CHAPTER 11. VIRGINIA INTERVENES
James K. Mott, local chief attorney for the Consolidated, wasstruggling with a white tie before the glass and crumpling itatrociously.
"This dress-suit habit is the most pernicious I know. It's sapping theliberties of the American people," he grunted at last in humorousdespair.
"Let me, dear."
His wife tied it with neatness and dispatch, and returned to theinspection of how her skirt hung.
"Mr. Harley asked me to thank you for calling on his wife. He says shegets lonesome during the day while he is away so much. I was wonderingif you couldn't do something for her so that she could meet some of theladies of Mesa. A luncheon, or something of that sort, you know. Haveyou seen my hat-brush anywhere?"
"It's on that drawer beside your hat-box. She told me she would rathernot. I suggested it. But I'll tell you what I could do: take VirginiaBalfour round to see her. She's lively and good company, and knows someof the people Mrs. Harley knows."
"That's a good idea. I want Harley to know that we appreciate hissuggestions, and are ready to do our part. He has shown a dispositionto consult me on a good many things that ought to lie in Hobart'ssphere rather than mine. Something's going to drop. Now, I like Hobart,but I want to show myself in a receptive mood for advancement when hishead falls, as it certainly will soon."
* * * * *
Virginia responded eagerly to Mrs. Mott's suggestion that they calltogether on Mrs. Harley at the hotel.
"My dear, you have saved my life. I've been dying of curiosity, and Ihaven't been able to find vestige of an excuse to hang my call on. Icouldn't ask Mr. Ridgway to introduce me, could I?"
"No, I don't see that you could," smiled Mrs. Mott, a motherly littlewoman with pleasant brown eyes. "I suppose Mr. Ridgway isn't exactly oncalling terms with Mr. Harley's wife, even if he did save her life."
"Oh, Mr. Ridgway isn't the man to let a little thing like a war aoutrance stand in the way of his social duties, especially when thoseduties happen to be inclinations, too. I understand he DID call theevening of their arrival here."
"He didn't!" screamed Mrs. Mott, who happened to possess a voice of thenormal national register. "And what did Mr. Harley say?"
"Ah, that's what one would like to know. My informant deponeth notbeyond the fact unadorned. One may guess there must have beenundercurrents of embarrassment almost as pronounced as if the Presidentwere to invite his Ananias Club to a pink tea. I can imagine Mr. Harleysaying: 'Try this cake, Mr. Ridgway; it isn't poisoned;' and Mr.Ridgway answering: 'Thanks! After you, my dear Gaston."'
Miss Balfour's anxiety to meet the young woman her fiance had rescuedfrom the blizzard was not unnatural. Her curiosity was tinged withfrank envy, though jealousy did not enter into it at all. Virginia hadcome West explicitly to take the country as she found it, and she hadfound it, unfortunately, no more hazardous than little old New York,though certainly a good deal more diverting to a young woman withdemocratic proclivities that still survived the energetic weeding hertraining had subjected them to.
She did not quite know what she had expected to find in Mesa. Certainlyshe knew that Indians were no longer on the map, and cowboys werekicking up their last dust before vanishing, but she had supposed thatthey had left compensations in their wake. On the principle thatadventures are to the adventurous, her life should have been a whirl ofhairbreadth escapes.
But what happened? She took all sorts of chances without anythingcoming of it. Her pirate fiance was the nearest approach to anadventure she had flushed, and this pink-and-white chit of a marriedschoolgirl had borrowed him for the most splendid bit of excitementthat would happen in a hundred years. She had been spinning around thecountry in motor-cars for months without the sign of a blizzard, butthe chit had hit one the first time. It wasn't fair. That was herblizzard by rights. In spirit, at least, she had "spoken for it," asshe and her brother used to say when they were children of some covetedtreasure not yet available. Virginia was quite sure that if she hadseen Waring Ridgway at the inspired moment when he was plowing throughthe drifts with Mrs. Harley in his arms--only, of course, it would havebeen she instead of Mrs. Harley, and he would not have been carryingher so long as she could stand and take it--she would have fallen inlove with him on the spot. And those two days in the cabin onhalf-ration they would have put an end forever to her doubts and tothat vision of Lyndon Hobart that persisted in her mind. What luckglace' some people did have!
But Virginia discovered the chit to be rather a different personalitythan she had supposed. In truth, she lost her heart to her at once. Shecould have stood out against Aline's mere good looks and been thestiffer for them. She was no MAN, to be moved by the dark hair's duskyglory, the charm of soft girlish lines, the effect of shyunsophistication that might be merely the highest art of socialexperience. But back of the sweet, trembling mouth that seemed to beasking to be kissed, of the pathetic appeal for friendliness from thebig, deep violet eyes, was a quality of soul not to be counterfeited.Miss Balfour had furbished up the distant hauteur of the society mannershe had at times used effectively, but she found herself instead takingthe beautiful, forlorn little creature in her arms.
"Oh, my dear; my dear, how glad I am that dreadful blizzard did nothurt you!"
Aline clung to this gracious young queen as if she had known her alifetime. "You are so good to me everybody is. You know how Mr. Ridgwaysaved me. If it had not been for him I should have died. I didn'tcare--I wanted to die in peace, I think--but he wouldn't let me."
"I should think not."
"If you only knew him--perhaps you do."
"A little," confessed Virginia, with a flash of merry eyes at Mrs. Mott.
"He is the bravest man--and the strongest."
"Yes. He is both," agreed his betrothed, with pride.
"His tenderness, his unselfishness, his consideration for others--didyou ever know anybody like him for these things?"
"Never," agreed Virginia, with the mental reservations that usuallyaccompanied her skeptical smile. She was getting at her fiance from anovel point of view.
"And so modest, with all his strength and courage.',
"It's almost a fault in him," she murmured.
"The woman that marries him will be blessed among women."
"I count it a great privilege," said Miss Balfour absently, but shepulled up with a hurried addendum: "To have known him."
"Indeed, yes. If one met more men like him this would be a betterworld."
"It would certainly be a different world."
It was a relief to Aline to talk, to put into words the externalskeleton facts of the surging current that had engulfed her existencesince she had turned a corner upon this unexpected consciousness oflife running strong and deep. Harley was not a confidant she could havechosen under the most favorable circumstances, and her instinct toldher that in this matter he was particularly impossible. But to VirginiaBalfour--Mrs. Mott had to leave early to preside over the Mesa Woman'sClub, and her friend allowed herself to be persuaded to staylonger--she did not find it at all hard to talk. Indeed, she murmuredinto the sympathetic ear of this astute young searcher of hearts morethan her words alone said, with the result that Virginia guessed whatshe herself had not yet quite found out, though her heart was hoveringtremblingly on the brink of discovery.
But Virginia's sympathy for the trouble fate had in store for thishelpless innocent consisted with an alert appreciation of its obviousrelation to herself. What she meant to discover was the attitude towardthe situation of one neither particularly innocent nor helpless. Washe, too, about to be "caught in the coil of a God's romances," or washe merely playing on the vibrating strings of an untaught heart?
It was in part to satisfy this craving for knowledge that she wroteRidgway a note as soon as she reached home. It said:
MY DEAR RECREANT LAGGARD: If you are not too busy playing Sir Lancelotto fair dames in distress, or splintering lances with the doughtyhusbands of these same
ladies, I pray you deign to allow your servantto feast her eyes upon her lord's face. Hopefully and gratefully yours,VIRGINIA.
P. S.--Have you forgotten, sir, that I have not seen you since thatterrible blizzard and your dreadful imprisonment in Fort Salvation?
P. P. S.--I have seen somebody else, though. She's a dear, and full ofyour praises. I hardly blame you.
V.
She thought that ought to bring him soon, and it did.
"I've been busy night and day," he apologized when they met.
Virginia gave him a broadside demurely.
"I suppose your social duties do take up a good deal of your time."
"My social duties? Oh, I see!" He laughed appreciation of her hit.Evidently through her visit she knew a good deal more than he hadexpected. Since he had nothing to hide from her except his feelings,this did not displease him. "My duties in that line have been confinedto one formal call."
She sympathized with him elaborately. "Calls of that sort do bore menso. I'll not forget the first time you called on me."
"Nor I," he came back gallantly.
"I marveled how you came through alive, but I learned then that a mancan't be bored to death."
"I came again nevertheless," he smiled. "And again--and again."
"I am still wondering why."
"'Oh, wad some power the giffie gite us To see ourselves as others see us!"'
he quoted with a bow.
"Is that a compliment?" she asked dubiously.
"I have never heard it used so before. Anyhow, it is a little hackneyedfor anybody so original as you."
"It was the best I could do offhand."
She changed the subject abruptly. "Has the new campaign of the warbegun yet?"
"Well, we're maneuvering for position."
"You've seen him. How does he impress you?"
"The same as he does others. A hard, ruthless fighter. Unless all signsfail, he is an implacable foe."
"But you are not afraid?"
He smiled. "Do I look frightened?"
"No, you remind me of something a burglar once told me--"
"A what?"
"A burglar--a reformed burglar!" She gave him a saucy flash of her darkeyes. "Do you think I don't know any lawbreakers except those I havemet in this State? I came across this one in a mission where I used tothink I was doing good. He said it was not the remuneration of theprofession that had attracted him, but the excitement. It wasdreadfully frowned down upon and underpaid. He could earn more at hisold trade of a locksmith, but it seemed to him that every impediment tosuccess was a challenge to him. Poor man, he relapsed again, and theyput him in Sing Sing. I was so interested in him, too."
"You've had some queer friends in your time," he laughed, but without atrace of disapproval.
"I have some queer ones yet," she thrust back.
"Let's not talk of them," he cried, in pretended alarm.
Her inextinguishable gaiety brought back the smile he liked. "We'lltalk of SOME ONE else--some one of interest to us both."
"I am always ready to talk of Miss Virginia Balfour," he said,misunderstanding promptly.
She smiled her disdain of his obtuseness in an elaborately long surveyof him.
"Well?" he wanted to know.
"That's how you look--very well, indeed. I believe the storm wasgreatly exaggerated," she remarked.
"Isn't that rather a good definition for a blizzard--a greatlyexaggerated storm?"
"You don't look the worse for wear--not the wreck I expected to behold."
"Ah, you should have seen me before I saw you."
"Thank you. I have no doubt you find the sight of my dear face asrefreshing as your favorite cocktail. I suppose that is why it hastaken you three days after your return to reach me and then by specialrequest."
"A pleasure delayed is twice a pleasure anticipation and realization."
Miss Balfour made a different application of his text, her eyes trainedon him with apparent indifference. "I've been enjoying a delayedpleasure myself. I went to see her this afternoon."
He did not ask whom, but his eyes brightened.
"She's worth a good deal of seeing, don't you think?"
"Oh, I'm in love with her, but it doesn't follow you ought to be."
"Am I?"--he smiled.
"You are either in love or else you ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"An interesting thing about you is your point of view. Now, anybodyelse would tell me I ought to be ashamed if I am in love."
"I'm not worried about your morals," she scoffed. "It's that poor childI'm thinking of."
"I think of her a good deal, too."
"Ah! and does she think of you a good deal That's what we must guardagainst."
"Is it?"
"Yes. You see I'm her confidante." She told it him with sparkling eyes,for the piquancy of it amused her. Not every engaged young woman canhear her lover's praises sung by the woman whose life he has saved withthe proper amount of romance.
"Really?"
She nodded, laughing at him. "I didn't get a chance to tell her aboutme."
"I suppose not."
"I think I'll tell her about you, though--just what a ruthlessbarbarian you are."
His eyes gleamed "I wish you would. I'd like to find out whether shewould believe you. I have tried to tell her myself, but the honesttruth is, I funk it."
"You haven't any right to let her know you are interested in her." Sheinterrupted him before he could speak. "Don't trifle with her, Waring.She's not like other girls."
He met her look gravely. "I wouldn't trifle with her for any reason."
Her quick rejoinder overlapped his sentence. "Then you love her!"
"Is that an alternative?"
"With you--yes."
"Faith, my lady, you're frank!"
"I'm not mealy-mouthed. You don't think yourself scrupulous, do you?"
"I'm afraid I am not."
"I don't mind so much your being in love with HER, though it's notflattering to my vanity, but--" She stopped, letting him make theinference.
"Do you think that likely?" he asked, the color flushing his face.
He wondered how much Aline had told this confidante. Certain specificthings he knew she had not revealed, but had she let her guess thesituation between them?
She compromised with her conscience. "I don't know. She isromantic--and Simon Harley isn't a very fertile field for romance, Isuppose."
"You would imply?"
"Oh, you have points, and nobody knows them better than WaringRidgway," she told him jauntily. "But you needn't play that role to theaddress of Aline Harley. Try ME. I'm immune to romance. Besides, I'mengaged to you," she added, laughing at the inconsequence the factseemed to have for both of them.
"I'm afraid I can't help the situation, for if I've been playing apart, it has been an unconscious one."
"That's the worst of it. When you star as Waring Ridgway you are mostdangerous. What I want is total abstinence."
"You'd rather I didn't see her at all?"
Virginia dimpled, a gleam of reminiscent laughter in her eyes. "When Iwas in Denver last month a Mrs. Smythe--it was Smith before her husbandstruck it rich last year--sent out cards for a bridge afternoon. A Mrs.Mahoney had just come to the metropolis from the wilds of CrippleCreek. Her husband had struck a gold-mine, too, and Mr. Smythe wasunder obligations to him. Anyhow, she was a stranger, and Mrs. Smythetook her in. It was Mrs. Mahoney's introduction to bridge, and she didnot know she was playing for keeps. When the afternoon was over, Mrs.Smythe hovered about her with the sweetest sympathy. 'So sorry you hadsuch a horrid run of cards, dear. Better luck next time.' It took Mrs.Mahoney some time to understand that her social afternoon had cost onehundred and twenty dollars, but next day her husband sent a check forone hundred and twenty-two dollars to Mrs. Smythe. The extra twodollars were for the refreshments, he naively explained, adding thatsince his wife was so poor a gambler as hardly to be able to keepprofessionals interest
ed, he would not feel offended if Mrs. Smytheomitted her in future from her social functions."
Ridgway took it with a smile. "Simon Harley brought his one hundred andtwenty-two dollars in person."
"He didn't! When?"
"This morning. He proposed benevolent assimilation as a solution of ourtroubles."
"Just how?"
"He offered to consolidate all the copper interests of the country andput me at the head of the resulting combine."
"If you wouldn't play bridge with Mrs. Harley?"
"Exactly."
"And you?"
"Declined to pledge myself."
She clapped her hands softly. "Well done, Waring Ridgway! There aretimes when you are magnificent, when I could put you on a pedestal, yougreat big, unafraid man. But you mustn't play with her, just the same."
"Why mustn't I?"
"For her sake."
He frowned past her into space, his tight-shut jaw standing outsaliently. "You're right, Virginia. I've been thinking so myself. I'llkeep off the grass," he said, at last.
"You're a good fellow," slipped out impulsively.
"Well, I know where there's another," he said. "I ought to think myselfa lucky dog."
Virginia lifted quizzical eyebrows. "Ought to! That tastes of duty.Don't let it come to that. We'll take it off if you like." She touchedthe solitaire he had given her.
"Ah, but I don't like"--he smiled.