly, he should display a certain enthusiasm of recognition. But his relations with her--Molly Lafond--were too intimate, too long-continued, to be lightly broken.

As the twilight fell she saw, through the oblong of her sliding window, that men were hurrying by to dine early, in order that they might prepare for the festivities of the evening. Across the square she could make out the dim shape of the new dance hall, a long low structure trimmed with evergreens and bunting. Frosty was even then lighting the lamps in the Little Nugget. She sat there motionless, staring out into the night, fingering the soft white stuff of the gown lying across her lap, until a certain peace came to her and a conviction that all would be well.

The night was warm and balmy with the odors of early spring. Molly had slid back the halves of her narrow window, and over the boxes of flowers that fringed this little artificial horizon the mellow notes of the first whitethroat, that nightingale of the north, floated in on the tepid air. Beyond the nearer silhouette of the flowers another dimmer silhouette of the hills wavered uncertainly beneath a few uncertain stars. The girl watched these stars idly, dreaming in tune with the plaintive notes of the bird. Then silently another bulkier silhouette interposed itself, almost filling the window.

"What is it?" she cried, starting.

"It's I," came the voice of Jack Graham. The silhouette rested two black-outlined elbows against the sill.

"My, how you frightened me!" she cried pettishly. "What in the world do you want? Why aren't you at dinner?"

"Molly," said Graham solemnly, "I don't suppose you'll listen to me.

We haven't gotten along very well lately, have we? But I want you to know that I am asking this for your sake, and that I believe it."

She was impressed by the sincere quality of his tone. "Why, Jack," she said softly, "I know you mean well, and I suppose I _am_ very frivolous and careless. What is it?"

"I wish you would not go to the dance to-night."

There fell a pause. She was evidently in a softened mood and she wished to conduct the interview considerately. "But, Jack," she hesitatingly asked at last. "Do you think there is going to be trouble?"

"It will only give you pain. You are going to be forced against things you have never had to combat before."

"I don't understand you."

"I am going to talk very plainly, Molly; I hope you won't get angry. I can't help it if you do. It's because I love you so, girl; I love you so!"

His voice was deep and rich with emotion, so poignant and compelling that it forced her attention in spite of herself. This was a declaration, she dimly felt, and yet its import as such was somehow lost in the more pregnant subject-matter to which it but added emphasis.

"Go on," she said breathlessly.

"You are well liked by everybody here," he continued, carefully avoiding more pointed personalities, "and you have grown so used to being liked by everybody that it would hurt you cruelly if you were not. Isn't that true?"

"Yes," a.s.sented Molly gravely, after a moment's consideration.

"You want to hold first place in their thoughts and in their goodwill.

You want to be first with them and you want them to show to you and to each other by their actions that they are your best friends and are going to stand by you. Do I read you right?"

"Yes, of course I want all the boys to like me. I've known them so long, and I should feel dreadfully if they didn't. But what do you mean by it? I don't understand."

The silhouette moved uneasily. "Now don't get angry," he pleaded.

"Take to-night. To speak plainly, you want to be the woman who receives the most attention at that ball. Answer frankly."

"Well," confessed the gill after another moment's hesitation, "frankly then, I do."

"You will not."

"Why?"

"Because the woman who came this afternoon, Bismarck Anne, will take your place."

Molly Lafond would have become angry if her experience of the afternoon had not already made her uneasy on just this point.

"Do you consider her more attractive than me?" she asked a little resentfully.

"A thousand times No!" a.s.sured the silhouette.

"Has she known the boys as long as I? Is she as good friends with them? Can she talk better? Is she brighter?"

"No."

"Then I don't believe I quite see."

"It's just this. The men all like you and admire you, and would do anything for you, but at the same time they look up to you a little.

You are better than they are, so, more or less, they are a little--well--a little _restricted_ with you. This woman is their sort. She isn't a bit better than they are. When they are out to have a good time, like at the dance to-night, they want somebody they can have their sort of fun with. _You are too good for them_."

"That is very theoretical."

"It is very true."

"And supposing, just supposing, it were. You want me to lie down and quit without making a fight. Do you call that being game? What would you think of a man who would run away because the other man was a little stronger? Don't you think I'd fight?"

"That's just it. You'd fight too well."

"I don't----"

"She has ways of drawing men to her which you know nothing about. They are her weapons. I know you'd fight. You'd fight to the last because it is in you to, and I'm afraid, very much afraid, that when you found your weapons were not enough you'd use hers."

There fell between them a long silence, while Molly slowly pondered these last words and gradually apprehended their meaning. In the darkness she could feel the blood tingeing her face, forehead, and neck. At first she was inclined to be angry and to show it, but the man's evident sincerity, coupled with the fervor of his incidental declaration of love, softened her.

"I don't believe I ever had anybody tell me such things before," she could not restrain herself from saying, "and I don't know whether I ought to thank you for your lack of trust in me. However, you'll be there, and I can rely on your protection against these awful dangers."

"I will not be there," contradicted Graham bluntly.

"Well, then, there's Harry." She said the name out of bravado to show that there was no reason why she should not say it.

"Yes," cried Graham, with a burst of anger that astonished her. "It is he I mean."

It was the red flag to them both, the idea of this man. "I think you'd better go now," she replied coldly.

Graham turned away with a little curse.

She sat down again and tried desperately to regain her confidence of a few moments before, but it would not come. She was angry and insulted, and she was vexed at herself that she could not throw off the uneasiness which lay behind these emotions; but she could not. It grew on her as her nervousness increased. She sat staring straight before her into the dark, clasping and unclasping her hands, and striving with all the earnestness of which she was capable to seize and formulate the vague fear that seemed unreasonably to weigh on her spirits. a.n.a.lyze it as she would, she could find no adequate reason for it. It was therefore the more terrible. The dinner hour pa.s.sed quite unnoticed.

The nervousness increased until she could have shrieked aloud. And then with a sudden start she recognized it--this old formless causeless sense of an indefinite guilt, as for something left undone; the voice, although this she did not know, of her inherited New England conscience.

At the discovery she rebelled. She had always rebelled, and heretofore she had succeeded in putting it down, in stifling it underneath mere surface moods. But now the surface moods proved inadequate. The uneasy guiltiness increased until it almost overflowed in tears. Molly was afraid, just as a child is afraid of the dark.

She lit the lamps and looked at herself in the mirror. This must not go on. To-night, the one night when she needed all her powers, it was foolish to allow a whim to weaken them. She shook her head at herself and smiled. The smile was not a success. She turned away wearily and thrust her hands through her hair. Why had Graham taken it into his head to bother her this one evening of all others? It was his fault.

She stamped her foot angrily. All his fault. In spite of his denial, she believed he would be there and would set everything. The thought stung her pride and the desire for tears left her. She would show him just how much his advice and his fears were worth. On the impulse she spread her white dress out on the bed, and began hastily to smooth out the wrinkles in its pleats. After a moment she turned decisively to the mirror, and began to take down her hair.