CHAPTER V
As soon as he had passed from the view of the cabin door Aldous shortenedhis pace. He knew that never in his life had he needed to readjust himselfmore than at the present moment. A quarter of an hour had seen a completeand miraculous revolution within him. It was a change so unusual andapparently so impossible that he could not grasp the situation and the factall at once. But the truth of it swept over him more and more swiftly as hemade his way along the dark, narrow trail that led up to the Miette Plain.It was something that not only amazed and thrilled him. First--as in allthings--he saw the humour of it. He, John Aldous of all men, had utterlyobliterated himself, and for a _woman_. He had even gone so far as to offerthe sacrifice of his most important work. Frankly he had told Joanne thatshe interested him more just now than his book. Again he repeated tohimself that it had not been a surrender--but an obliteration. With a pairof lovely eyes looking quietly into him, he had wiped the slate clean ofthe things he had preached for ten years and the laws he had made forhimself. And as he came in sight of the big Otto tent, he found himselfsmiling, his breath coming quickly, strange voices singing within him.
He stopped to load and light his pipe before he faced Mrs. Otto, and heclouded himself in as much smoke as possible while he explained to herthat he had almost forced Joanne to stop at his cabin and eat partridgeswith him. He learned that the Tete Jaune train could not go on until thenext day, and after Mrs. Otto had made him take a loaf of fresh bread and acan of home-made marmalade as a contribution to their feast, he turned backtoward the cabin, trying to whistle in his old careless way.
The questions he had first asked himself about Joanne forced themselvesback upon him now with deeper import. Almost unconsciously he had revealedhimself to her. He had spread open for her eyes and understanding the pagewhich he had so long hidden. He had as much as confessed to her that shehad come to change him--to complete what he had only half created. It hadbeen an almost inconceivable and daring confession, and he believed thatshe understood him. More than that, she had read about him. She had readhis books. She knew John Aldous--the man.
But what did he know about her beyond the fact that her name was JoanneGray, and that the on-sweeping Horde had brought her into his life asmysteriously as a storm might have flung him a bit of down from a swan'sbreast? Where had she come from? And why was she going to Tete Jaune? Itmust be some important motive was taking her to a place like Tete Jaune,the rail-end, a place of several thousand men, with its crude muscle andbrawn and the seven passions of man. It was an impossible place for a youngand beautiful woman unprotected. If Joanne had known any one among theengineers or contractors, or had she possessed a letter of introduction tothem, the tense lines would not have gathered so deeply about the cornersof Aldous' mouth. But these men whose brains were behind the Horde--theengineers and the contractors--knew what women alone and unprotected meantat Tete Jaune. Such women floated in with the Horde. And Joanne was goingin with the Horde. There lay the peril--and the mystery of it.
So engrossed was Aldous in his thoughts that he had come very quietly tothe cabin door. It was Joanne's voice that roused him. Sweet and low shewas singing a few lines from a song which he had never heard.
She stopped when Aldous appeared at the door. It seemed to him that hereyes were a deeper, more wonderful blue as she looked up at him, andsmiled. She had found a towel for an apron, and was peeling potatoes.
"You will have some unusual excuses to make very soon," she greeted him."We had a visitor while you were gone. I was washing the potatoes when Ilooked up to find a pair of the fiercest, reddest moustaches I have everseen, ornamenting the doorway. The man had two eyes that seemed about tofall out when he saw me. He popped away like a rabbit--and--and--there'ssomething he left behind in his haste!"
Joanne's eyes were flooded with laughter as she nodded at the door. On thesill was a huge quid of tobacco.
"Stevens!" Aldous chuckled. "God bless my soul, if you frightened him intogiving up a quid of tobacco like that you sure _did_ startle him some!" Hekicked Stevens' lost property out with the toe of his boot and turned toJoanne, showing her the fresh bread and marmalade. "Mrs. Otto sent these toyou," he said. "And the train won't leave until to-morrow."
In her silence he pulled a chair in front of her, sat down close, andthrust the point of his hunting knife into one of the two remainingpotatoes.
"And when it does go I'm going with you," he added.
He expected this announcement would have some effect on her. As she jumpedup with the pan of potatoes, leaving the one still speared on the end ofhis knife, he caught only the corner of a bewitching smile.
"You still believe that I will be unable to take care of myself up at thisterrible Tete Jaune?" she asked, bending for a moment over the table. "Doyou?"
"No. You can care for yourself anywhere, Ladygray," he repeated. "But I amquite sure that it will be less troublesome for me to see that no insultsare offered you than for you to resent those insults when they come. TeteJaune is full of Quades," he added.
The smile was gone from her face when she turned to him. Her blue eyes werefilled with a tense anxiety.
"I had almost forgotten that man," she whispered. "And you mean that youwould fight for me--again?"
"A thousand times."
The colour grew deeper in her cheeks. "I read something about you once thatI have never forgotten, John Aldous," she said. "It was after you returnedfrom Thibet. It said that you were largely made up of two emotions--yourcontempt for woman and your love of adventure; that it would be impossiblefor you not to see a flaw in one, and that for the other--physicalexcitement--you would go to the ends of the earth. Perhaps it is this--yourdesire for adventure--that makes you want to go with me to Tete Jaune?"
"I am beginning to believe that it will be the greatest adventure of mylife," he replied, and something in his quiet voice held her silent. Herose to his feet, and stood before her. "It is already the GreatAdventure," he went on. "I feel it. And I am the one to judge. Until to-dayI would have staked my life that no power could have wrung from me theconfession I am going to make to you voluntarily. I have laughed at theopinion the world has held of me. To me it has all been a colossal joke. Ihave enjoyed the hundreds of columns aimed at me by excited women throughthe press. They have all asked the same question: Why do you not write ofthe good things in women instead of always the bad? I have never given theman answer. But I answer you now--here. I have not picked upon theweaknesses of women because I despise them. Those weaknesses--thedestroying frailties of womankind--I have driven over rough-shod throughthe pages of my books because I have always believed that Woman was the onething which God came nearest to creating _perfect_. I believe they shouldbe perfect. And because they have not quite that perfection which should betheirs I have driven the cold facts home as hard as I could. I have been afool and an iconoclast instead of a builder. This confession to you isproof that you have brought me face to face with the greatest adventure ofall."
The colour in her cheeks had centred in two bright spots. Her lips formedwords which came slowly, strangely.
"I guess--I understand," she said. "Perhaps I, too, would have been thatkind of an iconoclast--if I could have put the things I have thought intowritten words." She drew a deep breath, and went on, her eyes full uponhim, speaking as if out of a dream. "The Great Adventure--for you. Yes; andperhaps for both."
Her hands were drawn tightly to her breast. Something about her as shestood there, her back to the table, drew John Aldous to her side, forcedthe question from his lips: "Tell me, Ladygray--why are you going to TeteJaune?"
In that same strange way, as if her lips were framing words beyond theirpower to control, she answered:
"I am going--to find--my husband."