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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9c5fea --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69429 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69429) diff --git a/old/69429-0.txt b/old/69429-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0a3b644..0000000 --- a/old/69429-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,14553 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Perch of the Devil, by Gertrude -Atherton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Perch of the Devil - -Author: Gertrude Atherton - -Release Date: November 26, 2022 [eBook #69429] -Last Updated: December 26, 2022 - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by - University of California libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERCH OF THE DEVIL *** - - - - - - PERCH OF THE - DEVIL - - BY - GERTRUDE ATHERTON - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY - PUBLISHERS - - - - - _Copyright, 1914, by_ - FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY - - _All rights reserved, including that of translation into - foreign languages_ - - FOURTH PRINTING - - [Illustration: _August, 1914_] - - - - - TO - - MR. FRANK J. EDWARDS AND - MR. WILTON G. BROWN - - OF HELENA, MONTANA - - - - -PART I - - - - -PERCH OF THE DEVIL - - - - -PART I - - -I - -“The shining mountains,” said Gregory Compton softly, throwing back his -head, his eyes travelling along the hard bright outlines above the high -valley in which his ranch lay. “The shining mountains. That is what the -Indians called them before the white man came.” - -His wife yawned frankly. “Pity they don’t shine inside as well as -out--what we’ve got of ’em.” - -“Who knows? Who knows?” - -“We don’t. That’s the trouble.” - -But although she spoke tartly, she nestled into his arm, for she was -not unamiable, she had been married but sixteen months, and she was -still fond of her husband “in a way”; moreover, although she cherished -resentments open and secret, she never forgot that she had won a -prize “as men go.” Many girls in Butte[A] had wanted to marry Gregory -Compton, not only because he had inherited a ranch of eleven hundred -and sixty acres, but because, comprehensively, he was superior to the -other young men of his class. He had graduated from the High School -before he was sixteen; then after three years’ work on the ranch under -his unimaginative father, he had announced his intention of leaving the -State unless permitted to attend the School of Mines in Butte. The old -man, who by this time had taken note of the formation of his son’s jaw, -gave his consent rather than lose the last of his children; and for two -years and a semester Gregory had been the most brilliant figure in the -School of Mines. - -“Old Man Compton,” who had stampeded from his small farm in northern -New York in the sixties to meet with little success in the mines, but -more as a rancher, had been as typical a hayseed as ever punctuated -politics with tobacco juice in front of a corner grocery-store, but -had promised his wife on her death-bed that their son should have -“schooling.” Mrs. Compton, who had arrived in Montana soon after the -log house was built, was a large, dark, silent woman, whom none of -her distant neighbours had ever claimed to know. It was currently -believed in the New York village whence she came that in the early days -of the eighteenth century the sturdy Verrooy stock had been abruptly -crossed by the tribe of the Oneida. Ancient history in a new country -is necessarily enveloped in mist, but although the children she had -lost had been fair and nondescript like their father, her youngest, and -her only son, possessed certain characteristics of the higher type of -Indian. He was tall and lightly built, graceful, supple, swift of foot, -with the soft tread of the panther; and although his skin was no darker -than that of the average brunette, it acquired significance from the -intense blackness of his hair, the thin aquiline nose, the long, narrow -eyes, the severe and stolid dignity of expression even in his earlier -years. - -He had seemed to the girls of the only class he knew in Butte an -even more romantic figure than the heroes of their magazine fiction, -particularly as he took no notice of them until he met Ida Hook at a -picnic and surrendered his heart. - -Ida, forced by her thrifty mother to accept employment with a -fashionable dressmaker, and consumed with envy of the “West Siders” -whose measurements she took, did not hesitate longer than feminine -prudence dictated. Before she gave her hair its nightly brushing her -bold unpedantic hand had covered several sheets of pink note-paper with -the legend, “Mrs. Gregory Compton,” the while she assured herself there -was “no sweller name on West Broadway.” To do her justice, she also -thrilled with young passion, for more than her vanity had responded -to the sombre determined attentions of the man who had been the -indifferent hero of so many maiden dreams. Although she longed to be a -Copper Queen, she was too young to be altogether hard; and, now that -her hour was come, every soft enchantment of her sex awoke to bind and -blind her mate. - -Gregory Compton’s indifference to women had been more pretended than -real, although an occasional wild night on The Flat had interested him -far more than picnics and dances where the girls used no better grammar -than the “sporting women” and were far less amusing. He went to this -picnic to please his old school friend, Mark Blake, and because Nine -Mile Cañon had looked very green and alluring after the June rains when -he had ridden through it alone the day before. The moment he stood -before Ida Hook, staring into the baffling limpid eyes, about which -heavy black lashes rose and fell and met and tangled and shot apart in -a series of bedevilling manœuvres, he believed himself to be possessed -by that intimate soul-seeking desire that nothing but marriage can -satisfy. He kept persistently at her side, his man’s instinct prompting -the little attentions women value less than they demand. He also took -more trouble to interest her verbally than was normal in one whom -nature had prompted to silence, and he never would learn the rudiments -of small talk; but his brain was humming in time with his eager -awakened pulses, and Ida was too excited and exultant to take note of -his words. “It was probably about mines, anyway,” she confided to her -friends, Ruby and Pearl Miller. “Nobody talks about anything else long -in this old camp.” - -Gregory’s infatuation was by no means reduced by the fact that no less -than six young men contended for the favour of Miss Hook. She was the -accredited beauty of Butte, for even the ladies of the West Side had -noticed and discussed her and hoped that their husbands and brothers -had not. It was true that her large oval blue-grey eyes, set like -Calliope’s, were as shallow as her voice; but the lids were so broad -and white, and the lashes so silky and oblique, that the critical -faculty of man was drugged, if dimly prescient. Her cheeks were a -trifle too full, her nose of a type unsung in marble; but what of that -when her skin was as white as milk, the colour in cheek and lips of a -clear transparent coral, that rarest and most seductive of nature’s -reds, her little teeth enamelled like porcelain? And had she not every -captivating trick, from active eyelash to the sudden toss of her small -head on its long round throat, even to the dilating nostril which made -her nose for the moment look patrician and thin! Her figure, too, with -its boyish hips, thin flexible waist, and full low bust, which she -carried with a fine upright swing, was made the most of in a collarless -blouse, closely fitting skirt, and narrow dark belt. - -Miss Hook, although her expression was often wide-eyed and innocent, -was quite cynically aware of her power over the passions of men. More -than one man of high salary or recent fortune had tried to “annex” -her, as she airily put it; her self-satisfaction and the ever-present -sophistications of a mining town saving her from anything so gratuitous -as outraged maidenhood. - -The predatory male and his promises had never tempted her, and it -was her boast that she had never set foot in the road houses of The -Flat. She had made up her mind long since to live on the West Side, -the fashionable end of Butte, and was wise enough, to quote her own -words, to know that the straight and narrow was the only direct route. -Ambition, her sleepless desire to be a grand dame (which she pronounced -without any superfluous accent), was stronger than vanity or her -natural love of pleasure. By the ordinary romantic yearnings of her -age and sex she was unhampered; but when she met Gregory Compton, she -played the woman’s game so admirably the long day through that she -brushed her heavy black hair at night quite satisfied he would propose -when she gave him his chance. This she withheld for several days, it -being both pleasant and prudent to torment him. He walked home with her -every afternoon from the dressmaking establishment on North Main Street -to her mother’s cottage in East Granite, to be dismissed at the gate -coyly, reluctantly, indifferently, but always with a glance of startled -wonder from the door. - -In the course of the week she gave him to understand that she should -attend the Friday Night dance at Columbia Gardens, and expected him to -escort her. Gregory, who by this time was reduced to a mere prowling -instinct projected with fatal instantaneity from its napping ego, was -as helpless a victim as if born a fool. He thought himself the most -fortunate of men to receive permission to sit beside her on the open -car during the long ride to the Gardens, to pay for the greater number -of her waltzes, to be, in short, her beau for the night. - -The evening of Friday at Columbia Gardens is Society Night for all -respectable Butte, irrespective of class; the best floor and the -airiest hall in Silver Bow County proving an irresistible incentive to -democracy. Moreover, Butte is a city of few resources, and the Gardens -at night look like fairyland: the immense room is hung with Chinese -lanterns depending from the rafters, the music is the best in Montana; -and the richer the women, the plainer their frocks. A sort of informal -propriety reigns, and millionaire or clerk pays ten cents for the -privilege of dancing with his lady. - -Ida, who had expended five of her hard-earned dollars on a bottle -of imported perfume, wore a white serge suit cut as well as any in -“the grand dame bunch.” After the sixth waltz she draped her head and -shoulders with a coral-pink scarf and led Gregory, despite the chill of -June, out to his willing fate. The park was infested by other couples, -walking briskly to keep themselves warm, and so were the picnic grounds -where the cottonwoods and Canadian poplars were being coaxed to grow, -now that the smelters which had reduced the neighbourhood of Butte to -its bones had been removed to Anaconda. - -But farther up the cañon no one but themselves adventured, and here -Gregory was permitted to ask this unique creature, provided with a new -and maddening appeal to the senses, to renounce her kingdom and live on -a ranch. - -It was all very crude, even to the blatant moon, which in the thin -brilliant atmosphere of that high altitude swings low with an almost -impudent air of familiarity, and grins in the face of sentiment. -But to Gregory, who was at heart passionate and romantic, it was a -soul-quickening scene: the blazing golden disk poised on the very crest -of the steep mountain before them, the murmur of water, the rustling -young leaves, the deep-breasted orientally perfumed woman with the -innocent wondering eyes. The moon chuckled and reminded his exacting -mistress, Nature, that were he given permission to scatter some of his -vast experience instead of the seductive beams that had accumulated -it, this young man with his natural distinction of mind, and already -educated beyond his class, would enjoy a sudden clarity of vision and -perceive the defects of grammar and breeding in this elemental siren -with nothing but Evian instincts to guide her. - -But the dutiful old search-light merely whipped up the ancestral -memories in Gregory’s subconscious brain; moreover, gave him courage. -He made love with such passion and tenderness that Ida, for once -elemental, clung to him so long and so ardently that the grinning -moon whisked off his beam in disgust and retired behind a big black -cloud--which burst shortly afterwards and washed out the car tracks. - -They were married in July, and Mrs. Hook, who had worked for forty -years at tub and ironing-board, moved over to the dusty cemetery in -September, at rest in the belief not only that her too good-looking -daughter was safely “planted,” but was a supremely happy woman. - -Ida’s passion, however, had been merely a gust of youth, fed by -curiosity and gratified ambition; it quickly passed in the many -disappointments of her married life. Gregory had promised her a -servant, but no “hired girl” could be induced to remain more than a -week on the lonely De Smet Ranch; and Mrs. Compton’s temper finding -its only relief in one-sided quarrels with her Chinese cooks, even the -philosophical Oriental was prone to leave on a moment’s notice. There -were three hired men and three in the family, after John Oakley came, -to cook and “clean up” for, and there were weeks at a time when Ida -was obliged to rise with the dawn and occupy her large and capable but -daintily manicured hands during many hours of the day. - -Gregory’s personality had kindled what little imagination she had -into an exciting belief in his power over life and its corollary, the -world’s riches. Also, having in mind the old Indian legend of the great -chief who had turned into shining gold after death and been entombed in -what was now known prosaically as the De Smet Ranch, she had expected -Gregory to “strike it rich” at once. - -But although there were several prospect holes on the ranch, dug -by Gregory in past years, he had learned too much, particularly of -geology, during his two years at the School of Mines to waste any more -time digging holes in the valley or bare portions of the hills. If a -ledge existed it was beneath some tangle of shrub or tree-roots, and he -had no intention of denuding his pasture until he was prepared to sell -his cattle. - -He told her this so conclusively a month after they were married that -she had begged him to raise sugar beets and build a factory in Butte -(which he would be forced to superintend), reminding him that the only -factory in the State was in the centre of another district and near -the southern border, and that sugar ranged from six to seven dollars a -hundredweight. He merely laughed at this suggestion, although he was -surprised at her sagacity, for, barring a possible democratic victory, -there was room for two beet-sugar factories in Montana. But he had -other plans, although he gave her no hint of them, and had no intention -of complicating his life with an uncongenial and exacting business. - -By unceasing personal supervision he not only made the ranch profitable -and paid a yearly dividend to his three aunts, according to the terms -of his father’s will, but for the last two years, after replacing or -adding to his stock, he had deposited a substantial sum in the bank, -occasionally permitting his astute friend, Mark Blake, to turn over a -few hundreds for him on the stock-market. This was the heyday of the -American farmer, and the De Smet cattle brought the highest prices -in the stock-yards for beef on the hoof. He also raised three crops -of alfalfa a year to insure his live stock against the lean days of -a Rocky Mountain winter. He admitted to Ida that he could afford to -sink a shaft or drive a tunnel in one of his hills, but added that -he should contemplate nothing of the sort until he had finished his -long-delayed course in the School of Mines, and had thousands to throw -away on development work, miners, and machinery. At this time he saw no -immediate prospect of resuming the studies interrupted by the death of -his father: until John Oakley came, eight months after his marriage, he -knew of no foreman to trust but himself. - -Ida desired the life of the city for other reasons than its luxuries -and distractions. Her fallow brain was shrewd and observing, although -often crude in its deductions. She soon realised that the longer she -lived with her husband the less she understood him. Like all ignorant -women of any class she cherished certain general estimates of men, -and in her own class it was assumed that the retiring men were weak -and craven, the bold ones necessarily lacking in that refinement upon -which their young lady friends prided themselves. Ida had found that -Gregory, bold as his wooing had been, and arrogantly masculine as he -was in most things, not only had his shynesses but was far more refined -and sensitive than herself. She was a woman who prided herself upon -her theories, and disliked having them upset; still more not knowing -where she was at, to use her own spirited vernacular. She began to -be haunted by the fear of making some fatal mistake, living, as she -did, in comparative isolation with him. Not only was her womanly -pride involved, as well as a certain affection born of habit and -possible even to the selfish, rooted as it is in the animal function -of maternity, but she had supreme faith in his future success and was -determined to share it. - -She was tired, however, of attempting to fathom the intense reserves -and peculiarities of that silent nature, of trying to live up to him. -She was obliged to resort to “play-acting”; and, fully aware of her -limitations, despite her keen self-appreciation, was in constant fear -that she would “make a grand mess of it.” Gregory’s eyes could be very -penetrating, and she had discovered that although he never told funny -stories, nor appeared to be particularly amused at hers, he had his own -sense of humour. - - - - -II - - -The young couple stood together in the dawn, the blue dawn of Montana. -The sky was as cold and bright as polished silver, but the low soft -masses of cloud were blue, the glittering snow on the mountain peaks -was blue, the smooth snow fields on the slopes and in the valley were -blue. Nor was it the blue of azure or of sapphire, but a deep lovely -cool polaric blue, born in the inverted depths of Montana, and forever -dissociated from art. - -It was an extramundane scene, and it had drawn Gregory from his bed -since childhood, but to Ida, brought up in a town, and in one whose -horizons until a short while ago had always been obscured by the -poisonous haze of smelters, and ores roasted in the open, it was -“weird.” Novels had informed her that sunrises were pink, or, at the -worst, grey. There was something mysterious in this cold blue dawn up -in the snow fields, and she hated mystery. But as it appeared to charm -Gregory, she played up to him when he “dragged” her out to look at it; -and she endeavoured to do so this morning although her own ego was -rampant. - -Gregory drew her closer, for she still had the power to enthrall him -at times. He understood the resources within her shallows as little -as she understood his depths, but although her defects in education -and natural equipment had long since appalled him, he was generally -too busy to think about her, and too masculine to detect that she was -playing a part. This morning, although he automatically responded to -her blandishments, he was merely sensible of her presence, and his -eyes, the long watchful eyes of the Indian, were concentrated upon the -blue light that poured from the clouds down upon the glistening peaks. -Ida knew that this meant he was getting ready to make an announcement -of some sort, and longed to shake it out of him. Not daring to outrage -his dignity so far, she drew the fur robe that enveloped them closer -and rubbed her soft hair against his chin. It was useless to ask him -to deliver himself until he was “good and ready”, but the less direct -method sometimes prevailed. - -Suddenly he came out with it. - -“I’ve made up my mind to go back to the School.” - -“Back to school--are you loony?” - -“The School of Mines, of course. I can enter the Junior Class where -I left off; earlier in fact, as I had finished the first semester. -Besides, I’ve been going over all the old ground since Oakley came.” - -“Is that what’s in all them books.” - -“Those, dear.” - -“Those. Mining Engineer’s a lot sweller than rancher.” - -“Please don’t use that word.” - -“Lord, Greg, you’re as particular as if you’d been brought up in Frisco -or Chicago, instead of on a ranch.” - -He laughed outright and pinched her ear. “I use a good deal of slang -myself--only, there are some words that irritate me--I can hardly -explain. It doesn’t matter.” - -“Greg,” she asked with sudden suspicion, “why are you goin’ in for a -profession? Have you given up hopes of strikin’ it rich on this ranch?” - -“Oh, I shall never relinquish that dream.” He spoke so lightly that -even had she understood him better she could not have guessed that the -words leapt from what he believed to be the deepest of his passions. -“But what has that to do with it? If there is gold on the ranch I shall -be more likely to discover it when I know a great deal more about -geology than I do now, and better able to mine it cheaply after I have -learned all I can of milling and metallurgy at the School. But that is -not the point. There may be nothing here. I wish to graduate into a -profession which not only attracts me more than any other, but in which -the expert can always make a large income. Ranching doesn’t interest -me, and with Oakley to----” - -“What woke you up so sudden?” - -“I have never been asleep.” But he turned away his head lest she see -the light in his eyes. “Oakley gives me my chance to get out, that is -all. And I am very glad for your sake----” - -“Aw!” Her voice, ringing out with ecstasy, converted the native -syllable into music. “It means we are goin’ to live in Butte!” - -“Of course.” - -“And I was so took--taken by surprise it never dawned on me till this -minute. Now what do you know about that?” - -“We shall have to be very quiet. I cannot get my degree until a year -from June--a year and seven months from now. I shall study day and -night, and work in the mines during the winter and summer vacations. I -cannot take you anywhere.” - -“Lord knows it can’t be worse’n this. I’ll have my friends to talk to -and there’s always the movin’ picture shows. Lord, how I’d like to see -one.” - -“Well, you shall,” he said kindly. “I wrote to Mark some time ago and -asked him to give the tenant of the cottage notice. As this is the -third of the month it must be empty and ready for us.” - -“My goodness gracious!” cried his wife with pardonable irritation, “but -you are a grand one for handin’ out surprises! Most husbands tell their -wives things as they go along, but you ruminate like a cow and hand -over the cud when you’re good and ready. I’m sick of bein’ treated as -if I was a child.” - -“Please don’t look at it in that way. What is the use of talking about -things until one is quite sure they can be accomplished?” - -“That’s half the fun of bein’ married,” said Ida with one of her -flashes of intuition. - -“Is it?” Gregory turned this over in his mind, then, out of his own -experience, rejected it as a truism. He could not think of any subject -he would care to discuss with his wife; or any other woman. But he -kissed her with an unusual sense of compunction. “Perhaps I liked the -idea of surprising you,” he said untruthfully. “You will be glad to -live in Butte once more?” - -“You may bet your bottom dollar on that. When do we go?” - -“Tomorrow.” - -“_Lands_ sakes! Well, I’m dumb. And breakfast has to be got if I _have_ -had a bomb exploded under me. That Chink was doin’ fine when I left, -but the Lord knows----” - -She walked toward the rear of the house, temper in the swing of her -hips, her head tossed high. Although rejoicing at the prospect of -living in town, she was both angry and vaguely alarmed, as she so often -had been before, at the unimaginable reserves, the unsuspected mental -activities, and the sudden strikings of this life-partner who should -have done his thinking out loud. - -“Lord knows,” thought Mrs. Compton, as she approached her kitchen, with -secret intent to relieve her feelings by “lambasting” the Mongolian and -leaving Oakley to shift for himself, “it’s like livin’ with that there -Sphinx. I don’t s’pose I’ll ever get used to him, and maybe the time’ll -come when I won’t want to.” - - - - -III - - -Gregory stood for some time longer, leaning on the gate and waiting -for the red fire to rise above the crystal mountains. He was eager for -the morrow, not only because he longed to be at the foundation stones -of his real life but because his mind craved the precise training, the -logical development, the intoxicating sense of expansion which he had -missed and craved incessantly during the six years that had elapsed -since he had been torn from the School of Mines. Moreover, his heart -was light; at last he was able to shift the great responsibilities of -his ranch to other shoulders. - -Some six months since, his friend, Mark Blake, had recommended to him -a young man who not only had graduated at the head of his class in -the State College of Agriculture, but had served for two years on one -of the State Experimental Farms. “What he don’t know about scientific -farming, dry, intensive, and all the rest, isn’t worth shucks, old -man,” Blake had written. “He’s as honest as they come, and hasn’t a red -to do the trick himself, but wants to go on a ranch as foreman, and -farm wherever there’s soil of a reasonable depth. Of course he wants a -share of the profits, but he’s worth it to you, for the Lord never cut -you out for a rancher or farmer, well as you have done. What you want -is to finish your course and take your degree. Try Oakley out for six -months. There’ll be only one result. You’re a free man.” - -The contract had been signed the day before. But Oakley had been a -welcome guest in the small household for more than practical reasons. -Until the night of his advent, when the two men sat talking until -daylight, Gregory had not realised the mental isolation of his married -life. Like all young men he had idealised the girl who made the first -assault on his preferential passion; but his brain was too shrewd, -keen, practical, in spite of its imaginative area, to harbor illusions -beyond the brief period of novelty. It had taken him but a few weeks -to discover that although his wife had every charm of youth and sex, -and was by no means a fool, their minds moved on different planes, far -apart. He had dreamed of the complete understanding, the instinctive -response, the identity of tastes, in short of companionship, of the -final routing of a sense of hopeless isolation he had never lost -consciousness of save when immersed in study. - -Ida subscribed for several of the “cheapest” of the cheap magazines, -and, when her Mongolians were indulgent, rocked herself in the -sitting-room, devouring the factory sweets and crude mental drugs with -much the same spirit that revelled above bargain counters no matter -what the wares. She “lived” for the serials, and attempted to discuss -the “characters” with her husband and John Oakley. But the foreman was -politely intolerant of cheap fiction, Gregory open in his disgust. - -He admitted unequivocally that he had made a mistake, but assuming -that most men did, philosophically concluded to make the best of it; -women, after all, played but a small part in a man’s life. He purposed, -however, that she should improve her mind, and would have been glad -to move to Butte for no other reason. He had had a sudden vision one -night, when his own mind, wearied with study, drifted on the verge -of sleep, of a lifetime on a lonely ranch with a woman whose brain -deteriorated from year to year, her face faded and vacuous, save when -animated with temper. If the De Smet Ranch proved to be mineralised, -Oakley, his deliverer, would not be forgotten. - -He moved his head restlessly, his glance darting over as much of his -fine estate as it could focus, wondering when it would give up its -secrets, in other words, its gold. He had never doubted that it winked -and gleamed, and waited for him below the baffling surfaces of his -land. Not for millions down would he have sold his ranch, renounced the -personal fulfilment of that old passionate romance. - -Gregory Compton was a dreamer, not in the drifting and aimless -fashion of the visionary, but as all men born with creative powers, -practical or artistic, must be. Indeed, it is doubtful if the artistic -brain--save possibly where the abnormal tracts are musical in the -highest sense--ever need, much less develop, that leaping vision, that -power of visualising abstract ideas, of the men whose gifts for bold -and original enterprise enable them to drive the elusive wealth of the -world first into a corner, then into their own pockets. - -When one contemplates the small army of men of great wealth in the -world today, and, just behind, that auxiliary regiment endowed with the -talent, the imagination, and the grim assurance necessary to magnetise -the circulating riches of our planet; contemptuous of those hostile -millions, whose brains so often are of unleavened dough, always devoid -of talent, envious, hating, but sustained by the conceit which nature -stores in the largest of her reservoirs to pour into the vacancies of -the minds of men; seldom hopeless, fooling themselves with dreams of -a day when mere brute numbers shall prevail, and (human nature having -been revolutionised by a miracle) all men shall be equal and content to -remain equal;--when one stands off and contemplates these two camps, -the numerically weak composed of the forces of mind, the other of the -unelectrified yet formidable millions, it is impossible to deny not -only the high courage and supernormal gifts of the little army of -pirates, but that, barring the rapidly decreasing numbers of explorers -in the waste places of the earth, in them alone is the last stronghold -of the old adventurous spirit that has given the world its romance. - -The discontented, the inefficient, the moderately successful, the -failures, see only remorseless greed in the great money makers. Their -temper is too personal to permit them to recognise that here are the -legitimate inheritors of the dashing heroes they enjoy in history, -the bold and ruthless egos that throughout the ages have transformed -savagery into civilisation, torpor into progress, in their pursuit -of gold. That these “doing” buccaneers of our time are the current -heroes of the masses, envious or generous in tribute, the most welcome -“copy” of the daily or monthly press, is proof enough that the spirit -of adventure still flourishes in the universal heart, seldom as modern -conditions permit its expansion. For aught we know it may be this -old spirit of adventure that inspires the midnight burglar and the -gentlemen of the road, not merely the desire for “easy money.” But -these are the flotsam. The boldest imaginations and the most romantic -hearts are sequestered in the American “big business” men of today. - -Gregory Compton had grown to maturity in the most romantic subdivision -of the United States since California retired to the position of a -classic. Montana, her long winter surface a reflection of the beautiful -dead face of the moon, bore within her arid body illimitable treasure, -yielding it from time to time to the more ardent and adventurous of her -lovers. Gold and silver, iron, copper, lead, tungsten, precious and -semi-precious stones--she might have been some vast heathen idol buried -aeons ago when Babylon was but a thought in the Creator’s brain, and -the minor gods travelled the heaving spaces to immure their treasure, -stolen from rival stars. - -Gregory had always individualised as well as idealised his state, -finding more companionship in her cold mysteries than in the unfruitful -minds of his little world. His youthful dreams, when sawing wood or -riding after cattle, had been alternately of desperate encounters with -Indians and of descending abruptly into vast and glittering corridors. -The creek on the ranch had given up small quantities of placer gold, -enough to encourage “Old Compton,” least imaginative of men, to use his -pick up the side of the gulch, and even to sink a shaft or two. But he -had wasted his money, and he had little faith in the mineral value of -the De Smet Ranch or in his own luck. He was a thrifty, pessimistic, -hard-working, down-east Presbyterian, whose faith in predestination had -killed such roots of belief in luck as he may have inherited with other -attributes of man. He sternly discouraged his son’s hopes, which the -silent intense boy expressed one day in a sudden mood of fervour and -desire for sympathy, bidding him hang on to the live stock, which were -a certain sure source of income, and go out and feed hogs when he felt -onsettled like. - -He died when Gregory was in the midst of his Junior year in the School -of Mines, and the eager student was obliged to renounce his hope of a -congenial career, for the present, and assume control of the ranch. -It was heavily mortgaged; his father’s foreman, who had worked on the -ranch since he was a lad, had taken advantage of the old man’s failing -mind to raise the money, as well as to obtain his signature to the sale -of more than half the cattle. He had disappeared with the concrete -result a few days before Mr. Compton’s death. - -It was in no serene spirit that Gregory entered upon the struggle -for survival at the age of twenty-one. Bitterly resenting his abrupt -divorce from the School of Mines, which he knew to be the gateway to -his future, and his faith in mankind dislocated by the cruel defection -of one whom he had liked and trusted from childhood, he seethed under -his stolid exterior while working for sixteen hours a day to rid the -ranch of its encumbrance and replace the precious cattle. But as -the greater part of this time was spent out of doors he outgrew the -delicacy of his youth and earlier manhood, and, with red blood and -bounding pulses, his bitterness left him. - -He began to visit Butte whenever he could spare a few days from the -ranch, to “look up” as his one chum, Mark Blake, expressed it; so -that by the time he married he knew the life of a Western mining -town--an education in itself--almost as well as he knew the white and -silent spaces of Montana. With the passing of brooding and revolt his -old dreams revived, and he spent, until he married, many long days -prospecting. He had found nothing until a few weeks ago, early in -October, and then the discovery, such as it was, had been accidental. - -There had been a terrific wind storm, beginning shortly after sundown, -reaching at midnight a velocity of seventy-two miles an hour, and -lasting until morning; it had been impossible to sleep or to go out of -doors and see to the well-being of the cattle. - -The wind was not the Chinook, although it came out of the west, for -it was bitterly cold. Two of the house windows facing the storm were -blown in and the roof of a recent addition went off. As such storms are -uncommon in Montana, even Gregory was uneasy, fearing the house might -go, although it had been his father’s boast that not even an earthquake -could uproot it. After daybreak the steady fury of the storm ceased. -There was much damage done to the outbuildings, but, leaving Oakley to -superintend repairs, Gregory mounted his horse and rode over the ranch -to examine the fences and brush sheds. The former were intact, and the -cattle were huddled in their shelters, which were built against the -side of a steep hill. A few, no doubt, had drifted before the storm, -but would return in the course of the day. Here and there a pine tree -had been blown over, but the winter wheat and alfalfa were too young to -be injured. - -He rode towards the hill where the wind had done its most conspicuous -damage. It was a long steep hill of granite near the base and grey -limestone above topped with red shales, and stood near the northeast -corner of the ranch. Its rigid sides had been relieved by a small grove -of pines; but although in spring it was gay with anemones and primrose -moss, and green until late in July, there was nothing on its ugly -flanks at this time of the year but sunburnt grass. - -The old pines had clung tenaciously to the inhospitable soil for -centuries, but some time during the night, still clutching a mass of -earth and rock in their great roots, they had gone down before the -storm. - -Gregory felt a pang of distress; in his boyhood that grove of pines -had been his retreat; there he had dreamed his dreams, visualised the -ascending metals, forced upward from the earth’s magma by one of those -old titanic convulsions that make a joke of the modern earthquake, to -find a refuge in the long fissures of the cooler crust, or in the great -shattered zones. He knew something of geology and chemistry when he was -twelve, and he “saw” the great primary deposits change their character -as they were forced closer to the surface, acted upon by the acids of -air and water in the oxide zone. - -There he had lived down his disappointments, taken his dumb trouble -when his mother died; and he had found his way blindly to the dark -little grove after his father’s funeral and he had learned the wrong -that had been done him. - -He had not gone there since. He had been busy always, and lost the -habit. But now he remembered, and with some wonder, for it was the one -ugly spot on the ranch, save in its brief springtime, that once it had -drawn his feet like a magnet. Hardly conscious of the act, he rode to -the foot of the hill, dismounted and climbed towards the grove which -had stood about fifty feet from the crest. - -The ruin was complete. The grove, which once may have witnessed ancient -rites, was lying with its points in the brown grass. Its gaunt roots, -packed close with red earth and pieces of rock, seemed to strain upward -in agonised protest. Men deserted on the battlefield at night look -hardly more stricken than a tree just fallen. - -As Gregory approached his old friends his eyes grew narrower and -narrower; his mind concentrated to a point as sharp and penetrating -as a needle. If the storm, now fitful, had suddenly returned to its -highest velocity he would not have known it. He walked rapidly behind -the vanquished roots and picked out several bits of rock that were -embedded in the earth. Then he knelt down and examined other pieces -of rock in the excavation where the trees had stood. Some were of a -brownish-yellow colour, others a shaded green of rich and mellow tints. -There was no doubt whatever that they were float. - -He sat down suddenly and leaned against the roots of the trees. Had -he found his “mine”? Float indicates an ore body somewhere, and as -these particles had been prevented from escaping by the roots of trees -incalculably old, it was reasonable to assume that the ores were -beneath his feet. - -His brain resumed its normal processes, and he deliberately gave his -imagination the liberty of its youth. The copper did not interest him, -but he stared at the piece of quartz in his hand as if it had been -a seer’s crystal. He saw great chambers of quartz flecked with free -gold, connected by pipes or shoots equally rich. Once he frowned, the -ruthlessly practical side of his intelligence reminding him that his -labours and hopes might be rewarded by a shallow pocket. But he brushed -the wagging finger aside. He could have sworn that he felt the pull of -the metals within the hill. - -He was tired and hungry, but his immediate impulse, as soon as he had -concluded that he had dreamed long enough, was to go for his tools and -run a cut. He sprang to his feet; but he had taken only a few steps -when he turned and stared at the gashed earth, his head a little on -one side in an attitude that always indicated he was thinking hard and -with intense concentration. Then he set his lips grimly, walked down -the steep hillside, mounted his horse, and rode home. In the course of -the afternoon he returned to the hill, picked all the pieces of float -from the soil between the tree-roots, and buried them, stamping down -the earth. A few days later there was a light fall of snow. He returned -once more to the hill, this time with two of his labourers, who cut up -the trees and hauled them away. For the present his possible treasure -vault was restored to the seclusion of its centuries. - -He had made up his mind that the ores should stay where they were -until he had finished his education in the School of Mines. He had -planned to finish that course, and what he planned he was in the habit -of executing. This was not the time for dreams, nor for prospecting, -but to learn all that the School could teach him. Then, if there -were valuable ore bodies in his hill he could be his own manager and -engineer. He knew that he had something like genius for geology, also -that many veins were lost through an imperfect knowledge (or sense) -of that science in mining engineers; on the other hand, that the -prospector, in spite of his much vaunted sixth sense, often failed, -where the hidden ores were concerned, through lack of scientific -training. He determined to train his own faculties as far as possible -before beginning development work on his hill. Let the prospector’s -fever get possession of him now and that would be the end of study. The -hill would keep. It was his. The ranch was patented. - -When he had finished the interment of the float he had taken a small -notebook from his pocket and inscribed a date: June the third, eighteen -months later. Not until that date would he even ride past his hill. - -Born with a strong will and a character endowed with force, -determination and a grimly passive endurance, it was his pleasure to -test and develop both. The process was satisfactory to himself but -sometimes trying to his friends. - -Until this morning he had not permitted his mind to revert to the -subject. But although the hill--Limestone Hill it was called in the -commonplace nomenclature of the country--was far away and out of the -range of his vision, he could conjure it up in its minutest external -detail, and he permitted himself this luxury for a few moments after -his wife had left him to a welcome solitude. On this hill were centred -all his silent hopes. - -If he had been greedy for riches alone he would have promoted a company -at once, if a cut opened up a chamber that assayed well, and reaped the -harvest with little or no trouble to himself. But nothing was farther -from his mind. He wanted the supreme adventure. He wanted to find the -ores with his own pick. After the adventure, then the practical use of -wealth. There was much he could do for his state. He knew also that in -one group of brain-cells, as yet unexplored, was the ambition to enter -the lists of “doing” men, and pit his wits against the best of them. -But he was young, he would have his adventure, live his dream first. -Not yet, however. - -The swift passing of his marital illusions had convinced him that the -real passion of his life was for Montana and the golden blood in her -veins. Placer mining never had interested him. He wanted to find his -treasure deep in the jealous earth. He assured himself as he stood -there in the blue dawn that it was well to be rid of love so early in -the game, free to devote himself, with no let from wandering mind and -mere human pulses, to preparation for the greatest of all romances, -the romance of mining. That he might ever crave the companionship of -one woman was as remote from his mind as the possibility of failure. -To learn all that man and experience could teach him of the science -that has been so great a factor in the world’s progress; to magnetise -a vast share of Earth’s riches, first for the hot work of the battle, -then for the power it would give him; to conquer life; these were a -few of the flitting dreams that possessed him as he watched the red -flame lick the white crests of the mountains, and the blue clouds turn -to crimson; his long sensitive lips folded closely, his narrow eyes -penetrating the mists of the future, neither seeing nor considering -its obstacles, its barriers, its disenchantments. Thrice happy are the -dreamers of the world, when their imaginations are creative, not a mere -maggot wandering through the brain hatching formless eggs of desire -and discontent. They are the true inheritors of the centuries, whether -they succeed or fail in the eyes of men; for they live in vivid silent -intense drama as even they have no power to live and enjoy in mortal -conditions. - - - - -IV - - -The Comptons were quickly settled in the little cottage in East Granite -Street, for as Mrs. Hook’s furniture was solid Ida had not sold it. -There was little to do, therefore, but repaper the walls, build a -bathroom, furnish a dining-room, send the parlour furniture to the -upholsterers--Ida had had enough of horsehair--and chattel the kitchen. - -Ida had several virtues in which she took a vocal pride, and not the -least of these was housekeeping in all its variety. The luxurious -side of her nature might revel in front parlours, trashy magazines, -rocking-chairs and chewing-gum, but she never indulged in these orgies -unless her house were in order. After her arrival in Butte it was quite -a month before she gave a thought to leisure. They spent most of this -time at a hotel, but Ida was out before the stores opened, and divided -her day between the workmen at the cottage, the upholsterer, and the -bargain counter. She was “on the job” every minute until the cottage -was “on wheels.” Her taste was neither original nor artistic, but she -had a rude sense of effect, and a passion for what she called colour -schemes. She boasted to Gregory at night, when she had him at her mercy -at the hotel dinner-table, that although everything had to be cheap -except the kitchen furnishings, colours did not cost any more than -black or drab. When the cottage was in order, and they moved in, he saw -its transfigured interior for the first time. The bedroom was done in -a pink that set his teeth on edge, and the little parlour was papered, -upholstered, carpeted, cushioned in every known shade of red. - -“All you want is a chromo or two of Indian battlegrounds--just after,” -he remarked. - -Ida interrupted tartly: - -“Well, I should think you’d be grateful for the contrast to them -everlasting white or brown mountains. We don’t get away from them even -in town, now the smoke’s gone.” - -“One would think Montana had no springtime.” - -“Precious little. That’s the reason I’ve got a green dining-room.” - -Gregory, who had suffered himself to be pushed into an arm-chair, -looked at his wife speculatively, as she rocked herself luxuriously, -her eyes dwelling fondly on the magenta paper, the crimson curtains, -the turkey red and crushed strawberry cushions of the divan, the -blood-red carpet with its still more sanguinary pattern. What -blind struggle was going on in that uninstructed brain against the -commonplace, what seed of originality, perhaps, striving to shoot forth -a green tip from the hard crust of ignorance and conceit? - -He had made up his mind to suggest the tillage of that brain without -delay, but, knowing her sensitive vanity, cast about for a tactful -opening. - -“Do you really intend to do your own work?” he asked. “I am more than -willing to pay for a servant.” - -“Not much. I’m goin’ to begin to save up for the future right now. I’ll -put out the wash, but it’s a pity if a great husky girl like me can’t -cook for two and keep this little shack clean. You ain’t never goin’ to -be able to say I didn’t help you all I could.” - -Gregory glowed with gratitude as he looked at the beautiful face of has -wife, flushed with the ardour of the true mate. - -“You are all right,” he murmured. - -“The less we spend the quicker we’ll get rich,” pursued Mrs. Compton. -“I don’t mind this triflin’ work, but it would have made me sick to -stay much longer on that ranch workin’ away my youth and looks and -nothin’ to show for it. Now that you’ve really begun on somethin’ -high-toned and that’s bound to be a go, I just like the idea of havin’ -a hand in the job.” - -“Ah!-- Well-- If you have this faith in my power to make a fortune--if -you are looking forward to being a rich man’s wife, to put it -crudely--don’t you think you should begin to prepare yourself for the -position----” - -“Now what are you drivin’ at?” She sprang to her feet. Her eyes blazed. -Her hands went to her hips. “D’you mean to say I ain’t good enough? -I suppose you’d be throwin’ me over for a grand dame when you get -up in the world like some other millionaires we know of, let alone -politicians what get to thinkin’ themselves statesmen, and whose -worn-out old wives ain’t good enough for ’em. Well, take this from -me and take it straight--I don’t propose to wear out, and I don’t -propose----” - -“Sit down. I shall be a rich man long before you lose your beauty. Nor -have I any social ambitions. The world of men is all that interests me. -But with you it will be different----” - -“You may betcherlife it’ll be different--some! When I have a -cream-coloured pressed brick house with white trimmings over there in -Millionaire Gulch nobody’ll be too good for me.” - -“You shall live your life to suit yourself, in the biggest house in -Butte, if that is what you want. But there is more in it than that.” - -“Clothes, of course. _Gowns!_ And jewels, and New York--Lord! wouldn’t -I like to swell up and down Peacock Ally! And Southern California, and -Europe, and givin’ balls, and bein’ a member of the Country Club.” - -“All that, as a matter of course! But you would not be content with the -mere externals. Whether you know it or not, Ida, you are an ambitious -woman.” This was a mere gambler’s throw on Gregory’s part. He knew -nothing of her ambitions, and would have called them by another name if -he had. - -“Not know it? Well, you may just betcherlife I know it!” - -“But hardly where ambition leads. No sooner would you be settled in a -fine house, accustomed to your new toys, than you would want society. -I don’t mean that you would have any difficulty gaining admittance to -Butte society, for it is said that none in the world is more hospitable -and less particular. But whether you make _friends_ of the best people -here, much less become a leader, depends--well, upon several things----” - -“Fire away,” said Ida sulkily. “You must be considerable in earnest to -talk a blue streak!” - -“Business may take me to New York from time to time, but my home shall -remain here. I never intend to abandon my state and make a fool of -myself on New York’s doorstep as so many Montanans have done. Nail -up that fact and never forget it. Now, you would like to win an -unassailable position in your community, would you not?” - -“Yep.” - -Gregory abandoned tact. “Then begin at once to prepare yourself. You -must have a teacher and study--English, above all things.” - -“My Goo-r-rd!” She flushed almost purple. For the moment she hated him. -“I’ve always suspicioned you thought I wasn’t good enough for you, with -your graduatin’ from the High School almost while you was in short -pants, and them two years and over at that high-brow School of Mines; -and now you’re tellin’ me you’ll be ashamed of me the minute you’re on -top!” - -Gregory made another attempt at diplomacy. What his wife achieved -socially was a matter of profound indifference to him, but she must -reform her speech if his home life was to be endurable. - -“I am forcing my imagination to keep pace with your future triumphs,” -he said with the charming smile that disarmed even Ida when irate. “If -you are going to be a prominent figure in society----” - -“My land, you oughter heard the grammar and slang of some of the newest -West Siders when they were makin’ up their minds at Madame O’Reilley’s, -or havin’ their measures took. They don’t frighten me one little bit.” - -“There is a point. To lead them you must be their superior--and the -equal of those that have made the most of their advantages.” - -“That’s not such a bad idea.” - -“Think it over.” He rose, for he was tired of the conversation. “These -western civilisations are said to be crude, but I fancy they are the -world in little. Subtlety, a brain developed beyond the common, should -go far----” - -“Greg, you are dead right!” She had suddenly remembered that she must -play up to this man who held her ambitions in his hand, and she had the -wit to acknowledge his prospicience, little as were the higher walks of -learning to her taste. She sprang to her feet with a supple undulating -movement and flung herself into his arms. - -“I’ll begin the minute you find me a teacher,” she exclaimed. Then she -kissed him. “I’m goin’ to keep right along with you and make you proud -of me,” she murmured. “I’m crazy about you and always will be. Swear -right here you’ll never throw me over, or run round with a P’rox.” - -Gregory laughed, but held her off for a moment and stared into her -eyes. After all, might not study and travel and experience give depth -to those classic eyes which now seemed a mere joke of Nature? Was she -merely the natural victim of her humble conditions? Her father had -been a miner of a very superior sort, conservative and contemptuous of -agitators, but a powerful voice in his union and respected alike by men -and managers. Mrs. Hook had been a shrewd, hard-working, tight-fisted -little woman from Concord, who had never owed a penny, nor turned out -a careless piece of work. Both parents with education or better luck -might have taken a high position in any western community. He knew also -the preternatural quickness and adaptability of the American woman. But -could a common mind achieve distinction? - -Ida, wondering “what the devil he was thinking about,” nestled closer -and gave him a long kiss, her woman’s wisdom, properly attributed to -the serpent, keeping her otherwise mute. Gregory snatched her suddenly -to him and returned her kiss. The new hope revived a passion by no -means dead for this beautiful young creature, and for the hour he was -as happy as during his rosy honeymoon. - - - - -V - - -When the cottage was quite in order Mrs. Compton invited two of her old -friends to lunch. As the School of Mines was at the opposite end of the -city, Gregory took his midday meal with him. - -Miss Ruby Miller and her twin-sister Pearl were fine examples of the -self-supporting young womanhood of the West. Neither had struggled -in the extreme economic sense, although when launched they had -taken a man’s chances and asked no quarter. Born in a small town in -Illinois, their father, a provident grocer, had permitted each of his -daughters to attend school until her fifteenth year, then sent her -to Chicago to learn a trade. Ruby had studied the mysteries of the -hair, complexion, and hands; Pearl the science that must supplement -the knack for trimming hats. Both worked faithfully as apprentice and -clerk, saving the greater part of their earnings: they purposed to -set up for themselves in some town of the Northwest where money was -easier, opportunities abundant and expertness rare. What they heard -of Montana appealed to their enterprising minds, and, beginning with -cautious modesty, some four years before Ida’s marriage, Ruby was now -the leading hair-dresser and manicure of Butte, her pleasant address -and natural diplomacy assisting her competent hands to monopolise the -West Side custom; Pearl, although less candid and engaging, more frank -in reminding her customers of their natural deficiencies, was equally -capable; if not the leading milliner in that town of many milliners, -where even the miners’ wives bought three hats a season, she was -rapidly making a reputation among the feathered tribe. She now ranked -as one of the most successful of the young business women in a region -where success is ever the prize of the efficient. Both she and her -sister were as little concerned for their future as the metal hill of -Butte itself. - -“Well, what do you know about that?” they cried simultaneously, as Ida -ushered them into the parlour. “Say, it’s grand!” continued Miss Ruby -with fervour. “Downright artistic. Ide, you’re a wonder!” - -Miss Pearl, attuned to a subtler manipulation of colour, felt too happy -in this intimate reunion and the prospect of “home-cooking,” to permit -even her spirit to grin. “Me for red, kiddo,” she said. “It’s the -colour a hard workin’ man or woman wants at the end of the day--warm, -and comfortin’, and sensuous-like, and contrastin’ fine with dirty -streets and them hills. Glory be, but this chair’s comfortable! I -suppose it’s Greg’s.” - -“Of course. Luckily a woman don’t have the least trouble findin’ out a -man’s weak points, and Greg has a few, thank the goodness godness. But -come on to the dining-room. I’ve got fried chicken and creamed potatoes -and raised biscuit.” - -The guests shrieked with an abandon that proclaimed them the helpless -victims of the Butte restaurant or the kitchenette. The fried chicken -in its rich gravy, and the other delicacies, including fruit salad, -disappeared so rapidly that there was little chance for the play of -intellect until the two girls fled laughing to the parlour. - -“It’s all very well for Pearl,” cried Miss Ruby, disposing her plump -figure in Gregory’s arm-chair, and taking the pins from a mass of red -hair that had brought her many a customer; “for she’s the kind that’ll -never have to diet if she gets rich quick. I ought to be shassaying -round with my hands on my hips right now, but I won’t.” - -Miss Pearl extended herself on the divan, and Ida rocked herself with a -complacent smile. One of her vanities was slaked, and she experienced a -sense of immense relief in the society of these two old friends of her -own sort. - -“Say!” exclaimed Miss Miller, “if we was real swell, now, we’d be -smokin’ cigarettes.” - -“What!” cried Ida, scandalised. “No lady’d do such a thing. Say, I -forgot the gum.” - -She opened a drawer and flirted an oblong section of chewing-gum at -each of her guests, voluptuously inserting a morsel in the back of her -own mouth. “Where on earth have you seen ladies smokin’ cigarettes?” - -“You forget I’m in and out of some of our best families. In other words -them that’s too swell--or too lazy--to come to me, has me up to them. -And they’re just as nice--most of ’em--as they can be; no more airs -than their men, and often ask me to stay to lunch. I ain’t mentionin’ -no names, as I was asked not to, for you know what an old-fashioned -bunch there is in every Western town--well, they out with their gold -tips after lunch, and maybe you think they don’t know how. I have my -doubts as to their enjoyin’ it, for tobacco is nasty tastin’ stuff, and -I notice they blow the smoke out quicker’n they take it in. No inhalin’ -for them. But they like _doin’_ it; that’s the point. And I guess they -do it a lot at the Country Club and at some of the dinners where the -Old Guard ain’t asked. They smoke, and think it’s vulgar to chew gum! -We know it’s the other way round.” - -“Well, I guess!” exclaimed the young matron, who had listened to this -chronicle of high life with her mouth open. “What their husbands -thinkin’ about to permit such a thing! I can see Greg’s face if I lit -up.” - -“Oh, their husbands don’t care,” said Pearl, the cynic. “Not in that -bunch. They’re trained, and they don’t care, anyhow. Make the most of -Greg now, kiddo. When he strikes it rich, he’ll be just like the rest -of ’em, annexin’ right and left. Matter of principle.” - -“Principle nothing!” exclaimed Ruby, who, highly sophisticated as any -young woman earning her living in a mining town must be, was always -amiable in her cynicism. “It’s too much good food and champagne, to say -nothin’ of cocktails and highballs and swell club life after the lean -and hungry years. They’re just like kids turned loose in a candy store, -helpin’ themselves right and left with both hands. Dear old boys, -they’re so happy and so jolly you can’t help feelin’ real maternal over -’em, and spoilin’ ’em some more. I often feel like it, even when they -lay for me--they look so innocent and hungry-like; but others I could -crack over the ear, and I don’t say I haven’t. Lord, how a girl alone -does get to know men! I wouldn’t marry one of them if he’d give me the -next level of the Anaconda mine. Me for the lonesome!” - -“Well, I’m glad I’m married,” said Ida complacently. “The kind of life -I want you can only get through a husband. Greg’s goin’ to make money, -all right.” - -“Greg won’t be as bad as some,” said the wise Miss Ruby. “He’s got big -ideas, and as he don’t say much about ’em, he’s likely thinkin’ about -nothin’ else. At least that’s the way I figure him out. The Lord knows -I’ve seen enough of men. But you watch out just the same. Them long -thin ones that looks like they was all brains and jaw is often the -worst. They’ve got more nerves. The minute the grind lets up they begin -to look out for an adventure, wonderin’ what’s round the next corner. -Wives ain’t much at supplyin’ adventure----” - -“Well, let’s quit worryin’ about what ain’t happened,” said Miss Pearl -abruptly. Men did not interest her. “Will he take you to any of the -dances? That’s what I want to know. You’ve been put up and elected -to our new and exclusive Club. No more Coliseum Saturday Nights for -us--Race Track is a good name for it. We’ve taken a new little hall -over Murphy’s store for Saturday nights till the Gardens open up, and -we have real fun. No rowdyism. We leave that to the cut below. This -Club is composed of real nice girls and young men of Butte who are -workin’ hard at something high-toned and respectable, and frown hard on -the fast lot.” - -“Sounds fine. Perhaps Greg’ll go, though he studies half the night. Do -you meet at any other time? Is it one of them mind improvers, too?” - -“Nixie. We work all week and want fun when we get a few hours off. I -improve my mind readin’ myself to sleep every night----” - -“What do you read?” interrupted Ida, eagerly. - -“Oh, the mags, of course, and a novel now and then. But you don’t need -novels any more. The mags are wonders! They teach you all the life you -don’t know--all the way from lords to burglars. Then there’s the movin’ -pictures. Lord, but we have advantages our poor mothers never dreamed -of!” - -“Greg wants me to study with a teacher.” Ida frowned reminiscently and -fatidically. “He seems to think I didn’t get nothin’ at school.” - -“Well, what do you know about that?” gasped Miss Miller. Pearl removed -her gum with a dry laugh. - -“If a man insinuated I wasn’t good enough for him--” she began; Ruby, -whose quick mind was weather-wise, interrupted her. - -“Greg’s right. He’s got education himself and’s proved he don’t mean -to be a rancher all his life. What’s more, I’ve heard men say that -Gregory Compton is bound one way or another to be one of the big men of -Montana. He’s got the brains, he’s got the jaw, and he can outwork any -miner that ever struck, and no bad habits. Ide, you go ahead and polish -up.” - -“Why should I? I never could see that those bonanzerines were so much -better’n us, barring clothes.” - -“You don’t know the best of ’em, Ide. Madame O’Reilley was too gaudy -to catch any but the newest bunch. The old pioneer guard is fine, -and their girls have been educated all over this country and the -next. Lord! Look at Ora Blake! Where’d you beat her? In these new -Western towns it’s generally the sudden rich that move to New York to -die of lonesomeness, and nowhere to show their clothes but Peacock -Alley in the Waldorf-Astoria. The _real_ people keep their homes -here, if they are awful restless; and I guess the Society they make, -with their imported gowns and all, ain’t so very different from top -Society anywheres. Of course, human nature is human nature, and some -of the younger married women are sporty and take too much when a -bunch goes over to Boulder Springs for a lark, or get a crush on some -other woman’s husband--for want mostly of something to do; but their -grammar’s all right. I hope you’ll teach them a lesson when you’re on -top, Ide. Good American morals for me, like good American stories. -I always skip the Europe stories in the mags. Don’t seem modern and -human, somehow, after Butte.” - -“Now I like Europe stories,” said Ida, “just because they are so -different. The people in ’em ain’t walkin’ round over gold and copper -when they’re dishwashin’ or makin’ love, but their mines have been -turned centuries ago into castles and pictures and grand old parks. -There’s a kind of halo----” - -“Halo nothin’!” exclaimed Miss Pearl, who was even more aggressively -American than her sister. “It’s them ridiculous titles. And kings -and queens and all that antique lot. I despise ’em, and I’m dead -set against importin’ foreign notions into God’s own country. We’re -dyed-in-the-wool Americans--out West here, anyhow--including every last -one of them fools that’s buyin’ new notions with their new money. All -their Paris clothes _and_ hats, _and_ smokin’ cigarettes, _and_ loose -talk can’t make ’em anything else. Apin’ Europe and its antiquated -morals makes me sick to my stomach. Cut it out, kid, before you go any -further. Stand by your own country and it’ll stand by you.” - -“Well, I’ve got an answer to that. In the first place I’d like to -know where you’ll find more girls on the loose than right here in -Butte--and I don’t mean the sporting women, either. Why, I meet bunches -of schoolgirls every day so painted up they look as if they was fixin’ -right now to be bad; and as for these Eastern workin’ girls who come -out here after jobs, pretendin’ it’s less pressure and bigger pay -they’re after, when it’s really to turn loose and give human nature -a chance with free spenders--well, the way they hold down their jobs -and racket about all night beats me. None of _them’s_ been to Europe, -I notice, and I’d like to bet that the schoolgirls that don’t make -monkeys of themselves is the daughters of them that has.” - -“Oh, the schoolgirls is just plain little fools and no doubt has their -faces held under the spout for ’em when they get home. But as for the -Eastern girls, you hit it when you said they come out here to give -human nature a chance. Some girls is born bad, thousands and thousands -of them; and reformers might just as well try to grow strawberries in a -copper smelter as to make a girl run straight when she is lyin’ awake -nights thinkin’ up new ways of bein’ crooked. But the rotten girls in -this town are not the whole show. And lots of women that would never -think of goin’ wrong--don’t naturally care for that sort of thing a -bit--just get their minds so mixed up by too much sudden money, and -liberty, and too much high livin’ and too much Europe and too much -nothin’ to do, that they just don’t know where they’re at; and it isn’t -long either before they get to thinkin’ they’re not the dead swell -thing unless they do what the nobility of Europe seems to be doin’ all -the time----” - -“Shucks!” interrupted Ruby, indignantly. “It’s just them stories in the -shady mags, and the way our women talk for the sake of effect. There’s -bad in America and good in poor old Europe. I’ll bet my new hat on -it. Only, over there the good is out of sight under all that sportin’ -high life everybody seems to write about. Over here we’ve got a layer -of good on top as thick as cream, and every kind of germ swimmin’ -round underneath. Lord knows there are plenty of just females in this -town, of all towns, but the U. S. is all right because it has such -high standards. All sorts of new-fangled notions come and go but them -standards never budge. No other country has anything like ’em. Sooner -or later we’ll catch up. I’m great on settin’ the right example and I’m -dead set on uplift. That’s one reason we’re so strict about our Club -membership. Not one of them girls can get in, no matter how good her -job or how swell a dresser she is. And they feel it, too, you bet. The -line’s drawn like a barbed-wire fence.” - -“I guess you’re dead right,” admitted Ida. “And my morals ain’t in any -danger, believe me. I’ve got other fish to fry. I’ve had love’s young -dream and got over it. I’m just about dead sick of that side of life. -I’d cut it out and put it down to profit and loss, but you’ve got to -manage men every way nature’s kindly provided, and that’s all there is -to it.” - -“My land!” exclaimed Ruby. “If I felt that way about my husband I’d -leave him too quick.” - -“Oh, no, you wouldn’t. You can make up your mind to any old thing. -That’s life. And I guess life never holds out both hands full at once. -Either, one’s got a knife in it or it’s out of sight altogether.” - -Ruby snorted with disgust. “Once more I vow I’ll marry none of them. Me -for self-respect.” - -“Now as to Europe,” pursued Ida. “You’re just nothin’ till you’ve been, -both as to what you get, and sayin’ you’ve been there----” - -“Ida,” said Ruby, shaking her wise red head, “don’t you go leaving your -husband summers, like the rest. Men don’t get much chance to go to -Europe. They prefer little old New York, anyhow--when they get on there -alone. I wonder what ten thousand wives that go to Europe every summer -think their husbands are doin’? I haven’t manicured men for nine years -without knowin’ they need watchin’ every minute. Why, my lord! they’re -so tickled to death when summer comes round they can hardly wait to -kiss their wives good-bye and try to look lonesome on the platform. -They’d like to be down and kick up their heels right there at the -station. And I didn’t have to come to Butte to find that out.” - -“Greg’ll never run with that fast lot.” - -“No, but he might meet an affinity; and there’s one of _them_ lyin’ in -wait for every man.” - -Ida’s brow darkened. “Well, just let her look out for herself, that’s -all. I’ll hang on to Greg. But it ain’t time to worry yet. Let’s have a -game of poker.” - - - - -VI - - -Gregory, through the offices of his friend, Mark Blake, found a -teacher for Ida before the end of the week, Mr. William Cullen Whalen, -Professor of English in the Butte High School. - -Mr. Whalen’s present status was what he was in the habit of designating -as an ignominious anti-climax, considering his antecedents and -attainments; but he always dismissed the subject with a vague, -“Health--health--this altitude--this wonderful air--climate--not for me -are the terrible extremes of our Atlantic seaboard. Here a man may be -permitted to live, if not in the deeper sense--well, at least, there -are always one’s thoughts--and books.” - -He was a delicate little man as a matter of fact, but had East winds -and summer humidities been negligible he would have jumped at the -position found for him by a college friend who had gone West and -prospered in Montana. This friend’s letter had much to say about the -dry tonic air of winter, the cool light air of summer, the many hours -he would be able to pass in the open, thus deepening the colour of his -corpuscles, at present a depressing shade of pink; but even more about -a salary far in excess of anything lying round loose in the East. Mr. -Whalen, who, since his graduation from the college in his native town, -had knocked upon several historic portals of learning in vain, finding -himself invariably outclassed, had shuddered, but accepted his fate by -the outgoing mail. Of course he despised the West; and the mere thought -of a mining camp like Butte, which was probably in a drunken uproar -all the time, almost nauseated him. However, in such an outpost the -graduate of an Eastern college who knew how to wear his clothes must -rank high above his colleagues. It might be years before he could play -a similar rôle at home. So he packed his wardrobe, which included spats -and a silk hat, and went. - -Nature compensates even her comparative failures by endowing them with -a deathless self-conceit. Whalen was a man of small abilities, itching -ambition, all the education his brains could stand, and almost happy -in being himself and a Whalen. It was true that Fortune had grafted -him on a well-nigh sapless branch in a small provincial town, while -the family trunk flourished, green, pruned, and portly, in Boston, but -no such trifle could alter the fact that he was a Whalen, and destined -by a discriminating heredity to add to the small but precious bulk of -America’s literature. Although he found Butte a city of some sixty -thousand inhabitants, and far better behaved than he had believed could -be possible in a community employing some fifteen thousand miners, he -was still able to reassure himself that she outraged every sensibility. -He assured himself further that its lurid contrasts to the higher -civilisation would play like a search-light upon the theme for a novel -he long had had in mind: the subtle actions and reactions of the Boston -temperament. - -But that was three years ago, and meanwhile several things had happened -to him. He had ceased to wear his spats and silk hat in public after -their first appearance on Broadway; the newsboys, who were on strike, -had seen to that. He wrote his novel, and the _Atlantic Monthly_, -honored by the first place on his list, declined to give space to his -innocent plagiarisms of certain anæmic if literary authors now passing -into history. An agent sent the manuscript the rounds without avail, -but one of the younger editors had suggested that he try his hand at -Montana. He was more shocked and mortified at this proposition than -at the failure of his novel. Time, however, as well as the high cost -of living in Butte, lent him a grudging philosophy, and he digested -the advice. But his were not the eyes that see. The printed page was -his world, his immediate environment but a caricature of the subtle -realities. Nevertheless, he had what so often appears in the most -unlikely brains, the story-telling kink. Given an incident he could -work it up with an abundance of detail and “psychology,” easily -blue-pencilled, and a certain illusion. Condescend to translate his -present surroundings into the sacred realm of American fiction he would -not, but he picked the brains of old-timers for thrilling incidents of -the days when gold was found at the roots of grass, and the pioneers -either were terrorized by the lawless element or executed upon it a -summary and awful justice. Some of his tales were so blood-curdling, -so steeped in gore and horror, that he felt almost alive when writing -them. It was true that their market was the Sunday Supplement and the -more sensational magazines, whose paper and type made his soul turn -green; but the pay was excellent, and they had begun to attract some -attention, owing to the contrast between the fierceness of theme and -the neat precise English in which it was served. Butte valued him as a -counter-irritant to Mary McLane, and he became a professional diner-out. - -“Do you think he’ll condescend to tutor?” Gregory had asked of Blake. -Whalen was by no means unknown to him, but heretofore had been regarded -as a mere worm. - -“Sure thing. Nobody keener on the dollar than Whalen. He’ll stick you, -but he knows his business. He’s got all the words there are, puts ’em -in the right place, and tones ’em up so you’d hardly know them.” - - - - -VII - - -Ida was out when her prospective tutor called, and she was deeply -impressed by the card she found under the door: “Mr. William Cullen -Whalen,” it was inscribed. - -It was the custom of the gentlemen of her acquaintance to express -their sense of good fellowship even upon the formal pasteboard. “Mr. -Matt Dance,” “Mr. Phil Mott,” “Mr. Bill Jarvis,” the legends read. Ida -felt as if she were reciting a line from the Eastern creed as her lips -formed again and again the suave and labial syllables on her visitor’s -card. She promptly determined to order cards for her husband on the -morrow--he was so remiss as to have none--and they should be engraved, -in small Roman letters: “Mr. Gregory Verrooy Compton.” - -“And believe me,” she announced to her green dining-room, as she sat -down before her husband’s desk, “that is some name.” - -Her note to Professor Whalen, asking him to call on the following -afternoon at two o’clock, was commendably brief, so impatient was she -to arrive at the signature, “Mrs. Gregory Verrooy Compton;” little -conceiving the effect it would have upon Mr. Whalen’s fastidious spine. - -He called at the hour named, and Ida invited him into the dining-room. -It was here that Gregory read far into the night, and she vaguely -associated a large table with much erudition. Moreover, she prided -herself upon her economy in fuel. - -Mr. Whalen sat in one of the hard, upright chairs, his stick across -his knee, his gloves laid smartly in the rolling brim of his hat, -studying this new specimen and wondering if she could be made to do him -credit. He was surprised to find her so beautiful, and not unrefined in -style--if only she possessed the acumen to keep her ripe mouth shut. -In fact he found her quite the prettiest woman he had seen in Butte, -famous for pretty women; and--and--he searched conscientiously for the -right word, and blushed as he found it--the most seductive. Ida was -vain of the fact that she wore no corset, and that not the least of her -attractions was a waist as flexible as an acrobat’s. What flesh she had -was very firm, her carriage was easy and graceful, the muscles of her -back were strong, her lines long and flowing; she walked and moved at -all times with an undulating movement usually associated with a warmer -temperament. But nature often amuses herself bestowing the semblance -and withholding the essence; Ida, calculating and contemptuous of the -facile passions of men, amused herself with them, confident of her own -immunity. - -It was now some time since she had enjoyed the admiration of any man -but her husband, and his grew more and more sporadic, was long since -dry of novelty. Like most Western husbands, he would not have permitted -her to make a friend of any other man, nor even to receive the casual -admirer when he was not at home. Ida was full of vanity, although she -would have expressed her sudden determination to captivate “little -Whalen” merely as a desire to keep her hand in. He was the only man -upon whom she was likely to practise at present (for Gregory would have -none of the Club dances), and vanity can thirst like a galled palate. -She had “sized him up” as a “squirt” (poor Ida! little she recked how -soon she was to be stripped of her picturesque vocabulary), but he was -“a long sight better than nothing.” - -After they had exhausted the nipping weather, and the possibility of a -Chinook arriving before night--there was a humming roar high overheard -at the moment--she lowered her black eyelashes, lifted herself against -the stiff back of her chair with the motion of a snake uncoiling, -raised her thick white lids suddenly, and murmured: - -“Well, so you’re goin’ to polish me off? Tell me all my faults! Fire -away. I know you’ll make a grand success of it. Lord knows (her voice -became as sweet as honey), you’re different enough from the other men -in this jay town.” - -Mr. Whalen felt as if he were being drenched with honey dew, for he -was the type of man whom women take no trouble to educate. But as that -sweet unmodulated voice stole about his ear porches he drew himself up -stiffly, conscious of a thrill of fear. To become enamoured of the -wife of one of these forthright Westerners, who took the law into -their own hands, was no part of his gentle programme; but he stared -at her fascinated, never having felt anything resembling a thrill -before. Moreover, like all people of weak passions, more particularly -that type of American that hasn’t any, he took pride in his powers -of self-control. In a moment he threw off the baleful influence and -replied drily. - -“I think the lessons would better be oral for a time. Do--do I -understand that I am to correct your individual method of expression?” - -“That’s it, I guess.” - -“And you won’t be offended?” Mr. Whalen’s upper teeth were hemispheric, -but he had cultivated a paternal and not unpleasing smile. Even the -pale blue orbs, fixed defiantly upon the siren, warmed a trifle. - -“Well. I don’t s’pose I’ll like bein’ corrected better’n the next, -but that’s what I’m payin’ for. Now that my husband’s studyin’ for a -profession, I guess I’ll be in the top set before so very long. There’s -Mrs. Blake, for instance--her husband told Mr. Compton she’d call this -week. Is she all that she’s cracked up to be?” - -“Mrs. Blake has had great advantages. She might almost be one of -our own products, were it not for the fact that she--well--seems -deliberately to wish to be Western.” He found himself growing more and -more confused under the steady regard of those limpid shadowy eyes--set -like the eyes of a goddess in marble, and so disconcertingly shallow. -He pulled himself up sharply. “Now, if I may begin--you must not sign -your notes, ‘Mrs. Gregory Verrooy Compton’----” - -Ida’s eyes flashed wide open. “Why not, I’d like to know? Isn’t it as -good a name as yours?” - -“What has that to do with it? Ah--yes--you don’t quite understand. It -is not the custom--in what we call society--to sign in that manner--it -is a regrettable American provincialism. If you really wish to -learn----” - -“Fire away,” said Ida sullenly. - -“Sign your own name--may I ask what it is?” - -“My name was Ida Maria Hook before I married.” - -“Ida is a beautiful and classic name. We will eliminate the rest. Sign -yourself Ida Compton--or if you wish to be more swagger, Ida Verrooy -Compton----” - -“Land’s sake! We’d be laughed clean out of Montana.” - -“Yes, there is a fine primitive simplicity about many things in this -region,” replied Mr. Whalen, thinking of his spats and silk hat. “But -you get my point?” - -“I get you.” - -“Oh!--We’ll have a little talk later about slang. And you mustn’t begin -your letters, particularly to an acquaintance, ‘Dear friend.’ This is -an idealistic and--ah--bucolic custom, but hardly good form.” - -He was deeply annoyed at his lack of fluency, but Ida once more was -deliberately “upsetting” him. She smiled indulgently. - -“I guess I like your new-fangled notions. I’ll write all that down -while you’re thinkin’ up what to say next.” - -She leaned over the table and wrote slowly that he might have leisure -to admire her figure in profile. But he gazed sternly out of the window -until she swayed back to the perpendicular and demanded, - -“What next? Do you want me to say băth and căn’t?” - -“Oh, no, I really shouldn’t advise it, not in Butte. I don’t wish to -teach you anything that will add to the discomforts of life--so long as -your lines are cast here. Just modify the lamentably short American _a_ -a bit.” And he rehearsed her for a few moments. - -“Fine. I’ll try it on Greg--Mr. Compton. If he laughs I’ll know I’m too -good, but if he only puckers his eyebrows and looks as if somethin’ -queer was floatin’ round just out of sight, then I’ll know I’ve struck -the happy medium. I’ll be a real high-brow in less than no time.” - -“You certainly are surprisingly quick,” said Professor Whalen -handsomely. “In a year I could equip you for our centres of culture, -but as I remarked just now it would not be kind to transform you into -an exotic. Now, suppose we read a few pages of this grammar----” - -“I studied grammar at school,” interrupted Ida haughtily. “What do -you take Butte for, anyhow. It may be a mining camp, and jay enough -compared with your old Boston, but I guess we learn something mor’n the -alphabet at all these big red brick schoolhouses we’ve got--Montana’s -famous for its grand schoolhouses----” - -“Yes, yes, my dear Mrs. Compton. But, you know, one forgets so quickly. -And then so many of you don’t stay in school long enough. How old were -you when you left?” - -“Fifteen. Ma wouldn’t let me go to the High.” - -“Precisely. Well, I will adhere to my original purpose, and defer -books until our next lesson. Perhaps you would like me to tell you -something more of our Eastern methods of speech--not only words, -but--er--syntax----” - -“Oh, hang your old East! You make me feel downright patriotic.” - -Professor Whalen was conscious that it was a distinct pleasure to make -those fine eyes flash. “One would think we were not all Americans,” he -said with a smile. - -“Well, I guess you look upon America as East and West too. Loads of -young surveyors and mining men come out here to make their pile, and at -first Montana ain’t good enough to black their boots, but it soon takes -the starch out of ’em. No use puttin’ on dog here. It don’t work.” - -“Oh, I assure you it’s merely a difference of manner--of--er tradition. -We--and I in particular--find your West most interesting--and -significant. I--ah--regard it as the great furnace under our -civilization.” - -“And we are the stokers! I like your impudence!” - -He had no desire to lose this remunerative pupil, whose crude mind -worked more quickly than his own. She was now really angry and he made -a mild dive in search of his admitted tact. - -“My dear lady, you put words into my mouth that emanate from your own -clever brain, not from my merely pedantic one. Not only have I the -highest respect for the West, and for Montana in particular, but please -remember that the contempt of the East for the West is merely passive, -negative, when compared with the lurid scorn of the West for the East. -‘Effete’ is its mildest term of opprobrium. I doubt if your ‘virile’ -Westerner believes us to be really alive, in a condition to inhabit -aught but a museum. Your men when they ‘make their pile’, or take a -vacation, never dream of going to Boston, seldom, indeed, to Europe. -They take the fastest train for New York--and by no means with a view -to exploring that wilderness for its oases of culture----” - -“Well, I guess not!” cried Ida, her easy good nature restored. -“All-night restaurants, something new in the way of girls--‘chickens’ -and ‘squabs’--musical shows, watchin’ the sun rise--that’s their -little old New York. They always come home shakin’ themselves like a -Newfoundland puppy, or purrin’ like a cat full of cream, but talkin’ -about the Great Free West, God’s Own Country, and the Big Western -Heart. I’ve a friend who does manicurin’, and she knows ’em like old -shoes.” - -Whalen, who had a slight cultivated sense of humor, laughed. “You are -indeed most apt and picturesque, dear Mrs. Compton. But--while I think -of it--you mustn’t drop your final _gs_. That, I am told, is one of the -fashionable divagations of the British aristocracy. But with us it is -the hallmark of the uneducated. Now, I really have told you all you can -remember for one day, and will take my leave. It is to be every other -day, I understand. On Wednesday, then, at two?” - - - - -VIII - - -Ida walked to the gate with him. She was quite a head taller than he, -but subtly made him feel that the advantage was his, as it enabled -her to pour the light of her eyes downward. He picked his way up the -uneven surface of East Granite Street, slippery with a recent fall of -snow, not only disturbed, but filled with a new conceit; in other words -thrilling with his first full sense of manhood. - -Ida looked after him, smiling broadly. But the smile fled abruptly, -her lips trembled, then contracted. Advancing down the street was -Mrs. Mark Blake. Ida had known her enterprising young husband before -he changed his name from Mike to Mark, but she knew his lady wife by -sight only; Mrs. Blake had not patronized Madame O’Reilley. Ruby and -Pearl pronounced her “all right”, although a trifle “proud to look -at.” Ida assumed that she was to receive the promised call, and wished -she could “get out of it.” Not only did she long for her rocker, gum -and magazine, after the intellectual strain of the past hour, but she -had no desire to meet Mrs. Blake or any of “that crowd” until she -could take her place as their equal. She had her full share of what is -known as class-consciousness, and its peculiar form of snobbery. To be -patronized by “swells”, even to be asked to their parties, would give -her none of that subtle joy peculiar to the climbing snob. When the -inevitable moment came she would burst upon them, dazzle them, bulldoze -and lead them, but she wanted none of their crumbs. - -But she was “in for it.” She hastily felt the back of her shirtwaist -to ascertain if it still were properly adjusted, and sauntered towards -the cottage humming a tune, pretending not to have seen the lady who -stopped to have a word with Professor Whalen. “Anyhow, she’s not a -bonanzerine,” thought Ida. “I guess she did considerable scrapin’ at -one time; and Mark, for all he could make shoe-blackin’ look like -molasses, ain’t a millionaire yet.” - -She might indeed, further reflected Ida, watching the smartly tailored -figure out of the corner of her eye, be pitied, for she had been -“brought up rich, expecting to marry a duke, and then come down kaplunk -before she’d much more’n a chance to grow up.” Her father, Judge -Stratton, a graduate of Columbia University, had been one of the most -brilliant and unscrupulous lawyers of the Northwest. He had drawn -enormous fees from railroads and corporations, and in the historic -Clark-Daly duels for supremacy in the State of Montana, and in the -more picturesque battle between F. Augustus Heinze and “Amalgamated” -(that lusty offspring of the great Standard Oil Trust), when the number -of estimable citizens bought and sold demonstrated the faint impress -of time on original sin, his legal acumen and persuasive tongue, his -vitriolic pen, ever had been at the disposal of the highest bidder. - -He had been a distinguished resident of Butte but a few years when he -built himself a spacious if hideous residence on the West Side. But -this must have been out of pure loyalty to his adopted state, for it -was seldom occupied, although furnished in the worst style of the late -seventies and early eighties. Mrs. Stratton and her daughter spent -the greater part of their time in Europe. As Judge Stratton disliked -his wife, was intensely ambitious for his only child, and preferred -the comforts of his smaller home on The Flat, he rarely recalled his -legitimate family, and made them a lavish allowance. He died abruptly -of apoplexy, and left nothing but a life insurance of five thousand -dollars; he had neglected to take out any until his blood vessels were -too brittle for a higher risk. - -Mrs. Stratton promptly became an invalid, and Ora brought her home to -Butte, hoping to save something from the wreck. There was nothing to -save. As she had not known of the life insurance when they received the -curt cablegram in Paris, she had sold all of her mother’s jewels save a -string of pearls, and, when what was left of this irrelative sum after -the luxurious journey over sea and land, was added to the policy, the -capital of these two still bewildered women represented little more -than they had been accustomed to spend in six months. When Mark Blake, -who had studied law in Judge Stratton’s office after graduating from -the High School, and now seemed to be in a fair way to inherit the -business, besides being County Attorney at the moment, implored Ora -to marry him, and manifested an almost equal devotion to her mother, -whom he had ranked with the queens of history books since boyhood, she -accepted him as the obvious solution of her problem. - -She was lonely, disappointed, mortified, a bit frightened. She -had lived the life of the average American princess, and although -accomplished had specialised in nothing; nor given a thought to the -future. As she had cared little for the society for which her mother -lived, and much for books, music, and other arts, and had talked -eagerly with the few highly specialised men she was fortunate enough -to meet, she had assumed that she was clever. She also believed that -when she had assuaged somewhat her appetite for the intellectual and -artistic banquet the gifted of the ages had provided, she might develop -a character and personality, possibly a gift of her own. But she was -only twenty when her indulgent father died, and, still gorging herself, -was barely interested in her capacities other than receptive, less -still in the young men that sought her, unterrified by her reputation -for brains. She fancied that she should marry when she was about -twenty-eight, and have a salon somewhere; and the fact that love had -played so little a part in her dreams made it easier to contemplate -marriage with this old friend of her childhood. His mother had been -Mrs. Stratton’s seamstress, to be sure, but as he was a good boy,--he -called for the frail little woman every evening to protect her from -roughs on her long walk east to the cottage her husband had built -shortly before he was blown to pieces somewhere inside of Butte--he -had been permitted to hold the dainty Ora on his knee, or toss her, -gurgling with delight, into the air until he puffed. - -Mark had been a fat boy, and was now a fat young man with a round -rosy face and a rolling lazy gait. He possessed an eye of remarkable -shrewdness, however, was making money rapidly, never lost sight of -the main chance, and was not in the least surprised when his marriage -lifted him to the pinnacle of Butte society. In spite of his amiable -weaknesses, he was honest if sharp, an inalienable friend, and he -made a good husband according to his lights. Being a man’s man, and -naturally elated at his election to the exclusive Silver Bow Club soon -after his marriage to the snow maiden of his youthful dreams, he -formed the habit of dropping in for a game of billiards every afternoon -on his way home, and returning for another after dinner. But within -three years he was able to present the wife of whom he was inordinately -proud with a comfortable home on the West Side, and he made her an -allowance of ever increasing proportions. - -Ora, who had her own idea of a bargain, had never complained of -neglect nor intimated that she found anything in him that savoured of -imperfection. She had accepted him as a provider, and as he filled this -part of the contract brilliantly, she felt that to treat him to scenes -whose only excuse was outraged love or jealousy, would be both unjust -and absurd. Moreover, his growing passion for his club was an immense -relief after his somewhat prolonged term of marital uxoriousness, and -as her mother died almost coincidentally with the abridgment of Mr. -Blake’s home life, Ora returned to her studies, rode or walked for -hours, and, after her double period of mourning was over, danced two or -three times a week in the season, or sat out dances when she met a man -that had cultivated his intellect. For women she cared little. - -It never occurred to Mark to be jealous of his passionless wife, -although he would have asserted his authority if she had received men -alone in the afternoon. But Ora paid a scrupulous deference to his -wishes in all respects. She even taught herself to keep house, and -her servants manners as well as the elements of edible cooking. This -she regarded as her proudest feat, for she frankly hated the domestic -details of life; although after three years in a “Block”,--a sublimated -lodging house, peculiar to the Northwest--she enjoyed the space and -privacy of her home. Mark told his friends that his wife was the most -remarkable woman in Montana, rarely found fault, save in the purely -mechanical fashion of the married male, and paid the bills without a -murmur. Altogether it was a reasonably happy marriage. - -Ora Blake’s attitude to life at this time was expressed in the buoyancy -of her step, the haughty carriage of her head, the cool bright -casual glance she bestowed upon the world in general. Her code of -morals, ethics, manners, as well as her acceptance of the last set of -conditions she would have picked from the hands of Fate, was summed up -in two words: _noblesse oblige_. Of her depths she knew as little as -Gregory Compton of his. - -“This is Mrs. Compton, I am sure,” she said in her cool even voice, as -she came up behind the elaborately unconscious and humming Ida. “I am -Mrs. Blake.” - -“Pleased to meet you,” said Ida formally, extending a limp hand. “Come -on inside.” - -Mrs. Blake closed her eyes as she entered the parlour, but opened them -before Ida had adjusted the blower to the grate, and exclaimed brightly: - -“How clever of you to settle so quickly. I shouldn’t have dared to call -for another fortnight, but Mr. Compton told my husband yesterday that -you were quite in order. It was three months before I dared open my -doors.” - -“Well,” drawled Ida, rocking herself, “I guess your friends are more -critical than mine. And I guess you didn’t rely wholly on Butte for -your furniture. I had Ma’s old junk, and the rest cost me just two -hundred dollars.” - -“How very clever of you!” But although Mrs. Blake was doing her best to -be spontaneous and impressed, Ida knew instantly that she had committed -a solecism, and felt both angry and apprehensive. She was more afraid -of this young woman than of her professor. Once more she wished that -Mrs. Blake and the whole caboodle would leave her alone till she was -good and ready. - -Ora hastened on to a safer topic, local politics. Butte, tired of -grafting politicians, was considering the experiment of permitting a -Socialist of good standing to be elected mayor. Ida, like all women of -the smaller Western towns, was interested in local politics, and, glad -of the impersonal topic, gave her visitor intelligent encouragement, -the while she examined her critically. She finally summed her up in -the word “pasty”, and at that stage of Ora Blake’s development the -description was not inapt. She took little or no interest in her looks, -although she dressed well by instinct; and nature, supplemented by -her mother, had given her style. But her hair was almost colourless -and worn in a tight knot just above her neck, her complexion was -weather-beaten, her lips rather pale, and her body very thin. But when -men whose first glance had been casual turned suddenly, wondering -at themselves, to examine that face so lacking in the potencies of -colouring, they discovered that the eyes, deeply set and far apart, -were of a deep dark blazing grey, that the nose was straight and fine, -the ears small, the mouth mobile, with a slight downward droop at the -corners; also that her hands and feet were very slender, with delicate -wrists and ankles. Ida, too, noted these points, but wondered where her -“charm” came from. She knew that Mrs. Blake possessed this vague but -desirable quality, in spite of her dread reputation as a “high-brow”, -and her impersonal attitude toward men. - -Ruby had informed her that the men agreed she had charm if she would -only condescend to exert it. “And I can feel it too,” she had added, -“every time I do her nails--she never lets anyone do that hair of hers -or give her a massage, which she needs, the Lord knows. But she’s got -fascination, magnetism, whatever you like to call it, for all she’s so -washed-out. Somehow, I always feel that if she’d wake up, get on to -herself, she’d play the devil with men, maybe with herself.” - -Ida recalled the comments of the wise Miss Miller and frowned. This -important feminine equipment she knew to be her very own, and although -she would have been proud to admit the rivalry of a beautiful woman, -she felt a sense of mortification in sharing that most subtle and -fateful of all gifts, sex-magnetism, with one so colourless and -plain. That the gifts possessed by this woman talking with such -well-bred indifference of local affairs must be far more subtle than -her own irritated her still more. It also filled her with a vague -sense of menace, almost of helplessness. Later, when her brain was -more accustomed to analysis, she knew that she had divined--her -consciousness at that time too thick to formulate the promptings of -instinct--that when man is taken unawares he is held more firmly -captive. - -Ida, staring into those brilliant powerful eyes, felt a sudden -desperate need to dive through their depths into this woman’s secret -mind, to know her better at once, get rid of the sense of mystery that -baffled and oppressed her. In short she must know where she was at -and know it quick. It did not strike her until afterward as odd that -she should have felt so intensely personal in regard to a woman whose -sphere was not hers and whose orbit had but just crossed her own. - -For a time she floundered, but feminine instinct prompted the intimate -note. - -“I saw you talkin’--talking to the professor,” she said casually. “I -suppose you know your husband got him for me.” - -“I arranged it myself--” began Mrs. Blake, smiling, but Ida interrupted -her sharply: - -“Greg--Mr. Compton didn’t tell me he had talked to you about it.” - -“Nor did he. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Compton but -once--the day I married; he was my husband’s best man. Mark never -can get him to come to the house, hardly to the club. But my husband -naturally would turn over such a commission to me. I hope you found the -little professor satisfactory.” - -“He’ll do, I guess. He knows an awful lot, and I have a pretty good -memory. But to get--and practice--it all--well, I guess that takes -years.” She imbued her tones with a pathetic wistfulness, and gazed -upon her visitor with ingenuous eyes, brimming with admiration. “It -must be just grand to have got all that education, and to have lived in -Europe while you were growing up. Nothing later on that you can get is -the same, I guess. You look just about as polished off as I look raw.” - -“Oh! No! No!” cried Ora deprecatingly, her cheeks flooding with a -delicate pink that made her look very young and feminine. She had begun -by disliking this dreadfully common person, but not only was she by -no means as innocent of vanity as she had been trying for years to -believe, but she was almost emotionally swift to respond to the genuine -appeal. And, clever as she was, it was not difficult to delude her. - -“Of course I had advantages that I am grateful for, but I have a theory -that it is never too late to begin. And you are so young--a few months -of our professor--are you really ambitious?” - -“You bet.” Ida committed herself no further at the moment. - -“Then you will enjoy study--expanding and furnishing your mind. It is -a wonderful sensation!” Mrs. Blake’s eyes were flashing now, her mouth -was soft, her strong little chin with that cleft which always suggests -a whirlpool, was lifted as if she were drinking. “The moment you are -conscious that you are using the magic keys to the great storehouses -of the world, its arts, its sciences, its records of the past--when -you begin to help yourself with both hands and pack it away in your -memory--always something new--when you realise that the store is -inexhaustible--that in study at least there is no ennui--Oh, I can give -you no idea of what it all means--you will find it out for yourself!” - -“Jimminy!” thought Ida. “I guess not! But that ain’t where her charm -for men comes from, you bet!” Aloud she said, with awe in her voice: - -“No wonder you know so much when you like it like that. But don’t it -make you--well--kinder lonesome?” - -“Sometimes--lately----” Mrs. Blake pulled herself up with a deep blush. -“It has meant everything to me, that mental life, and it always shall!” - -The astute Ida noted the defiant ring in her voice, and plunged in. “I -wonder now? Say, you’re a pretty woman and a young one, and they say -men would go head over ears about you if you’d give ’em a show. You’ve -got a busy husband and so have I. Husbands don’t companion much and you -can’t make me believe learning’s all. Don’t you wish these American -Turks of husbands would let us have a man friend occasionally? They -say that in high society in the East and in Europe, the women have all -the men come to call on them afternoons they like, but the ordinary -American husband, and particularly out West--Lord! When a woman has a -man call on her, she’s about ready to split with her husband--belongs -to the fast set--and he’s quail hunting somewheres else. Of course I’ve -known Mark all my life--and you who was--were brought up in the real -world--it must be awful hard on you. Wouldn’t you like to try your -power once in a while, see how far you could go--just for fun? I guess -you’re not shocked?” - -“No, I’m not shocked,” said Ora, laughing. “But I don’t believe men -interest me very much in that way--although, heaven knows, there are -few more delightful sensations than talking to a man who makes you feel -as if your brain were on fire. I don’t think I care to have American -men, at least, become interested in me in any other way. In Europe----” -She hesitated, and Ida leaned forward eagerly. - -“Oh, do tell me, Mrs. Blake! I don’t know a blamed thing. I’ve never -been outside of Montana.” - -“Well--I mean--the American man takes love too seriously. I suppose -it is because he is so busy--he has to take life so seriously. He -specialises intensely. It is all or nothing with him. Of course I -am talking about love. When they play about, it is generally with a -class of women of which we have no personal knowledge. The European, -with his larger leisure, and generations of leisure in his brain, his -interest in everything, and knowledge of many things,--above all of the -world,--has reduced gallantry to a fine art. He may give his fancy, his -sentiment, his passion, even his leisure, to one woman at a time, but -his heart--well, unless he is very young--that remains quite intact. -Love is the game of his life with a change of partner at reasonable -intervals. In other words he is far too accomplished and sophisticated -to be romantic. Now, your American man, although he looks the reverse -of romantic, and is always afraid of making a fool of himself, when -he does fall in love with a woman--say, across a legal barrier--must -annihilate the barrier at once; in other words, elope or rush to the -divorce court. It isn’t that he is more averse from a liaison than the -European, but more thorough. It is all or nothing. In many respects he -is far finer than the European, but he makes for turmoil, and, less -subtle, he fails to hold our interest.” - -“You mean he don’t keep us guessing? Well, you’re right about most of -them. I never saw a boy I couldn’t read like a page ad., until I met -my husband. I thought I knew him, too, till I’d been married to him -awhile. But, my land, he gets deeper every minute. I guess if I hadn’t -married him he’d have kidnapped me, he was that gone, and forgetting -anything else existed. Of course, I didn’t expect that to last, but I -did think he’d go on being transparent. But, believe me, the Sphinx -ain’t a patch on him. I sometimes think I don’t know him at all, and -that keeps me interested.” - -“I should think it might!” exclaimed Mrs. Blake, thinking of her own -standard possession. “But then Mr. Compton is a hard student, and -is said to have a voracious as well as a brilliant mind. No doubt -that is the secret of what appears on the surface as complexity and -secretiveness. I know the symptoms!” - -“P’raps. But--well, I live with him, and I suspicion otherwise. I -suspect him of having as many kind of leads, and cross-cuts, and -‘pockets’, and veins full of different kinds of ore in him as we’ve -got right under our feet in Butte Hill. Do you think”--she spoke with -a charming wistfulness--“that when I know more, have opened up and let -out my top story, as it were, I shall understand him better?” - -And again Ora responded warmly, “Indeed, yes, dear Mrs. Compton. -It isn’t so much what you put into your mind--it’s more the reflex -action of that personal collection in developing not only the mental -faculties, but one’s intuitions, one’s power to understand others--even -one whose interests are different, or whose knowledge is infinitely -greater than our own.” - -“I believe you could even understand Greg!” Ida spoke involuntarily and -stared with real admiration at the quickened face with its pink cheeks -and flashing eyes, its childish mobile mouth. Ora at the moment looked -beautiful. Suddenly Ida felt as if half-drowned in a wave of ambiguous -terror. She sat up very straight. - -“I guess you’re right,” she said slowly. “You’ve made me see it as the -others haven’t. I’ll work at all that measly little professor gives me, -but--I don’t know--somehow, I can’t think he’ll do much more than make -me talk decent. There’s nothing _to_ him.” - -Ora’s heart beat more quickly. Her indifference had vanished in this -intimate hour, also her first subtle dislike of Ida, who’s commonness -now seemed picturesque, and whose wistful almost complete ignorance -had made a strong appeal to her sympathies. For the first time in her -lonely life she felt that she had something to give. And here was raw -and promising material ready and eager to be woven, if not into cloth -of silver, at least into a quality of merchandise vastly superior to -that which the rude loom of youth had so far produced. All she knew -of Gregory Compton, moreover, made her believe in and admire him; the -loneliness of his mental life with this woman appalled her. This was -not the first time she had been forced to admit of late that under -the cool bright surface of her nature were more womanly impulses than -formerly, a spontaneous warmth that was almost like the quickening of -a child; but she had turned from the consciousness with an impatient: -“What nonsense! What on earth should I do with it?” The sense that she -was of no vital use to anyone had discouraged her, dimmed her interest -in her studies. Her husband could hire a better housekeeper, find a -hundred girls who would companion him better. And what if she were -_instruite_? So were thousands of women. Nothing was easier. - -But this clever girl of the people, who might before many years had -passed be one of the rich and conspicuous women of the United States, -above all, the wife of one of the nation’s “big men,” working himself -beyond human capacity, harassed, needing not only physical comfort at -home, but counsel, companionship, perfect understanding,--might it -not be her destiny to equip Ida Compton for her double part? Ora’s -imagination, the most precious and the most dangerous of her gifts, -was at white heat. To her everlasting credit would be the fashioning -of a helpmate for one of her country’s great men. It would be enough -to do as much for the state which her imperfect father had loved so -passionately; but her imagination would not confine Gregory Compton -within the limitations of a state. It was more than likely that his -destiny would prove to be national; and she had seen the wives of -certain men eminent in political Washington, but of obscure origin. -They were Ida’s mannered, grooved, crystallised; women to flee from. - -She leaned forward and took Ida’s hand in both of hers. “Dear Mrs. -Compton!” she exclaimed. “Do let me teach you what little I know. I -mean of art--history--the past--the present--I have portfolios of -beautiful photographs of great pictures and scenes that I collected -for years in Europe. It will do me so much good to go over them. I -haven’t had the courage to look at them for years. And the significant -movements, social, political, religious,--all this theft under so -many different names,--Christian Science, the ‘Uplift’ Movement, -Occultism--from the ancient Hindu philosophy--it would be delightful to -go into it with someone. I am sure I could make it all most interesting -to you.” - -“My Gorrd!” thought Ida. “Two of ’em! What am I let in for?” But the -undefined sharp sense of terror lingered, and she answered when she got -her breath, - -“I’d like it first rate. The work in this shack is nothing. Mr. -Compton leaves first thing in the morning, and don’t show up till -nearly six. The professor’s coming for an hour every other afternoon. -But if I go to your house I want it understood that I don’t meet anyone -else. I’ve got my reasons.” - -“You shall not meet a soul. Can’t you imagine how sick I am of Butte? -We’ll have heavenly times. I was wondering only the other day of what -use was all this heterogeneous mass of stuff I’d put into my head. -But,” she added gaily, “I know now it was for you to select from. I am -so glad. And--and----” Her keen perceptions suggested a more purely -feminine bait. “You were with Madame O’Reilley, were you not? I get my -things from a very good dressmaker in New York. Perhaps you would like -to copy some of them?” - -“Aw! Would I?” Ida gasped and almost strangled. For the first time -during this the most trying day of her life she felt wholly herself. -“You may just bet your life I would. I need new duds the worst way, -even if I’m not a West Sider. I’ve been on a ranch for nearly a year -and a half, and although Mr. Compton won’t take me to any balls, there -are the movin’ pictures and the mats--matinees; _and_ the street, where -I have to show up once in a while! I used to think an awful lot of my -looks and style, and I guess it’s time to begin again. I can sew first -rate, make any old thing. Do you mean it?” - -“Indeed I do! I _want_ to be of help to you in every way.” She rose and -held Ida’s hand once more in hers, although she did not kiss her as -another woman might have done. “Will you come tomorrow--about two?” - -“You may bet your bottom dollar I’ll come. I haven’t thanked you, but -maybe I’ll do that some other way.” - -“Oh, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Mrs. Blake lightly. - - - - -IX - - -Butte, “the richest hill in the world” (known at a period when less -famous for metals and morals as “Perch of the Devil”), is a long -scraggy ridge of granite and red and grey dirt rising abruptly out of -a stony uneven plain high in the Rocky Mountains. The city is scooped -out of its south slope, and overflows upon The Flat. Big Butte, an -equally abrupt protuberance, but higher, steeper, more symmetrical, -stands close beside the treasure vault, but with the aloof and somewhat -cynical air of even the apocryphal volcano. On all sides the sterile -valley heaves away as if abruptly arrested in a throe of the monstrous -convulsion that begat it; but pressing close, cutting the thin -brilliant air with its icy peaks, is an irregular and nearly circular -chain of mountains, unbroken white in winter, white on the blue -enamelled slopes in summer. - -For nearly half the year the whole scene is white, with not a tree, -nor, beyond the straggling town itself, a house to break its frozen -beauty. It is only when the warm Chinook wind roars in from the west -and melts the snow much as lightning strikes, or when Summer herself -has come, that you realize the appalling surface barrenness of this -region devastated for many years by the sulphur and arsenic fumes of -ore roasted in the open or belching from the smelters. They ate up -the vegetation, and the melting snows and heavy June rains washed the -weakened earth from the bones of valley and mountain, leaving both as -stark as they must have been when the earth ceased to rock and began to -cool. Since the smelters have gone to Anaconda, patches of green, of a -sad and timid tenderness, like the smile of a child too long neglected, -have appeared between the sickly grey boulders of the foothills, and, -in Butte, lawns as large as a tablecloth have been cultivated. Anaconda -Hill at the precipitous eastern end of the city, with its tangled mass -of smokestacks, gallows-frames, shabby grey buildings, trestles, looks -like a gigantic shipwreck, but is merely the portal to the precious -ore bodies of the mines whose shafts, levels, and cross-cuts to the -depth of three thousand feet and more, pierce and ramify under city -and valley. These hideous buildings through which so many hundreds of -millions have passed, irrupt into the very back yards of some of the -homes, built too far east (and before mere gold and silver gave place -to copper); but the town improves as it leaps westward. The big severe -solid buildings to be found in every modern city sure of its stability -crowd the tumble-down wood structures of a day when no man looked upon -Butte as aught but a camp. And although the streets are vociferously -cobbled, the pavements are civilised here and there. - -Farther west the houses of the residence section grow more and more -imposing, coinciding with the sense of Butte’s inevitableness. On the -high western rim of the city (which exteriorly has as many ups and -downs as the story of its vitals) stands the red School of Mines. It -has a permanent expression of surprise, natural to a bit of Italian -renaissance looking down upon Butte. - -Some of the homes, particularly those of light pressed brick, and one -that looks like the northeast corner of the upper story of a robber -stronghold of the middle ages, are models of taste and not too modest -symbols of wealth; but north and south and east and west are the snow -wastes in winter and the red or grey untidy desert of sand and rock in -summer. - -But if Butte is the ugliest city in the United States, she knows -how to make amends. She is alive to her finger-tips. Her streets, -her fine shops, her hotels, her great office buildings, are always -swarming and animated. At no time, not even in the devitalised hours -that precede the dawn, does she sink into that peace which even a -metropolis welcomes. She has the jubilant expression of one who coins -the very air, the thin, sparkling, nervous air, into shining dollars, -and, confident in the inexhaustible riches beneath her feet, knows -that she shall go on coining them forever. Even the squads of miners, -always, owing to the three shifts, to be seen on the street corners, -look satisfied and are invariably well-dressed. Not only do these -mines with their high wages and reasonable hours draw the best class -of workingmen, but there are many college men in them, many more -graduates from the High Schools of Montana. The “Bohunks,” or “dark -men,” an inferior class of Southern Europeans, who live like pigs and -send their wages home, rarely if ever are seen in these groups. - -And if Butte be ugly, hopelessly, uncompromisingly ugly, her -compensation is akin to that of many an heiress: she never forgets -that she is the richest hill in the world. Even the hard grip of the -most unassailable trust in America, which has absorbed almost as much -of Montana’s surface as of its hidden treasure, does not interfere -with her prosperity or supreme complacency. And although she has -her pestilential politicians, her grafters and crooks, and is so -tyrannically unionized that the workingman groans under the yoke of his -brother and forgets to curse the trust, yet ability and talent make -good as always; and in that electrified city of permanent prosperity -there is a peculiar condition that offsets its evils: it is a city of -sudden and frequent vacancies. New York, Europe, above all, California, -swarm with former Montanans, particularly of Butte, who have coppered -their nests, and transplanted them with a still higher sense of -achievement. - -Ora was thinking of Butte and the world beyond Butte, as she splashed -along through the suddenly melted snow toward her home on the West -Side. The Chinook, loud herald from Japan, had swept down like an army -in the night and turned the crisp white streets to rivers of mud. But -Ora wore stout walking boots, and her short skirt, cut by a master -hand, was wide enough to permit the impatient stride she never had -been able to modify in spite of her philosophy and the altitude. She -walked several miles a day and in all weathers short of a blizzard; but -not until the past few weeks with the admission that her increasing -restlessness, her longing for Europe, was growing out of bonds. She -wondered today if it were Europe she wanted, or merely a change. - -She had, of course, no money of her own, and never had ceased to be -grateful that her husband’s prompt and generous allowance made it -unnecessary to ask alms of him. Three times since her marriage he had -suddenly presented her with a check for several hundred dollars and -told her to “give her nerves a chance” either down “on the coast,” -or in New York. She had always fled to New York, remained a month -or six weeks, gone day and night to opera, theatre, concerts, art -exhibitions, not forgetting her tailor and dressmaker; returning to -Butte as refreshed as if she had taken her heart and nerves, overworked -by the altitude, down to the poppy fields of Southern California. - -Her vacations and her husband’s never coincided. Mark always departed -at a moment’s notice for Chicago or New York, alleging pressing -business. He returned, after equally pressing delays, well, complacent, -slightly apologetic. - -Ora knew that she had but to ask permission to spend the rest of -the winter in New York, for not only was Mark the most indulgent of -husbands, but he was proud of his wife’s connections in the American -Mecca, not unwilling to read references in the Butte newspapers to her -sojourn among them. The “best people” of these Western towns rarely -have either friends or relatives in the great cities of the East. The -hardy pioneer is not recruited from the aristocracies of the world, and -the dynamic men and women that have made the West what it is have the -blood of the old pioneers in them. - -Ora was one of the few exceptions. Her father had been the last of a -distinguished line of jurists unbroken since Jonathan Stratton went -down with Alexander Hamilton in the death struggle between the Federal -and the new Republican party. Ora’s mother, one of New York’s imported -beauties for a season, who had languished theretofore on the remnants -of a Louisiana plantation, impecunious and ambitious, but inexperienced -and superficially imaginative, married the handsome and brilliant -lawyer for love, conceiving that it would be romantic to spend a few -years in a mining camp, where she, indubitably, would be its dominant -lady. Butte did not come up to her ideas of romance. Nor had she found -it possible to dislodge the passively determined women with the pioneer -blood in their veins. The fumes afflicted her delicate lungs, the -altitude her far more delicate nerves. Judge Stratton deposited her in -the drawing-room of an eastern bound train with increasing relish. Had -it not been for his little girl he would have bade her upon the second -or third of these migrations to establish herself in Paris and return -no more. - -During these long pilgrimages Ora, even while attending school in New -York, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Vevey, had seen something of society, for -Mrs. Stratton was ever surrounded by it, and did not approve of the -effect of boarding school diet on the complexion. But the ardours of -her mind, encouraged always by her father, who never was too busy to -write to her, had made her indifferent to the advantages prized by Mrs. -Stratton. - -Today she was conscious of a keen rebellious desire for something more -frivolous, light, exciting, than had entered her life for many a year. -There can be little variety and no surprises in the social life of a -small community--for even scandal and divorce grow monotonous--and -although she could always enjoy an hour’s intellectual companionship -with the professors of the School of Mines, whenever it pleased her -to summon them, Ora, for the first time in her twenty-six years, had -drifted into a condition of mind where intellectual revels made no -appeal to her whatever. - -She had wondered before this if her life would have been purely mental -had her obligations been different, but had dismissed the thought as -not only dangerous but ungrateful. She had reason to go on her knees -to her intellect, its ambitions and its furniture, for without it life -would have been insupportable. She ordered her quickening ego back -to the rear, or the depths, or wherever it bided its time, none too -amenable; she was only beginning to guess the proportions it might -assume if encouraged; the vague phantoms floating across her mind, -will-o’-the-wisps in a fog bank, frightened her. Several months since -she had set her lips, and her mind the task of acquiring the Russian -language. It had always been her experience that nothing compared with -a new language as a mental usurper. - -She had entered into a deliberate partnership with a man who protected -and supported her, and she would keep the letter, far as its spirit -might be beyond the reach of her will. Even were she to become -financially independent, it was doubtful if she would leave him for -a long period; and for New York and its social diversions she cared -not at all. What she wanted was adventure--she stumbled on the word, -and stopped with a gasp. Adventure. For the first time she wished she -were a man. She would pack two mules with a prospector’s outfit and -disappear into the mountains. - -She swung her mind to the Russian grammar, enough to impale it in -the death agony; but when she had entered her home, and, after a -visit to her leisurely cook, who was a unionized socialist, ascended -to her bedroom and stood before her mirror, she decided that it was -her singular interview with the wife of Gregory Compton that had -thrown her mind off its delicate balance. She recalled that Mrs. -Compton--certainly an interesting creature in spite of her appalling -commonness--had told her flagrantly that she was young, pretty, and -attractive to men, even as are young and pretty women without too much -brains. The compliment--or was it the suggestion?--had thrilled her, -and it thrilled her again. Men sometimes had tried to make love to -her, but she had ascribed such charm as she appeared to possess to the -automatically vibrating magnet of youth; and although she had never -been above a passing flirtation, either in her mother’s salon or in -Butte, she merely had been bored if the party of the other part had -taken his courage in his hands on the morrow. Scruples did not trouble -her. The American woman, she would have reasoned, is traditionally -“cold.” American men, brought up on her code of ethics, are able to -take care of themselves. - -Had she been superficial in her conclusions? Could she attract men -more potently than by a merely girlish charm and a vivacious mind? Her -memory ran rapidly over the functions of the winter, particularly the -dinners and dances. She could not recall a passing conquest. She was -angry to feel herself shiver, but she jerked off her hat, and the pins -out of her fine abundant hair. She was twenty-six. Had she gone off? -Faded? She never had been called a beauty, never had had the vanity -to think herself a beauty, but she remembered that sometimes in an -animated company she had glanced into the passing mirror and thought -herself quite pretty, with her pink cheeks and sparkling eyes. But -normally she was too washed-out for beauty, however good her features -might be, and of course she had no figure at all. She dressed well from -force of habit, and she had the carriage at least to set off smartly -cut garments, but as much might be said of a dressmaker’s “form.” - -And her skin was sallow and sunburned and weather-beaten and dry, as -any neglected skin in a high altitude is sure to be. Once it had been -as white as her native snows. Her hair, also the victim of the high -dry air, and exposed to the elements for hours together, was more -colourless than Nature had made it--dull--dead. She held out a strand -in dismay, remembering how her _cendré_ hair had been admired in Paris; -then with a sudden sense of relief (it escaped from the cellar where -her ego was immured on bread and water) she informed herself that it -was her duty to invoke the services of Miss Ruby Miller. No woman with -proper pride--or self-respect--would let her skin go to pot, no, not -at any age; certainly not at twenty-six. She recalled an impulsive -remark of Miss Miller’s a few months since when arranging her hair for -a fancy-dress ball, and gave another sigh--of hope. - -So does Nature avenge herself. - - - - -X - - -She heard her husband’s voice as he entered the house, and hastily -changed her walking suit for one of the soft tea gowns she wore when -they were alone. This was a simple thing of a Copenhagen-blue silk, -with a guimpe of fine white net, and trimmed about the neck and half -sleeves with the newest and softest of the year’s laces. She noticed -with some satisfaction that her neck, below the collar line, was very -white; and she suddenly covered the rest of it with powder, then rubbed -the puff over her face. It was ordinary “baby powder” for the bath, -for she never had indulged in toilet accessories, but it answered -its purpose, if only to demonstrate what she might have been had she -safeguarded the gifts of nature. And the dull blue gown was suddenly -becoming. - -Her husband, who had spent the intervening time in the library, ran -upstairs whistling in spite of his girth--he was the lightest dancer in -Butte--and knocked on her door before going to his own room. - -“Say,” he said, as he chucked her under the chin, and kissed her -maritally, “but you look all right. Run down stairs and hold your -breath until I’ve made myself beautiful. I’ve got big news for you.” - -She rustled softly down the stair, wondering what the news might be, -but not unduly interested. Mark was always excited over his new cases. -Perhaps he had been retained by Amalgamated. She hoped so. He deserved -it, for he worked harder than anyone knew. And she liked him sincerely, -quite without mitigation now that the years had taught him the folly of -being in love with her. - -And he certainly had given her a pretty home. The house was not large -enough to be pointed out by the conductor of the “Seeing Butte Car,” -but it had been designed by a first rate architect, and had a certain -air of spaciousness within. Mrs. Stratton had furnished a flat in -Paris two years before her husband’s death, her excuse being that the -interior of the Butte house got on her nerves, and there was no other -way to take in household goods free of duty. Ora had shipped them when -the news of her father’s death and their own poverty came, knowing that -she would get a better price for the furniture in Butte, where someone -always was building, than in Paris. - -Before it arrived she had made up her mind to marry Mark Blake, and -although it was several years before they had a house she kept it in -storage. In consequence her little drawing-room with its gay light -formal French furniture was unique in Butte, city of substantial and -tasteful (sometimes) but quite unindividual homes. Mark was thankful -that he was light of foot, less the bull in the china shop than he -looked, and would have preferred red walls, an oriental divan and -Persian rugs. He felt more at home in the library, a really large room -lined from floor to ceiling not only with Ora’s but Judge Stratton’s -books, which Mark had bought for a song at the auction; and further -embellished with deep leather chairs and several superb pieces of -carved Italian furniture. Ora spent the greater part of her allowance -on books, and many hours of her day in this room. But tonight she -deliberately went into the frivolous French parlour, turned on all the -lights, and sat down to await her husband’s reappearance. - -Mark, who had taken kindly to the idea of dressing for dinner, came -running downstairs in a few moments. - -“In the doll’s house?” he called out, as he saw the illumination in the -drawing-room. “Oh, come on into a real room and mix me a cocktail.” - -“It isn’t good for you to drink cocktails so long before eating; -Huldah, who receives ‘The People’s War Cry’ on Monday, informed me that -dinner would be half an hour late.” - -“I wish you’d chuck that wooden-faced leaden-footed apology for a -servant. This is the third time----” - -“And get a worse? Butte rains efficient servants! Please sit down. -I--_feel_ like this room tonight. You may smoke.” - -“Thanks. I believe this is the first time you have given me permission. -But I’m bound to say the room suits you.” - -Ora sat in a _chaise-longue_ of the XV^{me} Siècle, a piece of -furniture whose awkward grace gives a woman’s arts full scope. Much -exercise had preserved the natural suppleness of Ora’s body and she had -ancestral memories of all arts and wiles. Mark seated himself on the -edge of a stiff little sofa covered with faded Aubusson tapestry, and -hunched his shoulders. - -“If the French women furnish their rooms like this I don’t believe -all that’s said about them,” he commented wisely. “Men like to be -comfortable even when they’re looking at a pretty woman.” - -“Mama let me choose the furniture for this room, and I wasn’t thinking -much about your sex at the time. I--I think it expressed a side of me -that I wasn’t conscious of then.” - -“It’s a pretty room all right.” Mark lit the consolatory cigarette. -“But not to sit in. What struck you tonight?” - -“Oh, I’d been thinking of Paris.” - -Mark’s face was large and round and bland; it was only when he drew his -brows together that one saw how small and sharp his eyes were. - -“H’m. I’ve wondered sometimes if you weren’t hankering after Europe. I -suppose it gets into the blood.” - -“Oh, yes, it gets into the blood!” Ora spoke lightly, but she was -astonished at his insight. - -“I’ve never been able to send you--not as you were used to going--I -don’t see you doing anything on the cheap----” - -“Oh, my dear Mark, you are goodness itself. I’ve thought very little -about it, really.” - -“Suppose you found yourself suddenly rich, would you light out and -leave me?” - -“We’d go together. It would be great fun being your cicerone.” - -“No chance! I’m going to be a rich man inside the next ten years, and -here I stick. And I don’t see myself travelling on a woman’s money, -either. But I suppose you’d be like all the rest if you could afford -it?” - -“Oh, I don’t know. Of course I look forward to spending a year in -Europe once more--I’d hardly be human if I didn’t. But I can wait for -you.” - -“I’ve always admired your philosophy,” he said grimly. “And now I’ve -got a chance to put it to a real test. I believe you are in a way, if -not to be rich, at least to make a pretty good haul.” - -“What do you mean?” Ora sat up straight. - -“Your father made a good many wild-cat investments when he first came -out here, and the one he apparently thought the worst, for I found no -mention of it among his papers, was the Oro Fino Primo mine, which he -bought from a couple of sharks in the year you were born--that’s where -you got your name, I guess. One of the men was a well known prospector -and the Judge thought he was safe. The ore assayed about eighty dollars -a ton, so he took over the claim, paid the Lord knows how much to the -prospector, who promptly lit out, had it patented, and set a small crew -to work under a manager. They found nothing but low grade ore, which -in those days roused about as much enthusiasm as country rock. The -mine had been salted, of course. It was some time before your father -would give up, and he spent more than the necessary amount of money -to perfect the patent; always hoping. When he was finally convinced -there was nothing in it he quit. And it was characteristic of your -father that when he quit he quit for good. He simply dismissed the -thing from his mind. Well, times have changed since then. New processes -and more railroads have caused fortunes to be made out of low grade -ore when there is enough of it. Some people would rather have a big -lode of low grade ore than a pockety vein of rich quartz. As you know, -abandoned mines are being leased all over the state, and abandoned -prospect holes investigated. Well, there you are. This morning two -mining engineers from New York came into my office with a tale of woe. -They came out here to look about, and after considerable travel within -a reasonable distance of railroads found an old prospect hole with a -shaft sunk about fifty feet. It looked abandoned all right, but as -the dump was still there and they liked the looks of it they went to -the De Smet ranch house--the hole is just over the border of Greg’s -ranch--and made inquiries. Oakley, who is a monomaniac on the subject -of intensive farming and doesn’t know a mine from a gopher hole, told -them that the adjacent land belonged to no one but the government. -So they staked their claim, recorded it in Virginia City, retimbered -the shaft and sank it twenty feet deeper. They began to take out ore -that looked good for fifteen dollars a ton. Then along comes an old -prospector and tells them the story of the mine. They leave their two -miners on the job and post up to Helena to have the records examined -in the Land Office. There, sure enough, they find that the mine was -duly patented by Judge Stratton, and all of the government requirements -complied with. So they come to me. They want a bond and lease for -three years--which means they may have the privilege of buying at the -end of the lease--and offer you ten per cent. on the net proceeds. I -haven’t given them my answer yet, for I’m going to take Greg out there -next Sunday and have a look at it. There was a sort of suppressed -get-rich-quickishness in their manner, and their offer was not what -you would call munificent. Greg is a born geologist, to say nothing -of his training. I don’t mean so much in the School of Mines, but he -was always gophering about with old prospectors, and ran away into the -mountains several times when his father was alive. Never showed up all -summer. He’s at ore now every spare moment he gets, and is as good an -assayer as there is in the state. If there’s mineral on his own ranch -he’ll find it, and if there isn’t he’ll find it elsewhere. So, I do -nothing till he’s looked the property over. But in any case I think I -can promise you a good lump of money.” - -Ora’s breath was short. Her face had been scarlet for a few moments -but now showed quite pale under the tan and powder. When her husband -finished, however, and she replied, “How jolly,” her voice was quite -steady. - -“And shall you fly off and leave me if it pans out?” - -“Of course not. What do you take me for?” - -“To tell you the truth it will mean a good deal to me if you stay until -the fall. I’ve a client coming out here from New York whom I am trying -to persuade to buy the old Iron Hat mine. There’s a fortune in it for -anyone with money enough to spend rebuilding the old works and putting -in new machinery and timbers; and a big rake-off for me, if I put the -deal through. Well, this client figures to bring his wife and daughter, -and you could help me a lot--persuade them they’d have the time of -their lives if they spent several months of every year out here for -a while--he’s a domestic sort of man. After that take a flyer if you -like. You deserve it.” - -“How nice of you! Here is dinner at last.” Ora felt almost physically -sick, so dazzling had been the sudden prospect of deliverance, -followed by the certainty, even before her husband asked for the -diplomatic assistance she so often had given him, that she could not -take advantage of it. Noblesse oblige! For the moment she hated her -watchword. - -She mixed a cocktail with steady hand. “I’ll indulge in a perfect orgie -of clothes!” she said gaily. “And import a chef. By the way,” she -added, as she seated herself at the table and straightened the knives -and forks beside her plate, “what do you think I let myself in for -today?” - -“Not been speculating? There’s a quart of Worcestershire in this soup.” - -“I’ll certainly treat you to a chef. No, not speculating--I wonder if -it mightn’t be that? I called on your friend’s wife----” - -“Good girl! She’s not your sort, but she’s Greg’s wife----” - -“I thought she was quite terrible at first, but I soon became -interested. She’s clever in her way, ignorant as she is, and has -individuality. Before I knew it I had offered to take a hand in her -education----” - -“Good lord! What sort of a hand?” - -“Oh, just showing her my portfolios, giving her some idea of art. It -sounds very elemental, but one must begin somewhere. She knows so -little that it will be like teaching a child a b c.” - -“I’m afraid it will bore you.” - -“No, I like the idea. It is something new, and change is good for the -soul. I have an idea that I shall continue to find her as interesting -as I intend she shall find the ‘lessons’.” - -“She’ll get more than lessons on art. She’ll get a good tone down, and -she needs that all right. Poor old Greg! He deserved the best and he -got Ida Hook. I tried to head him off but I might as well have tried to -head off a stampede to a new gold diggings. He ought to have married a -lady, that’s what.” - -Ora glanced up quickly, then, thankful that her husband was intent upon -his carving, dropped her eyes. It was the first time he had ever hinted -at the differences of class. In his boyhood there had been a mighty -gulf between his mother and the haughty Mrs. Stratton who employed her -in what was then the finest house in Butte. But he was too thoroughly -imbued with the spirit of the West, in which he had spent his life, -to recognise any difference in class save that which was determined -by income. As soon as his own abilities, industry, and the turn of -Fortune’s wheel, placed him in a position to offer support to the two -dainty women that had been his ideals from boyhood, he knew himself to -be their equal, without exhausting himself in analysis. - -As for Ora, the West was quick in her blood, in spite of her heritage -and education. Her father had assumed the virtue of democracy when -he settled in Montana. In the course of a few years a genuine liking -and enthusiasm for his adopted state, as well as daily associations, -transformed him into as typical a Westerner as the West ever turned out -of her ruthless crucible. He even wore a Stetson hat when he visited -New York. His wife’s “airs” had inspired him with an increasing disgust -which was one of the most honest emotions of his life, and the text -of his repeated warnings to his daughter, whom he was forced to leave -to the daily guidance of his legal wife (Ora’s continued presence -in Butte, would, in truth, have caused him much embarrassment), had -been to cherish her Western birthright as the most precious of her -possessions. - -“Remember this is the twentieth century,” he had written to her not -long before his death. “There is no society in the world today that -cannot be invaded by a combination of money, brains, and a certain -social talent--common enough. The modern man, particularly in the -United States, makes himself. His ancestors count for nothing, if he -doesn’t. If he does they may be a good asset, for they (possibly) have -given him breeding ready-made, moral fibre, and a brain of better -composition than the average man of the people can expect. But that is -only by the way. The two most potent factors in the world today are -money and the waxing, rising, imperishable democratic spirit. That was -reborn out here in the West, and the West is invading and absorbing -the East. The old un-American social standards of the East are -expiring in the present generation, which resort to every absurdity to -maintain them; its self-consciousness betraying its recognition of the -inevitable. Twenty years hence this class will be, if still clinging -to its spar, as much of a national joke as the Western women were when -they first flashed their diamonds in Peacock Alley. That phase, you -may notice, is so dead that the comic papers have forgotten it. The -phase was inevitable, but our women are now so accustomed to their -money that they are not to be distinguished from wealthy women anywhere -except that their natural hospitality and independence make them seem -more sure of themselves. Of course the innately vulgar are to be found -everywhere, and nowhere more abundantly than in New York. - -“Twenty years from now, the West will have overrun the East; it will -have helped itself with both hands to all the older civilisation has to -give, and it will have made New York as democratic as Butte--or London! -So don’t let yourself grow up with any old-fashioned nonsense in your -head. I want you to start out in life modern to the core, unhampered -by any of the obsolete notions that make your mother and most of our -relations a sort of premature has-beens. When your time comes to -marry, select a Western man who either has made his own fortune or -has the ability to make it. Don’t give a thought to his origin if his -education is good, and his manners good enough. You can supply the -frills. I wouldn’t have you marry a man that lacked the fundamentals of -education at least, but better that than one whose brain is so full of -old-fashioned ideas that it has no room for those that are born every -minute. And I hope you will settle here in this state and do something -for it, either through the abilities of the man you marry or with your -own. It isn’t only the men that build up a new state. And if you marry -a foreigner never let me see nor hear from you again. They are all very -well in their way, but it is not our way.” - -Ora, who had worshipped her father and admired him above all men, never -forgot a word he uttered, and knew his letters by heart. Possibly it -was the memory of this last of his admonitions which had enabled her -to sustain the shock of a proposal from the son of her mother’s old -seamstress and of a miner who had died in his overalls underground. -It is doubtful if she would have been conscious of the shock had it -not been for Mrs. Stratton’s lamentations. That lady from her sofa in -one of the humbler Blocks, had sent wail after wail in the direction -of the impertinent aspirant. Ora, during the brief period in which -she made her decision, heard so much about the “bluest blood of the -South,” and the titled foreigners whom she apparently could have had -for the accepting when she was supposed to belong to the Millionaire -Sisterhood, that she began to ponder upon the violent contrasts -embodied in Mark with something like rapture. After the marriage was -accomplished, Mrs. Stratton had the grace to wail in solitude, and -shortly after moved on to a world where only the archangels are titled -and never have been known to marry. Ora had not given the matter -another thought. Mark had been carefully brought up by a refined little -woman, his vicious tendencies had been negligible, and he was too -keen to graduate from the High School and make his start in life to -waste time in even the milder forms of dissipation. When he married he -adapted himself imperceptibly to the new social world he entered; if -not a Beau Brummel, nor an Admirable Crichton, he never would disgrace -his aristocratic wife; and, unlike Judge Stratton, he wore a silk hat -in New York. - -His last remark apparently had been a mere vapour from his subconscious -mind, for he went on as soon as he had taken the edge from his -appetite, “Perhaps Ida Hook can be made into one. I’ve seen waitresses -and chambermaids metamorphosed by a million or two so that their own -husbands wouldn’t recognise them if they stayed away too long. But -it takes time, and Ida has an opinion of herself that would make an -English duchess feel like a slag dump. Say--do you know it was through -me Greg met her? It was that week you were out on the Kelley ranch. -I met two or three of the old crowd on the street and nothing would -do but that I should go to their picnic for the sake of old times. -Greg was in town and I persuaded him to come along. Didn’t want to, -but I talked him over. Guess there’s no escaping our fate. Possibly -I couldn’t have corralled him if it hadn’t been for reaction--he’d -been whooping it up on The Flat. Well, I wished afterward that I’d -left him to play the wheel and all the rest of it for a while longer. -Greg never loses his head--that is to say he never did till he met Ida -Hook. The sporting life never took a hold on him, for while he went -in for it with the deep deliberation that was born in him, it’s just -that deliberation that saves him from going too far. He cuts loose -the minute he figured out beforehand to cut loose, and all the king’s -horses--or all the other attractions--couldn’t make him put in another -second. A girl shot herself one night out at the Five Mile House -because he suddenly said good-bye and turned on his heel. She knew he -meant it. He never even turned round when he heard her drop----” - -“What a brute!” - -“Greg? Not he. I’ve known him to sit up all night with a sick dog----” - -“I hate people that are kind to animals and cruel to one another.” - -“Greg isn’t cruel. He said he was going and he went; that’s all. It’s -his way. Girls of that kind are trash, anyhow, and when a woman goes -into the sporting life she knows enough to take sporting chances.” - -“You are as bad as he.” - -Mark stared at her in open-eyed amazement. He never had seen her really -roused before. “Don’t you bother your dear little head,” he said -soothingly. “Angels like you don’t know anything about that sort of -life--and don’t need to.” - -Ora’s anger vanished in laughter. “Well, suppose you give me a hint -about his wife. I really am interested, and delighted at the prospect -of being of some use in the world.” - -“You’re all right! Ida--well, I guess you’ll do a lot for her, by just -having her round. She’s no fool--and she certainly is a looker. If you -tone her down and polish her up I’ll feel it’s a sort of favour to -myself. Greg’ll be one of the richest men in this country some day,--if -he has to walk over a few thousand fellow citizens to get there--and I -don’t want to see him queered by a woman. Seen that before.” - -“I intend to do my best, but for her sake, not his----” - -“Say!” It was patent that Mark had an inspiration. “Why not take Ida -with you to Europe? I don’t like the idea of a dainty little thing like -you” (Ora was five feet six) “travelling alone, and a husky girl like -Ida could take care of you while putting on a few coats of European -polish. Greg can afford it; he must have cleared a good many thousands -on his ranch during the last two years, besides what I’ve turned over -for him; and he can live here with me and get all the comforts of -home. I’ll let you off for six months. What do you say?” - -Ora was looking at him with pink cheeks and bright eyes. “You are sure -you won’t mind?” - -“I’ll miss you like fun, of course; especially when you look as pretty -as you do this minute, but I think it would be a good thing for you and -better for Ida--and I’ll fire this cook.” - -“Will Mr. Compton give his consent?” - -“No one on God’s earth would take chances on what Gregory Compton would -do until he had done it, but I don’t mind throwing a guess that he -could live without Ida for six months and not ask me to dry his tears. -And there isn’t a mean bone in his body.” - -“It would interest me immensely to take Mrs. Compton abroad. Now hurry -if you expect to get a seat at one of the bridge tables. It is late----” - -“I rather thought I’d like to stay and talk to you----” - -“How polite of you! But I’m tired out and going straight to bed. So -toddle along.” - - - - -XI - - -“Tailored suits have to be made by a tailor, but I’d like first rate to -copy this one you call a little afternoon frock. It’s got the style all -right, and I could get some cheap nice-looking stuff.” - -Ida was gloating over Ora’s limited but fashionable wardrobe, and -while she held the smart afternoon frock out at arm’s length, her eye -wandered to an evening gown of blue satin and chiffon that lay over the -back of a chair. - -“Glory!” she sighed. “But I’d like to wear a real gown like that. -Low-neck, short sleeves! I’ve got the neck and arms too, you bet----” - -“Why not copy it?” Ora was full of enthusiasm once more. “You can do it -here, and I have an excellent seamstress----” - -“Where’d I wear a rig like that? Even if I made it in China silk and -Greg took me anywheres, I couldn’t. We don’t go in for real low necks -in our bunch.” - -“But surely you’ll go to the Junior Prom?” - -Ida opened her mouth as well as her eyes. “The Junior Prom? I never -thought of it. Of course I’d be asked, Greg being in the Junior Class -and all----” - -“Naturally.” - -Ida frowned. “Well, I ain’t going. I said I wouldn’t go anywheres--to -any swell blowouts, until I’m as big as anybody there.” - -“But the School of Mines is composed of young men of all classes. Each -asks his friends. The Prom is anything but an exclusive affair. You go -out to the Garden dances on Friday nights in summer?” - -“Oh, in that jam--and everybody wearing their suits, or any old -thing----” - -“Well, I think you should go to the Prom. Mr. Compton is the star pupil -in the School of Mines. The professors talk of no one else. I rather -think your absence would cause comment.” - -“Well--maybe I’ll go. I’d like to all right. But I can’t wear low-neck. -I guess you know it wouldn’t do.” - -“No doubt you are right.” Ora made no attempt at conversion; it was -encouraging that Ida had certain inclinations toward good taste, even -if they were prompted by expediency. - -“Jimminy, but your room’s pretty!” exclaimed Ida. “Mine’s pink--but -lawsy!” - -She gazed about the room, which, although she never had seen the sea, -recalled descriptions of its shells washed by its foam. She knit her -brows. “I guess it takes experience, and seein’ things,” she muttered. -Her eyes travelled to the little bed in one corner. It would have -looked like a nun’s, so narrow and inconspicuous was it, had it not -been for its cover of pale pink satin under the same filmy lace. - -“Sakes alive!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you sleep with your husband?” - -Ora was angry to feel herself coloring. She answered haughtily, “We -have separate rooms. It is the custom--I mean--I have always seen----” - -“I’ve heard it was the stunt among swells, but I don’t hold to it. It’s -only at night that you’ve really got a chance to know where a man is; -and the more rope you give him the more he’ll take. What’s to prevent -Mark slippin’ out when he thinks you’re asleep? Or coming home any old -time? Besides, some men talk in their sleep. That gives you another -hold. I’m always hoping Greg will, as he talks so little when he’s -awake. You bet your life he never gets a room to himself.” - -“Poor Mr. Compton!” thought Ora. “I fancy he’ll expiate.” “Shall we go -downstairs?” she asked. “I got my portfolios out this morning.” - -She tactfully had shown Ida her wardrobe first, and the guest descended -to the library in high good humour. For an hour they hung over the -contents of the Italian portfolios. Ida was enchanted with the castles -and ruins, listened eagerly to the legends, and was proud of her -own knowledge of the horrors enacted in the Coliseum. But over the -photographs of the masterpieces in the Pitti and the Uffizi she frankly -yawned. - -“No more cross-eyed saints, and fat babies and shameless sporting women -in mine,” she announced. “Them virgins sitting on thrones, holding -four-year-olds trying to look like six months, make me tired.” - -“Oh, well, I fancy you must see the old masters for the first time in -their proper setting--and wonderful colouring----” Ora wondered if the -masterpieces would appear somewhat overrated to herself if seen for the -first time in Butte. It certainly was interesting to watch the effect -of fixed standards--or superstitions--upon an untrained but remarkably -sharp mind. - -“That Last Supper looks like they’d been eating the paint,” pursued Ida. - -Ora laughed. “I shan’t show you any more pictures today. This furniture -is Italian--Florentine and Venetian. Let me tell you something about -it.” - -“I’d like to see all your rooms.” Ida rose and stretched herself -luxuriously. Ora thought she looked like a beautiful Persian cat. -“Houses interest me mor’n pictures, although I’ll buy them too some -day. Not old masters, though. They’d give me the willys. This carved -oak with faded gilt panels is a dream!” she exclaimed with instant -appreciation. “I’d learn wood-carving if there was anyone in this -God-forsaken camp to teach it.” - -Ora clapped her hands, and once more, to Ida’s startled eyes she looked -like a very young girl. “I studied several of the crafts when I was in -Germany,” she cried, “wood-carving, brass-hammering, enamelling. I’ll -set up a workshop--let me see, the attic would be the best place, and -the furnace warms it--and teach you, and work myself. It’s just what I -need. I wonder I never thought of it----” - -“Need what?” interrupted Ida sharply. - -“Oh, a relief from too much study. There’s nothing like a craft for -mental workers--I should have thought of it before,” she repeated. -“What do you say?” - -“I’d like it first rate, and I guess you’ll find me quick enough with -my hands, whatever you think of my cocoanut.” - -“I think very highly of your cocoanut. This is my little drawing-room.” - -Ida stood on the threshold for a few moments without comment. She -had never cast a thought to her Puritan inheritance, but anger, -disapproval, possessed her. She hated the room, but had no reason to -give. - -“You don’t like my favourite room?” asked Ora, who was watching her -curiously. - -“Is it your favourite room?” She turned this over. “No, I guess I like -the heavy, solid, durable things best.” She struggled for her reasons. -“You get your money’s worth in them. This looks like the first Chinook -would blow it clear over into North Dakota, or as if you might come -in some morning and find a heap of dust where it had been the night -before--like a corpse when the air’s let in. I didn’t mind your bedroom -being dainty and looking like some sea shells I saw once in a picture -frame,--it looks all of a piece, too, you might say; but this--with -them queer thin faded out chairs and sofas--the colours on the wood -even, and them pictures over the doors and mantel look like they would -do the final disappearing act while you wait--well, there’s something -kinder mysterious--ghostly--it looks so stiff--and--at the same -time--so kinder immoral----” - -“I wonder if what you are groping for is the atmosphere of the past, -which all old furniture must have, particularly if rearranged in -something like its original setting.” Ora was regarding her with a new -interest. “This furniture came out of a _hôtel_--what we would call a -residence--with a history--several histories, I should think--and I -fancy it was all frivolous, and wicked, and exciting----” - -“I ain’t no spiritualist!” said Ida tartly. “Is that what you’re -driving at?” - -“I don’t know that I was thinking of occultism, even,” said Ora -lightly. “But it is interesting to find these old things have -atmosphere for you as well as for me----” - -“Why is it your favourite room? Because it has ‘atmosphere’?” - -“I don’t know. I doubt if I have ever given the matter a thought.” - -“So this is your favourite room.” Ida turned her back on it. “H’m. -Well, maybe I’ll understand some things better one of these days than -I do now. Perhaps,” with one of her uncanny dashes of intuition, “I’ll -understand it when I do you.” - -“Let us go up to the attic and look it over. I’ll have the table and -benches made tomorrow.” Something was moving toward expression in her -own mind, but she flung it aside and ran up the stair followed by Ida, -who dismissed the subject as promptly. - - - - -XII - - -There had been a good deal of haggling over the lease of the Oro Fino -Primo mine, the engineers demanding a three years’ lease and bond, -proposing to purchase it at the end of that period for fifty thousand -dollars. Nor were they willing to pay more than ten per cent. in -royalty, displaying the assay report on the ore and arguing that after -the necessary outlay on development work, the ore body might be too -small to repay them. - -Mark, however, was determined not to close with them until he had -visited the claim with Gregory Compton, and this proved to be -impossible for several weeks. The engineers, unable to proceed, had -dismissed their men. They threatened to withdraw their offer and look -for another abandoned property. Mark told them to go ahead, and they -remained in Butte. - -In the course of a month Mark and Gregory were both free on a Sunday. -They took a train for Pony, hired a rig and drove over to the Stratton -claim, dignified by the name of mine. - -The claim was on a small tableland between Gregory’s own hill, which -terminated just beyond the borders of his ranch, and another slope -covered with pines and firs. The engineers had put up a windlass, -retimbered the shaft, sunk it twenty feet lower, and added a pile of -dirty looking ore to the original half-obliterated heap about the -collar of the shaft. - -Gregory picked up half a dozen pieces of various sizes and examined -them. “Their assay was about right, I should think,” he said. “Looks -like good low grade ore, but not too good. It will do no harm to assay -it myself, however,” and he dropped the sample into the pocket of -his coat. Suddenly he gave a startled exclamation, and Mark saw his -nostrils dilate, his nose almost point, as he darted forward and kicked -aside a heap of loosely piled quartz. Then he knelt down and lifted -out several lumps of greyish-black ore. - -“What is it?” asked Mark curiously, and feeling something of the -excitement of the hunter whose gun is trained on a bear. “D’you mean -they’ve found copper glance?” - -“At a depth of sixty feet? Not exactly. This is a basic igneous rock -called pyroxenite, that may not be rich in gold but is more than likely -to be--particularly as our friends have hidden it so carefully and said -nothing about it. It may assay anywhere from ten dollars a ton to five -hundred. I’m going down.” - -The shaft was inclined, four by eight, and timbered with lagging. -Gregory lit the candle he had brought and descended the ladder. He -remained below about ten minutes; when he returned to the surface he -was excited and triumphant. - -“They’ve begun to drift on the vein,” he announced. “They’ve gone about -three feet--it must have been then they learned the history of the -claim. It’s pyroxenite all right, every inch of it.” - -“Well, damn them!” said Mark. - -“They can’t plead that they didn’t recognise the ore, uncommon as it -is, because they began to drift the moment they struck the vein. It -dips toward the ranch,” he added abruptly. - -Mark whistled. “It’s pretty close. That would be a kettle of fish--if -it apexed on your land! Lawsuit. Friendship of a lifetime broken. The -beautiful Mrs. Mark Blake brings suit against the now famous Gregory -Compton----” - -“Oh, nonsense!” said Gregory shortly. But he was disturbed nevertheless. - -“But there’s no nonsense in the idea that your own ore bodies may be -just over the border. Why don’t you sink a shaft, just for nuts.” - -Gregory, who was still excited, felt an impulse to confide his -discovery to his friend. But his natural secretiveness overcame him and -he turned abruptly away. “When I have finished at the School,” he said, -“no doubt I’ll begin gophering again, but not before. What are you -going to do about this? Let them have it?” - -“I’ll let them have a piece of my mind first. What do you -advise?--that I work the mine, myself? I could easily form a company if -the ore is as rich as you think.” - -“I wouldn’t take the chances. Lease the claim to them for a year. -They’ll take it for that time with all this ore in sight. If they’ve -hit a large chamber they’ll soon be netting several thousand dollars a -day. If it’s only a pocket, let them find it out. At the end of a year -you’ll know a good deal more about the mine than you do now. But keep -an eye on them so that they don’t gouge, and make them pay you twenty -per cent. royalty.” - -“They’ll pay it through the nose,” said Mark emphatically. - -Gregory laughed. “You feel as virtuously indignant as if you had never -tried to do anybody yourself. It’s do or be done out West as well as -back East, and precious few mines have a clean history. Marcus Daly -never would have got the best part of Butte Hill if he hadn’t kept his -mouth shut.” - -“It isn’t that I’m so virtuous,” said Mark ingenuously, “but I don’t -like the idea that anybody so nearly got the best of me. And just look -at the way they covered it up.” - -Gregory had kicked aside the greater part of a pile of grey ore, and -revealed quite a hillock of the pyroxenite. He put several pieces in -his pocket, discarding the first specimens. “I’ll get to work on this -tonight,” he said, “and let you know first thing in the morning. But -I’m willing to wager that it runs from sixty to a hundred dollars a -ton.” - -“And not a fleck of gold to be seen!” Mark, who, like all intelligent -men of mining localities, had some knowledge of ores, examined the dark -rock attentively. “They’re some geologists,” he added with unwilling -admiration. “This would fool any ordinary mining engineer. Say!” he -cried, “I’ll not tell Ora until she’s ready to leave--she’s figuring on -going to Europe in the fall. It will be the surprise of her life, for -I led her to think she’d get only a hundred or so a month. Don’t say a -word about it to Ida.” - -Gregory turned away to hide a curl of his lip. “I suppose we’d better -go over and see Oakley, as we’re so close,” he said. “He’ll probably -talk for an hour on his hobby, but any knowledge comes in useful to a -lawyer.” - -“What’s he done.” - -“He figured out that Iowa and the Dakotas and Kansas were likely to -have a drought next year, so he will sow about five hundred acres with -flax in May. He has already put in about three hundred acres of winter -wheat. The bottoms are reserved for alfalfa. He raises the capital and -gets half profits. If it turns out as he expects he’ll have something -at the end of a year to live on besides enthusiasm for intensive -farming.” - - * * * * * - -They were driving toward Pony two hours later when Gregory said -abruptly, “I’m glad that your wife and mine have taken to each other. -It is a great thing for Ida. The improvement is wonderful.” He forebore -to add, even to the man who had known his wife since childhood, “I -don’t see what Mrs. Blake gets out it,” but possibly the irrepressible -thought flew into Mark’s mind, for he replied promptly: - -“It’s great for Ora. She’s tired of everybody else here; tired of so -much reading too. I’ve seen that for some time, though I haven’t let -on. A new interest was just what she wanted. Every clever woman has -a touch of the school ma’am in her, and no one can deny that Ida’s -refreshing. To Ora she’s almost a novelty. I think she rather hates to -make her over, but she’s working on her as hard as I work on a case. -Ora’s the thorough sort. What she does is done with all her might and -main. Otherwise she don’t do it at all. She’s equally accomplished at -that!” - -He decided that this was the propitious moment; Gregory was in an -uncommonly melting mood, for him. “Say!” he continued, “Ora and I have -put up a little job on you. I’ve told her to take her new money and go -to Europe for six months or so--By James, she shall go, even if this -thing hangs fire and I have to sell some stock. It’s over six years -since she’s seen Europe, and I guess she pines for it all right. Well, -she wants to take Ida.” - -Gregory demanded with unexpected promptness, “How much would it cost?” - -“Oh, about a hundred to New York and a hundred and fifty over,” said -Mark vaguely. “Of course when two are together it costs less. And in -Europe distances are short. Ora says she shall go to _pensions_ instead -of hotels, if only because they would be two young women alone; and -they cost much less. They can also travel second-class, and third in -Germany and Switzerland. Ora says she and her friends always did it in -summer because it was cooler and more interesting. She’s sent for a lot -of Baedekers, is going to make a close estimate, then double it.” - -“One of my aunts died the other day and left me a thousand dollars; she -had no family. Ida can have it. Of course I could send her more if she -needed it, but she’s clever with money.” - -“That will do it.” (He knew that if it did not Ora, who would pay the -bills, would manage to hoodwink Ida.) “And you must live with me. It’ll -be fine. Bachelor’s Hall. We’ll do as we damn please.” - -Gregory shook hands with him, his strong hard face illuminated with -the infrequent smile that gave it something of a sweet woman’s charm. -“Thanks, old man,” he said fervently. “Sounds good!” - - - - -XIII - - -Several weeks passed before Ora sent for Miss Ruby Miller. She was -busier during those weeks than she had been for many months. Ida came -every other day at one o’clock and remained until five. They carved -wood in the attic, and looked at pictures or read in the library during -the hour and a half that included tea. Ida confessed that during the -latter interval she was so bored sometimes she could scream, but added -that she would stick it out if she yawned every tooth in her head -loose. One thing that never bored her was the picture of Ora--her -working blouse changed for a dainty house gown--presiding at the -tea-table. She studied every detail, every gesture; she even cultivated -a taste for tea, which heretofore she had regarded as fit for invalids -only, like jellies and cup-custard. - -Ora’s alternate days and many of her evenings were filled with social -duties. Butte was indulging in one of its hurricanes of festivity. -Mrs. O’Hagan, who lived in the largest and finest house on the West -Side, gave a series of dinner dances. Mrs. Burke, who owned the big -ugly red house of appalling architecture built by Judge Stratton in the -eighties, gave several entertainments in honour of two young visitors -from Denver. Mrs. Maginnis, who lived in another palatial residence -far west and far from the old Stratton house--which in its day had -expressed the extreme limit of the city, as of fashion--gave a ball as -brilliant as anything Ora had seen in a distant hemisphere. Flowers -may be scarce in Butte, but flowers and palms may be imported by the -carload from Helena, and the large rooms looked like an oasis in the -grey desert of Butte. Every woman wore a ball gown made by some one of -the great reiterative masters, and there were no wall flowers; for, -although the tango had not yet set the whole world dancing, the women -of Montana never had interpreted grey hairs as a signal to retire. - -It was on the day after this ball that Ora had telephoned to Miss -Miller. “Can you give me an hour or two tomorrow?” she asked. - -“Sure. Can I come early? I’ve got fourteen heads to dress for the -Cameron ball, and most of them want a facial too?” - -“A what?” - -“Face massage, and touchin’ up generally.” - -“Oh.” - -“It’s fine. Makes you feel as good as you look. What did you want me to -do?” - -“Ob, shampoo my hair. I want to consult you about it, too--and -manicure.” - -“Well, I’ll bring the creams along, and if you want a massage I’ll be -ready.” - -Ora had succeeded in making Miss Miller propose what she had quite made -up her mind to try, and she rang off with a smile. The evening before -she had thought herself the plainest woman at the party, and the effect -of this discouraging conclusion had been to kill her animation and -sag her shoulders until she knew she must look as dowdy as she felt. -For the first time she realised how a blighted vanity may demoralise -the proudest intellect. It was time to get a move on, as her new but -rapidly developing friend would put it. - -Ora was very proud of her work. She gave Professor Whalen due credit, -and knew that Ida toiled at her exercises, but doubted if the -uninspiring pedant would have been retained had it not been for the -sense of emulation, slightly tinctured by jealousy, she managed to -rouse in her new boon companion when they were together. But Ida was -now exercising something of her latent force of character, determined -to make the most of advantages for which she knew many a sudden-rich -woman would “give her eye teeth.” She would polish up “good and plenty” -before her husband made his strike; and waste no precious time on the -inside of her skull when she had the cash to spend on its outside. - -After the first week she dropped no more g’s, her grammar rapidly -improved, and although she never would be a stylist, nor altogether -forswear slang, not only because the ready-made phrase appealed to her -unliterary mind, but because its use was ingrained, she reserved it -more and more for those that best could appreciate it. As it annoyed -Professor Whalen excessively, she went afield for new phrases “for the -fun of seeing him wriggle.” - -On the other hand, whenever she felt in the mood, she gazed at him with -penitent languid eyes, promised never to use slang again, and amused -herself racking other nerves. She knew just how far to go and “turned -him off,” or “switched him back on to the track” before any real harm -was done. Some day she might let him make a scene just for the fun of -the thing, but not until she was “good and ready.” - -Her feeling for Ora was more difficult to define. Sometimes she almost -loved her, not only inspired by gratitude, but because Ora’s personal -magnetism was intensified by every charm of refinement, vivacity, -mental development, as well as by a broad outlook on life and a -sweetness of manner which never infuriated her by becoming consciously -gracious. At other times she hated her, for she knew that no such -combination ever could be hers. Ora was a patrician born of patricians. -She might go to the devil, preside over one of the resorts down on -The Flat, take to drink and every evil way, and still would she be -patrician. Herself might step into millions and carry her unsullied -virtue to her grave and she never would be the “real thing.” For the -first time she understood that being “a lady” had little to do with -morals or behaviour. Nothing irritates the complacent American more -than the sudden appreciation of this fact. - -“But I guess I’ll be as good as some others,” Ida consoled herself. -“After all, I don’t see so many Ora Blakes lying round loose. People -don’t bother much these days if your clothes make their mouth water and -your grammar don’t queer you.” - -Gregory, when he had time to think about it--he read even at the -breakfast and dinner-table, and had an assay plant in the cellar--was -charmed with her improvement, and told her abruptly one day that if -she kept faithfully to her tasks until November he would give her the -thousand dollars he had received under the will of his aunt. “And you -can do what you like with it,” he added. “I shan’t ask you. That’s the -way I enjoyed money when I was a kid, and I guess women are much the -same.” - -“A thousand dollars!” Ida was rigid, her mouth open. “Geewhil--I beg -pardon--My! But you are good!” She paused to rearrange her thoughts, -which were in danger of flying off into language her husband was paying -to remodel. “Can I really do anything with it I like?” - -“You can.” He smiled at her bright wide-open eyes and flaming cheeks. - -“I ain’t--haven’t said anything about it as I didn’t think it would be -any sort of use, but Ora is going to Europe in the fall, and she told -me Mark was going to try to persuade you to let me go with her. Now I -can go on my thousand dollars, if you don’t mind. Mark wants you to -stay with him.” - -“He spoke to me about it--I had forgotten. There couldn’t be a better -arrangement. This is the time for you to go to Europe--while your mind -is still plastic.” - -“You don’t seem to mind my going a little bit.” Rapture gave place to -suspicion. Ida was not born with faith in man. - -“My dear child! What good am I to you now? You might be keeping house -for a deaf mute. All I need is the right kind of food and a comfortable -bed. I’ll get both at Mark’s. Next year you would see even less of -me than you do now. We get our last and most practical drilling in -ore-dressing, metallurgy, power-utilisation, and geology. We shall -be off half the time on geological expeditions, visits to mines in -other parts of the state, smelters, the most up-to-date of the cyanide -mills. So you see how much I shall be at home. Go to Europe and enjoy -yourself.” - -“All right. I’ll go. You bet. And I’ll not miss a trick. There’ll never -be a thousand dollars better spent.” - - - - -XIV - - -“Now I’ve got you where I want you, and I’m goin’ to talk--goin’ to say -something I’ve been dyin’ to say for two or three years.” - -Ora’s head was in the wash-basin. Miss Miller was leisurely spraying -out the lime juice with which she had drenched her hair. Ora gasped, -then gurgled something unintelligible, which Miss Ruby interpreted -as encouragement to proceed. Mrs. Blake’s manner ever since the -hairdresser’s arrival had been uncommonly winning, with something -half-appealing, half-confiding that flew straight not only to that -experienced young woman’s sympathies but to her professional instinct. - -“It’s this,” she continued. “You need a thorough overhauling. In these -days, particularly in this altitude, women take care of themselves as -they go along, but you don’t. You’ve lost your complexion ridin’ and -walkin’ for hours without a veil, sometimes without a hat, and you with -a delicate skin like a baby’s and not even using creams. I heard a man -say only last Sunday--I was givin’ his wife a facial and he was sittin’ -round--that it was an awful pity you had gone off so, as you were the -prettiest thing he ever laid eyes on when you came back after your pa’s -death, and if Mark--Mr. Blake--hadn’t snapped you up before any other -young man got a look at you you’d have had a dozen chances, for all -you’ve got such a reputation for brains. ‘A man can stand brains in a -white lily of a girl,’ says he, ‘but when she gets older she’s either -got to keep her complexion or cut out the brains, and Ora Blake’s done -neither’--Say if you squirm like that you’ll get your mouth and eyes -full of lemon. His wife said she didn’t believe men cared for them thin -white women anyway--she’s bustin’ with health herself--and he gave a -grunt that means a lot to a girl who knows men like I do. You never did -make anything of yourself and you’ve let yourself go these last two or -three years something shameful. If you’d take yourself in hand, get on -to yourself once for all, you’d have people twistin’ their necks off to -look at you and callin’ you a Mariposa lily, or a Princess Pine, or a -White Gladiolus and other poetry names like that. And you could get the -reputation of a beauty all right. It makes me sick.” - -“Could you make me into a beauty?” Ora’s voice was remarkably languid -considering the flaming hue of her face, which, however, may have been -due to its prolonged sojourn in the wash-basin. Miss Miller had wrung -her hair out and was rubbing it vigorously. - -“Couldn’t I _just_?” - -As Mrs. Blake maintained a dignified silence, Miss Ruby proceeded to -develop her theme. “Now, your hair, for instance. That’s the reason -I used lemon today. You’ve been usin’ soap, and, what with this dry -climate, and no care, it’s as harsh and broken as if you’d been usin’ -soda on it every day. It’s lemon and hot water for you, first, last -and always, and eggs after a journey. It needs a couple of months of -hand-massage every other day right now; after that it will be up to -you. Brush it night and morning and use a tonic twice a year.” - -She paused and Ora waited with eyes closed to conceal her impatience. -Finally she opened them irresistibly and met Miss Ruby’s in the mirror. -They, too, looked embarrassed. Ora’s smile was spontaneous and sweet -and not too frequent. It seldom failed to melt reserve and inspire -confidence. She played this card without delay. - -“Why don’t you go on?” she asked. “All that is most interesting and -valuable. I shall remember every word of it.” - -“Well--I was afraid that what I want to say most might sound as if I -was drummin’ up trade, and the Lord knows I’ve got more to do than I -could manage if there was ten days in every week. I turned down two -ladies today to come here. I never shampoo the day of a ball.” - -“My dear Miss Miller! You are an artist, and like all artists, you -not only aim at perfection yourself but your eyes and fingers ache -at imperfection. I suppose an author rewrites sentences as he reads -them, and painters must long to repaint every picture they see. As -for you--we are your page and canvas, and naturally we have the good -fortune to interest you.” - -“That’s it!” cried Miss Ruby, glowing. “That’s the size of it, only I -couldn’t ever say it like that. Well, now, if you want this skin to -look like a complexion and not like a hide, I’ve got to give you a -massage every third day for quite a while. It not only needs creams and -cold applications--hot only once in a while--but an awful lot of hand -massage. It’s all run down and needs stimulating the worst way. Another -year and you’d be havin’ lines. You can’t leave yourself to nature up -here. She’s in too great a hurry to take back what she gave. And you -must cut out hot breads and trash and wear a veil when you go out in -the sun and wind. And you go to Boulder Springs once a week and take a -vapour bath.” - -“But I’ll always look washed-out.” - -“Not if you look fresh, and wear colours that suit you.” - -“And I never was called a beauty. That man, whoever he was, merely -remembered the usual prettiness of youth. Every young girl is pretty -unless she is ugly.” - -“Well, I guess you didn’t take enough pains to make people think you -were a beauty. Some--Ida Compton, for instance--don’t need to do -anything but just show themselves. Any fool--particularly a man--can -see black hair and red and white skin, and meltin’ eyes, and lashes -a yard long, and a dashin’ figure. But odd and refined types like -you--well, you’ve got to help it out.” - -“How very interesting! Do you mean I must go about telling people -that I am really beautiful, if they will only look at me long enough? -Or--possibly--do you mean that I should make up?” - -“I don’t mean either, ’though in a way I mean both. In the first place -you’ve got to make the most of your points. You’re not a red blonde -or a gold blonde, but what the French call sendray; in plain English, -you’ve got ash-coloured hair. Now, that makes the blondest kind of -blonde, but at the same time it’s not so common, and nature has to give -it to you. Art can’t. What you want to do is to let people see that -your colouring is so rare that you can’t get enough of it yourself, -and by and by people will think they can’t either. You’ve been wearin’ -all this hair twisted into a hard knot down on your neck. That don’t -show off the hair and don’t suit your face, which is kinder square. I’m -goin’ to pull it soft about your face and ears and then coil it softly -on top of your head. That’ll give length to your face, and look as if -you was proud of your hair--which you will be in a month or two. You -mustn’t pay too much attention to the style of the moment. You’re the -sort to have a style of your own and stick to it.” - -“I’m in your hands,” murmured Ora. “What next?” - -“Did you really lose interest in yourself?” asked Miss Miller -curiously, and with the fine freedom of the West from class restraint. -“Or didn’t you ever have any?” - -“A little of both. When I was a girl I was a frightful pedant--and--Oh, -well--Butte is not Europe, and I took refuge more than ever in books, -particularly as I could have nothing of the other arts. You know the -resources of Butte!” - -“I’m glad you’re goin’ to Europe again, where I guess all kinds of -variety are on tap.--Say, perhaps you’ll find out all the new kinks for -the complexion in Paris, and tell me when you come back.” - -“I will indeed!” - -“I don’t hold to rippin’ the skin off, or hoistin’ it up,” said Miss -Miller firmly. “All any skin needs is steady treatment, and constant -care--constant, mind you, and never forget it. Now there’s your -profile. It’s grand. The way I’m goin’ to fix your hair’ll show it off, -and don’t you let it get scooped round the eyes, like so many women do. -Massage’ll prevent that. I wish your eyebrows and lashes was black, -like so many heroines in novels has. The contrast would be fine. But -brown’ll do, and I guess the natural is your lay. Luckily them black -grey eyes is a high note, and when you get your lips real red, you’ll -have all the colour your style can carry. The gleamin’ white skin’ll do -the rest.” - -“How am I to get red lips, and what’s to make my skin gleam?” - -“You’re anæmic. You go to a doctor and get a tonic right off. When I -get through with your complexion it’ll gleam all right. No powder for -you. It improves most women, but you want high lights. I don’t mean -shine when I say gleam, either. I mean that you’ve got the kind of skin -that when the tan’s off and it’s toned up and is in perfect condition -(you’ve got to be that inside, too), sheds a sort of white light. It’s -the rarest kind, and I guess it does the most damage.” - -“And what good is all this beautifying to do me? And why make me -dangerous? Surely you are not counselling that I begin a predatory raid -on other women’s husbands, or even on the ‘brownies’?” - -“Well, I guess not. I don’t approve of married women lettin’ men make -love to them, but I do believe in a woman makin’ the most of herself -and gettin’ all the admiration that’s comin’ to her. If you can be a -beauty, for the Lord Almighty’s sake be one. Believe me, it’ll make -life seem as if it had a lot more to it.” - -“I shouldn’t wonder!” - -“And you go in right off for deep breathin’ and Swedish exercises -night and mornin’. It’s the style to be thin, but you want to develop -yourself more. And they keep you limber--don’t forget that. When a -woman stiffens up she’s done for. Might as well get fat round her -waist. Now shut your eyes, I’m goin’ to massage.” - - - - -XV - - -“I wonder!” thought Ora, “I wonder!” - -It was some four months after her first séance with Miss Ruby Miller. -There was no question of the improvement in her looks, owing, perhaps, -as much to a new self-confidence as to the becoming arrangement of -her hair and the improved tint and texture of her skin. The tonic and -a less reckless diet had also done their work; her eyes were even -brighter, her lips pink. Moreover, it was patent that the sudden -reformation was as obvious to Butte as to herself. Women confessed to a -previous fear that the “altitude had got on her nerves or something”; -as for the men, they may or may not have observed the more direct -results of Miss Miller’s manipulations, but it was not open to doubt -that her new interest in herself had revived her magnetism and possibly -doubled it. - -Ora turned from the mirror in her bedroom, where she had been regarding -her convalescing beauty with a puzzled frown, and stared down at the -rough red dirt of her half-finished street--she lived far to the west. -Her eyes travelled up to the rough elevation upon which stood the -School of Mines in its lonely splendour, then down to the rough and -dreary Flat. It stretched far to the south, a hideous expanse, with its -dusty cemetery, its uninviting but not neglected road houses, its wide -section given over to humble dwellings, with here and there a house of -more pretensions, but little more beauty. It was in one of these last, -no doubt, that her father had kept his mistress, whose children, she -was vaguely aware, attended the public schools under his name. These -houses, large and small, were crowded together as if pathetically -conscious that the human element must be their all, in that sandy, -treeless, greenless waste. - -There was something pathetic, altogether, thought Ora, in the bright -eagerness with which even the wealthy class made the most of their -little all. They were so proud of Columbia Gardens, a happy-go-lucky -jumble of architectures and a few young trees, a fine conservatory and -obese pansies on green checkers of lawn; they patronised its Casino so -conscientiously on Friday nights when the weather would permit. During -the winter, they skated on their shingled puddle down on The Flat as -merrily and thankfully as though it were the West End of London or -one of the beautiful lakes in one of the beautiful German “gartens.” -They motored about the hideous environs, and hung out of the car to -emphasise their rapture at the lonely tree or patch of timid verdure; -they entertained royally in their little Club House, out in another -desolate waste, or played golf without envy or malice. In short they -resolutely made the most of Butte when they were in it; they patted -Butte and themselves on the back daily; they loved it and they were -loyal to it and they got out of it as often as they possibly could. - -“And I!” thought Ora, with a sense of panic. “I, who will probably get -away every five years or so--what am I waking up for--to what end? I -wonder!” - -She walked slowly downstairs and, avoiding the little French -drawing-room, went into the library and sat down among her books. -Sash curtains of a pale canary colour shut out the rough vacant lots -and ugly dwellings above her home, and cast a mellow glow over the -brown walls and rows of calf-bound books. Judge Stratton had read -in four modern languages and two dead ones. The love of reading, of -long evenings alone in his deserted “mansion,” had been as striking -a characteristic of his many-sided ego as his contempt for moral -standards. Ora, who had grown into a slow but fairly thorough knowledge -of her father’s life and character, permitted her thoughts to flow -freely this afternoon and to speculate upon what her life might have -been had Judge Stratton been as upright as he was intellectually -gifted; if her mother had possessed the brains or charm to keep him -ensnared; if she herself had been left, an orphan at twenty, with the -fortune she inevitably would have inherited had her father behaved -himself--instead of finding herself penniless, ignorant of all -practical knowledge, a querulous invalid on her hands, her only suitor -the “hustling” son of her mother’s old seamstress. - -Ora admitted no disloyalty to Mark as she put these questions for -the first time squarely to herself. She intended to continue to treat -him with unswerving friendship, to give him all the assistance in her -power, as long as she lived. And, as husbands went, she made no doubt -that he was one to thank her grudging providence for. But that she -would have considered him for a moment had she inherited the fortune -her father had made and dissipated was as likely as that she would have -elected to live her life in Butte. - -She knew Mark’s ambitions. Washington was his goal, and he was by no -means averse from being governor of his state meanwhile. Nor would he -have been a genuine American boy, born in the traditional log cabin--it -had been a log cabin as a matter of fact--if he had not cherished -secret designs on the White House. In all this, did it prove to be more -or less, she could be of incalculable assistance to him. And she was -the more determined to render this assistance because she had accepted -his bounty and was unable to love him. - -She concluded with some cynicism that the account would be squared, -being by no means blind to what she had done for him already in the -way of social position and prestige; still, it was not only his right, -but a penance demanded by her self-respect. She was living the most -unidealistic life possible to a woman of her pride and temperament, but -she would redeem it as far as lay in her power. - -She moved impatiently, her brows puzzled again, and something like -fear in her heart. What did this slow awakening portend? Why had she -instinctively held it back with all her strength, quite successfully -until her new-born vanity, with its infinite suggestions, had quickened -it suddenly into imperious expression? - -Certainly she was conscious of no desire for a more idealistic union -with another man. If she had inherited a fortune, she would have -married no one; not then, at all events; nothing had been further from -her desire. She would have lived in Europe and travelled in many lands. -Beyond a doubt her hunger for the knowledge that lies in books would -have been satiated long since, never would have assumed a discrepant -importance. She would be uniformly developed, and she would have met -many men. With the double passport of birth and wealth, added to the -fine manner she owed to her Southern mother, her natural vivacity and -magnetism, and a physical endowment that she now knew could have been -trained into positive beauty, she would have had her pick of men. And -when a woman may choose of the best, with ample time at her disposal, -it was incredible that the true mate, the essential companion, should -not be found before it was too late. Most marriages are makeshifts; but -for the fortunate few, with the intelligence to wait, and the developed -instinct to respond, there was always the possibility of the perfect -union. - -Ora made a wry face at this last collocation. She had no yearning for -the “perfect union.” Matrimony had been too unutterably distasteful. -She turned hastily from the subject and recalled her father’s -impassioned desire that she should make the West her home, her career, -marry a Western man, give him and her state the benefit of her -endowments and accomplishments. Possibly, surfeited with Europe, she -would have returned to Montana to identify herself with its progress, -whether she married or not. She was artistic by temperament and -training, and correspondingly fastidious; she cordially detested all -careers pursued by women outside those that were the natural evolution -of an artistic gift. But she could have built herself an immense and -splendid house, filled it with the most exquisite treasures American -money could coax from the needy aristocracy of Europe, and have a -famous salon; invite the pick of the artistic, literary, musical, -and political world to visit her for weeks or months at a time, -house parties of a hundred or more, and so make her state famous for -something besides metals, intensive farming, and political corruption. -No one could deny that the state would benefit exceedingly. - -Conceivably, in time she would take a husband, assuredly one of high -ambitions and abilities, one whose fortunes probably would take him to -Washington. - -This brought her back to Mark, and she laughed aloud. She had been -romancing wildly; of late she had grudgingly admitted that nature may -have composed her to be romantic after she had recovered from the -intellectual obsession; and the circle had brought her round to her -husband! He was “forging ahead” with extraordinary rapidity. She made -no doubt that he would be a millionaire within the ten years’ limit -he had set himself. Nor would he rely alone upon his legal equipment -and the many opportunities to exercise it when a man was “on the job -all the time”; he watched the development of Montana’s every industry, -new and established. He “bought in on the ground floor,” gambled -discreetly in copper, owned shares in several new and promising mines, -and property on the most picturesquely situated of the new lakes -constructed for power supply. He invested what he could afford, and -with the precision of the man on the spot. Yes, he would be one of -the Western millionaires, even if not one of the inordinate ones, and -before his ten years had passed, if no untoward event occurred. - -And it was on the cards that she would have her own fortune before -long. She knew that Mark (who had her power of attorney) had made -better terms with the engineers than he had anticipated, and he dropped -mysterious hints which, knowing his level head, made her indulge in -ornate dreams now and again. But he only smiled teasingly when she -demanded a full explanation, and told her that she would realise how -good or how bad her mine was when she went to the bank to sign her -letter of credit. - -For one thing she felt suddenly grateful. She knew that the mine had -been leased for a year only and without bond. If, during that time it -“panned out,” she would stipulate to mine it herself when the contract -expired. - -She sat up very straight and smiled. That was what she would have -liked! If her father had but willed her this mine and capital enough to -work it alone! Her fingers fluttered as they always did when handling -ore; she had wondered before if the prospector’s fever were in her -blood. How she should have enjoyed watching the rock come up in the -buckets as the shaft sank foot by foot, until they struck the vein; -always expecting chambers of incredible richness, gold, copper, silver. -She would even learn to do the pleasant part of her own assaying; and -she suddenly experienced an intense secretive jealous love for this -mine that was hers and in which might be hidden shining blocks of -those mysterious primary deposits deep in the sulphide zone; forced up -through the veins of earth, but born how or where man could only guess. -It was a mystery that she wanted to feel close to and alone with, far -in the winding depths of her mine. - -She got up and moved about impatiently. Her propensity to dream -extravagantly was beginning to alarm her, and she wished uneasily that -she could discover the gift to write and work it off. Where would -it lead her? But she would not admit for a moment that her released -imagination, pulsing with vitality, and working on whatever she fed it, -only awaited the inevitable moment when it could concentrate on the one -object for which the imagination of woman was created. - -The pendulum swung back and more evenly. She told herself it was both -possible and probable that she had a good property, however short it -might fall of Butte Hill. She renewed her determination to mine it -herself, and work, work, work. Therein lay safety. The future seemed -suddenly full of alarms. - -And there was Mark, his career, his demands, dictated not so -insistently by him as by herself. - -Ora’s soul rose in a sudden and desperate revolt beside which her -rising aversion from unmitigated intellect was a mere megrim. She -felt herself to be her father’s daughter in all her newly-opened -aching brain-cells. He had lived his life to please himself, and if -his temptations and weaknesses might never be hers--how could she -tell?--his intense vitality survived in her veins, his imperious -spirit, his scornful independence. She glanced at the rows of -calf-bound books he had handled so often. Something of his sinister -powerful personality seemed to steal forth and encompass her, sweep -through the quickened corridors of her brain. Mark Blake was not the -man he would have chosen for his daughter. Western, Mark might be to -the core, but he was second-rate, and second-rate he would remain no -matter what his successes. - -And, she wondered, what would this proud ambitious parent, whose -deepest feeling had been for his one legitimate child, say to her plan -to play second fiddle for life to a man of the Mark Blake calibre? He -had wanted her to marry in the West, but he had been equally insistent -that she should develop a personality and position of her own. No -devoted suffragist could have been a more ardent advocate of woman’s -personal development than Judge Stratton had been where his daughter -was concerned. To the rights of other women he had never cast a -thought. - -This was the hour of grim self-avowal. She admitted what had long moved -in the back of her mind, striving toward expression, that she hated -herself for having married any man for the miserable reason that has -driven so many lazy inefficient women into loveless marriages. She -should have gone to work. More than one of her father’s old friends -would have given her a secretaryship. She could have lived on her -little capital and taken the four years’ course at the School of Mines, -equipping herself for a congenial career. If that had not occurred to -her she could have taught French, Italian, German, dancing, literature. -In a new state like Montana, with many women raised abruptly from -the nethermost to the highest stratum, there was always a longing, -generally unfulfilled, for the quick veneer; and women of older -fortunes welcomed opportunities to improve themselves. She could have -taken parties to Europe. - -She had played the coward’s part and not only done a black injustice to -herself but to Mark Blake. He was naturally an affectionate creature, -and, married to a comfortable sweet little wife, he would have been -domestic and quite happy. In spite of his enjoyment of his club, his -cards and billiards, and his buoyant nature, she suspected that he was -wistful at heart. He was intensely proud of his wife, in certain ways -dependent upon her, but she knew he had taken for granted that her -girlish coldness would melt in time and womanly fires kindle. Well, -they never would for him, poor Mark. And possessing an inherent sense -of justice, she felt just then more sympathy for him than for herself, -and placed all his good points to his credit. - -She was conscious of no sympathy for herself, only of that deep -sense of puzzlement, disturbance, apprehension. Revolt passed. -Indications--the abrupt bursting into flower of many unsuspected bulbs -in her inner garden: softness, sympathy, a more spontaneous interest -in and response to others, the tendency to dream, vague formless -aspirations--had hinted, even before she took her new-born vanity to -Miss Ruby Miller, that she was on the threshold of one of the dangerous -ages (there are some ten or fifteen of them), and that unless she -had the doubtful wisdom and resolution to burn out her garden as the -poisonous fumes of roasting ores had blasted the fruitful soil of -Butte, she must prepare to face Life, possibly its terrible joys and -sorrows. - -She sprang to her feet and ran upstairs and dressed for the street. At -least she had one abiding interest and responsibility, Ida Compton. She -was a self-imposed and absorbing duty, and always diverting. - - - - -XVI - - -“Oh, you give me the willys!” - -“My dear Mrs. Compton! How often have you promised me----” - -“Well, if you will stare at me like a moonstruck setter dog when I’m -trying to think up ’steen synonyms for one old word without looking -in the dictionary! I can’t blow up my vocabulary like a paper bag and -flirt with you at the same time.” - -“I have no desire to flirt with you!” said Professor Whalen with great -dignity. “It is quite the reverse. You have been playing with my -feelings for months.” - -“Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve been too set on becoming a real lady -before leaving for Europe--haven’t thought about you.” - -Professor Whalen turned a deep dull red. His overlapping upper teeth -shot forward as if to snap down upon his long rather weak chin. He -stared past Ida through the open window. It was May and the snow was -melting on the mountains, had disappeared from the streets of Butte; -there is a brief springtime in Montana between the snows of winter and -the cold rains of June, and today was soft and caressing. - -“I’ll tell you what is the matter with you,” said Ida, cruelly. “It’s -the spring of the year.” - -Whalen sprang to his feet. For the first time in his anæmic life he was -furiously angry, and he rejoiced in the sensation. “I wish you were a -man,” he stuttered. “I’d beat you. It would do my heart good.” - -“If you were a real man you would enjoy beating a woman a long sight -more,” goaded Ida, who watched him as a man-eating tigress may watch -the squirming victim between her paws. She had fed her vanity and -amused herself by playing on the little man’s pale emotions until she -was convinced he really was in love with her. She suddenly made up her -mind to force him to “let go,” and experience the sensation of being -made love to feloniously. - -“I am not a brute,” announced Whalen, still in the same stifled voice. -His face was purple, but he was conscious of a warning whisper that he -was in a fair way to lose this remunerative pupil. He dismissed the -warning. There is probably no man so insignificant, in whom passion for -the imperative woman does not develop abnormally the purely masculine -conceit. He may despair in solitude, when devitalised by reaction and -doubt, but when in her presence, under her inviting eye, and hurried -to a crisis by hammering pulses and scorching blood, he is merely the -primitive male with whom to desire is to have. - -Ida laughed, a low throaty husky laugh. “If you were,” she said -cuttingly, “you might stand a show.” - -“It is you that are brutal,” hissed poor Whalen. - -Ida leaned back in her chair and looked at him out of half-closed eyes. -“What induced you to fall in love with me, anyhow?” she demanded in her -sweet lazy voice. Whalen clenched his hands. - -“I am a man if I am not a brute. You are the most fascinating woman on -earth, and you have deliberately tried to entice me from the path of -rectitude I have trod all my life----” - -“What’s that?” Ida sat up straight, her brows drawn in an ominous frown. - -“I have resisted you until today, but I yield----” - -“What the devil are you talking about?” - -“I expected to be tormented to the utmost limit. But I have stood all -of it that I purpose to stand.” His voice by this time was a subdued -roar. “I don’t care whether you love me or not. I don’t think you -could love anybody. I have read that sirens never do. But you are an -enchantress, and you have shown plainly enough----” - -Ida’s frown had relaxed, but her eyes blazed. He misunderstood their -expression, as well as the sudden forward thrust of her head. He sprang -forward, caught her by the shoulders and kissed her. - -“Aw!” Ida’s voice was almost a roar. She leaped to her feet, twirled -him about, caught him by the back of his collar and the seat of -his trousers, and threw him out of the window as if he had been an -offensive dog. She flung his hat and stick after him and slammed -the window down. Then she stamped her feet in inarticulate rage, -and rubbed and bit her mouth. It was one thing to play with a man’s -passions and quite another to be defiled by them. Ida seethed with the -fierce virtue of a young inexperienced and temperamentally cold woman. -For a few moments she used very bad language indeed, and struggled with -an impulse to ran after the “little puppy” and whip him in the street. -But, remembering that she was making a heroic attempt to be a grande -dame, she finally went into her bedroom and washed her face. - - - - -XVII - - -There was a knock on the front door. Ida, smoothing her hair, hastened -to open it, glad of diversion. Ora stood there. For a moment the girls -looked hard at each other, then burst into laughter. - -“What’s up?” asked Ida. “You look----” - -“My dear, it is I who should ask? Your face is crimson; you look as if -you had just given someone a beating, and I met poor little Whalen, -dusty, dishevelled, growling like a mad dog--he didn’t know me.” - -“Well, I guess he won’t know himself for a while,” said Ida drily, -leading the way into the parlour. “When he comes to he’ll have his -work cut out to climb back to his little two-cent pedestal and fit on -his battered halo.” She related the incident. “What do you know about -that?” she demanded in conclusion. “Wouldn’t it come and get you?” - -“I am afraid you have made an enemy. It is always best to let them -down gently, save their pride--and--ah!--it isn’t customary to throw -gentlemen out of the window!” - -“Gentlemen!” snorted Ida. “He’s no gentleman. He not only kissed -me with his horrid front teeth, but he insinuated that I was just -languishing for him, the----” Once more Ida’s feelings overflowed in -language not intended for print. “It made me so mad I’d have lammed him -with the umbrella if we’d been in the hall.” - -“Ida,” asked Ora abruptly, “would you have minded so much if he had -been good-looking and attractive?” - -“Well--perhaps--I guess in that case I’d simply have smacked him and -let him get out quick by the front door. But I don’t want any man -touching me. I’m a married woman.” - -“But if you flirt and lead them on----” - -“You said once yourself that American men understood the game and knew -how to take their medicine.” - -“I also said that they can fall more tiresomely in love than any other -men. Of course the Whalens don’t count. But do you intend to go on -making men fall in love with you and throwing them--metaphorically--out -of the window?” - -“Much chance I’ll get.” - -“You’ll find plenty of chances in Europe. You are a remarkably -beautiful woman. And Europeans take what we call flirting for shameless -encouragement.” - -“Well, I guess I’ll be getting experience of the world all right. And -the Lord knows I’d like to be admired by men who have seen something. I -can take care of myself, and Greg don’t need to worry.” - -“I’ve no doubt of that. Of course you are awfully fond of Mr. Compton, -aren’t you?” Ora spoke somewhat wistfully. - -“Oh, yes; fond enough, fonder than a good many wives, I guess, for he’s -kind and pleasant, and no earthly trouble about the house. But when a -woman marries she gets a kid right there at the altar, and he’s her -biggest kid till his false teeth drop out on his death-bed, and his -great-grandchildren are feeding him through a tube. I don’t want any of -the other sort of kids, and I guess I’m not what you call the maternal -woman, but the Lord knows I’m a mother to Greg and a good one. I’d like -to know what he’d do without me--that’s the only reason I hate leaving. -He never thinks of changing his shoes when they’re wet, and half the -time wouldn’t eat anything but his book if I didn’t put the stuff right -in front of him.” - -“Mark knows him almost as well as you do, and will look after him. My -maid, who is practically my housekeeper, and an old family servant, -will also keep a maternal eye on him.” - -“He keeps himself tidy,” conceded Ida handsomely. “Wants clean things -every day, but never knows where to find them. He’ll wander out into -the kitchen where I’m cooking breakfast and ask where his socks are, -and they always in the same drawer.” - -“I fancy you’ve spoiled him.” - -“Not I. I don’t hold with spoiling men. They’re born spoiled anyhow. -I found Greg walking round in a dream when I married, and a pile of -socks as high as the door knob he’d thrown away because they’d holes in -them so tiny you could hardly see them. I darned every one, you bet, -and he’s wearing them now, though he don’t know it. He’s like that, as -dainty as a cat, and as helpless as a blind kitten. I am a wife and I -know my duty,” concluded Ida virtuously. - -“I certainly shall give Custer minute directions. I can’t have you -worrying.” - -“I’ll not worry, once I’m started. Don’t you fret! But what’s the -matter with you, Ora? You look kinder excited, and kinder--well, -harassed. How’s that out of the new pocket dictionary I’ve set up in my -head?” - -“I’ll soon have to look to my own vocabulary. Oh--I----” - -“Something’s up. Spit it out. It’ll do you good.” - -“Dear Ida! If you must use slang, do confine yourself to that which has -passed through the mint of polite society. There is an abundance to -choose from!” - -“Don’t you worry; I won’t disgrace you. But I must let out a tuck -occasionally when we’re alone. Greg wouldn’t let me go to any of the -Club dances, and I scarcely ever see Ruby or Pearl, they’re so busy--to -say nothing of myself!” - -“Very well,” said Ora, laughing. “Let me be your safety valve, by all -means.” - -“Fire away.” - -“Oh--how am I to tell you--I scarcely know, myself----” - -“I guess you’re waking up. Ruby, who knows human nature like a book----” - -Ora half rose. “Have you been talking me over with Miss Miller?” she -asked haughtily. - -“Not much. Hardly seen her since we met. But you interest Butte, you -know. I guess they talk you over good and plenty. It was only a few -days before you called that the Miller girls visited with me all day, -and they talked a lot about you. Ruby said that if you’d come to out of -the sleeping beauty stage, you’d make things hum, and that her fingers -just itched to get at your skin and hair.” - -“She said that to me once; and I don’t mind telling you that I called -her in some time ago.” - -“Oh, I’m not a bat. I’ve seen you looking prettier every day, and -there’s only one way to do it, when you’ve let yourself go. I’ve had -the benefit of Ruby’s advice for years, and I don’t propose to let -myself go, not for a minute.” - -“Right you are. And do live your life normally from day to day, -developing normally. The awakening process, when the Nature that -made you is no longer content to be a mere footstool for the mind, -is almost as painful as coming to after drowning. I suddenly have -become conscious of myself, as it were; I am interested in many more -things--personal things--I seem to want far more of life than I did a -few months ago----” - -“In other words, you don’t know where you’re at.” - -Ora laughed merrily. “My present condition could not be stated more -patly!” - -“Ora, I don’t want to pry into your confidence, and you’re not one to -give much of that anyhow, but everybody in Butte knows that you’re not -in love with Mark, and never were, nice as you treat him--only because -you couldn’t be anything but a lady if you tried. Mrs. O’Neil, one day -when she was having a massage, told Ruby all about your marriage. She -said you were the most bewildered young thing she ever saw, and that -Mark snapped you up before another young man could get a look at you. -Now, I’ve known Mark all my life--he beaued my sister who died, for a -year or two, and his mother’s cottage was just up the hill anyhow; and -although he’s a good chap and a born hustler, and bound to get rich, -he’s not the sort of man women fall in love with. You wouldn’t have -fallen in love with him, if he’d been born a millionaire, and travelled -and got Butte out of his system. And if your father had left you well -off, you wouldn’t have looked at him. There’s men, bad and good--that’s -to say, better--that women fall in love with, and there’s men bad and -good that they don’t, not in a thousand years. Poor old Mark’s a Don’t -all right. You ain’t angry at my saying all this, but Mark was like my -own brother for years?” - -“Oh, no, I am not angry. You are far too matter-of-fact. You might be -discussing different grades of ore!” - -“Well, that’s about it, and the poor ore can’t help itself, any more -than the slag and gangue can, and Mark’s not either of those, you bet. -He’s good metal, all right, only he didn’t come out of the Anaconda -mine--What have you turned so red about? My! But you do blush easy!” - -“It’s this--do you despise me--do you think I did wrong--Oh, I mean I -have quite suddenly realised that I never should have married any man -for so contemptible a reason. I should have gone to work----” - -“Work? You?” - -“Why not? Many a delicately nurtured woman has earned her bread.” - -“The more fool she if she could get a man to earn it for her. That’s -what they’re for. The Lord knows they pride themselves on the way they -do it, being the stronger sex, and a lot more words. I guess I’d have -married before Greg turned up if I’d met a man I was sure was going to -make something of himself. You did just right to take a good husband -and take him quick when you found yourself in a hole.” - -“Yes--but----” Her blush deepened. “You see--” Ora never had had an -intimate confidant. It was doubtful if she ever would have; not, at all -events, a woman. But Ida, as she herself would have expressed it, could -always see through a stone wall when there was a crack in it. - -“Oh, shucks!” she said. “Don’t let that worry you. If you don’t feel -that way first you do last, I guess. Most of us are bored to death, -but women have stood it for a few thousand years, and I guess they can -stand it for a few thousand more. We all of us have to pay high for -anything we want. That’s about the size of it. Forget it.” - -“Thanks, dear, you console me.” Ora smiled with closed eyes, but she -was thrilled with a sudden inexplicable longing; like other of her -recent sensations, it puzzled and alarmed her. - -“Ora!” exclaimed Ida suddenly. “There’s one thing that’s just as sure -as death and taxes; and knowing men and knowing life don’t help women -one little bit. It’s this: A woman’s got to have her love affair sooner -or later. If she marries for love she’s pretty safe, for ten or fifteen -years, anyhow. But if she doesn’t, well, she’ll get it in the neck -sooner or later--and it’ll be about the time she begins to sit up and -take notice. She’s a regular magnet then, too. So watch out.” - -Ora opened her eyes. They looked like steel. “I have never given a -thought to love. There is nothing I want less. I shall continue to -make Mark as good a wife as I know how to be----” - -“Oh, I’m not saying you’ll go off the hooks, like some I could mention -in your own bunch, but if the man comes along you’ll fall in love -all right. Might as well try to stop a waterfall from jumping over -the rocks. I’m not so dead sure I do know what you’d do. Pride, and -high breeding, and duty would pull one way, but--well, I guess when -you marble women get waked up good and plenty, what they call roused, -you’re the worst kind. A considerable number of other things would pull -from the opposite direction, and one of them would be the man.” - -“Ida!” said Ora, aghast. “How do you know so much? Your opportunities -have been very limited.” - -“Oh, have they? Wasn’t I born and brought up in a mining camp? Butte is -some education, believe me. I ran straight all right, not only because -the sporting life had no charms for me but because I figured on moving -over one of these days to Millionaire Gulch. But it wasn’t for want of -opportunity, and the same opportunities were handed over by men of your -crowd--or fixin’ to be. Besides, some women are born wise that way, I -guess, and I’m one of ’em. You’ve been living in a sort of self-made -heaven all your life, with only books for inhabitants. I could put you -wise every day in the week.” - -“It is true that although I saw a good deal of life while my mother -lived so much in the world, and always have been deeply interested -in the work of the psychological novelists, particularly the -Europeans--I--well, I never applied it to my--never thought much about -it until lately. I do not seem to know myself the least little bit.” - -“I guess it’ll be me--Oh, Lord, I--taking you to Europe, not you me. -I’ll see that you don’t get into mischief, for I’d hate like the -dickens to have you go to pieces over any man. Not one of them that -ever lived since Adam is worth it. They’re all right to marry, all -things being equal, but to sacrifice your life for, nixie. Any style of -man you are partial to? I’ll keep his sort off with a broom.” - -“I’ve never gone so far as even to think----” - -“Every woman has her style in men,” said Ida firmly. “I heard of a -woman once who had three husbands and each one had a wart on his nose.” - -“Oh, you are funny! I have heard that a woman falls in love with a -type, not with the man, and, like all epigrams, that one contains a -half-truth. I had two or three girlish fancies; one was an Austrian -officer, another a French nobleman--and not impecunious--he wasn’t -a fortune hunter. The third was a New Yorker who fell in love with -my cousin and married her. I had a few heart spasms over him, in -particular; possibly because he was quite out of reach. It is true that -they were all more of or less of a type--tall and thin and dark, with -something very keen and clever and modern in their lean--rather hard -faces.” - -“Hi!” cried Ida. - -“What is the matter? You look at me as if you had seen a ghost.” - -Ida threw back her head and laughed, showing her sharp little white -teeth, and straining her throat until the firm flesh looked thin and -drawn, over too strong muscles. “Oh, Lord! I was just thinking what -a lot of trouble I’m in for, playing dragon to my lily-white lady. I -guess about half the men in the world are brunettes, fat or lean. Say, -are you going to the Prom? It’s only a month off.” - -“I hadn’t thought about it. Probably. I have been asked to be a -patroness, and Mark is sure to want to go. Have you decided what to -wear?” - -“Ma gave me a coral-red silk when I married, and I’m going to make it -over and veil it with black net.” - -“Splendid!” cried Ora warmly. “Bring it up to the house. Mrs. Finley is -really an excellent seamstress. We’ll all take a hand. It will be great -fun. And you will look stunning.” - -“What will you wear?” - -“I expect some gowns from my New York dressmaker in a few days. It will -depend upon the state of my complexion, I fancy.” - - - - -XVIII - - -Ora received another budget of Ida’s philosophy on the day before the -Prom; she had taken her a long string of pink coral she had found -among her old possessions, and after Ida had wound it in her hair -and round her neck, and finally tried on her gown, and then draped -Ora successively in various scarves, remnants of her own wedding -finery--being almost as interested in the new complexion as Ora -herself--they had suddenly come to the conclusion that while in Europe -they would assume the mental attitude of girls travelling without a -chaperon. They would see the world from the independent girl’s point -of view, flirt like girls, not like married women (which at least -would save their consciences), force men to accept the phenomenon. For -a time they discussed the superior advantages of being young widows, -but, alluring and even thrilling as were the possibilities evoked, they -dismissed the alternative on the ground that it might prove a bore -always to be on the defensive; man making no secret of his attitude -toward widows. Besides, they felt a delicacy about burying their -indulgent husbands even in mental effigy. As counterfeit girls they -could crowd enough excitement into six months to serve them in memory -during long periods of Butte. - -“It will be some bluff,” cried Ida. “And believe me, we’ll have the -time of our lives. And no remorse in mine. I intend to flirt the limit, -for I’m just ready to quit being a mother for a while and see a man’s -eyes kindle when he comes nigh--see him playing about at the end of -a string. I didn’t have near enough of it even when I had half Butte -at my feet--excuse what sounds like conceit but is cold fact. Now, -I’m going to light up every man I take a fancy to. I don’t care an -abandoned prospect hole whether I hurt ’em or not. All they are good -for is to give us a good time.” - -“Ida!” Ora was aghast as she often had been before at these naked -feminine revelations. “You talk like a man-eater. I hope to heaven I am -not like that down deep.” - -“Oh, maybe you won’t be so bad because you haven’t got as much vanity. -Mine’s insatiable, I guess, and good old Mother Nature taught me the -trick of covering it up with the don’t-care-a-damn air combined with -the come-hither eye. That does the trick. And they get what hurt’s -going. I don’t. You’ll cultivate men, thinking it’s your vanity waked -up, or mere youth, or because it’s time to have a fling, but what -you really are after is the one and only man. The Companion. The -Sympathetic Soul. The Mate. All that rot. He don’t exist, kiddo. He’s -the modern immaculate conception, and he’s generally stillborn; the -bungling doctor being the plain unadulterated male inside of himself. -You’ve got to be your own companion, and if you want happiness you can -get it by expecting just nothing of men. Use them. Throw them on the -ash heap. Pass on to the next. Quit sitting on the watch tower with -your eyes trained on the horizon for the prince that is born and lives -and dies in a woman’s imagination.” - -“I have seen happy--united couples--who had been married for years.” - -“Oh, yes; some couples are born to jog along together, and some wives -are born man-tamers, and get a lot of satisfaction out of it. But -you’re much too high-falutin’ for that. You’ll always dream of the -impossible--not only in man but of what he’s got to give--which ain’t -much. And I didn’t need all them--those--psychological and problem -and worldly novels you made me read, translated from half a dozen -languages, either. You take my advice, Ora, and don’t start off on any -fool hunt for an ideal. Men are just matter-of-fact two-legged animals, -and as selfish as a few thousand years of fool women have naturally -made them. He does well while he’s courting because he’s naturally good -at bluff. But every bit of romance oozes out of him after he’s eaten -his first breakfast of ham and eggs at home. We can keep up the bluff -forever. Men can’t. Each one of them’s got a kid twin brother inside -that plays marbles till he dies and makes you feel older every day. No, -sir! If I ever had any delusions, I’ve got over them good and plenty. -And I thank the Lord,” she added piously. - -“I think that rather adorable, you know: the eternal boy. And I fancy -it is all that saves men from becoming horrors; in this country, at -least--when you consider the unending struggle, and strain, and sordid -business of money getting. They use up all their bluff in the battle of -life, poor things. Why shouldn’t they be natural with us?...” - -Ora was recalling this conversation as she sat in her bedroom on the -following evening. Her elemental yet uncannily sophisticated friend -had a way of crashing chords out of jealously hidden nerves, which no -exercise of will could disconnect from the logical parts of the brain. -If it were true that what her now rampant ego, too long starved, really -demanded was man and romance, she wished she had let herself run to -seed until it was too late to reclaim her lost beauty and adventure -into temptation. But a glance into the mirror deprived her of any -further desire to join the vast sisterhood of unattractive females. -Moreover, she had faith in the dominance of her will and common sense, -and if her beauty would help her to the mental contacts she craved with -brilliant and interesting men, far be it from her to execrate it. - -She dismissed the mood of self-analysis impatiently and opened her -wardrobe, although half inclined not to attend the Prom. She was -one of the patronesses, but her presence was not essential. It was -pre-eminently the night of nights for young folks--brownies and -squabs--and the absence of a married woman of twenty-six would pass -unrecorded. Not a man in Butte interested her personally, nor was she -in a frame of mind to be interested by any of the too specialised -products of the West. Nor was she inordinately fond of dancing; there -really was no object in going to this party save to witness the début -and possible triumph of her protégée. - -But she felt something more than indifference toward this party. It -was as if a gong sounded a warning in the depths of her brain--in her -subconsciousness, perhaps, where instinct, that child of ancestral -experience, dwelt. But even while she hesitated she knew that she -should go, and she took one of her new gowns from a long drawer, and -then began to arrange her hair. - -It was now some five months since Miss Ruby Miller had taken her in -hand, and if the young woman’s bank account was heavier her pride as -an artist far outweighed it. Ora’s hair was soft, abundant, the colour -of warm ashes. The skin of her face was as white and transparent, -as “pearly” to use its doctor’s own descriptive word, as the fine -protected surface of her slender throat, her thin but by no means bony -neck. Her lips were pink; they never would be red; and after one taste -of “lip stick,” Ora had declined to have them improved by art. But -they were a soft country-rose pink and suited her clear whiteness far -better than scarlet. Her eyes, never so clear and startling as now, -lighted up the cold whiteness of her face and made her pink mouth look -childish and somewhat pathetic. If her lips had been red, her face -would have had the sinister suggestion so many women achieve with the -assistance of art; as it was she looked by no means harmless as she -smiled at herself in the mirror and coiled her hair softly on the top -of her head. After some experimenting she had decided that she could -not improve upon an arrangement which for the present at least was all -her own. - -She rang for Custer to hook her gown. It was a very soft gown of white -satin draped about the bust with lace and chiffon. It was cut to the -waist line in the back and almost as low in front, for her figure was -hardly more developed than a growing girl’s; and it was unrelieved by -colour. She had already put on the string of pearls her mother had -hidden when the other jewels were sold in Paris. Altogether it was a -costume she would not have dared to wear even two months ago, when a -touch of colour on the bodice or in her hair was necessary to divert -attention from her spoiled complexion. - -Custer had been her mother’s maid for many years and had returned with -her to Butte. After an interval of employment elsewhere, she had come -to Ora as soon as Mark had built his house. She hooked the gown, pinned -up a stray lock with an invisible hairpin, shook out the little train, -and stood off. - -“It reminds me of the way your mother used to look,” she said, “and -you’re even prettier than she was, Miss Ora--now. But I fancy you’ll be -more comfortable in this gown when you wear it in London. These ladies -dress smartly enough, but never as low as the English ladies do, -leastways out here. I fancy it’s the Western men. They don’t seem to -approve of showing too much.” - -“Well, I think I’ll rather enjoy startling the natives. Quick--give me -my wrap! I hear Mr. Blake coming. No controversy here.” - - - - -XIX - - -The Prom was held not in the School of Mines but in The Coliseum, a -large hall over a saloon and garage, half way between The Hill and The -Flat, requisitioned by all classes when the weather forbade the use -of Columbia Gardens. The walls were covered with the School colours, -copper and green, flags, and college pennants. The ceiling was a -network of electric lights with coloured globes, copper and green, -fluttering paper and sprays of apple blossoms, brought from far! “Cozy -corners” looked like fragments of a lower altitude, and the faithful -palm was on duty everywhere. The orchestra, on a suspended balcony in -the centre of the room, was invisible within the same elaborate scheme -of decoration. - -When Ora entered with her husband the Grand March had finished and the -instruments were tuning for a waltz. She saw Ida standing directly -under the orchestra surrounded by several men who patently were -clamouring for dances. Even in that great room full of women dressed -from New York and Paris, Ida looked distinctive and superb. Ora smiled -proudly, as she observed her, quite oblivious that the throng of men -and women and indignant “squabs,” who had been discussing the wife -of Gregory Compton, had transferred their attention to the dazzling -apparition in white. Ida wore her gown of coral silk, whose flimsiness -was concealed under a mist of black shadow lace. The coral beads -clasped her strong white throat and fell to her supple waist. There was -a twist of coral tulle in her black hair, which was arranged in the -rolling fashion of the moment, obeyed by every other woman in the room -save Ora Blake. And her cheeks, her lips, were as coral as the fruit of -the sea. She had powdered her face lightly to preserve its tone through -exercise and heat. All the arrogance of youth and beauty and powerful -magnetism was expressed in the high poise of her head; a faint smile of -triumph curved above her little white teeth; her body was in perfect -repose yet as alert as that of a healthy young cat. The waltz began and -she glided off in the arm of a young mining engineer from the East. She -danced precisely as the best-bred women in the room danced (early in -the evening): ease without abandon, dignity without stiffness. - -“Heavens, but the American woman is adaptable!” thought Ora. “I never -realised before exactly what that time-worn platitude meant. Probably -the standards in the Ida set are not so different from ours, after all. -As for looks and carriage she might have three generations behind her. -Is it democracy or the actress instinct of woman--permitted its full -development in this country for the first time in her history?” - -This was not entirely a monologue, but addressed for the most part -to Professor Becke, one of the most distinguished instructors of the -School of Mines, and one of the men she liked best in Butte. He was a -tall fair man, with a keen thin fimbriated face, and long fine hands. -Ora made a point of asking him to dine with her once or twice a month. - -He led the way to two of the chairs on the side of the hall after she -had announced that she did not intend to dance. - -“But this is the first party we have had for weeks,” he said. “They -won’t leave you to me for long.” - -“I don’t feel in the mood for dancing. Besides,” she added with a new -daring, “I’m all in white and looking very white once more; I don’t -want to get warm and spoil the effect.” - -He stared into her challenging eyes as if he saw her for the first -time. In that room, full of colour and of vivid women and young girls, -she produced an almost disconcerting effect with her statuesque beauty, -her gleaming whiteness, her frail white body so daringly displayed in -its white gown. And, oddly enough, to those staring at her, she made -the other women look not only commonplace but cold. - -Ora smiled to herself; she was quite aware of the impression at -work, not only on the scientific brain, but on others more readily -responsive; she had considered the prudence of practising on Butte -before departing for wider fields. - -The Professor changed colour, but replied steadily: “Fancy you two -extraordinary creatures loose in Europe! You should take a bodyguard. -I can understand Compton giving his consent, for he is the kind of man -that wouldn’t remember whether his wife were twenty or forty at the end -of his honeymoon, and there can be little between them in any case. But -Blake!” - -“Oh, we’ll come home without a scandal,” said Ora lightly. “Ida is the -reverse of what she looks, and I--well, I am the proverbial ‘cold’ -American woman--that the European anathematises. Ida, of course, looks -the siren, and I shall have some trouble protecting her, until she -learns how far she can go. But at least I am forewarned.” - -“I fancy you will have more trouble protecting yourself!” Professor -Becke’s voice was not as even as usual. His intellect was brilliant, -and illuminating, and never more so than when in the society of this -young woman whom heretofore he had admired merely as a vivacious and -exceptional mind; but, startling as this revelation of subtle and -alluring womanhood was, he remembered that he was no longer young and -that he had an admirable wife with an eagle eye; he had no intention -of scorching his fingers in the attempt to light a flame that would -guide him to the rocks even were he invited to apply the torch. But -he was a man and he sighed a little for his vanished youth. If he had -been twenty years younger he fancied that he would have forgotten his -good lady and risked burning his heart out. He moved his eyes away -deliberately and they rested on Mark Blake, mopping his scarlet face -after a lively waltz. He was a kindly man, but all that was deathlessly -masculine in him grinned with a cynical satisfaction. - -“Who is that?” asked Ora abruptly, and forgetting a faint sensation of -pique. - -“Ah! Who?” - -She indicated a man leaning against one of the doorways, and looking -over the crowd with unseeing eyes. “Heavens! What a jaw! Is he as -‘strong’ as he looks, or is he one of Bismarck’s wooden posts painted -to look like a man of iron?--Why, it’s----” - -“That is Gregory Compton, and he is no wooden post, believe me.” - -“I haven’t seen him for years. _Can_ any man be as strong as _he_ -looks?” - -“Probably not. He hasn’t had time to discover his master weaknesses -yet, so I don’t pretend to guess at them myself. At present he is too -absorbed in squeezing our poor brains dry----” - -“Doesn’t he ever smile?” - -“So rarely that the boys, who have a nickname for all their fellow -students, call him ‘Sunny Jim.’” - -“What do you think of his wife?” asked Ora abruptly. She hardly knew -why she asked the question, nor why she felt a secret glow at the -expected answer. - -The Professor turned his appraising eye upon the substantial vision -in coral and black that tonight had been pronounced the handsomest -woman in Butte. “There could be no finer example of the obvious. All -her goods are in the front window. There are no surprises behind that -superlative beauty; certainly no revelations.” - -“I wonder! Ida is far cleverer than you think, and quite capable of -affording your sex a good deal in the way of surprises, not to say -shocks.” - -“Not in the way I mean--not as you will do, worse luck for my helpless -sex. There is no soul there, and, I fancy, little heart. She is the -last woman Gregory Compton should have married.” - -“Why?” Ora tried to look bored but polite. - -“Oh--whatever she may have for other men she has nothing for him. She -looks the concentrated essence of female--American female--egoism. -Compton needs a woman who would give him companionship when he wanted -it, and, at the same time, be willing in service.” - -Ora bristled. “Service? How like a man. Are we still expected to serve -men? I thought the world was moving on.” - -Professor Becke, who, like most men married to a domestic -commander-in-chief, was strenuously opposed to giving women any powers -backed up by law, asked with cold reserve: “Are you a suffragette?” - -Ora laughed. “Not yet. But I just escaped being born in the Twentieth -Century. I belong to it at all events.” - -“So you do, but you never have been in love----” He broke off in -embarrassment; he had forgotten for the moment that this white virginal -creature had been married for six years. She showed no resentment, for -she barely had heard him; she was looking at Gregory Compton again, and -concluding that he might appeal strongly to the supplementary female, -but must antagonise women whose highly specialised intellects, at -home only on the heights of civilisation, had submerged their primal -inheritance. - -Professor Becke went on: - -“Even a clever woman’s best career is a man. If you women develop -beyond nature that powerful old tyrant will simply snuff you out.” - -“Well, man will go too. That may be our final triumph.” - -“Atlantis over again! And quite in order that the race should perish -through the excesses of woman. Then Nature, having wiped her slate -clean with a whoop, will begin all over again and precisely where she -did before. No doubt she will permit a few records to survive as a -warning.” - -“You may be right--but, although I have an idea I shall one day want to -justify my existence by being of some use, it won’t be because my sex -instinct has got the better of my intelligence. But I refuse to think -of that until I have had a royal good time for a few years.” - -“That is your right,” he said impulsively. “You are altogether -exceptional--and you have had six years of Butte! I am glad your mine -has panned out so splendidly. There is quite an excitement in the -Sampling Works----” - -“What?” Ora forgot Gregory Compton. “I knew the mine was doing well----” - -“Surely you know that your profits in royalties already must be -something over a hundred thousand dollars----” He stopped in confusion. - -Ora’s face was radiant and she never had liked Mark as sincerely as -at that moment. “It is just like him! He wanted to wait and give me a -great surprise--my husband, I mean.” - -“And I have spoilt it! I am really sorry. Please don’t tell him.” - -“I won’t. And I’ll be the most surprised woman in the world when he -takes me to the bank to sign my letter of credit. You needn’t mind. -I’ll have the fun of thinking about it for five months--and rolling it -up in my imagination. Ah!” - -“Compton has recognised you, I think.” - -Ora had met the long narrow concentrated gaze of her husband’s friend. -She bowed slightly. Compton made a step forward, hesitated, braced -himself, and walked toward her. - -“A constitutionally shy man, but a brave one,” said Professor Becke -with a grim smile, as he rose to resign his seat. “A strong magnet has -pulled up many a sinking heart. Good evening, Compton. Glad you honour -our party, even if you don’t dance.” - -“I intend to ask Mrs. Blake to dance.” Gregory betrayed nothing of his -inner trepidation although he did not smile. He could always rely upon -the stern mask into which he had trained his visage not to betray him. - -Ora, oblivious of her resolution not to dance, rose and placed her -hand on his shoulder, smiling an absent farewell to Professor Becke. -For a moment she forgot her resentful interest in this man in her -astonishment that he danced so well. She had the impression of dancing -with a light supple creature of the woods, one who could be quite -abandoned if he chose, although he held her as if he were embracing -a feather. She wondered if it were his drop of aboriginal blood and -looked up suddenly. To her surprise he was smiling, and his smile so -altered the immobility of his face that she lost her breath. - -“I feel as if I were dancing with a snowflake,” was his unexpected -remark. - -“You look the last man to pay compliments and murmur sweet nothings.” - -“Are you disappointed?” - -“Perhaps I am. I rather liked your attitude--expression, rather--of -cool superiority.” - -“Why don’t you use the word prig?” - -“Oh, no!--Well, perhaps that is what I did mean.” - -He stopped short, regardless of the annoyance he caused several -impetuous couples. “If you did I shall leave you right here.” - -“I did not. Please go on. Everybody is staring at us. You took me -completely by surprise.” - -“I? Why?” - -“You are the last man I should expect the usual small talk from.” - -“Small talk? Heavens knows I have none of that. Girls used to talk my -head off in self-defence. I merely said what I thought. What did you -expect me to talk about?” - -“Oh--mines, I suppose.” Again, to her surprise, his face lit up as if -by an inner and jealously hidden torch. But he said soberly: - -“Well, there is no more interesting subject. Never has been since the -world began. Where shall we find a seat?” - -The waltz was over. The chairs were filling. Young couples were -flitting toward the embowered corners. - -“Let’s go outside,” he said abruptly. - -“What? On the street? And nobody goes out of doors from a ballroom in -June.” - -“Good reason for going. Come with me.” - -He led her to the cloak-room. “Get your wrap,” he said. - -Ora frowned, but she asked for her heavy white woollen wrap and put it -on; then automatically followed him down the stairs and into the street. - -“Why don’t you get your coat and hat?” she asked, still dazed. “It’s -cold, you know.” - -“I never was cold in my life,” he said contemptuously. He hailed a -taxi. “I must go up to the School of Mines, and ask the result of some -assaying,” he added as he almost lifted her in. “Then we can talk up -there. May I smoke?” - -“I don’t care what you do.” - -He smiled directly into her resentful eyes this time and tucked the -lap-robe about her. - - - - -XX - - -He apparently forgot her during the short drive and stared through -the open window of the cab, his thoughts, no doubt, in the assay room -of the School, where several students, as ardent as himself, were -experimenting with ore they had managed to secure from a recently -opened mine. Ora’s resentment vanished, partly because she reflected -that a new and original experience was a boon to be grateful for in -Butte, but more because she was thrilled with the sense of adventure. -Her woman’s instinct gave assurance that he had no intention of making -love to her, but it also whispered that, whether she liked or disliked -him when the adventure was over, she would have something to remember. -And it was the first time she ever had indulged in recklessness. Butte -would be by the ears on the morrow if it learned of her escapade. - -When they reached the dark School of Mines he dismissed the taxi, and -said to Ora, “Wait for me here. I shan’t be a moment.” - -He disappeared and Ora shrugged her shoulders and sat down on the -steps. He returned in a few moments and extended himself over several -steps below her. - -“Comfortable?” he asked. - -“Very!” - -“It’s a night, isn’t it?” he asked abruptly. - -He was not looking at her but at the low sulphurous blue sky, with its -jewelled lattice, white, yellow, green, blue. There were no tree tops -to rustle, but from the window below came the voluptuous strains of the -Merry Widow waltz, mingling incongruously with the raucous noises of -the sleepless town: the roaring street-cars, the blasts of engines, the -monstrous purr of motor-cats. - -“If we could cut out that jungle,” he said with a sigh. “Are you warm -enough?” He pulled the cloak about the lower part of her body. “I -should have taken the rug from the cab----” - -“I am warm enough,” she said impatiently, and what she longed to say -was, “How in heaven’s name did you marry Ida Hook?” He had transferred -his gaze to the city and she studied his face. Then she understood. In -spite of its intense reserve and detachment, its strength and power, -its thin sensitive mouth, it was the most passionate face she had -ever seen. As a matter of fact she had been at pains to ignore the -purely masculine side of men, her fastidious mind never indulging in -comparisons. She half rose with a sense of panic. Again he looked up -solicitously. - -“I am sure you are not comfortable. I could find you some cushions----” - -“Please don’t. So you love beauty?” She was deeply annoyed with -herself, but could think of nothing less banal. He certainly was not -easy to talk to. - -“Don’t you? It would be odd if you didn’t. One reason I brought you up -up here was because I wanted to look at you in the starlight where you -belong--the cold starlight--not in that crowded gaudy room full of mere -human beings.” - -“Are you a poet? I have somehow received the impression that you are a -mere walking ambition.” - -“I’m no poet if you mean one of those writing fellows.” His tone -expressed unmitigated scorn. - -“Well, no doubt you have read a great deal of poetry, little as one -would suspect it.” - -“Never read a line of it except when I had to decline it at school--any -more than I’ve ever read a line of fiction.” - -“Well, you’ve missed a great deal,” said Ora tartly. “Poetry is -an essential part of the beauty of the world, which you seem to -appreciate. And the best of fiction is the best expression of current -history. What do you think when you star-gaze?” - -“You mean, can I think at all when I haven’t read what other men have -thought?” - -“No.--No doubt the most original brains are those that have not read -too much, are not choked up.” Ora made this admission reluctantly, but -he had caught her fairly. “Tell me at least what the stars suggest to -you. About everything has been said of them that can be said. The poor -old stars have been worked to death.” - -“The stars above Montana are watchfires protecting the treasure below. -Perhaps they are bits of her treasures, gold, silver, copper, sapphire, -that flew upward in the final cataclysm.” - -“I don’t know whether that is poetical or gross materialism.” - -“No mines, no poets. Nearly all conquest from the dawn of history -down to the Boer War has had the acquisition of mineral wealth as -its real object. The civilisation that follows is incidental; it -merely means that the strongest race, which, of course, knows the -most, wins. If ever we have a war with Mexico, what will be the -cause? Mines. Incidentally we will civilise her. Peru, Mexico, India, -the Americas--all have been invaded in their turn by more civilised -nations, and all after plunder. They gave as much as they took, but -little they cared about that. What opened up California? This great -Northwest? Prospectors in search of gold. Excuse this lecture. I am the -least talkative of men, but you have jarred my brain, somehow. Read the -history of mines and mining if you want romance.” - -“As a matter of fact few things interest me more. I am so glad my mine -has been leased for a year only. When that is up I am going to mine -it myself. I’ll build a bungalow out there and go down every day. -Perhaps in time I could be my own manager. At all events, think of the -excitement of watching the ore as it comes up the shaft; of running -through a lean vein and coming suddenly upon a chamber of an entirely -different kind of ore from what you had been taking out. Great shoots -full of free gold! Wire gold! Or that crisp brown-gold that looks as if -it were boiling out of the ore and makes one want to bite it! Why are -you staring so at me?” - -His eyes were more widely opened and brilliant than she had seen -them. “Do you mean that?” he asked. “I’ve a great notion to tell you -something that I’ve not told anyone.” - -“Do tell me!” - -She leaned down eagerly. She had dismissed the feeling of panic as -something to be forgotten as quickly as possible. But her brain was on -fire to penetrate his. She felt an extraordinary mental stimulation. -But he relapsed into absolute silence, although he held his head, -lowered again, at an angle that suggested he might be thinking -intently. She moved impatiently, but he sat still, staring downward, -his eyes narrow once more. She noticed irrelevantly how black his hair -was, and her white hand went out stealthily as if magnetised, but was -immediately restored to order. In the vibrating silence she had another -glimmer of understanding. He wanted to tell her something personal, -but his natural secretiveness and habit of reserve were engaged in a -struggle with the unusual impulse. She shifted the ground. - -“I wish you would tell me something of your boyhood,” she said abruptly. - -He looked up in astonishment. “I never talk about myself----” - -“How very egoistical.” - -“Ego----” - -“No, I did not say egotistical.” - -“Ah!” There was another pause, although he looked at her with a frown. -“I have talked to you more than I ever talk to anyone,” he said -resentfully. - -“It is the stars, to say nothing of the isolation. We might be up -on one of your escaped nuggets. Remember that I have heard of you -constantly for six years--and met you before on one of those occasions -when all persons look alike. How could I escape curiosity?” - -“I brought you out to look at in the proper setting. I can’t say I had -any desire to talk to you. I suppose I should not keep you out here----” - -“I am much happier and more comfortable than in that hot room. But -surely you need more recreation. Why do you never go to dances?” - -“Dances? I? I only went tonight----” He, too, apparently, was -determined to keep their respective spouses out of the conversation, -for he veered off quickly. “It is a sort of religion to attend the Prom -even if you only show yourself. I was about to beat a retreat when I -saw you. Of course it was my duty to shake hands. Besides, I wanted to -see if you were real.” And he smiled up into her eyes. - -“Do you know that we are flirting?” - -“Well, let us flirt,” he replied comfortably. “I haven’t the least idea -what it is, but I am not a bit in love with you, if that is what you -mean.” - -Ora drew herself up rigidly. “Well, you are----” she began, aware -that she had a temper. Then she laughed. Why quarrel with a novel -experience? Her anger turned into a more subtle emotion. She was well -aware of the dazzling brightness of her eyes. She leaned forward and -concentrated her mind in an attempt to project her magnetism through -them, although again with a feeling of panic; it was too much like the -magnet rushing out to the iron. - -He returned that powerful gaze unmoved, although an expression of -perplexity crossed his own eyes. She was disconcerted and asked lamely: - -“Is it true that you used to run away and prospect in the mountains?” - -His face lit up with an enthusiasm her fascinations had been unable to -inspire; and a richer note came into his voice. “I was eleven the first -time and stayed out for six months. Two years after I ran away again. -The next time I went with my father’s permission. I worked in one of -the Butte mines one summer--but otherwise--well, you see, there is a -good deal to do on a ranch. This is the first time I have been able to -do as I please.” - -Ora looked at his long slim figure, his brown hands that tonight, at -least, expressed a sort of cruel deliberate repose. Whatever they may -have been in their ranch days they were smooth and well cared for now. - -“Somehow, I can’t see you handling a pick,” she said doubtfully. “Is it -true that you intend to work in the mines all summer?” - -“Part of it--when I am not working in a mill or a smelter. I’d be -ashamed of myself if I couldn’t do anything that another man can do. -Some of the best miners look like rats.” - -He looked like a highly-bred mettlesome race-horse himself, and Ora -wondered, as she had before tonight: “Where did he get it? Who were his -ancestors?” She had seen dukes that looked like farm hands, and royal -princesses that might have been upper housemaids, but her feminine -(and American) mind clung to the fallacy that it takes generations to -produce the clean-cut shell. She determined to look up his family tree -in Holland. - -“Well--Custer--my housekeeper--will look after you,” she said as -naturally as if her thoughts had not wandered for a moment. “Shall you -do any mining on your own place before we come back from Europe?” - -He started and looked at her apprehensively, then scowled. - -“What is the matter? You may not know it but at this moment your face -looks like an Indian battle-axe.” - -To her surprise he laughed boyishly. “You startled me. I have heard of -mind readers. Well, I will tell you what I wanted to a while back. But -you must promise not to tell--anyone.” - -“I promise! I swear it! And do hurry. I’m afraid you’ll shut up tight -again.” - -“No, I won’t. I don’t know that I’d tell you were it not that your own -mine is just over the border; we may have to consolidate some day to -save a lawsuit--No, I will be honest; I really want to tell you. It is -this: Close to the northeast boundary line of my ranch is an almost -barren hill of limestone and granite. Shortly before I left--last -October--I discovered float on the side of the hill. There is no doubt -in my mind that we have both come upon a new mineral belt, although -whether we are in the middle or on one edge of it is another question.” - -He told her the story of the storm and of the uncovering of the -float. Nor did he end his confidence with a bare statement of fact. -He told her of his sensations as he sat on the ragged ground leaning -against the roots of the slain trees, his mental struggle, and final -resolution. Then he told her of the hopes and dreams of his boyhood, -and what it had meant to him--this sudden revelation that he had a -mine under his feet--and all his own! He talked for half an hour, with -the deep satisfaction that only a shy and silent person feels when -talking into a sympathetic mind for the first time. Ora listened with -a curious sense of excitement, as if she were overboard in a warm and -pleasant but unknown sea. There were times when she felt like talking -very fast herself. But she did nothing of the sort, merely jogging him -diplomatically when he showed signs of relapsing into silence. Finally -he stopped in the middle of a sentence and said abruptly: - -“That’s all.” - -“Oh! And you really have made up your mind not to begin work for a -year?” - -“Quite!” - -“But--have you thought--it is only tonight I learned that the engineers -who leased my mine have struck a rich vein. Suppose it dips toward -yours----” - -“It does----” - -“Have they put on a big force?” - -“Naturally. They are rushing things, as they know they will not get the -mine another year.” - -“Well, suppose their vein runs under your hill--through their -side-line?” - -He stirred uneasily. “I am watching them. So far the dip is very -slight. It may take a turn, or go down straight; or,” and he smiled at -her again, “it may pinch out. Nothing is so uncertain as an ore vein.” - -“Do you think it will?” asked Ora anxiously. - -“No, don’t worry. I was down the other day; and did some prospecting on -my own account besides. I think you’ve got a big mine.” - -“But suppose the vein should take a sudden dip to the right--you don’t -want them burrowing under your hill----” - -“They won’t burrow under my hill,” he said grimly. “I should persuade -them that there was an even richer vein on their left.” - -“Is there?” - -“I have reason to think so. They naturally would want to avoid the -expenses of a lawsuit, and of course they would waste a lot of time -sinking a shaft or driving across. Their lease would be pretty well up -by the time----” - -“You _are_ cold-blooded! What of me? I should be making nothing, -either.” - -“You’d make it all later on. How much do you expect to spend in Europe -anyway? You must have made a thousand dollars a day since the first -carload of ore was smelted.” - -She was on the point of replying that a woman could not have enough -money in Europe, when she remembered the conspiracy to make him believe -that a thousand dollars would cover the expenses of his wife. - -“Oh, it is merely that I don’t like being one of the pawns in your -game,” she said. - -“You’d have all the more later on. Ore doesn’t run away.” - -“How _can_ you stay away from your mine? I feel--after all that you -have told me!--that you are wild to get at it?” - -“So I am! So I am! But I said I wouldn’t and that is the end of it. I -want that last year at the School.” - -“What shall you do with all that money--if your hill turns out to be -full of gold? More, I hope, than the rest of our millionaires have -done for Montana--which is exactly nothing. You might give the State a -complete irrigating system.” - -“Good idea! Perhaps I will. But that is in the future. I want the fun -first----” - -“Fun? It is the passion of your life, your great romance. You’ll never -love a woman like that.” - -“Of course not.” But he was staring at her. He had a sensation of -something swimming in the depths of his mind, striving to reach the -surface. He changed his position suddenly and sat up. “And you?” he -asked. “You have the same vision. Couldn’t you feel the same absorbing -passion----” - -“For ore?” The scorn of her entire sex was in her voice. “Dead cold -metal----” - -“Every molecule, every individual atom is alive and quivering----” - -“I am not interested in chemistry.” - -He still stared at her. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes blazing. She -sprang to her feet. - -“Ida is the wife for you! She’ll never ask much of you and you never -could hurt her, not even if you tried, she is fortunate in lacking just -that which you could hurt.” - -“What is it?” He spoke eagerly. He, too, had risen, his eyes still on -her face. Unconsciously he held his breath. - -“Oh, you wouldn’t understand it I told you--and I haven’t the least -desire to tell you. She will make you comfortable, do you credit when -you are a rich man, spend your money royally. That is all _you_ will -ask of _her_. Now, I’ll go back.” - -He was a step or two below her. Their eyes were on a level. He looked -at her sombrely for a moment, then walked past her up the steps. - -“You need not call a cab. I shall go home. I should only set them all -talking if I appeared in the ballroom again. You can tell Mark that I -didn’t feel well and that you took me home.” - -They walked along the high terrace until they found a point of easy -descent. - -“What have I said to make you angry?” he asked. - -Ora laughed with determined good humour. “It was not I. It was merely -my sex that flared up. Please forget it.” - -“I want to thank you for what you have done for Ida,” he said abruptly, -and it was evident that the words cost him more than his former -revelations. “It was a great thing for you to do.” - -“Oh, Ida has become my most intimate friend. I have never enjoyed Butte -so much as in these last few months.” - -“Has she? And Mark is my best friend.” He jerked his head in annoyance; -manifestly the remark had been too spontaneous. They were before her -gate. She extended a limp hand, but he held it firmly. He was smiling -again although he looked depressed. - -“Do give me a friendly shake,” he said. “I do like you and you will be -going in a few days.” - -“I do not go for five months.” - -“You can go next week. I’ll square it with Mark.” - -“I don’t wish to go next week. Besides, Mark expects some important -people here in the autumn, and needs my help. He has a deal on.” - -“I’ll dispossess Mark of any such notion. It’s all nonsense, this idea -of a man’s needing his wife’s help in business. It’s a poor sort of man -that can’t manage his own affairs, and Mark is not a poor sort. Now, -you are angry again!” - -“That would be foolish of me,” she said icily. “You merely don’t -understand. You never could. Do you want to get rid of me?” she asked -abruptly. - -“Yes, I think I do.” - -Then Ora relented. She also gave him the smile that she reserved as her -most devastating weapon. “I am sorry,” she murmured, “but I don’t think -I can be ready for at least three months. Nor Ida.” - -“You go next week,” he said. - -And go they did. - - - - -XXI - - -Gregory and Mark established their wives comfortably in a drawing-room -of the limited for Chicago, asked the usual masculine questions about -tickets and trunk checks, expressed their masculine surprise that -nothing had been forgotten, told them to be careful not to lean over -the railing of the observation car, nor to make themselves ill with the -numerous boxes of candy sent to the train, admonished them not to spend -too much money in New York, to send their trunks to the steamer the day -before they sailed, and give themselves at least two hours to get to -the docks; above all not to mislay their letters of credit; then kissed -them dutifully, and, as the train moved out, stood on the platform with -solemn faces and hearts of indescribable buoyancy. - -“My Lord!” exclaimed Ida, as she blew her last kiss. “If Greg was going -along I’d have to take care of him every step of the way. I wouldn’t -trust him with the tickets the length of the train. Men do make me -tired. They keep up the farce that we’re children just to keep up that -other grand farce that they run the Universe. Any old plank to cling -to.” - -Ora kept her sentiments to herself. - -If Mark, who was fond of his wife, and more or less dependent upon her, -wondered vaguely that he should rejoice in the prospect of six months -of bachelorhood, Gregory was almost puzzled. Ida was now no more to him -personally than a responsibility he had voluntarily assumed and was -determined to treat with complete justice; but at least she made him -more comfortable than he had ever been before, and he had trained her -to let him alone. Since her rapid improvement her speech had ceased -to irritate him; she was never untidy, never anything but a pleasant -picture to look at. He had also noted on the night of the party that -she was indisputably the handsomest woman in the room and received the -homage of men with dignity and poise. He had felt proud of her, and -comfortably certain that he could trust her. Altogether a model wife. - -Nevertheless as he walked out Park Street after he left Mark at his -office (Ida not only had sent his personal possessions to the Blake -house but found time to unpack and put them away) his brain, which -had been curiously depressed during the past week, felt as if full of -effervescing wine. - -“Jove!” he thought, “why do men marry? What has any woman living to -give a man half as good as his freedom.” - -His freedom was to be reasonably complete. He had told Ida to expect -no letters from him and not to write herself unless she were in -trouble. With all the fervour of his masculine soul he hated to write -letters. Long since he had bought a typewriter, on which he rattled off -necessary business communications so briefly that they would have cost -him little more on the wire. He knew that he should hear constantly of -his wife’s welfare from Mark, and had no desire to be inflicted with -descriptions of scenery and shops. - -He felt a spasm of envy, however, as he thought of the letters Mark -would receive from Ora. _Her_ letters, no doubt, would be worth -reading, not only because she had a mind, and already had seen too much -of Europe to comment on its obvious phases, but because they would be -redolent of her subtle exquisite personality. He had once come upon a -package of old letters among his mother’s possessions and read them. -They had been written by his great-great-grandmother to her husband -while he was a soldier in the War of the Revolution. It was merely the -simple life of the family, the farm, and the woods, that she described, -but Gregory never recalled those letters without feeling again the -subtle psychological emanation of the writer’s sweet and feminine but -determinate personality; it hovered like a wraith over the written -words, imprisoned, imperishable, until the paper should fall to dust. -So, he imagined, something of Ora’s essence would take wing on the -rustling sheets of her letters. - -But the spasm of envy passed. Ora would write no such letters to Mark -Blake. Her correspondence with her husband would be perfunctory, -practical, brief. To some man she might write pages that would keep him -up at night, reading and rereading, interpreting illusive phrases, -searching for hidden and personal meanings, while two individualities -met and melted.... But this yearning passed also. To receive such -letters a man must answer them and that would be hell. - -He was on his way to change his clothes for overalls and get his blue -dinner pail, well filled, from Custer. But before he reached the house -he conceived an abrupt and violent distaste for life underground, an -uncontrollable desire--or one which he made no effort to control--for -long rides over the ranch, and a glimpse of Limestone Hill. It was -seven months since he had seen his ranch save in snatches, and he -wanted it now for months on end. He was not a town-bred man, and he -suddenly hated the sight of Butte with her naked angles and feverish -energies. He realised also that his mind insistently demanded a rest. -To be sure he had intended to work in the mines for eight hours of the -day, but he had planned to study for ten. Well, he would have none -of it! Caprice was no characteristic of his, but he felt full of it -this brilliant morning. If the air was so light in Butte that his feet -seemed barely to touch the ground, so clear that the mountains seemed -walking down the valley, what must it be in the country? - -He went rapidly to the house, left a message for Mark, packed a -suit-case and took the next train for Pony. There he hired a horse and -rode to his ranch. - -One of the sudden June rains had come while he was in the train. It -had ceased, but a mass of low clouds brushing the higher tree tops -was almost black. Their edges were silver: they were filled with a -cold imprisoned sunlight, which transformed the distant mountains into -glass, transparent, with black shadows in their depths. Montana looked -as giving an exhibition of her astral body. But as he rode the clouds -drifted away, the sky deepened to the rich voluptuous blue of that -high altitude; even the grey soil showing through the thin grass of -the granite hills looked warmer. Where the soil was thicker the ground -was covered with a gorgeous tapestry of wildflowers; the birds sang -desperately as if they knew how short was their springtime, affected -like mortals by the thin intoxicating air. Even the waters in the creek -roared as if making the most of their brief span. The mountains lost -their glassy look; blue, ice-topped, they were as full of young and -vivid life as when they danced about, heedless that the heaving earth -purposed they should wait for centuries before settling into things -of beauty for unborn man to admire. They never will look old, those -mountains of Montana; man may take the treasure from their veins and -the jewels from their crowns, but they drink forever the elixir of the -air. The blue dawn fills their spirit with a deathless exultation, the -long blue-gold days their bodies with immortal life, the starry nights, -swinging their lamps so close to the snow fields, unroll the dramas -of other worlds. They are no mere masses of rock and dirt or even of -metal, these mountains of Montana, but man’s vision of eternal youth. - -Gregory drew rein on the crest of one of his own hills. Below lay -the De Smet ranch, and he drew a long breath with that sensation of -serene pride which comes to men when they contemplate their landed -possessions, or their wives on state occasions. All the arable soil, -on flat and hillside, was green; alfalfa, with its purple flowers, -filled the bottoms; the winter wheat was rippling in the wind; the -acres covered with the tender leaves of young flax were like a densely -woven lawn. On the hills and the public range roamed his cattle. All of -this fair land, including its possible treasure, was his, absolutely. -By the terms of his father’s will he paid yearly dividends from the -sale of steers and crops to three aunts, now reduced to two. Whether by -accident or design, Mr. Compton had omitted all mention of “minerals -under the earth.” Gregory had not the least objection to making these -ladies rich, when his mines yielded their wealth, but he was jealous -of every acre of his inheritance, far more of its secrets. All the -passionate intensity of his nature he had poured out on his land and -its subterranean mysteries, and he would have hailed an invention which -would enable him to dismiss every man from his employ. But his head was -hard and he always smiled grimly at the finish of his fanciful desires. - -He turned his horse toward the distant group of farm buildings, then -wheeled abruptly and rode toward Limestone Hill. He had anticipated a -long talk with the enthusiastic Oakley on the subject of crops, but he -suddenly realised that he was in no mood to talk to anyone and that his -secret reason for coming to the ranch was to visit his hill. Oakley -would cling to him for hours. One glance had assured him that the crops -would have satisfied a state experimental farm. Mining would fascinate -him in its every detail, but as far as agriculture was concerned, he -was interested only in results. - -As he rode toward the hill he frowned at the signs of activity on -the other side of his boundary line. A large gasoline hoist had -been installed. The waste dump was almost as high as a hill, four -“double-sixes”--six-horse teams--stood waiting to be loaded from the -ore bins. There were a group of miners’ cabins, a long mess-house, and -a blacksmith’s shop. This was the only shadow on his future: he wanted -no lawsuits, nor did he want to enter into partnership with anyone, not -even Ora Blake. - -But he dismissed the matter from his mind, tied his horse, and, -although Montanans are a slow race on foot out of deference to the -altitude, ran up the hill. A glance told him that his secret was -undiscovered. He knelt down and dug up the float, his heart hammering. -And then he deliberately let the prospector’s fever take possession of -him. The soles of his feet prickled as if responding to the magnets -below; he had a fancy that gold, molten, was running through his veins. -But his brain worked clearly. He was aware that his exultation and -excitement were not due to the lure of gold alone, but to the still -more subtle pleasure that a strong and obstinate nature feels in -breaking a vow and deliberately succumbing to temptation. He had vowed -in good faith that he would not open his mine until the third of June -of the following year. But a week before he had spent an enchanted hour -with a woman, and during the rest of that night--he had walked half way -to Silver Bow and back--he had wanted that woman more than he had ever -wanted anything on earth. He had forgotten his mine. - -At first he had lashed himself with scorn, remembering his infatuation -for the woman he had married. He felt something of the indignant -astonishment of the small boy who imagines himself catching a second -attack of measles, before he discovers it is scarlet fever. But it -took him only a brief time to realise that the passion inspired by Ora -Blake was so much deeper and more various than the blind subservience -to Nature that had driven him to Ida (who had not the least idea of -being a tool of Nature herself) that it was far more dangerous than -the first inevitable attack of youthful madness could ever be. It -humiliated his pride to have been the mere victim of the race, the -rudimentary male swept into matrimony by the first woman who combined -superlative femaleness with virtue. Then he wondered if he could have -loved Ora at that time; he certainly felt ten years older today. - -The word love brought him to his senses. It was formidable and -definite. While he had believed himself to be in the throes of a second -fever caught from a beautiful woman’s concordant magnetism, he had felt -merely disgusted at his weakness, not in the least disloyal to his -closest friend, whom he knew no woman could tempt him to betray. But he -realised with hideous abruptness that if he were thrown with Ora Blake -for any length of time she would become so necessary to him through -the comprehensive appeal, which he only half understood, that he no -more could pluck her out of him by the roots, as men disposed of the -superficial passion when it became inconvenient, than he could tear the -veins out of his hill with his hands. - -He had felt the danger dimly when with her, although he had made up his -mind even then to get her out of Montana as quickly as possible. He -vowed anew, with the first sensation of panic he had ever experienced, -that the same sky should not cover them a week hence. He knew his -influence over Mark Blake. - -Then he made a deliberate attempt to banish the subject from his mind, -ordering his thoughts to their favorite haunts underground. But one -little insidious tract, so difficult to control in all brains still -young and human, showed a disposition to create startling and vivid -pictures, to dream intensely, to cast up this woman’s face, fling it -into his consciousness, with an automatic regularity that was like a -diabolical challenge to his haughty will. - -He endeavoured to think of Ora with contempt: she had married a good -fellow, but one whom she must have been compelled by the circumstances -of her life to regard as her social inferior, and who assuredly was -in no sense suited to her--merely from a parasitic dread of poverty. -Other women went to work, even if delicately nurtured. But he was -too masculine and too little influenced by certain phases of modern -thought to condemn any woman long for turning to man in her extremity. -Privately he detested women that “did things”; better for them all to -give some man the right to protect them: marriage with a good fellow -like Mark Blake, even without love, spoilt them far less than mixing -up with the world in a scramble for bread. It would have spoilt Ora, -who was now merely undeveloped; hardened, sharpened, coarsened her. -He dismissed his abortive attempt to despise her; also a dangerous -tendency to pity her. - -Before he finished his tramp he had recaptured his poise. What a woman -like Ora Blake might have to give him he dared not think of, nor would -he be betrayed again into speculation. Doubtless it was all rubbish -anyway, merely another trick of the insatiable mating instinct. If -it were more--the primal instinct plus the almost equally insistent -demands of the civilised inheritances in the brain--so much the worse, -the more reason to “cut it out.” But when he returned to the cottage in -East Granite Street he threw himself on the divan in the parlour and -slept there. - - - - -XXII - - -Therefore was he in no mood to fight another temptation; rather to -take a sardonic pleasure in succumbing. An hour later, in overalls, -and assisted by two of his labourers, outwardly more excited than -he, for they had worked underground and vowed they smelt ore, he was -running an open cut along the line of the float. As there was no -outcropping it was mere guesswork; it might be weeks before he struck -any definite sign of an ore body, but he was prepared to level the hill -if necessary. Until he did come upon indications that would justify -the expense, however, he was resolved not to sink a shaft nor drive a -tunnel. - -They used pick and shovel until at the depth of eight feet they struck -rock. Gregory had been prepared for this and sent the unwilling but -interested Oakley into Pony for drills and powder. For two days more -they drilled and blasted; then--Gregory took out his watch and noted -the hour, twenty-three minutes after four--one of the men gave a shout -and tossed a fragment into the air. - -“Stringer, by jinks!” he cried. “And it’s copper carbonate or I’m a -dead ’un.” - -Gregory frowned, but laid the bit of ore gently on his palm and -regarded it with awe. He wanted gold, but at least this was his, -and the first of his treasure to be torn from its sanctuary. For a -moment the merely personal longing was lost in the enthusiasm of the -geologist, for the fragment in his hand was very beautiful, a soft rich -shaded green flecked with red; the vugs, or little cells, looked as if -lined with deep green velvet. - -But he turned and stared at the mining camp beyond his boundary line. -One of the bits of float he had found last year had been gold quartz. -Had it travelled, a mere chip, from the original body to this distant -point, or danced here on the shoulders of an earthquake? Float, even -under a layer of soil was often found so far from the ore body, that -it was a more fallible guide than a prospector’s guess. He walked to -the end of the hill, while his miners shrugged their shoulders and -resumed the drilling. - -The great vein of the Primo mine was dipping acutely to the right. -Might it not be wise for him to abandon his present position and sink a -shaft close to the line, trusting to his practical knowledge and highly -organized faculty to strike the vein? - -He stood for half an hour debating the question, listening to the -intermittent roar of the engine, the rattle of ore dumped from the -buckets. Then he walked back to the red gash in his own land. It would -be the bitterest disappointment of his life if he failed to find gold -in his hill, but the dominant voice in his brain was always practical, -and it advised him to follow the willing metal for the present instead -of incurring the expense of a shaft and possible litigation. - -“’Nother stringer!” announced one of the men, as Gregory arrived at the -long deep cut. “Guess it’s time for a windlass.” - -“Guess it is. Go down to the house and get some lumber.” - -He descended into the cut and looked at the unmistakable evidence of -little veins. Were they really stringer, tentacles of a great ore -body climbing toward the surface, or a mere series of independent and -insignificant veins not worth exploiting? He was in a pessimistic mood, -but laughed suddenly as he realised how disappointed he would be should -further excavation demonstrate there was no chamber of copper ore below. - -Four hours later the windlass was finished and four men were at work. -At the end of the fortnight the windlass had been discarded in favor -of a gasoline hoist, and twenty-five men in three shifts were employed -upon a chamber of copper carbonate ore. The nearest of the De Smet -hills began to take on the appearance of a mining camp; a mess-house -and a number of cabins were building. Trees were falling, not only to -make room for the new “town” but to timber the mine when the time came -to sink or drift. At present those of the miners that could not be -housed by the disgusted Oakley occupied tents or rude shacks. Oakley -spent the greater part of his time escorting the great six-horse -teams from the ranch to the public road, as their drivers showed an -indifference to his precious crops only rivalled by Gregory Compton’s. - -Mark took a week’s vacation after the first carload of ore had been -shipped from Pony to the sampling works in Butte and netted $65 a ton. -Gregory, who was working with his men, far too impatient and surcharged -with energy to walk about as mere manager, paid scant attention to him -during the day; but Mark was content to sit on the edge of the cut and -smoke and calculate, merely retreating in haste when the men lit the -fuses. - -On the third morning, as he was approaching the mine at dawn with -his host, Gregory suddenly announced his intention of sending for a -manager; he purposed to sink a shaft on the edge of the chamber in -order to determine if the present lode was the top of a vein. - -“Better take off your coat and go to work,” he added. “Do you good. -You’re getting too fat.” - -“Getting? Thanks. But I don’t mind. You’ve got several hundred thousand -dollars in that chamber by the looks of things, but I suppose that -wouldn’t satisfy you?” - -“Lord, no. That is merely the necessary capital to mine the entire -hill--or fight the powers that be when they get on to the fact that -I’ve got another Anaconda.” - -“Do you believe it? Big pockets have been found in solitary splendor -before this.” - -“This hill is mineral from end to end,” said Gregory with intense -conviction. “And I want to get to the main lode as quickly as possible.” - -“By the way,” said Mark abruptly, “why don’t you locate your claim?” - -“Locate? Why, the land’s mine. Patent is all right. My father even -patented several placer claims----” - -“Mining laws are fearful and wonderful things. Judges, with a fat -roll in their pockets, have been known to make fearful and wonderful -interpretations before this. If you’ve struck a new copper belt--well, -the enemy has billions. Better stake off the entire hill, and apply for -patents. You may be grey before you get them, but the application is -enough----” - -“It would cost a lot of money, and I don’t like the idea of paying -twice over. This is costing thousands----” - -“And you’ll soon be taking out thousands a week. But if you need it all -I’ll lend you the money. It would be a good investment for Ora. You can -pay me four per cent. I’ve a mind to go ahead today and begin staking -off.” - -Gregory stood still with his head inclined at the angle which indicated -that he was concentrating his mind. “Very well,” he said curtly. “Go -ahead. And I don’t need your money. Stake off every inch of the hill -and have a good map made. See that the side lines are flush with the -boundary. Of course I’d never have any trouble with you, but Mrs. Blake -might take it into her head to sell. Get out a surveyor when you’re -ready for him. Don’t bother me until the thing is done.” - -Mark took a longer vacation and worked off some twenty pounds. He -wished ruefully that Ora would return suddenly, for he doubted that -his love of good living would undo the excellent work when he was once -more in Butte. He employed a U. S. deputy mineral surveyor, the map was -made, Gregory applied for his patents; the lawyers’s mind was at rest -for the present, although he kept his ears open in Butte. - -Gregory sank his shaft ostensibly to determine the dip and width of the -vein leading from the chamber, but secretly with the hope of meeting -the body of ore already uncovered in the Primo Mine. He was elated with -his splendid “find” and sudden wealth, but his old dream never left him -for a moment. Indeed he would have been more than willing to miss the -pyroxenite if he could come upon a lode of quartz containing free gold. -That was what he had visualised all his life. He wanted to stand in his -own stopes and flash his lantern along glittering seams, not merely -send masses of decomposed grey-black ore to the sampling works and -await returns. If he found a vein worth the outlay he would erect his -own stamp mill and listen to its music. Such is the deathless boy that -exists in all men. Mere wealth meant far less to him than the beautiful -costly toy to play with for a while. - -The shaft at the end of a month had gone down eighty feet; but -had revealed only a lean vein of copper carbonates which made him -forget his dreams in the fear that his mine was pinching out. But he -persisted, and one morning when he went to the bottom of the shaft -after the smoke of the blast had cleared away, and lit his candle, -he picked up a lump of yellow ore that glittered like quartz packed -with free gold. For a moment his head swam. He knelt down and brushed -the shattered rock from several other bits of what looked like virgin -gold; and he caressed them as gently as if they had been the cheek of -his first born. But he was a geologist. He stepped into the ascending -bucket a prey to misgivings. As soon as he examined his treasure in the -sunlight he knew it at once for chalcopyrite--the great copper ore of -the sulphide zone. - -After he had assayed it he philosophically dismissed regret. It ran -$26 in copper with slight values of gold and silver. Chalcopyrite ore, -as a rule, runs about five per cent. in copper, its commercial value -lying in the immense quantities in which it may be found, although it -is necessary to concentrate at the mine. If he had struck one of the -rare veins of massive chalcopyrite, averaging $25 a ton, he would take -out, after it was sufficiently developed, several thousand dollars a -day; and, like the carbonates, it could go straight to the smelter. As -a matter of fact the vein when uncovered proved to be six feet wide -and grew slightly broader with depth. The miners were jubilant over -their “fool’s gold”, and a number of people came out and asked for the -privilege of looking at what the foreman, Joshua Mann, declared to be -the prettiest pay streak in Montana. - -Gregory found his chalcopyrite during the third month after he began to -investigate the hill. The chamber already had netted him over a hundred -thousand dollars and grew richer with depth. He put an extra force at -work on the promising shoot. - -In the Primo Mine the luck varied. The two engineers, Osborne and -Douglas, exhausted the first lode, struck a poor vein, averaging ten -dollars a ton, then ran into a body of the ore netting as high as four -hundred dollars. Two months later they came up suddenly against a wall -of country rock. Undaunted, they drove through the mass, and struck a -lean shoot of chalcopyrite. - - - - -XXIII - - -“Well, what do you know about that?” - -Mark’s feet were on the table in the cabin Gregory had had built for -himself on the top of the hill. The news had just been brought to them -by one of the men who had a faithful friend in the Primo Mine. - -Gregory was engaged in biting a cigar to pieces. He waited some ten -minutes before replying, during which Mark smoked philosophically. -“I think this,” he said finally, “what those fellows are after -is gold, not copper. Better suggest to them to get out an expert -geologist--Holmes is a good friend of mine--who will tell them to sink -a shaft over on the right, or run a drift from the original stope. All -we need is time.” - -“I’m on. But will they do it? They’re not fools and what they’re after -mainly is cash.” - -“I think they’ll listen to reason. They’re not far from the boundary -line and there’s no possible doubt that the vein apexes here. The -moment they cross the line I’ll get out an injunction. That would stop -them anyhow, hold them up until their lease had expired. And their -chance is good to recover the vein on the other side. No doubt it has -faulted. Have you noticed those aspens about a hundred yards beyond -their shaft? Where there are aspens there is water. Now as there is no -water in sight it must be below the surface, and that would indicate -faulting. There might be no ore on the other side, but the chance is -worth taking. Better have a talk with Osborne tomorrow. He’s the least -mulish of the two.” - -“Good. I might offer them some inducement--give them an extra month or -two. Even so we’d win out. But they’re not the only danger ahead. How -long since you’ve been in Butte?” - -“Not since I began work.” - -“Well, let me tell you that Amalgamated is buzzing. They’ve got on to -the fact good and plenty that you’ve got the biggest thing in copper -that has been struck in Montana for twenty years. Of course they get -figures regularly from the sampling works. They know you’ve already -taken out half a million dollars worth of ore--net--and that the new -shoot is getting richer every minute. They’re talking loud about -spoiling the market and all the rest of it. Of course that’s rank -nonsense. What worries them is a rival in Montana. If your mine was in -Colorado or Michigan they wouldn’t care shucks. You haven’t taken out -enough yet to worry them about the market. But if they can queer your -game they’ll do it. Lucky for you the smelting works need copper just -now as badly as you need them. If it were not for that strike in the -Stemwinder and the Corkscrew you might be having trouble.” - -Gregory smiled, but as he set his jaw at the same time it was not an -agreeable smile. “I’m in a mood to fight somebody--and win. I wanted -gold and didn’t get it. A row with Amalgamated would relieve my -feelings--although I’d rather use my fists.” - -“They’re mad, too, because you’ve named your mine ‘Perch of the Devil.’ -That’s the old name for Butte, and they look upon it as a direct -challenge.” - -“So it is. And you don’t suppose I’d call my mine Limestone Hill, do -you? I shouldn’t get half the fun out of it. What the devil can they -do, anyhow?” - -“That’s what I’m worrying about. You never know what Amalgamated has -up its sleeve. There was just one man who was too much for them--for -a while--and that was Heinze. And they got him in the end. I believe -you’d give them a run for their money, and I don’t rank you second to -Heinze or any other man when it comes to brains or resource. But--well, -they’ve got billions--and the best legal talent in the state.” - -“You deserve a return compliment. You may consider yourself counsel for -Perch of the Devil Mine.” - -“Jimminy! But I’d like a chance at them.” Mark’s cigar was burning his -fingers but he only felt the fire in his brain. “Do you mean it?” - -“Who else? Watch them. Put spies on them. Fight them with their own -weapons. They’ve spies among my miners. That doesn’t worry me a bit. -I merely mention it. Let’s change the subject. I’ve got to sleep -tonight. What’s the news from Europe?” - -“I’ve got Ora’s last letter here; want to hear it?” - -“Good Lord, no. Tell me what they are doing. I sent Ida five thousand -dollars a few days ago, so I suppose they’re flying high. She cabled -her thanks and said they were both well.” - -“Don’t you really know what they’ve been doing?” - -“Not a thing.” - -“Well--let’s see. They went over in June. They did France, Germany--lot -of places in regulation tourist style--incidentally met several of -Mrs. Stratton’s old friends. Then they went back to Paris, where they -appear to have indulged in an orgy of clothes preparatory to a round of -country house visits on the Continent and in England. Ora writes with -great enthusiasm of--er--Ida’s improvement. Says you’d think she’d been -on top all her life, especially since she got those Paris duds, and met -a lot of smart people; makes a hit with everybody, and will astonish -Butte when she comes back.” - -“That will please her!” He felt no glow of tenderness, but some -satisfaction that he could gratify the ambitions of the woman he had -married. He was still too keen on his own youthful dreams, and thankful -at their partial fulfillment, not to sympathise with those of others. - -Mark left him to accept the more commodious hospitality of Oakley, and -Gregory sat for another hour smoking, hoping for the mood of sleep. But -the news had excited him, and he preferred to sit up rather than to -toss about his narrow bed. The last part of the conversation, however, -had given a new turn to his thoughts. Suddenly, unbidden, Ora flashed -into his mind and refused to be dislodged. He walked up and down, -striving to banish her as he had done before, when, sleepless, she had -peremptorily demanded his attention. Tonight she was almost a visible -presence in the little room. - -He sat down again and grimly permitted his mind to dwell upon his long -communion with her on the steps of the School of Mines. He tried to -analyse his impulse to take her there. Unconventional as he was it had -never occurred to him to do such a thing before, and there were twenty -women in the room whom he would have expected to exercise a more potent -fascination had he been in the humour for a flirtation. He had been -quite honest in telling Ora that he had taken her out merely to look at -her under the stars, and in intimating that to make love to her was the -last thing in his mind. She had hardly seemed a woman at all there in -the ballroom or when he first sat at her feet; his mind was relaxed and -the “queer” romantic or poetical streak that he often deprecated had -taken possession of it; if he had had a suspicion of anything more he -would have fled from her at once, for she was the wife of his friend. -As it was he merely had dismissed Mark from his mind and tried the -experiment of setting a bit of exquisite white poetry to the music of -the stars.... - -As often as her memory had assailed him he had longed to rehearse that -scene; the conversation, desultory and personal; her white profile -against the flaming blue sky; the intensity and brilliancy of her eyes, -so unlooked for in her young almost colorless face; her pink mouth -that changed its expression so often; her curious magnetism, so unlike -that of the full-blooded woman--all of that and something more; the -strange community of mind--or soul?--that had drawn him on to pour -out his secret self into another self of whose contact he was almost -literally sensible,--in a sudden desire for comprehension that had been -like the birth of a new star in his mental constellation. He had felt -the thrill of her sympathy, her understanding, then another thrill of -perplexity, fear; then the little quarrel, when he had thought her more -adorable than ever, and no longer bearing the least resemblance to a -star-wraith, but wholly feminine. When he left her it was with the -confused sense that he had sojourned for a bit with the quintessence of -womanhood whom Nature had cast in a new and perilous mould. - -He went over the hour again and again, hoping to bore himself, to -arrive at the conclusion that it had been a mere commonplace flirtation -with a coquette who was as cold as she looked. But he found the -recaptured scene very sweet. The power of concentration he possessed -enabled him to shut out the little room and sit at the feet of the -woman whose magic personality had penetrated the barriers he so -jealously had built about his soul and given him the first sense of -companionship he had ever known. - -He was filled with a longing that shook him and hurt him, to feel that -sense of sympathetic companionship, of spiritual contact, again. And -far more. He knew that she had loved no man, that all the glory and -the riches within her were waiting--and if she had waited, and he had -waited, and they had met unfettered that night---- - -He sprang to his feet. His face in the smoky light looked black. - -“God!” he muttered. “God! Have I fallen as low as that? If ever I think -of her again I’ll cut my heart out. I hope to God the Amalgamated puts -up the hell of a fight. What I want is a man’s work in the world, not a -play actor’s.” - - - - -XXIV - - -A week later, Gregory, who was down in the bottom of the shaft, -received a message by way of a descending miner that a gentleman from -Butte, one Mr. John Robinson, requested the favour of an interview, and -awaited him in the cabin on the top of the hill. At least such is the -polite translation of the message as delivered: “Say, Boss, there’s a -guy upstairs in your shack what says he’s from Butte, and’s come out to -have a chin with you--some important. Says his name is John Robinson.” - -Gregory swore under his breath and for a minute his face looked ugly -and formidable. But as he stepped into the bucket and gave the signal -he permitted his expression to change to one of grim amusement. -Mr. Robinson was one of the brilliant galaxy that guided the legal -footsteps of “Amalgamated”; that powerful company, financed by Standard -Oil, which owned thirty-one of the mines of Butte openly, and exerted a -power in Montana far exceeding that of state or nation. - -Gregory wore corduroy trousers and coat, and these as well as his face -and hands were white with “muck”, a mixture of rock-dust and water -which spattered everyone in the vicinity of the ore drills; but he -wasted no time to clean up before climbing to his cabin to meet the -ambassador from Amalgamated. - -Mr. Robinson, a portly gentleman, still young, but manifestly the -victim of easy fortune, rose from his chair before the stove and -greeted his host with beaming smile and extended hand. - -“My dear Mr. Compton!” he exclaimed. “It is a great pleasure to meet -you again. Of course you have forgotten me for I was two grades above -you in the High, when you were a little chap----” - -“What have you come here for? Out with it! I’ve no time to waste. Sit -down if you like.” - -Mr. Robinson colored angrily. He knew little of the man with whom he -had come to deal, but had always relied upon his urbanity and Western -heartiness to “make a hit.” He knew Mark Blake and, although he had -heard, like others, of Gregory Compton’s record at the School of Mines, -he had assumed that he was a mere student, and in other respects more -or less the same sort of man as his chum. This man looked unlike any he -had ever met. He concealed his chagrin, however, and resumed his seat. - -“Really, Mr. Compton, you are somewhat abrupt----” - -“Get down to business. What does Amalgamated want?” - -Mr. Robinson wisely took the cue. - -“To buy you out.” - -“How much will they pay?” - -“How much do you want?” - -“What do they offer?” - -“Well, between you and me. I fancy they might go as high as a hundred -thousand.” - -“Tell them to go to hell.” - -“How much do you want?” - -“A hundred millions.” - -“Good God, man, are you mad!” - -“If you had permitted me to finish. I should have added--in other -words, nothing. There isn’t money enough inside of Montana, let alone -on top, to buy one acre of this ranch.” - -“But--you know what most mines are--pockety--yours may peter out any -minute.” - -“All right. I take the chances.” - -“The history of Butte Hill is unique. There will never be another----” - -“How do you know?” - -“It stands to reason----” - -“Why?” - -“Oh, Lord, man, if you are indulging in wild dreams----!” - -“My dreams concern no one but myself. I’m satisfied with my hill and -that’s all there is to it.” - -“I’m afraid not. Look here, you are a fine young fellow with a -big future--people talk a lot about you--I don’t want to see you -crushed----” - -“You won’t.” - -“I’m not here to make threats, but you are not so--ah--unsophisticated -as to imagine that if Amalgamated sets out to get rid of you, you can -stand up against them?” - -“They can’t do a damned thing and you know it. They might have a few -years ago, when a roll could be passed on the street to a judge who was -to deny or grant an injunction within a few hours, and at a time when -there was no prospect of the referendum and recall; when the people of -Montana took the buying and selling of men in the legislature as part -of the game, all in the day’s work. But Montana has caught the reform -spirit that has been sweeping over the rest of the country, and she -is also getting pretty sick of corporation power. Now, sir, not only -have I a clear title to this ranch, but I’ve staked off the entire hill -and applied for patents. If Amalgamated freezes me out of Anaconda and -Great Falls, I’ll promote a company and put up a plant of my own. With -nearly a million dollars in sight besides what I’ve taken out, you can -figure, yourself, how much trouble I’d have in New York getting all the -money I wanted. Amalgamated knows that, and my ore will continue to be -smelted in Anaconda. Of course if I were within a mile or so of Butte I -might be in some danger. They’d bore through and then claim that my ore -vein apexed in one of their properties. But I’m too far away for that.” - -Gregory saw the other man’s eyes flash wide open before they were -hastily lowered. Mr. Robinson regarded the point of his cigar. - -“Ah, yes,” he said. “That’s all very true. Luck is with you in a -measure, but--well, take my advice and don’t fight Amalgamated. They -have in their employ some of the most resourceful brains in the -country--that are always on the job. Heinze taught them a lesson -they’ll never forget.” - -“Let’s drop the subject.” Gregory rose and opened a cupboard. “Have -something?” - -He poured whiskey into two glasses. The men smiled as they drank, -Gregory sardonically, Mr. Robinson ruefully but with thoughtful eyes. -He had what Ida called the quick-rich face, large and round and fat, -and it was an admirable mask. - -“Like to see the mine?” asked Gregory. - -“Why, yes--do you mean it?” - -“Why not? If it had any secrets your spies would have turned them over -before this. Glad to show it to you.” - -They went to the shafthead and descended in one of the buckets. - -“How far down have you gone?” asked Mr. Robinson, with an air of polite -interest. - -“We found chalcopyrite at one hundred and ten feet, after a narrow vein -leading from the chamber near the surface, and are stoping.” - -As they left the bucket they were greeted by the cheerful rhythmical -sound of hammers on the drills, and by the light of the miners’ candles -they saw the men working at different points of the dark chamber, two -on a scaffolding above. - -“Great waste of labor,” said Gregory. “I shall install a compressor -before long as well as electric lighting. Of course it is only the -beginning of a mine.” - -He saw the ambassador from Amalgamated smile, and turned on his heel. -“They’ll be loading the holes in a minute,” he said. “And I’d like to -show you the upper chamber.” - -When they reached the surface Mr. Robinson declined to go down into the -excavation, but stood on the edge watching the busy hive below. “Great -sight,” he said admiringly. “How deep have you gone?” - -“About seventy-eight feet.” - -“And the end not in sight!” - -“Not yet, but of course it’s only a chamber.” - -“You’ve taken out close on half a million here alone.” - -“Pretty near. What the devil made you suppose I’d take a paltry hundred -thousand for the hill?” - -“Oh, just to avoid trouble. You have the reputation of being a very -clever man.” - -“Thanks. It’s cold standing round. Wouldn’t you like to take a walk? -How’d you like to see the Primo Mine?” - -As Gregory, who was watching him intently, anticipated, the man’s face -lit up. “I should like it!” he said definitely. “I hear that they too -have struck chalcopyrite. Lost their gold vein.” - -“They’re nosing after it in another direction. When the lease is up I -shall consolidate with the Blakes.” - -“Quite natural. Of course it’s the same vein?--the chalcopyrite, I -mean.” - -“Unquestionably. And it apexes in my property.” - -“Are you so sure of that?” - -“Not a doubt in the world. I struck the top of the vein twelve feet -below the surface. But it will never go to the courts.” - -“Of course not.” - -Gregory, who looked remote, almost blank, lost not an intonation of the -other man’s voice, nor a flickering gleam in his cunning eyes. His own -head was a little on one side, which, had Mr. Robinson had the good -fortune to know him better, would have warned him that the young man -for whom he had conceived a certain respect was thinking hard and to -some purpose. - -Douglas, who had a personal liking for his neighbor, unaware that he -had been the chief instrument in the upsetting of skillful plans for -untold wealth, readily gave permission to visit the mine as soon as -the smoke from a recent blast would permit. Gregory and Mr. Robinson -walked about to keep warm, the former pointing out the probability of a -faulted ore vein under the aspens, and enlarging upon the great fortune -bound to be Mrs. Blake’s in any case. Then as the man merely remarked, -“Yes, charming woman, Mrs. Blake; thought the night of the Prom she -was one of the prettiest women I ever saw. No dead easy game there”; -Gregory refrained from kicking him and said innocently. - -“Good thing the law compels creditors to present their claims within -a limited time, or Amalgamated might grab this mine and bore through -to my hill. I understand Judge Stratton was heavily in debt to the -Anaconda Company when he died.” - -Mr. Robinson’s face turned a deep brick-red, and he shot a piercing -glance into the narrow noncommittal eyes opposite. - -“Of course--it’s too late for that, but--Oh, well----” He broke off -abruptly and walked toward the shaft as Osborne beckoned. Gregory stood -a moment, his head bent forward. He had experienced the sensation -of coming into contact with an electrical wave. But he was smiling -pleasantly as he joined his guest at the shaft house. - -After the visit to the mine, during which he amiably pointed out the -dip of the vein toward his own property, and Mr. Robinson succumbed to -the charm which never missed fire when Gregory chose to exert it, they -walked back to the ranch, where a team awaited the ambassador at the -foot of the hill. - -“I’ve had quite a delightful visit,” began Mr. Robinson, when Gregory -interrupted: - -“I’ve no intention of letting you go. You must have supper at the farm -and meet Oakley. I’ll send off the rig and drive you in myself----” - -“Oh, I couldn’t think of troubling you----” Robinson, red again, stood -in almost agitated embarrassment. - -“No train to Butte till nine-thirty. You don’t want to spend four hours -in Pony?” - -“The fact is----” But whatever he had on his mind died on his lips. -He looked sharply into the bland smiling eyes opposite, and concluded -abruptly, “All right. Many thanks. Glad of the chance to know you -better.” - -He paid off the driver of the team and they walked toward the ranch -house, Gregory commenting on Oakley’s genius for dry farming, and -expatiating upon the excellence of the crops. Mining was not mentioned -again during the evening and the lawyer enjoyed an excellent supper. - -Gregory drove him to Pony, and clung to him so closely that he had no -opportunity to visit the telegraph office or a telephone booth. They -shook hands cordially as the train moved off. When it was out of sight -Gregory sent a telegram to Mark telling him to take the first train -next morning for Virginia City and meet him in the Court House. He -took his car to a garage and spent the night in Pony. On the following -morning at nine o’clock he walked into the Tax Collector’s office at -the County Seat. - - - - -XXV - - -The County Treasurer, who had just come in, looked blank for a moment, -then greeted his visitor with effusive cordiality. - -“Always glad to see you, Mr. Compton. It does a poor clerk’s heart good -just to look at a man who’s such a favourite of fortune. Sit down, sir.” - -“I will. I’ve a good deal to say.” - -“Staked off the rest of your ranch? It’ll be some little time yet -before you get those patents through you’ve applied for already----” - -“What do the taxes foot up on the Oro Fino Primo Mine?” - -“Ah--What?” The man’s face turned scarlet, then white. He was a young -man, clerically able, but otherwise insignificant. “Why----” Then he -became voluble. - -“The Primo mine, over there near your place? It’s a new claim, isn’t -it? Never heard of it before those fellows from New York sank a -shaft and struck it rich. Why should there be any taxes before the -regular----” - -“You know as well as I do that Judge Stratton patented that mine and -did the necessary amount of development work, then found it salted and -abandoned it. That was twenty-eight years ago. He forgot it, and so, -apparently, did this office. It was regarded as an abandoned prospect -hole, if anyone thought about it at all. I haven’t discussed the matter -with Mr. Blake, but assume that he’s merely been waiting for his bill. -Now, for reasons of my own, I’ve telegraphed him to meet me here this -morning, but in case he can’t come I’m prepared to pay the amount -myself. How much?” and he took out his checque book. - -The treasurer looked as if the cane seat of his chair had turned to hot -coals. “Really--that is a large order, Mr. Compton. Twenty-eight years. -It will take time to go over the records.” - -“I’m prepared to wait all day if necessary.” - -“But why this haste?” - -“I have my reasons. They don’t concern you in the least. Do they?” - -“Why--no--but I am very busy----” - -“Then put someone else on the job. I assume that the county is not -averse to raking in a tidy little sum in a hurry.” - -“Really----” - -Gregory leaned back in his chair and smiled pleasantly. - -“You had a telephone from Mr. John Robinson this morning.” - -This time the man started visibly, but he made an effort to control -himself. “I have just come in----” - -“He telephoned to you last night, did he not? What did he offer you to -permit him to pay those taxes today?” - -“I will not be insulted, sir.” The man’s voice was almost a scream. -He heartily wished he had been in training a few years longer, a -graduate of the famous Heinze-Amalgamated orgy of corruption, or of the -Clark-Daly epoch, when nearly every man in office had been bribed or -hoped to be. “I never heard of Mr. Robinson!” - -“Of course he reminded you that as the taxes are long delinquent the -county has the right to put the property up at public auction, and that -in any case Mrs. Blake would hardly be given the usual year in which to -redeem it. But why auction when the money is ready to be paid over at -once? How much did he offer you?” - -“I repeat----” - -“I think I can guess. It was five thousand dollars. I’ll make it ten. -Get to work.” - -The man, in whom excitement had destroyed his appetite for breakfast, -and who had started out in life with the usual negative ideals of -honesty, burst into tears. “My God!” he sobbed. “I’ve heard of the -third degree. Your eyes bore a hole through one. They hurt, I say. To -think that you should come in here and accuse me of taking bribes.” - -“Oh, hell, cut it out. Montana may be a great state, but she has her -rotten spot like any other. She’s been so debauched the last twenty -years by open bribery that I doubt if you could lay your hand on a -hundred men in her that haven’t had a roll anywhere from five hundred -to twenty thousand dollars passed to them, and pocketed it. Estimable -citizens, too, but a man never knows his weak spot until he has a wad -of easy money thrust under his nose--or flung over his transom. You are -no worse than the rest. Do you take my offer?” - -The County Treasurer recovered himself with amazing alacrity. Ten -thousand dollars in a lump never had haunted his wildest dreams. - -“All right, sir. It’s a bargain. But I want bills. No checks for me.” - -“I congratulate you on your foresight! But there have been times in -this state when checque books were not opened for months. You shall -have it in bills. Where are the records?” - -“In the vault there.” - -“I’ll sit here. If you attempt to leave the room to go to a telephone -I’ll drag you out on the Court House steps and tell the story to the -town. Now get to work.” - -“I’ll keep my word, sir, and I know you’ll keep yours.” He went into -the vault and appeared later trundling out a pile of records, then sat -down at a table and concentrated his mind as earnestly as if corruption -had never blighted it. Gregory watched him until Mark entered. Then the -two men went out into the corridor, standing where they could see the -table. Gregory recounted his interview with Mr. John Robinson, and the -present sequel. - -Mark listened with his mouth open, an expression of profound chagrin -loosening the muscles of his cheerful healthy shrewd face. - -“By George!” he cried. “And to think that was the one thing I never -thought of. Of course I knew about the delinquent taxes, and intended -to pay them when I was good and ready; but what’s the use of forking -over till you have to? But not to have thought of this! And I pride -myself upon sleeping with one eye open--never was caught napping yet!” -And for five minutes he exploited his vocabulary of profanity, heaping -each epithet upon his own humiliated head. - -Gregory laughed. “Merely another proof that two heads are better than -one. Do you stand for the ten thousand? If not I’ll pay half.” - -“I’d pay fifty----” - -“I’ll pay half,” said Gregory definitely. “It means as much to me as to -you.” - -“All right. Jimminy, but they’re clever!” He was calmer and his astute -legal brain was moved to admiration. “But you are cleverer. I’ve always -sworn by you. They’ll get a jolt all right. How did you catch on, -anyhow?” - -“I fancy I got a wireless. The other man was thinking hard and so was -I--had practically nothing else in our minds. Those things will be -better explained some day. Perhaps it was merely a good guess.” - -“You hit the nail on the head all right. I’ll have a letter to write to -Ora next Sunday! She’s had a narrow squeak, and she shall know whom to -thank for it.” - -“Oh, cut that out.” - -Gregory went to the bank and drew the ten thousand dollars, while -Mark kept watch. When the bill was finally made out, Mark examined it -critically, and then gave his personal checque. Three months later the -County Treasurer resigned his office on the ground of ill health and -bought an orange grove in Southern California. There he and his growing -family enjoy a respected, prosperous, bucolic life. - - - - -XXVI - - -Gregory had scored against the most powerful combination of capital in -the world. He knew that they knew he had scored, for he had met Mr. -John Robinson as he descended the Court House steps with the husband -of the delinquent taxpayer, and he felt reasonably elated. But the -keenest and canniest brains are not infallible, and he underestimated -the resources of his mighty and now open enemy. Three mornings later, -while he was still asleep, Joshua Mann, the miner in his confidence and -devoted to his interests, burst into the cabin and shook him. - -“There’s the devil to pay, sir,” he cried. “Amalgamated has staked off -a claim between our boundary line and Primo.” - -Gregory sat up in bed. He never awakened dazed, but with every faculty -alert. “What are you talking about? The Primo claim almost overlaps the -ranch.” - -“So anyone would think. But it doesn’t. That’s the point. Of course -the old stakes of the Primo rotted long ago. They must have got hold -of the original map. But there it is: a bit of unclaimed land between -Primo and the ranch. There isn’t much more than room to sink a shaft, -but there is, all right. Guess they’ve got us on the hip.” And having -delivered his news he relieved his mind with profanity, of which he too -had a choice assortment. - -Gregory flung on his clothes and accompanied by Mann walked hastily to -the edge of the hill. There, sure enough, were the four posts and the -flaunting notice of a located claim. - -“Must have done it between shifts last night,” commented the miner. -“Didn’t take long and the moon helped. By jing!--if I’d been round with -a shotgun! Well, there’ll be fun underground sames on top. The moment -they break through we’ll be ready for ’em. They may get there but they -won’t stay long. The boys will like the fun; and we’d put our last -cent on you--know a winner when we see one.” - -“Put on an extra force and make them work like hell. _We must get here -first._ When I’m not below you’re boss.” - -“Thank you, sir. I’ll keep ’em on the job, all right.” - -“Promise them extra pay. Come up to me at eight o’clock tonight and -we’ll talk it over.” - -He went back to the cabin and telephoned to Mark to come out at -once. The lawyer arrived in the course of the morning. The first ten -minutes of the interview may be passed over. Then Mark recovered his -equilibrium. He lit a cigar, demanded a drink, and elevated his feet to -the table. - -“We’ll just thresh this question out, turn the spot-light on every side -of it, present and future. We ought to have done it before, but that -first victory was a little too heady. Nothing like a defeat to clear -the brain. What’s the first thing they’ll do? They won’t waste time -sinking a shaft if they can help it. That’s the hardest kind of country -rock. They’ll try to buy up the lease from Douglas and Osborne. I -haven’t the lease with me, but most leases carry a clause which permits -the original lessees to sub-let. I fancy I could get out an injunction -and delay them, however, until the lease expired. But what they can -do, all right, is to bribe those two men to give them the use of their -cross-cut--the one that has already struck your vein--while they were -sinking the shaft. Do you think they’ll fall for it?” - -“My experience is that most men can be bribed if the roll is big -enough. Osborne and Douglas are pretty discouraged, although they’ve -begun to drift across the fault. I’ll talk to them, but they’re not -square men. Amalgamated could pretend to be sinking a shaft against -time itself, and be drifting for all they were worth on the Primo vein. -I understand that Amalgamated’s head geologist has been nosing round -for some time and has concluded there’s a parallel fissure in their -claim and that they can ‘prove’ apex rights.” - -“How deep do you figure they’d have to sink to strike the vein at that -point?” - -“About two hundred feet, owing to that surface bump.” - -“And it apexes here. There’s no getting round that--with a square deal. -But they figure on proving that they’ve the main vein, and yours is -an offshoot? The case would go to Helena--to the Federal Courts--as -Amalgamated was incorporated out of the state. That’s bad. If the case -could be tried in Virginia City, and there was a good healthy suspicion -that the Judge was expecting to retire in comfort, you could apply for -a change of venue--result of that odorous chapter in our history when -every judge was on the pay roll of either Heinze or Amalgamated. Well, -at least there’s public opinion to be considered; the state is waking -up. Here is one thing we can do. If it comes to a knock-out fight and -the case goes to Helena, we can get out an expert geologist of national -reputation, whose record shows him to be above bribes, and who will -be bound to testify that the vein apexes in your claim. Becke of the -School of Mines, will find the man we want. Now, what’s your first -move?” - -“To stope the vein as far as the boundary line, which of course is -my side-line, and as far down as possible. If they won in the courts -I’d have to fork over eventually, but they’d have to wait for it, and -they’ll get a good jolt underground.” - -“You’re much too calm. What have you got up your sleeve?” - -“I’ll tell you that when the time comes. It has nothing to do with -the present case. The best thing you can do now is to make the whole -thing public and get public opinion behind us. They don’t own all the -newspapers in the state, and they don’t own all the newspapers in the -rest of the country, either. Are you on?” - -“You bet. Aren’t you afraid there’ll be a sudden strike among your -miners? After all, Amalgamated is popular among the mining class. They -pay good wages and treat the men pretty squarely all round. I’ll say -that much for them.” - -“I’m not worrying about that. I’ll raise the wages of my miners, and -they like me. I call every one of them by his first name, and they’re -men--not a Bohunk among them--and like the idea, too, of a fight under -a good captain. If I’d put an Eastern manager in who’d put on dog, it -might be different, but I’ve worked shoulder to shoulder with them, and -not one of them has stuck harder to his job. Besides, Mann is devoted -to me, and has great influence over them.” - -“Well, Amalgamated can’t queer you in the East, for you get your roll -from the Smelting Works. If that went back on you----” - -“I’m not worrying about that, either. Torrence is a friend of mine. -He’s also a Mason. If things get hot he’ll give headquarters a hint -that my men, their blood being up, are as likely as not to make a -bonfire somewhere. Get back to town and give the story to the new -evening paper. Its lay is to fight Amalgamated for the sake of -notoriety. See that their brightest man writes a story for one of the -biggest New York and Chicago newspapers. Now, clear out. I’ve got to go -below.” - - - - -XXVII - - -The next day Gregory visited a mine in Lewis and Clark County which -recently had shut down, and bought a compressor at second hand. His -miners with the air drills were soon working at five times the rate -of speed that had been possible with the hand drills. The contractor -in charge of the development work on what was impudently known as the -Apex Mine, had installed a gasoline hoist, every new device, and as -large a force as it was possible at that early stage to employ with -profit. Gregory interviewed Osborne and Douglas, and obtained profuse -assurances, but Mann soon discovered that there was an increased force -on the Primo copper vein. Their original lease was nearly up but they -had accepted Mark’s offer of two months’ grace; an offer he deeply -regretted now, but the papers were signed and sealed. They made a feint -of pushing the drift across the fault, but as they employed a small -force at that point there was little room for doubt that they had been -amply compensated for a doubtful undertaking. - -Meanwhile work on the great surface chamber of Perch of the Devil -Mine was drawing to a close. It had proved to be a hundred feet long, -thirty feet wide, and seventy feet deep, and had netted half a million -dollars. Some time since one of the larger houses on the West Side in -Butte, built by a millionaire while still faithful to Montana, but -whose family now spent twelve months of the year in Europe, New York, -or California, had been thrown on the market for less than a third of -its cost; new millionaires are not as plentiful in Amalgamated Butte -as of old, and that unique camp is still a perch, even for those that -make moderate fortunes; if no longer for the devil. It never will be -a favourite roost for the gamecock’s hens and chicks. The hotels and -“blocks” are always overcrowded, and even bungalows are in demand by -the energetic but impermanent young engineers and managers of the -various companies; but “palatial residences,” built by enthusiastic -citizens who either died promptly or retired in favour of their -families, are a drug on that great market they helped to build. When -the Murphy house, therefore, was advertised for sale Gregory bought it -for Ida and cabled her the news together with five thousand dollars -Mark had recently made for him on the stock-market. - -Above these and other expenditures, he now had half a million dollars -to his credit, but he wanted a million more. The new vein was very rich -for chalcopyrite, but its depth was problematical, and it might drop in -values at any moment. If his belief in his hill was justified and there -were huge primary deposits below, there would be no end to his riches; -but it would take a year or more to determine that point; and meanwhile -he wanted at least a million and a half, not only to meet the possible -expenses of litigation, but to mine at depth and to open up his other -claims in case Amalgamated, when it reached the chalcopyrite vein, -claimed that it apexed in their property, got out an injunction, and -forced him to cease work on it. - -But he had another and to him a still more vital reason for wishing -to make a great sum of money. Half a million dollars, particularly -when spectacularly acquired, alters a man’s position in his community -at once, and the readjustment of his own mental attitude toward life -follows as a matter of course; particularly in a country where money -not only talks but rules. He was now treated, when business took him -to any of the towns, as a permanent capitalist of the great state of -Montana; moreover, his romantic attitude toward his hill having been -inevitably dampened by its yield of mere copper, his appreciation of -its heavy contribution to his bank account was wholly practical. He not -only began to forecast himself as one of the small group of front-rank -millionaires which Montana has donated to the American Brotherhood of -Millionaires, but to be sensible of the sudden and active growth of -those business instincts he had always known were dormant in his brain. -It had needed but the rousing of his fighting instinct, the success of -its first move, and the swift countermove of the enemy, to awaken the -permanent desire, not alone to pit his brains against Amalgamated, but -to show the world what he could do. In short he was on his mettle, and -conscious for the first time of his powers and ultimate ambitions. - -He had found his mine by an accident. Nature had flung it into his -lap. He was now determined to prove that he could make money with the -resources of his brain as rapidly as the more famous of the Montanans -had made it in the past, when opportunities were supposed to be more -numerous. There never was a time when opportunity did not coincide -with the man, and of this Gregory was contemptuously aware when he -dismissed the usual Wall Street resource as commonplace, beneath the -consideration of a man living in a state whose resources had barely -been tapped. - -When live brains of peculiar gifts think hard and uninterruptedly on -a given subject they become magnets. Gregory paid frequent visits -to Butte and Helena, talking casually with many men. In less than a -fortnight he found his cue, and, accompanied by a civil engineer, -disappeared for a week. - - - - -XXVIII - - -Twenty years ago it was the ambition of every Californian, no matter -how blatant his state pride, to move to New York. Today he hopes to -live and die in California, the main reason being that the women of -his family find themselves members of a comparatively old and settled -community, enjoying many advantages and no little importance; given -frequent trips abroad they are content to remain at home in houses -of modern architecture, and to command a social position that New -York has granted to only two or three of California’s heiresses and -millionaires. Montanans, at present, those that are rich or merely -independent, are in the migratory phase of the earlier Californian; but -as New York has extended to them an even more grudging welcome than -it did to aspirants from the more picturesque state, they visit it, -after successive social disappointments, merely for its dressmakers and -those exterior advantages that may be exchanged for gold; the majority -migrate to “The Coast,” more particularly to Southern California. There -they not only find relief on the sea-level from an altitude that plays -havoc with the nerves, but, in the mushroom Southern cities, social -position may be had for the asking, and every advantage for growing -children. - -Gregory had heard of a man named Griffiths, owner of the Circle-G -Ranch, a tract of land covering seventy-five thousand acres, who was -anxious to sell and move to Los Angeles. As the ranch was practically -waterless and thirty miles from a railroad, his only chance of -disposing of it was by means of an alluring bargain. He was willing -to sell the ranch, his large herds of horses and cattle, and bands of -sheep for half a million dollars. - -Gregory returned to Butte without the engineer, went directly to -Blake’s office, and laid his programme before his astounded friend and -legal adviser. - -He had found Griffiths a man unaccustomed to business but with his -mind set upon retiring with a capital of half a million dollars. His -efforts in money-making hitherto, had been confined to acquiring rather -than disposing of property, and his trading consisted of converting -live stock into such cash as was necessary for the purchase of -necessities not raised on his property. But he was nearly sixty, his -wife and four daughters had besought him for years to sell out and take -them to California, and he was now persuaded that he was as tired of -life in the wilds of Montana as they were. He was, however, possessed -of one fixed idea, to leave each of his “women folks” a hundred -thousand dollars when he died. Therefore would he not take a cent less -than five times that amount for his fine property; but although he -inserted the advertisement that had caught Gregory’s eye, so far he had -been unsuccessful. One man found the ranch too far from a railroad, -another no good for farming, save intensive, as it was without a water -supply; still another was willing to pay only a third of the amount -down, with easy terms for the remainder. - -“It’s five hundred thousand cold cash,” said Mr. Griffiths to Gregory; -although in a burst of confidence later he had said: “What the dickens -I’m goin’ to do with that great wad of money when I get it beats me! It -turns me cold to think of it.” - -Gregory had remained on the ranch two days, inventorying its stock, -buildings, and natural resources. He estimated that seventy-five per -cent. of the property was plow-land, the rest “rough, wooded, and -rolling.” There were several sets of buildings on it, and the cattle -and sheep sheds were in good condition. The cattle, sheep, and horses -could be sold on a rising market for $200,000, thus reducing the cost -of the land to four dollars an acre. After asking and receiving an -option for thirty days, Gregory intimated that he would like to extend -his trip into the mountains in search of float, and hired two riding -horses and a pack horse from his host, besides buying of him the -necessary food supply. Incidentally, in the course of conversation he -learned that there was a river “somewheres in the mountains between -thirty and forty miles northeast.” - -He received more minute directions from a prospector regarding this -body of water, which was the object of his trip, and six miles from -Circle-G entered a ravine some twenty-five miles long. After climbing -one of the mountain sides that bounded the ravine, descending and -crossing another gulch, and climbing again, he and his companion saw, -far below, between the narrow walls of a cañon, an abundant mountain -stream. - -The engineer proposed to divert this body of water to Circle-G Ranch. -Through the nearest mountain side he should drive a tunnel six hundred -feet long, and cross the short and crooked ravine with a thousand -feet of flume to a point where it would be necessary to drive another -tunnel, about two hundred feet in length. This would conduct the -diverted body of water into the long ravine, down which it would flow -to a point six miles above the ranch. Here the engineer purposed to -construct a dam thirty feet high for the purpose of raising the water -to an elevation from which it would flow through a canal or “ditch”, to -the more level portions of the ranch. A rough estimate of the cost of -this project, from headworks to ditch was $300,000. - -He returned to Circle-G, told Mr. Griffiths that he had found no float, -but nevertheless liked the neighbourhood and was inclined to buy the -ranch and sell it in small farms to settlers. He would return to Butte -and think it over. If he concluded to buy he would pay a half million -dollars in cash, and, if Mr. Griffiths were agreeable borrow back -$300,000, for improvements, giving a mortgage at seven per cent. on -the forty thousand acres he proposed to make attractive for settlers. -He gave no hint of his irrigation project. Griffiths had known of this -body of water, but it had never occurred to him nor to anyone else to -divert it. He was a stock-grower, pure and simple, with no “modern -notions”, and Gregory had no intention of enlarging his vision. He -would pay the man his price, but he had the ruthlessness of his type. - -He had more than one motive for offering to borrow back $300,000 of the -payment money; not only should he need it at once, but he feared, after -Mr. Griffiths’ confidence, and knowing his kind, that the old man would -withdraw in terror at the last moment, preferring the safe monotonies -of his ranch to the unknown responsibilities of a capitalist; like -others he had heard that it is sometimes easier to get money than to -invest it. Gregory told him to think it over and write to the Daly and -Clark Banks in Butte, and to the National Bank of Montana, in Helena, -for information regarding his own standing and financial condition. He -left the entire family in as hopeful a frame of mind as himself. - -On confirmation of the report that forty thousand acres could be put -under water by gravity, he should close the deal at once, file a notice -of appropriation for forty thousand miner’s inches of water, and begin -work on the first tunnel. He then intended to lay the matter before -one of the great land selling organisations of Chicago or New York, -proposing that he be paid $1,400,000 for the forty thousand acres of -irrigated land, subject to mortgage; demonstrating that the land so -purchased for thirty-five dollars an acre (or forty-three and a half -dollars including the mortgage) could readily be sold to settlers -for one hundred, if railroad facilities were provided. As a further -inducement, to cover the cost of railroad construction, he would -execute a deed and place it in escrow, as a guarantee and evidence of -good faith, and accompanied by a contract authorising the land selling -company to dispose of the remaining thirty-five thousand acres at ten -dollars an acre. The construction of the railroad would add materially -to the value of the unirrigated land also, and a pledge of this portion -of the property as security that the railroad would be built would be -acceptable, because the estimated cost, with liberal allowances, was -under $350,000. - -The sum paid him by the land selling company would, in addition to the -large sum realised by the sale of the live stock, give him at least -$1,600,000, or $1,100,000 over the half million originally invested. - -Mark listened with his eyes and mouth wide open. - -“By George!” he exclaimed, when Gregory finished. “Did you dope all -that out yourself? That’s the talk of a man who’s been in the land -business for years. How did you ever think of it?” - -“What’s a man’s brain given to him for--to turn round in a circle? Do -you find the plan feasible?” - -“It’s feasible all right--given a cold half million in hand and brains -behind it--plus imagination. That’s where you win out. You’ll be the -richest man in Montana yet.” - -“I intend to be.” - -“And the first man born here to make one of the old-time fortunes.” - -“I hadn’t thought of that!” - -Mark dismissed enthusiasm and put his own astute brain to work. - -“The hitch will be with your land selling company. They might be -dazzled, even convinced, but they’re cold-blooded, and they never have -any too much cash on hand. What special line of argument do you propose -to hand out?” - -“Several. I didn’t go to the Circle-G Ranch without making certain -investigations beforehand. In the first place Government statistics -prove the productivity of Montana soil without irrigation. I am not the -first to discover that this same soil when irrigated is insured against -crop failure. In the second place a study of the U. S. Government -reclamation projects convinced me that I could, all things being -favourable (such as water supply and gravity), put a large tract of -land under water at a very small cost compared to the cost under the -plan of procedure adopted by the Government. By the plan I have mapped -out I can sell both land and water for less than the cost of water -alone under the Government direction. But I have a final inducement -which I believe will bring the selling company to terms. Those forty -thousand acres when irrigated will be peculiarly adapted to the growing -of seed peas. This is the best soil in the country for peas. Now the -seed houses of the country are in great need of large quantities -of seed peas, and the selling company could easily interest these -concerns to the extent of securing their financial backing. They would -no doubt buy large blocks themselves. Such an opportunity has never -been offered them--forty thousand acres under the ditch, and adequate -railroad service. This will enable the selling company to raise an -initial payment to me of $200,000. And if I guarantee the ditch and the -railroad they are in a position to make the same guarantee to settlers -to whom they may make sales in a retail way. They’ll have no difficulty -getting $100 an acre retail; and the seed houses no doubt would invest -and become real owners, thus saving the profit now paid to farmers who -grow for them under contract. Got it?” - -“I get you. But why put all of your own money into the ranch? Ora has -taken something like half a million out of that mine. I could let you -have that.” - -“I’ll risk no woman’s money. Of course I shouldn’t put my own in if I -didn’t believe it to be a dead sure thing, but there’s always risk.” He -took a packet of papers from his overcoat pocket. “Here are the option -and abstract of titles. I wish you would examine them. Say nothing of -all this at present--nor for a long time after. I’ll spring it when -I’m ready--which will be after I’ve disposed of the irrigated land. -Will you go out with me when I return to Circle-G? I shall want you to -attend to the details of sale and to the location of the water rights.” - -“I’ll go all right. And I’m only living to see what you’ll do next.” - - - - -XXIX - - -Meanwhile the story of the Compton-Amalgamated war was the sensation -not only of Montana but of the entire country. The Butte morning -papers ignored it, but the _Evening Bugle_ reaped a golden harvest. -The editor himself, who was the Montana correspondent of one of the -great New York dailies, made his reputation with the most sensational -“stuff” that had gone from the Northwest since Heinze retired from the -field. The hill swarmed with reporters. Two Eastern newspapers sent -special correspondents to the spot. In less than a fortnight the public -knew all there was to know and far more. Perch of the Devil Mine was -photographed inside and out, and its uncompromising ugliness but added -to its magnetism; which emanated from a “solid hill of metal just below -a thin layer of barren soil.” The general reader, who admired the -colour of copper, conceived that it emerged in solid sheets. - -Gregory refused to be interviewed or photographed, but was snapshotted; -and his long sinewy figure and lean dark face, his narrow eyes and -fine mouth, won the championship of every woman partial to the type. -The women’s papers, as well as those run by radicals, socialists, and -conservative men of independent tendencies, advocated his cause against -the wicked trust; nor was there a newspaper in the country, however -capitalised, that resisted the temptation to make him “big news.” To -his unspeakable annoyance he began to receive letters by the score, -most of them from women; but he lost no time employing a secretary -whose duty was to read and burn them. He appreciated his fame very -vaguely, for between his mine and the innumerable details connected -with his new ranch, he had little time to devote to newspapers or his -own sensations. But although personal notoriety was distasteful to him -and reporters a nuisance, he felt more than compensated by the success -of his publicity scheme, and the assurance that it was causing the -enemy unspeakable annoyance and apprehension. - -He paid a visit to Chicago after work had begun on the first tunnel, -and spent several days with the interested but cautious officials -of the greatest of the land selling companies. Like all silent men, -when he did talk it was not only to the point, but he used carefully -composed arguments incisively expressed. He indulged in no rhetorical -flights, no enthusiasms, no embellishment of plain facts. He might -have been a mathematician working out an abstract problem in algebra; -and this attitude, combined with his reputation as a “winner”, and the -details of his cautious purchase of Circle-G Ranch, finally impressed -the company to the extent of sending one of their number, who was an -expert in land values, to the ranch. Gregory accompanied him, took him -to the mountain river, showed him the engineer’s report, pointed out -the undeviating slope between the river and the ranch, and the land’s -rich chocolate brown soil of unlimited depth. The upshot was that the -expert returned to Chicago almost as enthusiastic as if the original -scheme were his. After consultation with several of the seed houses, -the land company agreed to buy on Compton’s terms, and to pay $200,000 -down, $500,000 at the end of sixty days, and $700,000 at the end of -four months. - - * * * * * - -Ora and Ida had asked for an extension of leave, as they had not -yet “done” Italy, Spain, and Egypt, and both husbands had given a -willing consent; Gregory from sheer indifference; Mark because he was -so busy that he no longer had time to miss his wife. He refused to -give Ora’s picture to the enterprising correspondents, but they found -no difficulty with the local photographer. They had not been long -uncovering the romantic history of the Oro Fino Primo Mine, and it made -a welcome pendant to the still recourseful “story” of Perch of the -Devil. Ora’s beauty, accomplishments, charm, family history, as well -as her present social progress in company with her “equally beautiful -friend”, the wife of the hero of the hour, became public property. - -Altogether, Butte, after several years of oblivion, was happy and -excited. So far, although mineralogically the most sensational state -in the Union, and the third in size, she had given to the world but -four highly specialized individuals: Marcus Daly, perhaps the greatest -mine manager and ore wizard of our time; W. A. Clark, who accumulated -millions as a moving picture show rolls in dimes; F. Augustus Heinze, -who should be the greatest financial power in America if brains -were all; and the Sapphic, coruscatic, imperishable Mary McLane. An -outstanding quartette. But Daly was dead, Clark was but one of many -millionaires, submerged in New York, Heinze was reaping the whirlwind, -and the poet was nursing her wounds. Montana was in the mood for a new -hero, and the American press for a new and picturesque subject to “play -up for all he was worth.” - - - - -XXX - - -Ora and Ida were sitting at one of the little round tables in the -pretty green and wicker smoking-room of the Hotel Bristol in Genoa, -drinking their coffee and smoking their after-luncheon cigarettes, when -Ida, who was glancing over the _Herald_, cried, - -“Aw!” - -Ora looked round in surprise. Ida often relieved the strain when they -were alone by relapsing into the vernacular, but was impressively -elegant in public. - -“What is it?” she asked apprehensively. “Anybody we know dead? That is -about all the news we ever get in these Continental----” - -“Dead nothing. Greg’s struck a bigger bonanza than I had any idea -of, and Amalgamated is after it. They tried to corral your mine for -delinquent taxes, but got left. Found a bit of unclaimed land between -your claim and the ranch and staked off. They’re sinking a shaft and -mean to prove that the vein--Greg’s--apexes in their claim. Wouldn’t -that come and get you! Just listen.” And she read aloud an embellished -but not untruthful tale. “Glory, I hope they don’t get him! That would -be the end of all my fond dreams.” - -“I have an idea that Mr. Compton was born to win. At all events you -have your new house in Butte, and all the money you can spend for the -present.” - -“Yes, but I want money to spend in Butte, live in that house, and make -things hum. However, I guess you’re right. I’ll bet on Greg. Here come -the letters. Hope you get one from Mark as I’d like some real news.” - -A page with letters in his hand had entered the room. He served the -young American ladies first as their tips were frequent and munificent, -particularly Ora’s. The other people in the room were English and -Italian. - -Ida’s letters were from Ruby and Pearl. Ora’s from Mark, Professor -Becke, and two of her English friends. She opened her husband’s first. -It contained an account of the threatened loss of her mine, her narrow -escape, and Gregory’s rescue. It was graphically written. Mark fancied -himself as a letter writer and never was averse from impressing his -clever wife. - -Ora’s face flushed as she read; she lost her breath once or twice. -She pictured every expression of Gregory’s eyes as he perforated the -clerk; her heart hammered its admiration. She was too thoroughly -Montanan and the daughter of her father to be horrified at bribery and -corruption. For the moment she forgot gratitude in her exultation that -he had triumphed over the mightiest trust in the country. But before -she finished the letter she sighed and set her lips. She handed it -deliberately to Ida. - -“Here is an account of the first development,” she said casually. “It -will interest you.” - -Ida read the letter hastily. “Well, they caught him napping after all,” -she said with profound dissatisfaction. “He dreams too much, that’s -what. He’s got a practical side all right, but he isn’t on the job all -the time. I’d like to write and tell him what I think of him but guess -I’d better keep my mouth shut.” - -“It was Mark’s fault as much as Mr. Compton’s--more. He should have had -a new map made of my claim; or, if he did have one made, he should have -studied it more carefully. Anybody to look at it would assume that it -touched the boundary line of your--Mr. Compton’s ranch.” - -“Well, Greg’ll get out of it some way. When he does sit up and take -notice he doesn’t so much as wink, and so far as he knew or cared the -rest of the world might have waltzed off into space. Lucky it hit him -to buy the house and send that last five thousand before he snapped -close on Amalgamated----” - -“What does Miss Miller have to say?” - -“Nothing much but ecstasies over my house. The Murphys had taste, it -seems, so I won’t have to do a thing to it. Say, Ora, don’t you feel as -if you’d like to go back?” - -Ora looked up and her face turned white. “Go back? I thought you wanted -to stay over here for a year, at least. We haven’t half seen Europe -yet--to say nothing of Egypt.” - -“Yes--I know--but sometimes I feel homesick. It isn’t only that I want -to make Butte sit up; but--well, I suppose you’ll laugh, but I miss -the mountains. I never thought much about them when I was there, but -they’ve kind of haunted me lately.” - -“There are mountains in Europe.” - -“I know, but they’re just scenery. Our mountains are different.” - -Ora looked at her speculatively. It was not the first time that Ida -had surprised her with glow-worms flitting across her spiritual night, -although she seemed to be so devoid of imagination, or what she would -have called superfluous nonsense, as to inspire her more highly -organised friend with envy. Her mental and artistic development had -been rapid and remarkable but uneven. She yawned through the opera and -symphony concerts. She would always be bored by pictures unless she -could read a “story” in them, although she had now mastered the jargon -of art as well as most of her quick-witted country-women. In Florence -and Rome she had “struck” after one morning of picture galleries, but -she showed a spontaneous and curious appreciation of the architecture -of the Renaissance. Ora had expected the usual ecstasies over the old -castles of England and Germany, but although Ida admired them heartily, -and even declared they made her feel “real romantic,” it was for the -Renaissance palaces of France and of the cities they visited in Italy -that she reserved her instant and critical admiration. Ora, who like -most imaginative people played with the theory of reincarnation, amused -herself visioning Ida in Burne-Jones costumes, haunting the chill -midnight corridors of a Florentine palace, dagger in hand, or brewing -a poisoned bowl. If Ida possessed a rudimentary soul, which suffered -a birth-pang now and then, Ora had caught more than one glimpse of a -savage temper combined with a cunning that under her present advantages -was rapidly developing into subtlety. But Ida indulged too little in -introspection to develop her inmost ego other than automatically. To -mental progress she was willing to devote a certain amount of labour. -Whenever they were not on a train or visiting at country houses, she -spent an hour every morning with a teacher of either French or Italian; -German she had refused to “tackle,” but, to use her own phrase, she -“ate up” the Latin languages, and her diction was remarkably good. If -picture galleries replete with saints, virgins, madonnas and Venuses -bored her, she returned more than once to the portrait rooms in the -Pitti and the Uffizi galleries, haunted the museums with their mediæval -and Renaissance furniture and tapestries, and eagerly visited every -palace to which the public was admitted. - -And she proved herself as adaptable as Ora had hoped. In England she -bored her way through the newspapers until she was able to sustain her -part in political conversation. She soon discerned that English people -of assured position and wide social experience liked a certain degree -of picturesque Americanism when it was unaccompanied by garrulity -or blatant ill-breeding. She amused herself by “giving them what -they wanted,” and was a more pronounced success than Ora, who was -outwardly too much like themselves, yet lacking the matchless fortune -of English birth. But this did not disturb Ora, who made more real -friends, and derived endless amusement observing Ida. On one occasion -they visited for a week at one of the country homes of a duke and -duchess that had entertained Mrs. Stratton many years ago, and Ida had -enchanted these bored but liberal products of a nation that led with -too much indifference the Grand March of Civilisation with her Western -“breeziness” and terminology (carefully selected), combined with her -severely cut and altogether admirable gowns, and her fine imposing -carriage. From this castle she went on with Ora to one leased by an -ambitious American more English than the English, who permitted herself -to indulge in a very little fashionable slang, but had consigned the -American vernacular to oblivion in the grave of her ancestors. Here Ida -was languid and correct (save at the midnight hour when she sought Ora, -not only for relaxation but the instructions she was never too proud to -receive); her English slang (which she had “swapped” for much of her -own with her various British admirers) was impeccable, and she flirted -like a stage duchess. - -She estimated the various aristocracies she entered under Ora’s wing -as a grand moving picture show run for the benefit of Americans, and -was grateful to have an inside seat, although nothing would have bored -her more than to take a permanent position in their midst. With their -history, traditions, psychology, she concerned herself not at all; nor -did she in any way manifest a desire to cultivate the intellectual -parts of her shrewd, observing, clutching brain. She threw away as many -opportunities as she devoured, but on the whole proved herself somewhat -more adaptable than the usual American woman elevated suddenly from the -humbler walks of life to the raking searchlights of Society. In Berlin -and Vienna she repeated her social triumphs, for, although Americans -do not penetrate far below the crust of Continental society, smart -men abound in the crust; Ida graduated as an adept in flirtation with -agreeable and subtle men of the world, yet keeping the most practical -at arm’s length with a carefully calculated Western directness and -artlessness that amounted to genius. - -In France and Italy the dazzling fairness of Ora had its innings. A -vague suggestion of unreality, almost morbid, and a very definite one -of unawakened womanhood, combined with a cultivated mind, ready wit, -and air of high breeding, gave her a success as genuine as Ida’s and -somewhat more perilous. But she soon learned to tread warily, after her -theories of European men had been vindicated by personal experience. -In fact, after the two girls had ceased to be mere tourists they had -taken the advice of one of Mrs. Stratton’s friends and enlisted the -services of an indigent lady of title as chaperon. Lady Gower had been -little more than a figurehead but had served her purpose in averting -gossip; and now that her charges were tourists again had returned to -her lodgings in Belgravia. As maids also are a doubtful luxury when -travelling they had recently dismissed the last of a long line. - -On the whole the two girls had got on together amazingly well. They had -had their differences of opinion, but Ora was too proud to quarrel, -Ida too easy-going and appreciative of the butter on her bread. It was -fortunate, however, that Gregory had been able to provide his wife -with an abundance of money, for she was far too shrewd, and far too -interested in prices, to remain hoodwinked for long. After three months -of sight-seeing and _pensions_ both had been glad to leave the tourist -class and mingle in the more spectacular life of the great world, and -that had meant trousseaux in Paris. There Ida had “gowned” herself -for the first time, and her delight in her fashionable wardrobe had -been equalled only by her satisfaction in driving a bargain. At present -they were resting in Genoa, a favourite city of Ora’s, after a hard ten -weeks in Rome. - - - - -XXXI - - -They finished their letters and went up to their rooms to rest, for -they had “done” several churches and the Campo Santo during the morning. - -“Thank the lord,” said Ida, as they walked up the stairs after waiting -ten minutes for the lift, “there are no picture galleries in this -town that one _must_ see. The rest of the programme is streets and -architecture, which is worth while. These internal streets make me feel -as if I were going right through to China, or whatever is underneath -Italy. Genoa, before it had any houses on it, must have looked like -Last Chance Gulch, Helena, Montana.” - -They had reached their connecting rooms. Ida extended herself on a -sofa, Ora made herself as comfortable as possible in a chair and lit a -cigarette. - -“Say, kid,” pursued Ida, “you smoke too much. Follow my illustrious -example. I go just so far and no farther--one cigarette after each meal -because it makes me feel nice and aristocratic. You’re the kind that -lets a habit run away with you. I deliberate. You drift. See?” - -Ora laughed. “Funny thing, nature! Anyone would say quite the opposite -of each of us.” - -“It’s like life. Not a blooming thing is just what you figure it out -beforehand. Here I wanted the Collins house and I’ve got the Murphy. -And Greg, that I figured on being a millionaire by the time I got back, -has gone and tied himself up in litigation, or is heading that way.” - -“You ungrateful wretch! You came to Europe ‘figuring’ on making a -thousand dollars serve for the entire trip and you already have had -eleven thousand. Most rules work both ways. But you don’t really want -to go back?” - -“I do. It’s been growing for some time and now it’s ingrowing. You can -get enough of anything and I’ve had enough of Europe. Besides, I’d -like to get back to a country where lifts are elevators and don’t go -to sleep a few times on the way up; where it doesn’t take an hour to -draw a bath, which it does wherever it’s pronounced băth; where you can -drink plain water, and don’t have cheese or garlic or grease in all -your food; where you are never taken for what you ain’t; where you are -never cheated and overcharged because you’re an American; where you -don’t have to see a sight a minute; where you don’t have to talk up to -people who don’t give a hang about anything that interests you; where -you are not looked upon as a rank outsider by ancient aristocrats and -concierges, no matter how polite they try to be; and where the word -democracy means what it is. Over here every socialist--I’ll bet every -anarchist--would give his front teeth to be a king, a duke, or even -a rich bourgeois. That’s what’s the matter with all of them. Give me -America, above all, old Montana. A little money and a lot of ‘go’ are -all you need out there.” - -“Oh, Ida! Ida! will you never appreciate the glory of Europe? Is that -all you have got out of it?” - -“I’ve squeezed it dry, all right, and I’ll take back a lot more than -I figured on. Watch me when I’m swelling round Butte, imitating the -chaste simplicity of a British duchess--minus the duds they generally -sport. There’s nothing like Europe to teach you what’s what--especially -the way we’ve seen it--put you wise in ten thousand different ways, and -fill your mind with pretty pictures--that ain’t in galleries. But after -all it’s just a course in the higher education, and you’re outside -of it all, every minute. To live you’ve got to go back to your own -country.” - -“That’s true enough!” - -“Could you marry a European and live over here for the rest of your -life and never see those mountains again that just seem to belong to -you--or even screaming old Butte?” - -“No!” Ora spoke with uncommon vehemence. “I couldn’t!” - -Ida raised herself on her elbow and looked at her friend shrewdly. “I -can’t see that you’ve enjoyed yourself so much over here. It seems to -me that you’ve got your fun out of showing me round. You had more real -gaiety in you in Butte. You may not know it but you look pretty sad -sometimes.” - -“Life is sad--mighty sad.” - -“Is it? That’s a new one for me. I think it a pretty fine old -proposition. What went wrong with you--early in the game?” - -“Nothing. Travel is tiring, I’m not as strong as you are.” - -“You’re as tough as a pine knot, for all you look like a lily expecting -to be decapitated by the first wind. Well, you won’t tell if you won’t, -but I’ll tell you what you need. You’ve never been in love and that’s -a sort of ache in women until they’ve taken a good dose of the only -medicine. I rather hoped you’d met your fate in the Marchese Valdobia. -He’s the sort you once told me was your type, and you seemed to like -him pretty well for about five weeks in Rome. The lord knows he was -tall enough, and dark enough, and thin enough, and looked as if he had -a beastly temper besides. Then you turned him down good and hard. I was -sorry----” - -“My dear Ida! Are you regretting that I did not have a liaison with -Valdobia? I remember your virtuous sentiments in Butte. Perhaps it is -time for us to return!” - -“Oh, I’m all right. But I’m that advanced I wouldn’t mind you having an -affair the least bit if it would make you happy----” - -“Happy! What happiness do you imagine there can be when you are -absolutely at the mercy of a man?--when you never know whether you will -see him again or not?--a woman has no real hold on a lover. Matrimony -with the man you love may have its agonies, but at least you live with -him, you make his home; his interests are yours, he is dependent upon -you for comfort and sympathy; there are a thousand ways in which you -can endear and enchain him. But a lover, whom you meet in secret for -one purpose only, who can give you no real companionship--oh, no! I -shall not court that particular form of suffering. Life is hard enough -without that! I’ve known women with lovers and so have you.” - -“I don’t say it would last forever; nothing does, for that matter. But -at least you would live for a little while--come down off the unearthly -plane you roost on now. Whatever you went through, it would leave you -all-round developed and philosophical--in a frame of mind to see and -accept life as it is. You need hardening. I was born hard. You’re as -soft as mush, for all you look like those marble bores in the Vatican, -and as romantic as if you’d spent all your life in a castle in a wood -with the drawbridge up. I believe you even keep a diary----” - -“Diary----” Ora sat up straight. - -“I’ve seen and heard you writing by the yard, late at night, mostly. It -wasn’t letters, because we always get those off our chest just after -breakfast--fine system. Unless you’re a budding author----” - -“They were letters!” Ora, who was strung up to a high pitch and merely -smoking for relief, felt a defiant impulse to indulge in the impudence -of confession. “I’ve written yards and yards of letters to a man----” - -“What? And you don’t send them off!” - -“I don’t know him.” - -“Good lord, what next? An ideal, I suppose.” - -“Yes--that’s it.” - -“Do you mean you never saw him--anyone to suggest him--it? What gender -has an ideal, anyhow?” - -“I saw him--talked with him, once. I said I didn’t know him.” - -“And you’re in love with him!” - -“Not in the least. He simply jolted my imagination, gave me the idea of -what might be--have been. I--it is hard to express--I feel in a sort -of mental--spiritual?--affinity with him. When I write I have a queer -sense of absolute communion--as if we were talking--I suppose it is -because I know he would understand if I could send the letters----” - -“And you’ve never sent one?” - -“Of course not. It is--well, just a little private one-sided drama I’m -living; a sort of book of which I am the heroine. While I write I am -alive. The rest of the time I wonder what I was put on this earth at -all for.” - -“Look at here, Ora, the best thing we can do is to send for old Gower -and go back to Rome. You’ll be having nerves first thing you know. -No, we’d cut out the annex. I’m dead sick of her, and everybody knows -we’re all right; in Rome they don’t care, anyhow. You could have a real -romance. We’d take one of those old palaces, haunted, moth-eaten, with -one of those antique porters that looks as if he’d let out midnight -lovers ten centuries ago, and beds that twenty centuries have died in. -That would just suit you. I’d enjoy a second-hand romance first rate, -and be the trusted friend.” - -“Ida, you are incorrigible! Even if I cared a penny about Valdobia do -you suppose I would betray my husband?” - -“Rats! Don’t you suppose Mark has a girl down on The Flat? Greg has, -I’ll bet--well, don’t look as if you were going to faint. What’s the -use of being a dog in the manger? Mark’ll be the same old devoted when -you get back.” - -“Oh, do keep quiet! And I wish I might never see Butte again. I think -I’ll write to Mark and ask him to move to New York. He now has plenty -of money to wait, and it wouldn’t take him long to establish himself -anywhere----” - -“I thought you loved Montana--wanted to do something big for her----” - -“We’ve been away a long time. I fancy I’m weaned. It is only once in a -while that I feel a pull--merely because I was born there.” - -“Well, Mark won’t leave, believe me. He’s Western from the cut of his -back hair to his love of the free-and-easy. No New York for him except -the all-night two or three times a year. Butte’s your fate unless you -leave him.” - -“I’ll never do that, but I’d like to stay over here for another year -or two. Remember, I was brought up in Europe--and--and--I _might_ meet -the man--If you want to know I’ve tried. I’d never go as far as you -suggest, but I could get something--companionship, perhaps, out of it.” - -“When you meet the man you’ll forget all you ever knew, and men don’t -companion for a cent when there’s nothing in it. I haven’t been turning -them inside out these last six months for nothing; what I don’t -know about men wouldn’t fill a thimble. Why don’t you round up your -letter-man?” - -“That is forever impossible.” - -“Do give me a hint who he is. I’m half dead with curiosity. Where’d you -meet him?” - -“Keep quiet. I’m going to take a nap.” - -“Well,” said Ida, yawning and stretching herself, “so am I, if you’ve -closed up. When we get back to Butte and there’s no more sight-seeing -on, we’ll have to cut out these siestas or we’ll get fat, and then -good-bye.” - - - - -XXXII - - -They went out at half-past five and joined the dense sauntering throng -under the arcade of the Via Venti Settembre. All Genoa turns out at -this hour with apparently no object but to amble and stare. The two -girls, particularly Ora, who appeared to be the only blonde in the -city, were almost mobbed. Every other man spoke to them, or rolled -his eyes and twirled his moustache. But they preserved a lofty and -blank demeanour, and were practically unmolested. The Genoese works -almost as hard as the American during a few hours of the day and haunts -the afternoon throngs only to amuse himself indolently. If one woman -ignores him he passes on philosophically to the next. - -“Lord, but I’d like to get a move on!” exclaimed Ida. “Why don’t they -_walk_? Is this what they call exercise? And I wouldn’t mind their -ogling and speaking if they only wouldn’t pinch. I’ll give this side a -rest, anyhow.” And she dexterously changed places and drew Ora’s other -arm through her own. - -“I love them, pinches and all,” said Ora, warmly. “They are like -children in one way, and yet they really know how to rest and enjoy -themselves, which is more than our men ever do. Even the working-class -enjoys life over here. I wonder why they emigrate?” - -They had passed round the corner of the arcade and entered the Piazza -Defarrari, working their way toward the Via Roma. Ora stopped before -one of the cantinas behind the statue of Garibaldi. “Look at those men -drinking their cheap wine and gossipping. They look as if they hadn’t a -care in the world.” - -“Give me the hustling American,” said Ida contemptuously. “I don’t call -this life. They’re just drifting along waiting for the Angel Gabriel -to blow his trump. What makes them so lazy and contented? They know -they can go just so far over here and no farther. Ancient history made -classes and masses, and while they have fun, some of them, thinking -they’re socialists, they know that most of them will stay put. But the -only real fun in life is getting ahead of the next fellow and knowing -that your chance is as good as any.” - -“What a truly American sentiment!” - -“I’m American, all right, and that’s the reason I want to get back to -Butte, where things hum every minute, and there’s no real poverty. -Fancy calling these left-overs ‘middle-class’ like our miners. Every -one of those looks forward to being President of Amalgamated one of -these days, or striking it rich in the mountains.” - -“There are different varieties of happiness, fortunately for several -billions that are seeking it.” - -“Do you know,” said Ida, abruptly, as they turned into the Galleria -Mazzini from the Via Roma, “it’s queer, but I feel more at home in -Italy than I have anywhere else over here, although I had a really -better time in England and Germany and Austria. I don’t hit it off much -with Italians, but--well--I have a more settled-down feeling.” - -“That’s odd!” - -“Why?” - -“Oh, I’ve been romancing about you a bit, fancying you a reincarnation -of one of those fascinating abominable women of the Renaissance, who -had innumerable lovers and poisoned their husbands, or rivals. You -would look quite wonderful in those long velvet or brocaded gowns, with -sleeves that come down over the hands, and pearls twined in your hair.” - -“That’s not a bad idea. Maybe I was, although I don’t see myself -with lovers or thinking anybody worth swinging for. Several American -reincarnations must have changed my habits; but I don’t mind looking -the part. Good idea--when we get back to Paris I’ll have several of -those Renaissance costumes made. They won’t go out of style, either. -Greg can fork over the pearls later.” - -“You’ll be a picture. I wish I had thought of it before. Don’t you -think you are capable of jealousy?” - -“Nixie. To be jealous you’ve got to have a fearful crush; and thank the -lord I don’t love anybody but myself and never shall.” - -“That is often the secret of love for some man--of most men’s love for -a woman, I imagine! Perhaps it creates the most powerful delusion of -all.” - -“Well, none of it in mine. Me for the great society act. I’m going to -be the grandest dame in Montana, and when I’ve wrung that dry I’ll move -on to New York. Greg says he won’t, means to live and die in Montana, -but I guess he’ll manage to stand it if I desert him occasionally. -If he’s got a hill full of copper he won’t know whether I’m in Butte -or the Waldorf-Astoria. You look better, Ora; you ought to stay out -of doors more and watch these funny old crowds. You’ve got a nice -colour, and smile as if you meant it--Oh! that’s it, is it? Well, thank -goodness, I’ve got a front seat----” - -“What on earth are you talking about?” - -“Pretending you haven’t seen him? I like that!” - -Ida felt the arm within her own stiffen. “Valdobia! Don’t leave me for -a moment.” - -“I won’t, although, believe me, the rôle of gooseberry is no cinch.” - -“I’ve played it for you often enough.” - -“You have, and I’m a dead game sport. Lord! he looks more bad-tempered -than ever. Probably every meal he’s eaten since you left has disagreed -with him, including macaroni.” - -“He’s not bad-tempered. Hot-tempered, no doubt, but I’m sure he’s kind -and quite amiable. He’s rather grim, and of course he’s lived pretty -hard and is disillusioned. That is all.” - -“That’s right, stand up for him. Bad sign--or a good one! He’s seen us!” - -Valdobia’s eyes flashed recognition, although he lifted his hat with -unsmiling lips, and made no effort to push his way through the crowd. -Ora favoured him with a glance of chill indifference as she returned -his salutation, but she noticed that he made the young Genoese -patricians look provincial. He not only was tall and gracefully built, -his carriage military, but he had the air of repose and distinction, -as well as the keen, tolerant, detached glance, of the man who has -spent his life in the great world, and, on the whole, subordinated -his weaknesses to his brain. It was evident that he was dressed from -Conduit Street, and at first glance, in spite of his dark colouring -and fine Roman features, his nationality was not obtrusive; he looked -the cosmopolitan, the man-of-the-world, who might have made his -headquarters in any one of her great capitals. As a matter of fact, -while in the diplomatic service he had lived in several, including a -short sojourn in Washington; but after coming into a large inheritance -through the death of his father and of an energetic uncle who had -boldly gone into business and prospered, he had travelled for a year in -Africa and India and then settled in Rome. - -If he was too indifferent or too wise to hurry he managed to make his -way consistently toward them, although a crowd had formed about a -bulletin board to read the latest news from the seat of war. He stood -opposite them in three or four minutes and shook hands politely with -both. - -“At last!” he said. “I called at the Bristol, and have been looking -for you ever since.” He had a warm deep voice but his tones and manner -expressed less than his words. - -“You don’t have to look far in Genoa,” said Ida, giving him a cordial -smile and handshake to cover Ora’s chilling welcome. “If the whole town -turns out for what it calls exercise, each quarter seems to keep to -itself. We see the same faces every day.” - -Valdobia fell into step beside Ida, who at once began to chatter -questions about their common acquaintance in Rome. She grinned mentally -as she rattled off titles, recalling the wiry little figure of her -mother at the wash-tub, and her father with his “muck”-spattered -overalls and blue dinner pail; but Valdobia, too accustomed to titles -to note whether Americans were lavish in their use or not, replied -naturally and refrained from glancing at the woman who had given his -self-centred ego the profoundest shock it had ever received. He was -now thirty-eight. In his early manhood he had loved with the facility -and brevity of his race. Then for six years, after his return to Rome, -he had been the lover of a brilliant and subtle woman ten years older -than himself, who, for a short time, inspired in him the belief that -at last he had entered the equatorial region of the _grande passion_. -This passed off, and she became a habit, which lasted until, with -the decline of her beauty, she lost much of her finesse, as well as -her control over both temper and complexion. It had taken him a year -or more to regain his liberty, and when he did, after scenes that -he fain would dismiss from his memory, he determined to keep it. His -long experience with a woman of many characteristics and one or two -noble qualities, before she gossipped and inflamed them to death, had -thoroughly disillusioned him, and since his release his gallantries -had been lighter than in his youth. When he first met Ora Blake he was -attracted merely by her cold fairness, redeemed from classic severity -by her brilliant seeing eyes, which so often sparkled with humour, and -amused at her naïve and girlish attitude of happiness in temporary -freedom; so successfully practised by herself and Ida. He had supposed -her to be little more than twenty, and had wondered if her husband -were even busier than the average American, to let her run away so -soon. When she told him she was twenty-seven, and had been married -seven years, he found himself speculating on the temperament of a woman -whom time and life had left untouched. Shortly after, he received a -biographical sketch of her from Mrs. O’Neil, also of Butte, who was -wintering in Rome and entertaining such of the aristocracy as she met -at her Embassy. It was some time since his thoughts had dwelt upon -any woman when alone, and when he found himself sitting by his window -in the evening dreaming over his cigar instead of amusing himself in -the varied life of Rome after his habit, he was at first amused, then -angry, finally apprehensive. He had no desire for another period of -torment, followed by the successive stages that finished in impatience -and satiety. - -He tried flirting with her, making her talk about herself, focussing -her mind on the years she seemed determined to ignore, in the hope -of discovering that she was commonplace. But Ora, who found him more -interesting than any man she had met in Europe, also a conquest to be -proud of, continued to make herself interesting--and elusive--with a -skill and subtlety that so closely resembled the frank ingenuousness of -the West, that the man accustomed to the patented finesse of European -women experienced the agreeable sensation of renewing his youth. He -felt himself falling in love like a schoolboy, and meditated flight. He -remained in Rome, however, and made a deliberate attempt to fascinate -her. Then one day when Ida was pouring tea at the Embassy, chaperoned -by Lady Gower, he found Ora alone, indisposed after a sleepless night, -and lost his head. Ora, who was in no mood to let him down gently and -reserve him for conversational pleasures, dismissed him abruptly, -and had not seen him since. She had regretted her impatience, for he -was always worth talking to, her feminine liking for his type was -very strong, and she had amused herself fancying that if she had not -permitted another man to rule her imagination she might have found her -fate in this one. But as he had presumed to follow her when she had -banished him summarily, she greeted him with cool civility and resumed -her study of the kaleidoscopic crowd. - -Suddenly she moved her head in a fashion that suggested the lifting of -one of the little ears that lay so close to her head and were not the -least of her points. The ear was on the side next to her companion in -arms. Could it be that Ida was flirting with Valdobia? Mrs. Compton’s -manner and speech were as correct as her smartly tailored suit and hat -of black velvet and the calm pride of her bearing, but she was talking -with sweet earnestness to the Roman about himself and expressing her -plaintive gratitude that he had cared to follow them to Genoa, where -she at least was very lonely. It had not been possible for Ora to see -the flash of understanding these two had exchanged after Valdobia’s -first puzzled glance, but she did see many heads turn to look at the -handsome and well-matched couple. Even the Italian women did not -smile ironically as they so often did at the too obvious American -tourist. Ida not only had delivered herself of every exterior trace -of commonness, but would no more have appeared on the street looking -the mere tourist than she could be betrayed into adopting the extreme -of any new style by the persuasive Parisian. She saw Ora’s head come -round her shoulder, and her voice deepened to the soft husky tones she -reserved for decisive moments with her agitated admirers, then dropped -so low that only the man, with his head bent, could hear the words. At -this stage of the flirtation’s progress Ora noted that the approving -glances of the sympathetic Italians were accompanied by significant -smiles. - -They had reached the end of the long Galleria for the second time and -turned. The crowd was thin. The restaurants were filling. Shutters -were rattling down over the windows of the tempting shops. Said Ora -abruptly, - -“I think I’d like to dine in one of these cafés--the Milano. The -Bristol dining-room is a little Ritz, and it’s a bore to dress.” - -Valdobia leaned forward with a pleasant smile. “I should like nothing -better, but you must dine with me.” - -“Why not? What do you say, Ida?” - -“I’d love it. The food is good and the crowd more interesting.” - -They entered the bright café and seated themselves at one of the side -tables, the two girls on the bench against the wall, Valdobia in the -chair opposite. A number of the tables were already occupied, several -by stout comfortable couples, but the majority by men with their hats -on, playing dominoes or reading the evening papers. Opposite the door -was a long table set forth with the delicacies of the season: raw meat, -winter vegetables, oranges, and kicking lobsters. - -Valdobia, assiduously waited upon by the proprietor himself (whose -wife, surrounded by several of her children, smiled benignantly from -the cashier’s desk), ordered a special dinner; a light soup (the table -d’hôte soup was a meal in itself), spaghetti, inimitably cooked veal -in brown butter, salad, freshly caught fish, ices, and a bottle of the -host’s most precious Chianti. - -“I never could have pictured you in a Bohemian restaurant,” said Ora, -smiling brilliantly into the face of her host. “Have you ever been in a -place like this before?” - -“About as often as I have weeks to my credit.” He looked steadily -into her snapping eyes. “You have studied Italians to little purpose -if you’ve not discovered their partiality for their native cooking. -These plain little cafés are the last strongholds in our large cities. -Even the restaurants where the business men go for luncheon are queer -imitations of London or Paris.” - -“We like to come here because the men pay no attention to us. It is men -of your class that know how to make us thoroughly uncomfortable.” - -“Quite so. Every class has its own code. In ours it may be said -that the women set the pace. They demand open admiration and we are -gallant enough to give it. This class bothers itself little about the -unattainable, and merely throws you the passing tribute they would -throw to the Queen, or to a beautiful work of art.” - -“Which they appreciate. Would that our working-classes did. On this -side the masses are as likely as not to spend their holidays in a -picture gallery or a museum. Ours can think of nothing better than a -saloon.” - -“That may be the fault of your great country. The crude mind is -easily trained. Give your working-people more galleries and museums -and fewer saloons--or cantinas with their light wines, and beer -gardens, instead of rum and whiskey. But it is unfair to expect a new -and heterogeneous--almost chaotic--country to compete with twenty -centuries.” Two pairs of American eyes flashed, and he continued -suavely. “I fear that the old standards of my own people are in danger -of being demoralised by socialism and the new craving for raw spirits. -That is becoming a serious question with us.” He turned to Ida. “It is -far more odd to see you without your usual train of admirers--both of -you. How do you stand it?” - -“Oh, we’re merely recuperating,” said Ida lightly, and smiling into his -admiring eyes. “We will return to the fray refreshed and more dangerous -than ever.” - -“How much longer shall you stay here?” - -“A week or two. Then we go on to Paris. After that Egypt, Spain, or -some other old place.” - -“But not without seeing Monte Carlo? You must let me show it to you.” - -“I suppose that is an old stamping ground of yours?” - -“I go once a year, although, like a good many other pleasures, it has -lost its irresistible fascination. But I shall enjoy seeing you catch -the gambling fever.” - -“I’m not very susceptible to microbes, but I don’t doubt Mrs. Blake -will gamble the clothes off her back. That would be the good old -Montana style.” And she told him something of life in Butte before it -indulged in one of its spasms of exterior reform, and of the present -life on The Flat. - -“I must see your Butte,” he said enthusiastically. “An English friend -of mine has a ranch in Wyoming, and I may go out there next year.” - -Ora stood this until the fish had been removed; then she emerged -conclusively from the cold and nervous apathy that had possessed her -for several days, and began to sparkle. Ida was no match for her -when she chose to exert herself, for that native product only really -shone when able to employ her own rich vocabulary. She subsided -with a smile and devoted herself to the excellent dinner, while Ora -entertained their fastidious host with bright little stories of the -adventures they never failed to experience, being two young women who -travelled with their eyes and ears wide open. Valdobia, now satisfied -that he had recaptured the interest of his lady and been in a measure -forgiven, gave her all his attention; although not a man disposed to -conversational exertion, he took pains to interest her in return. They -discussed the news of the day and the latest books; and his deference -to her opinions was very flattering, although he did not permit a -flash of his eyes to betray his passionate delight at being once more -with this woman whom he thought lovelier and more desirable than ever. -Ora wore a blue velvet suit, not too dark, and a little hat of the -same shade with a long feather that nestled in her warm ashen hair. -Her cheeks were as pink as her lips, and she held her chin up as if -drinking in the elixir of her native air. She looked very young and -wholly without guile. - -She continued to enchant him until they were in the Bristol, and the -lift stopped at the first floor. Then she abruptly bade him good-night, -and ascended to her room, while the others went into the smoking-room -and ordered coffee at one of the smaller tables. - -“Well?” said Ida, smiling. “I’m not the sort that talks in circles -except when I’m on parade. I’m glad you’ve come. Ora was fearfully down -about something. I believe she likes you better than any man she has -met over here. A little flirtation will do her no end of good.” - -Valdobia coloured. He was as practical as most Italians, but by no -means given to the direct method of speech with women. Love simplifies -among other things, however, and after a moment he put down his cup and -looked her straight in the eyes. - -“I think I shall take you into my confidence,” he said. “I know that -you are honest and that I can trust to your discretion----” - -“You bet.” - -Ida relaxed her spine with her speech and settled herself comfortably. - -“And you could give me great assistance. I want to persuade your -friend--may I call her Ora to you? It is a beautiful name and I have -said it so often to myself----” - -“Ora goes.” - -“I want to persuade Ora to divorce her husband and marry me.” - -“Aw--that is--Good Lord!” Ida sat up straight and nearly dropped her -cup. “That’s a large order.” - -“Rather. But I--now--want nothing less. I am sick of the other sort of -thing, even if she were not too good for it. I want to marry--and she -is the only woman I ever have wanted to marry.” - -“Hm. You Italians haven’t the name of being the best husbands in the -world. How long would you be faithful to her?” - -“I have no intention of ever being anything else.” - -“That’s what they all say--think, no doubt.” - -“I shall be.” He spoke with intense conviction. - -“Well, perhaps--you’ve lived your life. I should think you men would -get mighty sick of dancing about and never coming to anchor. But -divorce? There’s Mark, you know.” - -“Her present husband?” - -“Yes, and a rattling good fellow. He married Ora when she didn’t know -which way to turn, and she is really grateful to him, and as fond of -him as if he were her own brother. I don’t think she’ll turn him down.” - -“Women have been known to desert their brothers before this! I mean to -make her love me, and if I do--how she could love a man!--I fancy I can -persuade her.” - -“I like Mark and I don’t want to see him thrown down. He’s not what you -might call in love with Ora--he got discouraged pretty early in the -game. But he’s fond of her and proud of her, and he has ambitions. She -could help him a lot.” - -Valdobia lit another cigarette. - -“Better have a liaison and get over it. Then he’ll never know, and what -men don’t know don’t hurt them.” - -“I shall do nothing of the sort. I mean to marry her. Will you help me -or not?” - -“Ora’d look fine all right in that old palace of yours. It would suit -her a long sight better than Butte, or even Washington--let alone -Helena; Mark wouldn’t mind a bit being Governor of Montana. Have you -got a castle in the country?” - -“I have several.” - -“Fine! I’d visit you every year.” - -“No one would be half as welcome.” - -“I’ve been away from America so long and seen so much, and Butte seems -so far away, that I’ve kind of lost my bearings. If you’d come over -there and lay your siege, I guess I’d fight you to the last ditch.” - -“Permit me to remind you that we are in Italy, a state several -centuries ahead of yours in civilisation, even if we lack your facile -divorce laws. I know something of Mr. Blake from Mrs. O’Neil. Can you -picture Ora finishing her life with him?” - -“No, I can’t, and that’s a fact. I wonder there hasn’t been a grand -bust-up before this. It will come some day. Why not now?” - -“Quite so.” - -“And Mark could get a dozen girls to suit him better, make him nice and -comfy. He’ll never get any real companionship out of Ora, fine as she’s -always treated him. A man like that needs a running mate.” - -“I shall waste none of my mental energy in sympathy for Mr. Mark Blake. -American husbands, so far as I have been permitted to observe, are -accustomed not only to being deserted for months and even years at a -time, but to periodical divorce.” - -“It’s not quite as bad as that, but Mark has the elasticity of an india -rubber ball, and that’s a fact.” - -“Good. Will you help me?” - -Ida hesitated an instant longer, then, dimly conscious that her answer -in a measure was dictated by a profound instinct she made no attempt to -define, exclaimed, “It’s a go. I believe it will be all for the best. -Shake.” And she gave his hand a hearty grasp. - -“You are a brick,” he murmured, with a sensation of gratitude he had -rarely experienced. “But there is one thing more. Please give her no -hint of this, for the present at least. Tell her, and make her believe -it, that I have not come here to trouble her, that she need never fear -to trust herself alone with me. Tell her that I only want to enjoy her -society and make things pleasant for her.” - -“Right you are. Ora’s not the sort you can rush. But don’t overdo it -and make her think you’ve altogether got over it. Sometimes that piques -and works out all right and sometimes it don’t. She’s as proud as -Lucifer and might get over her fancy for you while she was still mad.” - -“You do know your sex! I’ll use all the art I’ve ever acquired.” - -“Respectful devotion without humility, and pained self-control. That’s -your lay.” - -He laughed heartily. “We’ll drift for the present.” - -“Well, now, drift out. I want to go up and sound her. I’m simply -expiring to know what she’s thinking about at the present moment.” - - - - -XXXIII - - -When Ida reached her room she put her ear to the closed door leading -into Ora’s, and heard the scratch of the hotel pen. - -“May I come in?” she asked softly. - -There was a rattle of paper, the snap of a trunk lid, and then Ora said -in tones as dulcet, “Come in, dear.” - -Ida entered and found Ora extended on the sofa. - -“What did you run off like that for?” she asked, as she selected the -least uncomfortable of the chairs in the fresh and artistic but hardly -luxurious room. “The poor man was as glum as a funeral until he’d had -two cups of coffee and several cigarettes.” - -“I was tired. And I really think he has followed you.” - -“You don’t think anything of the sort. His heart was in his patent -leathers when he met us, and I just tided him over. He gave me a -message for you. Shall I deliver it?” - -“Why not?” asked Ora languidly. - -“He wants me to impress you with the fact that he’s not come here to -make love to you, just to enjoy your exhilarating society----” - -“Is he over it?” Ora’s eyes flashed upward. - -“Not exactly, but he has no intention of making any more breaks, and -being cut off from the solace of your company now and then--principally -now, I guess. He’s got to see you or go off to India and shoot tigers. -But he’s really much nicer than I had any idea of, and is anxious to -give us a good time. Life is a desert, kid, with all the men we know in -the next town. Men were invented to amuse us, so do continue to thaw. -You did bravely when you got started, and no harm will be done. If you -can’t fall in love with him you can’t, and he’s prepared to take his -medicine. He’s a good sport. A man like that can behave himself when he -sets his mind to it.” - -“Is he indulging in the hope that I can be made to care for him?” - -“Men are so conceited that they always hope for the best. But he’ll -not worry you, that’s the point. It will be fine to have him pilot us -about; perhaps he’ll get us inside of one of those old palaces in the -Via Garibaldi. And he’ll take us to Monte Carlo. How do you feel about -it?” - -“I don’t care whether he goes or stays, but on the whole I am rather -glad he is here. He has brains and I like to talk to clever men that -have seen the world.” - -“And don’t keep me hitched to your elbow all the time, for mercy’s -sake. I hope he’ll dig up some friend of his here who will beau me. -Give him a chance and remember he is a gentleman and has passed his -word.” - -“Is this a plot?” Ora laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t bore you any -more than I can help. I fancy I am quite safe, for he never really -can see me alone, as we have no salon here. Besides, in long days of -sight-seeing he’ll no doubt recover, and we shall become merely the -best of friends.” - -“That’s what I’m figuring on. Now, cut out those love letters and come -down to earth.” - -Ora sat up in her indignation. “Love letters? I’ve not written a line -of love.” - -“What in the name of goodness do you write about then to this lover in -the air?” - -“Oh, I just--_talk_--about everything that interests me--the things -one says to a familiar spirit--that is if there were such a thing--but -otherwise has to keep to oneself always.” - -“And you don’t call them love letters, because you leave out the -‘darlings’ and ‘dears’? Good thing the man will never see them. -Good thing for more reasons than one. Men hate long letters. If I’d -disobeyed orders and inflicted Greg, I never would have got that house -and the extra ten thousand.” - -“And yet he was in love with you once?” - -“Thought he was. Just had the usual attack of brain fever men always -get when they can’t have the girl they want without marrying her. -Lasted about a month. Greg cares too much for other things for any -woman to last more than a few minutes in his life, anyway. Just the -husband for me.” - -Ora was swinging one foot and looking at the point of her slipper. - -“I shan’t destroy those letters,” she said finally, “because they have -meant something to me that nothing in this life ever will again. But -I’ll write no more.” - - * * * * * - -They remained in Genoa for ten days longer. Valdobia, who had taken -rooms at the Miramare, gave them a dinner and they met several of his -Genoese friends, but none of the men was blest with Ida’s critical -approval. Her demand for the admiration of men was merely a part of her -insolent pride in her beauty and magnetism and her love of power; she -had little natural coquetry, and wasted no time on a man who bored her -or was not “worth while.” She particularly hated soft dark eyes, and -the two unfortunate young scions of the aristocracy of Genoa invited -by Valdobia, had peculiarly lovely orbs that they rolled exceedingly. -But it was a merry party, for no people can be gayer than the Genoese, -and they played baccarat until two in the morning; a new experience -for the Americans. During the hours devoted to the game Ida had the -satisfaction of observing that two pairs of flaming dark eyes had -apparently forgotten the existence of woman. Even Valdobia, who held -the bank twice and lost a good deal of money, became very keen on the -table, although he kept Ora beside him and taught her all that one can -learn of a game of chance. The stakes ran very high toward the end, -Valdobia lost several thousand francs, and Ora five hundred. She would -have lost more, no doubt, for she found it an interesting and exciting -experience, but Valdobia dictated her stakes, and she meekly obeyed. -Ida, who had been wary, came out even. - -“You don’t catch me dropping good money when I don’t get something good -enough in return,” she announced as they entered her room at the hotel. -“It’s fun all right, but like most things that are off on a side-track -from your main purpose in life, just to be nibbled at. I prefer bridge -anyhow.” - -“Do you? I think I like the game of chance. I don’t mind losing----” - -“Well, I do. It made me sick to see you lose five hundred francs, and -if it hadn’t been for Valdobia you’d have lost as much more. I couldn’t -sleep a wink if I’d lost a hundred plunks.” - -Ora laughed. “It would be great fun to see you really excited and -carried away about something. I hope you will have visions of sudden -wealth at Monte Carlo and forget the world.” - -“Not much!” said Ida contemptuously. “I’ll be rich, all right, but -it’ll be because I take no chances. I knew whom I was marrying, and -he’ll make the millions. You’ll never see me spend a cent unless it -brings in good interest, like clothes, and tips, and entertaining. -And the only thing that could excite me would be if Amalgamated got -the hill, and Greg had to go to work to make his fortune as a mining -engineer. But I’m not the kind to get wrinkles worrying. Lord! Don’t -the people in this town ever go to sleep?” - -Their windows were close to the Via Venti Settembre, although on a -short side street. It is possible that the afternoon throngs are -replaced by a different set in the evening, and these again by lovers -of the night; but certain it is that the more inviting of the streets -are rarely deserted until dawn, and the later the revellers the -more noisy they are; following a universal law of nature. When the -light-hearted Genoese has sung all his songs to the stars and chattered -at the top of his voice for several hours, he stands still and screams. -The girls put their heads out of the window, wondering if anyone were -being murdered below. A group of young men were standing in a circle -and outscreaming one another. - -Ida slammed the long windows together, fastened the catch and covered -them with the heavy shutters. “Me for beauty sleep,” she said; “I like -air all right, but I like quiet better. Good night.” - -Ora left her window open and lay thinking for a long time. She liked -the new excitement of gambling, and she was divided between regret -and gratitude that for the last five days she had enjoyed thoroughly -the society of the man who would have been the chief exponent of -the type she admired had he possessed more primitive strength of -personality; had he been obliged to develop his native forces in a -fierce battle with life instead of having been from, birth one of her -favourites. But he was a man, brave, unsoftened by luxury, quick, keen, -resourceful, modern to his finger-tips, an almost perfect companion. -What more could any woman ask? Ora wondered just what it was she did -ask. She felt very grateful to him, however. Her regret was that her -unreal life seemed to be over, or slept profoundly when she perversely -and tentatively summoned it. That life had been terrible in its -intensity, only retreating now and again when real events crowded, -or she deliberately tried to interest herself in a new and charming -personality. But all men sooner or later faded to the transparency of -wraiths beside the vital figure that dominated her imaginative life. -Would Valdobia accomplish the miracle? At least he gave her peace for -the moment. She fell asleep smiling and deliberately thinking of him. - - - - -XXXIV - - -On the following day they lunched at a large restaurant opposite -the Bourse, a favourite resort of the two girls; it amused them to -watch the keen clever business men of Genoa at their midday meal in -leisurely conversation and enjoyment of their excellent food and wine; -contrasting them with the American who took five minutes for lunch, -achieving dyspepsia instead of nutriment, and possibly accomplishing -less than a race which has been commercial and acquisitive since the -dawn of its history. There is little real poverty in Genoa and great -wealth. - -They had come too late to secure one of the tables overlooking the -Piazzi Defarrari, and were facing the windows, at one of the longer -tables, when Valdobia, who sat opposite, rose with a word of apology -and went behind them to greet a man with a pleasant English voice. - -“Lord John Mowbray,” whispered Ida. “He’s all right, but, lord, I’ll be -glad to get back to a country where a few men are plain mister.” - -Nevertheless, as the Englishman bent over her with a delighted word of -greeting, she lifted her heavy eyes to his with the expression of one -whose long suppressed hopes have blossomed at last. - -“I wish I could join you,” he said ruefully, “but I am with a party of -friends.” - -“Get rid of them after lunch,” murmured Ida, “and come with us. We -are going to explore all those interesting little streets down in the -gulch--that is to say the ravine, or whatever it was once--and it would -be jolly to have you along.” - -“I will,” he said, with fervour, “and I know what a gulch is. My -brother is ranching in Wyoming, and I may join him there in a few -months. I believe he also has interests in Butte.” - -“Good! We’ll begin to get friendly right now. So long.” Valdobia -returned to his chair, and she asked, “Is he a brother of your Wyoming -friend?” - -“He is, and no doubt we’ll go out together. Your Northwest must be the -realest thing left in the world.” - -“It’s that, all right. And it will be no end of fun having you out -there!” She smiled sardonically, and Ora coloured and moved restlessly. -She was vaguely aware of a new drama unfolding, and had no wish to -analyse it. - -Mowbray, to Ida’s satisfaction, not only deserted his friends after -luncheon, but permitted them to go on to Rome without him and lingered -in Genoa. He was a fair well set-up young Englishman, with a nonchalant -manner and an inflammable heart. Ida had met him at a country house and -amused herself “landing him,” but as she had left England immediately -after, and hunting had claimed all his ardours, she neither had seen -nor heard from him since. Although she meant to keep him at her elbow -as long as he served her purpose, she knew him to be a shy youth under -his natural buoyancy and quick intelligence, and did not disturb her -placid mind with visions of “scenes.” On the whole she liked Englishmen -better than any of the men she had met in Europe, for they had more -pride and self-control where women were concerned; if things went -deeper with them they were less likely to offend her cold purity with -outbursts of passion: which, she confided to Ora, “made her sick.” - -To her delight Valdobia took them one afternoon to call on an elderly -relative who lived in one of the great palaces of the Via Garibaldi. -They were escorted up to the top floor; the rooms on the other -_pianos_ were either closed or emitted the chill breath of the tomb. -Their destination was a large lofty room, inadequately heated by a -stove in one corner; their noble hostess was fortified against the -cold by several shawls and a foot-warmer. She had invited three other -aristocratic relics in to look at “the Americans,” and, although the -principessa and her friends were more polite than they would have been -to intruding bourgeoises of their own country, it was apparent that -they could find little to say to two young women from a land of which -they had a confused and wholly contemptuous apprehension. They knew -that its chief title to fame was its original discovery by a Genoese, -that the lower classes emigrated to it a good deal, and that many -American women, who spent far too much money on their clothes, visited -Europe and occasionally married above them. More than this they neither -knew nor cared to know. So far as they were concerned new countries did -not exist. - -Conversation languished. Ida was suppressed, and divided between a -desire to laugh and to scream. Ora, with a heroic effort, talked about -the mistake the average American made in seeing so little of Genoa; -but, having laid aside her furs out of politeness, she was shivering, -and unable to drink the strong coffee which immediately succumbed to -the temperature of the room. - -She sent an appealing glance to Valdobia, who was smiling to himself. -Lord John, who had been honoured by a chair beside his hostess, treated -with the consideration due his ancient lineage, was delivering himself -of spasmodic clauses, with one eye on Valdobia. - -“Jimminy!” whispered Ida, who now felt quite at home with her fellow -conspirator, “if you don’t get us out of this quick I’ll have -high-strikes, and Ora’ll get a cold and be laid up for a week. I always -keep her in bed when she has a cold.” - -Valdobia rose instantly. “We have an engagement in half an hour,” he -said to his mother’s second cousin. “Perhaps you will permit me to show -these ladies over the palace?” - -“Oh, do!” exclaimed Mowbray, acting on instinct, for he was too cold -and too unnerved to think. “I’d like jolly well to see it myself; must -be rippin’.” - -The permission was given with some graciousness, and the party bowed -themselves out. As they descended the grand staircase, they heard a -buzz of voices behind them, as of several elderly ladies talking at -once. - -“We’d be roasting on red-hot coals this minute if there were any in -that refrigerator,” said Ida, “but I don’t care so long as we are going -to see the real part of the palace.” - -An aged major domo showed them through the magnificent reception rooms, -built for entertaining a proud and gorgeous aristocracy in the days -when Genoa was known throughout Europe as “La Superba.” They were hung -with tapestries or cordova leather, and filled with priceless pictures, -porcelains, enamels, gold and silver ware, and massive furniture. -Valdobia told them dramas sentimental and tragic which had been -enacted within the walls of the historic house. But they had to stamp -about to avoid a chill, and were glad to emerge into the warmer air of -even the narrow street. - -“Well,” announced Ida, as they walked rapidly out of the Via Garibaldi -into the broad sunshine of the Piazza delle Fontane Marose, “if -that’s a sample of your ancient aristocracy no more of it in mine. My -curiosity is satisfied for good and all. Why on earth don’t they live -like human beings?” - -“Or steam-heated Americans?” asked Valdobia, smiling. “Console yourself -with the assurance that you are the only Americans that have ever -crossed that threshold.” - -“It doesn’t console me one little bit, and I feel pneumonia coming on. -Let’s walk as fast as we know how!” And accompanied by the willing -Englishman she started off with a stride that soon left the others far -behind. - -“It is true,” said Valdobia disgustedly, “that this older generation -does not know how to live, not in any sense. They possess the greatest -wealth in Italy, and they hoard it as if poverty stared them in the -face. They have only to turn on the electric lights once a week and -provide a simple supper to make Genoa one of the most delightful cities -in Europe, but they won’t even do that. They have the finest jewels -in Italy and never wear them except on the rare occasions when the -King and Queen visit Genoa and command them to the royal palace. Thank -heaven there is a younger set, equally well born, that live in the new -apartment houses or in those villas up on the hills, and are neither -too economical nor too antiquated in their ideas to enjoy life. Those -old people are divided up into intimate little sets and spend their -lives gossipping about the rest of Genoa or talking of the past. But I -do hope you did not take cold.” - -“I didn’t, and I really enjoyed it!” said Ora, smiling mischievously. -“I amused myself thinking what would happen if I told our uncomfortable -hostess that my father’s sister had married a Roman relative of her -husband; but I wouldn’t have relieved the situation for the world. I -suppose they are fumigating themselves.” - -“I don’t doubt it. They think they are aristocratic and are merely -provincial.” - -“How different you are!” Ora looked at him admiringly. “One hardly -could believe that you belonged to the same race.” - -“I don’t. I am a Roman, and a citizen of the world. No doubt you, too, -have a root that runs back into the dark ages, but today is all that -counts with us. I mean that in more senses than one!” And, although he -smiled, he gave her a quick side-glance. - -“I hope so. I am well aware that you are enjoying yourself immensely.” -Ora felt it quite safe to flirt with him in the open street. - -“Do you like me a little better?” - -“Rather. Friendly companionship is my chief idea of happiness, now that -I am more or less tired of books.” - -“Is it? May it be my good fortune to initiate you into a higher! You -have everything to learn!” - -“Have I? I wonder!” - -“What do you mean by that? Have you ever been in love?” - -“Not the least little bit!” - -“You said that rather too vehemently. It is my turn to wonder.” This -time he looked hard at her and his face was grim. He had a way of -setting his jaw that reminded her of the man whose haunting memory had -made her alternately happy and miserable during many long months. She -looked away hastily. - -“The kind of love you mean I have not the very least knowledge of. You -must believe that.” - -“Of what other kind, then?” - -“Oh, all women dream, you know,” she said lightly. “They have a sort of -ideal that consoles them for missing the realities of life. You come -quite close to it,” and once more she sparkled her eyes at him. - -“I have no intention of letting you flirt with me,” said Valdobia -calmly. “My flirting days are over. I shall remain the best of your -friends until you love me or send me to the other end of the world.” - -“Well, don’t become serious and spoil everything.” - -“I shall not lose my head, if that is what you mean,” he said drily. “I -find the present state of affairs very pleasant. Let us overtake the -others and go for a drive.” - - - - -XXXV - - -“Well,” said Ora, when she and Ida had returned to the hotel to dress -for dinner, “did you have a queer feeling when you were prowling -through those dim old rooms, furnished three or four hundred years ago, -and the scene of all sorts of romance and tragedy?” - -“I had a queer feeling all right. Had visions of rheumatism, sciatica, -pneumonia, and a red nose for a week. I suppose those wonderful velvet -gowns they wore--in pictures, anyhow--were padded inside, and they -slept in them; didn’t take them off all winter. If I lived in one of -those palaces today I’d surely lose all my good American habits.” - -“Didn’t you have any haunting sense of mystery--of having been there -before?” - -“Nixie! No wonder I murdered if I ever was. However,” she added -thoughtfully, “there’s no telling what I might have felt if they’d had -a furnace in the house. There was something wonderful about it, all -right--being in those musty old rooms, that fairly smelt of the past. I -guess they’ll haunt me as some of those Roman palaces have that are not -shown to the public. But don’t put weird ideas into my head, Ora. They -don’t gee with Butte. The severely practical is my lay.” - -“Don’t you think there could be romance and tragedy in Butte?” - -“Oh, plenty of shooting, if you mean that; and mixing-up. But people -don’t stay jealous long enough to get real tragic about it; they just -get a divorce. We’ve improved on daggers and poisoned bowls and rings, -and the rest of it. Good old Butte!” - -They all dined at the Bristol that night, and soon after nine o’clock -had the smoking-room to themselves. Ida, indeed, carried Mowbray off -into the reading-room. Ora sighed as she found herself alone with the -handsome distinguished Roman of the type that even in minor exponents -so often compelled her response. Why didn’t she love him? He was -proving himself the ideal companion. There was apparently no question -to which he had not given some thought, and he knew far more about the -subjects that appealed to her than she did herself. They discussed -the ever-fascinating sexual problems impersonally, delicately, and -exhaustively, a feat in itself, an experience Ora never had enjoyed -before; for while it drew them together it apparently neither disturbed -Valdobia nor altered his attitude toward her. His analyses of politics -and of the fashionable authors of the day were the acutest she had -heard or read, and he enlarged her knowledge of the world by his -anecdotes of life in the different capitals of Europe that he knew so -well. He could be personal without egotism, and his sense of humour was -keener than her own. While he treated her ideas and criticisms with -deference he forced her to look up to him and to feel only pleasure in -his masterful mind and great experience. - -Tonight he made her talk about herself; and, artfully beating about her -life’s most significant chapter, she expressed herself with a freedom -and veracity which she found another novel and fascinating experience; -her confidences to Ida were superficial and sporadic. She could feel -his sympathy and understanding flow toward her, although he uttered -no sentimental platitudes, and let only his eyes express a little -of what he felt. But for the hour she glowed with a sense of utter -companionship, her mind was stimulated to the pitch of excitement; she -caught herself wishing that they could have these long intimate talks -for the rest of their lives, and that he would sometimes hold her hand -to complete the sense of perfect understanding. - -When they parted at midnight and she walked slowly up the stairs -alone--Ida had dismissed Mowbray an hour since--she sighed again. -Why didn’t she feel the pull? What was the nature of that mysterious -current that seemed to vibrate between two people only out of the -world’s billions, and was quite independent of mental identities? -Certainly passion was not the only source. If she had been free and -never had met Gregory Compton she would have married Valdobia and given -him all he craved; for his magnetism was by no means confined to his -brain. Why could not she love him as it was? She had not been the -heroine of one of those passionate love affairs that leave a woman -cold for several years, perhaps for ever. The intensity of emotion she -had experienced during these months in Europe had been one-sided, a -mere madness of the imagination. She had yet to realise that a woman -can live more profoundly and completely with a man in her imagination -than when in daily contact with his discouraging weaknesses, his -inability to reach her impossible standard, and impinged upon by the -disintegrating forces of daily life. - -Such women as Ora Blake, endowed with a certain measure of creative -imagination, yet spending their maturing years unnaturalised citizens -in a cross-section of life which barely brushes their aloofness in -passing, develop as unnormally as those that cultivate this exotic -garden of the mind for fame and fortune. If they find a mate while the -imagination is still as young as their years, these highly organised -women, with every sense and faculty keenly alert, and stimulated by -mental contact as others may be by drugs and wine, have the opportunity -at least to be the happiest beings on earth. If they marry a brute, -or are forced to fight the world for bread, a wide channel is dug in -the brain through which flow the normal and crowding thoughts of the -average, commonplace, adaptable woman; which is perhaps the best of all -educations for life. - -But Ora had married a kind prosaic man who soon learned to let her -alone, and kept her in a comfort that burdened her days with leisure. -If she had been unimaginative no harm would have been done. She either -would have grown fond of her essential husband and become a domestic -angel, or consoled herself with society and bridge. But, misplaced in -life, she belonged to the intellectual aristocracy of the earth, who -are the loneliest of its inhabitants, unless they can establish an -invisible bond with their fellow-beings by offerings from that mental -garden which is at once their curse and their compensation for the -doubtful gift of life. - -Ora was too indifferent to the world to care to weave this gossamer -bridge, and had grown accustomed to mental solitude. But she had -never placed any curb on her imagination. In the days when her only -solace was books it enabled her to visualise the _mise-en-scène_ of -the remote or immediate past, the procession of the traveller, or the -abstractions of science; as if she were in one of those theatres -where the great modern manager threatens to atrophy what imagination -is left in the world. It even enabled her to enjoy fiction whose scene -was a land of which she had no personal knowledge; a rare gift in the -American, whose demand for familiar settings and characters keeps our -literature commonplace. And she could at will shut her eyes and wander -in Europe when Butte became insufferable. - -Her surrender to the obsession of Gregory Compton had been gradual; -she had fought it, not only out of loyalty to her husband and her -friend, but because the future menaced terrors against which she had no -desire to pit her strength. But she had finally cast defiance to the -future, and dismissed her phantom loyalty with a shrug. Mark no doubt -had consoled himself for her defection long since; to Ida a husband -was a money-maker pure and simple. She herself would never see Gregory -Compton again if she could avoid it; or, if life took her inevitably -back to Butte, no doubt her infatuation would have been cured by mental -satiety, and she would be able to greet him with the indifference that -is ever the portion of the discarded lover. - -Having arrived at this reasonable conclusion, she had dismissed -cynicism, cowardice, and qualms, to limbo, and entered upon one of -those exalting, tormenting, incredibly sweet, and profoundly depressing -mental love affairs, which, lacking the element of comedy inevitable in -all actual relations between men and women, obsess the mind and detach -it from life. - -After she parted from Valdobia, puzzled and wistful, she recalled one -week during which she had been completely happy. Ida was visiting -friends uncongenial to herself, and she had gone alone to Bruges. In -that ancient city of almost perfect beauty, she had given the wildness -in her nature uninterrupted liberty. She had written letters that no -woman yet has sent to a man without regretting it, for in this stage -of man’s progress, at least, he wants little of the soul of woman. It -is possible that the women who live in their imaginations are the most -fortunate, after all, for they arbitrarily make man the perfect mate -he possibly may be some centuries hence. At all events Ora imagined -Gregory Compton with her unremittingly, deliberately ignoring the -depression that must descend upon her when once more companioned by his -wife. It had seemed to her that her step had never been so buoyant, -her body so light. People had paused to stare at the beautiful young -American with her head in the air looking as if she were about to -sing. It had been a wonderful, an almost incredible experience, and -she never had been able quite to recapture it even when alone in the -night. But she had wondered sometimes if life held any happiness as -real as that had been, and she wondered again as she switched off her -light and flung herself into the bed that had witnessed so much despair -before Valdobia had appeared and put a quietus on her imagination. -She wondered also if the passion of the soul were so much greater -than the common experience of man and woman that its indulgence must -forever make life itself unreal. She felt that this question threw some -light on her problem, then dismissed the subject peremptorily. She -might regret that extraordinary love affair, with its terrors and its -delights, but she would bury it once for all; and she fell asleep with -the wise remark: - -“What fools we are! Oh, lord, what fools!” - - - - -XXXVI - - -After this she discarded what was left of her crust, and emerged like -a butterfly. The present was delightful, she would enjoy it without -analysis or retrospect. She met several clever and interesting men, -but had eyes for no one but Valdobia. They explored Genoa until they -knew it almost as well as the natives, spending hours down in the long -twisted streets, so narrow that no vehicle had ever visited them, and -swarming like the inside of an anthill. Harrowing adventures were -impossible, for the Genoese masses if discourteous are neither a -lawless nor an impertinent race. Ora and Ida might have roamed alone, -and been unmolested save by the enterprising shopkeepers that dealt in -filigree. They rode over the steep hills in the trams, and took long -motor drives in the brilliant winter sunshine to the picturesque towns -and villages down the Riviera. Then, on a Saturday morning, they bade -good-bye to the ancient city and took the train for Monte Carlo. - -The girls established themselves in a small hotel opposite the Casino -Gardens, the men in the great hotel that lies between the Casino and -the International Sporting Club. - -“I suppose we really should have sent for Lady Gower,” said Ora, -doubtfully, as they hooked each other up for dinner. “It’s stretching -the point rather to come to a place like Monte Carlo with two men. -We’ll be sure to run into a dozen people we know.” - -“Oh, bother! I love the idea of feeling real devilish for once. -Besides, anything goes at Monte Carlo, and everybody is interested in -gambling and nothing else. What good would old Norfolk-Howard do us, -anyhow, asleep on a sofa. She never could keep awake after ten, and -nobody’d know in those big rooms whether she was there or not. We’re -Americans, anyhow, and I’m having the time of my life. Lord John is a -perfect dear.” - -“Well, at least I am thankful that you are no longer in a hurry to -return to Butte.” - -“Butte’ll keep, I guess. The more experiences I take back the -more they’ll think of me. Gives me backbone to feel a real -woman-of-the-world. Besides, kid, it’s good philosophy to drink the -passing moment dry. Amalgamated may bust us any minute. You look -prettier every day, and I’m not going off either.” - -She wore a severely cut gown of black velvet, the corsage draped with -coral-coloured chiffon. Her first evening gowns, cut by the ruthless -Parisian, had caused her many qualms but they had been growing more -_décolleté_ ever since; and so superb were her neck and shoulders that -she had ceased to regret her lack of jewels. Ora had refrained from -buying any, although she longed for sapphires; but she always wore her -pearls. Tonight her gown was of a misty pale green material from which -she rose like a lily from its calyx. She still wore her hair massed -softly on the top of her head, and although not as tall as Ida, and far -from being as fully developed, was an equally arresting figure. No two -women were ever more excellent foils, and that may have been one secret -of their amicable relations. - -They dined with their cavaliers at one of the fashionable restaurants, -then, after an hour in the Casino rooms, which were not at all to their -taste, with their ornate walls and dingy crowd, went by means of lifts -and underground corridors over to the International Sporting Club. -Valdobia and Mowbray had put them up at this exclusive resort during -the afternoon and they entered the roulette rooms at once. Here the -walls were chastely hung with pale grey satin, and all the colour was -in the company. The long tables were crowded with smart-looking men -and women of both worlds, although only the ladies that had stepped -down from ancestral halls dared to show a grey hair or a wrinkle. The -cocottes were so young and fresh as well as beautiful that to Ora and -Ida they looked much like girls of their own class. All, young and old, -were splendidly dressed and bejewelled; and if there was excitement -in their brains there was no evidence of it in their calm or animated -faces. They might have been a great house-party amusing themselves with -some new and innocuous game. - -Our party walked about for a time dividing their attention between the -spinning balls, the faces of the players, and the gowns of the women; -even those of the cocottes were not eccentric, although worn with a -certain inimitable style. Their ropes of pearls were also the longest -in the room. A number of the most notable men in Europe were present, -princes of reigning houses, and statesmen high in the service of their -country. - -In spite of the absence of that feverish excitement which is supposed -to pervade these gambling rooms of Monte Carlo (and which is absent -from the Casino even when a man shoots himself and is whisked out), Ora -wandered about in a curious state of exaltation. The cool splendour -of the rooms, the atmosphere of high breeding and restraint, the -gratification of the æsthetic sense at every turn, the beauty of -the women and the distinguished appearance of the men made it a -romantic and memorable scene. Notwithstanding the constant clink of -gold, the monotonous admonitions of the croupiers, it was a sort of -worldly fairyland, this apotheosis of one of the most perilous of -human indulgences. These people might be gambling for greed or mere -excitement, being blasé of other mundane diversions, but they were at -the same time so frank and so reserved, so pleased and so indifferent, -that they produced the illusion of sojourning on a plane high above the -common mortal with his commonplace loves and disasters and struggles -to exist or shine. No wonder that men came here to forget the burdens -of state, women Society’s conservatisms or the inconstancy of man. For -the hour, and the hour generally lasted until four in the morning, they -lived in a world apart, and a duchess sat next to a cocotte with a -serene indifference that amounted almost to democracy. - -“I don’t know that romantic is the word I should use,” said Valdobia, -laughing; Ora had uttered some of her thoughts aloud; “but I think I -know what you mean. The people that come here can afford to lose; their -minds are almost as carefully composed as their costumes; they are both -pleasantly reckless and frivolous; this is their real play-time; the -world beyond these four walls is obliterated; if they lose they shrug -their shoulders, and if they win they experience something like a real -thrill; in short, being soaked in worldliness, it is their only chance -to feel primitive--for gambling was practised by the most ancient -tribes of which we have any knowledge. At the Casino most of those -people are subconsciously wondering how they are going to pay their -hotel bills and get out of Monte Carlo, calm as they manage to look; -but here--well, here you see the quintessence of the world’s frivolity. -No wonder it creates a heady atmosphere. Do you want to gamble?” - -“Of course I do.” - -“Well, put a louis on the red. I’ll follow your stakes. Perhaps we’ll -bring each other luck.” - -They staked and won, staked and won again, seven times running without -removing their winnings from the red. Then Valdobia said, “Don’t tempt -fortune too far. The luck may turn to the green any moment. Suppose we -try ours _en plein_.” He selected the number 39, and once more they -won. Ora, her hands full of gold, turned to him with blazing eyes. Her -cheeks were crimson. Valdobia laughed. - -“You mustn’t look so happy,” he said teasingly, “or these old stagers -will know that you are what your friend calls a hayseed. Better change -all this gold into notes.” - -“Notes? I want my gold. Paper never did mean anything to me.” - -“What a child you are--ah! I must leave you for a moment. The Duc----” -he mentioned a prince of his royal house--“wishes to speak to me. Don’t -try _en plein_ again. That rarely happens twice. Put a louis at a time -on the red.” - -He left her. Ora deliberately placed not only her double handful of -gold on the red, but pushed forward the pile that had accumulated -before her. Red came up and doubled her winnings. She added to her -already imposing hillock the gold shoved toward her, and, with a quick -glance at Valdobia, who was deep in conversation with his prince, took -a thousand franc note from her châtelaine bag and laid it on top of -the gold. Once more she won, and met the sympathetic smiles of the -croupiers, who in the Sporting Club, at least, are very human persons. -She was about to add another thousand franc note, when Valdobia -returned. He swept her gold and notes off the red just as _rien ne va -plus_ sounded above the buzz of conversation behind the tables. - -“What on earth are you doing?” he asked angrily. “I don’t like to see a -woman gamble like that.” - -Ora pouted and looked like a naughty child. - -“But I want to gamble. Give me my money. What have you to say about it?” - -“I brought you here--and I shall not bring you again if you are going -to gamble like that old Frankfurt banker over there. Why not follow the -example of Mrs. Compton, who is decorously putting five franc pieces on -the green at the next table?” - -“Oh, Ida! I like the sensation of doing big things. You just said we -enjoyed letting loose our primitive instincts.” - -“Is that the way you felt? Well, here are three louis. Stake one at a -time. I shall change the rest into notes and give them to you at the -hotel.” - -He kept his eye on her, and she staked her gold pieces one after -another and lost. - -“Now,” he said, “come into the bar and have a glass of wine or a lemon -squash. I want to talk to you.” - -They found seats in a corner of the bar behind a little table, and -Ora demurely ordered a lemonade. “I suppose you are going to scold -me,” she murmured, although her cheeks were still flushed and her eyes -rebellious. “What difference did it make? I am not poor, and I had won -nearly all that I risked, anyhow. You have seen women gamble all your -life. One would think that you were a hayseed, yourself.” - -“Shall I be quite honest? I fancy I was jealous. For the first time I -saw you completely carried away. I had hoped to furnish that impulse -myself!” - -“It is a wonderful sensation,” she said provokingly. “I doubt if -anything but gambling could inspire it.” - -“Do you?” But he knew that it was no time for sentiment, and asked -curiously, “Are you so fond of gold? I never saw such a greedy little -thing.” - -“Remember I’ve walked round over gold for the best part of my life, and -have a mine of my own. It fascinates me, but not because I care much -about riches--I like the liberty that plenty of money gives; that, to -my mind, is all that wealth means. But I loved the feeling of being -possessed, of being absolutely reckless. I should have liked to know -that my whole fortune depended upon that spinning ball. That would -have been worth while! It makes one forget everything--everything!” - -He looked at her with half-closed eyes. “You have a secret chapter in -your life,” he said. “Some day I shall read it. But I can’t make up my -mind whether you are a born gambler or not.” - -Ora shrugged her shoulders. “To tell you the truth I shouldn’t care if -I never saw a gambling table again. I have had the sensation. That is -enough. I will admit I was rather disappointed not to lose that immense -stake. Lucky at cards, you know.” - -“And you think you are unlucky in love?” Valdobia laughed, but his face -was still grim. “How many men have you had in love with you already?” - -“That doesn’t count!” - -He turned pale. “What do you mean by that?” - -“I mean that I don’t believe I am destined to happiness. Don’t you -think we know our lines instinctively?” - -“I know that you are trying to torment me. You are still excited and -angry, so I shall not permit your words, significant as they are, to -keep me awake tonight.” He was smiling again, but she saw the anger in -his own eyes, and said impulsively: - -“I rather like you better than usual tonight. You have made me do -something I didn’t want to do, and anger is becoming to you.” - -“The eternal female! Well, God knows, I wouldn’t have you abnormal. -What is this?” - -A page was standing before the table with a telegram in his hand. “Pour -M. le Marquis de Valdobia,” he said. - -With a word of apology Valdobia opened the telegram. Ora, watching him, -saw his face turn white. - -“What is it?” she asked anxiously. “I do hope it is not bad news.” She -felt a sharp pang at the possibility of losing him. - -He rose and looked at his watch. “My mother is very ill,” he said. “A -train goes in an hour and ten minutes. I must take it. But there is -something I want to say to you before I go; I may be detained in Rome. -Will you get your wrap and come into the gardens for a few moments?” - -“I am so sorry,” murmured Ora, with real sympathy. “Of course I will -go.” - -He took her to the cloak-room. “Wait here for a moment,” he said. “I -must telephone to my man to pack and meet me at the train; and tell -Mowbray not to look for us later.” - -He left her, and Ora watched the passing couples, trying not to think. -She was a little frightened, but still too excited to shrink from a -possible ordeal. - - - - -XXXVII - - -He returned in a few moments, and they left the Club House by the main -entrance and strolled toward the gardens; then he suddenly led her to -the terrace. There were many people walking in the tropical scented -park of the Casino, but the digue above the Mediterranean was deserted. -Monte Carlo can be cold in May but it can be as warm as July in -February, and the night was mild and beautiful. The sea under the stars -was almost as blue as by day. The air was very still, although a band -was playing somewhere, far away. From the other side of the bay came -the faint humming of an aeroplane. There was to be an aviation meet on -the morrow, and no doubt one of the airmen was about to make a trial -flight. - -They sat down on one of the benches, and Valdobia folded his arms, then -turned and leaned his elbow on the back of the seat and his head on his -hand. - -“I am not quite in the mood for love-making,” he said, “after the news -I have received; but I can’t go without letting you know why I followed -you to Genoa--without some sort of an understanding.” - -Ora looked at him out of the corner of her eye. His face was set and -determined, but she concluded that he was not the man to be dangerous -when grieving for his mother. - -“What is it?” she asked softly. “I know, of course, that you--like me.” - -“I love you, and I want to marry you. I wish you to divorce your -husband and marry me. Don’t give me your final answer now,” he -continued, as Ora interrupted him. “It is not a question to decide -in a moment. But while I am gone think it over. You do not love your -husband. I know all your arguments from your friend. She made them when -I first gave her my confidence. They don’t weigh with me for a moment. -You will never spend your life with that man, good as he may be. As for -obligations, you discharged them long ago. I can make you happy, and I -believe that you know I can.” - -“I don’t know.” Ora, stunned for a moment, felt thrilled and -breathless. “Oh, I don’t know!” - -“I have begun to feel sure that you have loved another man, or fancied -that you loved him. Would it be possible for you to marry him if you -divorced your husband?” - -Ora hesitated, then answered, “No.” - -“Why is he not your lover?” - -“That would be impossible, even if I would do such a thing, and you -know I would not.” - -He gave a sharp sigh of relief. “I _felt_ that he had not been. Why is -it impossible?” - -“There are complications. I cannot explain them. But he could not be -less to me if he were dead.” - -“Does he love you?” - -Ora hesitated again. “I have sometimes felt--no, of course, it is -impossible. I let my imagination run away with me, that was all.” - -“You mean that he never told you--that he doesn’t write to you?” - -“I met him only once, and I have never seen his handwriting.” - -“Well, dismiss him from your mind. You have imagination and have -dreamed, because your demands upon life are very great, greater than -you know; and oddly enough, considering your opportunities, fruition -has eluded you. But the time has come for you to live; and you could -live!” - -Ora looked down at her hands. They were ungloved and looked very white -and small. Valdobia suddenly covered them with one of his own, and bent -his face close to hers. She saw that he had forgotten his mother, and -gave a little gasp. - -“Ora!” he said. “Don’t you know how happy I could make you? I not only -could teach you love, of which you know nothing, but we could always be -companions, and you are the loneliest little creature I have ever met.” - -To her astonishment she saw two tears splash on his hand, and winking -rapidly discovered that they had fallen from her own eyes. As she would -have detested to see a man cry, she melted further, and whispered, - -“Oh, yes, life with you would be very delightful. I know that. I fancy -the other man, even if I could marry him, would make me miserable. -He--American men that amount to anything give their wives very little -of themselves.” - -“And you would be lonelier still! I have known American women that -loved their busy husbands--that _seeking_ type. They interested me, -poor things--rushing madly about trying to fill their lives. If you -join that sisterhood it will kill you. I am not an idler, for I have -business interests to which I devote a certain amount of time, but I -have leisure, and I not only should give you the companionship you have -craved all your life, but I can offer you the world in all its variety. -Now dismiss this man, whoever he is, from your mind. Even were I beside -the question, it is your duty to yourself as a woman of character, not -a sentimental schoolgirl.” - -“Yes, that is true.” - -“That sort of thing is morbid, besides being quite beneath a woman of -pride and dignity. But women often romance about some dream-hero until -they have found the right man. Can you doubt that I am the man for you? -You were made for Europe, not for America, and for a man that can give -you everything--everything!” - -“Yes, I know.” She moved restlessly. “If I could only feel just one -thing more for you! I hardly know what to call it--I like you better -than anyone in the world. I almost love you. Why don’t I?” Her voice -was suddenly full of passion and she clasped both of her hands about -his own. “If you could only make me, I should worship you.” - -He glanced about rapidly. They were quite alone. He put his arm round -her and she felt it vibrate. His face was flushed and his breath -short. She could feel his heart thumping against her head, and she -was fascinated for more reasons than one: she knew that it was many -years since any woman had roused him to strong emotion, and it was the -first great passion that had ever been close to her save in her stormy -imagination. She was enthralled for a moment, and some of the wildness -in her own nature stirred. But it was too soon, she must have time to -think. She cast about desperately and found her inspiration. - -“We have been here a long time!” she said hurriedly. “You will miss -your train. Your mother may be very ill.” - -He dropped his arm, and stood up. - -“You are a woman of infinite resource,” he said. “And no little -cruelty. Will you consider what I have asked you--seriously?” - -His anger as well as his power to control himself always fascinated -her, and she also experienced a spasm of contrition. She rose and gave -him her hand; her eyes were frank and kind. - -“Yes,” she said. “I will consider it, and think of you always--and miss -you horribly. Will you telegraph to me every day?” - -“Two or three times a day, probably. And don’t think I am really angry -with you. If you are cruel it is only because you don’t understand. I -am glad that you do not, for it is only women that have loved greatly -that have forgotten how to be cruel. Come. I must take you to your -hotel.” - - - - -PART II - - - - -PART II - -I - - -Two weeks later Ora and Ida sailed from Havre. Gregory had cabled, and -the _Herald_ had published a dramatic account, of the wounding of Mr. -Mark Blake in the tunnel of his wife’s mine. The engineers’ lease had -expired and he had closed down the mine temporarily. The sinking of -the inclined shaft in the “Apex” had proceeded very slowly owing to -the uncommon hardness of the rock; it would seem that Nature herself -had taken a hand in the great fight and enlisted for once on the side -of the weaker power. Although when Osborne and Douglas had turned over -the mine, their cross-cut almost had reached the point on the vein -which the new shaft expected to strike, Gregory had risen twice in the -night and walked along the hill beyond his boundary, reasonably sure -that all the blasting was not in the shaft, his keen ear detecting -muffled reverberations slightly to the east and at a greater depth. He -communicated his suspicions to Mark, and on the following night they -examined the lock on the Primo shaft house and discovered that it had -been tampered with. They went down by way of the ladder; and in the -cross-cut on the chalcopyrite vein they found miners working with hand -drills. There was a desperate hand-to-hand fight with the manager and -shift boss; the miners, who were bohunks, proceeding phlegmatically -with their work. - -The four men had wrestled out into the station at the foot of the -shaft, where they had drawn their “guns”; each had been wounded, but -only Mark seriously. He had received a ball in the lung and another -in the leg. The night was bitterly cold and it was some time before -Gregory and the two antagonists could get him to the surface. He had -insisted upon being taken to a hospital in Butte; and, between loss of -blood, shock, and pneumonia, his condition was precarious. - -The girls, who had left Monte Carlo two days after Valdobia’s sudden -departure, received the news in Paris, where they were replenishing -their wardrobes. Ora, torn with remorse, and terrified with vague and -tragic visions of the future, was in a distracted condition; but Ida, -although she sincerely lamented the possible demise of her old friend, -did not lose her head. She gave final and minute orders to tailors and -dressmakers, instructed them to send the trousseaux in bond directly to -Great Falls, Montana, devoted a morning to the selection of hats both -for herself and her friend, and packed all the trunks. Mowbray, always -willing to be useful, bought their tickets and escorted them to Havre. -Ida thanked him with something like real warmth as they parted at the -head of the gangplank, and promised him the “time of his life” when he -came to Montana in the summer. - -“Now, buck up,” she said, smiling into his disconsolate face; “you know -I’m not flirting with you. We’re the best of pals. I’ll be glad to see -you, all right, and perhaps I’ll find a nice little heiress for you.” - -“Oh, don’t!” Mowbray tried to arrange his features for the benefit of -the passersby. “You know I’m fond of you no end. Why----” - -“Get along now. That’s the last whistle. Good-bye, and write me nice -gossippy letters. It’s only a few months, anyhow.” - -Mowbray walked down the gangplank with his head in the air, and, as he -turned on the dock to lift his hat, Ida noticed that his face, whose -charm was its boyish gayety, looked suddenly older, and almost as -determined as Valdobia’s. - -“Oh, Lord!” she thought, as she turned away, “men! They’re as alike as -lead pencils in a box. But I guess I can manage him.” - -Ora stayed in bed for two days; reaction left her physically exhausted -and she slept most of the time. On the third day Ida peremptorily -dressed her and took her on deck. A wireless from Gregory, announcing -that Mark was holding his own, further revived her, and before they -reached New York another wireless was still more reassuring. A few -years before, when the ores of Butte Hill were roasted in the open -and the poisonous fumes were often as thick as the worst of London -fogs, pneumonia ran its course in twenty-four hours to the grave, but -in these days the patient had a fighting chance despite the altitude. -The Butte doctors were experts in pneumonia, so many of the careless -miners were afflicted, and Mark not only had a sound constitution but -never had been a heavy drinker. There was every reason to expect him to -pull through, as Ida assured her friend whenever they were alone; but -she managed to meet several agreeable people, and kept herself and Ora -companioned by them throughout the voyage. - -Valdobia was still in Rome; his mother was dying. He had written daily -to Ora and she had read and reread his letters. They said neither too -much nor too little; but he was one of life’s artists and he managed -to pervade them with an atmosphere that was both sweet and disturbing. -His telegram, when he had read the news of her husband’s misadventure -in the newspapers, was a masterpiece. If he was unable to grieve over -the possibility of Mr. Blake’s abrupt removal from a scene where he was -the one superfluous actor, too well-bred to betray his relief, and too -little of a hypocrite to be verbose in condolence, his attitude was -so finely impersonal, and it was so obvious that he knew exactly how -she felt, that Ora liked him more than ever if only for rousing her -stricken sense of humour. - -She had thrust his letters and telegrams into the depths of her steamer -trunk, but after she had made up her mind that Mark would recover (her -lively imagination picturing him hobbling among the orange groves of -Southern California while she guided his footsteps and diverted his -mind), she retrieved the correspondence and read it every night when -alone in her stateroom. Valdobia’s devotion not only gave her courage, -but his strong imposing personality stood with a haughty and confident -menace between herself and Gregory Compton. She refused to think on her -future, beyond the long convalescence of her husband, but had it not -been for her meeting with Valdobia and her deliberate installment of -his image on the throne of her adventurous imagination, she doubted if -she would have had the courage to return to Montana. As it was there -were moments when the poignant mental life she had led with Gregory -Compton reached a long finger from the depths to which it had been -consigned and sketched his image in her mind as vividly as if he stood -before her; while her whole being ached with longing and despair. But -her will was strong; she banished him summarily and reinstated the -Roman who was so like and so unlike the man compounded of the old world -and the new in the mortar of the Northwest. - -Ida, with an unexpected delicacy, refrained from curiosity, and -although she had too much tact to avoid all mention of Valdobia, only -alluded to him casually. She left Europe out of the conversation as -much as possible, and amused Ora, when they were alone, with the -plans of her campaign in Butte. When they reached quarantine Ora was -horrified to find herself surrounded by reporters. The Paris _Herald_ -had published the story of her mine as well as her picture and Ida’s, -but they hardly had been sensible of their notoriety until, on the -steamer, they were among Americans once more. It was manifest that they -were “big news” in their own country, and Ora fled to her stateroom, -leaving Ida to face the reporters alone. - -Ida was undaunted; moreover she was quick to seize her first -opportunity to dazzle Butte. She made herself amiable and interesting -to the young men, her natural cunning steering her mid-stream, in this -her first interview: an ordeal in which most novices are wrecked on -the tropic or the arctic shore. She thanked them as warmly for their -news that Mr. Blake had left that morning with his doctors and nurses -in a private car for Southern California, and expected his wife to -go directly to Los Angeles, as if Ora had not received a wireless to -that effect an hour before; she modestly told them something of her -social experiences abroad, answered the inevitable questions regarding -suffrage, excused Ora, “who was naturally upset”, and expatiated upon -her happiness in returning to live in Butte. They thought this odd, but -were so delighted with her mixture of dignity and naïveté that they -rushed to their respective desks and told the world that the wife of -Gregory Compton had been the guest of princes and was the handsomest -woman in America. - -Ora was almost gay at the prospect of going directly to California, -although she was obliged to make the journey alone. It was early in -the afternoon when they landed. Ida established Ora in the first -Overland Limited that left the Grand Central Station, and returned to -the Waldorf-Astoria, where she had engaged rooms for a month. She had -no intention of returning to Butte ignorant of New York. Westerners -of wealth, old and recent, visited New York casually several times -a year; and not to know it, even with Europe to her credit, stamped -a woman with the newness of the new-rich who wore all their jewels -all the time. Ida had seen many women make fools of themselves and -had no intention of leaving any penetrable spaces in her armour. She -spent every morning in the shops, or in the establishments of the -exclusive dressmakers, tailors and milliners that were patronized by -the fashionable women of Butte and Helena, giving them liberal orders. -She saw all the new plays, heard the more famous of the opera singers, -and even attended three symphony concerts. She drove in the Park every -afternoon or joined the throngs on Fifth Avenue; and she took tea or -lunch in the different hotels and restaurants devoted to fashion. -Sometimes she sat in the gangways of her own famous hostellerie, -recalling with a tolerant smile her early crude ambitions--had -they died less than a year ago?--to trail her feathers up and down -Peacock Alley. She wore one of her severest tailored suits upon these -occasions, and maintained an air of stately detachment that somewhat -counteracted the always startling beauty of her face and figure. No man -took his courage in his hand. - -One afternoon she sat longer than usual, for she had set her teeth that -day and walked through the Metropolitan Museum. She fell to musing, -and with a more sustained introspection than was her habit, upon the -changes that had taken place within herself during the past year; -wondering “how deep they had struck”, if she really were as altered as -she must appear even to the raking eye of Butte; or if she merely had -developed her native characteristics while polishing her surface and -furnishing her mind. - -She also endeavoured to analyse her attitude toward returning to her -husband, but gave this up, although puzzled that it was not more -obvious. But her mind was clear on one point. If Gregory desired her -society he must spend his week-ends in Butte; nothing would induce her -to return to the De Smet ranch. She had not even a spasm of curiosity -to see the famous Perch of the Devil Mine. - - - - -II - - -Ida was not given to imaginative excursions, but during the three -days’ journey from New York to Butte, she made no acquaintances, -resting in the seclusion of her drawing-room; and after she had read -all the magazines her mind began to people itself. Although the ladies -of Butte, whom she now regarded as equals, moved along the central -highway, Gregory was always turning the corners, and she visualised -him most frequently advancing hurriedly toward the station as the -train entered--both late, of course. She rehearsed the meeting many -times, never without a pricking sense of awkwardness, for she now -fully realised that when a woman and her husband have not communicated -save on the wire for nearly a year, the first interview is liable -to constraint. He always had been difficult to talk to. Would he be -bored if she tried to entertain him as Ora would entertain Mark: with -such excerpts of their many experiences as a confiding husband might -appreciate? She never had understood him. Out of her greater knowledge -of the world and men should she be better able to fathom the reserves -of that strange silent nature--or did she really care whether she could -or not? Although she had made up her mind to greet him at the station -with the warmth of an old friend, and flatter him with her delight in -returning home, she had not the faintest idea how she should carry off -the long evening--if the train were on time. - -It was not. Probably no Northwestern train has arrived on time in -the history of the three railroads. Ida’s train, due at seven in -the evening, arrived at midnight. Her Pullman was at the end of the -long dark platform, and as she walked slowly toward the station -building--which looked like the bunk-house of an abandoned mining camp -in the desert--searching for someone to carry her hand baggage--porters -being non-existent in the Northwest--she saw neither Gregory nor -any other familiar face. For the first time in her life she felt a -disposition to cry. But as she tossed her head higher and set her -lips, a young man approached and asked if she were Mrs. Gregory -Compton. He was a pleasant looking youth, and she was so grateful to be -called by name that she forgot her new reserve and replied emphatically -that she was. - -“I am your chauffeur,” he said. “Your new car arrived a few days ago, -and Mr. Compton ’phoned me to meet you. Have you any hand baggage?” - -Ida indicated her portmanteau and hat box in the dark perspective and -went on to inspect her car. It was a handsome limousine, lighted with -electricity, and for a moment she took a childish pleasure in examining -its fittings. But as the man returned and piled her baggage in front -she asked irrepressibly: - -“Is Mr. Compton not in Butte?” - -“No, ma’am. He hasn’t been in Butte for weeks. Lively times out at the -mine, I guess.” - -“And my house? Had I not better go to a hotel?” - -“Oh, the house is all right. Mr. Compton’s secretary ’phoned to an -agency, and they put in three or four in help. I guess you’ll find -everything all right.” - -Ida entered her car, but scowled at its luxuries. By this time she -was “mad clean through.” “The famous American husband!” she thought, -gritting her teeth. “Best in the world--not. If it’s my horse, my dog, -my wife with an Englishman, it’s business first last and always with an -American. European men are courteous whether they mean it or not, but -Americans only remember to be polite when they have time. Ten months -and he can’t leave his mine long enough to meet me when I arrive at -midnight!” - -Her pleasure in returning to Butte had turned as flat as spilt -champagne. She did not even glance at the gay electric signs and -midnight activities of Broadway as her car rolled through that -sleepless thoroughfare toward the West Side. But when her chauffeur, -who had ignored the speed limit, stopped abruptly before a large house -of admirable architecture and blazing with lights, her face flushed -with excitement and she forgot her recalcitrant spouse. The door was -opened at once and two maid servants ran down the steps. They were -young, neatly dressed and capped, and it was evident that their service -was dictated not only by curiosity but by sympathy. - -“Welcome home, ma’am,” one of them, a Swede, said shyly as Ida stepped -to the pavement. “It’s too bad your train was so late. The cook’s got a -nice hot supper for you.” - -Ida, who was not easily touched, felt as grateful to these smiling -girls as to her friendly chauffeur, and for a moment was tempted to -“come down off her perch” and revel in human companionship. But she -knew that it “wouldn’t work”; she merely thanked them graciously and -ascended the wide steps of her new home, that palatial residence of -cream-colored pressed brick of her unswerving desires. While the maids -were taking her bags and boxes upstairs, she walked through the large -rooms of the lower floor. Everything was in the best modern style of -furnishing, the prevailing tone dim and rich, with Eastern rugs on the -hardwood floors; French tapestries and carved oak furniture and stained -glass in the library--also a few books; paler tapestries set in panels -in the immense drawing-room, and many beautiful pieces of furniture -carefully selected with an eye to both contrast and mating. Out of -this room opened a dining-room that looked like a baronial hall, and -although the Murphys had taken their silverware they had left their -china, imported from Limoges, and their glass ware, made for them by a -Venetian firm that had supplied Ida’s grandes dames for thirty years. -In short it was one of those stately and sumptuous interiors, furnished -by the best houses in New York, which one associates exclusively with -the three or four great cities of the United States, and is always -unwarrantably surprised to find in the newer cities of the West. - -Ida made a pretence of eating her dainty supper, remembered that she -was now a grande dame and visited the kitchen to say an appreciative -word to the cook, then ascended to her bedroom divided between anger -and a depression so foreign to her temperament that she barely -recognised it for what it was. - -The large upper hall had been fitted up as a billiard room, and with a -continuous divan broken only by the doors of the bedrooms. Ida threw -it an appreciative glance, but it merely emphasised the fact that -there was no man in the house, and she did not linger. Mrs. Murphy, -evidently a brunette, had furnished her bedroom and dressing-room in -primrose yellow and much lace. Ida approved both as unreservedly as -she had the rest of the house, thankful there was nothing to alter; -like many women she had consummate taste in dress and none whatever -for house decoration; although unlike most of these disparate ladies -she was quite aware of her deficiencies. She knew when a room was all -that it should be, but could not have conceived one of the details, -much less the unimpeachable combination. The sex instinct teaches -those subtleties of personal adornment likely to allure the male, and -arrest the anxious eye of other females, but ancestral brain-cells are -necessary for the more civilised accomplishment. - -Ida’s eyes fell on the telephone beside her bed and lingered. She -forgot her beautiful room and the successive throbs of gratified -ambition, in an overwhelming desire to call up Gregory and tell him -what she thought of him. But she was a woman in whom calculation -was stronger than impulse, and in the past year she had learned to -control her temper, not only because a carefully nourished refinement -had crowded out some of the weeds of her nature, but because her -ever-growing intelligence despised lack of self-control in all things. -So she merely undressed herself, her eyes wandering every few minutes -to the telephone. It was incredible that he did not ring her up. That, -at least, would take but a few moments of his precious time. - -However, she fell asleep immediately after her bath, and it was the -telephone bell that awakened her at eight o’clock. This time she -frowned at it, for she wanted to sleep; but she sat up, put the -receiver to her ear and asked languidly: “Well?” - -A strange man’s voice replied: “Is this Mrs. Compton?” - -“Yes. Why am I disturbed so early?” - -“I’m sorry--this is Mr. Compton’s secretary speaking--but Mr. Compton -told me to call you at eight o’clock. He always comes in for breakfast -at this time--here he is.” - -“Hello! How are you? What time did you get in?” Gregory’s voice was -elaborately polite and as eager as any lover’s of yesteryear. - -“Are you interested?” Ida’s heart beat thickly, but her tones were -crisp. “I arrived at midnight. Really, I expected you to meet me. That -is generally considered the decent thing to do.” - -“Oh! I’m sorry it was impossible. I can’t leave the mine at present. -How did you like the house?” - -“I am enchanted with it--and with the limousine. When are you coming -in?” - -“I can’t say at present. I dare not leave for a moment. You will find a -deposit to your credit at the Daly bank.” - -“Thanks. Would--shall I run out?” - -“Better not. There is always danger of rows.” - -“But of course I’m wild to see the mine. You forget how famous it is.” - -“Better wait awhile. It really isn’t safe.” - -“Very well. How’s your wound? Where were you hurt, anyhow?” - -“Not worth mentioning, as I cabled you, and I suppose you got my -telegram in New York saying I was all right again. Sure you got -everything you want?” - -“I am overwhelmed by all this luxury, and your generosity.” - -“Glad you like it. Has Mrs. Blake gone to California?” - -“She went directly from the steamer. How is Mark getting on. I’ve had -only notes from Ora.” - -“All right. He doesn’t write but has telegraphed once or twice. He’d -better stay below several months. Write Mrs. Blake to persuade him to -take things easy. He had a close call. I can get along without him for -awhile, but I can’t afford to lose him. Will you see to this?” - -“I’ll write Ora today. She’s in no hurry to return to Butte--was -delighted at the prospect of going to California, and intends to take -Mark to Santa Barbara, where she knows a lot of people.” - -“Ah! Good. Well, I must get some breakfast. Amuse yourself.” - -“And you won’t be in for several days?” - -“Afraid not. Good-bye.” - -Ida set the receiver back on the table, but it was some minutes before -she lay down again. She sat thinking, with compressed lips. Born -with intuitive knowledge of men, she had, as she once remarked to -Ora, turned a goodly number of them inside out during the past year. -Gregory Compton did not intend to live with her again. She knew this -as conclusively as if his kind matter-of-fact tones had expressed the -direct message. Before she left home it never had occurred to Ida to -wonder if her husband still loved her or not, and she had learned to -accept his consuming masculine interest in matters mineralogic as all -in the day’s work. Now she wondered if he had ceased to love her then -or since. That he took no further interest in her as a woman, although -amiably determined to do his duty as her legal provider, would have -been almost patent to an imagination as riotous as Ora’s; to Ida, -practical and clear-sighted, there was not a loophole for delusion. - -In a few moments she relaxed the tension of her body and lay down. - -“Well!” she thought impatiently, “what’s the matter with me, anyhow? -Isn’t it what I always hopefully looked forward to? Did I ever pretend -to be anything but resigned--or to be in love with him after the first -few weeks? I guess I’m spoiled with too much devotion, that’s what. -Seeing too many men lose their heads. Much their old heads are worth. -But I guess I don’t like being turned down for once. Goose. It’s my lay -to cut out pique and sing a song of thanksgiving that I’ve got pretty -nearly everything I ever romanced about and set my mind on. It’s a -pretty good old world when things come your way, and women’ll never be -happy till they learn to put men in the same place that men put us--on -a handy little side-track. I’ve got a whole parlour car instead of an -upper berth like some poor devils, so I’ll quit whining. But if there’s -another woman in the case, let them both look out--that’s all!” - - - - -III - - -Ida slept for two hours longer and rose in a philosophical mood. As -she more than once had remarked to Ora, “nothing in life is just what -you figured it out beforehand”; and this, one of life’s most unwelcome -lessons, it had not taken her twenty-six years to learn. She had, in -fact, accepted and docketed it while women twice her age were nursing -their illusions. - -She had expected to be met at the station not only by her husband but -by Ruby and Pearl, to say nothing of reporters. “She had slunk in like -a nobody,” and her husband declined to feed the fires of her vanity, -blazing so merrily these last ten months. Never mind. She had the -genius of quick readjustment and a sharp eye for the next move in the -great law of compensation. - -“And believe me,” she thought, as she put the finishing touches to her -smart morning street costume, and taught the admiring Swede how to pin -on a veil, “the gods have provided the goods pretty liberally, and I -don’t belong to the immortal order of female jackasses. Nine-tenths of -women’s troubles, mental and physical, sprout in that hothouse corner -of their skulls they call imagination. None of it in mine. Let us -eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. Wait till I’m launched in -Butte. And just wait till I give a dinner party to the second son of an -English duke. Tra la la!” - -Before the morning was over even philosophy had folded her wings. If -life had been niggardly yesterday she gave with both hands today. When -Ida arrived at the bank she was received with exceeding deference by -the vice-president and informed that he had recently invested two -hundred thousand dollars in her name, acting on instructions from Mr. -Compton; and that as a large part of it was in mortgages the interest -in some cases ran as high as eight per cent. The money had been placed -in his hands for investment shortly after the great land deal, details -of which had reached the public ear in due course and greatly added to -the prestige of Gregory Compton. In fact it had invested his remote -and ambiguous personality with an almost sinister significance. As -Ida listened to the story of this transaction (she barely had opened -a newspaper in New York and knew nothing of it), she found herself -wondering if it could be true that once she had possessed this man of -whom even bankers spoke with bated breath. It was patent that they -stood in awe not only of the rapid and masterly strokes which had -increased his little patrimony by something over two millions in less -than a year, but of his colossal luck, his sensational reputation as a -“winner”, and his open defiance of the greatest of all great trusts. - -It seemed to Ida, as she sat in the vice-president’s office listening -to his classification of her husband with Marcus Daly, W. A. Clark, -and F. Augustus Heinze, the three commanding figures heretofore in the -financial history of Montana, and to predictions that Compton would go -farther than any one of his predecessors, that she might have known -Gregory in his extreme youth or in some previous existence; but that -this man who now not only ranked first in the eyes of all Montana, -but had focussed the attention of a continent, no longer touched -her life save as a fairy-godfather. It was the first time that she -had appreciated his fame. She had been absorbed in Europe and its -diversions--and diverters; the new wealth had been accepted as a matter -of course; her imagination had not been powerful enough to visualise at -a distance what her mind grasped the moment the facts were presented to -her in the measured yet glowing terms of a bank’s president. - -“He always did feel himself a cut above me,” she thought grimly as she -left the building and walked down Main Street. “And now, I suppose, he -thinks Perch of the Devil is Mount Olympus, and that he is some god. -It would be fun to put a nick or two in his halo--but never mind: I’ve -got a cool two hundred thousand--_and_ a palatial residence, _and_ a -limousine--sounds like a fairy tale. There’s nothing mean about him, -anyhow.” - -When she reached her beautiful home she found four reporters awaiting -her. They apologised for not meeting her at the train, but as hour -after hour had passed with discouraging reports, they finally had -gone home to recuperate for the next day’s labours. Ida dismissed the -last of her regrets, and told them all that she wished Butte to know -at once, showed the women the contents of her trunks, which the maids -were unpacking, promised to let them know when the newer Paris wardrobe -arrived, and finally gave them lunch. Reporters are the quickest people -in the world to detect affectations, assumptions, and false values, and -the most merciless in their exposure; but, although these four were on -the alert, they could find neither traces of original commonness nor -imitation of the British aristocracy. Ida apparently had consigned the -slang of her former class to the limbo of careless grammar, and she was -so simple and natural that they failed to discover how clever she was; -they agreed, as they walked down Broadway, that she was merely a marvel -of adaptability, like so many others that had done credit to the great -state of Montana, to say nothing of the fluid West in general. - -But, although Ida could be anything she chose when occasion demanded, -she always sought relief from the strain as quickly as possible. -Immediately after the departure of the reporters she telephoned for her -limousine and drove to the large “Block” in the heart of the business -district where Miss Ruby Miller kept the looks of the Butte ladies up -to par. As she left the elevator she saw that the familiar door was -open as usual and the old screen before it. She tapped discreetly, and -Miss Ruby came out into the hall, removing the cold cream from her -hands with her apron. - -“Ide!” she cried rapturously, throwing both arms about her friend’s -velvet shoulders. “Glory be, but I’m glad to see you and you do look -fine----” - -“How mean of you not to meet me----” - -“We had it all fixed and supper here, but gave it up at ten o’clock. -For all we knew you might not get in till morning, and you know how we -work----” - -“Well, I’ll forgive you if you both come to dinner with me tonight. I -want to have one good old time before I sit up and play the grande dame -act for weeks on end----” - -“I guess you’re one now without any play-acting. You look the real -thing all right. And I guess we won’t see so awful much of you now----” - -“Do you mean because I’m harnessed up to a bunch of money----” began -Ida in high indignation. - -“Oh, I know you’ll always feel the same, but grand dames and our sort -don’t gee at the same table. The West is democratic but it ain’t too -democratic. Don’t think I’m jealous. You’re just where I’d like to -be myself, and I’m proud that one of us has got to the top so quick. -My! But Mr. Compton’s a wonder. To think that I ever dared call him -Greg--even behind his back. Well, he’ll be just as proud of you as you -are of him. Pearl’ll want to see your hats.” - -“She can copy them all. Be sure to come early.” - -She felt warmed by the little interview, but as she went down in the -elevator she admitted to herself that her future intercourse with her -old friends must be sporadic, no matter what her loyalty; and she -wondered if her new friends would take their place; or even be to her -the half of what Ora had become in the long intimacy of travel. She -shrugged her handsome shoulders. If you elected to mount in life, you -must pay the toll. Were she abruptly returned to the old cottage in -East Granite Street certainly Ruby and Pearl would not compensate her. -No, not for a moment. You may slip back in life if you are not strong -enough to hold on, but you do not deliberately turn back even for the -friends of your youth. Neither does Progress halt and sit down to wait -for its failures to catch up. Ida leaned back in her limousine and met -the interested eyes of many pedestrians of both sexes as her chauffeur -drove her about for an hour to get the air, and incidentally to be -looked at. - -Today she was in a mood to enjoy Butte, and she deliberately summoned -the long anticipated sensations. She revelled in the gaunt grey -ugliness of Anaconda Hill which flung its arrogant head high above the -eastern end of the great hill itself; in the sensation of driving over -miles of subterranean numbered streets, some of them three thousand -feet below, to which that famous mass of rock and dirt and angular -buildings was the portal. She leaned far out of her car to admire the -glittering mountains that looked like blue ice topped with white, and -decided that they were far more original and beautiful than the Alps of -Austria and Switzerland; certainly they tugged at her heartstrings and -at the same time filled her with an unprecedented desire to sing. She -noticed for the first time that the violet foothills against the nearer -mountain east of the city seemed to close the end of the streets as the -Alps did in Innspruck, and gave the ragged overgrown camp clinging to -its high perch in the Rockies a redeeming touch of perfect beauty. - -She drove out to Columbia Gardens, bought flowers from the conservatory -for her rooms, and wandered about recalling the many gay times she had -had in the dancing pavilion. But her eye was suddenly arrested by the -steep mountain behind, then dropped slowly to the base. It was there -that she had promised to marry Gregory Compton. She remembered his -young passion and her own. She had never felt anything like it again; -nor had he ever been quite the same. Was it one of those “supreme -moments” novelists so blithely alluded to? The logical inference of -that old bit of bathos was that such moments had no duplicates. She -felt faint and dizzy for a moment; then walked back to her car, smiling -grimly as she realised that she had experienced a fleeting echo of that -vast unattainable desire women live and die cherishing or bewailing. -“Poor things! Poor things!” she thought, with the first pang of pity -her sex had ever inspired. “No wonder they go in for suffrage, art, -work, any old thing. Home,” she added to the chauffeur. - -She peremptorily dismissed all thought of the past during the drive -back to town and reverted to her pleasure in once more feeling a part -of her surroundings, hideous though they might, for the most part, be; -instead of walking with alert critical eye through what always must -seem to her the animated pages of ancient history. But her complacency -received a sudden shock. The car was rolling along Park Street when her -eye rested upon a man’s face vaguely familiar. She had bowed graciously -and the face was behind her before she realised that the man was -Professor Whalen, and that, for a second, she had looked into a pair of -pale blue eyes that sent her a swift message of hate. - -Ida shuddered. The warm light air of her beloved Rockies turned cold -and heavy. “I feel as if I’d stepped on a snake and just missed getting -bitten,” she thought, putting her sensations into a concrete form, -after her habit. “I had forgotten the little viper was alive, and I -wish to goodness he wasn’t.” She had flouted superstition always, but -she could not shake off the sense of menace and evil that had vibrated -from the man until she was within her own doors once more. Then she -became as oblivious of Whalen’s existence as during that late exotic -period when everything connected with her old life had seemed too crude -to be real. - -The parlour maid handed her a note that had arrived an hour before from -Mr. Luning, Mark’s partner. Mrs. Blake, he wrote, had bought a present -for Mrs. Compton in Paris and sent it to the care of her husband’s -firm. Mr. Luning had gone the day before to Great Falls to clear it in -the Custom House, and now had the pleasure of forwarding the boxes, etc. - -“Good gracious!” exclaimed Ida, “what can it be?” - -“There’s four big boxes in the back hall, ma’am.” - -Ida lost no time. If Ora had given her a present it must be worth -looking at, and she went as rapidly as dignity would permit to the -nether regions and ordered the boxes opened. The present proved to -be a magnificent silver service, from many dozens of “flat ware” to -massive platters, vegetable dishes, flower, fruit and bon-bon pieces, -and candelabra. The delighted servants made a shining display on -the dining-room table, and after Ida had gloated over it for a time -and informed her audience that it was copied from a royal service -in the Louvre, she went suddenly up to her bedroom. This time she -did shed a few tears, and as she looked at her handkerchief in some -wonder she decided that there was at least one person that she loved, -“hard-headed” as she was, and that Ora Blake had found the one soft -spot in her flinty heart and wormed herself into it. She went to -her desk immediately and wrote Ora a letter that was almost tender, -admitting that she missed her “like fury”, and begging her to return -soon. - -“Greg telephoned this morning,” she concluded, oblivious that she was -betraying the fact that she had not seen her husband, “and told me to -tell you to keep Mark down below for several months. But his lungs must -be well by this time or he’d be dead. And the rest of him will mend all -the sooner in this magnificent air. Heavens, but it’s good to breathe -it again! It makes one feel as if the atmosphere of Europe hadn’t been -aired for a century. I’ve got a wonder of a house and a jim dandy of a -limousine, but ever since I came I’ve felt kind of homesick, and I’ve -just realised it’s for you, old girl. So, come home. Once more ten -million thanks.” - -And when Ruby and Pearl dined with her that night she realised that all -her old zest in their society was gone. Ida Hook, at least, had “passed -on.” - - - - -IV - - -It was on the morning of this same day that Gregory sat alone in his -cabin uncommonly idle, for he still spent the greater part of his -time underground, when not away on business connected with his new -investments and deals. For the last week he had not left the hill, and -although he was on the alert to hear his geological acumen vindicated, -he was in no mood to find pleasure in his mine. His conscience, an -organ that troubled him little, was restive. In spite of his liberal -disbursements, he knew that he had treated Ida unfairly. He had long -since made up his mind to obliterate her from his personal life, and, -if the truth must be told about a man who had snapped his fingers in -the face of the most formidable combination of capital in the world, -he was afraid to meet his wife. Vanity, he argued, in such women takes -the place of warmth, and he had no mind to burden his memory and -resource with an endless chain of subterfuges; nor had he any relish -for the bald statement that since he could not have the woman he wanted -he would have none; and that his mine, as complex and mysterious, -as provocative of dreams, as capricious and satisfying as woman -herself--to say nothing of hard work and increasing power--was to fill -his life. - -Ida might rage, stamp, scream, with her hands on her hips, her superb -eyes flashing. Worse still, she might weep, lamenting that he loved her -no longer--if he made her hurried friendly calls. Far, far worse, he -might succumb to her beauty and superlative femaleness and hate himself -ever after. His was to be a life of unremitting and constructive work; -he must keep that blue flame burning on the altar in his sanctuary. If -he never paused to draw it up into his consciousness he must know it -was there. - -Better stay away until she understood all that it was necessary -she should know, wore out her pique in private, and accepted the -situation. But he would have felt better this morning if he had heard -that her train had arrived early in the evening. He might be ruthless, -even where women were concerned, but he was also sensitive and capable -of tenderness. - -But he was not thinking of Ida alone. He was listening for the -footsteps of Joshua Mann, and in a few moments he heard them, as -well as the angry growl of his foreman’s voice. Mann entered without -ceremony. - -“I’ve been looking for you, sir. We’ve the devil’s own luck again----” - -“Apex struck the Primo vein?” - -“No, and won’t for fifty feet yet. But--well--I hate to say it--we’ve -lost our vein--cut off as short as if it had been sawed. Of course, -it’s faulted, and God only knows where its dropped to--or how far. -A prettier shoot of ore was never uncovered. What’s worrying me is -that--oh, hell!--just suppose that’s what Amalgamated is sinking on. My -head’s going round. Can I have something?” - -Gregory waved his hand toward the cupboard where his visitors found -refreshment. When Mann had braced himself, his employer tapped a large -sheet of paper that lay on the table. - -“Come here,” he said. “I made this map some time ago, and calculated -to a day when you would lose the vein. I guessed our vein had faulted -before Amalgamated got busy. But don’t worry. They’re either on a -parallel vein or on a mere fork.” His pencil moved along the vein -already stoped, travelled over the fault line and recovered a vein -further down. “Hundred feet,” he said. “With air drills and unless the -fault breccia is uncommonly hard, which I don’t think is the case, we -should find it in less than three weeks. They can’t get through that -rock for at least a month. Even then they may not touch us, but then -again they may, and we must be there first. Cut across the fault at -once and follow it on the footwall side to the east. Get well into the -footwall. If you don’t recover the vein inside of a hundred feet I’ll -stand to lose a thousand dollars and you’ll be the winner.” - -“I guess not,” said Mann admiringly. “But, by jing! I was worried. You -never can tell about them faults. When the old earth split herself up -and got to slipping she not only lost one side of herself sometimes, -but twisted about as if she was having fun with the apex law of Montana -in advance. But I figure out that you’re like old Marcus Daly--you’ve -got a sort of X-ray in your eye that sees the ore winking below. So -long.” - -He departed to carry encouragement to the anxious miners, and Gregory -went out and walked along his hill. By this time he knew every inch -of it, and had found indications of ore in his other claims while -superintending the development work necessary before perfecting his -patents. If Amalgamated sank on his present vein and the courts -enjoined him from working it until the matter of apex rights was -settled, he would simply go ahead and sink through the carbonates in -his other claims to those vast deposits of chalcopyrite with which he -was convinced his hill was packed. He knew the geological history of -every mine in Montana, and while he had given up all hope of finding -gold on his estate save in small incidental values, he believed that he -possessed one of the greatest copper deposits in the Rocky Mountains. -And now that even one vein of his hill was threatened, he dismissed his -old dreams with a shrug and transferred his undivided affection to the -exciting treasure the earth had given him. There were few surprises -in gold mines. A great copper mine might make geological history. In -two districts, Butte and Castle Mountain, copper glance, an ore of -secondary enrichment, had been found far down in the sulphide zone -below chalcopyrite, chief of the primary ores. He believed that he -should find glance at depth of nine hundred feet. If there were masses -of it he should take out millions in a year, for chalcopyrite was the -richest of the permanent copper ores of this region, running as high as -79.8. - -He had been on amiable terms with the manager and engineer of the Apex -Mine since the battle underground, and he crossed the claim unmolested -to make his daily inspection of the Primo shaft house. But there had -been no further attempt to use the cross-cut, although the Apex people -had managed before they were discovered to drive to the point upon -which they expected to sink. - -Gregory walked up the hill beyond to look at the cottage just -completed, which was to be occupied by the manager and foreman of the -Primo Mine as soon as Mark reopened it. He had been about to begin -operations, cutting across the fault Gregory had demonstrated--a fault -parallel to the one in Perch of the Devil--when he was shot nearly to -death. - -The cottage was situated in a clearing in the pine woods, somewhat -apart from the cabins, which were being renovated and made comfortable -for the miners. Gregory was so positive that the pyroxenite vein would -be recovered just beyond the row of aspens, some sixty feet below -the tableland, that Mark, who believed his friend to be an inspired -geologist, was preparing for a long period of mining; although if -it had been a quartz mine Gregory, sure as he was of his judgment, -would not have permitted him to put up a mill and concentrating plant -until sufficient ore had been blocked out to warrant the expense. But -pyroxenite went direct to the smelter, and a cottage could always be -rented. - -The little bungalow had two bedrooms besides one for a Chinese servant, -a bathroom, and a large living-room with a deep fireplace, a raftered -ceiling, and pine walls stained brown. Gregory, as he realised how -cosy it would be when furnished, wondered that he had been satisfied -with his two-roomed cabin for so long. He had been too absorbed to -think of comfort, but today he felt a desire for something more -nearly resembling a home than a perch. He looked through the windows -at the sibilant pines, the pink carpet of primrose moss, the distant -forests rising to the blue and white mountains; and then he sighed as -he glanced slowly about the long room and pictured it furnished in -warm tones of red and brown, wondering if either of the men would be -married. It would be an ideal home for a honeymoon. - -He twitched his shoulders impatiently and went outside. To his surprise -he saw a wagon ascending the hill laden with lumber, the seats occupied -by the contractor and carpenters that had built the bungalow. - -“What’s up?” he asked, as the contractor leaped to the ground. - -“Another bungalow. Perhaps you could suggest a site. It’s to be near -this, and the same size. We had a telegram from Mr. Blake yesterday.” - -“But what does he want of two cottages?” - -“Can’t say, sir, unless he means to come out here to get well.” - -“That’s nonsense. He knows he could stay at my house on the ranch.” - -But Gregory was not in the habit of thinking aloud. After indicating -a site he swung back to his hill, angry and apprehensive. Could it -be possible that Mark intended to spend the summer at the mine and -bring his wife with him? As soon as he reached his cabin he sat down -at his table, and after getting his friend’s present address from -Luning, telephoned a long distance message to Pony to be telegraphed -to Mr. Mark Blake in Santa Barbara. Its gist was that the weather was -abominable and that Mark must not think of anything so foolish as to -bring his weakened heart and lungs to this altitude. His services -would be imperative later when his solicitous friend locked horns with -Amalgamated, and meanwhile he was, for heaven’s sake, to take care of -himself and remain on the coast until he was in a condition to work day -and night. - -He received an answer that afternoon. - -“No intention of leaving here for two months. Lungs pretty good, but -shall wait for leg to heal. Ora wants present cottage for herself as -she intends to spend summer at mine. Will you be on the lookout for a -manager? He can live in the lessee’s shack until the new cottage is -built. Might begin operations at once. Hope this not too much trouble. -Mark.” - -This message was transmitted over the telephone, and, to the excessive -annoyance of the operator, who happened to be the belle of Pony, -Gregory asked her three times, and with no excess of politeness, to -repeat it. The third time he wrote it out and stared at the words as if -the unsteady characters were recombining into a sketch of the infernal -regions. - -“Good God!” he thought. “And I can’t get away!” - -Was Mark mad? Was she mad? Then he realised the blissful ignorance of -both regarding the drama he so often had swept from the stage of his -mind, that secret dweller in the most secret recesses of his soul. -Doubtless Ora never had thrown him a thought since they parted at her -gate. He remembered her expressed intention to live at her mine when -the lease was up, her desire to adventure underground, her intense -appreciation of the romance of mining. He closed his eyes, his face -relaxed. So long as she cared nothing for him there was no danger; he -might daydream about her a bit. At least--at last!--he should see her -again, talk to her, work with her, help her as no one else could help -her. If the association he would have avoided was inevitable why not -welcome it as a brief oasis in what must be an arid life, so far as -mortal companionship was concerned? - -But he was not the man to dream long. Presently he opened his eyes, -set his jaw until it looked a yard long, put on his overalls, and went -underground. - - - - -V - - -Butte long since had made up its mind as to the social future of -Mrs. Gregory Compton. That Ida’s mother had been a laundress and her -father a miner concerned the ladies of Butte as little as many similar -outcroppings of family history peculiar not only to Montana but to all -regions of recent exploitation and rapid growth. - -In the hearty welcome extended to the newcomer, with either the -money or the personality to command its attention, Butte more nearly -resembles London than any other city in the world. To pasts she is -indifferent, provided they are not resurrected as models for a present: -she asks no questions of a pretty, amiable, amusing woman who pays -her the compliment of sojourning in her midst, so long as the lady -exercises an equal reticence--assuming reticence to be her virtue--and -plays the social game with _savoir faire_. Distractions on that high -perch are few, social life ebbs oftener than it flows, many of the -large houses are closed for the greater part of the year, and only the -very young, who care not where they are so long as they may dance, find -life in an overgrown mining camp as satisfactory as their elders find -New York. - -But the hospitality of Butte is genuine and founded largely upon common -sense. Most of the women composing its society have enjoyed wealth for -many years: they have travelled extensively; and if they continue to -make their homes in Butte it is solely on account of their own business -interests or those of their men. They argue that to deprive themselves -of even the casual diversion, assuming the exclusive airs of large -and resourceful communities, would merely put them on a level with -thousands of other small towns slowly stagnating, be unworthy of their -worldly experience, and of the large free spirit of the Northwest which -has pervaded that isolated camp since they came with their husbands or -fathers to take a hand in its history. - -As for Mrs. Gregory Compton all they knew of her in her present -stage of development was favourable, although several had a lively -remembrance of the rosy black-haired Ida Hook delivering her excellent -mother’s laundry work at their back door, and receiving more or less -of her “cheek.” But they had heard, at the time, of her lessons with -Professor Whalen, and of Ora Blake’s coincident interest. Of her social -advantages and triumphs in Europe the press had kept them informed; she -returned to Butte, in fact, as one new-born. Moreover, she now owned -one of the finest houses in the city for entertaining, they knew that -she had elected to shine in Butte rather than in London (that Mecca of -so many quick-rich women without position in their own country); and -above all she was the wife of Gregory Compton, the man in whom Montana -was beginning to feel assured it could take an unequivocal pride, not -only for his diabolical cleverness, but because he was as “straight” -as the Twentieth Century in the United States of America would permit. -Butte felt devoutly grateful to Ida for being and returning, and, with -that utter lack of affectation that characterised it, began calling two -days after her arrival. - -Ida would have been glad to have had Ora’s support and advice during -this ordeal--which caused her far more apprehension than ducal -week-ends. But she summoned all her acquired knowledge and tact, -fortified it with her native and supreme confidence in herself, and -made no mistakes. Butte was charmed with the severe rich gowns that set -off her haughty head and warmly colored face and the long, flowing, -yet stately lines of her beautiful figure; charmed also with a manner -that was both simple and dignified. She showed no enthusiasm at being -taken up so promptly, neither did she quite accept it as a matter of -course. If her talk ranged freely over common acquaintance in London, -the Paris dressmakers of the season, the new opera, the plays of the -moment in New York, it was without glibness, and she took a firm hold -on the older and more important women of the community by confiding to -them that she should not make her first venture in the difficult art of -entertaining until her friend Mrs. Blake returned to help her through -the novitiate. Many of the younger women were the wives of Amalgamated -officials and attorneys, or of men in a relationship to that mighty -power but one degree further removed; but the men individually were too -broad-minded to cherish a personal grudge against Compton, and they -were, moreover, quite as eager as their mates to meet his handsome wife. - -During the ensuing fortnight Ida dined out every night, went to a -bridge party every afternoon, as well as to several luncheons, teas, -and dances. She wore a different costume every time she appeared in -public; but although there was at the moment nothing in Butte to -compare with her gowns she never produced the effect of outshining the -other women by anything but her beauty and individual style. In short -her success was so immediate and so final that, although she liked -these ladies of her native town even better than she had anticipated, -her rapid conquest soon lost its novelty, and she wished that Ora would -return; not only because she missed her increasingly, but because to -entertain in her great house would give her a new and really poignant -excitement, and lift her definitely from the ranks of the merely -received. - -Gregory telephoned every few days, and never twice at the same hour. -When she found herself restlessly awaiting the ring of the instrument, -she dashed out of the house angrily and took a walk. If she found upon -her return that he had called her up, she felt that he had given her -the excuse to telephone to him, and she soon learned at what hours she -could find him either in his cabin or down in the mine, where he had -a booth. She was furious at what she called her raging female vanity, -and if she could have found another man to assuage it she would not -have hesitated to press him into service at whatever cost to himself. -But, as happens more often than not, there was not an unmarried man in -Butte old enough to be worthy of a fastidious woman’s notice. She would -have yawned in the face of “Brownies”, and, although more than one -roving husband would have placed himself at her disposal, she was the -last woman to court scandal or even gossip. She longed for the advent -of Lord John Mowbray, whose gayety would distract her mind, and whose -devotion make her forget that she was a neglected wife. She could throw -dust into the eyes of Butte by pretending to be his matrimonial sponsor. - -But for the first time she wished that she had children. The great -house seemed to demand the patter of small feet, the slamming of -doors, a row of naughty faces peering over the banister of the second -floor. It was terribly silent. And yet she had felt settled down in -that house at once, so long had one of its kind been the object of her -unswerving desire; its atmosphere already seemed to hang listless with -ennui. She subscribed to both the state and city suffrage fund, for -she felt a new sympathy for women who were trying to fill their lives, -and sincerely hoped they would invent some game that would make them -independent of men. - -Seventeen days after her return she was sitting in the library, trying -to forget her solitary luncheon in a novel when she heard the front -doorbell ring. Her servants were amiable but not too competent, and she -waited impatiently and in vain for one of them to answer the summons. -She restrained the impulse to open the door herself. This was now an -obsolete custom among her new acquaintance; although having the front -door shut in one’s face while the colored maid took one’s card to the -lady of the stately mansion was hardly an improvement, and this had -been her experience a day or two ago. She rang the bell in the library. -Still there was no sign of life from the high-priced young women who -doubtless were gossipping over the back fence. Ida’s curiosity overcame -her. The hour was too early for callers. It might be a cable. She stole -to the front door and peered through its curtain of Honiton lace. Then -she gave a war whoop which would have horrified her servants--who, -careless as they were, stood in awe of her--flung the door open, caught -Ora in her arms and almost carried her into the library. - -“Good Lord, but I’m glad to see you!” she cried. “I’m just about dead -of lonesomeness. Why didn’t you telegraph? I’d have met you if your -train didn’t get in till two in the morning.” - -Ora laughed and disentangled herself, although she kissed Ida warmly. -“I just got in--came here on the way from the station and sent my bags -to the house--but I always did hate to be met. How beautiful your house -is.” - -“It’s all right. But it’s about as cheerful to live alone in as one -of those palaces in the Via Garibaldi! My, but I’m glad you’re here. -You’re the only person I ever missed, and being a real lady for weeks -on end is telling on my plebeian health. I didn’t have any relief even -in New York. How’s Mark?” - -“Quite well, except for his broken leg.” - -“Is he here?” - -“Oh, no--I left him in Santa Barbara--that is to say at the Club House -at Montecito, the fashionable suburb. He has a jolly circle of friends -there, and has no desire to travel any further until he can walk.” - -Ida put her hands on Ora’s shoulders and turned her round to the -light. “What’s up?” she demanded. “You look fine, as pretty as a -picture--but--different, somehow.” - -“I’ve left Mark.” - -Ida glanced into the hall. The opening of back doors indicated that one -of the maids had condescended to remember she was a wage earner. “Let’s -go upstairs,” said Ida; and as they crossed the hall she said to the -girl who was hastening to the front door with a propitiating smile, -“You’re just about ten minutes too late, as usual, and the next time it -happens you lose your job. I’m not the sort that sits down and wails -over the servant question. This house will be run properly if I have to -send East for help. Now put on your hat and run down to Mrs. Blake’s -house and bring up her bags, and tell them to send her trunks here. - -“Yes, you’re going to stay with me for the present,” she said, as Ora -protested. “Don’t say another word about it.” - -Ora shrugged her shoulders, and when they were in Ida’s bedroom she -took off her hat and coat and wandered about aimlessly for a few -moments. Ida was almost breathless with impatience and a curious sense -of apprehension that vaguely recalled the strange terror Ora had -inspired on the day of their meeting. Ora wore a blue frock, and Ida -noticed that the yellow room did not dim her fair radiance. If possible -she was holding her head higher than usual, her skin “gleamed” more -than ever, there was a curious light in her always brilliant eyes, half -defiant, half exultant. - -“Do sit down!” said Ida sharply, cutting short Ora’s voluble approval -of the room. “There, that’s right,” as Ora flung herself into a chair. -“Now, fire away. You’re brimming over with something. Do you mean that -you’ve left Mark for good and all?” - -“Yes.” - -“Told him so?” - -Ora nodded. - -“Did you tell him about Valdobia, or what? For heaven’s sake open up.” - -“No, I--I thought I wouldn’t tell him everything at once. I told him -that I meant to spend the rest of my life in Europe, and that it -was only fair to himself to divorce me--he can do it easily on the -ground of desertion--and marry someone who would make a real home for -him--make him happy.” - -“Ah! Mark’s the sort women marry but don’t fall in love with. And what -did he say when you handed him that?” - -“He was rather broken up.” - -“Really! And you? I always had an idea that when it came to the point -you wouldn’t do it. You have high-falutin’ notions about honor, -noblesse oblige, and all the rest of it, to say nothing of being really -soft, as I once told you. There’s only one thing that would make you -hard--to everyone else--and that’s being in love----” - -“That is it!” exclaimed Ora eagerly. “I’ve made up my mind to marry -Valdobia. I wasn’t so sure when I left Europe, but you know what -separation often does----” - -“Yes,” said Ida dryly, “I do. Well, Mark will have to take his -medicine, I guess. I’ve never doubted, since Valdobia joined us in -Genoa, that he was the man for you. It’s fate, I guess. But tell me -what Mark said, after all. Did he consent?” - -“There was nothing else to do. He knew I meant it. I broke it to -him by degrees. Besides, he knew how it was long before I left for -Europe. He had practically given me up. Of course he was fond of me--I -had become a habit and made him comfortable, besides being useful -to him--but--well, I gave him six years--my youth!” she burst out -passionately. “What wouldn’t I give to wipe out those years, be twenty -again and free! I tried to make him understand that I was no longer in -the least like the bewildered undeveloped girl he had married; and that -I bore as little resemblance to the intellectual automaton I made of -myself later. I told him that I was awake once for all, and that rather -than live again with a man I couldn’t care for I’d be boiled in oil. -Then he understood.” - -“I should think he might! Of course he asked if there was another man?” - -“Yes, but I told him that was neither here nor there; that in any case -I should leave him and live in Europe.” - -“Poor Mark! Tied by the leg, and lost in the shuffle!” - -“You know as well as I do that I have nothing in me for Mark and that -if I cared as little for Valdobia it would only be fair to give him -a second throw for happiness. When I left him he was quite resigned, -and we have agreed to remain the best of friends. I shall leave him my -power of attorney as before, and he will continue to manage my affairs.” - -“How much more sensible we are in our Twentieth Century! No doubt he -will visit you in the Palazzo Valdobia when he takes a whirl at Europe.” - -“Why not? But tell me you think I did right, Ida?” Ora’s voice was very -sweet and plaintive. - -“You did what you were bound to do, I guess, when you met a man that -could throw a lariat round the neck of that romantic imagination of -yours. Right? I don’t know. I guess I’ve got the same old streak of -Puritan Americanism in me, although if other people want to have -_liaisons_ and divorces it’s none of my affair. Women will do more and -more as they damn please, I guess, men having set them such a good -example for a few centuries. But I simply hate the idea of losing you. -I want you right here in Butte. Lord, I’ve almost forgotten may slang!” - -Ora laughed with something like her old merriment. “Oh, you’ll have -me for an escape valve for a while yet. Valdobia’s mother is dying of -some lingering horrible disease. It wouldn’t be decent for me to go to -Rome, and I should be lonely anywhere else. So, I’ve made up my mind -to stay here during the summer at least, and realise a dream I used -to indulge in before I ever knew I could fall in love.” Once more she -looked straight at Ida, this time with the slow expectant smile of a -child. “I’m going to reopen my mine and run it myself--of course I -shall have a manager. Mark has written, or telegraphed, to Mr. Compton -to find one for me--but I shall live out there and go down every day, -and make believe I am doing something, too--at all events realise that -it _is_ my mine. Mining has always--that is, always did fascinate me -more than anything else on earth. I shall be devoted to Valdobia when I -am married to him, but I simply must have that adventure first----” - -“For heaven’s sake don’t go dotty like Gregory over a hole in the -ground. If you get that bee buzzing round in your skull I pity poor -Valdobia. If it were not for his mother I’d cable to him to come -out----” - -Ora’s face set with a hardness that arrested Ida’s observant eye. -“Don’t you do anything of the sort. Mark said once about my father, -‘It was characteristic of him that when he quit he quit for good.’ I -am always discovering more and more of my father in me. I’ll live that -old dream and it will finish when Valdobia and I both are free. Then I -shall wipe it off the slate--consign it to limbo.” She sprang to her -feet and stretched out her arms. “I am going to do exactly as I please -as long as I am free. Of course I am mad about Valdobia--you know that -I wouldn’t marry him if I were not--but I am mad too about liberty and -my mine. This is my only chance. And I am a Montanan, born in the Rocky -Mountains. I want something of the life that has made my state famous -before I become a European. I’ve never had anything of her but Butte. I -want the wild mountains--I want, above all, the mine that has given me -my freedom. I’m going to wear overalls and go down into the mine every -day.” - -“A sweet sight you’ll be!” said Ida disgustedly. “And the miners--Oh, -they’ll just love the idea of having a woman at their heels! What on -earth has got hold of you? It’s the only time I’ve ever known you -to get off your base. Why, there’s nothing a woman can do at a mine -unless she’s a graduated mining engineer, and nothing then that a man -couldn’t do better. You’ll be in the way and you’ll soon be bored to -death yourself. If you’re so crazy about Montana why don’t you do some -of those great things for her that your father suggested? And how do -you reconcile your marriage to an Italian with your devotion to your -father’s memory?” - -Ora turned away her head. “My father gave me too much of himself to -expect me to play the rôle of ministering angel to anything. I intend -to invest in Montana the greater part of all that I take out of my -mine. If it gives me one of the great fortunes I shall endow my state -in some way--as Mark may suggest. But I cannot live here. That is -for ever settled. When I go to Europe I shall never return--not even -to America. I shall forget my life here, everything connected with -it--everything! One side of me is already European. I shall become -wholly so.” - -“Somehow,” said Ida slowly, and with the sensation of being so close -to something that she couldn’t see it, “I don’t get the idea that -you’re so mad about Valdobia. Long since I figured that when you did -love a man you’d be a sort of white pillar of flame about him. I -firmly believe that Valdobia is the man for you, but, well--he fell -too quickly. He didn’t make you suffer, never kept you guessing for -a minute. The women that turn men’s heads are a good deal like men -themselves; they’ve got to be hurt hard and kept on tenterhooks before -they are in a condition to accommodate the virus. You are fond of -Valdobia, and well you may be, but mad isn’t the right word----” - -“Oh, yes it is! It is!” Ora was walking up and down the room. “You must -believe that I love him as I never dreamed I could love anybody----” - -“Hi!” cried Ida. “Your letter-man! That’s what! You were more nearly in -love with him than you are with Valdobia, and because, for some reason -or other, you couldn’t get him. Where is he?” - -Ora’s eyes looked large and blank. “That! I had quite forgotten it. -It was the last of a long line of mental love affairs. Those always -evaporate even from the memory when the real man comes along.” She -sighed heavily and sat down once more. “I know that I shall be happy -with Valdobia, only I am not happy now. That is so far off! And of -course I feel badly about poor Mark. But I couldn’t help it. Not to do -it would have been worse. And I should go off my head meanwhile if I -didn’t have this mine. Do you think I could remain here in Butte and go -to dinners and bridge parties? I should scream in their faces. I must -have work. Be sure I can find something to do at the mine--I suppose -there are a laboratory and assay office. And there will always be the -excitement of hoping to find free milling gold--at present what could -be more exciting than to drift for that lost vein?” - -“It wouldn’t keep me awake nights. But have your own way. I don’t want -you down with nerves, and that will happen if you don’t look out.” - -“If I don’t get my own way.” - -“Exactly. But I wish your way marched with mine. I’ve missed you like -fury--Say!--here’s an idea: I’ll go back to Europe with you now if you -like, and stay until you marry. There are lots of places we planned to -go to and didn’t----” - -“Ida, you are a dear! And you longed so for Butte. Why it would be like -tearing an author from his unfinished magnum opus. Besides--well--you -have a husband----” - -“Oh, Lord! Gregory is running the Universe at present. Women don’t -exist for him. Shall we go?” - -Ora shook her head. Her face had turned from white to pale. “No. I must -spend these last months of my freedom here in my state. And that lost -vein--it pulls me. I _must_ have that life for a few months--for the -first and last time. You--you--might spend your week-ends with me.” - -Ida scowled and turned away her head. She had no intention of admitting -even to Ora that Gregory deliberately avoided her. “Not I. I hate the -sight of the De Smet ranch. Go, if you like, but I feel sure you will -come in often. And before you go I wish you would do me a favour.” - -“Of course I will.” - -“Let me give you a dinner. I want to begin that sort of thing and -you’ll furnish the excuse besides helping me out.” - -“Very well. Have it soon. I want to go to the mine as quickly as -possible. I shall begin to send out the furniture for my bungalow -tomorrow.” - -“A week’s notice will be enough. I’ll write the invitations today. -There’s another reason I want to give this dinner. Gregory hasn’t been -seen anywhere with me--hates going out. But I shall make him understand -that he must come to my first dinner--or people will be talking--and I -hate people prying into my affairs. Besides, it will be his duty to you -as the wife of his best friend. (He needn’t know you’ve left Mark yet -awhile.) I’m not hankering for the rôle of the neglected wife; and I’m -sick of making excuses. For all Butte knew I might not have laid eyes -on my husband since my return.” - -And although she spoke bravely Ora knew that she had not. “We’ll have -the dinner,” she said warmly. “And it will be great fun to get it -up----” - -“Now, come this minute and go to bed. You are to stay with me as -long as you are in this camp, and I’m going to tone you up, and make -you rest as we used to in Europe every afternoon--hard work in this -altitude but it can be done. I’ve got to go to a bridge party now, and -you are to sleep. If you feel rested when I get back, I’ll call up two -or three of your old friends and ask them to come informally to dinner. -So long.” - -She closed the door of her best spare room on Ora and walked slowly -back to her own, her brows drawn; once more quick with a sensation -of profound uneasiness, of being close to something that she could -not see. But it was not her habit to ponder for long over the elusive -and obscure. “Guess I’m worried about Ora’s health,” she thought -impatiently, and rang for her maid. - - - - -VI - - -Two days later Gregory received the following note from his wife: - - DEAR GREGORY: - - Ora is here, and before going out to the mine has promised to help - me through the ordeal of my first big dinner. Entertaining goes with - this house, and although I am beginning somewhat sooner, perhaps, - than is necessary, I have my reasons. I have asked twenty-four - people, the most important of the older and the younger married - sets. The dinner is to be at eight o’clock Tuesday. I want you to - come. Yow have been very generous, but there is one thing more that - you can do for me and I feel that I have the right to demand it. - If you no longer care for me, that is something I cannot help; nor - you either for that matter. But so far as the world knows, I am - your wife, and if we are never seen together there is bound to be - disagreeable gossip. I don’t want to be gossipped about. It is vulgar - and it complicates life. The Butte women I most wanted to know are - all right, but the town has the usual allowance of fools and scandal - mongers. By showing yourself at my first dinner in your own house - you will muzzle them. You can arrive in time for dinner and take a - late train back to Pony, if there is one. But please come. I am sure - if you think it over you will admit that I am merely proving my new - knowledge of the world in asking for your formal protection. - - IDA. - -Gregory read this note hastily when he found it in his morning mail-bag -in company with many business letters, to which he also gave scant -attention: he was in haste to go underground. There was still no sign -of the lost vein, and nineteen days of the three weeks’ limit he had -set himself were gone. But they broke into it that same afternoon. He -barely left the mine until the following morning, but he finally sought -his cabin and bed satisfied that the recovered vein of copper pyrite -was, like the original, six feet thick and as rich in values. When he -awoke he remembered Ida’s note, and although it had provoked a frown of -annoyance when he read it, his spirits were now so ebullient that he -not only admitted the justice of her demand, but would have granted -almost anyone a reasonable request. - -Moreover, as he reread the note, its restraint and dignity struck -him forcibly, as well as its remote likeness to the Ida Hook he had -wooed in Nine Mile Cañon. Certainly she had made the most of her -opportunities! - -And apparently she had recovered from her first disappointment, or -pique--if, indeed, she had felt either--and he assumed that the -last year, crowded with exceptional experiences, had made her over -into something like a woman of the world. No doubt among her many -accomplishments she had acquired self-control. (That she might also -have acquired finesse did not occur to him.) He dismissed the fear -that she would make a scene--and himself thoroughly uncomfortable. On -the whole it would be interesting to see Ida as a bird of paradise. -He remembered her in shirtwaists and serviceable skirts, and recalled -that he had sometimes thought it a pity she should not have the plumage -worthy of her beauty and style. - -And if the fates had willed that he must meet Ora Blake again he -preferred that the first interview should be in public. - -He rang up Pony and in the course of half an hour was connected with -Butte. - -“Hello!” he said cordially, as he heard his wife’s voice. “Got your -letter, but couldn’t find time to answer before. I’ll come to the -dinner with pleasure.” - -“Oh, I am so glad.” Ida’s tones were crisp and cool. There was none of -the husky warmth that Gregory suddenly remembered; nor any of the old -common inflection. “Are your evening togs at Mark’s?” - -“Yes, will you send for them?” - -“I’ll have everything here in one of the spare rooms. The maid will -show you up if you are late. It takes me hours to dress.” - -“All right. Say--Ida--I wish you’d persuade Mrs. Blake to give up that -idea of coming out here. It won’t work. She’ll only be in the way of -the men, and if there was a big row on would be one more responsibility -for her manager. I suppose she knows I’ve opened up her mine. Besides, -it’s no place for a woman anyhow. There are only a few women--miners’ -wives--in my camp; none in the others.” - -“I’ve told her all that. But--well--you don’t know Ora. -Gambling--taking long chances--is in her blood, I guess. You should -have seen her at Monte Carlo. You must take in Mrs. Cameron, but I am -putting Ora on your left as it is time you two got acquainted. Try to -dissuade her. I want her to stay here with me.” - -“I’ll do my best. How are you getting on? Butte still panning out?” - -“I adore Butte and find nothing to change. It’s too wonderful--to have -all your old dreams come true like this! I hope your mine is behaving. -I heard a rumour the other day that you had lost your vein----” - -“Just found it again!” - -Ida noted the exultant ring of his voice, and was about to laugh when -she changed her tactics swiftly. “Good! I know just how fine you -feel--and that it wasn’t the loss of money that worried you either. -Well, the dinner will be a sort of celebration. Good-bye.” - -“Good-bye.” There was a faint accent of surprise in Gregory’s voice. -Ida smiled and returned to her interrupted toilette. - -“Just let me get a good chance at him once more,” she thought. “I’ll be -eating copper before I get through, but I don’t know him or his sex if -he won’t be nibbling off the same chunk.” - - - - -VII - - -The next week was the busiest she had ever known. All the people -that had called on her called again on Ora. Her cook collapsed when -told to prepare a dinner for twenty-eight people, and Ida, who would -not hearken to a public caterer and his too familiar idiosyncrasies, -telegraphed to St. Paul for a chef. What moments she had to spare after -consultations with this autocrat, with a temperamental designer of menu -cards, and with two high-handed young women whom she had been persuaded -by the charitable Mrs. Cameron to engage to decorate her rooms, were -spent with certain works on copper and mining that she had procured -from the public library. - -She looked forward to the evening of her dinner party with a secret -excitement that seemed to fork its lightning into every recess of her -brain, and electrify it with a sense of the fulness of life--that -hinted intoxicatingly of life’s perfections. Not only was she to live -the wildest dream of Ida Hook, but she had made up her mind to bring -the most important man in Montana to her feet on that triumphant night. -That the man was her husband, won the first time without an effort, -lost through her own indifference and ignorance, added tenfold to the -zest of the game. She knew the impression he must retain of her: crude, -obvious in her sex allurement, cheaply dressed, a sort of respectable -mining-camp siren; all her fascinations second-rate, and her best -points in the eyes of an absent-minded husband her good-natured -mothering and admirable cooking. - -If she had returned to find him as she had left him, a mere brilliant -hard-working student, and automatically attentive to his home partner, -no doubt she would have slipped into her original rôle at once, for she -was normally amiable, and she had strict ideas of wifely duties, which -her insistent vanity and deliberate flirtations never for a moment -endangered. They also filled the practical wants of a nature not -derived from artistic ancestors. She had had her “flyer”, and, allowing -for social triumphs, returned to Butte to settle down; although it -had been with a certain complacency that she had reflected during the -homeward journey upon the altered circumstances which would enable her -to live like a civilised being in her own apartments and see far less -of her husband than formerly. - -Her complacency had been treated to a succession of shocks since her -return; it had, in fact, finally gasped out its life; although it had -left self-confidence behind to sit at the feet of her shrewd clear -mind. She found a zest entirely new in bringing to his knees a man who -had been her husband when she was too raw and conceited to appreciate -him, who had developed into a personage, and who had conquered his mere -maleness and put women out of his life: she had consulted a detective -agency and convinced herself that her only rival was the mine. Ida was -nothing if not practical. Before preparing for her siege she chose to -know exactly where she stood. A rival of her sex would have demanded -one sort of tactics; a mere mine and the quickened business instinct -of a dreaming but outclassing brain, although she did not underrate -their peculiar dead walls and buffers, exacted a different and more -impersonal assault--at first. - -Much that she had failed to understand in her young husband was clear -to her now. His silences, his formidable powers of concentration, his -habit of thinking out his purposes unto the smallest detail before -verbal expression, his tendency to dream, combined with lightning -processes of thought, were the indispensable allies of his peculiar -gifts: she had talked with too many brilliant and active men during the -past year, to say nothing of her daily association with Ora, for whose -inherited and progressive intellect she had the highest respect, and -her own development had been too positive, rapid, and normal, not to be -fully aware that men born with the genius to conquer life were equipped -with powerful imaginations that necessarily made them silent thinkers. - -She had become intensely proud of her husband since her return, and his -neglect, coupled with his scrupulous generosity, had stung her pride -and aroused both desire and determination to recapture what she had -lost. She had no great faith in her capacity for love; but not only -was she fascinated by Gregory for the first time but she found him more -worthy of her accomplished coquetry than any man she had met in Europe. -She was firm in her resolve to repossess her husband, but not merely to -satisfy that pride which was the evolution of a more primitive vanity; -she felt a certain joyousness, a lilt of the spirit, at the thought of -spending her life with him, of being the complete helpmate of such a -man; even a disposition to dream, which was so new in her experience -that she banished it with a frown. “If I let go like other fool women, -I’ll make a grand mess of it,” was her characteristic reflection. - -She was dressing for the dinner when she heard him enter the house. The -parlour maid for once remembered her instructions, and led him up to -his room, which was on the opposite side of the hall from his wife’s -and at the extreme end. Her door was ajar, she heard his voice--whose -depth and richness were decimated by the telephone--his light foot -ascending the stair. For the moment she lost her breath, then with -an angry jerk of the shoulders regained her poise, and, in tones -careless enough to reassure any husband suddenly overwhelmed with the -awkwardness of his position, called out: - -“Good evening, Gregory. Hope you’ll find everything you want in your -room. Ring if you don’t. See you downstairs.” - -“Oh--thanks!” Gregory swallowed an immense sigh of relief. “I’ll be on -time.” - -Ida, assisted by the “upstairs girl”--she had not yet found a ladies’ -maid willing to come to Butte--continued her toilette. Her gown was -as nearly Renaissance as she thought her native Northwest would -stand at this stage of her social progress. It was “built”--a word -more appropriate to woman’s dress A.D. 1600 than today--of heavy -turquoise-blue brocade, the design outlined here and there with gold -thread. The long wrinkled sleeves almost covered her hands, and, -like the deep square of the neck, were tipped with fur. Her mass of -blue-black hair was closely twisted around her head from brow to the -nape of her neck, held above the low forehead by a jewelled stiletto -Ora had given her in Genoa, “to remind her of her midnight diversions -in the Renaissance palace over which her dim ancestral memories -brooded.” This she had dismissed as damn nonsense, but she liked the -stiletto with its rudely set stones, and had promised to wear it the -first time she got inside one of her near-Renaissance gowns. - -The pale subtle blue of the dress made her eyes look light and -altogether blue, the thick black underlashes and full white underlids -giving them an expression when in repose of cold voluptuousness. Her -skin against the dark edge of fur was as white as warm new milk. -Her costume and her regal air would have made her noticeable in the -proudest assemblage. She was well aware that not only was she a very -beautiful woman tonight but a dangerous one. And she might have stepped -from one of the tarnished frames in the Palazzo Valdobia. - -After the maid had been dismissed, she examined herself even more -critically. The coral of lip and cheek, while still eloquent of youth -and health, was more delicate than of old; all suggestion of buxomness -had disappeared. She looked older than when she had left Butte; the -casual observer would have given her thirty years; her cheeks were -less full, her mouth had firmer lines; the cold grey-blue eyes more -depth, justified their classic setting. Even her profile, released by -the finer contour of cheek and thrown into high relief by the severe -arrangement of her hair, contributed to the antique harmonies of her -head and form. - -“You’ll do,” she said to her image, and went down stairs. - -Several guests arrived at once and she was standing before her antique -English chimneypiece carved in California, chatting with three of -them when Gregory entered the room. She nodded amiably as if they -had met too recently for formalities. He took the cue and paused to -exchange a few words with two men that stood near the door. But Ida -had seen the startled opening of his narrow eyes which meant so much -in him. She also noted that, as other guests came in, he looked at -her again and again. In truth Gregory was startled almost out of his -trained stolidity. He had known a certain side of Ida’s cleverness, -and believed when he sent her abroad that she would make much of her -opportunities, the greatest of which was her constant association -with Ora Blake; but that she would return in less than a year looking -the great lady, and the handsomest woman he had ever seen, even his -energetic imagination had failed to consider. Magnetism, as of old, -surrounded her like an aura, but to this he was insensible, his own -magnetism having been caught and entangled with that of another. He -felt very proud of his wife, however, and, with a sudden impulse -of loyalty, he crossed the room and stood at her side. He also was -prompted to say in a tone pitched to reach other ears: - -“By George, you are simply stunning. I haven’t seen -this--a--frock--dress--before.” - -“Gown, my dear, gown. It only arrived a few days ago. I shall take you -to Europe with me next time--” - -“Take him soon!” said Mrs. Cameron. “Don’t give him time to wear out -before he has begun to live. Our tired business men!” - -“Next year!” said Ida, gayly. “He has half-promised and I’ll not let -him off.” As she looked into his eyes with bright friendliness, his -face relaxed with the smile which, she suddenly remembered, always had -won her from anger or indifference. He was openly delighted with her, -the more completely as he was both puzzled and relieved to see that -those splendid eyes held neither cold anger nor feminine reproach. -Moreover, although they softened for an instant before she was obliged -to turn away, it was with an expression that made her look merely sweet -and womanly, not in the least coquette or siren. Other guests claimed -her attention. He heard her give a little hiss, and saw her eyes flash. -Then he forgot her. Ora had entered the room. - -Her gown, of some soft imponderable fabric that gave the impression -of depth in colour, was the peculiar flaming blue of the night sky of -Montana. Gregory was reminded instantly of the night they had sat on -the steps of the School of Mines, with the pulsing sky so close above -them. The upper part of the gown was cut in points that curved above -her slight bust, the spaces between filled with snow-white chiffon -which appeared to be folded softly about the body. She wore her pearls, -but at the base of her slender throat was a closely fitting string of -Montana sapphires, of the same hot almost angry blue. Her little head -with its masses of soft ashen hair seemed to sway on the long stem-like -neck, her stellar eyes blazed. Her costume extinguished every other -blue in the room. - -“Really!” said Mrs. Cameron, whose black eyes under her coronet of -iron grey hair were snapping, “these two dear friends should have had -a consultation over their costumes for tonight.” She had never liked -Ora, and although, as the leader of Butte society, she made a point of -speaking well of all whom she did not feel obliged to ignore, she had -taken a deep liking to Ida; moreover, always a handsome woman herself, -she felt both sympathetic and indignant. This was Ida’s night, and she -scented treachery. - -She had addressed her remark to Gregory, but although he looked at -her politely he would not have heard thunder crashing on the roof. He -wondered if he were standing erect; he had a confused impression that -that wonderful blue gown was burning alcohol whose fumes were in his -head and whose flames swirled through all his senses. And the woman -within those curling blue flames was so much more beautiful than his -memory of her that he forgot not only his recent tribute to Ida, but -her bare existence until she tapped him sharply on the arm. - -“Dinner has been announced,” she said. “You are to take in Mrs. -Cameron.” Ida was smiling again; she had dismissed anger and annoyance; -nothing was to dim the radiance of her spirits tonight. She and Ora -would be at opposite ends of the table, and she could keep the length -of the drawing-room between them when they returned. - -Gregory’s face never betrayed him, particularly when he kept his -eyelids down, and, as he shook hands with Ora in the dining-room he -told her he was glad to see her again as casually as if his hand had -not tingled to crush hers. He talked with Mrs. Cameron, however, as -long as possible, but when her attention was claimed by the man on her -right, he was obliged to turn to Ora. By this time his blood was still. -Eating is commonplace work, and talking the inevitable platitudes of a -dinner’s earlier courses will steady the most riotous pulses. - -Ora smiled impersonally; her eyes might have beheld the husband of her -friend for the first time. - -“I am so glad to be able to ask you something about my mine,” she said. -“Ida tells me that you have reopened it.” - -“Yes, they are already through the fault and driving for the vein. -There happened to be a good man here looking for a job when I got -Mark’s telegram, a young engineer from the East, named Raymond. The -miners are good capable men, too, and as Osborne and Douglas installed -a compressor, the work should be pretty quick. I fancy you’ll recover -the vein in a week or two.” - -“I wonder if I shall? Mark thinks you infallible, but it seems too good -to be true.” - -“The vein is there, about a hundred feet down, but how rich it is I do -not venture to predict.” - -“Well, never mind,” Ora smiled happily. “I shall have the fun of -looking for it, and I want to be with the men when they find it.” - -“Oh--Ah--It really would be better for you to give up that idea of -going out there to stay----” - -“I thought I would give to you the opportunity to say that at once! Do -go on and relieve your mind.” - -“It is neither safe nor desirable,” he said sulkily. “I may have a row -on my hands any minute. Your men and my men are a decent lot, but the -Apex have employed a lot of scum so ignorant that there is no knowing -what they may do in a crisis--in the hope of currying favour with -their superiors. They would merely be made scapegoats or--canned--I -beg pardon, fired--but they don’t know that, and they’re as hard a lot -as Europe ever kicked on to our dump heap. Better stay here for the -present.” - -“I’ve sent out all the furniture for the bungalow, and Custer and a -Chinaman to put it in order. I suppose my engineer can camp in the -other cottage until it is finished. That is quite close to mine, I -understand.” - -“Oh, of course--but why not stay at my ranch house----” - -“That is too far from the scene of operations. Please don’t bother -about me. I should hate to think I was on your mind--you have enough! I -shall be well protected, and I’ve even bought an automatic. I suppose -being a born Westerner I should call it a gun. But it’s such a little -one. I shall carry it always----” - -“Yes, promise that.” - -“I’ve even had a little bag made, like those they wore years ago, to -fasten to my belt, and I shall keep it in that.” - -“Very well.” He dismissed the subject. “I--ah--there’s something I -heard today, but perhaps I should not speak of it. Only Mark is such an -old friend of mine----” - -“I suppose you saw Mr. Luning and he told you that we are to separate.” - -“Yes, that is it.” - -“I intend to live in Europe: I suppose you think that a callous reason.” - -“It’s as good as most reasons for divorce in this country. When is Mark -coming back?” - -“Not for two months. Nothing will be done until then. I want to have my -mining experience first and I shall leave Montana as soon as the papers -are served.” - -“Ah!” - -Her partner claimed her at the moment and, his own still being -occupied, he observed her furtively. He thought that she too looked -older, but not because advantages had improved her; rather--he groped -for the words that would give definiteness to his impression--as if -some experience had saddened her. She had a softer expression. The -blood rushed to his head and he almost choked with jealousy, his -intuitions carrying him straight to the truth. “By God! She has loved -some man,” he thought. Then he set his teeth. So much the better. - -But when she turned to him again, he said impulsively, although his -tones were light: - -“You never did fit this Western life of ours. Of course you have found -a more civilised mate in Europe?” - -“You are all wrong,” she said gaily. “My only love at present is my -mine. My mine! You should understand if anybody can.” - -“Oh, yes, I understand that magnet. But I naturally thought----” - -“What everybody else will think when the news is out. But I am -astonished that you should jump at anything so commonplace.” Her heart -was hammering under the concentrated intensity of his gaze; and as -if he realised suddenly that he might be betraying himself he said -sarcastically: - -“As there are--I was told today--no less than six divorces pending in -this set which my wife has the honour to entertain tonight, and as all -are to intermarry, so to speak, when liberated, my conclusion in your -case was probably due to the force of suggestion.” - -“Well, I forgive you if you promise to believe none of the absurd -stories you are sure to hear. I am in love with freedom. Now tell me -what you think of Ida? Isn’t she wonderful?” - -Gregory looked down the table at his wife sitting between the two most -important men in Butte and entertaining both with animated dignity. She -met his eyes and smiled brilliantly. She knew that he was proud of her; -she had accomplished the second manœuvre in her flank attack: her first -had been to put him at his ease. - -“Yes,” he said to Ora. “She is. It is almost beyond belief. And she is -your handiwork!” The two might have been life-long intimates, and Ida -a mere kinswoman of both, so little did the oddity of this discussion -occur to Gregory at least. - -“And in a way my present to you.” Ora spoke with a charming -graciousness. “Mark had given me a tremendous idea of your abilities. -The day I met Ida I saw her possibilities, and I made up my mind then -and there that when the world claimed you your wife should be not only -an inspiration but equipped to render you the practical and social help -that every rising man needs. Isn’t it splendid to think that she will -always sit at the head of your table?” - -Gregory was staring hard at her again. “You did that deliberately?” he -asked. - -“Yes. Deliberately. Ida is so clever that she was bound to develop with -your rising fortunes, particularly if you sent her to Europe. But it -would have taken longer. I couldn’t wait. My father inspired me with -the deepest admiration and respect for our Western men. I had made up -my mind that you were born into the front rank, and I wanted, as a -Western woman, and my father’s daughter, to do something to help you. -Tell me that you are satisfied and that you are as proud of Ida as she -is of you--that--that--you simply adore her.” She did not flinch, and -looked him straight in the eyes, her own full of young, almost gushing, -enthusiasm. Her heart had almost stopped beating. - -“I certainly am proud of her, and grateful to you. No doubt she will be -very helpful if I am forced into politics to conserve my interests.” -His tones were flat. He had come to his senses, and he was too loyal -to hint that he no longer loved his wife: but Ora’s face was suddenly -flooded with a lovely colour, and her eyes looked like grey mist -through which the sun was bursting. She asked him, - -“Aren’t you going to stay with us for a few days! We’d love to have -you?” - -“I take the 6.10 for Pony in the morning. If I disappear before the -others it will be to snatch a few hours’ sleep in that gorgeous -four-poster in my room. After living in two rooms for so long I am -oppressed with all this magnificence----” - -“Two rooms!” Ora’s voice rang out like an excited child’s. Gregory, -marvelling at the quick transitions of her sex, thought he had never -seen anyone look so happy. The gentle melancholy that had roused his -jealousy was obliterated. “Two rooms!” - -“There is another shack just beyond where my Chinaman cooks for me, and -bunks, but I have only a bedroom and office--and a bathroom of sorts. -Even my secretary sleeps at the ranch house.” - -“You dear innocent millionaire. No doubt the proletariat, reading of -your sudden wealth, and cursing you, pictures you wallowing in luxury. -Well, you shall come and sit sometimes in my comfortable living-room. -It is time you relearned the a, b, c, of comfort--before you relapse -into the pioneer.” - -“Your bungalow looks as if it could be made very homelike.” He spoke -with unconscious wistfulness, and she raised friendly and impersonal -eyes to his. - -“You shall see. I have what the French call the gift of installation, -and I have sent out nice things. I shall make tea for you when you come -to the surface at the end of the afternoon shift, and you shall sit in -the deepest of my chairs.” - -“It sounds like heaven,” said Gregory, who despised tea. - -Professor Becke, who had taken her in, and Mrs. Cameron simultaneously -addressed their temporary partners, and Gregory was now to listen to -an account, both spirited and kindly, of the admiration his wife had -excited in her native town. Mrs. Cameron suspected the breach, in spite -of the clever acting of both, and made up her mind to do what she could -to bridge it. She had not an inkling of the cause, for, like Ida, she -knew nothing of that fateful hour on the steps of the School of Mines; -but as there was no gossip abroad about either Gregory or his wife, -she inferred that it was one of those misunderstandings that so often -separate young couples, always prone to take themselves too seriously. -She knew that Gregory would value her praise; he not only had been -fond of her as a schoolboy, when he spent an occasional Saturday -with her son, but he knew that her experience of the world was very -wide. She was a woman whom long years of wealth had enabled to travel -extensively, she visited intimately at some of the greatest country -homes in Europe, and she had her own position in New York. She subtly -made Gregory feel prouder still of Ida, and then said teasingly: - -“It is well that you have her devotion. I know of three men that are -quite off their heads about her----” - -“Ah? Who are they?” A sultan may weary of his sultana, but his sultana -she is all the same. - -“That I’ll not tell you. Even your wife could not, I fancy. I’ve never -seen a woman treat men with a more careless impartiality. What a -relief--with all these divorces pending. Merely a shuffling of cards, -too, I understand. It is disgusting. I asked your wife as a personal -favour to me to invite none of them tonight. Butte either has long -orgies of respectability or goes quite off her head.” - -“My wife is singularly indifferent to men for a beautiful woman,” -replied Gregory, comfortably ignorant of his beautiful wife’s -depredations abroad. “Nor is she likely to countenance divorce. She has -a good deal of her old New England mother in her.” He had a haughty -contempt for explanations as a rule, but his quick instinct had caught -the significance of his companion’s remarks; knowing that Ida must wish -to stand well with this amiable but rigid arbiter of Butte’s court of -last resort, he added: - -“I am sorry not to be in Butte oftener, and give her what little -assistance a man may, but it is all I can do to leave the mine for a -few hours every week or two.” - -“That is the fate of too many of our American women married to our -too busy American men. But--well--Gregory--I have married sons and -daughters, and I am an old friend of yours. Young wives must not be -neglected, and resentment eats like a cancer until women are old enough -to be philosophical. Just think that over.” And before he could answer -Ida gave the signal and the men were left alone. - - - - -VIII - - -As the women dispersed about the long drawing-room Ora laid her arm -lightly round the waist of Ida, who was standing for the moment apart. - -“Your dinner is a tremendous success, my dear,” she said, “and so are -you. That gown! It makes mine look so crude. I wish I had worn white as -I intended until the last minute. How splendidly everything went off. -Not a detail to criticise, and every woman has worn something new from -New York or Paris. But you--well, Ida, you are always beautiful, of -course, but tonight you are something more than lovely.” - -“Oh, am I?” Ida gave a little gasp, forgetting her passing astonishment -at so much tribute from Ora at once. “Well, I ought to be. I never felt -quite like this in all my life. Geewhil--no, I’m too happy even for -slang. I wish I could sing.” - -Ora sighed. “I’ve always known you would get everything you wanted, and -I can guess just how you feel tonight. You are a complete success. How -many people ever are able to say that?” - -“Yes, I feel as if I owned the earth!” But her brows met in a puzzled -frown. “I never felt, though, as if even the conquest of Butte would -all but send me off my head. I never feel very much excited about any -old thing; it’s not my make; but I’ve got a sort of shiver inside of -me, and a watery feeling in the heart region. If that chef had spoilt -the dinner I’d have gone out and wrung his neck.” - -“Well, nothing can go wrong now. The worst is over, and no dinner was -ever more delicious. Why don’t you let them dance? I know that Mrs. -O’Hara plays.” - -“Good idea! I’ll ring this minute for a few of those extra near-waiters -to take out the rugs and move the furniture.” - -Two of the younger women, who had returned not long since from San -Francisco, were showing their scandalised friends the turkey-trot when -the men came down the hall from the dining-room. Ida drew Gregory aside. - -“Tell me,” she asked, with an eager almost childish note in her voice -new to him. “Did it go off well? Am I all I ought to be after all the -money you have spent on me? Do I look nice in my fine clothes?” - -Gregory patted her on the shoulder. “I know little about such things,” -he said kindly, “but it outclassed all the banquets I’ve been obliged -to attend in the last six or eight months. I felt quite proud that it -was in my own house--yours, to be literal--and Mrs. Blake assured me -that she had never seen anything better done.” - -“Ora is an angel, and without her--but you know all that. Tell -me--well, Gregory, I want a good old-fashioned compliment!” - -His voice lost its bantering tone and became formal with gallantry: -“You are, as ever, the handsomest woman in Montana. I shouldn’t wonder -a bit if those New York reporters were right and that you are the -handsomest woman in America.” - -Ida looked for a long moment into his eyes. Again her brows met in a -puzzled frown, this time because her singular lightness of spirit had -fled abruptly. She was too proud, too far developed beyond the old Ida, -to put forth the arts of the siren until they were alone; but she asked -softly, and again with that almost childish naïveté: - -“Do you really admire me?” - -“You are all right,” he said with a heartiness that masked a sudden -misgiving. “I must come in and take you to the theatre the next time a -good show comes to town. Let me know. I’ll gratify my vanity by sitting -beside you in a box----” - -“There’s a play tomorrow night. Stay over!” - -“I’m sorry. I don’t dare. Apex is sinking for all she’s worth. We may -have a set-to any minute. It was a risk even to come away for a night.” - -“Oh, do let me go out, and down into the mine----” - -“I should think not. And do your best to keep Mrs. Blake in Butte for -at least a week.” - -“Well, let me go out when the danger is over. I long to see -chalcopyrite in the vein. I saw some beautiful specimens at the School -of Mines the other day. It looks like pure gold.” - -He looked at her in amazement. “What on earth do you know about ores? -Did you include Freiberg in your itinerary?” - -“This is Butte, remember. I no sooner returned than I realised how -interesting she was.” - -“Ah, well, when this affair is settled, come out and stay with Mrs. -Blake and I’ll take you down. I’ve no place to put you up. Even the -ranch house is full. Mrs. Blake’s manager and foreman are boarding -there at present, and Oakley also puts up my secretary----” - -“And those crops Oakley put in with such enthusiasm?” cried Ida with a -sudden inspiration, and racking her memory. “Did they turn out as he -expected? Was there a drought--in--in--those states?” - -“What a memory you have! Yes, Oakley is doing wonders, and the drought -arrived as per schedule. He would scorn to put the ranch under the -ditch, although that is my long suit at present.” - -“I suppose Circle-G Ranch looks like Holland by this time.” - -“Not quite yet! But the work is progressing splendidly, all except----” -He paused. It had never been his habit to talk to her, and the -complicated details of business he regarded as beyond the intelligent -apprehension of any woman. But as Ida moved closer to him with -wide-open eyes she looked intelligent enough to understand anything, -and a letter received that morning had been on his mind ever since. -“There is some trouble about the railroad,” he said. “The Land Company -was to build it, but either doesn’t want the bother or really has lost -a lot of money, as it claims. I placed a deed in escrow which pledges -me to build it if the Land Company failed to keep its agreement; and -the seed houses, which bought several large blocks of land, and a -number of private settlers are demanding that the railroad be begun--it -was to be finished at the end of a year----” - -Ida saw her opportunity and grasped it. “We both must do our duty, and -not monopolise each other,” she said hurriedly. “But tell me all about -it after they have gone. Now, go and dance with Kitty Collier. She’s -the best-looking woman in Butte. I can’t dance in this harness, but -I’ll talk English politics with my portlier guests.” As he smiled and -moved toward the music, she laid her hand lightly on his arm. “I want -to thank you for coming tonight, Gregory,” she said. “It means a great -deal to me socially. Besides, it is good to see you again.” And this -time she looked very sweet; but there was a slight aloofness in her -manner, as if to admonish him that, although he was forgiven, there was -still a breach which it was for him to close. Then she added lightly: -“Well, we’ll talk it all over later. Go, now, and dance.” - - * * * * * - -Gregory stood by the front door talking to two of the men, whose wives -had walked on; their homes were but a door or two away. Ida ran up the -stairs to Ora’s room, where they unhooked each other. - -“You look tired,” said Ida, sympathetically. - -“Oh, I am tired,” replied Ora, her arms hanging. “Tired. Tired.” - -“It’s a long while since you danced like that. Just drop into bed. Lend -me a scarf, will you?” - -She covered her opened gown with the lace and walked slowly over to -her room. Then she suddenly turned back to the head of the stairs. The -three men were still talking below. - -“Gregory,” she called, and her voice was very sweet. - -“Yes?” - -“Lock up, will you? The servants have gone to bed.” - -“I will.” - -“Don’t forget,” and omitting to add a good-night, she went swiftly to -her room, changed her formal evening gown for a soft combination of -yellow silk and lace that made her look like a tulip in a primrose bed, -let down the black masses of her hair, and threw herself into a deep -chair. But there was no repose in her attitude. More than once her body -stiffened and she raised her head. Pride and shrewdness forbade her -to leave her door open, and it would be impossible to hear that light -panther-like tread on the heavy carpet of the stair. The front door -might have closed while she was changing in the dressing-room. - -Suddenly she heard it slam. Nervous as she was she smiled -reminiscently. Gregory might be soft of foot, but otherwise he was as -noisy as most men. Then the smile froze until her lips were distended -in a grin. Another door had slammed. Gregory was in his own room. - -After a few moments she became aware that her body was rigid and that -she was grasping the arms of her chair. She rose with an exclamation of -impatience, but stood with her head bent, listening intently. Suddenly -she swayed a little, once more flooded with that sense of excited -gladness with which guests and chefs had had naught to do: she thought -she heard a door open softly, a light footfall. But her straining -ear-drums had deceived her. The house was as still as a mausoleum. -She pressed her hands against her breast in the gesture the stage has -borrowed from life; her heart felt as if swimming against an undertow. - -Then she began pacing up and down. After her habit she tried to arrange -her thoughts by putting them into words, and, as people still do off -the stage, muttered them aloud. - -“My God! Do I care as much as that? Do I really _care_? No! No! No! -Any woman of pride, let alone vanity, would make up her mind to bring -her husband back--especially if she could make him as proud of her -as I made him of me tonight. And when he still thinks me beautiful. -What woman wouldn’t? Even if she didn’t have an ounce of any kind of -feeling for him? Men are only interesting when they forget about us in -that purely masculine world where women are warned off the grass. To -lure them back--that is the spice of life in this country. And if one -doesn’t succeed the first time--he may be so tired and sleepy that he’s -forgotten about me--or shy, afraid I’d laugh at him--the world does not -come to an end tonight--What an idiot I am! I made him admire me more -than ever, astonished him--why am I not satisfied for the present?--It -can’t be that I care--that I long for him to come--Good God! I’d rather -be dead than _that_!” - -But she went to the door and, laying her ear against it, listened until -she became aware that her lungs were bursting with imprisoned breath. -Then she sank into a chair trembling, her eyes filled with fear. A -moment more and she flung her arms over the table and dropped her face -upon them and broke into heavy weeping. - - - - -IX - - -Ora looked round the large living-room of her bungalow with a deep -sense of content. The walls were covered with a material coarse in -weave and of a red warm but not too bright. The colour was repeated in -the divan and chairs, melting softly into browns that harmonised with -the heavy beams of the ceiling. A few Navajo rugs covered the floor. -Above the divan of many cushions was a bookshelf crowded with the new -fiction of two continents. Several shelves, built like a bookcase, -occupied a corner and were furnished more ponderously. In the middle -of the room a large table was half covered with the best periodicals -of the day, although there was room for a large lamp with a red shade -and a vase filled with wild flowers. Down at the far end of the room, -which was about thirty feet long, and opposite the kitchen, were -the dining-table and a small sideboard. The main door opened upon a -verandah, and one beside the fireplace into a narrow hall, giving -privacy to the bedrooms. Ora had no atavistic yearnings for the life -of the pioneer; she might feel as much at home in a bungalow as in a -palace, but elementals, save when pictorially valuable, like overhead -beams, were rigidly excluded. - -Her hands clasped behind her, she drifted up and down the long room, -her mode of ambulation expressing the state of her mind. Quick and -final as she could be in decision, if necessity spurred, the deeper -sensuousness in her nature impelled her to drift whenever circumstances -would permit. For two months she intended to drift--or gamble! She had -not come out here further to alienate the affections of her friend’s -husband, and those old tumultuous dreams were still crowded in some -remote brain cell with seals on the door. She had even told herself in -so many words that she had no desire for anything so terrific as their -complete materialisation. She had plumbed the depth and intensity of -life in her imagination. Let that suffice. And reality was not so much -to be feared because of the wreck it might make of her life as because -it was reasonably sure to leave a corpse in her memory, instead of that -ever burning soul of past delights. - -But she had come out to her mine to enjoy the constant companionship -of Gregory Compton before she left her country for ever and married -a European. That much she owed to the extraordinary imaginative -experience in which they had been one. If she could spend long hours -with him, make him as eager for her companionship as she was for his, -forget his mine now and then, feel that mysterious and satisfying bond -of the spirit, she would ask no more, not even an admission of love -when they parted. - -When a woman goes on a still hunt for a man’s soul she is far more -dangerous than the obvious siren, for her self-delusion is complete, -her guards are down, her wiles disarming. Ora had had too little -practical experience of men to be prepared to admit, in spite of her -abstract knowledge of life, that there has been but one foundation of -love since the world began, and never will be another till life on -this planet ends, whatever may be the starry mysteries of the spheres. -But while she was (spasmodically) too honest to deny even her own sex -encumbrance, she believed, like many other, particularly American women -of narrow experience, that it had been politely emasculated by the -higher civilisation, was merely synonymous with poetry, romance, and -sentiment. This convention was imported to the New World by England’s -middle-class and became a convenient national superstition. It is on -the wane. - -That Gregory, granted she were successful in capturing his soul, might -desire to contribute the rest of himself to the spoils, now that she no -longer was the wife of his friend, let loose those subversive passions -she had divined the night of their meeting and dared to recognise in -the realm of imagination, she would have refused to admit had the -possibility occurred to her. She was out for the ideal, and not yet had -she learned to take her imagination in hand like a refractory child. -Moreover, she had an imperious will, gracefully as she concealed it. -This last year of freedom and wealth and feminine triumphs had tempered -that will into a pliable and dangerous weapon. What she wanted she -would have. As she planned a thing so should it work out. But the -details--ah, they were veiled in the future, and from their mysteries -came this reflex vibration, this pleasant sense of drifting, of -wondering how it would all begin and what would happen next. - -In a sense it had begun. Gregory had called two days before to ask -if she were comfortable. He was in his overalls (purposely), and had -refused at first to sit down, but finally had succumbed to the deepest -of the chairs before the log fire. He had finished by remaining for -supper, and again had occupied the chair until eleven o’clock. Neither -had suspected the other’s secret passion, for love before union, being -nine parts imagination, needs solitude for indulgence, and is capable, -moreover, of long and satisfying quietudes if fed with externals. There -was sheer delight in sitting together by that warm intimate fire, -at the dining-table at the end of the long shadowy room, in feeling -cut off from the world on the edge of that rough mountain camp, in -listening to the soughing of the pines during the silences. That both -were on their guard lest the other take fright and the experience -be impossible of repetition but exaggerated the atmosphere of -friendliness, of almost sexless comradeship. Gregory betrayed one only -of his reflections: he admitted to himself what Ora subtly compelled -him to admit, and had no difficulty in divining, that the companionship -of woman was a blessed thing, and that he had been the loneliest of men. - -Their talk was mainly of ores! She was permitted to learn how little -else interested him in comparison with the enthralling inside of -Montana. But he told her also the legends of the great copper mines on -Lake Superior, so old that copper was found pure, looking much like the -smelted product from the copper ores of the later geological formations -of the Rocky Mountains. These vast mines, particularly that on Isle -Royal, bore unmistakable signs of having been worked systematically -by a prehistoric people experienced in mining; presumably by the -Atlantans, who, after their own mines were worked out and they still -demanded “orichalcum” for their monuments and bronze for their -implements, went annually in ships for the metal. That there had been -a self-supporting mining colony on Isle Royal was indicated by certain -agricultural remains. - -Gregory and Ora had amused themselves reconstructing that old time -when the metal island was as lively as today, and considerably more -picturesque--owing to the alternative of skins for muck-spattered -overalls; an underground chapter of the Niebelungenlied, its gnomes -toiling down in those two miles of workings, stoping out less in a -hundred years than the methods of today force a mine to yield in one. -How they must have swarmed to the surface, regardless of discipline, -at the first signal of the approaching ships, their one link with a -world that was not all water and forest and underground cavern. By -what tortuous way did those archaic ships travel from the Atlantic to -the northwest corner of that vast inland sheet; unless, indeed, which -is likely, subsequent upheavals have destroyed a waterway which may -have connected sea and lake prior to 10000 B.C.[B] How many of those -old ships lie in the bed of Lake Superior, laden with rude nuggets of -copper, pounded from the gangue, or, who knows? smelted by a lost art -into sheets and blocks? Archaic ships rode high, and no doubt those -from Atlantis were overladen; for what has kept Atlantis in the realm -of myth so long save the unscientific legend that she perished of greed -and its vicious offspring? What archaic mysteries may not the terrible -storms of that great north lake yet uncover? What strange variety of -copper, washed and bitten by the waters of twelve thousand years, for -which the enraptured geologist must find a new name? Who knows?--the -bed of Lake Superior may be one unbroken floor of malachite; and the -North American Indian of that region the descendant of those ancient -miners, abandoned and forgotten when Atlantis plunged to the bottom of -the sea. - -It was Ora who advanced these last frivolous theories, and--the clock -striking eleven--Gregory sprang to his feet. - -“Likely as any,” he said. “All theories change about as often as it -is time to get out a new edition of an encyclopædia, or develop a -‘new school’ which makes its reputation by the short cut of upsetting -the solemn conclusions of its predecessors. I’m going down into the -mine.” He bolted out with no further ceremony, but Ora was long since -accustomed to the manners of Western men. She went to bed feeling that -sadness had gone out of the world. - -She had not seen him since. Nor had anything new and interesting -happened. Her manager, Raymond, refused to take her down in the mine, -alleging that when Apex broke into the workings of Perch of the Devil, -there was sure to be a fight, and the bohunks would retreat, not up -their own shaft but through the tunnels of the Primo mine. The young -man was manifestly distressed to refuse any boon to so charming a -woman, and he and his foreman had moved at once into the half-finished -cottage, but he heartily wished her back in Butte, nevertheless. The -best of miners love a fight, and it would be impossible to protect her -from flying bullets if the row was continued above ground. Ora merely -had laughed when he begged her to return or to remain within doors, but -had promised to be prudent and flourished her automatic .25. - - - - -X - - -She glanced at the clock. It was half-past three. She knew that Gregory -frequently went below in the morning, and had half expected that he -would cross over to her hill for a moment when he came up at three -o’clock. The drifting mood vanished. She decided that two days were -enough for feminine passivity and went to her bedroom and changed her -pretty house frock for a stout out-of-doors’ costume of forest green -tweed: as she had no mind to look either the outworn Western heroine of -romance, or a fright, she had omitted khaki from her mountain wardrobe. -She tied a light green veil round her head, put on a pair of loose -chamois gloves, selected a green parasol lined with pink, and went out -to give the fates a gentle shove. - -Hitherto she had so far yielded to the solicitude of her manager as to -take her walks through the pine woods above her bungalow, but today she -marched deliberately through her grove and stood for several moments -on the edge of the little bluff above the tableland on which her claim -was located. It was her first prolonged look at the three mining -camps, for she had arrived at night. She had driven out occasionally -to mining camps with her father, once or twice with Mark; the scene -was both typical and picturesquely ugly. In or near the centre of each -claim was the shaft house; fifty feet beyond--the distance prescribed -by law to prevent overhead fires from communicating with underground -timbers--were the buildings containing the hoisting machinery and the -compressed air plant. Scattered about were the shacks of the miners, -the long bunk- and mess-houses, blacksmith and carpenter shops. Just -below the Apex claim, and on Government land, an enterprising publican -had established himself. On all sides were other claims of recent -location, for there had been the inevitable rush. - -The rude buildings were grey and weather-beaten, and all traces of the -gentle spring verdure had disappeared. About the collar of each shaft -was an immense dump heap, waste rock brought up from the depths, and -the highest of these was on Perch of the Devil. Near each were the ore -bins, but these for the most part were empty, and, save on the De Smet -hill, there was a notable absence of “double-sixes.” The Primo vein had -not been recovered, Apex had not yet touched bottom; Gregory Compton, -for reasons best known to himself, had changed his original plan and -was merely uncovering his new vein, taking out as little of its ore as -possible. His bins were furnished with ore from the second level of his -mine, where work had proceeded steadily on the original vein. - -The men off shift were standing about in groups as they did in Butte, -or passing in and out of the saloon. And the racket was deafening: the -roar of the machinery in the hoisting and compressor houses, the crash -of rock dumped from the buckets or skips, the ringing of hammer on -anvil. The scene was not beautiful but it was alive! One could fancy -the thrill of the hidden metals, knowing that their hour, after vast -geological ages of waiting, was come; that, like mortals, they were to -agonise in the crucible of life and achieve their ultimate destiny. - -Ora walked through the grove until she was beyond the long mess-house -at the back of her claim, climbed over the abrupt rise of Apex--which, -combined with the hardness of the rock, had made its task so long--and, -ascertaining that the larger buildings hid her, crawled under the De -Smet fence, and drew a long breath as she set her feet squarely on the -famous Perch of the Devil. Here the buildings, large and small, were -scattered up to the brow of the hill and over on the other side. It -had, in fact, something of the appearance of a growing village with -irregular streets; and before several of the cabins children were -playing, or women took their Monday washing from the line. The fronts -of some of these cottages were painted white, and here and there -flowers grew in boxes. There were even a reading-room and a large -“general store.” Altogether Perch of the Devil looked as if it might -grow larger, and more solid and permanent of aspect, with the years. - -Ora walked through the crooked streets on the steep hillside until -she reached the deep chamber into which had leached the acids of the -centuries to enrich the ores, and incidentally Gregory Compton. -Thousands of tons of dump made a hill in itself and shut off the view -to the south, but below were the acres of waving wheat, the alfalfa -with its purple flower, the sprouting flax, the winding creek that -was often dry but sometimes wet, the brush sheds for the cattle, the -substantial farm buildings. The broad peaceful expanse looked as -if even a winter wind had never shaken it, so entirely did it seem -dissociated from the frantic energies of its northeast corner. And -still beyond was perfect beauty: the massive pine-covered mountains, -rising tier above tier, ridges of the great Rockies, far away and up to -the sky-cutting line, glittering with eternal snows. For a few moments -Ora forgot the raucous noises about her, Nature delivering herself -of her precious children with loud protesting pains. Then she turned -suddenly and looked upward. - -Gregory had just stepped from his cabin. For a moment he did not see -her, but stood staring, his hands in his pockets, at the distant -mountains. He wore his favourite overalls and a battered cap on -the back of his head; but he looked so remote in spirit from that -materialising costume that Ora watched him with a sensation of helpless -jealousy. Not for a moment could she delude herself that he was -thinking of her. He looked like a seer. - -“Can you see right into the heart of those mountains?” she asked -lightly, as she walked up the hill toward him. “You looked as if your -imagination were ‘blocking out’ thousands of tons of gold quartz.” - -He started and coloured, but smiled with a sudden pleasure at the -charming picture in the foreground. “Something like that. This mine -is all right, and now that I’ve got over my disappointment, I have a -feeling for it that I guess I’ll never have for another mine--something -like the affection for one’s first born! But all the same I intend to -have a gold mine one of these days. Have you been admiring my view?” - -He had walked down and joined her. - -“Yes, but that is not what I came over here for. Nor is it what I came -out to the mines for. I brought a small library, but I find I am not in -the humour for books. I want to be doing something myself. Mr. Raymond -won’t take me down into my mine. I want to go down into yours--now.” - -He hesitated a moment. “Well--why not? Apex is not working this -afternoon--something the matter with their compressor. They sounded -pretty close to our workings this morning, but the men quit about one -o’clock, and as they didn’t blast it was probably because the holes -weren’t deep enough. I’ve just been told that they can’t get to work -again before tomorrow. But you look much too fine!” - -“Everything cleans; and I’ll leave my veil and parasol in the shaft -house.” - -“All right,” he said abruptly. “Come along.” - -When they were in the shaft house he asked, “Will you go down in the -skip or by the ladder?” - -“Oh, I couldn’t possibly do anything so ignominious as to go down in a -bucket, and I’m very agile. How far is it?” - -“A hundred feet. I shall only take you to the first level.” - -Ora peered down into the black and slanting and apparently bottomless -well. A ladder was built flat against one side. A skip full of ore was -banging against the sides of the other compartment on its way up. She -looked again at the ladder, shuddered, and set her teeth. - -Gregory put two candles in his pocket, inserted his long limber body -into the narrow aperture and ran down sideways. - -“Oh!” gasped Ora. “I can’t do that. Please wait. I--I think I’d better -go down backward.” - -“By all means. Sit down and turn round. I’ll catch hold of one of your -feet and put it on a rung. The rest will be easy.” - -Ora followed these instructions gingerly, concluding that the skip -would have been more dignified. Then she forgot dignity and only -wondered if her bones had gone out of her: she had rolled over on her -equatorial zone and was kicking helplessly in the void. But as Gregory -caught her feet and planted them safely she set her teeth once more and -summoned her pride. - -“Glad you have on stout boots,” he said, practically. “We’ve not enough -water in the mine for pumps, but it’s a little damp underfoot. Wait a -minute while I light a candle.” He struck a match and performed this -feat; how, Ora could not even guess; but she glanced down sideways and -saw that he was holding the lighted candle up at arm’s length. - -“Come on,” he said. “You mustn’t be frightened.” - -“I’m not a bit frightened, but don’t go too fast.” - -Gregory, who was running down the ladder, moderated his pace, and sent -up an occasional word of cheer. Suddenly Ora heard a horrid noise below -like the crash and roar of an express train. “Has the mine fallen in?” -she gasped. - -“Hope not. That’s the tram with ore and rock for the skip. By and by -we’ll use the waste rock to fill up the stopes with, but we’re only -blocking out at present.” - -“How frightfully interesting mining is--in all its details!” Ora’s -hands were smarting, and every part of her, not excluding her -imagination, felt as if on the rack. “That noise is over!” - -“Did I hear you say ‘Thank heaven’?” - -“Of course not. How much farther is it? Haven’t we passed the first -level?” - -“If we had I should be carrying you. Only about twenty feet more.” - -And a few moments later, with the deepest sigh of relief she had ever -drawn, she was standing in the small station beside the shaft. - -“It’s hard work the first time,” he said sympathetically. “But you’ll -soon get used to it.” - -“How dark it is!” - -“I’ll put in electricity when my troubles with Amalgamated are over.” -He lit another candle and handed it to her. “Be careful of your frock.” - -The ore car was rumbling away in the distance. Gregory followed the -sound down the tunnel and Ora kept close at his heels. “I suppose we’ll -see something after a while?” she ventured. “I can’t see even you now, -only your candle.” - -“We’ll soon be out of this,” he said cheerfully. “You see, we’ve had -to walk under the chamber from which I took that great deposit of -carbonates, and then some----” He paused a moment, but not before he -had turned acutely to the left. “This is where I lost the vein. We -are in the fault now. How would you like to be in an earthquake that -broke a vein in two and hurled one end----” His voice was lost in the -rattling roar of the compressed air drills, although there was nothing -to be seen until they reached another little station and faced a wider -drift on the right, some twelve feet long. Candles were flaring from -the miners’ candlesticks, whose long points were thrust into stulls or -the softer part of the rock, and four men were manipulating two of the -cumbersome air drills which stood on tripods. Gregory made a sign to -the shift boss, who shut off a valve, and the din stopped abruptly. - -“Now,” said Gregory. “This is what you have come for.” He moved his -candle along the brassy glitter of chalcopyrite in the vein, steadying -her with his arm, for the floor was uneven and littered. - -Ora trembled. She forgot the arm about her; it felt like mere steel -for that matter; she was in one of the magic caverns of her dreams and -she thrilled to the magnet of the ores. “It looks like pure gold,” she -whispered. - -“So it is in a sense, and far more beautiful to look at in the vein.” -They had been standing near the opening of the drift. He guided her -down toward the farther end; the miners made way for them and went out -to the station nothing loath; owing their lives to what has cost many a -man his life and more, the caprice of a woman. - -“I want to show you how the holes look before we put the sticks of -powder in,” Gregory began, as he waved his candle once more aloft, this -time over a less dazzling surface. He stopped abruptly. She felt his -body stiffen. Then, as he whirled her about, he screamed to the men: - -“Get out! Run!” - -Ora had the sensation of being swept along by a bar of steel burrowing -into the flesh of her waist. But in another instant she had lost all -sense of her body. There was a shock as if something had hit the hill -at its foundations, a dull roar, and then the crash of falling rock -behind them. - -The men were all ahead. Ora dimly could see them running like rabbits -up the fault drift. Then she became conscious of the stifling sickening -smell of powder and a bursting sensation in her head. No one paused for -a second, nor drew breath until all had turned the corner and were in -the main level. For a space nothing was heard but the hoarse effort to -refill tormented lungs. The men leaned against the walls of the tunnel. -Ora leaned against Gregory. All sense of fear had departed out of -her. She had had her baptism of fire and doubted if she ever should be -capable of the sensation of fear again. - -The silence lasted but a moment. Out of the intense darkness flew oaths -like red-hot rocks from boiling craters. - -“Shut up!” said Gregory sharply. “There’s a lady here. And light up -if you have any extra candles. I’ve dropped mine. We must find out if -anybody is missing.” - -“I held on to mine,” said Ora proudly. Gregory lit it, and the shift -boss counted his men. “All here, sir; but by jink, it was a narrow -squeak. The--the--the----” - -“Never mind--who’s this?” A man was running toward them from the -direction of the shaft. - -“It’s me, sir.” Gregory recognised Mann’s voice. “I’ve just got on to -what they were up to. There wasn’t a blamed thing the matter with the -compressor. They just meant to catch us off guard--anybody hurt?” - -“All right. How did you find out?” - -“I suspicioned something crooked, so I got one of those damned bohunks -drunk and bribed him. They’d put in the sticks before they quit, -pretending the compressor had gone wrong and they couldn’t finish -drilling. I suppose they sneaked back while I was getting the story, -and lit the fuses.” - -“You’ll let us get back at ’em, boss?” demanded the men. - -“Oh, yes,” said Gregory, in a voice of deadly irony. “We’ll get back at -them.” - -He was holding the candle. Ora saw him bend his head forward in the -attitude so characteristic of him. But he raised it in a moment. - -“Go up, every one of you,” he said, “and down to the saloon. Talk -about what happened, but assume that it was an accident. Any fighting -above ground and you’ll be canned. Say that there’s a big cave-in and -we’re obliged to quit work on this level for the present. See that -that spreads all over Apex camp. Say that I’ve given you the rest of -the shift off. Come down as soon as you’ve had your drink and said -your say. Jerry”--to the shift boss--“you watch the Apex shaft house. -I don’t figure that they’ll go down under an hour, on account of the -smoke, but if they do just drop below. I’ll wait for you here. And -before you come,” he added grimly, “go over to the compressor house -and tell them to turn the steam on the air line.” - -“Hooray!” The shouting of the men made almost as much noise in the -tunnel as the recent explosion. “That’s the ticket, boss. Oh, we won’t -do a thing to them!” - -“Get out of this,” said the shift boss. “Don’t take more than one -drink; and hold on to your tempers, or there’ll be no fun below.” - -A moment later Gregory and Ora were alone in the tunnel. - - - - -XI - - -“How did you guess?” asked Ora. - -“I didn’t guess. I saw a drill hole just beyond where my men were -working. I also did a little quick deduction. Miners blast just before -they go off shift. The afternoon change of shift is at three o’clock. -As I told you I had seen the Apex men come up about one o’clock when -their compressor stopped. That hole not only told me that they were -closer than we had thought, but that they were up to devilment. I -guessed that they had timed to blast just before we were ready to drill -at that point. Were you very much frightened?” - -“I didn’t like it.” Ora knew that bravery in woman makes no appeal to -the lordly male. “But I hardly had time to think; and after all you -left me nothing to do.” - -“Well, you were game and didn’t scream or cry,” he conceded handsomely. -“Let’s light up.” - -They had walked as far as the station at the foot of the shaft. Gregory -unlocked the door of a small cupboard, found two candles and inserted -them in miners’ candlesticks that were stabbed into the walls. They -flickered in the draft as a skip rattled up from the second level, but -relieved the oppressive darkness. - -“Why, your hair is down!” exclaimed Gregory. - -Ora put up a hand. “So it is! Well--I am sure I never should know if my -hair fell down at a good play, and ours was live drama. I’ll braid it -and put on my veil up above.” - -He watched her for a moment as she sat on a box braiding her long fair -hair, vaguely recalling the legend of the Lorelei. He noticed that her -eyes as she peered up at him looked green in that uncertain light. But -in a moment his thoughts wandered from her. He folded his arms and -stared downward. - -Ora leaned back against the wall. She saw that he had forgotten her, -but had made up her mind to accept him as he was; she had no more -desire to dictate his moods than to read in advance the book of the -next two months. There was the same pleasurably painful vibration in -her nerves as on the night when she had piled stake upon stake at Monte -Carlo. From that scene her thoughts travelled naturally to Valdobia and -she suddenly laughed aloud. - -“What are you laughing at?” demanded Gregory suspiciously. - -“I was trying to imagine that we were imprisoned in the underground -dungeon of an Italian palace in the middle ages.” - -“Hard work, I should think. Although if we had a cave-in I guess the -results would be about the same.” - -“And you? Were you seeing your minerals winking three thousand feet -below?” - -He laughed then, and sat beside her. “At all events the mystery down -there is more romantic than your mediæval dungeons--and so will the -great underground caverns be when the ores have been taken out.” - -“Pity the caverns--stopes!--have to be filled up with débris to prevent -the mine caving in,” said Ora flippantly. “I went underground in Butte -last week--to the eighteenth level of the Leonard. Nothing but endless -streets and cross-alleys, all numbered----” - -“And you didn’t find that interesting?” he asked indignantly. “To be -a third of a mile below the surface of the earth and find it laid out -like a city, with streets and rooms, and stations ten times as large as -this, and lighted with electricity?” - -“Yes, but the knowledge that you have a third of a mile of those -streets and rooms--seventeen levels of them--on top of you, supported -only by waste rock in the stopes, and timbers that are always snapping -in two from the terrific pressure--timbermen working at every -turn--‘Save YOURSELF’ the first thing you see when you leave that -cage--Oh, well, I felt there was quite enough romance on top of the -earth.” - -“I am deeply disappointed in you. You told me once--why, even -lately----” - -“Oh, I haven’t changed the least little bit. Nothing in life,” and she -looked at him with laughing eyes, “interests me as much at present -as these two mines. But I am thankful that we are still within a -reasonable distance of the surface. I am quite content to screw up -my eyes and wander in fancy among the primary deposits close to the -central fires. If I had a mine like yours, full of the beautiful copper -ores instead of that hideous pyroxenite of mine, I should leave a -glittering layer in every stope, support the roof with polished stone -columns, light with hidden electric bulbs, and wander from one to the -other imagining myself in Aladdin’s palace.” - -“A fine practical miner you would make. It’s lucky that your mine is -pyroxenite, not quartz. That is if you want to live in Europe.--Do you?” - -“Of course. What have I in this part of the world? A mine cannot -satisfy a woman for ever. I suppose you wouldn’t care if you never saw -a woman again!” - -“Oh!” He was looking hard at her. - -“What else were you thinking of just now?” asked Ora, with that -perverse desire to be superficial which so often possesses American -women in decisive moments. - -He sighed impatiently. “I’ve got a big job on my hands, one that will -take me away from here more or less. Did Mark tell you of a land deal I -put through?” - -“I should think so!” - -“Well, I’ve got to build that railroad. Apex will close down when it -finds I won’t let its men work underground. Amalgamated’s next move -will be to bring suit for apex rights, and get out an injunction to -enjoin me from working on that vein until the case is decided. As soon -as I have driven them out now, however, I must get to work on the -railroad--find my engineers--Oh, there are too many details to bother -you with. But it means that I must spend a good deal of time in Butte -until the thing is started----” - -“How delighted Ida will be!” interrupted Ora softly. “And that house -will be so comfortable after your cabin.” - -For a moment he did not speak. Nor did his face betray him; but she -fancied that his muscles stiffened. He replied suavely: “I should -have gone on to say that it is more likely I shall have to attend to -the matter in Helena. That is the centre of the land interest. It is -doubtful if I could find the sort of men I want in Butte.” - -“Have you any other land schemes on hand?” - -“Not at present.” - -“What does that mean?” - -“Well--when I have taken a couple more millions out of this hill -I shall begin to buy land, put it under the ditch, build the short -railroads that may be necessary, and sell to small farmers--in other -words push along the colonisation of this state. I believe you gave me -that idea--the night we talked Butte--the first time, I mean.” - -“I thought you had forgotten that night altogether.” - -“Forgotten it!” Ora’s heart stood still at the explicit vibration in -his well-ordered voice. She leaned back and closed her eyes. He had -loved her all these months, dreamed of her as she had dreamed of him. -Her first sensation of wonder and delight was succeeded by a faint -disappointment. - -She had the instinct of the born huntress, although she was far too -highly civilised to have recognised it before. She wondered if his -capitulation meant her own deliverance, too ignorant in the ways of -love to guess that whether this were a passing or a permanent phase -depended on the man. - -While Gregory hurried on to tell her of all he should be able to do -for Montana with the millions at present locked in the vaults of his -hill, she had a full moment of honesty, and confessed that she had come -out here to make Gregory Compton love her. And he did! It was a mighty -personality to conquer; and the victory had been won long since! But -the disappointment passed in a cynical smile. That he had no intention -of declaring himself her lover was as patent as his inhuman power of -self-control. Here were barricades to storm if barricades she wanted? -What difference? And did she? - -He sprang to his feet and stood at the foot of the shaft, looking up. - -“They’re coming down,” he said. - -Joshua Mann emerged a moment later. - -“Apex bunch being rounded up to go below,” he said. “Our men are on the -way.” - -“Steam on the air line?” - -“You bet!” - -“Let’s get to work.” He turned to Ora. “Stay here till I come back,” he -said peremptorily. “I can’t take you up in the skip now.” - -“I am quite comfortable,” said Ora, coolly. “How many men will come -down?” - -“Five.” And he and Mann disappeared into the tunnel. - -Ora waited until the other men had descended one by one and run into -the blackness. Then she dislodged one of the candlesticks from the wall -and ran after them. When she reached the fault drift she thrust the -long point of the candlestick into a stull before turning the corner. -Then she crept toward the station, from which she could witness the -punishment about to be inflicted upon the Apex men, whatever it might -be. - -There was a glimmer of light in the new drift. Ora saw the men binding -a piece of hose to the same length of pipe. They attached the hose to -the air line and held it just inside the ragged hole some twelve feet -above. - -There was a distant murmur of voices overhead and to the right. The -solitary candle was extinguished. The murmur of voices in the drift -which led from Apex shaft along the continuation of the Primo vein grew -louder. Men were laughing. One man was giving orders. It appeared that -they were to let themselves down and go systematically to work on the -Perch vein, which was now driving under the Apex claim. - -Ora heard a sharp whispered word: “Now!” and barely recognised -Gregory’s voice. A second later and she was deafened by the roar and -hiss of escaping steam, mingled with shrieks of agony above, and -fiendish cat-calls and jeers below, all expressed in the spectacular -profanity of the mining camp. The episode was over in a moment. The -Apex men tumbled over one another in their anxiety to leave the scene, -and those manifestly disabled--Ora could hear them gasping horribly as -the steam was turned off abruptly--were dragged away. She felt her own -way rapidly along the fault drift, snatched her candlestick from the -wall as she turned the corner, and scampered back to the shaft station. -When the men arrived she was sitting demurely on the box. Gregory -evidently had telephoned from the other station, for the skip came -rattling down just before his appearance at the head of his laughing, -cursing column. - -“Did it go off well?” asked Ora. - -“Did it?” cried Mann, tossing his cap in the air. - -“They’re settled for the moment,” said Gregory. “They’ll come back at -us later with steam on their own air line, and slacked lime; but we’ll -be ready for them. They stand no show.” - -Two of the men had been left on watch. Gregory lifted Ora into the -skip. He and Mann stood on the edge. A second more and Ora was -holding her breath as they were hurtled upward at express speed, the -metal car banging from side to side of the shaft. In something under -three-quarters of a minute Gregory helped her to alight in the shaft -house, while the skip descended for the miners. - -“Well,” he said, smiling, as she lifted her braid to the top of her -head and wound the veil about it, “have you supped full of sensations -for one day?” - -“The last was the worst! And I do mean the skip. Now that we are where -you cannot beat me I will confess that I followed you and saw your neat -little mediæval revenge from the station----” - -“Hush!” Gregory glanced about apprehensively, and drew her outside. -“You mustn’t tell anyone else that. You don’t want to be summoned to -the witness stand, I suppose?” - -Ora gasped. “I never thought of that.” - -“When will women let men do their thinking?” Gregory looked the -primeval male as he scowled down at her. Nor did he mitigate her alarms -with the information that underground battles seldom were continued in -the courts. “Now, I am going to take you to your cottage, and I want -you to stay there until the trouble is over. The men are bound to get -drunk and fight. Better go to Butte----” - -“I won’t.” - -“Very well, then, stay in your house.” - -“And be bored to death? Besides. I need exercise. I’ll roam all over -the place unless you promise to come to supper every night and then -take me for a walk in the woods.” - -His eyes flickered. “Perhaps your engineer----” - -“He’s a mere child. I hate boys. And I must have exercise.” - -He looked at her with apparent stolidity for another moment, but she -knew that he was investigating her expressive orbs. They expressed -nothing that could be construed as flirtation, coquetry, or personal -interest in himself. He saw himself mirrored there merely as the friend -of her husband and the husband of her friend. “Very well,” he said -curtly and swung on his heel. “I suppose I must look out for you. Come -along.” - - - - -XII - - -Gregory had worn a clean suit of overalls into the mine. He was now -spattered from head to foot, including his face and hands, but he swung -along beside Ora with an unconsciousness of his disreputable appearance -that was quite superb. All the miners of the three camps’ off shift -were gathered about the saloon. As Gregory appeared the greater number -of these men cheered wildly, but the “dark men,” who stood apart, -maintained an ominous silence. - -“Aren’t you afraid they’ll take a shot at you some night?” asked Ora. -“How they must hate you!” - -“You don’t go into any business nowadays and put it over without -running the risk of being shot by some sort of down-and-outer. What’s -the sense in worrying? Unless I’m much mistaken we’ll be rid of that -scum inside of twenty-four hours.” - -And he was right. There was another battle underground, in which more -of the Apex men were scalded, and the Perch men unhurt. Then the Apex -men refused to work, and the mine closed. Gregory was shot at on the -following night, and Joshua Mann was slightly wounded. Both the Perch -and Primo men tumbled out of bed, hunted down the offenders, and -chased them into Pony, riddling the air with shot and rending it with -bloodthirsty yells. It would be some time before Apex would be able to -hire miners of any nationality willing to trust themselves between the -two belligerent camps. But bohunks--more recent importations--would -return in the future, if any. These ignorant and friendless South -Europeans can be killed for about two hundred dollars apiece, whereas -it costs several thousands to kill an American, Cornishman, or -Irishman, as he leaves behind him an equally intelligent family or -friends. It was unlikely, in any case, that high class miners would -“take a job” in the predatory Apex. They not only liked Gregory -Compton because he was his own manager and worshipped by his miners, -but because he possessed in overflowing measure the two qualities that -the American in his heart of hearts respects most, luck and bluff. - -Amalgamated immediately brought suit against Gregory Compton, charging -not only that the faulted vein apexed in their claim, but that his -original patent was agricultural and gave him no lateral rights in -mining; furthermore, that a patented claim could not be repatented. -This was a fine legal point and could impoverish several generations -before it was decided. - -Gregory paid no attention to this suit beyond issuing an invitation -through the press to eight of the leading geologists of the United -States and Canada to come to Montana at his expense and make a personal -inspection of the two veins. If they did not agree that the vein on -which he had been working, containing a shoot of chalcopyrite six -feet wide, and of the highest grade, was the original vein, and the -Primo-Apex a mere stringer, or at most a fork from his, he would let -the suit go by default. The geologists promptly accepted, and it was -agreed that they should all arrive in Butte on the second of June. - -Once more Gregory Compton had scored. Scientific men are normally -honest, although the great fees offered to geologists frequently infuse -their judgment with that malleable quality peculiar to the lawyer under -the subtle influence of his brief. But these men, all of high repute, -would be too afraid of one another, and of the merciless newspaper men -that would accompany them, to deliver aught but a just verdict. Gregory -knew that Amalgamated was profoundly disconcerted, and that in the face -of public opinion it was improbable that the suit ever would be brought -into court. But they could devil him meanwhile, and he was enjoined -from working on the recovered vein until the case should be decided. -He accepted the injunction without protest and transferred the miners, -whom he had kept hard at work blocking out until the last minute, down -to the second level of the mine. - -“They’ll get a jolt from that quarter, too,” said Gregory to Ora, and -he was not referring to the miners. “They’ll go on fighting me for -years, no doubt, but I’ll spring some sort of a facer on them every -time. They may have more money, but I have enough.” - -“You never feel afraid they may beat you in the end?” - -“Beat me?” Gregory’s eyes glittered. “Not unless they bore a hole in -my skull and introduce a microbe that will devour my brains. I can get -ahead of them in more ways than one. Long before all the ore on the -second level is stoped out I shall be in a position to put up my own -reduction works if they freeze me out of Anaconda or Great Falls. If I -ever go into politics it will be to fight for a state smelter.” - -Ora looked at him speculatively. He was walking up and down her -living-room with a swift gliding motion peculiar to him in certain -moods; his head was a little bent as if his narrow concentrated gaze -were following a trail. - -“I believe you love the fight as much as any part of it,” she said. - -“I do. And as soon as I’ve taken out money enough I’m going to buy -a big tract of land, irrigate it, plant it in beets, put up a sugar -refinery and fight the Havemeyer trust.” - -“Why don’t you form a company, buy your beet land, and put up the -factory now? You could raise all the money you wanted.” - -“No companies or partners for me,” he said curtly. “What I’ll do I’ll -do alone. I want no man’s help and no man’s money. And I certainly want -no other man’s ideas interfering with mine.” - -Ora sighed. He had been away for a week on his railroad and land -business, and during this, their first meeting since his return, he had -talked of nothing save his mine and the new possibilities of Circle-G -Ranch. Investigation of the soil and timber values of the 35,000 acres -which he had originally hypothecated as a guarantee that the railroad -should be built, but which perforce had reverted to him when the Land -Selling Company had failed to keep this part of their contract, would -be worth, after proper transportation facilities were insured, not -less than twenty-five dollars an acre. A member of the Land Selling -Company whom he had taken with him had been convinced of this, and that -the soil was peculiarly adapted to the raising of apples by intensive -culture. As soon as the railroad was built there would be no difficulty -in selling the timber and the rest of the land, and the Company had -agreed to buy it. His profits would be $875,000, and the railroad would -cost but $300,000. - -No wonder, thought Ora, that a man with a business brain of that -calibre had little place in it for woman. True, he had called her up -once from Helena, evidently seized with a sudden desire to hear her -voice, but he had been interrupted; and the only tangible result had -been to keep her in such a fever of expectancy that she barely had -left the house lest he call her up again and she miss him. He did not, -and her nerves had become so ragged that she almost had hated him -and obeyed the impulse to pack her trunks and flee to Europe. He had -come to see her within an hour of his return, but, beyond his rare -delightful smile and a hard pressure of the hand, he had manifestly -been too absorbed to feel any personal appeal beyond her always welcome -companionship. - -And the next morning he telephoned that he was leaving for Butte. Ida -had reminded him of his promise to appear in public with her. Mary -Garden was to sing that night and she had taken a box. He had grumbled -but finally agreed to go, as he had business in Butte which might -as well be transacted that afternoon. Ida thanked him politely and -promised him an interesting party at dinner. Then she called up Ora and -invited her, but Ora declined on the plea of good taste; the story of -her impending divorce was common property, and it was hardly decent for -her to appear in public. - - - - -XIII - - -Reaction, after the emotional recognition of the subtle but certain -change that had been wrought in her unsuspected depths, had filled Ida -for many hours with a sullen rage against Gregory Compton and herself. -But in a day or two the buoyancy of youth and the common sense, of -which she possessed an uncommon store, asserted themselves, and, while -devoting her time to the small daily distractions of society, her -determination to win back her husband never waned for a moment. She -knew that she must play the waiting game, keep a sharp eye out for the -blessed opportunity and pounce upon it, but make no attempt to “rush -things.” - -The day after the Apex mine closed down, she rang him up and offered -her congratulations, told him something of the excitement in Butte, -then rang off before he began to feel detained. As he passed through -Butte later, on his way to Helena, he could do no less than call on -her, and, to his relief and her secret rage, he found several pleasant -people taking tea in the library. But she showed her pride in him so -frankly that he could not but be flattered, and talked so intelligently -of the undoubted sequel of the battle underground that he forgot her -guests and addressed his conversation to her. She drew him on to -describe that grim but picturesque episode underground, and he would -have been less than man had he failed to be sensible of the rise of -his chest while surrounded by a breathless circle of charming women. -When they were about to withdraw tactfully and leave him alone with -his wife, he glanced at his watch, bade them all a hasty good-bye and -bolted out to catch his train. Ida once more had been able to exhibit -to her little world an evidence of the pleasant understanding between -herself and her busy husband, and got what consolation out of this fact -that she could. - -“I can wait,” she thought grimly. “I can wait! I guess patience is my -one all-wool-and-a-yard-wide virtue. I’ll wait!” - -She gave several small dinners and a dancing party, devoted to the new -excitement of “ragging,” in which no one became more proficient than -herself. She “went” harder than ever, and even joined the more extreme -younger set (elegantly known as “The Bunch”) one night in a progress -among the road houses of The Flat, and danced in the ballroom of the -Five Mile House until dawn. But she had no real taste for this side -of life; and did penance by visiting the Poor Farm and several other -charities under the wing of Mrs. Cameron. Her popularity on all sides -was unchallenged, and not only was she firmly established in the city -of her heart, but Mrs. Cameron had offered to take a house with her in -New York for the following winter if she cared to mount still higher. -She was gratified and grateful, but she was filled with that desperate -loneliness that only a man can banish. - -On the night of the opera she wore black velvet unrelieved and never -had looked handsomer. The neck of the apparently inseverable gown was -cut square, and her beautiful arms were exposed as far to the top as -fashion permitted; she wore her hair banded closely about her head, -and, at the base of her throat, a barbaric necklace of dull red and -blue stones that she had picked up in an antiquity shop in Munich. As -she sat in her box between Mrs. Cameron and Mrs. Collier, one of the -handsomest and best dressed of the younger women of Butte, Gregory, who -sat behind and facing the house, saw that during the first entr’acte -the audience levelled its glasses at her constantly, and that, -indisputably, she divided the honours of the night with the prima donna. - -He looked at her more than once himself, her classic beauty, or the -classic effect she made it produce, appealing to his æsthetic sense as -beauty in any form always did. He wondered a little that it should so -have lost its once irresistible appeal to his senses, wondered again -if he could not still have loved her well enough to live with had Ora -never entered his life. Certainly he was very proud of her, and her -conversation as well as her personality interested him. He respected -her profoundly for what she had achieved, giving her full credit for -the revolution in appearance, manners, and speech, in spite of her -exceptional opportunities. Then he forgot her as his thoughts wandered -to Ora, whom he saw sitting alone in her warm shadowy room, in which he -had come to feel so much at home. As he always went to her when he was -tired, after a day filled with excitement or hard physical labour, he -experienced only peace and content in her nearness; but when away, as -tonight, and with the music of Thaïs singing into his keen responsive -nerves, he was filled with an inexpressible longing. - -He was roused by a faint exclamation from Ida. She was leaning forward. -A moment later a man, whom he had never seen before and who looked like -an Englishman of distinction, silently entered the box. Ida left her -chair, and gave him both her hands in greeting, then went with him out -into the passageway where their conversation would not interfere with -her guests’ enjoyment of the music. - -Gregory felt very much like any other husband at that moment. He -was conscious of no sting of jealousy, or stab of doubt, but he did -not like it. He also received a distinct impression that his rights -of proprietorship were menaced. Moreover, he was so invaded by mere -curiosity that it was with difficulty he refrained from gratifying it -at once. But, although he belonged to the type of Western man who would -shoot the filcher of his woman without an instant’s consideration, he -was the last man in the world to make a fool of himself. - -Ida tried his patience but a few moments. As soon as the curtain fell -she re-entered the box and presented the stranger as Lord John Mowbray, -who had arrived by the evening train and sought the opera house as a -relief from the hotel. She did not add that he had telephoned at once -to her house and followed her as quickly as he could change his clothes. - -The husband was the last to be made known to the distinguished -stranger, and in spite of Mowbray’s ability to look vacuous, and -Gregory’s to look like a graven image, neither could repress a spark -under his lowered lids. Mowbray reared his haughty crest at once and -turned away. Like many young Englishman he blushed easily, and he was -by no means the first man to feel uncomfortable under the eyes of -Gregory Compton. He felt the colour rising to his white forehead, and -was not sorry to present his splendid back and length of limb to that -searching gaze. - -He sat close to Ida during the last act, and then the party went to her -house to supper, there being no restaurant worthy the name in Butte. -Gregory detained Ida at the door after the other had entered. - -“Good night,” he said. “Luning promised to wait for me at his office. I -shall talk to him until it is time to catch the train for Pony.” - -“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Ida politely, and smiling charmingly. “So -will the others be. And I wanted you to talk to Lord John. His brother -has a ranch in Wyoming, and he has come here on some mining business. -I am so glad to see him again. The men here are--well, they are all -right, but quite absorbed in one thing only--whatever their profession -or business happens to be. Lord John knows a little about everything. I -am sure you would like him. Do ask me to take him out to the mine. He -is a friend of Ora’s, too. She will ask us if you don’t.” - -“Come whenever you like. If I’m not there my foreman will show you -round. Good night.” And he was off. Ida, feeling that Mowbray’s arrival -had been timed by Providence, went in to her guests. - - - - -XIV - - -“Who is this Mowbray?” Gregory asked Ora abruptly on the following -evening. He was in Ora’s living-room, his long legs stretched out to -the fire. - -Ora, who was working on a small piece of embroidery in a frame, -superlatively feminine, enveloped in a tea gown imponderable and white, -looked up in surprise. They had been sitting together for an hour or -more and their conversation had been wholly of his plans to entertain -his party of geologists, and the attention this sensational flank -attack had attracted throughout the country. - -“Is Lord John here?” - -“Yes. Came into the box last night. Handsome chap.” - -“Mowbray is a dear. We saw a great deal of him, and he bought our -tickets and helped us off generally, when we were so upset over your -cable.” - -“Ah! Tame cat? General utility man?” - -“Hardly! He’s full of life and a charming companion.” - -“Hm.” - -There was another silence and then he asked abruptly: “Is he in love -with Ida?” - -This time Ora dropped her work and sat up rigidly; her hands turned -cold. There was a peculiar alteration of pitch in Gregory’s voice that -might register jealousy in a hypersensitive ear. And when his face -looked most like a bronze reproduction of itself, his friends deduced -that he was masking emotion. - -Ora’s brain always worked swiftly. Was it possible that by subtle -manipulation she could reunite this man and her friend? That he loved -herself she no longer doubted, but it was equally doubtful if he would -ever confess it; on the cards that if he did he never would see her -again. If she left the country after adroitly re-awakening his interest -in Ida and playing on his vanity and jealousy, would not reaction, the -desire for consolation and companionship, carry him straight to the -wife whose beauty and magnetism had once, and not so long ago, aroused -all the ardours of his manhood? Ida was far more beautiful now, and -quite capable of holding any man. Ora did not for a moment believe -that Ida loved her husband, or never would she herself have returned -to Butte; but she had divined her mortification, her wounded pride; -and as a young and beautiful woman Ida needed and was entitled to the -protection of her husband. - -Was this her moment? Her great opportunity? Her bosom heaved, her -breath came short. Almost she experienced the subtle delights of -renunciation, of sacrifice, of the martyrdom of woman. It would be a -great rôle to play, a great memory. And after all she had Valdobia. It -was this last irresistible reflection that gave her soaring spirit a -sharp tumble and she laughed aloud. - -Gregory turned his head and smiled as he met the cynical amusement in -her eyes. “What is it?” - -“I was merely commiserating poor Mowbray. Of course he is more or less -_épris_; but Ida--she hasn’t it in her to love any man.” - -“That is the conclusion I arrived at long ago. But it looked as if he -had followed her here, and I don’t care for that sort of talk.” - -“He had planned to visit his brother in Wyoming before we met him in -Genoa. Don’t worry. Ida never will let any man compromise her. She’ll -parade her son of a duke for the benefit of Butte, but if he shows -signs of getting out of hand she’ll pack him off.” - -“Yes, Ida is too ambitious to compromise herself.” - -And then another little arrow flew into Ora’s brain. Her hands -trembled, but she clenched them in her lap. “Gregory,” she said -steadily, “as you and Ida no longer love each other, why don’t you -suggest a divorce? She could marry Mowbray and have a big position in -London--his brother is almost sure not to marry--is a wreck--Ida would -be quite in her element as a duchess--and you--you would be free--if -you ever wanted to marry again.” - -When nature has given a man a dark skin and he has permitted it to -accumulate yearly coats of tan, it is difficult for him to turn white -under the stress of emotion; but Gregory achieved this phenomenon as -he realised abruptly what freedom might mean to him. He stood up and -leaned his back against the high chimneypiece, thrusting his hands -into his pockets; he had long nervous fingers which sometimes betrayed -him when his face was set. - -“Ida would never consent to a divorce,” he said heavily. “She’s got all -sorts of old-fashioned American ideals. The West has the reputation for -being lawless, and it’s got more Puritans to the square inch than are -left in New England. Ida’s one of them.” - -“She may have acquired more liberal ideas in Europe.” - -“She told me that she didn’t care if she never saw Europe again. Last -night I had quite a long talk with her before the others came in for -dinner. She said she thought it the duty of Western women--particularly -the women of the newer Northwest--to live in their native state and -only go away occasionally in order to bring something back to it. She -intimated that you put that idea into her head when you two first met.” - -“Oh, yes, I believe that to be right, whatever I may do, myself.” - -“What is your idea in going to Europe to live? You are just the sort of -woman the West needs.” He bit out his words in the effort to be calm -and casual. - -“I don’t feel that I have any place here.” - -Gregory started on a restless walk up and down the room. - -“Look at here,” he shot out finally, “are you--I haven’t said anything -about it--but--of course I’ve wanted to--are you determined to leave -Mark? He’s one of the best fellows in the world. I hate to see him -thrown down. You--you--I think you should reconsider.” - -“I had done all my considering before I spoke to Mark. I am doing -him the greatest possible kindness. He needs another sort of woman -altogether to make him happy. And I? Have I not my right to happiness? -Do you think I could find it with Mark?” - -“No!” The word exploded. “And you--shall you marry again?” - -“I don’t know.” Ora spoke in a strangled voice. New possibilities were -shaking her to her foundations. For a moment the perverse imp in the -purely feminine section of her brain counselled her to run away as -ever from the serious mood in man, to play with great issues and then -dodge them. But she brushed the prompting aside with frantic haste and -summoned her courage. If this was happiness coming to her grasp she -would seize it. - -Gregory came swiftly back from the farther end of the room and stood -before her. He had set the muscles of the lower part of his face so -tightly that he could hardly open his mouth, but his narrow eyes were -blazing. “If Ida would give me my freedom,” he said, “I should want to -marry you. Do you understand?” - -Ora stood up. Her white face was so radiant that Gregory fell back. -“You love me?” he asked. - -“Yes.--Oh, yes----” - -“You would marry me?” - -“Yes!” - -Gregory stared at her, wondering if she really were suffused with white -fire. Her hands fluttered toward him, and his own face was suddenly -relaxed, unmasked. Ora’s lips parted and she bent forward. She knew -then why men and women sacrificed the world when they found their -predestined mates. Here was the one man who could give her primal joy, -suffocate her intellect. And the knowledge that she was capable of -such passion and of the sacrifices it might involve gave her far more -satisfaction than her former brief mood of renunciation. - -She made another step forward, but Gregory was at the door. “Talk to -Ida!” he said harshly. “I leave it to you. Go to see her tomorrow. You -can do anything with her. You must!” - -And he was out of the house. He left the door open and Ora could hear -his light running footsteps. - - - - -XV - - -On the following morning Gregory, who had spent the night in the mine -and had just come up to the cabin, heard his telephone ring as he was -about to take his bath and go to bed. His first impulse was to ignore -the summons, but, his business instinct prevailing, he went into the -office and unhooked the receiver. - -“Well?” he asked, in a voice both flat and uninviting. - -“It is Ida. How tired your voice sounds. I won’t keep you a minute. I -have a plan to suggest. Why not let me put up those geologists? Mrs. -Cameron has asked me to stay with her and will come over and help me -entertain them at meals. It will not only save you a fearful hotel bill -but keep them from wandering into the wrong fold.” - -“Good idea!” Gregory’s voice was more animated. - -“I’ll get Professor Becke to take them down into one of the big mines -here, take them out myself to yours, amuse them between times with the -prettiest women in town--in short stick to them closer than a brother.” - -“Good! You are the right sort. I’ll meet them at the train--on the -night of the second, it is--and take them right up to your house. It’s -putting you to a lot----” - -“Not a bit. It will be immense fun. Good-bye.” - - * * * * * - -On that same morning Ora went to Butte. She had telephoned to Ida, and -Mowbray met her at the train with the limousine. - -“Mrs. Compton had to go to some charity meeting or other,” he said, as -they shook hands warmly. “I am to drive you about for an hour.” - -This was better fortune than Ora, who possessed little of Ida’s -patience and talent for the waiting game, had dared to anticipate. - -“How jolly!” Her face lost its traces of a sleepless night as it -flashed with hope and enthusiasm. “And after that dreadful train! Drive -to the Gardens,” she said to the chauffeur. - -She pointed out Anaconda Hill as they passed under that famous portal, -and the shaft houses of other mines, suggesting that he go down with -the geologists when they made the inevitable descent. “But you will -find your visit to Mr. Compton’s mine more satisfactory,” she added -lightly. “You will see more ore in the vein. How do you like him?” - -Mowbray growled something in his thick inarticulate English voice, and -Ora grasped her opportunity. She turned to him with the uncompromising -directness her sinuous mind knew so well how to assume. - -“Take me into your confidence,” she said peremptorily. “I can help you. -At all events keep you from making any mistakes with Ida. She is what -is called a difficult proposition. Are you in love with her?” - -Mowbray turned a deep brick-red and frowned, but he answered -intelligibly: “You know jolly well I am.” - -“Then let me tell you that there is only one way you can get her. Ida -is moral to the marrow of her bones. You might make her love you, for -she and her husband are practically separated, but you can get her only -by persuading her to divorce Mr. Compton.” - -“I’ve thought of that. Of course I’d rather marry her. I’m a decent -sort myself--hate skulking--and lying--she’s the last woman I’d want to -compromise. But I’m so beastly poor. I’ve only twelve hundred pounds a -year.” - -“And she has forty thousand pounds now of her own. You need not -hesitate to spend the capital, for Mr. Compton is most generous, and is -sure to give her much more. He is bound to be a multimillionaire--it is -only a question of a few years.” - -“Does he want his own freedom?” - -“I am not in his confidence. But as they no longer care for each other -and have agreed to live apart--merely showing themselves together in -public occasionally to avoid gossip--it is natural to suppose that he -would be indifferent, at least. He cannot be more than thirty, and will -be sure to want his freedom sooner or later.” - -“This is splendid of you!” cried the Englishman gratefully. “She’s not -happy. I know that, and now I shall know just what to do.” - -“Sympathise with her. Make yourself necessary--make her feel the -neglected wife, and what a devoted husband would mean. You have the -game in your own hands, and I will help you.” - - - - -XVI - - -Ora discerned certain changes in Ida as the three reunited friends, -with so many pleasant memories in common, talked gaily at luncheon. -It was not only that she was a trifle thinner but there were shadows -in her eyes that gave them troubled depths. The curves of her mouth -also were less assured, and her strong, rather large, but beautiful -hands had a restless movement. Ora, whose imagination was always ready -to spring from the leash and visualise a desired conclusion, pictured -Ida, if not already in love with this good-looking and delightful -Englishman, as circling close; neglected and mortified, she longed for -the opportunity to live her life with him; in short was champing the -bit. - -Ora led the conversation--no great adroitness was necessary--to the -many divorces pending in Butte at the moment. Ida sniffed. Ora asserted -gaily that they were merely a casual result of an era of universal -progress and individualism; one of the commonplaces of modern life -that hardly called for comment. “You are so up to date in everything -else, my dear,” she concluded, “that I wonder you cling to such old -middle-class prejudices.” - -“I guess there are a few conservatives and brakes left in this -country,” said Ida, drily. “I may look back with horror at the time -when I chewed gum and walked out of a restaurant with a toothpick in my -mouth, but Ma hammered most of my good old-fashioned prejudices into -my back with the broom-handle, and I’m no more likely to forget her -opinion of divorce--the poor get it sometimes as well as the rich--than -the bastings I got if I played hookey from school, or sneaked out after -dark alone with a beau.” - -“My mother was exactly the same,” said Ora, with that charming -spontaneity which so often robbed her words of the subtle insult of -condescension, or the more cryptic of irony. “If I hadn’t happened to -be a book-worm and had indulged in clandestine love affairs I should -have been shut up on bread and water. And she had all a Southern -woman’s horror of divorce. But, dear Ida! That was in the dark ages. -We live in the most enlightened and individualistic era of the world’s -history. I have kept my eyes and ears open ever since. Nor do I believe -for a moment that we are getting any worse--we merely have achieved a -more well-bred indifference toward other people’s affairs. One can hear -a scandal a minute in large towns and small, if one has nothing better -to do than listen; but whereas in our mothers’ time a woman was dropped -if she was ‘talked about,’ today we don’t turn a hair at anything short -of a quite superlative divorce court scandal--not even about girls; -always provided that they continue to dress well, and keep on being -charming and spending money.” - -“That is about the most cynical thing I ever heard you say.” - -“The truth always sounds cynical. You laugh at me for dreaming and -being an idealist, but I never have shut my mind to facts as you do.” - -“I don’t even blink the old facts. I don’t like them, that’s all. I -don’t say, of course, that if I were married to a brute who came home -drunk and beat me--but this swapping husbands like horses--well, I’m -content to be a brake as long as there’s any wheel to freeze to. You -know I’m not hitting at you,” she added hastily. “I’d give you the moon -if you wanted it; but I put you in a class by yourself, that’s all.” - -“Oh,” cried Ora, laughing. “Let us change the subject before you prove -that your logic turns feminine at the crucial test. Heavens! How -hideous Butte is. We drove----” - -“Hideous? Butte?” demanded Ida indignantly. - -“Oh, you see it through the glamour of a triumphal progress. Wait until -the novelty has worn off. How do you find it?” she asked Mowbray, who -had relished his excellent luncheon and admired his ally’s tactics. - -“Rippin’ air. Nearly took a header out of the window this mornin’ -thinkin’ I had wings. But as for looks--those mountains in the -distance are not half-bad, but the foreground is--er--a little -ragged--and--new--you know.” He smiled into Ida’s warning eyes. -“Really, dear lady, I can understand that you were keen on gettin’ -home again, because home is home, don’t you know. But beauty--tell me -just where you do find it.” - -Ida tossed her head. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and mine -beholds it. That is enough for me. Now, run along to the Club. I -haven’t seen Ora for ages. You may come back for tea.” - -She led the way up to her bedroom and they made themselves comfortable -and lit their cigarettes. - -“Odd as it would seem,” said Ida, “to those east and west of us who -have an idea that Butte has been on one prolonged spree since she -was really a camp, I have to enjoy my occasional cigarette on the -sly. A few of the younger women smoke, when they have locked the -doors and pulled the blinds down--and of course The Bunch does; but -the majority--and those that never bat an eyelash at cocktails and -champagne--think it indecent for a woman to smoke. Funny world.” - -“Butte is a provincial hole. As there are no strangers present you -needn’t bother to defend it. I’ve just had a brilliant idea. Why don’t -you divorce Mr. Compton and marry Mowbray?” - -“Aw!” Ida dropped her cigarette and burned a hole in her skirt. “Are -you raving crazy?” - -“I thought I was advancing a peculiarly level-headed suggestion----” - -“None of it in mine!” - -“But, my dear Ida, you will tire inevitably of this old camp. The -glamour of all this return in a gilded chariot drawn by the cheering -populace will wear off in about six months. So will your own novelty -for them. It is all indescribably cheap, anyhow. If you send Mowbray -away now, he will try to forget you, and forgetting is man’s peculiar -accomplishment. You will have missed a great opportunity. You and Mr. -Compton are manifestly indifferent to each other. Seize your chance, -dear--not only for happiness, but for a splendid social position, -before----” - -Ora paused. Ida was glaring ahead of her with her heavy black brows -pushed low over her flaming eyes. Her lips were drawn back over her -sharp little teeth. Her nostrils were distended. She looked like some -magnificent beast of the jungle stalking her prey. - -“By God!” she whispered, her whole body heaving, “I’ll have him back. I -was a fool before I left, and maybe I shouldn’t have left him at all. -It’s never safe to leave a man. But when I do get him back he’ll be -glad of all I’ve learned. He’s like a lunatic with a fixed idea just -now--but wait.” - -Ora felt cold and numb. She tried to rise, and wondered if the shock -had paralysed her. She managed to articulate: “You love him then?” - -But not even to Ora could Ida make any such admission; she who always -had flouted both sentiment and passion! She recovered herself and -tossed her head. - -“Love! Who cares about love? Do you think I’m the sort of woman a man -can throw down for a mine? I wouldn’t stand it even it were another -woman--but ore! It makes me sick. I won’t be thrown down. And I’ll get -him back!” - -Ora too had recovered herself. She lit another cigarette. “I’m so glad -you don’t care, dear. No man is worth agonising over, as you so often -have said yourself. Forgive the doubt. I should have remembered that -you were far too clever and worldly-wise for that sort of thing. That -is the main reason that I am willing to marry Valdobia: I can be fond -of him, like him always, be grateful for his companionship, but he -can’t tear my heart out.” - -“I thought you told me when you came back that you were mad about him?” - -“Oh, I fancy I was strung up that day. When I am excited I always -exaggerate. But do think over what I have said about Mowbray. And it -would be heavenly to have you in Europe.” - -“My mind’s made up. I guess I’m American to my core and marrow. Titles -will never seem natural to me, and I guess we’ll both live to see them -so tangled up with democracy that those that are left will look like -old labels on new cans. No has-beens in mine. Oh, chuck it! What’s this -I hear about little Whalen--that he’s resigned from the High and been -out in the mountains prospecting since the beginning of Spring? I’ve -only seen him once since I came back and then he looked like a viper -that had been stepped on.” - -“I met him the other day when I was out walking. He bought a claim of -one of the prospectors that swarmed out there as soon as they heard -of the Primo and the Perch strikes. He wore overalls and a beard. -I scarcely knew him. He talked rather wildly about the hill he has -located on being another Perch of the Devil.” - -“I guess Gregory is responsible for that and a good many other wild -dreams. I hear that a lot of young men are coming out from the East -this Summer to prospect in those hills. Well, they’ll succeed or fail -according to their luck mostly. Let’s go out. You’ve got two hours -before your train goes--but if you’ve got a list a yard long----” - -And the two sallied forth in perfect peace to shop. - - - - -XVII - - -Ora had more than one cause for uneasiness when she returned to her -little home in the pine woods, but paramount was the fear that she -should not see Gregory Compton again unless by accident. She rose -early after another almost sleepless night and spent a distracted day -wandering over the hills, returning at intervals to inquire if her -telephone bell had rung. Once more she felt a disposition to run away, -anathematising the slavery of love. Only the hope that Mowbray would -wear down Ida’s resistance kept her from yielding to the impatient, -imaginative, too highly organised woman’s impulse to flee when love -seems hopeless and a nervous explosion imminent. She still refused to -feel traitorous to Ida, but she did wonder once or twice if she ever -should dare to face her as Mrs. Gregory Compton. Ida was the reverse of -a fool. She might be blind now, for obvious reasons--but Ora shrugged -her shoulders at the vision of Ida’s horror and wrath. What did she -care for Ida or any other woman if she got her man? - -She made one of her sudden dashes into the house as the telephone bell -was ringing. For the moment she thought she was about to faint; then, -both appalled and angry at the lawless behaviour of her nerves, she -stamped her foot, shook herself, marched over to the telephone, took -down the receiver, and asked in a bored voice: “Well?” - -“I shall come to supper tonight if you will have me?” Gregory’s tones -were those he employed when “canning” a miner. - -“Delighted.” Ora’s nerves fell into place like good little soldiers. -“Will you be here at seven?” - -“About. I prefer to have you tell me here what she had to say.” - -“Constitutionally opposed at present, but that was to be expected. -Seeds always sprout if well planted and judiciously watered. Our friend -from England will do his part.” - -“Good. We’ll say no more about it. But I shall go to see you as usual.” - -“Why not? We are not fools or children. Any new developments at the -mine?” - -“Shaft has reached third level. Vein seems to be about the same -richness as on the second. Mann is here. Good-bye.” - -As Ora, her body no longer braced and rigid, but so filled with the -languor of happiness that she wanted to throw herself down on the divan -and sleep, crossed the room, she became aware that someone was standing -in the outer doorway. His hat was in his hand, and as she focussed her -absent gaze she managed to recognise Professor Whalen. Her impulse -was to turn her back and run into her bedroom; but Ora was always a -great lady. She could be extremely rude to a member of her own class, -but she had never permitted herself to wound the morbid sensitiveness -of those to whom fortune had been less kind. So, secretly wondering -if the little man really stood there, or if anything so insignificant -mattered, she went forward smiling and offered him her hand. - -“So good of you to come and have a cup of tea with me.” She rang a -bell and ordered tea of her Chinaman. “But why did you dress up? I am -accustomed to overalls and flannel shirts, and quite like the idea of -living in a mining camp.” - -Whalen sat on the edge of his chair and stared into the fire, twirling -his hat in his hands. “I guess I’ve got to be a gentleman again,” he -said with a short laugh. “There’s nothing else left for me to be.” - -“Oh! I hope----” - -“My find--and I paid a thousand dollars for the claim--was nothing but -a gash vein. Nothing in that but low grade carbonates.” - -“But are you so sure? Often veins appears to pinch out a hundred feet -or more above a really rich lode.” - -“I’ve poured into that hole all my savings; all I had saved from my -salary during four years, and every cent of my reward in the field of -letters. I even--and against my secret resolutions--consumed a legacy -left me by an uncle.” - -“Perhaps if you would ask Mr. Compton to look at your claim--he is a -sort of ore wizard----” - -“I’ll ask no favours of Gregory Compton!” Whalen burst out, violently. -“Were it not for him I never would have been enticed into this foolish -venture. I cannot realise it--I, who was brought up in the most -conservative corner of this conservative country--I, a pedagogue, a -man of letters, that I should have so far descended as to become a -prospector--live in a hut, cook my own bacon, dig with a pick----” He -paused choking. - -“Doubtless you remembered that some of the greatest millionaires in the -country began that way. Or possibly the Northwest kindled your sense -of adventure--that is inherent in every real man. But why blame Mr. -Compton?” - -Whalen had recovered his breath. He spat out his words. “Why should a -man like that have all the luck? And such colossal luck! Who is he? -What is he? In what way does he compare with me--a man of no family, of -no culture, of no intellect----” - -“Mr. Compton has given evidence that he has one of the best brains this -country has produced.” Ora spoke evenly but with a glint in her eye. - -“Oh, yes, _brains_! I make a fine distinction between mere brains and -intellect. He has the sort of mental composition those men always -seem to have in order that they may make use of their luck and roll -up millions. But intellect? Not a cell. He has never read anything. I -journeyed with him from Pony to Butte not long since and endeavoured -to engage him in conversation. I might as well have tried to talk to a -mummy--and an ill-mannered one at that. The moment I left the subject -of mines he merely looked out of the window.” - -Ora laughed merrily, and poured out the tea the Chinaman had brought -in. “Perhaps it is just that lack of overdevelopment that we call -intellect which permits these men to concentrate upon their genius for -making money.” - -“But that has nothing to do with their luck in the beginning. Luck! -Blind luck! Fool’s luck! And why not to me? Why to this Gregory -Compton? I never believed in luck before, but since this rush, and -my own personal experience----” He swallowed a mouthful of tea -too hastily, scalded himself, and, while he was gasping, Ora said -soothingly: - -“You cannot help believing in luck if you study the early history of -any mining state. There are hundreds of stories of prospectors--you -have told of many yourself; the majority had little or no education, -less science. Out of a hundred evenly equipped with grit, common sense, -some practical knowledge of ores, perhaps two would find a rich pocket -or placer. Four or five possibly made a strike that would insure them -a competence if they neither gambled nor drank. The rest nothing--not -after forty years of prospecting in these mountains. I fancy there is -something in that old phrase about the lucky star; in astronomical -parlance the position of the planets at the moment of one’s birth.” - -“But why not I?” wailed the professor. “Why--why this--well, he is a -friend of yours--Gregory Compton?” - -“_Why not?_” - -“I am infinitely his superior in every way!” cried Whalen in perfect -good faith. “It is I who should have discovered those millions and -taken them to Beacon Street, not this obscure young Westerner, son of -an illiterate old ranchman----” - -“But you didn’t,” said Ora, patiently. “Besides, the fates are not -unjust. They made you a member of the New England aristocracy, and gave -you intellect. Do not be unreasonable and demand the mere prospector’s -luck as well.” - -Whalen looked at her suspiciously, but her eyes were teasing, not -satiric. He had admired her always more than any woman he had met in -the West, and had come to her blindly to be consoled. Suddenly he saw -an indefinable change steal over her face, although her mouth remained -curled with the stereotyped smile she kept for the Whalens. It was as -if something deep in her brilliant eyes came to life, and her slight -bust rose under the stiff shirtwaist. Whalen’s ears were not acute and -he did not hear the light footstep that preceded a peremptory knock. -Ora crossed the room swiftly and opened the door. Whalen was no fool, -and he had written fiction for four years. He had guessed at once that -his beautiful hostess loved the man who demanded admittance, and when -he heard Gregory Compton’s voice he almost whistled. But he merely -arose and frowned. - -“Knocked off and thought I would run in early,” Gregory was beginning, -when he saw Whalen. “How are you?” he asked with more cordiality than -he usually wasted upon the little man. His spirits always flew to his -head when he met Ora, stolid as he might look. “How’s your mine getting -on?” he added, as he selected the longest of the chairs before the -fire. “Heard it had petered out.” - -“It has!” - -“I’ll go over and have a look at it tomorrow if you like. I fancy -you’re located too close to one of the faults. The trouble with you -amateur prospectors--or buyers of prospectors’ claims--is that you -don’t take a geologist out with you. You lose your heads over an assay -report on exceptional specimens. But I’d like to see for myself.” - -“It’s no use,” said Whalen gloomily. “I have used up all my money in -that----” He had learned to swear in mining camp society, but he pulled -himself up hastily, “that hole.” - -“If I think there is anything there I’ll grub-stake you. Nobody would -buy your claim, but somebody might jump it if you let it lapse, and I -want to know who my neighbours are. Have you patented it?” - -“Not yet.” - -“Spent five hundred dollars on it?” - -“_Have_ I!” - -“Well, I’ll look at it tomorrow, and if I think it’s good for anything -I’ll help you out. I am going to Helena in a day or two. Come along and -apply for your patent.” - -“You are very kind.” Whalen felt repentant, and more grateful than he -had ever condescended to feel before. “I’ll expect you tomorrow.” He -inferred that he could best show his gratitude by taking himself off, -and rose. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Blake. This hour has been refreshing -and inspiring after my long absence from civilisation.” - -“You must come soon again,” said Ora sweetly, as she marshalled him -out. “The best of luck.” - -She went to her bedroom for a few moments, and when she returned wore -a soft tea gown made of several shades of woodland greens. She seated -herself in her favourite chair, straight, with a high carved back, and -took up her neglected embroidery. “Dinner will not be ready for half an -hour,” she said. “How long that little man did stay. I am glad you made -a friend of him, for I have always imagined that he could be venomous, -and before you came in he was by way of hating you. Now tell me the -surprise you have for the geologists and newspaper men on the second -level.” - -And for the next three hours they talked of ores. - - - - -XVIII - - -“Give me your hand, Gregory. I am no coward, but this is the first time -I have ever been underground. My father would never permit it, nor my -mother after him.” - -Gregory extended his long arm behind him and Ida’s warm firm fingers -clung to his hand. They had just left the skip at the second level of -his mine. The geologists and the newspaper men, together with herself, -Lord John, Gregory, and Mann, had entered the mine by way of the Primo -shaft, inspected the insignificant vein of copper which had merely -been blocked out, awaiting the possible erection of a concentrating -plant--for it was not worth the expense of freight to Anaconda--thence -down the ladder from the hole blasted by Apex, and into the drift -where the magnificent vein of Perch of the Devil also merely had been -blocked out; but for a more subtle reason. The case in Gregory’s favour -was so flagrant that the great men had laughed, although gracefully -submitting to interviews on the spot and expressing themselves with -as few technicalities as possible. That the Primo copper upon which -Apex had also sunk was a mere attenuated fork of the great vein which -indisputably had faulted from the original vein in Gregory Compton’s -property the reporters could see for themselves. Under the Apex law -Gregory was within his lateral rights in sinking under the adjoining -claim and thence under the Primo mine; and as far beyond as the vein -persisted. - -Against a man less determined and resourceful than Gregory Compton -a wealthy corporation could obtain any verdict it demanded; but to -persist in a suit for Apex rights after this public exposition would -make any trust the laughing-stock of a continent. Even to persist -in the claim that he was mining under an agricultural patent, and -therefore outside his rights, would be mere petty persecution; and -inevitably both suits would steal noiselessly to limbo. Amalgamated -knew when it was beaten and would take its medicine with a grimace and -watch for its next opportunity. - -Ida, although she disliked the sensation of being underground, the -chill of the tunnels and the drip of candle-grease on her smart linen -skirt, had been deeply impressed by the scene in the excavation on the -Perch vein: the men with their keen upturned faces, their peering eyes -so close to the moving candles, the little yellow flames travelling -along the beautiful yellow metal, the eager nervous hands of the -newspaper men, the intense blackness beyond the radius of the candles. -But her eyes returned constantly to her husband’s face. His eyes -gleamed with copper fires. His profile against the dark background of -the cavern looked as if carved in the rock by some prehistoric race. - -The blood scorched her face and her heart leapt with pride as she heard -these distinguished men defer to him, express their admiration without -reserve. A year ago he had been as little known as when she married -him. Today his extraordinary abilities were recognised by the entire -country, and tomorrow he would be one of its colossi. - -She was the only woman that had gone down. Mrs. Cameron and Mrs. -Collier had preferred to remain comfortably with Ora in the bungalow, -or to help her spread the tables under the pines, where luncheon was to -be served. Therefore was she privileged to keep close to the host, and -when they descended into the blackness of the second level she embraced -further her feminine prerogatives. Mann had gone down first, the guests -had followed, and Gregory, after a vain protest, had taken her down in -the skip when it returned for himself. - -The rest of the party had pushed forward, for they had been promised a -surprise. Ida would have lingered, but Gregory pulled her on. He wanted -to hear the comments. The racket of the drills had stopped. Ida saw the -last of the guests disappear up a short ladder. - -“Am I to go up into a stope?” she asked. - -“If you want to see what we’ve come for.” He ran up the ladder, and she -followed, insinuated herself into the hole and stood upright in the -large excavation on the vein. - -“Is it gold?” she gasped. - -“No, but it’s a streak--a shoot--of chalcopyrite ten feet wide and of -the highest value. And it may go down eight or nine hundred feet before -it loses its richness and degenerates into a lower grade of ore. But -there may be millions of tons of that. This is one of the few great -shoots of chalcopyrite known.” - -“Gregory!” said Ida ecstatically, “do you remember I always had such -faith in you that I urged you so often to prospect on the ranch that -you got quite cross?” - -“Yes, I remember.” - -“Never say I doubted you. I may be enchanted at all this success and -recognition of your abilities, but I have never had the least sensation -of surprise.” - -Gregory smiled down into the eager beautiful face so close to his -shoulder. She had manipulated him down the ladder into the tunnel and -for the moment they were alone. “I hope you are half as proud of me as -I am of you,” he said gallantly, although he was a trifle uneasy; not -because she looked as if she might kiss him there in the semi-dark, but -because he felt an impulse to kiss her. For the moment he regretted the -wild romance upon which he was embarked, the torments of its present, -the tragic possibilities of its future. Ida now would make an ideal -wife, demanding far less of his jealously guarded inner self, to say -nothing of his time, than Ora, who had that most terrible of all gifts, -a passionate soul. But this disloyalty was brief, and he frowned and -disengaged his hand, although he was far from suspecting that Ida had -yielded to the temptation to pay him deliberate court. - -“I shall be able to give you a string of pearls before long,” he said -lightly, “or a million or two to play with. I want to hear what these -men have to say. Suppose you go back with Lord John, and tell them that -we are coming up soon for lunch. Ring the bell in the station twice for -the skip and three times for hoist.” - -Ida shrank back against the wall as if she had been struck, but when -Lord John, who had made several futile attempts to separate her from -her husband, came eagerly forward, she left Gregory to the chorus of -enthusiasm and congratulation, and obeyed his directions. - - - - -XIX - - -Ida was in such high spirits during the luncheon that she managed to be -brilliant and amusing within the limits of her expurgated vocabulary. -Only Ora, who knew her so well, saw the sombre fire in the depths of -her eyes, the sudden twist of her mouth at the corners, noted that -her cheeks were crimson instead of their usual delicate coral, the -occasional clenching of her hands. But she had little time to speculate -upon the cause, for the large party were her guests, and, like any -other Rocky Mountain hostess in the liquid month of June, she feared -the sudden drenching of her tables. - -But the day remained fine, and the geologists, who ever since their -arrival in Butte had evinced a remarkable indifference to geology as a -topic for conversation, were as lively as the newspaper men, and deeply -appreciative of the good looks and animated conversation of the four -women who ate almost nothing in their efforts at mental subdivision. -Ora had invited also her engineer and Professor Whalen, placing the -latter as far from Ida as possible; but she saw that he was covertly -watching the woman he must hate. Ida had thrown him a careless nod when -they met by the tables in the grove; and he had returned it with a bow -of surpassing dignity. - -Gregory, now that the men of science and of the press had served his -purpose, was eager to be rid of them, and excused himself when the -luncheon was half over, on the plea that he was his own manager and -needed at the mine. He disappeared into the Primo shaft house, as he -often took that short cut to his own shaft, and Mowbray, who had been -silent, for Gregory affected his buoyant spirits unaccountably, moved -his chair up beside Ida and endeavoured to divert her mind from the -general to the specific. But she snubbed him and he relapsed into -gloom. On the train, however, when she saw that Whalen, who was on his -way to Helena to apply for his patent, was watching her, she flirted -pointedly with the handsome Englishman. - -The guests were to leave Butte on the seven o’clock train, which, -fortunately for the strain that all were beginning to feel, was only -half an hour late. When it had pulled out and Ida had waved her last -farewell, she walked in silence to her car, and intimated with a -curt nod that Mowbray might take the seat beside her. “But tell Ben -where you want to go,” she said, “for I can’t ask you to dine with me -tonight.” - -Mowbray told the chauffeur to drop him at the Club and then asked his -lady, whose animation had dropped to zero, if anything had happened to -annoy her, or if she were merely worn out. - -“Don’t ask me any questions,” said Ida sharply. “I’m sorry to seem -inhospitable but I’ve got something to think out. You can go to the -dance at the Country Club.” - -“I shall more likely go to my rooms and write letters. Don’t worry -about me. Shall we have a ride tomorrow morning?” - -“I don’t know.” - -Mowbray was always philosophical about women, having been brought -up with many sisters. “You are tired out,” he said without too much -sympathy. “Just call me up if you feel like doing anything in the -morning.” - -“All right. Good night.” - -She left him at the Silver Bow Club. Her own house was only a few -blocks distant. She told the maid who admitted her that she wanted no -dinner and should go to bed at once and without assistance. When she -reached the seclusion of her bedroom she locked the door, flung her hat -on the floor and stamped on it, broke several valuable objects, and -then paced up and down, gritting her teeth to keep from screaming. - -There was but one person on earth that she hated more than she hated -Gregory Compton and that was herself. She had meant to play a waiting -game of many interviews, in which her fine calculation had mapped out -the insidious approach, the adroit pushing aside of barrier after -barrier, until Gregory returned almost inadvertently to his allegiance. -She had no desire for romantic scenes; they would have embarrassed -herself, and with her instinctive knowledge of man, she knew that -Gregory would shrink back from any situation that might involve -explanations. Nor did she wish to let a man so absorbed as Gregory feel -that he was loved too much, lest he chafe at the thought of feminine -exactions, and his mind continue to dwell upon the delights of freedom. -He might be capable of moments when the woman alone existed, but there -would be long intervals when he would hate a woman’s clinging arms if -they made him ten minutes late for his work, particularly if he was -headed for his beloved mine. Ida, shrewd, self-controlled, watchful, -knew herself, now that her powers were developed, to be the natural -mate for such a man. He would drive a temperamental woman mad. - -And she had seemed to make a steady progress. The geologists had -remained for three days in Butte before visiting Perch of the Devil. -On the second evening they had been entertained by the professors of -the School of Mines, but on the other two evenings she had given them -elaborate dinners, and Gregory had attended each. She had seen that he -was increasingly proud of her, and grateful. Upon both occasions they -not only had had a little talk apart but he had drifted back to her -more than once. - -And today she had spoiled everything! In the darkness of that mine she -had weakened and made open love to him. She had practically offered -herself--she ground her teeth as she thought of her clinging fingers, -her appealing eyes, her cheek almost brushing his--and he had rejected -her--with consideration, but finality! - -If he had knocked her down she would have cherished hope. But in this -hour she had none. His indifference was colossal. The busiest men in -America had their women; she no longer could comfort herself with the -delusion that the mine was a controlling and exclusive passion; she -merely had ceased completely to attract him--and she remembered how -thorough he was; she no more could relight those old fires than she -could blow life into the dead ashes of Big Butte. He would turn to -another woman one of these days; it was not within human possibility -that he would go through life without love; but not to her! not to -her! She would do to entertain his friends, to flaunt his wealth -and advertise his success; in time no doubt he would treat her as a -confidential friend; but sexually she was an old story. It was apparent -that the mere thought bored him; it was only when Gregory was bored -that he was really polite. - -If she could but have accepted this, resigned all hope, instead of -subjecting herself to humiliation; she, who had never failed to send -the blood to a man’s head with a glance! She didn’t want to hate him. -She didn’t want to hate herself. Why could she not have been content to -accept the inevitable with philosophy and grace? - -The answer that, owing to some mysterious law of her being, she loved -him, made her want to smash everything else in the room; but she would -have some difficulty concealing the present wreckage from her servants, -so she bit her handkerchief to shreds instead. - -When the furies had tired her body she fell into a chair and although -her brain was still hot with the blood sent there by excitement and -lack of food, she admitted frankly that the peculiar nature of her -agitation was due to wounded pride and intense mortification; had -she arrived at a point where she no longer could hope, but without -self-betrayal, she might have wept bitter tears, but there still would -have been a secret sweetness in loving him. Now, she growled out her -hatred. She longed to do something to hurt him. If she only were -another sort of woman! She would go to Mowbray’s rooms, go to Helena -with him for a week. And simultaneously she yearned to be consoled, not -only in her heart but in her wounded pride. - -Should she ask her husband for a divorce; revenge herself by becoming -an English duchess? Ora, in the moment or two they had found together -at the station, had told her that Mowbray’s older brother was at Davos, -unmistakably dying of tuberculosis, and that his engagement, insisted -upon by his father, had been broken. Valdobia had given her this news -in his last letter, adding the hope that his friend would bring Ida -back with him that they might all be together once more. - -Was this the solution of her problem? A marriage that would demonstrate -to Gregory Compton that her moment of seeming weakness was mere -coquetry; a marriage that would raise her an immeasurable social -distance above him; a permanent dissociation from everything that could -remind her of him and this terrible obsession that had disorganised -her being, reduced her to the grovelling level of the women whose -dependence on the favour of man she had always despised? - -When she reflected that her revenge would fall flat, Gregory’s not -being the order of mind to appreciate the social pre-eminence of a -titled race, she ground her teeth, again. There was nothing left but -to consider herself. Should she choose the part that not only would -exalt her station and fill her life with the multifarious interests of -a British peeress, but banish this man in time from her memory; or stay -on and alternate torments with moments of indescribable sweetness when -he smiled upon her? And might she not yet manipulate him into her net -if she continued to play the waiting game? Or would she go wholly to -pieces the first time they were alone together? - -Her pride strangled at this possibility and brought her to her feet. -The blood was still boiling in her head, she knew what nerves were for -the first time in her life. She made up her mind to go out and walk. In -this part of the town she was not likely to meet anyone. - -She found another hat, put on a warm coat, and let herself out of the -house. It was ten o’clock. All the West Side, no doubt, was at the -Country Club. - -For a time she walked rapidly and aimlessly, trying to focus her mind -on other things. But when a woman is in love and the path is stony, she -is obsessed much as people are that suffer from shock and reiterate -ceaselessly the circumstances of its cause. Her brain seethed with -hate, longed for revenge. Nothing would have gratified her more than to -take the secret revenge of infidelity. Many a woman has taken a lover -for the satisfaction of laughing to herself at her husband’s dishonour; -to dishonour being the most satisfactory of all vengeance, whether open -or concealed. - -She realised abruptly that her thoughts had led her unconsciously to -the door of John Mowbray’s lodgings. The flat had been lent him by a -banker to whom he had brought a letter from his brother, and who had -gone East immediately after his arrival; the banker’s wife lived in -Southern California. It occupied the second story of a house in West -Broadway and had its own entrance on a side street. Mowbray had given a -tea there a day or two before, and Ida had presided. - -She did not delude herself for a moment that she could take her -full revenge upon the unconscious Gregory, but at least she could do -something quite shocking, something that would infuriate a husband. -Ida was not afraid of any man, least of all one that wished to make a -duchess of her, but it would be an additional satisfaction to torment -him, and an adventure with a spice of danger in it no doubt would -restore her equilibrium. If Mowbray made violent love to her she felt, -by some obscure process of feminine logic, that she would forgive -Gregory Compton. - -She glanced hastily up and down the street, then more sharply, -wondering if she had dreamed that once or twice she had looked over her -shoulder with the sense of being followed. It was a bright moonlight -night. No one was in sight. She rang the bell of Mowbray’s flat. The -door was opened from above. At the head of the stairs stood the Jap who -served as housekeeper and valet. - -She hesitated a moment, taken aback. She had forgotten the servant. -Then she closed the door behind her. “Is Lord John in?” she asked -negligently. - -The Jap spread out his hands deprecatingly. “His lordship not at home,” -he announced. - -Ida hesitated another moment, then ascended the stair and entered the -living-room. “Turn on the lights,” she said, “I shall wait for him.” - -The Jap obeyed orders, bowed, and withdrew. For a moment Ida was -tempted to telephone to the Silver Bow Club, but Mowbray was sure to -return soon to write his letters, and she liked the idea of giving him -a surprise. She lit a cigarette, selected a novel from the bookcase, -and sank into the most comfortable of the chairs. The room was warm; -both body and brain were very weary. The cool night air had driven the -blood from her head. She yawned, dropped the book, fell sound asleep. - -She awoke as the clock was striking half-past one. She was still alone. -For a moment she stared about her, bewildered, then rose and laughed -aloud. - -“This is about the flattest----” She went swiftly out into the hall -and awoke the slumbering Jap. “You little yellow devil,” she cried, -“why didn’t you tell me that his lordship had gone to the party at the -Country Club?” - -Once more the Jap was deprecating. “Madam did not ask.” - -Ida produced a gold piece. “Well, you are not to tell him that I came, -nor anyone else. If you do I’ll wring your neck.” - -The Jap’s eyes, fixed upon the gold, glistened. “Why should I tell?” he -asked philosophically; and having pocketed the coin ran downstairs and -bowed the lady out. - -When Ida was about to turn the corner she whirled about, this time -with a definite sensation of being followed. But the street was empty -save for a man slouching down the hill with an unsteady gait, his head -nodding toward his chest. It was a familiar sight in any mining town; -nevertheless she quickened her steps, and in a moment was safe within -her own house. - - - - -XX - - -On the morning following the departure of the geologists Gregory took -the bit between his teeth and went in to Butte to see his wife. In his -first moment of shock and confusion it had seemed to him best that Ora, -whose subtlety he recognised, was the one to manipulate Ida’s still too -formalistic mind toward the divorce court; but he was unaccustomed to -relegate any part of his affairs to others, least of all to a woman. -Nor did he think it necessary to inform Ora of his sudden decision. -He might work almost double shift to keep her out of his thoughts and -diminish temptation, and he might marry her and continue to love her -passionately; but she would obtain little ascendency over him. He knew -what he wanted; he had trained his will until at times it appeared -formidable even to himself, and he was as nearly the complete male that -regards woman, however wonderful, as the supplementary female as still -survives. - -He had few illusions about himself, and it had crossed his mind more -than once, since the hope of divorce had dazzled both of them, that -for a year or two or least there must be a certain amount of friction -between a nature like his and a complex, super-civilised, overgrown -feminine ego like Ora Blake. While he had sat with his legs stretched -out to the fire and his eyes half closed, his body weary, but mentally -alert, he had received certain definite impressions of an independent -almost anarchical mind, contemptuous of the world and its midges save -as they might be of use to herself; of a mind too well-bred ever to -be managing and exacting in any vulgar sense, but inexorable in its -desires and as unscrupulous in their pursuit as her father had been; of -a superlative refinement coupled with a power of intense and reckless -passion found only in women possessing that quality of imagination that -exalts and idealises the common mortal attributes. Moreover, it was a -mind that, the first joy of submission and surrender diminished, would -think for itself. - -Until that night when both had dropped the mask for a moment he had -never thought of her as a complicated ego, merely as one from whom -he felt temporarily separated after a union of centuries; and it had -been the reluctant admission that he knew her very little, save as a -gracious woman and his own companion, that had enabled him to school -himself to spend long hours with her alone as before. He had tumbled -blindly into matrimony once, and no matter how much he might love this -woman, to whom he had seemed from the first to be united by a secret -and ancient bond, he was determined none the less to marry the second -time with his eyes wide open. - -But although his glimpses of Ora’s winding depths gave him moments of -uneasiness he always fell back upon the complacent reflection that he -was a man, a man, moreover, with a cast-iron will, and that the woman -did not live who would not have to adapt herself to him did he take her -to wife. - -Until the day before the party at the mines he had been content to -drift, but a certain moment down in his own mine had given a new and -abrupt turn to both thoughts and purpose. Ida might have spared herself -her agonies of shame: she had not betrayed her love, but she had given -him a distinct impression that she was employing her redoubtable -feminine weapons to reduce him to his old allegiance. He had remembered -for a poignant moment that he once had loved this woman to distraction, -and during that moment he saw her again as the most beautiful and -distracting of her sex. His brief surrender had filled him with fury. -He had no intention of despising himself. From boyhood up he had had -nothing but contempt for the man that did not know his own mind. If -it had not been for this serene confidence in himself, he, who was -constitutionally wary in spite of the secret and wistful springs of -romance in his nature and the apparent suddenness of his bold plunges, -never would have married Ida Hook, nor any woman, until he had sounded -her thoroughly. But he had behaved like any hot-headed and conceited -young fool, and, much as he now admired Ida, it both infuriated him and -appalled him to feel even for a moment toward her as he had in his raw -inexperienced youth. - -He therefore made up his mind to go to her like a rational being and -ask her to give him his freedom. They had made a mistake. They were -reasonable members of an advanced civilisation, where mistakes were -recognised and rectified whenever possible. He did not doubt for a -moment that reason and logic must appeal as forcibly to a woman as to -himself. - -The door of his wife’s house was opened after the usual delay, and the -maid told him that Mrs. Compton was upstairs in the billiard room “or -somewheres.” He took the stairs three steps at a time lest his courage -evaporate; but drew a long breath of relief when he entered the large -square hall and saw nothing of Ida. He would have rung for the maid, -but reflected that no doubt he had already provided enough gossip -for the republic below stairs without admitting that he did not know -his way round his wife’s house. He was about to knock on each door -in turn when he noticed that one in a corner at the end of the hall -was open and that it led into a narrow passageway. Beyond there was -light, possibly in one of those boudoirs of which he had heard. Mrs. -Murphy would have been sure to have a boudoir, and no doubt Ida, little -disposed as she was to indolence, spent some part of her mornings in it. - -He adventured down the passageway that terminated in a large room -full of sunlight. He saw his wife standing in the middle of this room -looking about her with a curious expression of wistfulness. The little -hall was carpeted, but she heard him almost as soon as he saw her; she -would have known those light swift footsteps in a marching army. He was -inside the room before she could reach the doorway and close it behind -her and astonished to see a deep blush suffuse her face. His quick -darting glance took in his surroundings as he shook hands with her. The -room was a nursery. - -“I had two beds put in here and have just seen that they were taken -out,” stammered Ida. - -Her embarrassment was communicable, but he said gruffly as he walked to -the window, “Didn’t know the Murphys had children.” - -“Oh, yes, they had two little ones. Seven in all. I think it odd they -should have left the toys here even if they are rich enough to buy toys -every day. There is something sacred about a child’s toys.” - -Ida was merely talking against time, but she hardly could have said -anything better calculated to arrest his attention. - -He turned and looked at her in astonishment. - -“Do you mean to intimate--that you wish you had children? You?” - -Ida’s brain as well as her body was very weary, but it sprang to action -at once. “Oh, yes,” she said intensely. “Oh, yes! And I might have had -two! They would be wonderful in this house.” - -“But----” He cast about desperately. “With two children you could not -have gone to Europe.” - -“That wouldn’t have mattered.” - -“But--don’t you realise that it is this last year of unusual advantages -that has developed you so--so--remarkably? You hated children----” - -“And do you suppose it was Europe that made me want children?” - -“Oh, of course, nothing is as simple as that. You were taken out of -yourself, out of your narrow self-sufficient little life; all your fine -latent powers were developed----” - -“But not altogether by Europe! Still, I don’t deny that it woke me up, -gave me not one new point of view but many, developed me, if you like -that better. Would you like lunch earlier? You get up at such unearthly -hours----” - -“I’m not hungry. I want to talk to you. That is what I came for. Won’t -you sit down--no, not here! Let us go where there are comfortable -chairs. I--I am tired.” - -“Very well. Let us go down to the library.” As she walked before him he -noted that her superb body, which usually looked as if set with fine -steel springs, was heavy and listless. - -The masculine looking room below restored his balance. - -“You don’t look as well as usual,” he remarked, as he threw himself -into the deepest of the chairs. “Yesterday was a hard day, and you had -had those men on your hands for----” - -“I am tired,” said Ida briefly, “but it doesn’t matter. What do you -want to talk to me about?” - -He did not answer for a few moments, then he stood up and thrust his -hands into his pockets and scowled at the carpet. Involuntarily Ida -also rose to her feet and braced herself, crossing her arms over her -breast. - -“It is impossible for this to go on,” said Gregory rapidly. “It is -unnatural. People don’t submit to broken lives in these days. I think -you had better get a divorce and be happy. Mowbray seems to be a fine -fellow. Of course no one doubts that he has followed you here. He could -make you happy, and as soon as I am able--in a year or two--I shall -give you a million; in time more.” - -“Oh! Oh!” - -“You surely cannot want to live for ever like--like--this!” - -“I have no desire to marry again. Have you?” She shot the question at -him, every nerve on edge with suspicion. - -But the last thing in his mind was to betray Ora, and he answered -promptly. “No. But I am absorbed in my mine, and my life will be more -crowded every year with accumulating interests. You are a woman. You -are young--and--and--you wish for children.” - -Ida believed that after her revelation of yesterday he had come to let -her down gently. She determined to throw her all on one heavy stake. If -she lost, at least she would have had the satisfaction of telling him -that she loved him; she had already sacrificed her pride, and there was -a reckless sweetness in the thought of revealing herself absolutely to -this man. When a woman loves a man not quite hopelessly she experiences -almost as much satisfaction in listening to her own confession as to -his. - -She drew herself up, her arms still across her breast, and Gregory -thought he had never seen a woman look so dignified and so noble. - -“Listen, Gregory,” she said, with no tremor in her voice but deepening -sadness in her eyes, “I regret that I have no children because they -would be yours. I am willing to live and die alone because I have -lost your love. I know how I lost it, but, as I look back over my -crudity and ignorance, I do not see how I could have kept it. You were -immeasurably above and beyond me. Nature, or some mental inheritance, -gave you sensitiveness, refinement, distinction, to say nothing of -brains. I had to achieve all that I am now. I was a raw conceited fool -like thousands of American girls of any class, who think they are -just a little too good for this world. I had ceased to love you in -my inordinate love of myself, and the natural consequence was, that -as I made no attempt to improve myself, I lost you as soon as my halo -of novelty had disappeared. I took for granted, however, that I was -returning from Europe to the old conditions. When I discovered that -you had no such intention I was piqued, astonished, angry. But when -I thought it all out I understood. You were within your rights, and -you have behaved with decency and self-respect. I have nothing but -unmitigated contempt for two people that continue to live together as -a mere matter of habit and convenience. They are the real immoralists -of the world, and the girls that ‘go wrong’ know it and laugh at the -reformers. Of course I never had ceased to love you down deep, but it -took just the course of conduct you pursued to make me known to myself. -I realise that it is hopeless--too late. I never intended to betray -myself, but I did so in an unguarded moment yesterday. Otherwise I -never should have told you all this. I have realised since then that -I have lost you irrevocably, but at least if I cannot be your wife I -will be no man’s, and I shall continue to bear your name--and see you -sometimes.” - -Gregory, feeling as if he were being flayed, had dropped upon the edge -of a chair and buried his face in his hands. When she finished he said -hoarsely: “I never dreamed--I never imagined--I thought you incapable -of real feeling----” - -“I think I was then. And since--Well, you are only a man, after all, -and I made you think what I chose until yesterday--Do you mean----” she -added sharply, “that you did not guess--did not _know_ yesterday?” - -“It never occurred to me. I thought you merely were flirting a -little----” - -“Hi!” cried Ida. Then she got back into her rôle. “It doesn’t matter,” -she said with sad triumph. “I am glad I have told you. As for the -future? You have convinced Butte that we are the best of friends. Stay -away if you wish unless I give an entertainment where your absence -would cause too much comment. You don’t want to marry again, but you -may feel yourself as free as air. And one day--when you are worn out, -tired of the everlasting struggle in which you moneymakers work harder -than the day labourer, with his eight-hour laws and freedom from the -terrific responsibilities of money; when you begin to break and want -a home, I will make one for you. There is the doorbell. Lord John is -coming for lunch. I shall give him his dismissal--once for all.” - -Gregory stood up and took her hand. He had a vague masculine sense of -unfairness somewhere but he could not begin to define it, and he was as -deeply impressed as discouraged. “You are a grand woman, Ida,” he said. -“This is not an hour that any man forgets. I wish that you might be -happy.” - -“Nature never intended that people on this planet should be happy--only -in spots, anyhow. And don’t worry about me. You have put me in the way -of getting a great deal out of this old game we call life, and I am -grateful to you. Good-bye.” - -They shook hands and Gregory went out into the hall as the maid was -admitting Lord John. This time the men made no pretence at politeness. -They merely glared and passed. - - - - -XXI - - -The Primo vein had been recovered some time since and Ora had traversed -the fault drift twice and watched the drilling from the station; not -only to assert her rights as mistress of the mine but to experience the -sensations she had anticipated. She soon discovered that when a woman -is in love, and the issue doubtful, other interests fail to provide -sensations. But she went down into the mine every day and roamed -through the older workings. She was tormented and restless, but by no -means without hope; and this being the case she sometimes wondered -why she continued to write to Valdobia as if nothing had occurred to -interfere with their tacit engagement. It was her duty to tell him the -truth, at once, but she switched off all other currents every Saturday -morning and wrote her Roman long gay tantalising letters; being gifted -as a scribe, like so many women, she made them notable with amusing and -enlightening incidents of mining-camp life. - -She had not seen Gregory since Monday evening. He had gone suddenly to -Butte on the morning following the visit of the geologists, and had -telephoned her that he should take the afternoon train to the Capital -and no doubt be detained for several days. She had expected that he -would telephone or telegraph from Helena; that he would write was too -much to expect; she had never seen his handwriting. But he had not -recognised her existence. - -Four days after his departure she went down into her mine and walked as -far as the ragged opening blasted by the Apex men, thinking of Ida. How -much longer would it be before Mowbray overcame her prejudices, and her -own independent and proud spirit revolted under her husband’s complete -indifference? Few women were given such an opportunity for revenge both -subtle and open as Mowbray was offering to Ida Compton. - -It was at this point in her reflections that Ora heard a light -footfall coming down the fault drift of Perch of the Devil. Without -an instant’s hesitation she descended the short ladder that had been -placed between the two drifts for the benefit of the geologists, and -relit her candle. She met Gregory in the little station. He also held -a candle, but he was so startled at the apparition that he dropped it. -She thrust the point of her candlestick into a wooden post. - -“I was going over to see you,” he said unsteadily as he picked up -his candle, relighted it, and mechanically followed her example. He -turned abruptly and walked half way up the drift and back, while she -stood still, shivering with anxiety. Something had put his determined -serenity out of joint. A crisis impended. She felt her unsteadiness -and sat down suddenly on the edge of an ore car, fancying this -dimly lighted room and the black passage leading to it looked as a -death-house cell must look on the eve of execution. - -Finally she stammered: “What is it? Please tell me?” - -He leaned against the wall in front of her. “I am afraid it’s all -up,” he said lifelessly. “I went in on Tuesday to ask Ida to obtain a -divorce. She refused to listen. She has no wish to remarry and will -have none of divorce. Nothing could have been more definite than our -interview.” - -“But--but surely in time--if we have patience----” - -“There is no hope. Mowbray entered as I left. She intended to dismiss -him at once.” - -Ora, without reasoning, of which she was incapable at the moment, felt -that he had been convinced by more than argument and mere words. She -flung her arms over her lap and dropping her head upon them burst into -a wild transport of tears and sobs; she was so unused to all expression -of emotion that she neither knew nor cared how to control it, and the -tears swept out the floodgates that had held her passion in check. - -She looked up suddenly and saw Gregory standing over her with twitching -face and clenched hands; and exulting in the complete abandonment of -all the controls that civilisation has bred, she sprang to her feet, -flung herself into his arms and her own arms about his neck. She had -her immediate reward, for he nearly crushed her, and he kissed her -until they both were breathless and reeling. - -This was the passion she had read and dreamed of; for once the -realities were commensurate; instinct warned her to postpone argument -and prolong the moment to its utmost. There was room in her brain -for the doubt if such a moment ever could come again, so little of -love-making is wholly unpremeditated. So she clung to him and kissed -him, and in that dim cavern his dark face, so reminiscent of those -great prehistoric races that interested him, looked as he felt, -primeval man that had found his mate. - -But, whatever his ancient inheritance, he was the immediate product -of a highly practical civilisation. His keen calculating brain sent a -lightning flash across his passion. He lifted her off her feet and sat -her down on the ore car. Then he took a candlestick in either hand. - -“Come to the other station,” he said peremptorily, and led the way to a -less dangerous seclusion. - -He was half way up the fault drift before Ora, subdued but rebellious, -stooped mechanically and found the veil that she wore in place of a -hat when in the mines. She followed him slowly. She felt rather than -reasoned that she had missed her opportunity and wished angrily that -she had had lovers and knew better how to manage men. By the time she -reached the shaft station the confusion in her mind had lifted somewhat -and she had arrived at the conclusion that she could not overcome him -in the same way again, but must use her brains. She sat down on the box -and smoothed her hair with apparent unconcern. - -Gregory had disposed of the two candlesticks and said, his voice -still unsteady: “There isn’t much to say, but I want to have my last -interview with you in my mine. I cannot get away from here for two or -three days. Will you leave at once?” - -“Will you listen to me? I have my right to be heard?” - -“What is there to say?” - -She clasped her hands in her lap and looked up at him. Gregory -sighed and set his teeth. She looked surpassingly lovely and rather -helpless--women, at their best, always seemed to him pathetic. - -“Gregory,” she said, “you don’t doubt that I love you?” - -“No. But what is the use? Do you suppose I am going to make you my -mistress--all Montana would know it in less than no time. I’m no -saint, but it wouldn’t work--not for us!” - -“But you want me?” - -“Oh!” He turned away, then swung round upon her. She had stood up. Her -head was bent forward. “You should help me out!” he cried angrily. -“Can’t you see--it’s you I’m thinking of. Do you suppose I want all -the sporting women in Butte making horrible jokes about you--all your -friends cutting you? What’s a man good for if he doesn’t protect a -woman?” - -“Love affairs have lasted for years without being found out.” - -“Precious seldom. And we are not buried in a big city. I must live -out here and you would either have to live out here too, or I should -be sneaking into your house in Butte. A business-like intrigue! -Remember I lived somewhat before I married. Sentiment and romance soon -evaporate----” - -“Oh, yes, that is always what I have thought when I have read the -American novelists’ attempts to portray what they call a ‘guilty love’. -The only word that expresses it delicately is _liaison_, and the -setting should be foreign as well. There is no background here. We are -still under the drab shadow of Puritanism. I have heard it estimated -that twenty-five thousand American women go abroad every year to -indulge in a fleeting _liaison_ that gives them courage to endure the -desperately material and commonplace life of this country for another -year. You don’t understand that because you never have been in Europe. -But Egypt--Italy--in Southern Europe anywhere--with its unbridled -beauties of nature and its far more poetic beauties that centuries of -art have given it--and a thousand years of love behind us--Oh, cannot -you imagine how wonderful love would be? Do you think _I_ should ever -want to come back?” - -Gregory was staring at her. “Do you mean,” he stammered, “that you -would sacrifice your reputation openly--your future--do you care enough -for that?” - -“I mean I love you so exclusively that I wish I had a thousand times -more to sacrifice.” - -“But--but--there are always Americans travelling--and you know many -Europeans----” - -“They are always easy to avoid. There are villas with walls, and pink -flowers on top of the walls. And we could travel and see the wonders of -art when the tourist season was over. Nor would I monopolise you. You -could have the society of men of brains and achievement everywhere.” - -He continued to stare at her radiant wistful face. He had known that -she loved him, but it had never occurred to him that she would be -willing to give up the world for his sake. She was a proud woman, an -aristocrat, she had an exceptional position everywhere; the great world -when they parted stood ready to offer its consolations. - -She had unrolled a heavenly vision! His mind had revolted from debasing -her to the status of what is euphemistically known in the West as -“sporting women”; he also remembered the immediate disillusionments -of his younger manhood and wondered if the hideousness of Butte had -been responsible. The Mediterranean with its ancient civilisations -flourishing and forgotten before the historic period, Egypt, full-grown -offspring of a still more ancient but vanished civilisation--both -called to that archæological instinct so closely allied to the -geological, made him fancy he heard faint ancestral voices. Ora’s -eyes were holding his, and her gaze was as powerful as his own. For -the moment he no longer was a son of the newest section of the newest -world. The turquoise waters of the Mediterranean spread before him, but -he saw it alive with galleys---- - -He jerked his eyes away, folded his arms and stared downward. He must -think rationally, not with vapours in his brain. It might be that he -would be more than fool to sacrifice to any consideration the one -chance for happiness in perfect union that life would offer him. - -Suddenly he became aware that he was staring at the rocky floor of his -mine, of its first level; the flickering candle flames revealed bits -of bright yellow metal. And below was the second level with its superb -shoot of copper ore ten feet wide. And below, on the third level, still -was the vein far more beautiful than virgin gold. And down--down--in -those vast unlocked caverns--what mysteries--what wonder-ores might not -the earth harbour for him alone to find and name---- - -“What are you thinking of?” cried Ora sharply. Then she threw out her -arms wildly. “I know! I know! It is those accursed ores! Oh, God! What -have I in me, I, a mere woman, to compensate for the loss of a mine? I -was a fool--Of course! Of course!” - -But Gregory, although his blood had frozen in his veins at the horrid -vision of a permanent divorce from his mine, would make no such -admission. - -“Ora,” he said quietly, “it would be very wonderful--for about three -months. You would despise me if I were content to dawdle away my life -in an olive grove, or throw away my best years and these great energies -nature has given me, doing nothing in that old civilisation in which -I could find no place. And in time you would resent the weakness that -had stranded you with no recourse in life but myself. That sort of -thing has never been a success and never will be, because nature did -not make man to live on love alone, and it is much the same with the -intellectual woman. It wouldn’t work. Not with us. I have known from -the beginning that it must be marriage or nothing. And Ida would not -divorce me if I ran away with you. She would be entitled to her revenge -and she would take it.” He leaned forward and signalled the station -call. “Please take the skip when it comes. I am going below.” And he -ran down the ladder. - - - - -XXII - - -Ora got into the skip and was whisked to the surface. - -She drew the veil over her head and face, wishing dimly that she had -gone home through the mines; but a moment later the veil fell to her -shoulders unnoticed. As she crossed the Apex claim she was vaguely -aware that someone, almost in her path, lifted his hat. She bowed -automatically, feeling like those poor wound-up royalties who must -smile graciously upon their loyal people even though a cancer devour -the body or the brain reel with sorrow. - -Whalen, abnormal in vanity and conceit though he was, took no -offence; not only was this in his estimation the one great lady of -the Western annex, but he was startled by the expression in her fixed -eyes of anguish, terror, and surprise. He had seen Gregory Compton go -down into his mine not a half an hour ago, and it was easy for his -fictionised if unimaginative mind to conjure up a hazy picture of the -scene underground. He turned very red, partly from gratification at -being so close to human passion and pain, but more from the knowledge -that he shortly could offer all the elements for another and a still -more dramatic crisis. At the same time he could do the one woman he -admired in this wilderness a good turn and heal his cankerous ache for -vengeance. - -Ora went on to her little house and sank into a chair before the -burnt-out logs. Her body felt as if it were a vessel into which -had been poured all the waters of woman’s bitterness and despair. -Nevertheless, her predominant sensation was astonishment. For a year -she had lived in a fool’s paradise, indissolubly mated with Gregory -Compton. It was only in the moment when the idea of his own divorce -flashed into her mind that she realised she had meant to have him for -ever, that her imagination had been a mere playground on which she had -romped, and abruptly abandoned when she saw reality standing at the -gate. - -Since that day, interrupted only by the fevers and doubts of love, -she had accepted with joy her predestined fate as the visible mate -of Gregory Compton. Else what did it all mean? She had counted -on marriage, but that respectable solution had faded into utter -insignificance as soon as the shock of Ida’s refusal had passed. To -fling the world aside, to regard it as a mere whirling speck in the -void, followed as a matter of course. She and this man would fill all -space. - -And she had lost. It was over. _Over. Over._ For a time the -astonishment consequent upon the mental reiteration of this fact held -her. Her mind, quick, alert, sinuous as she had always found it, was -unable to readjust itself. How could anything be over that manifestly -had been created to go on for ever? What, then, did it all mean: that -mutual recognition when they had sat together that night in Butte, -that long mental obsession, this later perfect understanding, this -indubitable power to find in each other complete happiness? Over. And -by the man’s decree. How odd. How odd. And what a tragic waste. - -She knew that the mine had pulled him, but she was too much the woman -to take a mine seriously. There had been some other reason. He loved -her; she never doubted that. He had resisted--why? She groped back -through her limited experience, wondering if the trouble were that -she had had so little. Life had not begun with her until a year ago. -She had been a mere student, deliberately living in the unreal, often -deluding, world of books, the worst of all preparations for life. - -Some women were independent of experience, knew men by instinct. She -felt that Ida, in a similar situation, would have had her way. She -had not managed cleverly; no doubt with all her charm and her natural -allurement for men, even a certain acquired coquetry, she was one of -those women that could theorise brilliantly, but failed utterly to -manage their own affairs at critical moments. - -She was well aware that she had not been developing along ideal -lines of late, particularly since she had come out here with the -unadmitted intention of stealing her friend’s husband. By all the laws -of tradition she should be wicked all through. Pride, diffidence, -fastidiousness--one or all, she was in no condition to decide--had -prevented her from playing the deliberate rôle of siren. She sighed and -wished that life could be played upon the formula adopted by so many -brilliant novelists: a steady unrelenting development of character upon -strictly logical lines and by means of cunningly created situations, -that was as much like life as a mother’s formula would be for the -thoughts and deeds of her children at a given hour a year hence. - -Ora did not know that most people in their rare moments of honest -introspection find themselves singularly imperfect. She had looked for -greater consistency in her complex recesses; assuming that if she made -up her mind to take the husband of any woman, and that woman her best -friend, she would be wholly hard and wicked, and, for the sake of the -result, quite willing to achieve this consistent imperfection. And such -hardness would be the surest of all solaces in the event of failure. -She felt neither hard nor nearly as wicked as she should, but she did -recognise the fact that if she had one more chance she would win by -hook or crook. - -Her thoughts swung to Ida. What had she said to Gregory in that last -decisive interview? Ida was as clever as the devil. She would watch -her chance and make just the right appeal at the right moment. Gregory -could be ruthless to the woman of whom he had wearied or to the woman -he loved, but if his wife played upon his honour, his Western chivalry, -his sense of fair play, and reiterated her own rights--to her would he -lower his flag if it struck the life out of his own heart, and left -himself nothing to feed the deep passion and romance of his nature for -the rest of his life. - -In any case Ida had won. - -Once more Ora wished that she had gone to work when she found herself -penniless after her father’s death. She would have developed normally, -and it was unthinkable that in the little world of Butte she would not -have met Gregory Compton while he was free. Then not only would she be -happy today but know nothing of those abysmal depths in her soul which -she execrated while yielding to them and lamenting that for the time -being they were no worse. Love may be divine when all goes well, or -one is born into the cult of the martyr, but when it comes too late -to passionate natures associated with virile and accomplished minds, -it can be the very spawn of hell. Ora’s regret that she was not of the -breed of those finished wantons of history that rose to fame on the -shattered hearts of men was born of expediency. Could she have been -given her choice and Gregory Compton she would have elected to be fine -and noble, consummating the lofty dictates of her superior intellectual -endowment. Not yet had she realised that lacking a ruthless centralised -ideal, rarely allied to brilliant intellects, the souls of women even -more than those of men (who have less time and more poise) are the -playthings of Circumstance. - -She became aware that her Chinaman was crossing the room, and before -she could refocus her wandering mental vision and intercept him, he had -opened the front door and admitted Professor Whalen. - - - - -XXIII - - -Ida had broken a dinner engagement and sat alone in her library. She -knew that Gregory had passed through Butte that day on his way from -Helena to Pony; she had seen him leave the Block where his lawyers -had their offices and jump into a waiting taxi. He was not the man to -take a cab for anything but an imminent train. She had rushed home, -but he had neither called nor telephoned. She reasoned that he would -be more than man if he were not reluctant to see her again after their -last embarrassing interview, that there was no cause for fresh doubts, -and that there was literally nothing for her to do at present but -continue to play her waiting game. But she felt both sad and nervous, -and wondered if it were in her to despair, to “cut and run” like -other women; or whether it might not be wise to absent herself for a -time. Gregory was the sort of man to appreciate delicacy, and after -an absence of two months they would meet quite naturally. She could -visit Yellowstone and Glacier Park, and send him pleasant impersonal -postcards. - -But although she hesitated to acknowledge it, she was tired of her -waiting game, she wished that “fate would get a move on”, and she had -left her husband once with unforeseen results. She leaned her elbows -on her knees and pressed her hands against her face. She had always -cherished a high opinion of her cleverness in regard to men, but she -was nonplussed. For a woman of her resource there should be some -alternative to waiting. She knew that she had made a deep impression -on her husband in that momentous interview, but who could say that he -had not deliberately put the memory of it out of his mind? Certainly -there was no sign that it had softened him or paved the way for her -reinstatement into his life. - -She was alarmed at her waning self-control. During these last few days -she barely had been able to play her part in society; the people at -the various functions she had attended had seemed to her confused and -absent mind like marionettes that she could sweep off the stage with -her arm, and she had retreated into her shell lest she insult them -irreparably. - -She brought her heavy brows together. Could there be another woman -after all? Gregory was cleverer than any detective. Why should it occur -to him to suggest divorce, he a man so absorbed in a mine that he had -forgotten how to live--merely out of consideration for a discarded wife -whose existence he generally managed to forget? It was certainly odd, -and its idiosyncrasies grew and swelled as she brooded. She wondered -if she had been a fool. But who in heaven’s name could the woman be? -Of course it was only a passing fancy, but could she wait, _could she -wait_? - -She was aroused by a slight cough, discreet but full of subtle -insolence. She sprang to her feet, and Whalen smiled as he saw her -drawn face and bloodshot eyes. He stood just within the door, and held -a cap in his hand. He wore a light automobile coat; a pair of goggles -only half covered his bulging brow. His upper teeth were clamped down -over his lower lip, a habit when steadying his nerves. Ida thought she -had never seen him look so hideous, so like a mongrel cur. - -“What do you want?” she asked. - -“How gracious you are! How like Mrs. Blake, who would not forget her -manners if she----” - -“I’ve got no manners for your sort. Get out.” - -“Oh, not yet. I’ve something to say. I’ve waited for over a year, but -my time has come----” - -“You’ll go out the way you went last time if you don’t say what you’ve -got to say pretty quick and get out by yourself.” - -Whalen looked over his shoulder nervously, and measured the distance -to the front door. He had asked leave of the maid to announce himself, -and, when she had disappeared, reopened the door and left it ajar. - -“It won’t take me long,” he said grimly. “It took me a little longer to -tell Mrs. Blake, for she was hard to convince; but she _was_ convinced -before I left. It is merely this: I saw you go into Lord John Mowbray’s -rooms on Monday night shortly after ten o’clock and come out at -half-past one.” - -“Oh, you did, did you? I had a feeling all the time there was a sneak -in the neighbourhood. Well, much good your spying will do you. Lord -John was at the Country Club until three in the morning and everybody -knows it.” - -She spoke calmly, but she was profoundly disturbed. She continued, -however, in the same tones of cutting contempt, for she saw that he was -taken aback, “I merely misunderstood an invitation of Lord John’s for -a bridge party. I thought it was for that night, and although I was -surprised to find myself the first and Lord John not there, I sat down -to wait and fell asleep. I had had a hard day. I only condescend to -explain,” she continued witheringly, “because you are as venomous as a -mad dog and it is as well to muzzle you at once.” - -“I don’t believe a word of that yarn, and neither will anyone else. I -certainly managed to convince Mrs. Blake----” - -“Not she. She must have laughed in your face----” - -“Oh no! Not Mrs. Blake! But I will admit that it was not easy to make -her believe ill of you. Perhaps I should not have succeeded, but when a -woman is eager to believe----” He laughed and shrugged his shoulders; -but once more he cast a quick glance at the line of retreat. The heavy -library table was between them. - -“What the devil do you mean?” Ida spoke roughly, but her heart began to -hammer. She felt a sudden impulse to run away, but she stood rigidly -and glared at him. “Here!” she continued, “come to the point. Spit -out your poison. What particular object had you in trying to set my -best friend against me? It would have been more like you to run to a -newspaper.” - -“That later. I wanted to do Mrs. Blake a good turn and at the same -time let her be the one to tell your husband that he could secure his -freedom without further delay----” - -“What do you mean? What do you mean?” Ida’s eyes were staring as if -they saw a vision of herself at the stake; she tossed off her pride -as she would a hampering cloak. “Ora! Ora! Oh, not Ora! You liar!” -she screamed. “Prove what you said quick----” But he saw that she had -caught the edge of the table and that her body was swaying. - -“Oh, neither will deny it now,” he replied in a tone of deadly quiet. -“She went out there to be near him, no doubt of that; and he’s spent -hours on end in that bungalow. I went to Helena and back with him and I -guessed that something was up, for he was glummer and more disagreeable -than usual; and this afternoon when I saw her come up out of his mine -I guessed they had had a painful scene and parted. So I told her she -had the game in her own hands, and that I’d go on the stand and swear -to what I saw. No husband would believe anything but the truth, nor -this town either. You might prove that your lord made a fool of you and -amused himself elsewhere, but you’re done for all the same; and I guess -Mr. Compton would manage his divorce all right. Then two people that -are madly in love will be happy----” - -Ida’s strength rushed back and the world turned scarlet. She picked -up a heavy bronze from the table and hurled it at him. But Whalen was -expecting a physical assault in some form. He ducked and fled. When she -reached the open door he was not in sight. - - - - -XXIV - - -Ora watched the clock until twenty minutes after eleven. - -The miners changed shift promptly, and the last should have gone down -the Primo shaft by a quarter past at the latest. The shaft house would -be empty, as no hoisting was being done on the night shift. - -She turned out the light in her living-room, wrapped herself in a dark -lodenmantel, a long cape with a hood that she had worn while climbing -in Bavaria, and let herself out. She walked through the grove to the -edge of the bluff above her camp and stood for a few moments, listening -intently. Some ten minutes since she had heard the warning shriek of an -automobile horn, but the garage of her manager, who had motored Whalen -into Butte, was on the flat, and he had had time either to go down into -the mine or climb to his own cottage. - -The moon was at the full and the scene as sharply outlined as by day, -although less animated. Save for the usual raucous noises of a mining -camp the only sign of life was in the saloon. Some one was playing a -pianola, and through the open door she saw men standing at the bar. For -a moment she was tempted to take the surface path across the camps; but -the risk was too great. Some one was sure to be abroad, and although -she had been willing to brave the scorn of the world when there was no -apparent alternative, she shrank from the plain Saxon the miners would -use if they saw her. From Gregory’s shaft house she could reach his -cabin by the path behind the abandoned cut. - -A light was burning in her shaft house. She was not expert enough to -descend the ladder candle in hand, and for a moment faltered above the -darkness of the well; she had not been down before at night. Then she -reflected that it was always night in the mines and descended without -further hesitation. - -At the foot of the shaft the usual station was one with the chamber -left after removing the first large deposit of ore. They had merely -cut through the vein at this point without stoping, and the great -excavation had a lofty roof. Ora struck a match and lit a candle -near by. On the day of the geologists’ visit a number of miner’s -candlesticks had been thrust into what little wood there was in the -chamber, and the candles were but half burnt out. Then she lit the one -she had brought in her pocket. Accustomed as she was by this time to -the route underground by chamber and gallery to the Perch mine, she -always picked her way carefully, particularly down the first drift; -her lessees, impatient at the leanness of the connecting vein, and not -wishing to spend either the time or the money to sink the shaft another -hundred feet, had understoped, and the holes were ill-covered. - -She crossed the large black cavern toward the first of these tunnels, -or drifts, sweeping the candle about her head, and then holding -it downward, for she always feared cave-ins. The room was almost -untimbered, owing to the hardness of the rock. - -She had almost reached the mouth of the drift, when she paused -suddenly, listened intently, and then blew out her candle. Some one -was on the ladder. It was one of the miners, no doubt. Something had -detained him above ground, and not daring to summon the shaft house -man, he was sneaking down the ladder. He would go on down to the second -level of the mine. Ora stood motionless, her hood pulled over her white -face. Her miners were good average men, but the saloon flourished, and -was no doubt responsible for the present delinquency. - -Then once more she listened intently. The upper part of her body -stiffened like a startled animal’s. Whoever was coming down was making -his first descent by foot; not only was his progress slow, but he was -breathing heavily, and hesitating between rungs, as if it were his -first experience of an inclined ladder. Miners hate the shaft ladder, -and will resort to any subterfuge to avoid it, but they are experts -in “negotiating” it nevertheless. No doubt this was some green hand, -recently employed. Or possibly the man was drunk. - -Then suddenly Ora turned cold with the chill of the mine itself, a -mere physical attribute that her warm blood had never deigned to -notice before. A form was slowly coming into view below the high roof -of the cavern, and although it was little more than a blot on the -general blackness, Ora’s keen eyes, accustomed to the faint relief -given by the candle near the shaft, noted as it descended further -that it covered more of the ladder than it should. Miners are almost -invariably thin and they wear overalls. This person wore a heavy cape -like her own. But it was not alone the garment, which any miner would -scorn, that betrayed the sex of the invader; it may have been the -physical awkwardness, the shallow breathing, or some subtle psychical -emanation--or all--that warned Ora of the approach not only of a woman -but of a malignant force. - -And this woman was following her. There was no doubt in her mind of -that. She suffered a moment or two of furious unreasoning terror as -she crouched against the wall and watched that shadow against a shadow -slowly descend the final rungs of the ladder. Her first impulse had -been to flee down the drift, but there was danger of falling into one -of the gouge holes and disabling herself. She dared not relight her -candle. - -Shaking, terrified as she never had been in her life--for she was -normally brave, and it was not a normal woman she feared but that -aura of hate and lust for vengeance--undecided, putting up a frantic -prayer that Gregory would come to her rescue, she pulled the hood over -her face and almost sank to her knees. The woman, breathing heavily, -reached the last rung and touched the ground as warily as a cat. For a -moment she stood drawing in deep breaths like sighs, but which escaped, -to tormented ears, like a hiss. Ora, her eyelids almost meeting over -the intense concentration of her gaze, saw the woman fling back the -mantle that covered her, throw out her arms as if to relax the muscles -after the strain of the descent. Then she turned suddenly, snatched the -candlestick from the wall and held it above her head. - -For the moment Ora thought her heart had stopped. The woman was Ida. -Her heavy lowered brows were like a heavy band across the white -ghastliness of her face. Her eyes glittered horribly. Her lips were a -mere tight line. Her black hair, loosened, fell over her face. Ora’s -hypnotised gaze tore itself from those slowly moving eyes and lowered -itself instinctively to Ida’s right hand. It held the stiletto she had -given her in Genoa. The slanting rays of the candle fell on the jewels -of the hilt. Then she knew that Ida had followed her down into the mine -to kill her. - -Her courage came back as quickly as it had fled. Ora’s brain might -be democratic but her soul was haughty. The friendship of the past -eighteen months between herself and this woman suddenly shaped itself -as forced and artificial, and she was filled with a cold surprise and -anger. _Who_ was Ida Hook that she should presume to question Ora -Stratton? Similar reflections, no doubt, stiffened many a noble when on -his way to the guillotine at the behest of the _canaille_. - -Ora was beyond the ray of the candle at present but Ida was beginning -to move forward, her eyes almost blank in spite of their brilliancy, -moving from side to side, striving to pierce the darkness, her head -bent forward to catch the slightest sound. It was evident that she had -seen Ora go into the shaft house, and knew that she could not be far -off. - -Ora took the automatic from the bag at her waist, pointed it at the -roof of the cave and fired twice. The din was terrific in that confined -space. Ida shrieked, dropped the stiletto and candle, and flung her -arms about her head. Ora hastily lighted two other candles, and then -retreated against the wall. She believed that the terrible inhibition -in Ida’s tormented mind was shattered, but she kept the automatic in -her hand, nevertheless. - -The reverberations died away and once more the mine was as silent as -only a deserted level of a mine can be. Ida raised her head and saw -Ora. She gave a strangled cry and moved forward a step. Then her arms -fell heavily to her side. She did not even pick up the dagger. The -inhuman tension of her mind relaxed, the body barely had force enough -to hold itself together. - -“I came here to kill you,” she said. “But I can’t do it. I’ve been mad -for hours, and I wish I could have found you in bed as I thought I -would. I could have killed you then. But I saw you come down here--Have -you told him?” - -“No. He was down in the mine until eleven. I was on my way to tell -him--to break down his resistance tonight!” - -“His resistance?” Ida raised her head. She had lost the pitch necessary -for murder, but her mind began to recover its alertness and her -drooping body to set its springs in motion. “What do you mean by that? -I thought he was in love with you.” - -Ora laughed. She was filled with an utter despair, but the knife was -still in Ida and she could turn it round. “Oh, yes, make no doubt of -that. He loves me and will as long as he lives----” - -“Not much he won’t!” roared Ida. “If I’ve been too quick for you you’ll -never tell him now, and he practically gave me his word the other day -that he’d never even ask me for a divorce again. That means you go and -go quick, and if you think Gregory will have nothing to do but sit down -and nurse your memory----” - -The blood flew to Ora’s head and she hastily dropped the automatic into -her bag. “I’ll not go!” she said. “And what is more I shall tell him. -When Gregory knows that you spent three hours in Mowbray’s rooms at -night----” - -“Mowbray was not there! He was at the Country Club----” - -“_Was_ he?” - -“Yes, and it can be proved. Moreover, you know me well enough----” - -“It doesn’t matter what can be proved or what I believe. You waited for -Mowbray--Do you suppose that Gregory--or any court of law----” - -“My God!” cried Ida. “You! You! I think it was that drove me off my -head more than the prospect of disgrace and losing Gregory. You! What -in God’s name is possessing you? I always knew that you would be the -concentrated essence of all damn fool women that ever lived when you -did fall in love, but I never believed it was in you to do anything -dishonourable----” - -“And would you have believed that you, the concentrated essence of all -that is cool, deliberate, calculating, would ever be inspired to commit -murder? And for a man? What’s the use of talking? People possessed by -love either are wholly themselves while it lasts, or are abnormal and -should not be held accountable even to the law. I suppose this means -that you too love Gregory Compton?” - -“Yes it does!” cried Ida, the more vehemently because it shamed her -to put this unwonted weakness into words. “I do, damn it all! I do. I -thought I was immune, but I guess we are all born with the microbe and -it bites when the soil is good and ready.” Her anger had vanished, -for in spite of Ora’s defiance she knew that she was master of the -situation. She kicked the stiletto contemptuously aside, clasped her -hips with her large firm hands and threw back her shoulders. “Now!” she -said, “admit right here that you know I didn’t go to Mowbray’s rooms -for any old intrigue. That kind of thing isn’t in me and you know it.” - -“I will confess I was surprised--I refused to believe it at first--Oh, -I suppose I don’t. But it doesn’t matter----” - -“Are you ready to come with me this minute to Gregory and tell him that -yarn--knowing that I can prove Mowbray wasn’t there--I say _go with -me_--not by yourself.” - -Ora made no reply. She was beaten but she was not ready to admit it. - -“You may bet your life on one thing,” continued Ida. “You go with me -or you don’t go at all, for I’ll stick to you like wet paint until -this thing is settled once for all. Now just tell me what you meant a -while back by Gregory’s resistance? When you found I wouldn’t consent -to a divorce--of course you put him up to ask me, you traitorous little -white devil--did you want him to elope with you?” - -“Yes I did!” - -“And he wouldn’t!” - -“He--he would not sacrifice me----” - -“Shucks! Where did you want him to go? To Europe?” - -“Yes.” - -“Good Lord! And what did you think you were going to do with him over -there? Spoon in orange groves for forty years?” - -“There are several thousand resources in Europe besides orange -groves--but you would never understand----” - -“Oh, don’t I understand? It’s I that does understand, not you, or you -would never have made such an asinine proposition to Gregory Compton. -Why on earth didn’t you propose some place with _mines_--Mexico, -Alaska, China--Then you might have stood some show--but -Europe--Gregory--Do you remember those American business men that -always looked as if they had left their minds in an office at the top -of a thirty-story building, and their bodies were being led round by a -string? The vision of Gregory astray in Europe for the rest of his life -would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. Talk about the conceit of -man. It isn’t a patch on that of a woman when she gets the bug inside -her head that she can be ‘everything’ to a man. I can manage Gregory -till doomsday when I get him back, but you’d lose him inside of six -months no matter which way you got him----” - -“That couldn’t be true! I recognised that he was mine--_mine_--the -night we met before I left----” - -“What’s that?” - -“Oh, yes, I met him once before I went abroad with you--we talked for -an hour----” - -“And he was the man you wrote those letters to in Europe----” - -“Yes.” - -“And I your most intimate friend!” - -“I never sent them, and you did not care for him then----” - -“Oh, I don’t see you apologising if you had turned heaven into hell. -You made up your mind then to have him, I suppose?” - -“No. And not even when I came out here. I only wanted to be with -him--know him a little better--have that much--Oh, I couldn’t make you -understand any more than that I can suffer as much as if I were the -best of women who had lost her husband by death. It was only after -Mowbray came--there seemed a prospect----” - -“Well, I don’t know that I blame you so much, for I certainly bluffed -it pretty well. I can forgive you for that but not for meaning to make -me out a strumpet and send me to the muck heap, disgraced for the rest -of my life. Well, come along. Let us go straight to Gregory and let him -decide.” - -Ora did not move. - -“It’s either that or you go back to Butte with me tonight and start for -Europe tomorrow morning.” - -“I know when I am beaten. I will leave. And don’t imagine that you have -won because you are in the right. We have emerged from the dark ages of -superstition, and we know that the wicked are not punished if they are -strong enough. Nor are the virtuous rewarded for mere virtue--not once -in ten thousand times. You have won because you are stronger than I. -That is all.” - -“It’s enough for me.” - -Ora laughed. “Do you really believe that you can win him back? He’ll -not forget me, because I can always fire his imagination. He is as -indifferent to you as only a man can be when the woman is an old story.” - -“That was a nasty one! But I’m not worrying. I have been at a -disadvantage since I got back, thinking my only rival was a hole in -the ground. But take this from me, Ora: when a woman knows where she -stands, and has the inside track, and has her nerve with her, the man -has no show whatever. Nor the other woman. I’ll get him back all right. -And he’ll forget you. That’s a man’s long suit.” - -“We’ll neither of us ever know, so it doesn’t matter. I shall never see -him again. That is all that matters to me.” - -“And Valdobia?” - -“I shall marry him. I suppose--after a while.” - -“I don’t mind saying that he is much too good for you.” - -“Possibly. And he’ll love me the more.” - -“And shall you tell him of this little interlude?” - -“Certainly not.” - -“Well, I always have maintained that the woman who confessed anything -to a man was a fool, but it certainly is a queer mix up.” - -“I don’t know that I should so much mind telling him, after all. Men -are too practical to resent any but the literal infidelity. And he is -the only person living that understands me. Gregory does not and never -would care to. Why could not I have had this madness for the one man -who is really fitted to be my mate--whose ideas of life are my own, who -has so much the same order of mind? Why should I love Gregory Compton, -a man I not only cannot marry, but with whom I never could find a real -companionship. My God! Why? Why?” - -“There are several ways of getting ahead of life,” said Ida drily, “and -one is not asking ‘Why’ too often. That’s just one of her little traps -to keep you discontented. You and Gregory Compton! It certainly is -funny. What did you talk about anyway?” - -Ora threw out her arms and laughed wildly. “Ores. Ores. Ores. I tried -to interest him in many of the things that interested me. He didn’t -even try to understand what I was driving at. One night I offered to -read to him--I had a lively new volume of memoirs in mind--he asked -if I had any work on copper. I read to him for three hours from a -book called ‘The Copper Mines of the World,’ technicalities and all. -Of course he had read it before, but it seemed to delight him. We -literally had no common meeting ground but ores, but we loved each -other madly. Oh, don’t tell me that it was mere passion!” she broke out -as angrily as if Ida had interrupted her. “Valdobia is attractive in -far more ways and better looking. Gregory has met many women.--If that -were all we should have bored each other long since--we never could -have held each other’s imaginations while apart.--I tell you it is some -deep primary bond--something that older races perhaps could explain. -Why should we meet at all in this life----” - -“I guess when we understand all the different brands of love we’ll -vaccinate and be immune. Shut your teeth, Ora, and take your medicine. -And for heaven’s sake let us get out of this damp hole. I’ll help you -and Custer pack and we’ll go to Butte in the car I came out in. Have I -got to go up that ladder!” - -“No, we’ll go over to the Perch mine and ring for the skip there. My -engineer is not on duty during the ‘graveyard shift.’” - - - - -XXV - - -On the following morning Ida, having seen Ora on the train bound for -Chicago, went at once to a public garage, rented the touring car she -had used the night before, and was driven out to the mines. She walked -up to the cabin on the crest of Perch of the Devil and, finding it -empty, summoned a miner who was lounging near and bade him call Mr. -Compton. The man asked to be allowed to use the telephone in the -office, obtained connection with the second level of the mine, and -announced in a few moments that the boss was on his way up. - -Ida, who had dropped wearily into a chair, merely nodded as Gregory -entered. He was as pale as a dark man can be, and his voice when he -spoke sounded as if he had been running. - -“What is it?” he demanded. “Has anything happened----” - -“To Ora? Nothing, except that she is on her way East and to Europe. -Tired, no doubt, but quite well.” - -Gregory drew a short sigh of relief, and sat down before his table, -shading his eyes with his hand. “Well?” he asked. “What is it?” - -“I haven’t come out here to make a scene, or even to reproach you. I -believe that I should have the self-restraint to ignore the subject -altogether if it were not for that man, Whalen. Some one must put an -extinguisher on him at once and you are the one to do it. That is why -I am obliged to tell you that I found out yesterday about you and Ora. -I had begun to believe there must be some woman in the case but I had -not the least suspicion of Ora. I not only believed her to be the soul -of honour, but I thought she was really in love with the Marchese -Valdobia, a Roman who has everything to offer that a woman of her type -demands, and to marry whom she had demanded a divorce from Mark. She -has been tacitly engaged to him ever since we left Europe.” - -Ida saw the muscles in Gregory’s long body stiffen as if he were about -to spring, and his eyes glitter through the lattice of his fingers. -But he made no comment, and after giving him time to assimilate her -information, she added more gently: - -“Console yourself with the reflection that she would have thrown him -over for you. But she knows now what a mistake she would have made. Ora -is one of those atavistic Americans that are far more at home in Europe -than in the new world. She has gone where she belongs and Valdobia is -her man.” - -She paused again. He was still silent, and she continued less fluently: -“Now I come to the unpleasant part for myself. To begin at the -beginning: I made an enemy of little Whalen before I went abroad. He -had the sublime impudence to kiss me one day, and I simply took him by -the back of his neck and the seat of his pants and threw him out of the -window. He has had it in for me ever since.” - -In spite of the various emotions raging within him, Gregory laughed -aloud at the picture. The atmosphere felt clearer. Ida went on with -more confidence: - -“Of course you know that Lord John Mowbray followed me here. He wanted -me to get a divorce and marry him, as Valdobia had planned with Ora. -I liked him well enough, but even if I had been free it never would -have occurred to me to marry him, and no one knew better than he that -I didn’t care a copper cent for him. His hope after he came here--a -hope in which he was encouraged by Ora--was that, as you were so loudly -indifferent, pride might drive me to leave you and make a brilliant -marriage. Well, I was tempted for a moment. It was on the night of the -day I had been down in the mine with you. I believed that I had given -myself away absolutely, offered myself and been refused as casually as -if I had been some woman of the streets; told you almost in so many -words that I loved you and been invited with excruciating politeness to -go to the devil. - -“Well, that night I nearly went off my head. I had a whole mind, for -a few moments, to ring up Mowbray and tell him that I would get my -freedom and leave the country for ever. But that passed. I couldn’t -have done it, and I knew it, in spite of the blood pumping in my head. -I went out for a walk, for I had smashed a few things already. Then the -mad impulse came to me to call on Mowbray. I knew that I’d treat him -no better than I had treated Whalen if he so much as tried to kiss me. -But I wasn’t afraid. He was too keen on marrying me to take any risks. -What I wanted was to do something real devilish--to be more elegant, -something quite the antithesis of all that is _comme il faut_. So I -went. Mowbray wasn’t there. He had gone to the dance at the Country -Club. I sat down to wait for him and fell asleep. When I awoke it was -after one o’clock and I was still alone. I can tell you I got out -pretty quick. I had slept the blood out of my head and I felt like a -fool. I bribed the Jap not to tell Mowbray or anyone else. - -“Well, the point of all this is--and the only reason I have told -you--Whalen saw me go in and waited for me to come out. He believed -that he had found his chance for revenge at last. No doubt he would -have told you on the way to Helena, but he hasn’t the spunk of a road -agent at the wrong end of a gun. So he took his tale to Ora when he got -back.--But before I go any further I want you to say that you believe -I had no wrong motive in going to Mowbray’s rooms. Of course a hundred -people could testify that he did not leave the Country Club until three -o’clock, but that is not the point with you.” - -“I believe you,” said Gregory. He was intensely interested. - -Ida drew a long sigh and the colour came back to her face. Her eyes, -heavy with fatigue, sparkled. “Well! Whalen was all for drinking his -cup of revenge down to the dregs. It wasn’t enough to spring a mine -under me, he must see what I looked like when it blew up the first -time. After he told Ora he posted into Butte and managed to get into -my house unannounced--that maid has been fired. I was in the library -on the other side of the room. The doorway was good enough for him. He -told me. Some time I’ll tell you all I felt. After he had lit out with -the Venus of Milo flying after him, I went stark mad. I made up what -mind I had left to kill Ora and kill her quick.” - -“What?” Gregory sat up and stared at her, his eyes wide open. And, -astounded as he was, the immortal vanity of man thrilled responsively -to the reckless and destructive passions he had inspired in these two -remarkable women. - -“I got a touring car and arrived at the foot of her hill--a little -after eleven it was, I guess. There was a light in her living-room, and -I made up my mind to wait until I was sure she was alone and in her -bedroom. Then I intended to get in somehow or other and kill her with -that stiletto she gave me in Genoa. It was a notion of hers that I had -been one of the wicked dames of the Renaissance, and I just naturally -took the hint. While I was waiting the light went out and almost -immediately I saw her hurry down the path that led to her claim and go -into her shaft house. I knew on the instant that she was going to you, -and that she took that route to avoid being seen. My mind could grasp -that much in spite of the fixed idea in it--that she was on her way to -tell you Whalen’s story. This was true as I found out afterwards. She -went that night, partly because she couldn’t keep it any longer, partly -because she wanted to tell you when you were alone in your cabin at -night and she could also bind you hand and foot with that Lorelei hair -of hers. It takes the hyper-civilised super-refined Oras to stick at -nothing when their primitive instincts loosen up. - -“Well--I went into the shaft house, and listened until I no longer -could hear her on the ladder. Then I followed. Glory! Shall I ever -forget going down that ladder? I felt as if every muscle in my body -were being torn up by the roots; and I had to carry the stiletto -between my teeth. And pitch dark. All my clothes in the way every step. -It was enough to take the starch out of tragedy, and I guess it would -have flattened me out if it hadn’t been just the one thing that could -make me madder still. - -“I’ll give you the details of that scene some other time. I’m too -tired now. It is enough to say that she had a pistol and made such an -infernal racket with it--shooting at the roof--that something busted in -my head and I came to. Then we had it out. She agreed to leave because -she knew me too well to believe I had gone to Mowbray’s rooms for any -horrid purpose, and he hadn’t been there anyway. I told her that if she -told you it would have to be before me, and she knew that she couldn’t -brazen it through. So I packed her and got her off this morning. That -means that I had no sleep last night.” - -She stood up and Gregory rose also. “Now, there are two things more,” -she said with no lack of decision in her voice, whatever her fatigue of -body. “You must settle Whalen, and you must move to Butte and live in -my house, even if you are only there once or twice a week. Whalen, the -moment he discovers that Ora has gone, will run about Butte defaming -me, or carry the story to the papers. It wouldn’t do me much good to -prove that Mowbray wasn’t there. People like to believe the worst, -and in time would forget that Mowbray had been at the Club on that -particular night. My set might be all right. But the rest--and my -servants--and Ruby and Pearl! They always use the word ‘bad,’ and, as -Ora says, an intrigue is only decent in a foreign language. It gives me -the horrors to think of it. But if we are seen together twice a week, -and you are known to be living in the house, however often you must be -absent, nobody will listen to a story that is not headed toward the -divorce court.” - -“I’ll buy Whalen’s claim and tell him to get out of Montana. He’ll go! -As for the rest of your programme--please be sure, Ida, that I stand -ready to protect you now and always. You are not only my wife but an -extraordinary woman, and I am very proud of you.” - -“Oh, the extraordinary woman hasn’t been born yet, in spite of the big -fight the sex is putting up,” said Ida lightly, as they left the cabin -and walked down the hill. “When women really are extraordinary they -will be just as happy without men as they now want to be with them. -They try with all their might to be hard, and they can ring outside -like metal, but inside they are just one perpetual shriek for the right -man to come along--that is all but a few hundred thousand tribadists. -But they’ve made a beginning, and one day they’ll really be able to -take men as incidentally as men take women. Then we’ll all be happy. -Don’t you fool yourself that that’s what I’m aiming at, though. I’m the -sort that hangs on to her man like grim death.” - -“You’re all right!” said Gregory, who, man-like, was automatically -readjusting himself to the inevitable. - -He handed her into the tonneau of the car, and tucked the robe about -her. She gave his hand a hearty friendly shake, for she was much too -wise and too tired for sentiment. “Don’t you worry about Ora,” she -said. “Custer is with her and she has the drawing-room, and is probably -sound asleep at this moment. It must be very restful to get a tragic -love affair off your chest.” - -And then the car rolled off and she fell asleep at once. - - - - -PART III - - - - -PART III - - -They stood together in the dawn, the blue dawn of Montana. Silver stars -were winking dimly in the silver sky, clear save above the glittering -peaks of the distant range, which reflected the blue of a bank of -clouds above. And all the vast and snowy expanse was blue; and the snow -on the pine trees of the forest. - -No one stirred in the two camps, not abroad at least; and even the -shacks and larger buildings built with as little regard for beauty were -transformed and glorified by the white splendour of winter. On the -crest of Perch of the Devil was a long gracefully built bungalow, also -heavily laden with snow, and between the posts of its verandah hung -icicles, iridescent blue in the dawn. - -A small lawn had been cultivated, and they leaned over the gate of the -fence that surrounded it, not wrapped in one buffalo robe, but in heavy -automobile coats, their heads protected from the intense cold by fur -caps. But they stood close together, and even a passing stranger would -have known that there was harmony between them. Both were looking at -the cold loveliness of the dawn and admiring it subconsciously, and -both were thinking of other things. Gregory was visualising a ranch he -had bought not long since near those mountains, and the wire gold but -a few feet below the surface, found a fortnight ago while ditching. He -had his gold mine at last, but it merely would hasten his grooming for -the millionaire brotherhood, and had given him none of the exultant -ecstasy he had dreamed of in the days before he had opened Perch of -the Devil. The gold mine was not in his hill! Only the sharp, cool, -calculating business wing of his brain appreciated it. The mine beneath -his feet was still the object of his deep affections. - -And sometimes, down in the depths of that mine (never above ground), he -sat alone for a few moments and thought of Ora. He had forced her out -of his mind when she went out of his life, but nothing could dislodge -her from his ivory tower, although in time to come she might gather -dust for years on end. For months after she married Valdobia she seemed -to have taken his memory to Rome with her; but she brought it back in -time. - -In those rare moments when he peered through the windows of that inner -temple, he, too, sometimes asked, “Why?” What had it all meant? It -had been perfect love--yet so lamentably imperfect; not only because -they were torn apart, but because they would not have found permanent -happiness together. Between some subtle essence of their beings there -was an indissoluble bond, but their minds were not in accord, and -neither would have been adaptable save during that fluid period when -even strong egos lose their bearings and float on that inevitable sea -of many tides called Love; knowing that when it casts them on the shore -whence they came, once more will they be as malleable as rock crystal. -But what had it all meant? - -And his wife made him very happy. He found her increasingly desirable -as a life companion. She adapted herself to every angle of his -character while losing none of her own picturesque individuality; made -no impossible exactions either on his soul or his time; was always -beautiful to look at; and the most level-headed of his friends. - -Even men of less complicated egos have been able to love two women at -once and survive. - -And Ida? She at least had what she wanted, she was a philosopher, and -therefore as happy as may be. By constant manœuvring she saw more of -her busy husband than falls to the lot of most American wives married -to too successful men. She had made herself so necessary to him that he -returned from his many absences almost as eager to see her as his mine. -On these hurried trips she never accompanied him, not only because it -was wise to let him miss her, and to think of her always in the home -setting, but because they gave her the opportunity to retain her hold -on Butte; to enjoy her beautiful house there and her many friends. - -Suddenly Gregory raised his head. Then he lifted the ear flap of his -fur cap. High above there was a loud humming, as of the wind along -telegraph wires, or the droning of many bees, or the strumming of an -aerial harp. The month was March and the weather forty degrees below -zero. The very sky, whose silver was growing dim, looked frosted, but a -moment later Gregory felt a warm puff of air on his cheek. - -“The Chinook!” he said softly. - -Another puff touched them both lightly, then a long wave of warm air -swept down and about them. - -“It’s chinooking, certainly,” said Ida, opening her fur coat and -pushing back her cap. “I hope that means we’ve had the last of winter.” - -Again there was a long diving wave, almost hot in its contrast to the -cold air rising from the ground, and still accompanied by that humming -orchestra above. But in a few moments the hum had deepened into a roar -down in the tree tops and about the corners of the buildings on the -hill. The icicles fell from the eaves and lay shattered and dissolving -on the porch, the snow was blown up in frosty clouds and melted as it -fell. - -“It’s the last of winter, I guess,” said Gregory. “We’re not likely to -have another long spell of cold. Spring has come. And so has daylight. -Let’s go in, old girl.” - - -THE END - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - - -[A] Pronounced Bute. - -[B] Plato dates the submergence of the last of Atlantis (the island of -Poseidonis) about 9,000 years before the priests of Sais told its story -to Solon, who lived 600 B.C. The Troano MSS. in the British Museum, -written by the Mayas of Yucatan about 3500 B.C., assert that it took -place 11560 B.C. The archaic records of India give the date of the -fourth and final catastrophe that overwhelmed the remnant of the once -vast continent (which Darwin and other naturalists claim must have -extended from the American to the European continent to account for the -migration of plants found in Miocene strata) as 9564 B.C. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Superscripted text is preceded by a carat character: XV^{me}. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERCH OF THE DEVIL *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Perch of the Devil</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Gertrude Atherton</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 26, 2022 [eBook #69429]<br>Last Updated: Decemeber 26, 2022</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by University of California libraries)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERCH OF THE DEVIL ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<h1>PERCH OF THE<br> -DEVIL</h1> - -<p>BY<br> -<span class="large">GERTRUDE ATHERTON</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt=""></div> - -<p>NEW YORK<br> -<span class="large">FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY</span><br> -PUBLISHERS</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center"><i>Copyright, 1914, by</i><br> -<span class="smcap">Frederick A. Stokes Company</span><br> -<br> -<i>All rights reserved, including that of translation into<br> -foreign languages</i><br> -<br> -<span class="smcap">Fourth Printing</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_logo2.jpg" alt=""></div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center">TO<br> -<br> -<span class="large">MR. FRANK J. EDWARDS AND<br> -MR. WILTON G. BROWN</span><br> -<br> -OF HELENA, MONTANA</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_I">PART I</h2> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span> -<p class="ph2">PERCH OF THE DEVIL</p> - -<p class="ph3">PART I</p> -</div> - -<h3 class="nobreak">I</h3> - -<p class="drop-cap">“THE shining mountains,” said Gregory Compton softly, -throwing back his head, his eyes travelling along the -hard bright outlines above the high valley in which his -ranch lay. “The shining mountains. That is what the Indians -called them before the white man came.”</p> - -<p>His wife yawned frankly. “Pity they don’t shine -inside as well as out—what we’ve got of ’em.”</p> - -<p>“Who knows? Who knows?”</p> - -<p>“We don’t. That’s the trouble.”</p> - -<p>But although she spoke tartly, she nestled into his arm, -for she was not unamiable, she had been married but sixteen -months, and she was still fond of her husband “in a -way”; moreover, although she cherished resentments open -and secret, she never forgot that she had won a prize “as -men go.” Many girls in Butte<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> had wanted to marry Gregory -Compton, not only because he had inherited a ranch of -eleven hundred and sixty acres, but because, comprehensively, -he was superior to the other young men of his class. -He had graduated from the High School before he was -sixteen; then after three years’ work on the ranch under -his unimaginative father, he had announced his intention -of leaving the State unless permitted to attend the School -of Mines in Butte. The old man, who by this time had -taken note of the formation of his son’s jaw, gave his consent -rather than lose the last of his children; and for two -years and a semester Gregory had been the most brilliant -figure in the School of Mines.</p> - -<p>“Old Man Compton,” who had stampeded from his -small farm in northern New York in the sixties to meet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> -with little success in the mines, but more as a rancher, had -been as typical a hayseed as ever punctuated politics with -tobacco juice in front of a corner grocery-store, but had -promised his wife on her death-bed that their son should -have “schooling.” Mrs. Compton, who had arrived in -Montana soon after the log house was built, was a large, -dark, silent woman, whom none of her distant neighbours -had ever claimed to know. It was currently believed in -the New York village whence she came that in the early -days of the eighteenth century the sturdy Verrooy stock -had been abruptly crossed by the tribe of the Oneida. Ancient -history in a new country is necessarily enveloped in -mist, but although the children she had lost had been fair -and nondescript like their father, her youngest, and her -only son, possessed certain characteristics of the higher -type of Indian. He was tall and lightly built, graceful, -supple, swift of foot, with the soft tread of the panther; -and although his skin was no darker than that of the average -brunette, it acquired significance from the intense -blackness of his hair, the thin aquiline nose, the long, narrow -eyes, the severe and stolid dignity of expression even -in his earlier years.</p> - -<p>He had seemed to the girls of the only class he knew in -Butte an even more romantic figure than the heroes of -their magazine fiction, particularly as he took no notice of -them until he met Ida Hook at a picnic and surrendered -his heart.</p> - -<p>Ida, forced by her thrifty mother to accept employment -with a fashionable dressmaker, and consumed with envy -of the “West Siders” whose measurements she took, did -not hesitate longer than feminine prudence dictated. Before -she gave her hair its nightly brushing her bold unpedantic -hand had covered several sheets of pink note-paper -with the legend, “Mrs. Gregory Compton,” the while she -assured herself there was “no sweller name on West -Broadway.” To do her justice, she also thrilled with -young passion, for more than her vanity had responded -to the sombre determined attentions of the man who had -been the indifferent hero of so many maiden dreams. Although -she longed to be a Copper Queen, she was too -young to be altogether hard; and, now that her hour was -come, every soft enchantment of her sex awoke to bind -and blind her mate.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>Gregory Compton’s indifference to women had been -more pretended than real, although an occasional wild -night on The Flat had interested him far more than picnics -and dances where the girls used no better grammar -than the “sporting women” and were far less amusing. He -went to this picnic to please his old school friend, Mark -Blake, and because Nine Mile Cañon had looked very -green and alluring after the June rains when he had ridden -through it alone the day before. The moment he stood -before Ida Hook, staring into the baffling limpid eyes, -about which heavy black lashes rose and fell and met and -tangled and shot apart in a series of bedevilling manœuvres, -he believed himself to be possessed by that intimate -soul-seeking desire that nothing but marriage can satisfy. -He kept persistently at her side, his man’s instinct prompting -the little attentions women value less than they demand. -He also took more trouble to interest her verbally -than was normal in one whom nature had prompted to -silence, and he never would learn the rudiments of small -talk; but his brain was humming in time with his eager -awakened pulses, and Ida was too excited and exultant to -take note of his words. “It was probably about mines, -anyway,” she confided to her friends, Ruby and Pearl -Miller. “Nobody talks about anything else long in this -old camp.”</p> - -<p>Gregory’s infatuation was by no means reduced by the -fact that no less than six young men contended for the -favour of Miss Hook. She was the accredited beauty of -Butte, for even the ladies of the West Side had noticed -and discussed her and hoped that their husbands and -brothers had not. It was true that her large oval blue-grey -eyes, set like Calliope’s, were as shallow as her voice; -but the lids were so broad and white, and the lashes so -silky and oblique, that the critical faculty of man was -drugged, if dimly prescient. Her cheeks were a trifle too -full, her nose of a type unsung in marble; but what of -that when her skin was as white as milk, the colour in -cheek and lips of a clear transparent coral, that rarest -and most seductive of nature’s reds, her little teeth enamelled -like porcelain? And had she not every captivating -trick, from active eyelash to the sudden toss of her small -head on its long round throat, even to the dilating nostril -which made her nose for the moment look patrician and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> -thin! Her figure, too, with its boyish hips, thin flexible -waist, and full low bust, which she carried with a fine -upright swing, was made the most of in a collarless blouse, -closely fitting skirt, and narrow dark belt.</p> - -<p>Miss Hook, although her expression was often wide-eyed -and innocent, was quite cynically aware of her power over -the passions of men. More than one man of high salary or -recent fortune had tried to “annex” her, as she airily put -it; her self-satisfaction and the ever-present sophistications -of a mining town saving her from anything so gratuitous -as outraged maidenhood.</p> - -<p>The predatory male and his promises had never tempted -her, and it was her boast that she had never set foot in -the road houses of The Flat. She had made up her mind -long since to live on the West Side, the fashionable end -of Butte, and was wise enough, to quote her own words, -to know that the straight and narrow was the only direct -route. Ambition, her sleepless desire to be a grand dame -(which she pronounced without any superfluous accent), -was stronger than vanity or her natural love of pleasure. -By the ordinary romantic yearnings of her age and sex -she was unhampered; but when she met Gregory Compton, -she played the woman’s game so admirably the long day -through that she brushed her heavy black hair at night -quite satisfied he would propose when she gave him his -chance. This she withheld for several days, it being both -pleasant and prudent to torment him. He walked home -with her every afternoon from the dressmaking establishment -on North Main Street to her mother’s cottage in East -Granite, to be dismissed at the gate coyly, reluctantly, -indifferently, but always with a glance of startled wonder -from the door.</p> - -<p>In the course of the week she gave him to understand -that she should attend the Friday Night dance at Columbia -Gardens, and expected him to escort her. Gregory, -who by this time was reduced to a mere prowling instinct -projected with fatal instantaneity from its napping ego, -was as helpless a victim as if born a fool. He thought -himself the most fortunate of men to receive permission to -sit beside her on the open car during the long ride to the -Gardens, to pay for the greater number of her waltzes, to -be, in short, her beau for the night.</p> - -<p>The evening of Friday at Columbia Gardens is Society<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> -Night for all respectable Butte, irrespective of class; the -best floor and the airiest hall in Silver Bow County proving -an irresistible incentive to democracy. Moreover, -Butte is a city of few resources, and the Gardens at night -look like fairyland: the immense room is hung with Chinese -lanterns depending from the rafters, the music is the best -in Montana; and the richer the women, the plainer their -frocks. A sort of informal propriety reigns, and millionaire -or clerk pays ten cents for the privilege of dancing -with his lady.</p> - -<p>Ida, who had expended five of her hard-earned dollars -on a bottle of imported perfume, wore a white serge suit -cut as well as any in “the grand dame bunch.” After -the sixth waltz she draped her head and shoulders with a -coral-pink scarf and led Gregory, despite the chill of June, -out to his willing fate. The park was infested by other -couples, walking briskly to keep themselves warm, and so -were the picnic grounds where the cottonwoods and Canadian -poplars were being coaxed to grow, now that the -smelters which had reduced the neighbourhood of Butte to -its bones had been removed to Anaconda.</p> - -<p>But farther up the cañon no one but themselves adventured, -and here Gregory was permitted to ask this -unique creature, provided with a new and maddening -appeal to the senses, to renounce her kingdom and live on -a ranch.</p> - -<p>It was all very crude, even to the blatant moon, which in -the thin brilliant atmosphere of that high altitude swings -low with an almost impudent air of familiarity, and grins -in the face of sentiment. But to Gregory, who was at -heart passionate and romantic, it was a soul-quickening -scene: the blazing golden disk poised on the very crest of -the steep mountain before them, the murmur of water, the -rustling young leaves, the deep-breasted orientally perfumed -woman with the innocent wondering eyes. The -moon chuckled and reminded his exacting mistress, Nature, -that were he given permission to scatter some of his vast -experience instead of the seductive beams that had accumulated -it, this young man with his natural distinction -of mind, and already educated beyond his class, would -enjoy a sudden clarity of vision and perceive the defects -of grammar and breeding in this elemental siren with -nothing but Evian instincts to guide her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>But the dutiful old search-light merely whipped up the -ancestral memories in Gregory’s subconscious brain; moreover, -gave him courage. He made love with such passion -and tenderness that Ida, for once elemental, clung to him -so long and so ardently that the grinning moon whisked -off his beam in disgust and retired behind a big black -cloud—which burst shortly afterwards and washed out the -car tracks.</p> - -<p>They were married in July, and Mrs. Hook, who had -worked for forty years at tub and ironing-board, moved -over to the dusty cemetery in September, at rest in the -belief not only that her too good-looking daughter was -safely “planted,” but was a supremely happy woman.</p> - -<p>Ida’s passion, however, had been merely a gust of youth, -fed by curiosity and gratified ambition; it quickly passed -in the many disappointments of her married life. Gregory -had promised her a servant, but no “hired girl” could be -induced to remain more than a week on the lonely De -Smet Ranch; and Mrs. Compton’s temper finding its only -relief in one-sided quarrels with her Chinese cooks, even -the philosophical Oriental was prone to leave on a moment’s -notice. There were three hired men and three in the -family, after John Oakley came, to cook and “clean up” -for, and there were weeks at a time when Ida was obliged -to rise with the dawn and occupy her large and capable -but daintily manicured hands during many hours of the -day.</p> - -<p>Gregory’s personality had kindled what little imagination -she had into an exciting belief in his power over life -and its corollary, the world’s riches. Also, having in mind -the old Indian legend of the great chief who had turned -into shining gold after death and been entombed in what -was now known prosaically as the De Smet Ranch, she had -expected Gregory to “strike it rich” at once.</p> - -<p>But although there were several prospect holes on the -ranch, dug by Gregory in past years, he had learned too -much, particularly of geology, during his two years at the -School of Mines to waste any more time digging holes in -the valley or bare portions of the hills. If a ledge existed -it was beneath some tangle of shrub or tree-roots, and he -had no intention of denuding his pasture until he was -prepared to sell his cattle.</p> - -<p>He told her this so conclusively a month after they were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> -married that she had begged him to raise sugar beets and -build a factory in Butte (which he would be forced to -superintend), reminding him that the only factory in the -State was in the centre of another district and near the -southern border, and that sugar ranged from six to seven -dollars a hundredweight. He merely laughed at this suggestion, -although he was surprised at her sagacity, for, -barring a possible democratic victory, there was room for -two beet-sugar factories in Montana. But he had other -plans, although he gave her no hint of them, and had no -intention of complicating his life with an uncongenial and -exacting business.</p> - -<p>By unceasing personal supervision he not only made the -ranch profitable and paid a yearly dividend to his three -aunts, according to the terms of his father’s will, but for -the last two years, after replacing or adding to his stock, -he had deposited a substantial sum in the bank, occasionally -permitting his astute friend, Mark Blake, to turn over -a few hundreds for him on the stock-market. This was -the heyday of the American farmer, and the De Smet -cattle brought the highest prices in the stock-yards for -beef on the hoof. He also raised three crops of alfalfa a -year to insure his live stock against the lean days of a -Rocky Mountain winter. He admitted to Ida that he could -afford to sink a shaft or drive a tunnel in one of his hills, -but added that he should contemplate nothing of the sort -until he had finished his long-delayed course in the School -of Mines, and had thousands to throw away on development -work, miners, and machinery. At this time he saw -no immediate prospect of resuming the studies interrupted -by the death of his father: until John Oakley came, eight -months after his marriage, he knew of no foreman to trust -but himself.</p> - -<p>Ida desired the life of the city for other reasons than its -luxuries and distractions. Her fallow brain was shrewd -and observing, although often crude in its deductions. -She soon realised that the longer she lived with her husband -the less she understood him. Like all ignorant women -of any class she cherished certain general estimates of -men, and in her own class it was assumed that the retiring -men were weak and craven, the bold ones necessarily lacking -in that refinement upon which their young lady friends -prided themselves. Ida had found that Gregory, bold as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span> -his wooing had been, and arrogantly masculine as he was -in most things, not only had his shynesses but was far -more refined and sensitive than herself. She was a woman -who prided herself upon her theories, and disliked having -them upset; still more not knowing where she was at, to -use her own spirited vernacular. She began to be haunted -by the fear of making some fatal mistake, living, as she -did, in comparative isolation with him. Not only was her -womanly pride involved, as well as a certain affection -born of habit and possible even to the selfish, rooted as it -is in the animal function of maternity, but she had supreme -faith in his future success and was determined to share it.</p> - -<p>She was tired, however, of attempting to fathom the -intense reserves and peculiarities of that silent nature, of -trying to live up to him. She was obliged to resort to -“play-acting”; and, fully aware of her limitations, despite -her keen self-appreciation, was in constant fear that she -would “make a grand mess of it.” Gregory’s eyes could -be very penetrating, and she had discovered that although -he never told funny stories, nor appeared to be particularly -amused at hers, he had his own sense of humour.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">II</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE young couple stood together in the dawn, the blue -dawn of Montana. The sky was as cold and bright -as polished silver, but the low soft masses of cloud were -blue, the glittering snow on the mountain peaks was blue, -the smooth snow fields on the slopes and in the valley were -blue. Nor was it the blue of azure or of sapphire, but a -deep lovely cool polaric blue, born in the inverted depths -of Montana, and forever dissociated from art.</p> - -<p>It was an extramundane scene, and it had drawn Gregory -from his bed since childhood, but to Ida, brought up in a -town, and in one whose horizons until a short while ago -had always been obscured by the poisonous haze of smelters, -and ores roasted in the open, it was “weird.” Novels had -informed her that sunrises were pink, or, at the worst, -grey. There was something mysterious in this cold blue -dawn up in the snow fields, and she hated mystery. But -as it appeared to charm Gregory, she played up to him -when he “dragged” her out to look at it; and she endeavoured -to do so this morning although her own ego was -rampant.</p> - -<p>Gregory drew her closer, for she still had the power to -enthrall him at times. He understood the resources within -her shallows as little as she understood his depths, but -although her defects in education and natural equipment -had long since appalled him, he was generally too busy to -think about her, and too masculine to detect that she was -playing a part. This morning, although he automatically -responded to her blandishments, he was merely sensible -of her presence, and his eyes, the long watchful eyes of -the Indian, were concentrated upon the blue light that -poured from the clouds down upon the glistening peaks. -Ida knew that this meant he was getting ready to make an -announcement of some sort, and longed to shake it out of -him. Not daring to outrage his dignity so far, she drew -the fur robe that enveloped them closer and rubbed her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> -soft hair against his chin. It was useless to ask him to -deliver himself until he was “good and ready”, but the -less direct method sometimes prevailed.</p> - -<p>Suddenly he came out with it.</p> - -<p>“I’ve made up my mind to go back to the School.”</p> - -<p>“Back to school—are you loony?”</p> - -<p>“The School of Mines, of course. I can enter the Junior -Class where I left off; earlier in fact, as I had finished -the first semester. Besides, I’ve been going over all the -old ground since Oakley came.”</p> - -<p>“Is that what’s in all them books.”</p> - -<p>“Those, dear.”</p> - -<p>“Those. Mining Engineer’s a lot sweller than rancher.”</p> - -<p>“Please don’t use that word.”</p> - -<p>“Lord, Greg, you’re as particular as if you’d -been brought up in Frisco or Chicago, instead of on a -ranch.”</p> - -<p>He laughed outright and pinched her ear. “I use a -good deal of slang myself—only, there are some words -that irritate me—I can hardly explain. It doesn’t matter.”</p> - -<p>“Greg,” she asked with sudden suspicion, “why are -you goin’ in for a profession? Have you given up hopes -of strikin’ it rich on this ranch?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I shall never relinquish that dream.” He spoke -so lightly that even had she understood him better she -could not have guessed that the words leapt from what -he believed to be the deepest of his passions. “But what -has that to do with it? If there is gold on the ranch I -shall be more likely to discover it when I know a great -deal more about geology than I do now, and better able -to mine it cheaply after I have learned all I can of milling -and metallurgy at the School. But that is not the point. -There may be nothing here. I wish to graduate into a -profession which not only attracts me more than any other, -but in which the expert can always make a large income. -Ranching doesn’t interest me, and with Oakley to——”</p> - -<p>“What woke you up so sudden?”</p> - -<p>“I have never been asleep.” But he turned away his -head lest she see the light in his eyes. “Oakley gives me -my chance to get out, that is all. And I am very glad for -your sake——”</p> - -<p>“Aw!” Her voice, ringing out with ecstasy, converted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> -the native syllable into music. “It means we are goin’ to -live in Butte!”</p> - -<p>“Of course.”</p> - -<p>“And I was so took—taken by surprise it never dawned -on me till this minute. Now what do you know about -that?”</p> - -<p>“We shall have to be very quiet. I cannot get my -degree until a year from June—a year and seven months -from now. I shall study day and night, and work in the -mines during the winter and summer vacations. I cannot -take you anywhere.”</p> - -<p>“Lord knows it can’t be worse’n this. I’ll have my -friends to talk to and there’s always the movin’ picture -shows. Lord, how I’d like to see one.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you shall,” he said kindly. “I wrote to Mark -some time ago and asked him to give the tenant of the -cottage notice. As this is the third of the month it must -be empty and ready for us.”</p> - -<p>“My goodness gracious!” cried his wife with pardonable -irritation, “but you are a grand one for handin’ out -surprises! Most husbands tell their wives things as they -go along, but you ruminate like a cow and hand over the -cud when you’re good and ready. I’m sick of bein’ treated -as if I was a child.”</p> - -<p>“Please don’t look at it in that way. What is the use -of talking about things until one is quite sure they can be -accomplished?”</p> - -<p>“That’s half the fun of bein’ married,” said Ida with -one of her flashes of intuition.</p> - -<p>“Is it?” Gregory turned this over in his mind, then, -out of his own experience, rejected it as a truism. He -could not think of any subject he would care to discuss -with his wife; or any other woman. But he kissed her -with an unusual sense of compunction. “Perhaps I liked -the idea of surprising you,” he said untruthfully. “You -will be glad to live in Butte once more?”</p> - -<p>“You may bet your bottom dollar on that. When do -we go?”</p> - -<p>“Tomorrow.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Lands</i> sakes! Well, I’m dumb. And breakfast has to -be got if I <i>have</i> had a bomb exploded under me. That -Chink was doin’ fine when I left, but the Lord knows——”</p> - -<p>She walked toward the rear of the house, temper in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> -swing of her hips, her head tossed high. Although rejoicing -at the prospect of living in town, she was both -angry and vaguely alarmed, as she so often had been -before, at the unimaginable reserves, the unsuspected -mental activities, and the sudden strikings of this life-partner -who should have done his thinking out loud.</p> - -<p>“Lord knows,” thought Mrs. Compton, as she approached -her kitchen, with secret intent to relieve her -feelings by “lambasting” the Mongolian and leaving Oakley -to shift for himself, “it’s like livin’ with that there -Sphinx. I don’t s’pose I’ll ever get used to him, and -maybe the time’ll come when I won’t want to.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">III</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">GREGORY stood for some time longer, leaning on the -gate and waiting for the red fire to rise above the -crystal mountains. He was eager for the morrow, not -only because he longed to be at the foundation stones of -his real life but because his mind craved the precise training, -the logical development, the intoxicating sense of -expansion which he had missed and craved incessantly -during the six years that had elapsed since he had been -torn from the School of Mines. Moreover, his heart was -light; at last he was able to shift the great responsibilities -of his ranch to other shoulders.</p> - -<p>Some six months since, his friend, Mark Blake, had -recommended to him a young man who not only had graduated -at the head of his class in the State College of Agriculture, -but had served for two years on one of the State -Experimental Farms. “What he don’t know about scientific -farming, dry, intensive, and all the rest, isn’t worth -shucks, old man,” Blake had written. “He’s as honest -as they come, and hasn’t a red to do the trick himself, -but wants to go on a ranch as foreman, and farm wherever -there’s soil of a reasonable depth. Of course he wants -a share of the profits, but he’s worth it to you, for the -Lord never cut you out for a rancher or farmer, well as -you have done. What you want is to finish your course -and take your degree. Try Oakley out for six months. -There’ll be only one result. You’re a free man.”</p> - -<p>The contract had been signed the day before. But Oakley -had been a welcome guest in the small household for -more than practical reasons. Until the night of his advent, -when the two men sat talking until daylight, Gregory -had not realised the mental isolation of his married life. -Like all young men he had idealised the girl who made -the first assault on his preferential passion; but his brain -was too shrewd, keen, practical, in spite of its imaginative -area, to harbor illusions beyond the brief period of novelty.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> -It had taken him but a few weeks to discover that although -his wife had every charm of youth and sex, and was by no -means a fool, their minds moved on different planes, far -apart. He had dreamed of the complete understanding, -the instinctive response, the identity of tastes, in short of -companionship, of the final routing of a sense of hopeless -isolation he had never lost consciousness of save when immersed -in study.</p> - -<p>Ida subscribed for several of the “cheapest” of the -cheap magazines, and, when her Mongolians were indulgent, -rocked herself in the sitting-room, devouring the -factory sweets and crude mental drugs with much the -same spirit that revelled above bargain counters no matter -what the wares. She “lived” for the serials, and attempted -to discuss the “characters” with her husband -and John Oakley. But the foreman was politely intolerant -of cheap fiction, Gregory open in his disgust.</p> - -<p>He admitted unequivocally that he had made a mistake, -but assuming that most men did, philosophically concluded -to make the best of it; women, after all, played but a -small part in a man’s life. He purposed, however, that -she should improve her mind, and would have been glad -to move to Butte for no other reason. He had had a -sudden vision one night, when his own mind, wearied with -study, drifted on the verge of sleep, of a lifetime on a -lonely ranch with a woman whose brain deteriorated from -year to year, her face faded and vacuous, save when animated -with temper. If the De Smet Ranch proved to be -mineralised, Oakley, his deliverer, would not be forgotten.</p> - -<p>He moved his head restlessly, his glance darting over -as much of his fine estate as it could focus, wondering when -it would give up its secrets, in other words, its gold. He -had never doubted that it winked and gleamed, and waited -for him below the baffling surfaces of his land. Not for -millions down would he have sold his ranch, renounced -the personal fulfilment of that old passionate romance.</p> - -<p>Gregory Compton was a dreamer, not in the drifting -and aimless fashion of the visionary, but as all men born -with creative powers, practical or artistic, must be. Indeed, -it is doubtful if the artistic brain—save possibly -where the abnormal tracts are musical in the highest sense—ever -need, much less develop, that leaping vision, that -power of visualising abstract ideas, of the men whose gifts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> -for bold and original enterprise enable them to drive the -elusive wealth of the world first into a corner, then into -their own pockets.</p> - -<p>When one contemplates the small army of men of great -wealth in the world today, and, just behind, that auxiliary -regiment endowed with the talent, the imagination, and -the grim assurance necessary to magnetise the circulating -riches of our planet; contemptuous of those hostile millions, -whose brains so often are of unleavened dough, always -devoid of talent, envious, hating, but sustained by the conceit -which nature stores in the largest of her reservoirs to -pour into the vacancies of the minds of men; seldom hopeless, -fooling themselves with dreams of a day when mere -brute numbers shall prevail, and (human nature having -been revolutionised by a miracle) all men shall be equal -and content to remain equal;—when one stands off and -contemplates these two camps, the numerically weak composed -of the forces of mind, the other of the unelectrified -yet formidable millions, it is impossible to deny not only -the high courage and supernormal gifts of the little army -of pirates, but that, barring the rapidly decreasing numbers -of explorers in the waste places of the earth, in them -alone is the last stronghold of the old adventurous spirit -that has given the world its romance.</p> - -<p>The discontented, the inefficient, the moderately successful, -the failures, see only remorseless greed in the -great money makers. Their temper is too personal to -permit them to recognise that here are the legitimate inheritors -of the dashing heroes they enjoy in history, the -bold and ruthless egos that throughout the ages have -transformed savagery into civilisation, torpor into progress, -in their pursuit of gold. That these “doing” buccaneers -of our time are the current heroes of the masses, envious -or generous in tribute, the most welcome “copy” of the -daily or monthly press, is proof enough that the spirit of -adventure still flourishes in the universal heart, seldom -as modern conditions permit its expansion. For aught we -know it may be this old spirit of adventure that inspires -the midnight burglar and the gentlemen of the road, not -merely the desire for “easy money.” But these are the -flotsam. The boldest imaginations and the most romantic -hearts are sequestered in the American “big business” -men of today.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>Gregory Compton had grown to maturity in the most -romantic subdivision of the United States since California -retired to the position of a classic. Montana, her long -winter surface a reflection of the beautiful dead face of -the moon, bore within her arid body illimitable treasure, -yielding it from time to time to the more ardent and -adventurous of her lovers. Gold and silver, iron, copper, -lead, tungsten, precious and semi-precious stones—she -might have been some vast heathen idol buried aeons ago -when Babylon was but a thought in the Creator’s brain, -and the minor gods travelled the heaving spaces to immure -their treasure, stolen from rival stars.</p> - -<p>Gregory had always individualised as well as idealised -his state, finding more companionship in her cold mysteries -than in the unfruitful minds of his little world. His -youthful dreams, when sawing wood or riding after cattle, -had been alternately of desperate encounters with Indians -and of descending abruptly into vast and glittering corridors. -The creek on the ranch had given up small quantities -of placer gold, enough to encourage “Old Compton,” least -imaginative of men, to use his pick up the side of the -gulch, and even to sink a shaft or two. But he had wasted -his money, and he had little faith in the mineral value of -the De Smet Ranch or in his own luck. He was a thrifty, -pessimistic, hard-working, down-east Presbyterian, whose -faith in predestination had killed such roots of belief in -luck as he may have inherited with other attributes of -man. He sternly discouraged his son’s hopes, which the -silent intense boy expressed one day in a sudden mood of -fervour and desire for sympathy, bidding him hang on to -the live stock, which were a certain sure source of income, -and go out and feed hogs when he felt onsettled like.</p> - -<p>He died when Gregory was in the midst of his Junior -year in the School of Mines, and the eager student was -obliged to renounce his hope of a congenial career, for the -present, and assume control of the ranch. It was heavily -mortgaged; his father’s foreman, who had worked on the -ranch since he was a lad, had taken advantage of the old -man’s failing mind to raise the money, as well as to obtain -his signature to the sale of more than half the cattle. He -had disappeared with the concrete result a few days before -Mr. Compton’s death.</p> - -<p>It was in no serene spirit that Gregory entered upon the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span> -struggle for survival at the age of twenty-one. Bitterly -resenting his abrupt divorce from the School of Mines, -which he knew to be the gateway to his future, and his -faith in mankind dislocated by the cruel defection of one -whom he had liked and trusted from childhood, he seethed -under his stolid exterior while working for sixteen hours -a day to rid the ranch of its encumbrance and replace the -precious cattle. But as the greater part of this time was -spent out of doors he outgrew the delicacy of his youth -and earlier manhood, and, with red blood and bounding -pulses, his bitterness left him.</p> - -<p>He began to visit Butte whenever he could spare a few -days from the ranch, to “look up” as his one chum, Mark -Blake, expressed it; so that by the time he married he -knew the life of a Western mining town—an education in -itself—almost as well as he knew the white and silent -spaces of Montana. With the passing of brooding and -revolt his old dreams revived, and he spent, until he married, -many long days prospecting. He had found nothing -until a few weeks ago, early in October, and then the discovery, -such as it was, had been accidental.</p> - -<p>There had been a terrific wind storm, beginning shortly -after sundown, reaching at midnight a velocity of seventy-two -miles an hour, and lasting until morning; it had been -impossible to sleep or to go out of doors and see to the well-being -of the cattle.</p> - -<p>The wind was not the Chinook, although it came out of -the west, for it was bitterly cold. Two of the house windows -facing the storm were blown in and the roof of a -recent addition went off. As such storms are uncommon -in Montana, even Gregory was uneasy, fearing the house -might go, although it had been his father’s boast that not -even an earthquake could uproot it. After daybreak the -steady fury of the storm ceased. There was much damage -done to the outbuildings, but, leaving Oakley to superintend -repairs, Gregory mounted his horse and rode over -the ranch to examine the fences and brush sheds. The -former were intact, and the cattle were huddled in their -shelters, which were built against the side of a steep hill. -A few, no doubt, had drifted before the storm, but would -return in the course of the day. Here and there a pine -tree had been blown over, but the winter wheat and alfalfa -were too young to be injured.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>He rode towards the hill where the wind had done its -most conspicuous damage. It was a long steep hill of -granite near the base and grey limestone above topped -with red shales, and stood near the northeast corner of -the ranch. Its rigid sides had been relieved by a small -grove of pines; but although in spring it was gay with -anemones and primrose moss, and green until late in July, -there was nothing on its ugly flanks at this time of the -year but sunburnt grass.</p> - -<p>The old pines had clung tenaciously to the inhospitable -soil for centuries, but some time during the night, still -clutching a mass of earth and rock in their great roots, -they had gone down before the storm.</p> - -<p>Gregory felt a pang of distress; in his boyhood that -grove of pines had been his retreat; there he had dreamed -his dreams, visualised the ascending metals, forced upward -from the earth’s magma by one of those old titanic -convulsions that make a joke of the modern earthquake, to -find a refuge in the long fissures of the cooler crust, or in -the great shattered zones. He knew something of geology -and chemistry when he was twelve, and he “saw” the great -primary deposits change their character as they were forced -closer to the surface, acted upon by the acids of air and -water in the oxide zone.</p> - -<p>There he had lived down his disappointments, taken his -dumb trouble when his mother died; and he had found his -way blindly to the dark little grove after his father’s -funeral and he had learned the wrong that had been done -him.</p> - -<p>He had not gone there since. He had been busy always, -and lost the habit. But now he remembered, and with -some wonder, for it was the one ugly spot on the ranch, -save in its brief springtime, that once it had drawn his -feet like a magnet. Hardly conscious of the act, he rode -to the foot of the hill, dismounted and climbed towards -the grove which had stood about fifty feet from the crest.</p> - -<p>The ruin was complete. The grove, which once may -have witnessed ancient rites, was lying with its points in -the brown grass. Its gaunt roots, packed close with red -earth and pieces of rock, seemed to strain upward in -agonised protest. Men deserted on the battlefield at night -look hardly more stricken than a tree just fallen.</p> - -<p>As Gregory approached his old friends his eyes grew<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> -narrower and narrower; his mind concentrated to a point -as sharp and penetrating as a needle. If the storm, now -fitful, had suddenly returned to its highest velocity he -would not have known it. He walked rapidly behind the -vanquished roots and picked out several bits of rock that -were embedded in the earth. Then he knelt down and -examined other pieces of rock in the excavation where the -trees had stood. Some were of a brownish-yellow colour, -others a shaded green of rich and mellow tints. There -was no doubt whatever that they were float.</p> - -<p>He sat down suddenly and leaned against the roots of -the trees. Had he found his “mine”? Float indicates -an ore body somewhere, and as these particles had been -prevented from escaping by the roots of trees incalculably -old, it was reasonable to assume that the ores were beneath -his feet.</p> - -<p>His brain resumed its normal processes, and he deliberately -gave his imagination the liberty of its youth. The -copper did not interest him, but he stared at the piece of -quartz in his hand as if it had been a seer’s crystal. He -saw great chambers of quartz flecked with free gold, connected -by pipes or shoots equally rich. Once he frowned, -the ruthlessly practical side of his intelligence reminding -him that his labours and hopes might be rewarded by a -shallow pocket. But he brushed the wagging finger aside. -He could have sworn that he felt the pull of the metals -within the hill.</p> - -<p>He was tired and hungry, but his immediate impulse, -as soon as he had concluded that he had dreamed long -enough, was to go for his tools and run a cut. He sprang -to his feet; but he had taken only a few steps when he -turned and stared at the gashed earth, his head a little on -one side in an attitude that always indicated he was thinking -hard and with intense concentration. Then he set his -lips grimly, walked down the steep hillside, mounted his -horse, and rode home. In the course of the afternoon he -returned to the hill, picked all the pieces of float from the -soil between the tree-roots, and buried them, stamping -down the earth. A few days later there was a light fall -of snow. He returned once more to the hill, this time -with two of his labourers, who cut up the trees and hauled -them away. For the present his possible treasure vault -was restored to the seclusion of its centuries.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>He had made up his mind that the ores should stay -where they were until he had finished his education in -the School of Mines. He had planned to finish that course, -and what he planned he was in the habit of executing. -This was not the time for dreams, nor for prospecting, but -to learn all that the School could teach him. Then, if -there were valuable ore bodies in his hill he could be his -own manager and engineer. He knew that he had something -like genius for geology, also that many veins were -lost through an imperfect knowledge (or sense) of that -science in mining engineers; on the other hand, that the -prospector, in spite of his much vaunted sixth sense, often -failed, where the hidden ores were concerned, through -lack of scientific training. He determined to train his own -faculties as far as possible before beginning development -work on his hill. Let the prospector’s fever get possession -of him now and that would be the end of study. The hill -would keep. It was his. The ranch was patented.</p> - -<p>When he had finished the interment of the float he had -taken a small notebook from his pocket and inscribed a -date: June the third, eighteen months later. Not until that -date would he even ride past his hill.</p> - -<p>Born with a strong will and a character endowed with -force, determination and a grimly passive endurance, it -was his pleasure to test and develop both. The process was -satisfactory to himself but sometimes trying to his friends.</p> - -<p>Until this morning he had not permitted his mind to -revert to the subject. But although the hill—Limestone -Hill it was called in the commonplace nomenclature of -the country—was far away and out of the range of his -vision, he could conjure it up in its minutest external -detail, and he permitted himself this luxury for a few -moments after his wife had left him to a welcome solitude. -On this hill were centred all his silent hopes.</p> - -<p>If he had been greedy for riches alone he would have -promoted a company at once, if a cut opened up a chamber -that assayed well, and reaped the harvest with little or no -trouble to himself. But nothing was farther from his -mind. He wanted the supreme adventure. He wanted to -find the ores with his own pick. After the adventure, -then the practical use of wealth. There was much he -could do for his state. He knew also that in one group -of brain-cells, as yet unexplored, was the ambition to enter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> -the lists of “doing” men, and pit his wits against the -best of them. But he was young, he would have his adventure, -live his dream first. Not yet, however.</p> - -<p>The swift passing of his marital illusions had convinced -him that the real passion of his life was for Montana and -the golden blood in her veins. Placer mining never had -interested him. He wanted to find his treasure deep in -the jealous earth. He assured himself as he stood there -in the blue dawn that it was well to be rid of love so early -in the game, free to devote himself, with no let from wandering -mind and mere human pulses, to preparation for -the greatest of all romances, the romance of mining. That -he might ever crave the companionship of one woman was -as remote from his mind as the possibility of failure. To -learn all that man and experience could teach him of the -science that has been so great a factor in the world’s -progress; to magnetise a vast share of Earth’s riches, -first for the hot work of the battle, then for the power it -would give him; to conquer life; these were a few of the -flitting dreams that possessed him as he watched the red -flame lick the white crests of the mountains, and the blue -clouds turn to crimson; his long sensitive lips folded -closely, his narrow eyes penetrating the mists of the future, -neither seeing nor considering its obstacles, its barriers, -its disenchantments. Thrice happy are the dreamers of -the world, when their imaginations are creative, not a -mere maggot wandering through the brain hatching formless -eggs of desire and discontent. They are the true inheritors -of the centuries, whether they succeed or fail in -the eyes of men; for they live in vivid silent intense drama -as even they have no power to live and enjoy in mortal -conditions.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">IV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE Comptons were quickly settled in the little cottage -in East Granite Street, for as Mrs. Hook’s furniture -was solid Ida had not sold it. There was little to do, therefore, -but repaper the walls, build a bathroom, furnish a -dining-room, send the parlour furniture to the upholsterers—Ida -had had enough of horsehair—and chattel the -kitchen.</p> - -<p>Ida had several virtues in which she took a vocal pride, -and not the least of these was housekeeping in all its -variety. The luxurious side of her nature might revel in -front parlours, trashy magazines, rocking-chairs and chewing-gum, -but she never indulged in these orgies unless -her house were in order. After her arrival in Butte it -was quite a month before she gave a thought to leisure. -They spent most of this time at a hotel, but Ida was out -before the stores opened, and divided her day between -the workmen at the cottage, the upholsterer, and the bargain -counter. She was “on the job” every minute until -the cottage was “on wheels.” Her taste was neither original -nor artistic, but she had a rude sense of effect, and a -passion for what she called colour schemes. She boasted -to Gregory at night, when she had him at her mercy at -the hotel dinner-table, that although everything had to be -cheap except the kitchen furnishings, colours did not cost -any more than black or drab. When the cottage was in -order, and they moved in, he saw its transfigured interior -for the first time. The bedroom was done in a pink that -set his teeth on edge, and the little parlour was papered, -upholstered, carpeted, cushioned in every known shade of -red.</p> - -<p>“All you want is a chromo or two of Indian battlegrounds—just -after,” he remarked.</p> - -<p>Ida interrupted tartly:</p> - -<p>“Well, I should think you’d be grateful for the contrast<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> -to them everlasting white or brown mountains. We don’t -get away from them even in town, now the smoke’s gone.”</p> - -<p>“One would think Montana had no springtime.”</p> - -<p>“Precious little. That’s the reason I’ve got a green -dining-room.”</p> - -<p>Gregory, who had suffered himself to be pushed into an -arm-chair, looked at his wife speculatively, as she rocked -herself luxuriously, her eyes dwelling fondly on the magenta -paper, the crimson curtains, the turkey red and -crushed strawberry cushions of the divan, the blood-red -carpet with its still more sanguinary pattern. What blind -struggle was going on in that uninstructed brain against -the commonplace, what seed of originality, perhaps, striving -to shoot forth a green tip from the hard crust of -ignorance and conceit?</p> - -<p>He had made up his mind to suggest the tillage of that -brain without delay, but, knowing her sensitive vanity, cast -about for a tactful opening.</p> - -<p>“Do you really intend to do your own work?” he asked. -“I am more than willing to pay for a servant.”</p> - -<p>“Not much. I’m goin’ to begin to save up for the future -right now. I’ll put out the wash, but it’s a pity if a -great husky girl like me can’t cook for two and keep this -little shack clean. You ain’t never goin’ to be able to say -I didn’t help you all I could.”</p> - -<p>Gregory glowed with gratitude as he looked at the beautiful -face of has wife, flushed with the ardour of the true -mate.</p> - -<p>“You are all right,” he murmured.</p> - -<p>“The less we spend the quicker we’ll get rich,” pursued -Mrs. Compton. “I don’t mind this triflin’ work, but it -would have made me sick to stay much longer on that -ranch workin’ away my youth and looks and nothin’ to -show for it. Now that you’ve really begun on somethin’ -high-toned and that’s bound to be a go, I just like the idea -of havin’ a hand in the job.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!— Well— If you have this faith in my power to -make a fortune—if you are looking forward to being a -rich man’s wife, to put it crudely—don’t you think you -should begin to prepare yourself for the position——”</p> - -<p>“Now what are you drivin’ at?” She sprang to her -feet. Her eyes blazed. Her hands went to her hips. -“D’you mean to say I ain’t good enough? I suppose you’d<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> -be throwin’ me over for a grand dame when you get up in -the world like some other millionaires we know of, let -alone politicians what get to thinkin’ themselves statesmen, -and whose worn-out old wives ain’t good enough for -’em. Well, take this from me and take it straight—I don’t -propose to wear out, and I don’t propose——”</p> - -<p>“Sit down. I shall be a rich man long before you lose -your beauty. Nor have I any social ambitions. The world -of men is all that interests me. But with you it will be -different——”</p> - -<p>“You may betcherlife it’ll be different—some! When I -have a cream-coloured pressed brick house with white -trimmings over there in Millionaire Gulch nobody’ll be -too good for me.”</p> - -<p>“You shall live your life to suit yourself, in the biggest -house in Butte, if that is what you want. But there is -more in it than that.”</p> - -<p>“Clothes, of course. <i>Gowns!</i> And jewels, and New -York—Lord! wouldn’t I like to swell up and down Peacock -Ally! And Southern California, and Europe, and -givin’ balls, and bein’ a member of the Country Club.”</p> - -<p>“All that, as a matter of course! But you would not -be content with the mere externals. Whether you know -it or not, Ida, you are an ambitious woman.” This was -a mere gambler’s throw on Gregory’s part. He knew -nothing of her ambitions, and would have called them by -another name if he had.</p> - -<p>“Not know it? Well, you may just betcherlife I know -it!”</p> - -<p>“But hardly where ambition leads. No sooner would -you be settled in a fine house, accustomed to your new toys, -than you would want society. I don’t mean that you -would have any difficulty gaining admittance to Butte -society, for it is said that none in the world is more hospitable -and less particular. But whether you make <i>friends</i> -of the best people here, much less become a leader, depends—well, -upon several things——”</p> - -<p>“Fire away,” said Ida sulkily. “You must be considerable -in earnest to talk a blue streak!”</p> - -<p>“Business may take me to New York from time to time, -but my home shall remain here. I never intend to abandon -my state and make a fool of myself on New York’s -doorstep as so many Montanans have done. Nail up that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> -fact and never forget it. Now, you would like to win an -unassailable position in your community, would you not?”</p> - -<p>“Yep.”</p> - -<p>Gregory abandoned tact. “Then begin at once to prepare -yourself. You must have a teacher and study—English, -above all things.”</p> - -<p>“My Goo-r-rd!” She flushed almost purple. For the -moment she hated him. “I’ve always suspicioned you -thought I wasn’t good enough for you, with your graduatin’ -from the High School almost while you was in short -pants, and them two years and over at that high-brow -School of Mines; and now you’re tellin’ me you’ll be -ashamed of me the minute you’re on top!”</p> - -<p>Gregory made another attempt at diplomacy. What -his wife achieved socially was a matter of profound indifference -to him, but she must reform her speech if his -home life was to be endurable.</p> - -<p>“I am forcing my imagination to keep pace with your -future triumphs,” he said with the charming smile that -disarmed even Ida when irate. “If you are going to be -a prominent figure in society——”</p> - -<p>“My land, you oughter heard the grammar and slang -of some of the newest West Siders when they were makin’ -up their minds at Madame O’Reilley’s, or havin’ their -measures took. They don’t frighten me one little bit.”</p> - -<p>“There is a point. To lead them you must be their -superior—and the equal of those that have made the most -of their advantages.”</p> - -<p>“That’s not such a bad idea.”</p> - -<p>“Think it over.” He rose, for he was tired of the conversation. -“These western civilisations are said to be -crude, but I fancy they are the world in little. Subtlety, -a brain developed beyond the common, should go far——”</p> - -<p>“Greg, you are dead right!” She had suddenly remembered -that she must play up to this man who held her -ambitions in his hand, and she had the wit to acknowledge -his prospicience, little as were the higher walks of learning -to her taste. She sprang to her feet with a supple undulating -movement and flung herself into his arms.</p> - -<p>“I’ll begin the minute you find me a teacher,” she exclaimed. -Then she kissed him. “I’m goin’ to keep right -along with you and make you proud of me,” she murmured. -“I’m crazy about you and always will be. Swear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> -right here you’ll never throw me over, or run round with -a P’rox.”</p> - -<p>Gregory laughed, but held her off for a moment and -stared into her eyes. After all, might not study and travel -and experience give depth to those classic eyes which now -seemed a mere joke of Nature? Was she merely the -natural victim of her humble conditions? Her father had -been a miner of a very superior sort, conservative and contemptuous -of agitators, but a powerful voice in his union -and respected alike by men and managers. Mrs. Hook had -been a shrewd, hard-working, tight-fisted little woman -from Concord, who had never owed a penny, nor turned -out a careless piece of work. Both parents with education -or better luck might have taken a high position in any -western community. He knew also the preternatural -quickness and adaptability of the American woman. But -could a common mind achieve distinction?</p> - -<p>Ida, wondering “what the devil he was thinking about,” -nestled closer and gave him a long kiss, her woman’s wisdom, -properly attributed to the serpent, keeping her otherwise -mute. Gregory snatched her suddenly to him and -returned her kiss. The new hope revived a passion by no -means dead for this beautiful young creature, and for the -hour he was as happy as during his rosy honeymoon.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">V</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">WHEN the cottage was quite in order Mrs. Compton -invited two of her old friends to lunch. As the -School of Mines was at the opposite end of the city, Gregory -took his midday meal with him.</p> - -<p>Miss Ruby Miller and her twin-sister Pearl were fine -examples of the self-supporting young womanhood of the -West. Neither had struggled in the extreme economic -sense, although when launched they had taken a man’s -chances and asked no quarter. Born in a small town in -Illinois, their father, a provident grocer, had permitted -each of his daughters to attend school until her fifteenth -year, then sent her to Chicago to learn a trade. Ruby had -studied the mysteries of the hair, complexion, and hands; -Pearl the science that must supplement the knack for -trimming hats. Both worked faithfully as apprentice and -clerk, saving the greater part of their earnings: they purposed -to set up for themselves in some town of the Northwest -where money was easier, opportunities abundant and -expertness rare. What they heard of Montana appealed -to their enterprising minds, and, beginning with cautious -modesty, some four years before Ida’s marriage, Ruby -was now the leading hair-dresser and manicure of Butte, -her pleasant address and natural diplomacy assisting her -competent hands to monopolise the West Side custom; -Pearl, although less candid and engaging, more frank in -reminding her customers of their natural deficiencies, was -equally capable; if not the leading milliner in that town -of many milliners, where even the miners’ wives bought -three hats a season, she was rapidly making a reputation -among the feathered tribe. She now ranked as one of -the most successful of the young business women in a -region where success is ever the prize of the efficient. Both -she and her sister were as little concerned for their future -as the metal hill of Butte itself.</p> - -<p>“Well, what do you know about that?” they cried<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> -simultaneously, as Ida ushered them into the parlour. -“Say, it’s grand!” continued Miss Ruby with fervour. -“Downright artistic. Ide, you’re a wonder!”</p> - -<p>Miss Pearl, attuned to a subtler manipulation of colour, -felt too happy in this intimate reunion and the prospect -of “home-cooking,” to permit even her spirit to grin. -“Me for red, kiddo,” she said. “It’s the colour a hard -workin’ man or woman wants at the end of the day—warm, -and comfortin’, and sensuous-like, and contrastin’ -fine with dirty streets and them hills. Glory be, but this -chair’s comfortable! I suppose it’s Greg’s.”</p> - -<p>“Of course. Luckily a woman don’t have the least -trouble findin’ out a man’s weak points, and Greg has a -few, thank the goodness godness. But come on to the -dining-room. I’ve got fried chicken and creamed potatoes -and raised biscuit.”</p> - -<p>The guests shrieked with an abandon that proclaimed -them the helpless victims of the Butte restaurant or the -kitchenette. The fried chicken in its rich gravy, and the -other delicacies, including fruit salad, disappeared so rapidly -that there was little chance for the play of intellect -until the two girls fled laughing to the parlour.</p> - -<p>“It’s all very well for Pearl,” cried Miss Ruby, disposing -her plump figure in Gregory’s arm-chair, and taking -the pins from a mass of red hair that had brought her -many a customer; “for she’s the kind that’ll never have -to diet if she gets rich quick. I ought to be shassaying -round with my hands on my hips right now, but I -won’t.”</p> - -<p>Miss Pearl extended herself on the divan, and Ida rocked -herself with a complacent smile. One of her vanities was -slaked, and she experienced a sense of immense relief in -the society of these two old friends of her own sort.</p> - -<p>“Say!” exclaimed Miss Miller, “if we was real swell, -now, we’d be smokin’ cigarettes.”</p> - -<p>“What!” cried Ida, scandalised. “No lady’d do such -a thing. Say, I forgot the gum.”</p> - -<p>She opened a drawer and flirted an oblong section of -chewing-gum at each of her guests, voluptuously inserting -a morsel in the back of her own mouth. “Where on earth -have you seen ladies smokin’ cigarettes?”</p> - -<p>“You forget I’m in and out of some of our best families. -In other words them that’s too swell—or too lazy—to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> -come to me, has me up to them. And they’re just as -nice—most of ’em—as they can be; no more airs than -their men, and often ask me to stay to lunch. I ain’t -mentionin’ no names, as I was asked not to, for you know -what an old-fashioned bunch there is in every Western -town—well, they out with their gold tips after lunch, and -maybe you think they don’t know how. I have my doubts -as to their enjoyin’ it, for tobacco is nasty tastin’ stuff, -and I notice they blow the smoke out quicker’n they take -it in. No inhalin’ for them. But they like <i>doin’</i> it; that’s -the point. And I guess they do it a lot at the Country -Club and at some of the dinners where the Old Guard -ain’t asked. They smoke, and think it’s vulgar to chew -gum! We know it’s the other way round.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I guess!” exclaimed the young matron, who had -listened to this chronicle of high life with her mouth open. -“What their husbands thinkin’ about to permit such a -thing! I can see Greg’s face if I lit up.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, their husbands don’t care,” said Pearl, the cynic. -“Not in that bunch. They’re trained, and they don’t -care, anyhow. Make the most of Greg now, kiddo. When -he strikes it rich, he’ll be just like the rest of ’em, annexin’ -right and left. Matter of principle.”</p> - -<p>“Principle nothing!” exclaimed Ruby, who, highly -sophisticated as any young woman earning her living in -a mining town must be, was always amiable in her cynicism. -“It’s too much good food and champagne, to say -nothin’ of cocktails and highballs and swell club life after -the lean and hungry years. They’re just like kids turned -loose in a candy store, helpin’ themselves right and left -with both hands. Dear old boys, they’re so happy and so -jolly you can’t help feelin’ real maternal over ’em, and -spoilin’ ’em some more. I often feel like it, even when -they lay for me—they look so innocent and hungry-like; -but others I could crack over the ear, and I don’t say I -haven’t. Lord, how a girl alone does get to know men! I -wouldn’t marry one of them if he’d give me the next level -of the Anaconda mine. Me for the lonesome!”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m glad I’m married,” said Ida complacently. -“The kind of life I want you can only get through a husband. -Greg’s goin’ to make money, all right.”</p> - -<p>“Greg won’t be as bad as some,” said the wise Miss -Ruby. “He’s got big ideas, and as he don’t say much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> -about ’em, he’s likely thinkin’ about nothin’ else. At -least that’s the way I figure him out. The Lord knows -I’ve seen enough of men. But you watch out just the -same. Them long thin ones that looks like they was all -brains and jaw is often the worst. They’ve got more -nerves. The minute the grind lets up they begin to look -out for an adventure, wonderin’ what’s round the next -corner. Wives ain’t much at supplyin’ adventure——”</p> - -<p>“Well, let’s quit worryin’ about what ain’t happened,” -said Miss Pearl abruptly. Men did not interest her. -“Will he take you to any of the dances? That’s what I -want to know. You’ve been put up and elected to our -new and exclusive Club. No more Coliseum Saturday -Nights for us—Race Track is a good name for it. We’ve -taken a new little hall over Murphy’s store for Saturday -nights till the Gardens open up, and we have real fun. -No rowdyism. We leave that to the cut below. This Club -is composed of real nice girls and young men of Butte who -are workin’ hard at something high-toned and respectable, -and frown hard on the fast lot.”</p> - -<p>“Sounds fine. Perhaps Greg’ll go, though he studies -half the night. Do you meet at any other time? Is it -one of them mind improvers, too?”</p> - -<p>“Nixie. We work all week and want fun when we get -a few hours off. I improve my mind readin’ myself to -sleep every night——”</p> - -<p>“What do you read?” interrupted Ida, eagerly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, the mags, of course, and a novel now and then. -But you don’t need novels any more. The mags are wonders! -They teach you all the life you don’t know—all -the way from lords to burglars. Then there’s the movin’ -pictures. Lord, but we have advantages our poor mothers -never dreamed of!”</p> - -<p>“Greg wants me to study with a teacher.” Ida frowned -reminiscently and fatidically. “He seems to think I didn’t -get nothin’ at school.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what do you know about that?” gasped Miss -Miller. Pearl removed her gum with a dry laugh.</p> - -<p>“If a man insinuated I wasn’t good enough for him—” -she began; Ruby, whose quick mind was weather-wise, interrupted -her.</p> - -<p>“Greg’s right. He’s got education himself and’s proved -he don’t mean to be a rancher all his life. What’s more,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> -I’ve heard men say that Gregory Compton is bound one -way or another to be one of the big men of Montana. He’s -got the brains, he’s got the jaw, and he can outwork any -miner that ever struck, and no bad habits. Ide, you go -ahead and polish up.”</p> - -<p>“Why should I? I never could see that those bonanzerines -were so much better’n us, barring clothes.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t know the best of ’em, Ide. Madame O’Reilley -was too gaudy to catch any but the newest bunch. The -old pioneer guard is fine, and their girls have been educated -all over this country and the next. Lord! Look at -Ora Blake! Where’d you beat her? In these new Western -towns it’s generally the sudden rich that move to New -York to die of lonesomeness, and nowhere to show their -clothes but Peacock Alley in the Waldorf-Astoria. The -<i>real</i> people keep their homes here, if they are awful restless; -and I guess the Society they make, with their imported -gowns and all, ain’t so very different from top Society -anywheres. Of course, human nature is human -nature, and some of the younger married women are sporty -and take too much when a bunch goes over to Boulder -Springs for a lark, or get a crush on some other woman’s -husband—for want mostly of something to do; but their -grammar’s all right. I hope you’ll teach them a lesson -when you’re on top, Ide. Good American morals for me, -like good American stories. I always skip the Europe -stories in the mags. Don’t seem modern and human, somehow, -after Butte.”</p> - -<p>“Now I like Europe stories,” said Ida, “just because -they are so different. The people in ’em ain’t walkin’ -round over gold and copper when they’re dishwashin’ or -makin’ love, but their mines have been turned centuries -ago into castles and pictures and grand old parks. There’s -a kind of halo——”</p> - -<p>“Halo nothin’!” exclaimed Miss Pearl, who was even -more aggressively American than her sister. “It’s them -ridiculous titles. And kings and queens and all that antique -lot. I despise ’em, and I’m dead set against importin’ -foreign notions into God’s own country. We’re -dyed-in-the-wool Americans—out West here, anyhow—including -every last one of them fools that’s buyin’ new -notions with their new money. All their Paris clothes -<i>and</i> hats, <i>and</i> smokin’ cigarettes, <i>and</i> loose talk can’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> -make ’em anything else. Apin’ Europe and its antiquated -morals makes me sick to my stomach. Cut it out, kid, -before you go any further. Stand by your own country -and it’ll stand by you.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ve got an answer to that. In the first place -I’d like to know where you’ll find more girls on the loose -than right here in Butte—and I don’t mean the sporting -women, either. Why, I meet bunches of schoolgirls every -day so painted up they look as if they was fixin’ right -now to be bad; and as for these Eastern workin’ girls who -come out here after jobs, pretendin’ it’s less pressure and -bigger pay they’re after, when it’s really to turn loose and -give human nature a chance with free spenders—well, the -way they hold down their jobs and racket about all night -beats me. None of <i>them’s</i> been to Europe, I notice, and -I’d like to bet that the schoolgirls that don’t make monkeys -of themselves is the daughters of them that has.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the schoolgirls is just plain little fools and no -doubt has their faces held under the spout for ’em when -they get home. But as for the Eastern girls, you hit it -when you said they come out here to give human nature a -chance. Some girls is born bad, thousands and thousands -of them; and reformers might just as well try to grow -strawberries in a copper smelter as to make a girl run -straight when she is lyin’ awake nights thinkin’ up new -ways of bein’ crooked. But the rotten girls in this town -are not the whole show. And lots of women that would -never think of goin’ wrong—don’t naturally care for that -sort of thing a bit—just get their minds so mixed up by -too much sudden money, and liberty, and too much high -livin’ and too much Europe and too much nothin’ to do, -that they just don’t know where they’re at; and it isn’t -long either before they get to thinkin’ they’re not the -dead swell thing unless they do what the nobility of Europe -seems to be doin’ all the time——”</p> - -<p>“Shucks!” interrupted Ruby, indignantly. “It’s just -them stories in the shady mags, and the way our women -talk for the sake of effect. There’s bad in America and -good in poor old Europe. I’ll bet my new hat on it. Only, -over there the good is out of sight under all that sportin’ -high life everybody seems to write about. Over here -we’ve got a layer of good on top as thick as cream, and -every kind of germ swimmin’ round underneath. Lord<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span> -knows there are plenty of just females in this town, of all -towns, but the U. S. is all right because it has such high -standards. All sorts of new-fangled notions come and go -but them standards never budge. No other country has -anything like ’em. Sooner or later we’ll catch up. I’m -great on settin’ the right example and I’m dead set on -uplift. That’s one reason we’re so strict about our Club -membership. Not one of them girls can get in, no matter -how good her job or how swell a dresser she is. And they -feel it, too, you bet. The line’s drawn like a barbed-wire -fence.”</p> - -<p>“I guess you’re dead right,” admitted Ida. “And my -morals ain’t in any danger, believe me. I’ve got other fish -to fry. I’ve had love’s young dream and got over it. I’m -just about dead sick of that side of life. I’d cut it out and -put it down to profit and loss, but you’ve got to manage -men every way nature’s kindly provided, and that’s all -there is to it.”</p> - -<p>“My land!” exclaimed Ruby. “If I felt that way about -my husband I’d leave him too quick.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, you wouldn’t. You can make up your mind -to any old thing. That’s life. And I guess life never -holds out both hands full at once. Either, one’s got a -knife in it or it’s out of sight altogether.”</p> - -<p>Ruby snorted with disgust. “Once more I vow I’ll -marry none of them. Me for self-respect.”</p> - -<p>“Now as to Europe,” pursued Ida. “You’re just nothin’ -till you’ve been, both as to what you get, and sayin’ -you’ve been there——”</p> - -<p>“Ida,” said Ruby, shaking her wise red head, “don’t -you go leaving your husband summers, like the rest. Men -don’t get much chance to go to Europe. They prefer little -old New York, anyhow—when they get on there alone. -I wonder what ten thousand wives that go to Europe every -summer think their husbands are doin’? I haven’t manicured -men for nine years without knowin’ they need -watchin’ every minute. Why, my lord! they’re so tickled -to death when summer comes round they can hardly wait -to kiss their wives good-bye and try to look lonesome on the -platform. They’d like to be down and kick up their heels -right there at the station. And I didn’t have to come to -Butte to find that out.”</p> - -<p>“Greg’ll never run with that fast lot.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>“No, but he might meet an affinity; and there’s one of -<i>them</i> lyin’ in wait for every man.”</p> - -<p>Ida’s brow darkened. “Well, just let her look out for -herself, that’s all. I’ll hang on to Greg. But it ain’t time -to worry yet. Let’s have a game of poker.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">VI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">GREGORY, through the offices of his friend, Mark -Blake, found a teacher for Ida before the end of the -week, Mr. William Cullen Whalen, Professor of English -in the Butte High School.</p> - -<p>Mr. Whalen’s present status was what he was in the -habit of designating as an ignominious anti-climax, considering -his antecedents and attainments; but he always -dismissed the subject with a vague, “Health—health—this -altitude—this wonderful air—climate—not for me are the -terrible extremes of our Atlantic seaboard. Here a man -may be permitted to live, if not in the deeper sense—well, -at least, there are always one’s thoughts—and books.”</p> - -<p>He was a delicate little man as a matter of fact, but had -East winds and summer humidities been negligible he -would have jumped at the position found for him by a -college friend who had gone West and prospered in Montana. -This friend’s letter had much to say about the dry -tonic air of winter, the cool light air of summer, the many -hours he would be able to pass in the open, thus deepening -the colour of his corpuscles, at present a depressing -shade of pink; but even more about a salary far in excess -of anything lying round loose in the East. Mr. Whalen, -who, since his graduation from the college in his native -town, had knocked upon several historic portals of learning -in vain, finding himself invariably outclassed, had -shuddered, but accepted his fate by the outgoing mail. Of -course he despised the West; and the mere thought of a -mining camp like Butte, which was probably in a drunken -uproar all the time, almost nauseated him. However, in -such an outpost the graduate of an Eastern college who -knew how to wear his clothes must rank high above his -colleagues. It might be years before he could play a similar -rôle at home. So he packed his wardrobe, which included -spats and a silk hat, and went.</p> - -<p>Nature compensates even her comparative failures by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> -endowing them with a deathless self-conceit. Whalen was -a man of small abilities, itching ambition, all the education -his brains could stand, and almost happy in being himself -and a Whalen. It was true that Fortune had grafted him -on a well-nigh sapless branch in a small provincial town, -while the family trunk flourished, green, pruned, and -portly, in Boston, but no such trifle could alter the fact -that he was a Whalen, and destined by a discriminating -heredity to add to the small but precious bulk of America’s -literature. Although he found Butte a city of some sixty -thousand inhabitants, and far better behaved than he had -believed could be possible in a community employing some -fifteen thousand miners, he was still able to reassure himself -that she outraged every sensibility. He assured himself -further that its lurid contrasts to the higher civilisation -would play like a search-light upon the theme for a novel -he long had had in mind: the subtle actions and reactions -of the Boston temperament.</p> - -<p>But that was three years ago, and meanwhile several -things had happened to him. He had ceased to wear his -spats and silk hat in public after their first appearance -on Broadway; the newsboys, who were on strike, had seen -to that. He wrote his novel, and the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, -honored by the first place on his list, declined to give space -to his innocent plagiarisms of certain anæmic if literary -authors now passing into history. An agent sent the -manuscript the rounds without avail, but one of the -younger editors had suggested that he try his hand at -Montana. He was more shocked and mortified at this -proposition than at the failure of his novel. Time, however, -as well as the high cost of living in Butte, lent him -a grudging philosophy, and he digested the advice. But -his were not the eyes that see. The printed page was his -world, his immediate environment but a caricature of the -subtle realities. Nevertheless, he had what so often appears -in the most unlikely brains, the story-telling kink. Given -an incident he could work it up with an abundance of detail -and “psychology,” easily blue-pencilled, and a certain -illusion. Condescend to translate his present surroundings -into the sacred realm of American fiction he would not, -but he picked the brains of old-timers for thrilling incidents -of the days when gold was found at the roots of -grass, and the pioneers either were terrorized by the lawless<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span> -element or executed upon it a summary and awful justice. -Some of his tales were so blood-curdling, so steeped in -gore and horror, that he felt almost alive when writing -them. It was true that their market was the Sunday -Supplement and the more sensational magazines, whose -paper and type made his soul turn green; but the pay was -excellent, and they had begun to attract some attention, -owing to the contrast between the fierceness of theme and -the neat precise English in which it was served. Butte -valued him as a counter-irritant to Mary McLane, and he -became a professional diner-out.</p> - -<p>“Do you think he’ll condescend to tutor?” Gregory had -asked of Blake. Whalen was by no means unknown to -him, but heretofore had been regarded as a mere worm.</p> - -<p>“Sure thing. Nobody keener on the dollar than Whalen. -He’ll stick you, but he knows his business. He’s got -all the words there are, puts ’em in the right place, and -tones ’em up so you’d hardly know them.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">VII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IDA was out when her prospective tutor called, and she -was deeply impressed by the card she found under the -door: “Mr. William Cullen Whalen,” it was inscribed.</p> - -<p>It was the custom of the gentlemen of her acquaintance -to express their sense of good fellowship even upon the -formal pasteboard. “Mr. Matt Dance,” “Mr. Phil Mott,” -“Mr. Bill Jarvis,” the legends read. Ida felt as if she -were reciting a line from the Eastern creed as her lips -formed again and again the suave and labial syllables on -her visitor’s card. She promptly determined to order -cards for her husband on the morrow—he was so remiss -as to have none—and they should be engraved, in small -Roman letters: “Mr. Gregory Verrooy Compton.”</p> - -<p>“And believe me,” she announced to her green dining-room, -as she sat down before her husband’s desk, “that is -some name.”</p> - -<p>Her note to Professor Whalen, asking him to call on the -following afternoon at two o’clock, was commendably brief, -so impatient was she to arrive at the signature, “Mrs. -Gregory Verrooy Compton;” little conceiving the effect -it would have upon Mr. Whalen’s fastidious spine.</p> - -<p>He called at the hour named, and Ida invited him into -the dining-room. It was here that Gregory read far into -the night, and she vaguely associated a large table with -much erudition. Moreover, she prided herself upon her -economy in fuel.</p> - -<p>Mr. Whalen sat in one of the hard, upright chairs, his -stick across his knee, his gloves laid smartly in the rolling -brim of his hat, studying this new specimen and wondering -if she could be made to do him credit. He was surprised -to find her so beautiful, and not unrefined in style—if only -she possessed the acumen to keep her ripe mouth shut. In -fact he found her quite the prettiest woman he had seen -in Butte, famous for pretty women; and—and—he searched<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> -conscientiously for the right word, and blushed as he -found it—the most seductive. Ida was vain of the fact -that she wore no corset, and that not the least of her -attractions was a waist as flexible as an acrobat’s. What -flesh she had was very firm, her carriage was easy and -graceful, the muscles of her back were strong, her lines -long and flowing; she walked and moved at all times with -an undulating movement usually associated with a warmer -temperament. But nature often amuses herself bestowing -the semblance and withholding the essence; Ida, calculating -and contemptuous of the facile passions of men, -amused herself with them, confident of her own immunity.</p> - -<p>It was now some time since she had enjoyed the admiration -of any man but her husband, and his grew more and -more sporadic, was long since dry of novelty. Like most -Western husbands, he would not have permitted her to -make a friend of any other man, nor even to receive the -casual admirer when he was not at home. Ida was full of -vanity, although she would have expressed her sudden determination -to captivate “little Whalen” merely as a -desire to keep her hand in. He was the only man upon -whom she was likely to practise at present (for Gregory -would have none of the Club dances), and vanity can -thirst like a galled palate. She had “sized him up” as a -“squirt” (poor Ida! little she recked how soon she was -to be stripped of her picturesque vocabulary), but he was -“a long sight better than nothing.”</p> - -<p>After they had exhausted the nipping weather, and the -possibility of a Chinook arriving before night—there was -a humming roar high overheard at the moment—she lowered -her black eyelashes, lifted herself against the stiff -back of her chair with the motion of a snake uncoiling, -raised her thick white lids suddenly, and murmured:</p> - -<p>“Well, so you’re goin’ to polish me off? Tell me all my -faults! Fire away. I know you’ll make a grand success -of it. Lord knows (her voice became as sweet as honey), -you’re different enough from the other men in this jay -town.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Whalen felt as if he were being drenched with -honey dew, for he was the type of man whom women take -no trouble to educate. But as that sweet unmodulated -voice stole about his ear porches he drew himself up stiffly, -conscious of a thrill of fear. To become enamoured of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> -wife of one of these forthright Westerners, who took the -law into their own hands, was no part of his gentle programme; -but he stared at her fascinated, never having felt -anything resembling a thrill before. Moreover, like all people -of weak passions, more particularly that type of American -that hasn’t any, he took pride in his powers of self-control. -In a moment he threw off the baleful influence -and replied drily.</p> - -<p>“I think the lessons would better be oral for a time. -Do—do I understand that I am to correct your individual -method of expression?”</p> - -<p>“That’s it, I guess.”</p> - -<p>“And you won’t be offended?” Mr. Whalen’s upper -teeth were hemispheric, but he had cultivated a paternal -and not unpleasing smile. Even the pale blue orbs, fixed -defiantly upon the siren, warmed a trifle.</p> - -<p>“Well. I don’t s’pose I’ll like bein’ corrected better’n -the next, but that’s what I’m payin’ for. Now that my -husband’s studyin’ for a profession, I guess I’ll be in the -top set before so very long. There’s Mrs. Blake, for instance—her -husband told Mr. Compton she’d call this -week. Is she all that she’s cracked up to be?”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Blake has had great advantages. She might almost -be one of our own products, were it not for the fact -that she—well—seems deliberately to wish to be Western.” -He found himself growing more and more confused under -the steady regard of those limpid shadowy eyes—set like -the eyes of a goddess in marble, and so disconcertingly -shallow. He pulled himself up sharply. “Now, if I may -begin—you must not sign your notes, ‘Mrs. Gregory Verrooy -Compton’——”</p> - -<p>Ida’s eyes flashed wide open. “Why not, I’d like to -know? Isn’t it as good a name as yours?”</p> - -<p>“What has that to do with it? Ah—yes—you don’t -quite understand. It is not the custom—in what we call -society—to sign in that manner—it is a regrettable American -provincialism. If you really wish to learn——”</p> - -<p>“Fire away,” said Ida sullenly.</p> - -<p>“Sign your own name—may I ask what it is?”</p> - -<p>“My name was Ida Maria Hook before I married.”</p> - -<p>“Ida is a beautiful and classic name. We will eliminate -the rest. Sign yourself Ida Compton—or if you wish to -be more swagger, Ida Verrooy Compton——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>“Land’s sake! We’d be laughed clean out of Montana.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, there is a fine primitive simplicity about many -things in this region,” replied Mr. Whalen, thinking of -his spats and silk hat. “But you get my point?”</p> - -<p>“I get you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh!—We’ll have a little talk later about slang. And -you mustn’t begin your letters, particularly to an acquaintance, -‘Dear friend.’ This is an idealistic and—ah—bucolic -custom, but hardly good form.”</p> - -<p>He was deeply annoyed at his lack of fluency, but Ida -once more was deliberately “upsetting” him. She smiled -indulgently.</p> - -<p>“I guess I like your new-fangled notions. I’ll write all -that down while you’re thinkin’ up what to say next.”</p> - -<p>She leaned over the table and wrote slowly that he might -have leisure to admire her figure in profile. But he gazed -sternly out of the window until she swayed back to the -perpendicular and demanded,</p> - -<p>“What next? Do you want me to say băth and căn’t?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, I really shouldn’t advise it, not in Butte. I -don’t wish to teach you anything that will add to the discomforts -of life—so long as your lines are cast here. Just -modify the lamentably short American <i>a</i> a bit.” And he -rehearsed her for a few moments.</p> - -<p>“Fine. I’ll try it on Greg—Mr. Compton. If he laughs -I’ll know I’m too good, but if he only puckers his eyebrows -and looks as if somethin’ queer was floatin’ round just out -of sight, then I’ll know I’ve struck the happy medium. -I’ll be a real high-brow in less than no time.”</p> - -<p>“You certainly are surprisingly quick,” said Professor -Whalen handsomely. “In a year I could equip you for -our centres of culture, but as I remarked just now it -would not be kind to transform you into an exotic. Now, -suppose we read a few pages of this grammar——”</p> - -<p>“I studied grammar at school,” interrupted Ida haughtily. -“What do you take Butte for, anyhow. It may be a -mining camp, and jay enough compared with your old -Boston, but I guess we learn something mor’n the alphabet -at all these big red brick schoolhouses we’ve got—Montana’s -famous for its grand schoolhouses——”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, my dear Mrs. Compton. But, you know, -one forgets so quickly. And then so many of you don’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> -stay in school long enough. How old were you when you -left?”</p> - -<p>“Fifteen. Ma wouldn’t let me go to the High.”</p> - -<p>“Precisely. Well, I will adhere to my original purpose, -and defer books until our next lesson. Perhaps you -would like me to tell you something more of our Eastern -methods of speech—not only words, but—er—syntax——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, hang your old East! You make me feel downright -patriotic.”</p> - -<p>Professor Whalen was conscious that it was a distinct -pleasure to make those fine eyes flash. “One would think -we were not all Americans,” he said with a smile.</p> - -<p>“Well, I guess you look upon America as East and West -too. Loads of young surveyors and mining men come out -here to make their pile, and at first Montana ain’t good -enough to black their boots, but it soon takes the starch out -of ’em. No use puttin’ on dog here. It don’t work.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I assure you it’s merely a difference of manner—of—er -tradition. We—and I in particular—find your -West most interesting—and significant. I—ah—regard it -as the great furnace under our civilization.”</p> - -<p>“And we are the stokers! I like your impudence!”</p> - -<p>He had no desire to lose this remunerative pupil, whose -crude mind worked more quickly than his own. She was -now really angry and he made a mild dive in search of -his admitted tact.</p> - -<p>“My dear lady, you put words into my mouth that -emanate from your own clever brain, not from my merely -pedantic one. Not only have I the highest respect for the -West, and for Montana in particular, but please remember -that the contempt of the East for the West is merely -passive, negative, when compared with the lurid scorn -of the West for the East. ‘Effete’ is its mildest term of -opprobrium. I doubt if your ‘virile’ Westerner believes us -to be really alive, in a condition to inhabit aught but a -museum. Your men when they ‘make their pile’, or take -a vacation, never dream of going to Boston, seldom, indeed, -to Europe. They take the fastest train for New York—and -by no means with a view to exploring that wilderness -for its oases of culture——”</p> - -<p>“Well, I guess not!” cried Ida, her easy good nature -restored. “All-night restaurants, something new in the -way of girls—‘chickens’ and ‘squabs’—musical shows,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> -watchin’ the sun rise—that’s their little old New York. -They always come home shakin’ themselves like a Newfoundland -puppy, or purrin’ like a cat full of cream, but -talkin’ about the Great Free West, God’s Own Country, -and the Big Western Heart. I’ve a friend who does manicurin’, -and she knows ’em like old shoes.”</p> - -<p>Whalen, who had a slight cultivated sense of humor, -laughed. “You are indeed most apt and picturesque, dear -Mrs. Compton. But—while I think of it—you mustn’t -drop your final <i>gs</i>. That, I am told, is one of the fashionable -divagations of the British aristocracy. But with us -it is the hallmark of the uneducated. Now, I really have -told you all you can remember for one day, and will take -my leave. It is to be every other day, I understand. -On Wednesday, then, at two?”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">VIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IDA walked to the gate with him. She was quite a head -taller than he, but subtly made him feel that the advantage -was his, as it enabled her to pour the light of her -eyes downward. He picked his way up the uneven surface -of East Granite Street, slippery with a recent fall of snow, -not only disturbed, but filled with a new conceit; in other -words thrilling with his first full sense of manhood.</p> - -<p>Ida looked after him, smiling broadly. But the smile -fled abruptly, her lips trembled, then contracted. Advancing -down the street was Mrs. Mark Blake. Ida had known -her enterprising young husband before he changed his -name from Mike to Mark, but she knew his lady wife by -sight only; Mrs. Blake had not patronized Madame O’Reilley. -Ruby and Pearl pronounced her “all right”, although -a trifle “proud to look at.” Ida assumed that she was to -receive the promised call, and wished she could “get out -of it.” Not only did she long for her rocker, gum and -magazine, after the intellectual strain of the past hour, -but she had no desire to meet Mrs. Blake or any of “that -crowd” until she could take her place as their equal. She -had her full share of what is known as class-consciousness, -and its peculiar form of snobbery. To be patronized by -“swells”, even to be asked to their parties, would give her -none of that subtle joy peculiar to the climbing snob. -When the inevitable moment came she would burst upon -them, dazzle them, bulldoze and lead them, but she wanted -none of their crumbs.</p> - -<p>But she was “in for it.” She hastily felt the back of -her shirtwaist to ascertain if it still were properly adjusted, -and sauntered towards the cottage humming a tune, -pretending not to have seen the lady who stopped to have -a word with Professor Whalen. “Anyhow, she’s not a -bonanzerine,” thought Ida. “I guess she did considerable -scrapin’ at one time; and Mark, for all he could make -shoe-blackin’ look like molasses, ain’t a millionaire yet.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>She might indeed, further reflected Ida, watching the -smartly tailored figure out of the corner of her eye, be -pitied, for she had been “brought up rich, expecting to -marry a duke, and then come down kaplunk before she’d -much more’n a chance to grow up.” Her father, Judge -Stratton, a graduate of Columbia University, had been -one of the most brilliant and unscrupulous lawyers of the -Northwest. He had drawn enormous fees from railroads -and corporations, and in the historic Clark-Daly duels -for supremacy in the State of Montana, and in the more -picturesque battle between F. Augustus Heinze and -“Amalgamated” (that lusty offspring of the great Standard -Oil Trust), when the number of estimable citizens -bought and sold demonstrated the faint impress of time -on original sin, his legal acumen and persuasive tongue, -his vitriolic pen, ever had been at the disposal of the -highest bidder.</p> - -<p>He had been a distinguished resident of Butte but a few -years when he built himself a spacious if hideous residence -on the West Side. But this must have been out of -pure loyalty to his adopted state, for it was seldom occupied, -although furnished in the worst style of the late -seventies and early eighties. Mrs. Stratton and her daughter -spent the greater part of their time in Europe. As -Judge Stratton disliked his wife, was intensely ambitious -for his only child, and preferred the comforts of his -smaller home on The Flat, he rarely recalled his legitimate -family, and made them a lavish allowance. He died -abruptly of apoplexy, and left nothing but a life insurance -of five thousand dollars; he had neglected to take out any -until his blood vessels were too brittle for a higher risk.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Stratton promptly became an invalid, and Ora -brought her home to Butte, hoping to save something from -the wreck. There was nothing to save. As she had not -known of the life insurance when they received the curt -cablegram in Paris, she had sold all of her mother’s jewels -save a string of pearls, and, when what was left of this -irrelative sum after the luxurious journey over sea and -land, was added to the policy, the capital of these two -still bewildered women represented little more than they -had been accustomed to spend in six months. When Mark -Blake, who had studied law in Judge Stratton’s office -after graduating from the High School, and now seemed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> -to be in a fair way to inherit the business, besides being -County Attorney at the moment, implored Ora to marry -him, and manifested an almost equal devotion to her -mother, whom he had ranked with the queens of history -books since boyhood, she accepted him as the obvious solution -of her problem.</p> - -<p>She was lonely, disappointed, mortified, a bit frightened. -She had lived the life of the average American princess, -and although accomplished had specialised in nothing; -nor given a thought to the future. As she had cared little -for the society for which her mother lived, and much for -books, music, and other arts, and had talked eagerly with -the few highly specialised men she was fortunate enough -to meet, she had assumed that she was clever. She also -believed that when she had assuaged somewhat her appetite -for the intellectual and artistic banquet the gifted of -the ages had provided, she might develop a character and -personality, possibly a gift of her own. But she was only -twenty when her indulgent father died, and, still gorging -herself, was barely interested in her capacities other than -receptive, less still in the young men that sought her, unterrified -by her reputation for brains. She fancied that -she should marry when she was about twenty-eight, and -have a salon somewhere; and the fact that love had played -so little a part in her dreams made it easier to contemplate -marriage with this old friend of her childhood. His mother -had been Mrs. Stratton’s seamstress, to be sure, but as he -was a good boy,—he called for the frail little woman every -evening to protect her from roughs on her long walk east -to the cottage her husband had built shortly before he -was blown to pieces somewhere inside of Butte—he had -been permitted to hold the dainty Ora on his knee, or toss -her, gurgling with delight, into the air until he puffed.</p> - -<p>Mark had been a fat boy, and was now a fat young man -with a round rosy face and a rolling lazy gait. He possessed -an eye of remarkable shrewdness, however, was making -money rapidly, never lost sight of the main chance, and -was not in the least surprised when his marriage lifted him -to the pinnacle of Butte society. In spite of his amiable -weaknesses, he was honest if sharp, an inalienable friend, -and he made a good husband according to his lights. Being -a man’s man, and naturally elated at his election to the -exclusive Silver Bow Club soon after his marriage to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span> -snow maiden of his youthful dreams, he formed the habit -of dropping in for a game of billiards every afternoon on -his way home, and returning for another after dinner. -But within three years he was able to present the wife of -whom he was inordinately proud with a comfortable home -on the West Side, and he made her an allowance of ever -increasing proportions.</p> - -<p>Ora, who had her own idea of a bargain, had never complained -of neglect nor intimated that she found anything -in him that savoured of imperfection. She had accepted -him as a provider, and as he filled this part of the contract -brilliantly, she felt that to treat him to scenes whose -only excuse was outraged love or jealousy, would be both -unjust and absurd. Moreover, his growing passion for his -club was an immense relief after his somewhat prolonged -term of marital uxoriousness, and as her mother died almost -coincidentally with the abridgment of Mr. Blake’s -home life, Ora returned to her studies, rode or walked for -hours, and, after her double period of mourning was -over, danced two or three times a week in the season, or -sat out dances when she met a man that had cultivated his -intellect. For women she cared little.</p> - -<p>It never occurred to Mark to be jealous of his passionless -wife, although he would have asserted his authority -if she had received men alone in the afternoon. But Ora -paid a scrupulous deference to his wishes in all respects. -She even taught herself to keep house, and her servants -manners as well as the elements of edible cooking. This she -regarded as her proudest feat, for she frankly hated the -domestic details of life; although after three years in a -“Block”,—a sublimated lodging house, peculiar to the -Northwest—she enjoyed the space and privacy of her -home. Mark told his friends that his wife was the most -remarkable woman in Montana, rarely found fault, save in -the purely mechanical fashion of the married male, and -paid the bills without a murmur. Altogether it was a -reasonably happy marriage.</p> - -<p>Ora Blake’s attitude to life at this time was expressed -in the buoyancy of her step, the haughty carriage of her -head, the cool bright casual glance she bestowed upon the -world in general. Her code of morals, ethics, manners, as -well as her acceptance of the last set of conditions she -would have picked from the hands of Fate, was summed up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> -in two words: <i>noblesse oblige</i>. Of her depths she knew as -little as Gregory Compton of his.</p> - -<p>“This is Mrs. Compton, I am sure,” she said in her cool -even voice, as she came up behind the elaborately unconscious -and humming Ida. “I am Mrs. Blake.”</p> - -<p>“Pleased to meet you,” said Ida formally, extending a -limp hand. “Come on inside.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Blake closed her eyes as she entered the parlour, -but opened them before Ida had adjusted the blower to -the grate, and exclaimed brightly:</p> - -<p>“How clever of you to settle so quickly. I shouldn’t -have dared to call for another fortnight, but Mr. Compton -told my husband yesterday that you were quite in order. -It was three months before I dared open my doors.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” drawled Ida, rocking herself, “I guess your -friends are more critical than mine. And I guess you -didn’t rely wholly on Butte for your furniture. I had -Ma’s old junk, and the rest cost me just two hundred dollars.”</p> - -<p>“How very clever of you!” But although Mrs. Blake -was doing her best to be spontaneous and impressed, Ida -knew instantly that she had committed a solecism, and -felt both angry and apprehensive. She was more afraid -of this young woman than of her professor. Once more -she wished that Mrs. Blake and the whole caboodle would -leave her alone till she was good and ready.</p> - -<p>Ora hastened on to a safer topic, local politics. -Butte, tired of grafting politicians, was considering the -experiment of permitting a Socialist of good standing to -be elected mayor. Ida, like all women of the smaller -Western towns, was interested in local politics, and, glad -of the impersonal topic, gave her visitor intelligent encouragement, -the while she examined her critically. She finally -summed her up in the word “pasty”, and at that stage -of Ora Blake’s development the description was not inapt. -She took little or no interest in her looks, although she -dressed well by instinct; and nature, supplemented by her -mother, had given her style. But her hair was almost -colourless and worn in a tight knot just above her neck, -her complexion was weather-beaten, her lips rather pale, -and her body very thin. But when men whose first glance -had been casual turned suddenly, wondering at themselves, -to examine that face so lacking in the potencies of colouring,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> -they discovered that the eyes, deeply set and far -apart, were of a deep dark blazing grey, that the nose was -straight and fine, the ears small, the mouth mobile, with -a slight downward droop at the corners; also that her -hands and feet were very slender, with delicate wrists and -ankles. Ida, too, noted these points, but wondered where -her “charm” came from. She knew that Mrs. Blake possessed -this vague but desirable quality, in spite of her -dread reputation as a “high-brow”, and her impersonal -attitude toward men.</p> - -<p>Ruby had informed her that the men agreed she had -charm if she would only condescend to exert it. “And -I can feel it too,” she had added, “every time I do her -nails—she never lets anyone do that hair of hers or give -her a massage, which she needs, the Lord knows. But she’s -got fascination, magnetism, whatever you like to call it, -for all she’s so washed-out. Somehow, I always feel that -if she’d wake up, get on to herself, she’d play the devil -with men, maybe with herself.”</p> - -<p>Ida recalled the comments of the wise Miss Miller and -frowned. This important feminine equipment she knew to -be her very own, and although she would have been proud -to admit the rivalry of a beautiful woman, she felt a sense -of mortification in sharing that most subtle and fateful -of all gifts, sex-magnetism, with one so colourless and -plain. That the gifts possessed by this woman talking -with such well-bred indifference of local affairs must be -far more subtle than her own irritated her still more. -It also filled her with a vague sense of menace, almost of -helplessness. Later, when her brain was more accustomed -to analysis, she knew that she had divined—her consciousness -at that time too thick to formulate the promptings of -instinct—that when man is taken unawares he is held more -firmly captive.</p> - -<p>Ida, staring into those brilliant powerful eyes, felt a sudden -desperate need to dive through their depths into this -woman’s secret mind, to know her better at once, get rid -of the sense of mystery that baffled and oppressed her. In -short she must know where she was at and know it quick. -It did not strike her until afterward as odd that she should -have felt so intensely personal in regard to a woman whose -sphere was not hers and whose orbit had but just crossed -her own.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>For a time she floundered, but feminine instinct -prompted the intimate note.</p> - -<p>“I saw you talkin’—talking to the professor,” she said -casually. “I suppose you know your husband got him -for me.”</p> - -<p>“I arranged it myself—” began Mrs. Blake, smiling, -but Ida interrupted her sharply:</p> - -<p>“Greg—Mr. Compton didn’t tell me he had talked to -you about it.”</p> - -<p>“Nor did he. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. -Compton but once—the day I married; he was my husband’s -best man. Mark never can get him to come to the -house, hardly to the club. But my husband naturally -would turn over such a commission to me. I hope you -found the little professor satisfactory.”</p> - -<p>“He’ll do, I guess. He knows an awful lot, and I have -a pretty good memory. But to get—and practice—it all—well, -I guess that takes years.” She imbued her tones -with a pathetic wistfulness, and gazed upon her visitor -with ingenuous eyes, brimming with admiration. “It -must be just grand to have got all that education, and -to have lived in Europe while you were growing up. Nothing -later on that you can get is the same, I guess. You look -just about as polished off as I look raw.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! No! No!” cried Ora deprecatingly, her cheeks -flooding with a delicate pink that made her look very -young and feminine. She had begun by disliking this -dreadfully common person, but not only was she by no -means as innocent of vanity as she had been trying for -years to believe, but she was almost emotionally swift to -respond to the genuine appeal. And, clever as she was, -it was not difficult to delude her.</p> - -<p>“Of course I had advantages that I am grateful for, -but I have a theory that it is never too late to begin. -And you are so young—a few months of our professor—are -you really ambitious?”</p> - -<p>“You bet.” Ida committed herself no further at the -moment.</p> - -<p>“Then you will enjoy study—expanding and furnishing -your mind. It is a wonderful sensation!” Mrs. -Blake’s eyes were flashing now, her mouth was soft, her -strong little chin with that cleft which always suggests a -whirlpool, was lifted as if she were drinking. “The moment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> -you are conscious that you are using the magic keys -to the great storehouses of the world, its arts, its sciences, -its records of the past—when you begin to help yourself -with both hands and pack it away in your memory—always -something new—when you realise that the store is inexhaustible—that -in study at least there is no ennui—Oh, -I can give you no idea of what it all means—you will find -it out for yourself!”</p> - -<p>“Jimminy!” thought Ida. “I guess not! But that ain’t -where her charm for men comes from, you bet!” Aloud -she said, with awe in her voice:</p> - -<p>“No wonder you know so much when you like it like -that. But don’t it make you—well—kinder lonesome?”</p> - -<p>“Sometimes—lately——” Mrs. Blake pulled herself up -with a deep blush. “It has meant everything to me, that -mental life, and it always shall!”</p> - -<p>The astute Ida noted the defiant ring in her voice, and -plunged in. “I wonder now? Say, you’re a pretty woman -and a young one, and they say men would go head over -ears about you if you’d give ’em a show. You’ve got a -busy husband and so have I. Husbands don’t companion -much and you can’t make me believe learning’s all. Don’t -you wish these American Turks of husbands would let us -have a man friend occasionally? They say that in high -society in the East and in Europe, the women have all -the men come to call on them afternoons they like, but the -ordinary American husband, and particularly out West—Lord! -When a woman has a man call on her, she’s about -ready to split with her husband—belongs to the fast set—and -he’s quail hunting somewheres else. Of course I’ve -known Mark all my life—and you who was—were brought -up in the real world—it must be awful hard on you. -Wouldn’t you like to try your power once in a while, see -how far you could go—just for fun? I guess you’re not -shocked?”</p> - -<p>“No, I’m not shocked,” said Ora, laughing. “But I -don’t believe men interest me very much in that way—although, -heaven knows, there are few more delightful -sensations than talking to a man who makes you feel as -if your brain were on fire. I don’t think I care to have -American men, at least, become interested in me in any -other way. In Europe——” She hesitated, and Ida -leaned forward eagerly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>“Oh, do tell me, Mrs. Blake! I don’t know a blamed -thing. I’ve never been outside of Montana.”</p> - -<p>“Well—I mean—the American man takes love too seriously. -I suppose it is because he is so busy—he has to -take life so seriously. He specialises intensely. It is all -or nothing with him. Of course I am talking about love. -When they play about, it is generally with a class of -women of which we have no personal knowledge. The -European, with his larger leisure, and generations of -leisure in his brain, his interest in everything, and knowledge -of many things,—above all of the world,—has reduced -gallantry to a fine art. He may give his fancy, his sentiment, -his passion, even his leisure, to one woman at a time, -but his heart—well, unless he is very young—that remains -quite intact. Love is the game of his life with a change of -partner at reasonable intervals. In other words he is far -too accomplished and sophisticated to be romantic. Now, -your American man, although he looks the reverse of romantic, -and is always afraid of making a fool of himself, -when he does fall in love with a woman—say, across a legal -barrier—must annihilate the barrier at once; in other -words, elope or rush to the divorce court. It isn’t that -he is more averse from a liaison than the European, but -more thorough. It is all or nothing. In many respects -he is far finer than the European, but he makes for turmoil, -and, less subtle, he fails to hold our interest.”</p> - -<p>“You mean he don’t keep us guessing? Well, you’re -right about most of them. I never saw a boy I couldn’t -read like a page ad., until I met my husband. I thought -I knew him, too, till I’d been married to him awhile. -But, my land, he gets deeper every minute. I guess if -I hadn’t married him he’d have kidnapped me, he was -that gone, and forgetting anything else existed. Of course, -I didn’t expect that to last, but I did think he’d go on -being transparent. But, believe me, the Sphinx ain’t a -patch on him. I sometimes think I don’t know him at all, -and that keeps me interested.”</p> - -<p>“I should think it might!” exclaimed Mrs. Blake, thinking -of her own standard possession. “But then Mr. Compton -is a hard student, and is said to have a voracious as -well as a brilliant mind. No doubt that is the secret of -what appears on the surface as complexity and secretiveness. -I know the symptoms!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>“P’raps. But—well, I live with him, and I suspicion -otherwise. I suspect him of having as many kind of leads, -and cross-cuts, and ‘pockets’, and veins full of different -kinds of ore in him as we’ve got right under our feet in -Butte Hill. Do you think”—she spoke with a charming -wistfulness—“that when I know more, have opened up and -let out my top story, as it were, I shall understand him -better?”</p> - -<p>And again Ora responded warmly, “Indeed, yes, dear -Mrs. Compton. It isn’t so much what you put into your -mind—it’s more the reflex action of that personal collection -in developing not only the mental faculties, but one’s -intuitions, one’s power to understand others—even one -whose interests are different, or whose knowledge is infinitely -greater than our own.”</p> - -<p>“I believe you could even understand Greg!” Ida spoke -involuntarily and stared with real admiration at the -quickened face with its pink cheeks and flashing eyes, its -childish mobile mouth. Ora at the moment looked beautiful. -Suddenly Ida felt as if half-drowned in a wave of -ambiguous terror. She sat up very straight.</p> - -<p>“I guess you’re right,” she said slowly. “You’ve made -me see it as the others haven’t. I’ll work at all that measly -little professor gives me, but—I don’t know—somehow, I -can’t think he’ll do much more than make me talk decent. -There’s nothing <i>to</i> him.”</p> - -<p>Ora’s heart beat more quickly. Her indifference had -vanished in this intimate hour, also her first subtle dislike -of Ida, who’s commonness now seemed picturesque, and -whose wistful almost complete ignorance had made a strong -appeal to her sympathies. For the first time in her lonely -life she felt that she had something to give. And here -was raw and promising material ready and eager to be -woven, if not into cloth of silver, at least into a quality -of merchandise vastly superior to that which the rude -loom of youth had so far produced. All she knew of -Gregory Compton, moreover, made her believe in and admire -him; the loneliness of his mental life with this woman -appalled her. This was not the first time she had been -forced to admit of late that under the cool bright surface -of her nature were more womanly impulses than formerly, -a spontaneous warmth that was almost like the quickening -of a child; but she had turned from the consciousness with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> -an impatient: “What nonsense! What on earth should -I do with it?” The sense that she was of no vital use -to anyone had discouraged her, dimmed her interest in -her studies. Her husband could hire a better housekeeper, -find a hundred girls who would companion him better. -And what if she were <i>instruite</i>? So were thousands of -women. Nothing was easier.</p> - -<p>But this clever girl of the people, who might before -many years had passed be one of the rich and conspicuous -women of the United States, above all, the wife of one of -the nation’s “big men,” working himself beyond human -capacity, harassed, needing not only physical comfort at -home, but counsel, companionship, perfect understanding,—might -it not be her destiny to equip Ida Compton -for her double part? Ora’s imagination, the most precious -and the most dangerous of her gifts, was at white heat. -To her everlasting credit would be the fashioning of a -helpmate for one of her country’s great men. It would be -enough to do as much for the state which her imperfect -father had loved so passionately; but her imagination -would not confine Gregory Compton within the limitations -of a state. It was more than likely that his destiny would -prove to be national; and she had seen the wives of certain -men eminent in political Washington, but of obscure -origin. They were Ida’s mannered, grooved, crystallised; -women to flee from.</p> - -<p>She leaned forward and took Ida’s hand in both of -hers. “Dear Mrs. Compton!” she exclaimed. “Do let -me teach you what little I know. I mean of art—history—the past—the -present—I have portfolios of beautiful -photographs of great pictures and scenes that I collected -for years in Europe. It will do me so much good to go -over them. I haven’t had the courage to look at them for -years. And the significant movements, social, political, -religious,—all this theft under so many different names,—Christian -Science, the ‘Uplift’ Movement, Occultism—from -the ancient Hindu philosophy—it would be delightful -to go into it with someone. I am sure I could make it -all most interesting to you.”</p> - -<p>“My Gorrd!” thought Ida. “Two of ’em! What am -I let in for?” But the undefined sharp sense of terror -lingered, and she answered when she got her breath,</p> - -<p>“I’d like it first rate. The work in this shack is nothing.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> -Mr. Compton leaves first thing in the morning, and -don’t show up till nearly six. The professor’s coming -for an hour every other afternoon. But if I go to your -house I want it understood that I don’t meet anyone else. -I’ve got my reasons.”</p> - -<p>“You shall not meet a soul. Can’t you imagine how -sick I am of Butte? We’ll have heavenly times. I was -wondering only the other day of what use was all this -heterogeneous mass of stuff I’d put into my head. But,” -she added gaily, “I know now it was for you to select -from. I am so glad. And—and——” Her keen perceptions -suggested a more purely feminine bait. “You were -with Madame O’Reilley, were you not? I get my things -from a very good dressmaker in New York. Perhaps you -would like to copy some of them?”</p> - -<p>“Aw! Would I?” Ida gasped and almost strangled. -For the first time during this the most trying day of -her life she felt wholly herself. “You may just bet your -life I would. I need new duds the worst way, even if I’m -not a West Sider. I’ve been on a ranch for nearly a year -and a half, and although Mr. Compton won’t take me to -any balls, there are the movin’ pictures and the mats—matinees; -<i>and</i> the street, where I have to show up once in -a while! I used to think an awful lot of my looks and -style, and I guess it’s time to begin again. I can sew first -rate, make any old thing. Do you mean it?”</p> - -<p>“Indeed I do! I <i>want</i> to be of help to you in every -way.” She rose and held Ida’s hand once more in hers, -although she did not kiss her as another woman might have -done. “Will you come tomorrow—about two?”</p> - -<p>“You may bet your bottom dollar I’ll come. I haven’t -thanked you, but maybe I’ll do that some other way.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Mrs. Blake lightly.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">IX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">BUTTE, “the richest hill in the world” (known at a period -when less famous for metals and morals as -“Perch of the Devil”), is a long scraggy ridge of granite -and red and grey dirt rising abruptly out of a stony uneven -plain high in the Rocky Mountains. The city is -scooped out of its south slope, and overflows upon The -Flat. Big Butte, an equally abrupt protuberance, but -higher, steeper, more symmetrical, stands close beside the -treasure vault, but with the aloof and somewhat cynical -air of even the apocryphal volcano. On all sides the -sterile valley heaves away as if abruptly arrested in a throe -of the monstrous convulsion that begat it; but pressing -close, cutting the thin brilliant air with its icy peaks, is -an irregular and nearly circular chain of mountains, unbroken -white in winter, white on the blue enamelled slopes -in summer.</p> - -<p>For nearly half the year the whole scene is white, with -not a tree, nor, beyond the straggling town itself, a house -to break its frozen beauty. It is only when the warm -Chinook wind roars in from the west and melts the snow -much as lightning strikes, or when Summer herself has -come, that you realize the appalling surface barrenness -of this region devastated for many years by the sulphur -and arsenic fumes of ore roasted in the open or belching -from the smelters. They ate up the vegetation, and the -melting snows and heavy June rains washed the weakened -earth from the bones of valley and mountain, leaving both -as stark as they must have been when the earth ceased -to rock and began to cool. Since the smelters have gone -to Anaconda, patches of green, of a sad and timid tenderness, -like the smile of a child too long neglected, have appeared -between the sickly grey boulders of the foothills, -and, in Butte, lawns as large as a tablecloth have been cultivated. -Anaconda Hill at the precipitous eastern end of -the city, with its tangled mass of smokestacks, gallows-frames,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> -shabby grey buildings, trestles, looks like a gigantic -shipwreck, but is merely the portal to the precious ore -bodies of the mines whose shafts, levels, and cross-cuts to -the depth of three thousand feet and more, pierce and -ramify under city and valley. These hideous buildings -through which so many hundreds of millions have passed, -irrupt into the very back yards of some of the homes, built -too far east (and before mere gold and silver gave place to -copper); but the town improves as it leaps westward. -The big severe solid buildings to be found in every modern -city sure of its stability crowd the tumble-down wood -structures of a day when no man looked upon Butte as -aught but a camp. And although the streets are vociferously -cobbled, the pavements are civilised here and there.</p> - -<p>Farther west the houses of the residence section grow -more and more imposing, coinciding with the sense of -Butte’s inevitableness. On the high western rim of the -city (which exteriorly has as many ups and downs as -the story of its vitals) stands the red School of Mines. -It has a permanent expression of surprise, natural to a -bit of Italian renaissance looking down upon Butte.</p> - -<p>Some of the homes, particularly those of light pressed -brick, and one that looks like the northeast corner of the -upper story of a robber stronghold of the middle ages, are -models of taste and not too modest symbols of wealth; but -north and south and east and west are the snow wastes -in winter and the red or grey untidy desert of sand and -rock in summer.</p> - -<p>But if Butte is the ugliest city in the United States, she -knows how to make amends. She is alive to her finger-tips. -Her streets, her fine shops, her hotels, her great office -buildings, are always swarming and animated. At no time, -not even in the devitalised hours that precede the dawn, -does she sink into that peace which even a metropolis welcomes. -She has the jubilant expression of one who coins -the very air, the thin, sparkling, nervous air, into shining -dollars, and, confident in the inexhaustible riches beneath -her feet, knows that she shall go on coining them forever. -Even the squads of miners, always, owing to the three -shifts, to be seen on the street corners, look satisfied and -are invariably well-dressed. Not only do these mines with -their high wages and reasonable hours draw the best class -of workingmen, but there are many college men in them,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> -many more graduates from the High Schools of Montana. -The “Bohunks,” or “dark men,” an inferior class of -Southern Europeans, who live like pigs and send their -wages home, rarely if ever are seen in these groups.</p> - -<p>And if Butte be ugly, hopelessly, uncompromisingly -ugly, her compensation is akin to that of many an heiress: -she never forgets that she is the richest hill in the world. -Even the hard grip of the most unassailable trust in -America, which has absorbed almost as much of Montana’s -surface as of its hidden treasure, does not interfere with -her prosperity or supreme complacency. And although she -has her pestilential politicians, her grafters and crooks, -and is so tyrannically unionized that the workingman -groans under the yoke of his brother and forgets to curse -the trust, yet ability and talent make good as always; and -in that electrified city of permanent prosperity there is a -peculiar condition that offsets its evils: it is a city of -sudden and frequent vacancies. New York, Europe, above -all, California, swarm with former Montanans, particularly -of Butte, who have coppered their nests, and transplanted -them with a still higher sense of achievement.</p> - -<p>Ora was thinking of Butte and the world beyond Butte, -as she splashed along through the suddenly melted snow -toward her home on the West Side. The Chinook, loud -herald from Japan, had swept down like an army in the -night and turned the crisp white streets to rivers of -mud. But Ora wore stout walking boots, and her short -skirt, cut by a master hand, was wide enough to permit -the impatient stride she never had been able to modify -in spite of her philosophy and the altitude. She walked -several miles a day and in all weathers short of a blizzard; -but not until the past few weeks with the admission that -her increasing restlessness, her longing for Europe, was -growing out of bonds. She wondered today if it were -Europe she wanted, or merely a change.</p> - -<p>She had, of course, no money of her own, and never had -ceased to be grateful that her husband’s prompt and generous -allowance made it unnecessary to ask alms of him. -Three times since her marriage he had suddenly presented -her with a check for several hundred dollars and told -her to “give her nerves a chance” either down “on the -coast,” or in New York. She had always fled to New -York, remained a month or six weeks, gone day and night<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> -to opera, theatre, concerts, art exhibitions, not forgetting -her tailor and dressmaker; returning to Butte as refreshed -as if she had taken her heart and nerves, overworked by -the altitude, down to the poppy fields of Southern California.</p> - -<p>Her vacations and her husband’s never coincided. Mark -always departed at a moment’s notice for Chicago or New -York, alleging pressing business. He returned, after -equally pressing delays, well, complacent, slightly apologetic.</p> - -<p>Ora knew that she had but to ask permission to spend the -rest of the winter in New York, for not only was Mark the -most indulgent of husbands, but he was proud of his -wife’s connections in the American Mecca, not unwilling to -read references in the Butte newspapers to her sojourn -among them. The “best people” of these Western towns -rarely have either friends or relatives in the great cities -of the East. The hardy pioneer is not recruited from the -aristocracies of the world, and the dynamic men and -women that have made the West what it is have the blood -of the old pioneers in them.</p> - -<p>Ora was one of the few exceptions. Her father had been -the last of a distinguished line of jurists unbroken since -Jonathan Stratton went down with Alexander Hamilton -in the death struggle between the Federal and the new -Republican party. Ora’s mother, one of New York’s imported -beauties for a season, who had languished theretofore -on the remnants of a Louisiana plantation, impecunious -and ambitious, but inexperienced and superficially imaginative, -married the handsome and brilliant lawyer for -love, conceiving that it would be romantic to spend a few -years in a mining camp, where she, indubitably, would be -its dominant lady. Butte did not come up to her ideas of -romance. Nor had she found it possible to dislodge the -passively determined women with the pioneer blood in their -veins. The fumes afflicted her delicate lungs, the altitude -her far more delicate nerves. Judge Stratton deposited -her in the drawing-room of an eastern bound train with -increasing relish. Had it not been for his little girl he -would have bade her upon the second or third of these -migrations to establish herself in Paris and return no more.</p> - -<p>During these long pilgrimages Ora, even while attending -school in New York, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Vevey, had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> -seen something of society, for Mrs. Stratton was ever surrounded -by it, and did not approve of the effect of boarding -school diet on the complexion. But the ardours of her -mind, encouraged always by her father, who never was too -busy to write to her, had made her indifferent to the advantages -prized by Mrs. Stratton.</p> - -<p>Today she was conscious of a keen rebellious desire for -something more frivolous, light, exciting, than had entered -her life for many a year. There can be little variety -and no surprises in the social life of a small community—for -even scandal and divorce grow monotonous—and although -she could always enjoy an hour’s intellectual companionship -with the professors of the School of Mines, -whenever it pleased her to summon them, Ora, for the first -time in her twenty-six years, had drifted into a condition -of mind where intellectual revels made no appeal to her -whatever.</p> - -<p>She had wondered before this if her life would have -been purely mental had her obligations been different, -but had dismissed the thought as not only dangerous but -ungrateful. She had reason to go on her knees to her -intellect, its ambitions and its furniture, for without it -life would have been insupportable. She ordered her -quickening ego back to the rear, or the depths, or wherever -it bided its time, none too amenable; she was only beginning -to guess the proportions it might assume if encouraged; -the vague phantoms floating across her mind, -will-o’-the-wisps in a fog bank, frightened her. Several -months since she had set her lips, and her mind the task -of acquiring the Russian language. It had always been -her experience that nothing compared with a new language -as a mental usurper.</p> - -<p>She had entered into a deliberate partnership with a -man who protected and supported her, and she would keep -the letter, far as its spirit might be beyond the reach of -her will. Even were she to become financially independent, -it was doubtful if she would leave him for a long period; -and for New York and its social diversions she cared not -at all. What she wanted was adventure—she stumbled on -the word, and stopped with a gasp. Adventure. For the -first time she wished she were a man. She would pack two -mules with a prospector’s outfit and disappear into the -mountains.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>She swung her mind to the Russian grammar, enough -to impale it in the death agony; but when she had entered -her home, and, after a visit to her leisurely cook, who was -a unionized socialist, ascended to her bedroom and stood -before her mirror, she decided that it was her singular -interview with the wife of Gregory Compton that had -thrown her mind off its delicate balance. She recalled -that Mrs. Compton—certainly an interesting creature in -spite of her appalling commonness—had told her flagrantly -that she was young, pretty, and attractive to men, -even as are young and pretty women without too much -brains. The compliment—or was it the suggestion?—had -thrilled her, and it thrilled her again. Men sometimes -had tried to make love to her, but she had ascribed such -charm as she appeared to possess to the automatically -vibrating magnet of youth; and although she had never -been above a passing flirtation, either in her mother’s salon -or in Butte, she merely had been bored if the party of -the other part had taken his courage in his hands on the -morrow. Scruples did not trouble her. The American -woman, she would have reasoned, is traditionally “cold.” -American men, brought up on her code of ethics, are able -to take care of themselves.</p> - -<p>Had she been superficial in her conclusions? Could she -attract men more potently than by a merely girlish charm -and a vivacious mind? Her memory ran rapidly over -the functions of the winter, particularly the dinners and -dances. She could not recall a passing conquest. She was -angry to feel herself shiver, but she jerked off her hat, and -the pins out of her fine abundant hair. She was twenty-six. -Had she gone off? Faded? She never had been called a -beauty, never had had the vanity to think herself a beauty, -but she remembered that sometimes in an animated company -she had glanced into the passing mirror and thought -herself quite pretty, with her pink cheeks and sparkling -eyes. But normally she was too washed-out for beauty, -however good her features might be, and of course she had -no figure at all. She dressed well from force of habit, and -she had the carriage at least to set off smartly cut garments, -but as much might be said of a dressmaker’s -“form.”</p> - -<p>And her skin was sallow and sunburned and weather-beaten -and dry, as any neglected skin in a high altitude is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> -sure to be. Once it had been as white as her native snows. -Her hair, also the victim of the high dry air, and exposed to -the elements for hours together, was more colourless than -Nature had made it—dull—dead. She held out a strand in -dismay, remembering how her <i>cendré</i> hair had been admired -in Paris; then with a sudden sense of relief (it escaped -from the cellar where her ego was immured on -bread and water) she informed herself that it was her -duty to invoke the services of Miss Ruby Miller. No -woman with proper pride—or self-respect—would let her -skin go to pot, no, not at any age; certainly not at twenty-six. -She recalled an impulsive remark of Miss Miller’s -a few months since when arranging her hair for a fancy-dress -ball, and gave another sigh—of hope.</p> - -<p>So does Nature avenge herself.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">X</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">SHE heard her husband’s voice as he entered the house, -and hastily changed her walking suit for one of the -soft tea gowns she wore when they were alone. This was -a simple thing of a Copenhagen-blue silk, with a guimpe of -fine white net, and trimmed about the neck and half sleeves -with the newest and softest of the year’s laces. She -noticed with some satisfaction that her neck, below the collar -line, was very white; and she suddenly covered the rest -of it with powder, then rubbed the puff over her face. It -was ordinary “baby powder” for the bath, for she never -had indulged in toilet accessories, but it answered its purpose, -if only to demonstrate what she might have been had -she safeguarded the gifts of nature. And the dull blue -gown was suddenly becoming.</p> - -<p>Her husband, who had spent the intervening time in the -library, ran upstairs whistling in spite of his girth—he -was the lightest dancer in Butte—and knocked on her -door before going to his own room.</p> - -<p>“Say,” he said, as he chucked her under the chin, and -kissed her maritally, “but you look all right. Run down -stairs and hold your breath until I’ve made myself beautiful. -I’ve got big news for you.”</p> - -<p>She rustled softly down the stair, wondering what the -news might be, but not unduly interested. Mark was always -excited over his new cases. Perhaps he had been -retained by Amalgamated. She hoped so. He deserved it, -for he worked harder than anyone knew. And she liked -him sincerely, quite without mitigation now that the years -had taught him the folly of being in love with her.</p> - -<p>And he certainly had given her a pretty home. The -house was not large enough to be pointed out by the conductor -of the “Seeing Butte Car,” but it had been designed -by a first rate architect, and had a certain air of -spaciousness within. Mrs. Stratton had furnished a flat in -Paris two years before her husband’s death, her excuse<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> -being that the interior of the Butte house got on her -nerves, and there was no other way to take in household -goods free of duty. Ora had shipped them when the news -of her father’s death and their own poverty came, knowing -that she would get a better price for the furniture in -Butte, where someone always was building, than in -Paris.</p> - -<p>Before it arrived she had made up her mind to marry -Mark Blake, and although it was several years before they -had a house she kept it in storage. In consequence her -little drawing-room with its gay light formal French furniture -was unique in Butte, city of substantial and tasteful -(sometimes) but quite unindividual homes. Mark was -thankful that he was light of foot, less the bull in the -china shop than he looked, and would have preferred red -walls, an oriental divan and Persian rugs. He felt more -at home in the library, a really large room lined from -floor to ceiling not only with Ora’s but Judge Stratton’s -books, which Mark had bought for a song at the auction; -and further embellished with deep leather chairs and -several superb pieces of carved Italian furniture. Ora -spent the greater part of her allowance on books, and -many hours of her day in this room. But tonight she -deliberately went into the frivolous French parlour, turned -on all the lights, and sat down to await her husband’s -reappearance.</p> - -<p>Mark, who had taken kindly to the idea of dressing for -dinner, came running downstairs in a few moments.</p> - -<p>“In the doll’s house?” he called out, as he saw the illumination -in the drawing-room. “Oh, come on into a real -room and mix me a cocktail.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t good for you to drink cocktails so long before -eating; Huldah, who receives ‘The People’s War Cry’ on -Monday, informed me that dinner would be half an hour -late.”</p> - -<p>“I wish you’d chuck that wooden-faced leaden-footed -apology for a servant. This is the third time——”</p> - -<p>“And get a worse? Butte rains efficient servants! -Please sit down. I—<i>feel</i> like this room tonight. You may -smoke.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks. I believe this is the first time you have given -me permission. But I’m bound to say the room suits -you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>Ora sat in a <i>chaise-longue</i> of the XV<sup>me</sup> Siècle, a piece of -furniture whose awkward grace gives a woman’s arts full -scope. Much exercise had preserved the natural suppleness -of Ora’s body and she had ancestral memories of all -arts and wiles. Mark seated himself on the edge of a stiff -little sofa covered with faded Aubusson tapestry, and -hunched his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“If the French women furnish their rooms like this I -don’t believe all that’s said about them,” he commented -wisely. “Men like to be comfortable even when they’re -looking at a pretty woman.”</p> - -<p>“Mama let me choose the furniture for this room, -and I wasn’t thinking much about your sex at the time. -I—I think it expressed a side of me that I wasn’t conscious -of then.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a pretty room all right.” Mark lit the consolatory -cigarette. “But not to sit in. What struck you tonight?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’d been thinking of Paris.”</p> - -<p>Mark’s face was large and round and bland; it was only -when he drew his brows together that one saw how small -and sharp his eyes were.</p> - -<p>“H’m. I’ve wondered sometimes if you weren’t hankering -after Europe. I suppose it gets into the blood.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, it gets into the blood!” Ora spoke lightly, but -she was astonished at his insight.</p> - -<p>“I’ve never been able to send you—not as you were -used to going—I don’t see you doing anything on the -cheap——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear Mark, you are goodness itself. I’ve -thought very little about it, really.”</p> - -<p>“Suppose you found yourself suddenly rich, would -you light out and leave me?”</p> - -<p>“We’d go together. It would be great fun being your -cicerone.”</p> - -<p>“No chance! I’m going to be a rich man inside the -next ten years, and here I stick. And I don’t see myself -travelling on a woman’s money, either. But I suppose -you’d be like all the rest if you could afford it?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know. Of course I look forward to spending -a year in Europe once more—I’d hardly be human if -I didn’t. But I can wait for you.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve always admired your philosophy,” he said grimly. -“And now I’ve got a chance to put it to a real test. I believe<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> -you are in a way, if not to be rich, at least to make -a pretty good haul.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” Ora sat up straight.</p> - -<p>“Your father made a good many wild-cat investments -when he first came out here, and the one he apparently -thought the worst, for I found no mention of it among his -papers, was the Oro Fino Primo mine, which he bought -from a couple of sharks in the year you were born—that’s -where you got your name, I guess. One of the men -was a well known prospector and the Judge thought he -was safe. The ore assayed about eighty dollars a ton, so -he took over the claim, paid the Lord knows how much -to the prospector, who promptly lit out, had it patented, -and set a small crew to work under a manager. They -found nothing but low grade ore, which in those days -roused about as much enthusiasm as country rock. The -mine had been salted, of course. It was some time before -your father would give up, and he spent more than the -necessary amount of money to perfect the patent; always -hoping. When he was finally convinced there was nothing -in it he quit. And it was characteristic of your father -that when he quit he quit for good. He simply dismissed -the thing from his mind. Well, times have changed since -then. New processes and more railroads have caused fortunes -to be made out of low grade ore when there is enough -of it. Some people would rather have a big lode of low -grade ore than a pockety vein of rich quartz. As you -know, abandoned mines are being leased all over the state, -and abandoned prospect holes investigated. Well, there -you are. This morning two mining engineers from New -York came into my office with a tale of woe. They came -out here to look about, and after considerable travel within -a reasonable distance of railroads found an old prospect -hole with a shaft sunk about fifty feet. It looked abandoned -all right, but as the dump was still there and they -liked the looks of it they went to the De Smet ranch house—the -hole is just over the border of Greg’s ranch—and -made inquiries. Oakley, who is a monomaniac on the -subject of intensive farming and doesn’t know a mine -from a gopher hole, told them that the adjacent land belonged -to no one but the government. So they staked their -claim, recorded it in Virginia City, retimbered the shaft -and sank it twenty feet deeper. They began to take out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> -ore that looked good for fifteen dollars a ton. Then along -comes an old prospector and tells them the story of the -mine. They leave their two miners on the job and post -up to Helena to have the records examined in the Land -Office. There, sure enough, they find that the mine was -duly patented by Judge Stratton, and all of the government -requirements complied with. So they come to me. -They want a bond and lease for three years—which means -they may have the privilege of buying at the end of the -lease—and offer you ten per cent. on the net proceeds. I -haven’t given them my answer yet, for I’m going to take -Greg out there next Sunday and have a look at it. There -was a sort of suppressed get-rich-quickishness in their -manner, and their offer was not what you would call -munificent. Greg is a born geologist, to say nothing of -his training. I don’t mean so much in the School of -Mines, but he was always gophering about with old prospectors, -and ran away into the mountains several times -when his father was alive. Never showed up all summer. -He’s at ore now every spare moment he gets, and is as -good an assayer as there is in the state. If there’s mineral -on his own ranch he’ll find it, and if there isn’t he’ll find -it elsewhere. So, I do nothing till he’s looked the property -over. But in any case I think I can promise you a good -lump of money.”</p> - -<p>Ora’s breath was short. Her face had been scarlet for -a few moments but now showed quite pale under the tan -and powder. When her husband finished, however, and she -replied, “How jolly,” her voice was quite steady.</p> - -<p>“And shall you fly off and leave me if it pans out?”</p> - -<p>“Of course not. What do you take me for?”</p> - -<p>“To tell you the truth it will mean a good deal to me -if you stay until the fall. I’ve a client coming out here -from New York whom I am trying to persuade to buy the -old Iron Hat mine. There’s a fortune in it for anyone -with money enough to spend rebuilding the old works -and putting in new machinery and timbers; and a big -rake-off for me, if I put the deal through. Well, this -client figures to bring his wife and daughter, and you -could help me a lot—persuade them they’d have the time -of their lives if they spent several months of every year -out here for a while—he’s a domestic sort of man. After -that take a flyer if you like. You deserve it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>“How nice of you! Here is dinner at last.” Ora felt -almost physically sick, so dazzling had been the sudden -prospect of deliverance, followed by the certainty, even before -her husband asked for the diplomatic assistance she -so often had given him, that she could not take advantage -of it. Noblesse oblige! For the moment she hated her -watchword.</p> - -<p>She mixed a cocktail with steady hand. “I’ll indulge in -a perfect orgie of clothes!” she said gaily. “And import -a chef. By the way,” she added, as she seated herself at -the table and straightened the knives and forks beside her -plate, “what do you think I let myself in for today?”</p> - -<p>“Not been speculating? There’s a quart of Worcestershire -in this soup.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll certainly treat you to a chef. No, not speculating—I -wonder if it mightn’t be that? I called on your -friend’s wife——”</p> - -<p>“Good girl! She’s not your sort, but she’s Greg’s -wife——”</p> - -<p>“I thought she was quite terrible at first, but I soon -became interested. She’s clever in her way, ignorant as -she is, and has individuality. Before I knew it I had -offered to take a hand in her education——”</p> - -<p>“Good lord! What sort of a hand?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, just showing her my portfolios, giving her some -idea of art. It sounds very elemental, but one must begin -somewhere. She knows so little that it will be like teaching -a child a b c.”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid it will bore you.”</p> - -<p>“No, I like the idea. It is something new, and change -is good for the soul. I have an idea that I shall continue -to find her as interesting as I intend she shall find the ‘lessons’.”</p> - -<p>“She’ll get more than lessons on art. She’ll get a good -tone down, and she needs that all right. Poor old Greg! -He deserved the best and he got Ida Hook. I tried to -head him off but I might as well have tried to head off -a stampede to a new gold diggings. He ought to have -married a lady, that’s what.”</p> - -<p>Ora glanced up quickly, then, thankful that her husband -was intent upon his carving, dropped her eyes. It was the -first time he had ever hinted at the differences of class. In -his boyhood there had been a mighty gulf between his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> -mother and the haughty Mrs. Stratton who employed her -in what was then the finest house in Butte. But he was -too thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the West, in -which he had spent his life, to recognise any difference in -class save that which was determined by income. As soon -as his own abilities, industry, and the turn of Fortune’s -wheel, placed him in a position to offer support to the two -dainty women that had been his ideals from boyhood, -he knew himself to be their equal, without exhausting himself -in analysis.</p> - -<p>As for Ora, the West was quick in her blood, in spite -of her heritage and education. Her father had assumed -the virtue of democracy when he settled in Montana. In -the course of a few years a genuine liking and enthusiasm -for his adopted state, as well as daily associations, transformed -him into as typical a Westerner as the West ever -turned out of her ruthless crucible. He even wore a Stetson -hat when he visited New York. His wife’s “airs” had -inspired him with an increasing disgust which was one of -the most honest emotions of his life, and the text of his repeated -warnings to his daughter, whom he was forced to -leave to the daily guidance of his legal wife (Ora’s continued -presence in Butte, would, in truth, have caused -him much embarrassment), had been to cherish her Western -birthright as the most precious of her possessions.</p> - -<p>“Remember this is the twentieth century,” he had written -to her not long before his death. “There is no society -in the world today that cannot be invaded by a combination -of money, brains, and a certain social talent—common -enough. The modern man, particularly in the United -States, makes himself. His ancestors count for nothing, -if he doesn’t. If he does they may be a good asset, for -they (possibly) have given him breeding ready-made, -moral fibre, and a brain of better composition than the -average man of the people can expect. But that is only -by the way. The two most potent factors in the world -today are money and the waxing, rising, imperishable democratic -spirit. That was reborn out here in the West, and -the West is invading and absorbing the East. The old un-American -social standards of the East are expiring in the -present generation, which resort to every absurdity to maintain -them; its self-consciousness betraying its recognition -of the inevitable. Twenty years hence this class will be, if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> -still clinging to its spar, as much of a national joke as -the Western women were when they first flashed their -diamonds in Peacock Alley. That phase, you may notice, -is so dead that the comic papers have forgotten it. The -phase was inevitable, but our women are now so accustomed -to their money that they are not to be distinguished -from wealthy women anywhere except that their natural -hospitality and independence make them seem more sure -of themselves. Of course the innately vulgar are to be -found everywhere, and nowhere more abundantly than -in New York.</p> - -<p>“Twenty years from now, the West will have overrun -the East; it will have helped itself with both hands to all -the older civilisation has to give, and it will have made -New York as democratic as Butte—or London! So don’t -let yourself grow up with any old-fashioned nonsense in -your head. I want you to start out in life modern to the -core, unhampered by any of the obsolete notions that make -your mother and most of our relations a sort of premature -has-beens. When your time comes to marry, select a Western -man who either has made his own fortune or has the -ability to make it. Don’t give a thought to his origin if -his education is good, and his manners good enough. You -can supply the frills. I wouldn’t have you marry a man -that lacked the fundamentals of education at least, but -better that than one whose brain is so full of old-fashioned -ideas that it has no room for those that are born every -minute. And I hope you will settle here in this state and -do something for it, either through the abilities of the man -you marry or with your own. It isn’t only the men that -build up a new state. And if you marry a foreigner never -let me see nor hear from you again. They are all very -well in their way, but it is not our way.”</p> - -<p>Ora, who had worshipped her father and admired him -above all men, never forgot a word he uttered, and knew -his letters by heart. Possibly it was the memory of this -last of his admonitions which had enabled her to sustain -the shock of a proposal from the son of her mother’s old -seamstress and of a miner who had died in his overalls -underground. It is doubtful if she would have been conscious -of the shock had it not been for Mrs. Stratton’s -lamentations. That lady from her sofa in one of the -humbler Blocks, had sent wail after wail in the direction<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> -of the impertinent aspirant. Ora, during the brief period -in which she made her decision, heard so much about the -“bluest blood of the South,” and the titled foreigners -whom she apparently could have had for the accepting -when she was supposed to belong to the Millionaire Sisterhood, -that she began to ponder upon the violent contrasts -embodied in Mark with something like rapture. After -the marriage was accomplished, Mrs. Stratton had the -grace to wail in solitude, and shortly after moved on to a -world where only the archangels are titled and never have -been known to marry. Ora had not given the matter another -thought. Mark had been carefully brought up by a -refined little woman, his vicious tendencies had been negligible, -and he was too keen to graduate from the High -School and make his start in life to waste time in even -the milder forms of dissipation. When he married he -adapted himself imperceptibly to the new social world he -entered; if not a Beau Brummel, nor an Admirable Crichton, -he never would disgrace his aristocratic wife; and, -unlike Judge Stratton, he wore a silk hat in New York.</p> - -<p>His last remark apparently had been a mere vapour from -his subconscious mind, for he went on as soon as he had -taken the edge from his appetite, “Perhaps Ida Hook can -be made into one. I’ve seen waitresses and chambermaids -metamorphosed by a million or two so that their own husbands -wouldn’t recognise them if they stayed away too -long. But it takes time, and Ida has an opinion of herself -that would make an English duchess feel like a slag dump. -Say—do you know it was through me Greg met her? It -was that week you were out on the Kelley ranch. I met -two or three of the old crowd on the street and nothing -would do but that I should go to their picnic for the sake -of old times. Greg was in town and I persuaded him to -come along. Didn’t want to, but I talked him over. Guess -there’s no escaping our fate. Possibly I couldn’t have -corralled him if it hadn’t been for reaction—he’d been -whooping it up on The Flat. Well, I wished afterward -that I’d left him to play the wheel and all the rest of it -for a while longer. Greg never loses his head—that is to -say he never did till he met Ida Hook. The sporting life -never took a hold on him, for while he went in for it with -the deep deliberation that was born in him, it’s just that -deliberation that saves him from going too far. He cuts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> -loose the minute he figured out beforehand to cut loose, -and all the king’s horses—or all the other attractions—couldn’t -make him put in another second. A girl shot -herself one night out at the Five Mile House because he -suddenly said good-bye and turned on his heel. She knew -he meant it. He never even turned round when he heard -her drop——”</p> - -<p>“What a brute!”</p> - -<p>“Greg? Not he. I’ve known him to sit up all night -with a sick dog——”</p> - -<p>“I hate people that are kind to animals and cruel to one -another.”</p> - -<p>“Greg isn’t cruel. He said he was going and he went; -that’s all. It’s his way. Girls of that kind are trash, -anyhow, and when a woman goes into the sporting life she -knows enough to take sporting chances.”</p> - -<p>“You are as bad as he.”</p> - -<p>Mark stared at her in open-eyed amazement. He never -had seen her really roused before. “Don’t you bother your -dear little head,” he said soothingly. “Angels like you -don’t know anything about that sort of life—and don’t -need to.”</p> - -<p>Ora’s anger vanished in laughter. “Well, suppose you -give me a hint about his wife. I really am interested, -and delighted at the prospect of being of some use in the -world.”</p> - -<p>“You’re all right! Ida—well, I guess you’ll do a lot -for her, by just having her round. She’s no fool—and she -certainly is a looker. If you tone her down and polish -her up I’ll feel it’s a sort of favour to myself. Greg’ll be -one of the richest men in this country some day,—if he has -to walk over a few thousand fellow citizens to get there—and -I don’t want to see him queered by a woman. Seen -that before.”</p> - -<p>“I intend to do my best, but for her sake, not his——”</p> - -<p>“Say!” It was patent that Mark had an inspiration. -“Why not take Ida with you to Europe? I don’t like the -idea of a dainty little thing like you” (Ora was five feet -six) “travelling alone, and a husky girl like Ida could take -care of you while putting on a few coats of European -polish. Greg can afford it; he must have cleared a good -many thousands on his ranch during the last two years, -besides what I’ve turned over for him; and he can live<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> -here with me and get all the comforts of home. I’ll let you -off for six months. What do you say?”</p> - -<p>Ora was looking at him with pink cheeks and bright -eyes. “You are sure you won’t mind?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll miss you like fun, of course; especially when you -look as pretty as you do this minute, but I think it would -be a good thing for you and better for Ida—and I’ll fire -this cook.”</p> - -<p>“Will Mr. Compton give his consent?”</p> - -<p>“No one on God’s earth would take chances on what -Gregory Compton would do until he had done it, but I -don’t mind throwing a guess that he could live without -Ida for six months and not ask me to dry his tears. And -there isn’t a mean bone in his body.”</p> - -<p>“It would interest me immensely to take Mrs. Compton -abroad. Now hurry if you expect to get a seat at one of -the bridge tables. It is late——”</p> - -<p>“I rather thought I’d like to stay and talk to you——”</p> - -<p>“How polite of you! But I’m tired out and going -straight to bed. So toddle along.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“TAILORED suits have to be made by a tailor, but I’d -like first rate to copy this one you call a little afternoon -frock. It’s got the style all right, and I could get -some cheap nice-looking stuff.”</p> - -<p>Ida was gloating over Ora’s limited but fashionable -wardrobe, and while she held the smart afternoon frock -out at arm’s length, her eye wandered to an evening gown -of blue satin and chiffon that lay over the back of a chair.</p> - -<p>“Glory!” she sighed. “But I’d like to wear a real -gown like that. Low-neck, short sleeves! I’ve got the neck -and arms too, you bet——”</p> - -<p>“Why not copy it?” Ora was full of enthusiasm once -more. “You can do it here, and I have an excellent seamstress——”</p> - -<p>“Where’d I wear a rig like that? Even if I made it -in China silk and Greg took me anywheres, I couldn’t. -We don’t go in for real low necks in our bunch.”</p> - -<p>“But surely you’ll go to the Junior Prom?”</p> - -<p>Ida opened her mouth as well as her eyes. “The Junior -Prom? I never thought of it. Of course I’d be asked, -Greg being in the Junior Class and all——”</p> - -<p>“Naturally.”</p> - -<p>Ida frowned. “Well, I ain’t going. I said I wouldn’t -go anywheres—to any swell blowouts, until I’m as big as -anybody there.”</p> - -<p>“But the School of Mines is composed of young men -of all classes. Each asks his friends. The Prom is anything -but an exclusive affair. You go out to the Garden -dances on Friday nights in summer?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, in that jam—and everybody wearing their suits, -or any old thing——”</p> - -<p>“Well, I think you should go to the Prom. Mr. Compton -is the star pupil in the School of Mines. The professors -talk of no one else. I rather think your absence would -cause comment.”</p> - -<p>“Well—maybe I’ll go. I’d like to all right. But I -can’t wear low-neck. I guess you know it wouldn’t do.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>“No doubt you are right.” Ora made no attempt at -conversion; it was encouraging that Ida had certain inclinations -toward good taste, even if they were prompted -by expediency.</p> - -<p>“Jimminy, but your room’s pretty!” exclaimed Ida. -“Mine’s pink—but lawsy!”</p> - -<p>She gazed about the room, which, although she never had -seen the sea, recalled descriptions of its shells washed by -its foam. She knit her brows. “I guess it takes experience, -and seein’ things,” she muttered. Her eyes travelled -to the little bed in one corner. It would have looked like -a nun’s, so narrow and inconspicuous was it, had it not -been for its cover of pale pink satin under the same -filmy lace.</p> - -<p>“Sakes alive!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you sleep with -your husband?”</p> - -<p>Ora was angry to feel herself coloring. She answered -haughtily, “We have separate rooms. It is the custom—I -mean—I have always seen——”</p> - -<p>“I’ve heard it was the stunt among swells, but I don’t -hold to it. It’s only at night that you’ve really got a -chance to know where a man is; and the more rope you -give him the more he’ll take. What’s to prevent Mark -slippin’ out when he thinks you’re asleep? Or coming -home any old time? Besides, some men talk in their -sleep. That gives you another hold. I’m always hoping -Greg will, as he talks so little when he’s awake. You bet -your life he never gets a room to himself.”</p> - -<p>“Poor Mr. Compton!” thought Ora. “I fancy he’ll expiate.” -“Shall we go downstairs?” she asked. “I got -my portfolios out this morning.”</p> - -<p>She tactfully had shown Ida her wardrobe first, and -the guest descended to the library in high good humour. -For an hour they hung over the contents of the Italian -portfolios. Ida was enchanted with the castles and ruins, -listened eagerly to the legends, and was proud of her own -knowledge of the horrors enacted in the Coliseum. But -over the photographs of the masterpieces in the Pitti and -the Uffizi she frankly yawned.</p> - -<p>“No more cross-eyed saints, and fat babies and shameless -sporting women in mine,” she announced. “Them -virgins sitting on thrones, holding four-year-olds trying to -look like six months, make me tired.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>“Oh, well, I fancy you must see the old masters for -the first time in their proper setting—and wonderful -colouring——” Ora wondered if the masterpieces would -appear somewhat overrated to herself if seen for the first -time in Butte. It certainly was interesting to watch the -effect of fixed standards—or superstitions—upon an untrained -but remarkably sharp mind.</p> - -<p>“That Last Supper looks like they’d been eating the -paint,” pursued Ida.</p> - -<p>Ora laughed. “I shan’t show you any more pictures today. -This furniture is Italian—Florentine and Venetian. -Let me tell you something about it.”</p> - -<p>“I’d like to see all your rooms.” Ida rose and stretched -herself luxuriously. Ora thought she looked like a beautiful -Persian cat. “Houses interest me mor’n pictures, -although I’ll buy them too some day. Not old masters, -though. They’d give me the willys. This carved oak with -faded gilt panels is a dream!” she exclaimed with instant -appreciation. “I’d learn wood-carving if there was anyone -in this God-forsaken camp to teach it.”</p> - -<p>Ora clapped her hands, and once more, to Ida’s startled -eyes she looked like a very young girl. “I studied several -of the crafts when I was in Germany,” she cried, “wood-carving, -brass-hammering, enamelling. I’ll set up a workshop—let -me see, the attic would be the best place, and -the furnace warms it—and teach you, and work myself. -It’s just what I need. I wonder I never thought of -it——”</p> - -<p>“Need what?” interrupted Ida sharply.</p> - -<p>“Oh, a relief from too much study. There’s nothing -like a craft for mental workers—I should have thought -of it before,” she repeated. “What do you say?”</p> - -<p>“I’d like it first rate, and I guess you’ll find me quick -enough with my hands, whatever you think of my cocoanut.”</p> - -<p>“I think very highly of your cocoanut. This is my little -drawing-room.”</p> - -<p>Ida stood on the threshold for a few moments without -comment. She had never cast a thought to her Puritan -inheritance, but anger, disapproval, possessed her. She -hated the room, but had no reason to give.</p> - -<p>“You don’t like my favourite room?” asked Ora, who -was watching her curiously.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>“Is it your favourite room?” She turned this over. -“No, I guess I like the heavy, solid, durable things best.” -She struggled for her reasons. “You get your money’s -worth in them. This looks like the first Chinook would -blow it clear over into North Dakota, or as if you might -come in some morning and find a heap of dust where it -had been the night before—like a corpse when the air’s -let in. I didn’t mind your bedroom being dainty and -looking like some sea shells I saw once in a picture frame,—it -looks all of a piece, too, you might say; but this—with -them queer thin faded out chairs and sofas—the colours on -the wood even, and them pictures over the doors and -mantel look like they would do the final disappearing act -while you wait—well, there’s something kinder mysterious—ghostly—it -looks so stiff—and—at the same time—so -kinder immoral——”</p> - -<p>“I wonder if what you are groping for is the atmosphere -of the past, which all old furniture must have, particularly -if rearranged in something like its original setting.” -Ora was regarding her with a new interest. “This -furniture came out of a <i>hôtel</i>—what we would call a residence—with -a history—several histories, I should think—and -I fancy it was all frivolous, and wicked, and exciting——”</p> - -<p>“I ain’t no spiritualist!” said Ida tartly. “Is that what -you’re driving at?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that I was thinking of occultism, even,” -said Ora lightly. “But it is interesting to find these old -things have atmosphere for you as well as for me——”</p> - -<p>“Why is it your favourite room? Because it has ‘atmosphere’?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. I doubt if I have ever given the matter -a thought.”</p> - -<p>“So this is your favourite room.” Ida turned her back -on it. “H’m. Well, maybe I’ll understand some things -better one of these days than I do now. Perhaps,” with -one of her uncanny dashes of intuition, “I’ll understand it -when I do you.”</p> - -<p>“Let us go up to the attic and look it over. I’ll have -the table and benches made tomorrow.” Something was -moving toward expression in her own mind, but she flung it -aside and ran up the stair followed by Ida, who dismissed -the subject as promptly.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THERE had been a good deal of haggling over the lease -of the Oro Fino Primo mine, the engineers demanding -a three years’ lease and bond, proposing to purchase it -at the end of that period for fifty thousand dollars. Nor -were they willing to pay more than ten per cent. in royalty, -displaying the assay report on the ore and arguing -that after the necessary outlay on development work, the -ore body might be too small to repay them.</p> - -<p>Mark, however, was determined not to close with them -until he had visited the claim with Gregory Compton, and -this proved to be impossible for several weeks. The engineers, -unable to proceed, had dismissed their men. They -threatened to withdraw their offer and look for another -abandoned property. Mark told them to go ahead, and -they remained in Butte.</p> - -<p>In the course of a month Mark and Gregory were both -free on a Sunday. They took a train for Pony, hired a -rig and drove over to the Stratton claim, dignified by the -name of mine.</p> - -<p>The claim was on a small tableland between Gregory’s -own hill, which terminated just beyond the borders of his -ranch, and another slope covered with pines and firs. -The engineers had put up a windlass, retimbered the -shaft, sunk it twenty feet lower, and added a pile of dirty -looking ore to the original half-obliterated heap about the -collar of the shaft.</p> - -<p>Gregory picked up half a dozen pieces of various sizes -and examined them. “Their assay was about right, I should -think,” he said. “Looks like good low grade ore, but -not too good. It will do no harm to assay it myself, however,” -and he dropped the sample into the pocket of his -coat. Suddenly he gave a startled exclamation, and Mark -saw his nostrils dilate, his nose almost point, as he darted -forward and kicked aside a heap of loosely piled quartz.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> -Then he knelt down and lifted out several lumps of greyish-black -ore.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” asked Mark curiously, and feeling -something of the excitement of the hunter whose gun is -trained on a bear. “D’you mean they’ve found copper -glance?”</p> - -<p>“At a depth of sixty feet? Not exactly. This is a basic -igneous rock called pyroxenite, that may not be rich in -gold but is more than likely to be—particularly as our -friends have hidden it so carefully and said nothing about -it. It may assay anywhere from ten dollars a ton to five -hundred. I’m going down.”</p> - -<p>The shaft was inclined, four by eight, and timbered -with lagging. Gregory lit the candle he had brought and -descended the ladder. He remained below about ten minutes; -when he returned to the surface he was excited and -triumphant.</p> - -<p>“They’ve begun to drift on the vein,” he announced. -“They’ve gone about three feet—it must have been then -they learned the history of the claim. It’s pyroxenite all -right, every inch of it.”</p> - -<p>“Well, damn them!” said Mark.</p> - -<p>“They can’t plead that they didn’t recognise the ore, -uncommon as it is, because they began to drift the moment -they struck the vein. It dips toward the ranch,” he -added abruptly.</p> - -<p>Mark whistled. “It’s pretty close. That would be a -kettle of fish—if it apexed on your land! Lawsuit. -Friendship of a lifetime broken. The beautiful Mrs. Mark -Blake brings suit against the now famous Gregory Compton——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, nonsense!” said Gregory shortly. But he was -disturbed nevertheless.</p> - -<p>“But there’s no nonsense in the idea that your own -ore bodies may be just over the border. Why don’t you -sink a shaft, just for nuts.”</p> - -<p>Gregory, who was still excited, felt an impulse to confide -his discovery to his friend. But his natural secretiveness -overcame him and he turned abruptly away. “When -I have finished at the School,” he said, “no doubt I’ll begin -gophering again, but not before. What are you going -to do about this? Let them have it?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll let them have a piece of my mind first. What do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span> -you advise?—that I work the mine, myself? I could easily -form a company if the ore is as rich as you think.”</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t take the chances. Lease the claim to them -for a year. They’ll take it for that time with all this ore -in sight. If they’ve hit a large chamber they’ll soon be -netting several thousand dollars a day. If it’s only a -pocket, let them find it out. At the end of a year you’ll -know a good deal more about the mine than you do now. -But keep an eye on them so that they don’t gouge, and -make them pay you twenty per cent. royalty.”</p> - -<p>“They’ll pay it through the nose,” said Mark emphatically.</p> - -<p>Gregory laughed. “You feel as virtuously indignant -as if you had never tried to do anybody yourself. It’s -do or be done out West as well as back East, and precious -few mines have a clean history. Marcus Daly never would -have got the best part of Butte Hill if he hadn’t kept his -mouth shut.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t that I’m so virtuous,” said Mark ingenuously, -“but I don’t like the idea that anybody so nearly got the -best of me. And just look at the way they covered it up.”</p> - -<p>Gregory had kicked aside the greater part of a pile -of grey ore, and revealed quite a hillock of the pyroxenite. -He put several pieces in his pocket, discarding the first -specimens. “I’ll get to work on this tonight,” he said, -“and let you know first thing in the morning. But I’m -willing to wager that it runs from sixty to a hundred dollars -a ton.”</p> - -<p>“And not a fleck of gold to be seen!” Mark, who, like -all intelligent men of mining localities, had some knowledge -of ores, examined the dark rock attentively. “They’re -some geologists,” he added with unwilling admiration. -“This would fool any ordinary mining engineer. Say!” -he cried, “I’ll not tell Ora until she’s ready to leave—she’s -figuring on going to Europe in the fall. It will be the -surprise of her life, for I led her to think she’d get only -a hundred or so a month. Don’t say a word about it to -Ida.”</p> - -<p>Gregory turned away to hide a curl of his lip. “I suppose -we’d better go over and see Oakley, as we’re so close,” -he said. “He’ll probably talk for an hour on his hobby, -but any knowledge comes in useful to a lawyer.”</p> - -<p>“What’s he done.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>“He figured out that Iowa and the Dakotas and Kansas -were likely to have a drought next year, so he will sow -about five hundred acres with flax in May. He has already -put in about three hundred acres of winter wheat. The -bottoms are reserved for alfalfa. He raises the capital -and gets half profits. If it turns out as he expects he’ll -have something at the end of a year to live on besides enthusiasm -for intensive farming.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>They were driving toward Pony two hours later when -Gregory said abruptly, “I’m glad that your wife and mine -have taken to each other. It is a great thing for Ida. The -improvement is wonderful.” He forebore to add, even to -the man who had known his wife since childhood, “I don’t -see what Mrs. Blake gets out it,” but possibly the irrepressible -thought flew into Mark’s mind, for he replied -promptly:</p> - -<p>“It’s great for Ora. She’s tired of everybody else here; -tired of so much reading too. I’ve seen that for some time, -though I haven’t let on. A new interest was just what -she wanted. Every clever woman has a touch of the school -ma’am in her, and no one can deny that Ida’s refreshing. -To Ora she’s almost a novelty. I think she rather hates to -make her over, but she’s working on her as hard as I -work on a case. Ora’s the thorough sort. What she does -is done with all her might and main. Otherwise she don’t -do it at all. She’s equally accomplished at that!”</p> - -<p>He decided that this was the propitious moment; Gregory -was in an uncommonly melting mood, for him. “Say!” -he continued, “Ora and I have put up a little job on you. -I’ve told her to take her new money and go to Europe for -six months or so—By James, she shall go, even if this -thing hangs fire and I have to sell some stock. It’s over -six years since she’s seen Europe, and I guess she pines -for it all right. Well, she wants to take Ida.”</p> - -<p>Gregory demanded with unexpected promptness, “How -much would it cost?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, about a hundred to New York and a hundred and -fifty over,” said Mark vaguely. “Of course when two are -together it costs less. And in Europe distances are short. -Ora says she shall go to <i>pensions</i> instead of hotels, if only -because they would be two young women alone; and they -cost much less. They can also travel second-class, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> -third in Germany and Switzerland. Ora says she and her -friends always did it in summer because it was cooler and -more interesting. She’s sent for a lot of Baedekers, is -going to make a close estimate, then double it.”</p> - -<p>“One of my aunts died the other day and left me a -thousand dollars; she had no family. Ida can have it. Of -course I could send her more if she needed it, but she’s -clever with money.”</p> - -<p>“That will do it.” (He knew that if it did not Ora, -who would pay the bills, would manage to hoodwink Ida.) -“And you must live with me. It’ll be fine. Bachelor’s -Hall. We’ll do as we damn please.”</p> - -<p>Gregory shook hands with him, his strong hard face -illuminated with the infrequent smile that gave it something -of a sweet woman’s charm. “Thanks, old man,” he -said fervently. “Sounds good!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">SEVERAL weeks passed before Ora sent for Miss Ruby -Miller. She was busier during those weeks than she -had been for many months. Ida came every other day at -one o’clock and remained until five. They carved wood in -the attic, and looked at pictures or read in the library -during the hour and a half that included tea. Ida confessed -that during the latter interval she was so bored -sometimes she could scream, but added that she would -stick it out if she yawned every tooth in her head loose. -One thing that never bored her was the picture of Ora—her -working blouse changed for a dainty house gown—presiding -at the tea-table. She studied every detail, every -gesture; she even cultivated a taste for tea, which heretofore -she had regarded as fit for invalids only, like jellies -and cup-custard.</p> - -<p>Ora’s alternate days and many of her evenings were -filled with social duties. Butte was indulging in one of -its hurricanes of festivity. Mrs. O’Hagan, who lived in -the largest and finest house on the West Side, gave a -series of dinner dances. Mrs. Burke, who owned the big -ugly red house of appalling architecture built by Judge -Stratton in the eighties, gave several entertainments in -honour of two young visitors from Denver. Mrs. Maginnis, -who lived in another palatial residence far west and -far from the old Stratton house—which in its day had expressed -the extreme limit of the city, as of fashion—gave a -ball as brilliant as anything Ora had seen in a distant -hemisphere. Flowers may be scarce in Butte, but flowers -and palms may be imported by the carload from Helena, -and the large rooms looked like an oasis in the grey desert -of Butte. Every woman wore a ball gown made by some -one of the great reiterative masters, and there were no -wall flowers; for, although the tango had not yet set the -whole world dancing, the women of Montana never had interpreted -grey hairs as a signal to retire.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>It was on the day after this ball that Ora had telephoned -to Miss Miller. “Can you give me an hour or two tomorrow?” -she asked.</p> - -<p>“Sure. Can I come early? I’ve got fourteen heads to -dress for the Cameron ball, and most of them want a -facial too?”</p> - -<p>“A what?”</p> - -<p>“Face massage, and touchin’ up generally.”</p> - -<p>“Oh.”</p> - -<p>“It’s fine. Makes you feel as good as you look. What -did you want me to do?”</p> - -<p>“Ob, shampoo my hair. I want to consult you about it, -too—and manicure.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ll bring the creams along, and if you want a -massage I’ll be ready.”</p> - -<p>Ora had succeeded in making Miss Miller propose what -she had quite made up her mind to try, and she rang off -with a smile. The evening before she had thought herself -the plainest woman at the party, and the effect of this -discouraging conclusion had been to kill her animation -and sag her shoulders until she knew she must look as -dowdy as she felt. For the first time she realised how a -blighted vanity may demoralise the proudest intellect. It -was time to get a move on, as her new but rapidly developing -friend would put it.</p> - -<p>Ora was very proud of her work. She gave Professor -Whalen due credit, and knew that Ida toiled at her exercises, -but doubted if the uninspiring pedant would have -been retained had it not been for the sense of emulation, -slightly tinctured by jealousy, she managed to rouse in her -new boon companion when they were together. But Ida -was now exercising something of her latent force of character, -determined to make the most of advantages for which -she knew many a sudden-rich woman would “give her eye -teeth.” She would polish up “good and plenty” before -her husband made his strike; and waste no precious time -on the inside of her skull when she had the cash to spend -on its outside.</p> - -<p>After the first week she dropped no more g’s, her grammar -rapidly improved, and although she never would be -a stylist, nor altogether forswear slang, not only because -the ready-made phrase appealed to her unliterary mind, -but because its use was ingrained, she reserved it more and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> -more for those that best could appreciate it. As it annoyed -Professor Whalen excessively, she went afield for -new phrases “for the fun of seeing him wriggle.”</p> - -<p>On the other hand, whenever she felt in the mood, she -gazed at him with penitent languid eyes, promised never -to use slang again, and amused herself racking other -nerves. She knew just how far to go and “turned him -off,” or “switched him back on to the track” before any -real harm was done. Some day she might let him make -a scene just for the fun of the thing, but not until she -was “good and ready.”</p> - -<p>Her feeling for Ora was more difficult to define. Sometimes -she almost loved her, not only inspired by gratitude, -but because Ora’s personal magnetism was intensified by -every charm of refinement, vivacity, mental development, -as well as by a broad outlook on life and a sweetness of -manner which never infuriated her by becoming consciously -gracious. At other times she hated her, for she -knew that no such combination ever could be hers. Ora -was a patrician born of patricians. She might go to the -devil, preside over one of the resorts down on The Flat, -take to drink and every evil way, and still would she be -patrician. Herself might step into millions and carry her -unsullied virtue to her grave and she never would be the -“real thing.” For the first time she understood that being -“a lady” had little to do with morals or behaviour. Nothing -irritates the complacent American more than the sudden -appreciation of this fact.</p> - -<p>“But I guess I’ll be as good as some others,” Ida consoled -herself. “After all, I don’t see so many Ora Blakes -lying round loose. People don’t bother much these days -if your clothes make their mouth water and your grammar -don’t queer you.”</p> - -<p>Gregory, when he had time to think about it—he read -even at the breakfast and dinner-table, and had an assay -plant in the cellar—was charmed with her improvement, -and told her abruptly one day that if she kept faithfully -to her tasks until November he would give her the thousand -dollars he had received under the will of his aunt. -“And you can do what you like with it,” he added. “I -shan’t ask you. That’s the way I enjoyed money when I -was a kid, and I guess women are much the same.”</p> - -<p>“A thousand dollars!” Ida was rigid, her mouth open.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> -“Geewhil—I beg pardon—My! But you are good!” She -paused to rearrange her thoughts, which were in danger -of flying off into language her husband was paying to -remodel. “Can I really do anything with it I like?”</p> - -<p>“You can.” He smiled at her bright wide-open eyes -and flaming cheeks.</p> - -<p>“I ain’t—haven’t said anything about it as I didn’t -think it would be any sort of use, but Ora is going to -Europe in the fall, and she told me Mark was going to -try to persuade you to let me go with her. Now I can go -on my thousand dollars, if you don’t mind. Mark wants -you to stay with him.”</p> - -<p>“He spoke to me about it—I had forgotten. There -couldn’t be a better arrangement. This is the time for you -to go to Europe—while your mind is still plastic.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t seem to mind my going a little bit.” Rapture -gave place to suspicion. Ida was not born with faith -in man.</p> - -<p>“My dear child! What good am I to you now? You -might be keeping house for a deaf mute. All I need is the -right kind of food and a comfortable bed. I’ll get both at -Mark’s. Next year you would see even less of me than -you do now. We get our last and most practical drilling -in ore-dressing, metallurgy, power-utilisation, and geology. -We shall be off half the time on geological expeditions, -visits to mines in other parts of the state, smelters, the -most up-to-date of the cyanide mills. So you see how -much I shall be at home. Go to Europe and enjoy yourself.”</p> - -<p>“All right. I’ll go. You bet. And I’ll not miss a trick. -There’ll never be a thousand dollars better spent.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XIV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“NOW I’ve got you where I want you, and I’m goin’ to -talk—goin’ to say something I’ve been dyin’ to say -for two or three years.”</p> - -<p>Ora’s head was in the wash-basin. Miss Miller was -leisurely spraying out the lime juice with which she had -drenched her hair. Ora gasped, then gurgled something -unintelligible, which Miss Ruby interpreted as encouragement -to proceed. Mrs. Blake’s manner ever since the hairdresser’s -arrival had been uncommonly winning, with something -half-appealing, half-confiding that flew straight not -only to that experienced young woman’s sympathies but to -her professional instinct.</p> - -<p>“It’s this,” she continued. “You need a thorough -overhauling. In these days, particularly in this altitude, -women take care of themselves as they go along, but you -don’t. You’ve lost your complexion ridin’ and walkin’ for -hours without a veil, sometimes without a hat, and you -with a delicate skin like a baby’s and not even using -creams. I heard a man say only last Sunday—I was -givin’ his wife a facial and he was sittin’ round—that it -was an awful pity you had gone off so, as you were the -prettiest thing he ever laid eyes on when you came back -after your pa’s death, and if Mark—Mr. Blake—hadn’t -snapped you up before any other young man got a look -at you you’d have had a dozen chances, for all you’ve got -such a reputation for brains. ‘A man can stand brains in -a white lily of a girl,’ says he, ‘but when she gets older -she’s either got to keep her complexion or cut out the -brains, and Ora Blake’s done neither’—Say if you squirm -like that you’ll get your mouth and eyes full of lemon. -His wife said she didn’t believe men cared for them thin -white women anyway—she’s bustin’ with health herself—and -he gave a grunt that means a lot to a girl who knows -men like I do. You never did make anything of yourself -and you’ve let yourself go these last two or three years<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> -something shameful. If you’d take yourself in hand, get -on to yourself once for all, you’d have people twistin’ their -necks off to look at you and callin’ you a Mariposa lily, or -a Princess Pine, or a White Gladiolus and other poetry -names like that. And you could get the reputation of a -beauty all right. It makes me sick.”</p> - -<p>“Could you make me into a beauty?” Ora’s voice was -remarkably languid considering the flaming hue of her -face, which, however, may have been due to its prolonged -sojourn in the wash-basin. Miss Miller had wrung her -hair out and was rubbing it vigorously.</p> - -<p>“Couldn’t I <i>just</i>?”</p> - -<p>As Mrs. Blake maintained a dignified silence, Miss Ruby -proceeded to develop her theme. “Now, your hair, for -instance. That’s the reason I used lemon today. You’ve -been usin’ soap, and, what with this dry climate, and no -care, it’s as harsh and broken as if you’d been usin’ soda -on it every day. It’s lemon and hot water for you, first, -last and always, and eggs after a journey. It needs a -couple of months of hand-massage every other day right -now; after that it will be up to you. Brush it night and -morning and use a tonic twice a year.”</p> - -<p>She paused and Ora waited with eyes closed to conceal -her impatience. Finally she opened them irresistibly and -met Miss Ruby’s in the mirror. They, too, looked embarrassed. -Ora’s smile was spontaneous and sweet and not -too frequent. It seldom failed to melt reserve and inspire -confidence. She played this card without delay.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you go on?” she asked. “All that is most -interesting and valuable. I shall remember every word -of it.”</p> - -<p>“Well—I was afraid that what I want to say most might -sound as if I was drummin’ up trade, and the Lord knows -I’ve got more to do than I could manage if there was ten -days in every week. I turned down two ladies today to -come here. I never shampoo the day of a ball.”</p> - -<p>“My dear Miss Miller! You are an artist, and like all -artists, you not only aim at perfection yourself but your -eyes and fingers ache at imperfection. I suppose an author -rewrites sentences as he reads them, and painters must -long to repaint every picture they see. As for you—we -are your page and canvas, and naturally we have the good -fortune to interest you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>“That’s it!” cried Miss Ruby, glowing. “That’s the -size of it, only I couldn’t ever say it like that. Well, now, -if you want this skin to look like a complexion and not like -a hide, I’ve got to give you a massage every third day for -quite a while. It not only needs creams and cold applications—hot -only once in a while—but an awful lot of hand -massage. It’s all run down and needs stimulating the worst -way. Another year and you’d be havin’ lines. You can’t -leave yourself to nature up here. She’s in too great a -hurry to take back what she gave. And you must cut out -hot breads and trash and wear a veil when you go out in -the sun and wind. And you go to Boulder Springs once a -week and take a vapour bath.”</p> - -<p>“But I’ll always look washed-out.”</p> - -<p>“Not if you look fresh, and wear colours that suit you.”</p> - -<p>“And I never was called a beauty. That man, whoever -he was, merely remembered the usual prettiness of youth. -Every young girl is pretty unless she is ugly.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I guess you didn’t take enough pains to make -people think you were a beauty. Some—Ida Compton, for -instance—don’t need to do anything but just show themselves. -Any fool—particularly a man—can see black hair -and red and white skin, and meltin’ eyes, and lashes a -yard long, and a dashin’ figure. But odd and refined -types like you—well, you’ve got to help it out.”</p> - -<p>“How very interesting! Do you mean I must go about -telling people that I am really beautiful, if they will only -look at me long enough? Or—possibly—do you mean that -I should make up?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mean either, ’though in a way I mean both. -In the first place you’ve got to make the most of your -points. You’re not a red blonde or a gold blonde, but what -the French call sendray; in plain English, you’ve got ash-coloured -hair. Now, that makes the blondest kind of -blonde, but at the same time it’s not so common, and -nature has to give it to you. Art can’t. What you want -to do is to let people see that your colouring is so rare -that you can’t get enough of it yourself, and by and by -people will think they can’t either. You’ve been wearin’ -all this hair twisted into a hard knot down on your neck. -That don’t show off the hair and don’t suit your face, -which is kinder square. I’m goin’ to pull it soft about -your face and ears and then coil it softly on top of your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> -head. That’ll give length to your face, and look as if you -was proud of your hair—which you will be in a month or -two. You mustn’t pay too much attention to the style of -the moment. You’re the sort to have a style of your own -and stick to it.”</p> - -<p>“I’m in your hands,” murmured Ora. “What next?”</p> - -<p>“Did you really lose interest in yourself?” asked Miss -Miller curiously, and with the fine freedom of the West -from class restraint. “Or didn’t you ever have any?”</p> - -<p>“A little of both. When I was a girl I was a frightful -pedant—and—Oh, well—Butte is not Europe, and I took -refuge more than ever in books, particularly as I could -have nothing of the other arts. You know the resources of -Butte!”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad you’re goin’ to Europe again, where I guess -all kinds of variety are on tap.—Say, perhaps you’ll find -out all the new kinks for the complexion in Paris, and tell -me when you come back.”</p> - -<p>“I will indeed!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t hold to rippin’ the skin off, or hoistin’ it up,” -said Miss Miller firmly. “All any skin needs is steady treatment, -and constant care—constant, mind you, and never -forget it. Now there’s your profile. It’s grand. The way -I’m goin’ to fix your hair’ll show it off, and don’t you let -it get scooped round the eyes, like so many women do. -Massage’ll prevent that. I wish your eyebrows and lashes -was black, like so many heroines in novels has. The contrast -would be fine. But brown’ll do, and I guess the natural -is your lay. Luckily them black grey eyes is a high -note, and when you get your lips real red, you’ll have all -the colour your style can carry. The gleamin’ white skin’ll -do the rest.”</p> - -<p>“How am I to get red lips, and what’s to make my skin -gleam?”</p> - -<p>“You’re anæmic. You go to a doctor and get a tonic -right off. When I get through with your complexion it’ll -gleam all right. No powder for you. It improves most -women, but you want high lights. I don’t mean shine -when I say gleam, either. I mean that you’ve got the -kind of skin that when the tan’s off and it’s toned up and -is in perfect condition (you’ve got to be that inside, too), -sheds a sort of white light. It’s the rarest kind, and I -guess it does the most damage.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>“And what good is all this beautifying to do me? And -why make me dangerous? Surely you are not counselling -that I begin a predatory raid on other women’s husbands, -or even on the ‘brownies’?”</p> - -<p>“Well, I guess not. I don’t approve of married women -lettin’ men make love to them, but I do believe in a woman -makin’ the most of herself and gettin’ all the admiration -that’s comin’ to her. If you can be a beauty, for the Lord -Almighty’s sake be one. Believe me, it’ll make life seem -as if it had a lot more to it.”</p> - -<p>“I shouldn’t wonder!”</p> - -<p>“And you go in right off for deep breathin’ and Swedish -exercises night and mornin’. It’s the style to be thin, but -you want to develop yourself more. And they keep you -limber—don’t forget that. When a woman stiffens up -she’s done for. Might as well get fat round her waist. -Now shut your eyes, I’m goin’ to massage.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“I  WONDER!” thought Ora, “I wonder!”</p> - -<p>It was some four months after her first séance with -Miss Ruby Miller. There was no question of the improvement -in her looks, owing, perhaps, as much to a new self-confidence -as to the becoming arrangement of her hair -and the improved tint and texture of her skin. The tonic -and a less reckless diet had also done their work; her eyes -were even brighter, her lips pink. Moreover, it was patent -that the sudden reformation was as obvious to Butte as to -herself. Women confessed to a previous fear that the -“altitude had got on her nerves or something”; as for -the men, they may or may not have observed the more -direct results of Miss Miller’s manipulations, but it was -not open to doubt that her new interest in herself had -revived her magnetism and possibly doubled it.</p> - -<p>Ora turned from the mirror in her bedroom, where she -had been regarding her convalescing beauty with a puzzled -frown, and stared down at the rough red dirt of her half-finished -street—she lived far to the west. Her eyes travelled -up to the rough elevation upon which stood the -School of Mines in its lonely splendour, then down to the -rough and dreary Flat. It stretched far to the south, a -hideous expanse, with its dusty cemetery, its uninviting -but not neglected road houses, its wide section given over -to humble dwellings, with here and there a house of more -pretensions, but little more beauty. It was in one of these -last, no doubt, that her father had kept his mistress, whose -children, she was vaguely aware, attended the public -schools under his name. These houses, large and small, -were crowded together as if pathetically conscious that -the human element must be their all, in that sandy, treeless, -greenless waste.</p> - -<p>There was something pathetic, altogether, thought Ora, -in the bright eagerness with which even the wealthy class -made the most of their little all. They were so proud of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> -Columbia Gardens, a happy-go-lucky jumble of architectures -and a few young trees, a fine conservatory and obese -pansies on green checkers of lawn; they patronised its -Casino so conscientiously on Friday nights when the -weather would permit. During the winter, they skated -on their shingled puddle down on The Flat as merrily -and thankfully as though it were the West End of London -or one of the beautiful lakes in one of the beautiful -German “gartens.” They motored about the hideous environs, -and hung out of the car to emphasise their rapture -at the lonely tree or patch of timid verdure; they entertained -royally in their little Club House, out in another -desolate waste, or played golf without envy or malice. In -short they resolutely made the most of Butte when they -were in it; they patted Butte and themselves on the back -daily; they loved it and they were loyal to it and they got -out of it as often as they possibly could.</p> - -<p>“And I!” thought Ora, with a sense of panic. “I, who -will probably get away every five years or so—what am -I waking up for—to what end? I wonder!”</p> - -<p>She walked slowly downstairs and, avoiding the little -French drawing-room, went into the library and sat down -among her books. Sash curtains of a pale canary colour -shut out the rough vacant lots and ugly dwellings above -her home, and cast a mellow glow over the brown walls and -rows of calf-bound books. Judge Stratton had read in -four modern languages and two dead ones. The love of -reading, of long evenings alone in his deserted “mansion,” -had been as striking a characteristic of his many-sided -ego as his contempt for moral standards. Ora, who -had grown into a slow but fairly thorough knowledge of -her father’s life and character, permitted her thoughts to -flow freely this afternoon and to speculate upon what her -life might have been had Judge Stratton been as upright -as he was intellectually gifted; if her mother had possessed -the brains or charm to keep him ensnared; if she -herself had been left, an orphan at twenty, with the fortune -she inevitably would have inherited had her father -behaved himself—instead of finding herself penniless, -ignorant of all practical knowledge, a querulous invalid on -her hands, her only suitor the “hustling” son of her -mother’s old seamstress.</p> - -<p>Ora admitted no disloyalty to Mark as she put these<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> -questions for the first time squarely to herself. She intended -to continue to treat him with unswerving friendship, -to give him all the assistance in her power, as long -as she lived. And, as husbands went, she made no doubt -that he was one to thank her grudging providence for. -But that she would have considered him for a moment -had she inherited the fortune her father had made and -dissipated was as likely as that she would have elected to -live her life in Butte.</p> - -<p>She knew Mark’s ambitions. Washington was his goal, -and he was by no means averse from being governor of -his state meanwhile. Nor would he have been a genuine -American boy, born in the traditional log cabin—it had -been a log cabin as a matter of fact—if he had not cherished -secret designs on the White House. In all this, did -it prove to be more or less, she could be of incalculable -assistance to him. And she was the more determined to -render this assistance because she had accepted his bounty -and was unable to love him.</p> - -<p>She concluded with some cynicism that the account -would be squared, being by no means blind to what she -had done for him already in the way of social position -and prestige; still, it was not only his right, but a penance -demanded by her self-respect. She was living the most -unidealistic life possible to a woman of her pride and -temperament, but she would redeem it as far as lay in her -power.</p> - -<p>She moved impatiently, her brows puzzled again, and -something like fear in her heart. What did this slow -awakening portend? Why had she instinctively held it -back with all her strength, quite successfully until her new-born -vanity, with its infinite suggestions, had quickened -it suddenly into imperious expression?</p> - -<p>Certainly she was conscious of no desire for a more -idealistic union with another man. If she had inherited -a fortune, she would have married no one; not then, at all -events; nothing had been further from her desire. She -would have lived in Europe and travelled in many lands. -Beyond a doubt her hunger for the knowledge that lies in -books would have been satiated long since, never would -have assumed a discrepant importance. She would be uniformly -developed, and she would have met many men. -With the double passport of birth and wealth, added to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> -the fine manner she owed to her Southern mother, her -natural vivacity and magnetism, and a physical endowment -that she now knew could have been trained into -positive beauty, she would have had her pick of men. And -when a woman may choose of the best, with ample time at -her disposal, it was incredible that the true mate, the -essential companion, should not be found before it was too -late. Most marriages are makeshifts; but for the fortunate -few, with the intelligence to wait, and the developed instinct -to respond, there was always the possibility of the -perfect union.</p> - -<p>Ora made a wry face at this last collocation. She had -no yearning for the “perfect union.” Matrimony had -been too unutterably distasteful. She turned hastily from -the subject and recalled her father’s impassioned desire -that she should make the West her home, her career, marry -a Western man, give him and her state the benefit of her -endowments and accomplishments. Possibly, surfeited with -Europe, she would have returned to Montana to identify -herself with its progress, whether she married or not. She -was artistic by temperament and training, and correspondingly -fastidious; she cordially detested all careers pursued -by women outside those that were the natural evolution -of an artistic gift. But she could have built herself an -immense and splendid house, filled it with the most exquisite -treasures American money could coax from the -needy aristocracy of Europe, and have a famous salon; -invite the pick of the artistic, literary, musical, and political -world to visit her for weeks or months at a time, house -parties of a hundred or more, and so make her state -famous for something besides metals, intensive farming, -and political corruption. No one could deny that the state -would benefit exceedingly.</p> - -<p>Conceivably, in time she would take a husband, assuredly -one of high ambitions and abilities, one whose -fortunes probably would take him to Washington.</p> - -<p>This brought her back to Mark, and she laughed aloud. -She had been romancing wildly; of late she had grudgingly -admitted that nature may have composed her to be romantic -after she had recovered from the intellectual obsession; -and the circle had brought her round to her -husband! He was “forging ahead” with extraordinary -rapidity. She made no doubt that he would be a millionaire<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> -within the ten years’ limit he had set himself. Nor -would he rely alone upon his legal equipment and the many -opportunities to exercise it when a man was “on the job -all the time”; he watched the development of Montana’s -every industry, new and established. He “bought in on -the ground floor,” gambled discreetly in copper, owned -shares in several new and promising mines, and property -on the most picturesquely situated of the new lakes constructed -for power supply. He invested what he could -afford, and with the precision of the man on the spot. -Yes, he would be one of the Western millionaires, even if -not one of the inordinate ones, and before his ten years had -passed, if no untoward event occurred.</p> - -<p>And it was on the cards that she would have her own -fortune before long. She knew that Mark (who had her -power of attorney) had made better terms with the engineers -than he had anticipated, and he dropped mysterious -hints which, knowing his level head, made her indulge in -ornate dreams now and again. But he only smiled teasingly -when she demanded a full explanation, and told her -that she would realise how good or how bad her mine was -when she went to the bank to sign her letter of credit.</p> - -<p>For one thing she felt suddenly grateful. She knew -that the mine had been leased for a year only and without -bond. If, during that time it “panned out,” she would -stipulate to mine it herself when the contract expired.</p> - -<p>She sat up very straight and smiled. That was what -she would have liked! If her father had but willed her -this mine and capital enough to work it alone! Her fingers -fluttered as they always did when handling ore; she had -wondered before if the prospector’s fever were in her -blood. How she should have enjoyed watching the rock -come up in the buckets as the shaft sank foot by foot, until -they struck the vein; always expecting chambers of incredible -richness, gold, copper, silver. She would even -learn to do the pleasant part of her own assaying; and -she suddenly experienced an intense secretive jealous love -for this mine that was hers and in which might be hidden -shining blocks of those mysterious primary deposits deep -in the sulphide zone; forced up through the veins of earth, -but born how or where man could only guess. It was a -mystery that she wanted to feel close to and alone with, -far in the winding depths of her mine.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>She got up and moved about impatiently. Her propensity -to dream extravagantly was beginning to alarm her, -and she wished uneasily that she could discover the gift to -write and work it off. Where would it lead her? But she -would not admit for a moment that her released imagination, -pulsing with vitality, and working on whatever she -fed it, only awaited the inevitable moment when it could -concentrate on the one object for which the imagination of -woman was created.</p> - -<p>The pendulum swung back and more evenly. She told -herself it was both possible and probable that she had a -good property, however short it might fall of Butte Hill. -She renewed her determination to mine it herself, and -work, work, work. Therein lay safety. The future seemed -suddenly full of alarms.</p> - -<p>And there was Mark, his career, his demands, dictated -not so insistently by him as by herself.</p> - -<p>Ora’s soul rose in a sudden and desperate revolt beside -which her rising aversion from unmitigated intellect was -a mere megrim. She felt herself to be her father’s daughter -in all her newly-opened aching brain-cells. He had -lived his life to please himself, and if his temptations and -weaknesses might never be hers—how could she tell?—his -intense vitality survived in her veins, his imperious spirit, -his scornful independence. She glanced at the rows of -calf-bound books he had handled so often. Something of -his sinister powerful personality seemed to steal forth and -encompass her, sweep through the quickened corridors of -her brain. Mark Blake was not the man he would have -chosen for his daughter. Western, Mark might be to the -core, but he was second-rate, and second-rate he would -remain no matter what his successes.</p> - -<p>And, she wondered, what would this proud ambitious -parent, whose deepest feeling had been for his one legitimate -child, say to her plan to play second fiddle for life -to a man of the Mark Blake calibre? He had wanted her -to marry in the West, but he had been equally insistent -that she should develop a personality and position of her -own. No devoted suffragist could have been a more ardent -advocate of woman’s personal development than -Judge Stratton had been where his daughter was concerned. -To the rights of other women he had never cast a -thought.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>This was the hour of grim self-avowal. She admitted -what had long moved in the back of her mind, striving -toward expression, that she hated herself for having married -any man for the miserable reason that has driven so -many lazy inefficient women into loveless marriages. She -should have gone to work. More than one of her father’s -old friends would have given her a secretaryship. She -could have lived on her little capital and taken the four -years’ course at the School of Mines, equipping herself -for a congenial career. If that had not occurred to her -she could have taught French, Italian, German, dancing, -literature. In a new state like Montana, with many women -raised abruptly from the nethermost to the highest stratum, -there was always a longing, generally unfulfilled, for the -quick veneer; and women of older fortunes welcomed opportunities -to improve themselves. She could have taken -parties to Europe.</p> - -<p>She had played the coward’s part and not only done -a black injustice to herself but to Mark Blake. He was -naturally an affectionate creature, and, married to a comfortable -sweet little wife, he would have been domestic and -quite happy. In spite of his enjoyment of his club, his -cards and billiards, and his buoyant nature, she suspected -that he was wistful at heart. He was intensely proud of -his wife, in certain ways dependent upon her, but she -knew he had taken for granted that her girlish coldness -would melt in time and womanly fires kindle. Well, they -never would for him, poor Mark. And possessing an inherent -sense of justice, she felt just then more sympathy -for him than for herself, and placed all his good points to -his credit.</p> - -<p>She was conscious of no sympathy for herself, only of -that deep sense of puzzlement, disturbance, apprehension. -Revolt passed. Indications—the abrupt bursting into -flower of many unsuspected bulbs in her inner garden: -softness, sympathy, a more spontaneous interest in and -response to others, the tendency to dream, vague formless -aspirations—had hinted, even before she took her new-born -vanity to Miss Ruby Miller, that she was on the -threshold of one of the dangerous ages (there are some -ten or fifteen of them), and that unless she had the doubtful -wisdom and resolution to burn out her garden as the -poisonous fumes of roasting ores had blasted the fruitful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> -soil of Butte, she must prepare to face Life, possibly its -terrible joys and sorrows.</p> - -<p>She sprang to her feet and ran upstairs and dressed -for the street. At least she had one abiding interest and -responsibility, Ida Compton. She was a self-imposed and -absorbing duty, and always diverting.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XVI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“OH, you give me the willys!”</p> - -<p>“My dear Mrs. Compton! How often have you -promised me——”</p> - -<p>“Well, if you will stare at me like a moonstruck setter -dog when I’m trying to think up ’steen synonyms for -one old word without looking in the dictionary! I can’t -blow up my vocabulary like a paper bag and flirt with -you at the same time.”</p> - -<p>“I have no desire to flirt with you!” said Professor -Whalen with great dignity. “It is quite the reverse. You -have been playing with my feelings for months.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve been too set on becoming -a real lady before leaving for Europe—haven’t thought -about you.”</p> - -<p>Professor Whalen turned a deep dull red. His overlapping -upper teeth shot forward as if to snap down upon -his long rather weak chin. He stared past Ida through -the open window. It was May and the snow was melting -on the mountains, had disappeared from the streets of -Butte; there is a brief springtime in Montana between the -snows of winter and the cold rains of June, and today -was soft and caressing.</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you what is the matter with you,” said Ida, -cruelly. “It’s the spring of the year.”</p> - -<p>Whalen sprang to his feet. For the first time in his -anæmic life he was furiously angry, and he rejoiced in -the sensation. “I wish you were a man,” he stuttered. -“I’d beat you. It would do my heart good.”</p> - -<p>“If you were a real man you would enjoy beating a -woman a long sight more,” goaded Ida, who watched him -as a man-eating tigress may watch the squirming victim -between her paws. She had fed her vanity and amused -herself by playing on the little man’s pale emotions until -she was convinced he really was in love with her. She<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> -suddenly made up her mind to force him to “let go,” and -experience the sensation of being made love to feloniously.</p> - -<p>“I am not a brute,” announced Whalen, still in the -same stifled voice. His face was purple, but he was conscious -of a warning whisper that he was in a fair way to -lose this remunerative pupil. He dismissed the warning. -There is probably no man so insignificant, in whom passion -for the imperative woman does not develop abnormally -the purely masculine conceit. He may despair in solitude, -when devitalised by reaction and doubt, but when in her -presence, under her inviting eye, and hurried to a crisis -by hammering pulses and scorching blood, he is merely -the primitive male with whom to desire is to have.</p> - -<p>Ida laughed, a low throaty husky laugh. “If you -were,” she said cuttingly, “you might stand a show.”</p> - -<p>“It is you that are brutal,” hissed poor Whalen.</p> - -<p>Ida leaned back in her chair and looked at him out of -half-closed eyes. “What induced you to fall in love with -me, anyhow?” she demanded in her sweet lazy voice. -Whalen clenched his hands.</p> - -<p>“I am a man if I am not a brute. You are the most -fascinating woman on earth, and you have deliberately -tried to entice me from the path of rectitude I have trod -all my life——”</p> - -<p>“What’s that?” Ida sat up straight, her brows drawn -in an ominous frown.</p> - -<p>“I have resisted you until today, but I yield——”</p> - -<p>“What the devil are you talking about?”</p> - -<p>“I expected to be tormented to the utmost limit. But I -have stood all of it that I purpose to stand.” His voice -by this time was a subdued roar. “I don’t care whether -you love me or not. I don’t think you could love anybody. -I have read that sirens never do. But you are an enchantress, -and you have shown plainly enough——”</p> - -<p>Ida’s frown had relaxed, but her eyes blazed. He misunderstood -their expression, as well as the sudden forward -thrust of her head. He sprang forward, caught her by -the shoulders and kissed her.</p> - -<p>“Aw!” Ida’s voice was almost a roar. She leaped -to her feet, twirled him about, caught him by the back of -his collar and the seat of his trousers, and threw him out -of the window as if he had been an offensive dog. She -flung his hat and stick after him and slammed the window<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> -down. Then she stamped her feet in inarticulate rage, -and rubbed and bit her mouth. It was one thing to play -with a man’s passions and quite another to be defiled by -them. Ida seethed with the fierce virtue of a young inexperienced -and temperamentally cold woman. For a few -moments she used very bad language indeed, and struggled -with an impulse to ran after the “little puppy” and whip -him in the street. But, remembering that she was making -a heroic attempt to be a grande dame, she finally went into -her bedroom and washed her face.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XVII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THERE was a knock on the front door. Ida, smoothing -her hair, hastened to open it, glad of diversion. -Ora stood there. For a moment the girls looked hard at -each other, then burst into laughter.</p> - -<p>“What’s up?” asked Ida. “You look——”</p> - -<p>“My dear, it is I who should ask? Your face is crimson; -you look as if you had just given someone a beating, -and I met poor little Whalen, dusty, dishevelled, growling -like a mad dog—he didn’t know me.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I guess he won’t know himself for a while,” -said Ida drily, leading the way into the parlour. “When -he comes to he’ll have his work cut out to climb back to -his little two-cent pedestal and fit on his battered halo.” -She related the incident. “What do you know about -that?” she demanded in conclusion. “Wouldn’t it come -and get you?”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid you have made an enemy. It is always -best to let them down gently, save their pride—and—ah!—it -isn’t customary to throw gentlemen out of the window!”</p> - -<p>“Gentlemen!” snorted Ida. “He’s no gentleman. He -not only kissed me with his horrid front teeth, but he insinuated -that I was just languishing for him, the——” -Once more Ida’s feelings overflowed in language not intended -for print. “It made me so mad I’d have lammed -him with the umbrella if we’d been in the hall.”</p> - -<p>“Ida,” asked Ora abruptly, “would you have minded -so much if he had been good-looking and attractive?”</p> - -<p>“Well—perhaps—I guess in that case I’d simply have -smacked him and let him get out quick by the front door. -But I don’t want any man touching me. I’m a married -woman.”</p> - -<p>“But if you flirt and lead them on——”</p> - -<p>“You said once yourself that American men understood -the game and knew how to take their medicine.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>“I also said that they can fall more tiresomely in love -than any other men. Of course the Whalens don’t count. -But do you intend to go on making men fall in love with -you and throwing them—metaphorically—out of the window?”</p> - -<p>“Much chance I’ll get.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll find plenty of chances in Europe. You are a -remarkably beautiful woman. And Europeans take what -we call flirting for shameless encouragement.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I guess I’ll be getting experience of the world -all right. And the Lord knows I’d like to be admired by -men who have seen something. I can take care of myself, -and Greg don’t need to worry.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve no doubt of that. Of course you are awfully -fond of Mr. Compton, aren’t you?” Ora spoke somewhat -wistfully.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes; fond enough, fonder than a good many wives, -I guess, for he’s kind and pleasant, and no earthly trouble -about the house. But when a woman marries she gets a -kid right there at the altar, and he’s her biggest kid till -his false teeth drop out on his death-bed, and his great-grandchildren -are feeding him through a tube. I don’t -want any of the other sort of kids, and I guess I’m not -what you call the maternal woman, but the Lord knows -I’m a mother to Greg and a good one. I’d like to know -what he’d do without me—that’s the only reason I hate -leaving. He never thinks of changing his shoes when -they’re wet, and half the time wouldn’t eat anything but -his book if I didn’t put the stuff right in front of him.”</p> - -<p>“Mark knows him almost as well as you do, and will -look after him. My maid, who is practically my housekeeper, -and an old family servant, will also keep a maternal -eye on him.”</p> - -<p>“He keeps himself tidy,” conceded Ida handsomely. -“Wants clean things every day, but never knows where -to find them. He’ll wander out into the kitchen where I’m -cooking breakfast and ask where his socks are, and they -always in the same drawer.”</p> - -<p>“I fancy you’ve spoiled him.”</p> - -<p>“Not I. I don’t hold with spoiling men. They’re born -spoiled anyhow. I found Greg walking round in a dream -when I married, and a pile of socks as high as the door -knob he’d thrown away because they’d holes in them so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> -tiny you could hardly see them. I darned every one, you -bet, and he’s wearing them now, though he don’t know it. -He’s like that, as dainty as a cat, and as helpless as a blind -kitten. I am a wife and I know my duty,” concluded Ida -virtuously.</p> - -<p>“I certainly shall give Custer minute directions. I can’t -have you worrying.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll not worry, once I’m started. Don’t you fret! -But what’s the matter with you, Ora? You look kinder -excited, and kinder—well, harassed. How’s that out of -the new pocket dictionary I’ve set up in my head?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll soon have to look to my own vocabulary. Oh—I——”</p> - -<p>“Something’s up. Spit it out. It’ll do you good.”</p> - -<p>“Dear Ida! If you must use slang, do confine yourself -to that which has passed through the mint of polite society. -There is an abundance to choose from!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you worry; I won’t disgrace you. But I must -let out a tuck occasionally when we’re alone. Greg -wouldn’t let me go to any of the Club dances, and I -scarcely ever see Ruby or Pearl, they’re so busy—to say -nothing of myself!”</p> - -<p>“Very well,” said Ora, laughing. “Let me be your -safety valve, by all means.”</p> - -<p>“Fire away.”</p> - -<p>“Oh—how am I to tell you—I scarcely know, myself——”</p> - -<p>“I guess you’re waking up. Ruby, who knows human -nature like a book——”</p> - -<p>Ora half rose. “Have you been talking me over with -Miss Miller?” she asked haughtily.</p> - -<p>“Not much. Hardly seen her since we met. But you -interest Butte, you know. I guess they talk you over -good and plenty. It was only a few days before you called -that the Miller girls visited with me all day, and they -talked a lot about you. Ruby said that if you’d come to -out of the sleeping beauty stage, you’d make things hum, -and that her fingers just itched to get at your skin and -hair.”</p> - -<p>“She said that to me once; and I don’t mind telling you -that I called her in some time ago.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m not a bat. I’ve seen you looking prettier -every day, and there’s only one way to do it, when you’ve<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span> -let yourself go. I’ve had the benefit of Ruby’s advice for -years, and I don’t propose to let myself go, not for a -minute.”</p> - -<p>“Right you are. And do live your life normally from -day to day, developing normally. The awakening process, -when the Nature that made you is no longer content to -be a mere footstool for the mind, is almost as painful as -coming to after drowning. I suddenly have become conscious -of myself, as it were; I am interested in many more -things—personal things—I seem to want far more of life -than I did a few months ago——”</p> - -<p>“In other words, you don’t know where you’re at.”</p> - -<p>Ora laughed merrily. “My present condition could not -be stated more patly!”</p> - -<p>“Ora, I don’t want to pry into your confidence, and -you’re not one to give much of that anyhow, but everybody -in Butte knows that you’re not in love with Mark, -and never were, nice as you treat him—only because you -couldn’t be anything but a lady if you tried. Mrs. O’Neil, -one day when she was having a massage, told Ruby all -about your marriage. She said you were the most bewildered -young thing she ever saw, and that Mark snapped -you up before another young man could get a look at you. -Now, I’ve known Mark all my life—he beaued my sister -who died, for a year or two, and his mother’s cottage was -just up the hill anyhow; and although he’s a good chap -and a born hustler, and bound to get rich, he’s not the -sort of man women fall in love with. You wouldn’t have -fallen in love with him, if he’d been born a millionaire, -and travelled and got Butte out of his system. And if -your father had left you well off, you wouldn’t have looked -at him. There’s men, bad and good—that’s to say, better—that -women fall in love with, and there’s men bad and -good that they don’t, not in a thousand years. Poor old -Mark’s a Don’t all right. You ain’t angry at my saying -all this, but Mark was like my own brother for years?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, I am not angry. You are far too matter-of-fact. -You might be discussing different grades of ore!”</p> - -<p>“Well, that’s about it, and the poor ore can’t help itself, -any more than the slag and gangue can, and Mark’s not -either of those, you bet. He’s good metal, all right, only -he didn’t come out of the Anaconda mine—What have -you turned so red about? My! But you do blush easy!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>“It’s this—do you despise me—do you think I did -wrong—Oh, I mean I have quite suddenly realised that I -never should have married any man for so contemptible a -reason. I should have gone to work——”</p> - -<p>“Work? You?”</p> - -<p>“Why not? Many a delicately nurtured woman has -earned her bread.”</p> - -<p>“The more fool she if she could get a man to earn it -for her. That’s what they’re for. The Lord knows they -pride themselves on the way they do it, being the stronger -sex, and a lot more words. I guess I’d have married before -Greg turned up if I’d met a man I was sure was going -to make something of himself. You did just right to take -a good husband and take him quick when you found yourself -in a hole.”</p> - -<p>“Yes—but——” Her blush deepened. “You see—” -Ora never had had an intimate confidant. It was doubtful -if she ever would have; not, at all events, a woman. -But Ida, as she herself would have expressed it, could always -see through a stone wall when there was a crack -in it.</p> - -<p>“Oh, shucks!” she said. “Don’t let that worry you. -If you don’t feel that way first you do last, I guess. Most -of us are bored to death, but women have stood it for a -few thousand years, and I guess they can stand it for -a few thousand more. We all of us have to pay high -for anything we want. That’s about the size of it. Forget -it.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks, dear, you console me.” Ora smiled with -closed eyes, but she was thrilled with a sudden inexplicable -longing; like other of her recent sensations, it puzzled and -alarmed her.</p> - -<p>“Ora!” exclaimed Ida suddenly. “There’s one thing -that’s just as sure as death and taxes; and knowing men -and knowing life don’t help women one little bit. It’s -this: A woman’s got to have her love affair sooner or -later. If she marries for love she’s pretty safe, for ten -or fifteen years, anyhow. But if she doesn’t, well, she’ll -get it in the neck sooner or later—and it’ll be about the -time she begins to sit up and take notice. She’s a regular -magnet then, too. So watch out.”</p> - -<p>Ora opened her eyes. They looked like steel. “I have -never given a thought to love. There is nothing I want<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> -less. I shall continue to make Mark as good a wife as I -know how to be——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m not saying you’ll go off the hooks, like some -I could mention in your own bunch, but if the man comes -along you’ll fall in love all right. Might as well try to -stop a waterfall from jumping over the rocks. I’m not so -dead sure I do know what you’d do. Pride, and high -breeding, and duty would pull one way, but—well, I guess -when you marble women get waked up good and plenty, -what they call roused, you’re the worst kind. A considerable -number of other things would pull from the opposite -direction, and one of them would be the man.”</p> - -<p>“Ida!” said Ora, aghast. “How do you know so much? -Your opportunities have been very limited.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, have they? Wasn’t I born and brought up in a -mining camp? Butte is some education, believe me. I -ran straight all right, not only because the sporting life -had no charms for me but because I figured on moving -over one of these days to Millionaire Gulch. But it wasn’t -for want of opportunity, and the same opportunities were -handed over by men of your crowd—or fixin’ to be. Besides, -some women are born wise that way, I guess, and -I’m one of ’em. You’ve been living in a sort of self-made -heaven all your life, with only books for inhabitants. -I could put you wise every day in the week.”</p> - -<p>“It is true that although I saw a good deal of life while -my mother lived so much in the world, and always have -been deeply interested in the work of the psychological -novelists, particularly the Europeans—I—well, I never -applied it to my—never thought much about it until lately. -I do not seem to know myself the least little bit.”</p> - -<p>“I guess it’ll be me—Oh, Lord, I—taking you to Europe, -not you me. I’ll see that you don’t get into mischief, for -I’d hate like the dickens to have you go to pieces over -any man. Not one of them that ever lived since Adam is -worth it. They’re all right to marry, all things being -equal, but to sacrifice your life for, nixie. Any style of -man you are partial to? I’ll keep his sort off with a -broom.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve never gone so far as even to think——”</p> - -<p>“Every woman has her style in men,” said Ida firmly. -“I heard of a woman once who had three husbands and -each one had a wart on his nose.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>“Oh, you are funny! I have heard that a woman falls -in love with a type, not with the man, and, like all epigrams, -that one contains a half-truth. I had two or three -girlish fancies; one was an Austrian officer, another a -French nobleman—and not impecunious—he wasn’t a fortune -hunter. The third was a New Yorker who fell in -love with my cousin and married her. I had a few heart -spasms over him, in particular; possibly because he was -quite out of reach. It is true that they were all more of -or less of a type—tall and thin and dark, with something -very keen and clever and modern in their lean—rather -hard faces.”</p> - -<p>“Hi!” cried Ida.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter? You look at me as if you had -seen a ghost.”</p> - -<p>Ida threw back her head and laughed, showing her sharp -little white teeth, and straining her throat until the firm -flesh looked thin and drawn, over too strong muscles. -“Oh, Lord! I was just thinking what a lot of trouble -I’m in for, playing dragon to my lily-white lady. I guess -about half the men in the world are brunettes, fat or lean. -Say, are you going to the Prom? It’s only a month off.”</p> - -<p>“I hadn’t thought about it. Probably. I have been -asked to be a patroness, and Mark is sure to want to go. -Have you decided what to wear?”</p> - -<p>“Ma gave me a coral-red silk when I married, and I’m -going to make it over and veil it with black net.”</p> - -<p>“Splendid!” cried Ora warmly. “Bring it up to the -house. Mrs. Finley is really an excellent seamstress. -We’ll all take a hand. It will be great fun. And you will -look stunning.”</p> - -<p>“What will you wear?”</p> - -<p>“I expect some gowns from my New York dressmaker -in a few days. It will depend upon the state of my complexion, -I fancy.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XVIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ORA received another budget of Ida’s philosophy on -the day before the Prom; she had taken her a long -string of pink coral she had found among her old possessions, -and after Ida had wound it in her hair and round -her neck, and finally tried on her gown, and then draped -Ora successively in various scarves, remnants of her own -wedding finery—being almost as interested in the new complexion -as Ora herself—they had suddenly come to the -conclusion that while in Europe they would assume the -mental attitude of girls travelling without a chaperon. -They would see the world from the independent girl’s -point of view, flirt like girls, not like married women -(which at least would save their consciences), force men -to accept the phenomenon. For a time they discussed the -superior advantages of being young widows, but, alluring -and even thrilling as were the possibilities evoked, they -dismissed the alternative on the ground that it might -prove a bore always to be on the defensive; man making -no secret of his attitude toward widows. Besides, they -felt a delicacy about burying their indulgent husbands -even in mental effigy. As counterfeit girls they could -crowd enough excitement into six months to serve them -in memory during long periods of Butte.</p> - -<p>“It will be some bluff,” cried Ida. “And believe me, -we’ll have the time of our lives. And no remorse in mine. -I intend to flirt the limit, for I’m just ready to quit being -a mother for a while and see a man’s eyes kindle when he -comes nigh—see him playing about at the end of a string. -I didn’t have near enough of it even when I had half Butte -at my feet—excuse what sounds like conceit but is cold -fact. Now, I’m going to light up every man I take a -fancy to. I don’t care an abandoned prospect hole whether -I hurt ’em or not. All they are good for is to give us a -good time.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>“Ida!” Ora was aghast as she often had been before -at these naked feminine revelations. “You talk like a -man-eater. I hope to heaven I am not like that down -deep.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, maybe you won’t be so bad because you haven’t -got as much vanity. Mine’s insatiable, I guess, and good -old Mother Nature taught me the trick of covering it up -with the don’t-care-a-damn air combined with the come-hither -eye. That does the trick. And they get what hurt’s -going. I don’t. You’ll cultivate men, thinking it’s your -vanity waked up, or mere youth, or because it’s time to -have a fling, but what you really are after is the one and -only man. The Companion. The Sympathetic Soul. The -Mate. All that rot. He don’t exist, kiddo. He’s the -modern immaculate conception, and he’s generally stillborn; -the bungling doctor being the plain unadulterated -male inside of himself. You’ve got to be your own companion, -and if you want happiness you can get it by expecting -just nothing of men. Use them. Throw them on -the ash heap. Pass on to the next. Quit sitting on the -watch tower with your eyes trained on the horizon for -the prince that is born and lives and dies in a woman’s -imagination.”</p> - -<p>“I have seen happy—united couples—who had been -married for years.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes; some couples are born to jog along together, -and some wives are born man-tamers, and get a lot of -satisfaction out of it. But you’re much too high-falutin’ -for that. You’ll always dream of the impossible—not -only in man but of what he’s got to give—which ain’t -much. And I didn’t need all them—those—psychological -and problem and worldly novels you made me read, translated -from half a dozen languages, either. You take my -advice, Ora, and don’t start off on any fool hunt for an -ideal. Men are just matter-of-fact two-legged animals, -and as selfish as a few thousand years of fool women have -naturally made them. He does well while he’s courting -because he’s naturally good at bluff. But every bit -of romance oozes out of him after he’s eaten his first -breakfast of ham and eggs at home. We can keep up the -bluff forever. Men can’t. Each one of them’s got a kid -twin brother inside that plays marbles till he dies and -makes you feel older every day. No, sir! If I ever had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> -any delusions, I’ve got over them good and plenty. And -I thank the Lord,” she added piously.</p> - -<p>“I think that rather adorable, you know: the eternal -boy. And I fancy it is all that saves men from becoming -horrors; in this country, at least—when you consider the -unending struggle, and strain, and sordid business of -money getting. They use up all their bluff in the battle -of life, poor things. Why shouldn’t they be natural with -us?...”</p> - -<p>Ora was recalling this conversation as she sat in her -bedroom on the following evening. Her elemental yet uncannily -sophisticated friend had a way of crashing chords -out of jealously hidden nerves, which no exercise of will -could disconnect from the logical parts of the brain. If it -were true that what her now rampant ego, too long -starved, really demanded was man and romance, she -wished she had let herself run to seed until it was too late -to reclaim her lost beauty and adventure into temptation. -But a glance into the mirror deprived her of any -further desire to join the vast sisterhood of unattractive -females. Moreover, she had faith in the dominance of her -will and common sense, and if her beauty would help her -to the mental contacts she craved with brilliant and interesting -men, far be it from her to execrate it.</p> - -<p>She dismissed the mood of self-analysis impatiently and -opened her wardrobe, although half inclined not to attend -the Prom. She was one of the patronesses, but her presence -was not essential. It was pre-eminently the night of -nights for young folks—brownies and squabs—and the -absence of a married woman of twenty-six would pass -unrecorded. Not a man in Butte interested her personally, -nor was she in a frame of mind to be interested by -any of the too specialised products of the West. Nor was -she inordinately fond of dancing; there really was no -object in going to this party save to witness the début and -possible triumph of her protégée.</p> - -<p>But she felt something more than indifference toward -this party. It was as if a gong sounded a warning in the -depths of her brain—in her subconsciousness, perhaps, -where instinct, that child of ancestral experience, dwelt. -But even while she hesitated she knew that she should -go, and she took one of her new gowns from a long drawer, -and then began to arrange her hair.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>It was now some five months since Miss Ruby Miller -had taken her in hand, and if the young woman’s bank -account was heavier her pride as an artist far outweighed -it. Ora’s hair was soft, abundant, the colour of warm -ashes. The skin of her face was as white and transparent, -as “pearly” to use its doctor’s own descriptive word, as -the fine protected surface of her slender throat, her thin -but by no means bony neck. Her lips were pink; they -never would be red; and after one taste of “lip stick,” -Ora had declined to have them improved by art. But they -were a soft country-rose pink and suited her clear whiteness -far better than scarlet. Her eyes, never so clear -and startling as now, lighted up the cold whiteness of her -face and made her pink mouth look childish and somewhat -pathetic. If her lips had been red, her face would have -had the sinister suggestion so many women achieve with -the assistance of art; as it was she looked by no means -harmless as she smiled at herself in the mirror and coiled -her hair softly on the top of her head. After some experimenting -she had decided that she could not improve -upon an arrangement which for the present at least was -all her own.</p> - -<p>She rang for Custer to hook her gown. It was a very -soft gown of white satin draped about the bust with lace -and chiffon. It was cut to the waist line in the back and -almost as low in front, for her figure was hardly more -developed than a growing girl’s; and it was unrelieved by -colour. She had already put on the string of pearls her -mother had hidden when the other jewels were sold in -Paris. Altogether it was a costume she would not have -dared to wear even two months ago, when a touch of -colour on the bodice or in her hair was necessary to divert -attention from her spoiled complexion.</p> - -<p>Custer had been her mother’s maid for many years -and had returned with her to Butte. After an interval of -employment elsewhere, she had come to Ora as soon as -Mark had built his house. She hooked the gown, pinned -up a stray lock with an invisible hairpin, shook out the -little train, and stood off.</p> - -<p>“It reminds me of the way your mother used to look,” -she said, “and you’re even prettier than she was, Miss -Ora—now. But I fancy you’ll be more comfortable in this -gown when you wear it in London. These ladies dress<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span> -smartly enough, but never as low as the English ladies do, -leastways out here. I fancy it’s the Western men. They -don’t seem to approve of showing too much.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I think I’ll rather enjoy startling the natives. -Quick—give me my wrap! I hear Mr. Blake coming. No -controversy here.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XIX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE Prom was held not in the School of Mines but in -The Coliseum, a large hall over a saloon and garage, -half way between The Hill and The Flat, requisitioned -by all classes when the weather forbade the use of Columbia -Gardens. The walls were covered with the School -colours, copper and green, flags, and college pennants. -The ceiling was a network of electric lights with coloured -globes, copper and green, fluttering paper and sprays of -apple blossoms, brought from far! “Cozy corners” looked -like fragments of a lower altitude, and the faithful palm -was on duty everywhere. The orchestra, on a suspended -balcony in the centre of the room, was invisible within the -same elaborate scheme of decoration.</p> - -<p>When Ora entered with her husband the Grand March -had finished and the instruments were tuning for a waltz. -She saw Ida standing directly under the orchestra surrounded -by several men who patently were clamouring -for dances. Even in that great room full of women dressed -from New York and Paris, Ida looked distinctive and -superb. Ora smiled proudly, as she observed her, quite -oblivious that the throng of men and women and indignant -“squabs,” who had been discussing the wife of Gregory -Compton, had transferred their attention to the dazzling -apparition in white. Ida wore her gown of coral silk, -whose flimsiness was concealed under a mist of black -shadow lace. The coral beads clasped her strong white -throat and fell to her supple waist. There was a twist -of coral tulle in her black hair, which was arranged in -the rolling fashion of the moment, obeyed by every other -woman in the room save Ora Blake. And her cheeks, her -lips, were as coral as the fruit of the sea. She had powdered -her face lightly to preserve its tone through exercise -and heat. All the arrogance of youth and beauty and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> -powerful magnetism was expressed in the high poise of -her head; a faint smile of triumph curved above her little -white teeth; her body was in perfect repose yet as alert as -that of a healthy young cat. The waltz began and she -glided off in the arm of a young mining engineer from -the East. She danced precisely as the best-bred women -in the room danced (early in the evening): ease without -abandon, dignity without stiffness.</p> - -<p>“Heavens, but the American woman is adaptable!” -thought Ora. “I never realised before exactly what that -time-worn platitude meant. Probably the standards in the -Ida set are not so different from ours, after all. As for -looks and carriage she might have three generations behind -her. Is it democracy or the actress instinct of woman—permitted -its full development in this country for the -first time in her history?”</p> - -<p>This was not entirely a monologue, but addressed for -the most part to Professor Becke, one of the most distinguished -instructors of the School of Mines, and one of the -men she liked best in Butte. He was a tall fair man, with -a keen thin fimbriated face, and long fine hands. Ora -made a point of asking him to dine with her once or twice -a month.</p> - -<p>He led the way to two of the chairs on the side of the -hall after she had announced that she did not intend to -dance.</p> - -<p>“But this is the first party we have had for weeks,” he -said. “They won’t leave you to me for long.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t feel in the mood for dancing. Besides,” she -added with a new daring, “I’m all in white and looking -very white once more; I don’t want to get warm and -spoil the effect.”</p> - -<p>He stared into her challenging eyes as if he saw her -for the first time. In that room, full of colour and of -vivid women and young girls, she produced an almost -disconcerting effect with her statuesque beauty, her gleaming -whiteness, her frail white body so daringly displayed -in its white gown. And, oddly enough, to those staring -at her, she made the other women look not only commonplace -but cold.</p> - -<p>Ora smiled to herself; she was quite aware of the impression -at work, not only on the scientific brain, but on -others more readily responsive; she had considered the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span> -prudence of practising on Butte before departing for -wider fields.</p> - -<p>The Professor changed colour, but replied steadily: -“Fancy you two extraordinary creatures loose in Europe! -You should take a bodyguard. I can understand Compton -giving his consent, for he is the kind of man that wouldn’t -remember whether his wife were twenty or forty at the -end of his honeymoon, and there can be little between them -in any case. But Blake!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, we’ll come home without a scandal,” said Ora -lightly. “Ida is the reverse of what she looks, and I—well, -I am the proverbial ‘cold’ American woman—that the -European anathematises. Ida, of course, looks the siren, -and I shall have some trouble protecting her, until -she learns how far she can go. But at least I am forewarned.”</p> - -<p>“I fancy you will have more trouble protecting yourself!” -Professor Becke’s voice was not as even as usual. -His intellect was brilliant, and illuminating, and never -more so than when in the society of this young woman -whom heretofore he had admired merely as a vivacious -and exceptional mind; but, startling as this revelation of -subtle and alluring womanhood was, he remembered that -he was no longer young and that he had an admirable -wife with an eagle eye; he had no intention of scorching -his fingers in the attempt to light a flame that would guide -him to the rocks even were he invited to apply the torch. -But he was a man and he sighed a little for his vanished -youth. If he had been twenty years younger he fancied -that he would have forgotten his good lady and risked -burning his heart out. He moved his eyes away deliberately -and they rested on Mark Blake, mopping his scarlet -face after a lively waltz. He was a kindly man, but all -that was deathlessly masculine in him grinned with a -cynical satisfaction.</p> - -<p>“Who is that?” asked Ora abruptly, and forgetting a -faint sensation of pique.</p> - -<p>“Ah! Who?”</p> - -<p>She indicated a man leaning against one of the doorways, -and looking over the crowd with unseeing eyes. -“Heavens! What a jaw! Is he as ‘strong’ as he looks, or -is he one of Bismarck’s wooden posts painted to look like -a man of iron?—Why, it’s——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>“That is Gregory Compton, and he is no wooden post, -believe me.”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t seen him for years. <i>Can</i> any man be as -strong as <i>he</i> looks?”</p> - -<p>“Probably not. He hasn’t had time to discover his -master weaknesses yet, so I don’t pretend to guess at them -myself. At present he is too absorbed in squeezing our -poor brains dry——”</p> - -<p>“Doesn’t he ever smile?”</p> - -<p>“So rarely that the boys, who have a nickname for all -their fellow students, call him ‘Sunny Jim.’”</p> - -<p>“What do you think of his wife?” asked Ora abruptly. -She hardly knew why she asked the question, nor why -she felt a secret glow at the expected answer.</p> - -<p>The Professor turned his appraising eye upon the substantial -vision in coral and black that tonight had been -pronounced the handsomest woman in Butte. “There -could be no finer example of the obvious. All her goods -are in the front window. There are no surprises behind -that superlative beauty; certainly no revelations.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder! Ida is far cleverer than you think, and -quite capable of affording your sex a good deal in the way -of surprises, not to say shocks.”</p> - -<p>“Not in the way I mean—not as you will do, worse -luck for my helpless sex. There is no soul there, and, I -fancy, little heart. She is the last woman Gregory Compton -should have married.”</p> - -<p>“Why?” Ora tried to look bored but polite.</p> - -<p>“Oh—whatever she may have for other men she has -nothing for him. She looks the concentrated essence of -female—American female—egoism. Compton needs a -woman who would give him companionship when he wanted -it, and, at the same time, be willing in service.”</p> - -<p>Ora bristled. “Service? How like a man. Are we -still expected to serve men? I thought the world was -moving on.”</p> - -<p>Professor Becke, who, like most men married to a domestic -commander-in-chief, was strenuously opposed to -giving women any powers backed up by law, asked with -cold reserve: “Are you a suffragette?”</p> - -<p>Ora laughed. “Not yet. But I just escaped being born -in the Twentieth Century. I belong to it at all events.”</p> - -<p>“So you do, but you never have been in love——” He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> -broke off in embarrassment; he had forgotten for the moment -that this white virginal creature had been married -for six years. She showed no resentment, for she barely -had heard him; she was looking at Gregory Compton -again, and concluding that he might appeal strongly to -the supplementary female, but must antagonise women -whose highly specialised intellects, at home only on the -heights of civilisation, had submerged their primal inheritance.</p> - -<p>Professor Becke went on:</p> - -<p>“Even a clever woman’s best career is a man. If you -women develop beyond nature that powerful old tyrant -will simply snuff you out.”</p> - -<p>“Well, man will go too. That may be our final -triumph.”</p> - -<p>“Atlantis over again! And quite in order that the -race should perish through the excesses of woman. Then -Nature, having wiped her slate clean with a whoop, will -begin all over again and precisely where she did before. -No doubt she will permit a few records to survive as a -warning.”</p> - -<p>“You may be right—but, although I have an idea I shall -one day want to justify my existence by being of some -use, it won’t be because my sex instinct has got the better -of my intelligence. But I refuse to think of that until I -have had a royal good time for a few years.”</p> - -<p>“That is your right,” he said impulsively. “You are -altogether exceptional—and you have had six years of -Butte! I am glad your mine has panned out so splendidly. -There is quite an excitement in the Sampling Works——”</p> - -<p>“What?” Ora forgot Gregory Compton. “I knew the -mine was doing well——”</p> - -<p>“Surely you know that your profits in royalties already -must be something over a hundred thousand dollars——” -He stopped in confusion.</p> - -<p>Ora’s face was radiant and she never had liked Mark -as sincerely as at that moment. “It is just like him! He -wanted to wait and give me a great surprise—my husband, -I mean.”</p> - -<p>“And I have spoilt it! I am really sorry. Please don’t -tell him.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t. And I’ll be the most surprised woman in -the world when he takes me to the bank to sign my letter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> -of credit. You needn’t mind. I’ll have the fun of thinking -about it for five months—and rolling it up in my -imagination. Ah!”</p> - -<p>“Compton has recognised you, I think.”</p> - -<p>Ora had met the long narrow concentrated gaze of -her husband’s friend. She bowed slightly. Compton -made a step forward, hesitated, braced himself, and walked -toward her.</p> - -<p>“A constitutionally shy man, but a brave one,” said -Professor Becke with a grim smile, as he rose to resign -his seat. “A strong magnet has pulled up many a sinking -heart. Good evening, Compton. Glad you honour our -party, even if you don’t dance.”</p> - -<p>“I intend to ask Mrs. Blake to dance.” Gregory betrayed -nothing of his inner trepidation although he did -not smile. He could always rely upon the stern mask -into which he had trained his visage not to betray him.</p> - -<p>Ora, oblivious of her resolution not to dance, rose and -placed her hand on his shoulder, smiling an absent farewell -to Professor Becke. For a moment she forgot her -resentful interest in this man in her astonishment that he -danced so well. She had the impression of dancing with -a light supple creature of the woods, one who could be -quite abandoned if he chose, although he held her as if he -were embracing a feather. She wondered if it were his -drop of aboriginal blood and looked up suddenly. To her -surprise he was smiling, and his smile so altered the immobility -of his face that she lost her breath.</p> - -<p>“I feel as if I were dancing with a snowflake,” was his -unexpected remark.</p> - -<p>“You look the last man to pay compliments and murmur -sweet nothings.”</p> - -<p>“Are you disappointed?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I am. I rather liked your attitude—expression, -rather—of cool superiority.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you use the word prig?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no!—Well, perhaps that is what I did mean.”</p> - -<p>He stopped short, regardless of the annoyance he caused -several impetuous couples. “If you did I shall leave you -right here.”</p> - -<p>“I did not. Please go on. Everybody is staring at us. -You took me completely by surprise.”</p> - -<p>“I? Why?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>“You are the last man I should expect the usual small -talk from.”</p> - -<p>“Small talk? Heavens knows I have none of that. -Girls used to talk my head off in self-defence. I merely -said what I thought. What did you expect me to talk -about?”</p> - -<p>“Oh—mines, I suppose.” Again, to her surprise, his -face lit up as if by an inner and jealously hidden torch. -But he said soberly:</p> - -<p>“Well, there is no more interesting subject. Never has -been since the world began. Where shall we find a seat?”</p> - -<p>The waltz was over. The chairs were filling. Young -couples were flitting toward the embowered corners.</p> - -<p>“Let’s go outside,” he said abruptly.</p> - -<p>“What? On the street? And nobody goes out of doors -from a ballroom in June.”</p> - -<p>“Good reason for going. Come with me.”</p> - -<p>He led her to the cloak-room. “Get your wrap,” he -said.</p> - -<p>Ora frowned, but she asked for her heavy white woollen -wrap and put it on; then automatically followed him down -the stairs and into the street.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you get your coat and hat?” she asked, -still dazed. “It’s cold, you know.”</p> - -<p>“I never was cold in my life,” he said contemptuously. -He hailed a taxi. “I must go up to the School of Mines, -and ask the result of some assaying,” he added as he -almost lifted her in. “Then we can talk up there. May -I smoke?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care what you do.”</p> - -<p>He smiled directly into her resentful eyes this time and -tucked the lap-robe about her.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">HE apparently forgot her during the short drive and -stared through the open window of the cab, his -thoughts, no doubt, in the assay room of the School, where -several students, as ardent as himself, were experimenting -with ore they had managed to secure from a recently -opened mine. Ora’s resentment vanished, partly because -she reflected that a new and original experience was a -boon to be grateful for in Butte, but more because she -was thrilled with the sense of adventure. Her woman’s -instinct gave assurance that he had no intention of making -love to her, but it also whispered that, whether she liked -or disliked him when the adventure was over, she would -have something to remember. And it was the first time -she ever had indulged in recklessness. Butte would be by -the ears on the morrow if it learned of her escapade.</p> - -<p>When they reached the dark School of Mines he dismissed -the taxi, and said to Ora, “Wait for me here. I -shan’t be a moment.”</p> - -<p>He disappeared and Ora shrugged her shoulders and sat -down on the steps. He returned in a few moments and -extended himself over several steps below her.</p> - -<p>“Comfortable?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Very!”</p> - -<p>“It’s a night, isn’t it?” he asked abruptly.</p> - -<p>He was not looking at her but at the low sulphurous -blue sky, with its jewelled lattice, white, yellow, green, -blue. There were no tree tops to rustle, but from the -window below came the voluptuous strains of the Merry -Widow waltz, mingling incongruously with the raucous -noises of the sleepless town: the roaring street-cars, the -blasts of engines, the monstrous purr of motor-cats.</p> - -<p>“If we could cut out that jungle,” he said with a sigh. -“Are you warm enough?” He pulled the cloak about -the lower part of her body. “I should have taken the -rug from the cab——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>“I am warm enough,” she said impatiently, and what -she longed to say was, “How in heaven’s name did you -marry Ida Hook?” He had transferred his gaze to the -city and she studied his face. Then she understood. In -spite of its intense reserve and detachment, its strength -and power, its thin sensitive mouth, it was the most passionate -face she had ever seen. As a matter of fact she -had been at pains to ignore the purely masculine side of -men, her fastidious mind never indulging in comparisons. -She half rose with a sense of panic. Again he looked up -solicitously.</p> - -<p>“I am sure you are not comfortable. I could find you -some cushions——”</p> - -<p>“Please don’t. So you love beauty?” She was deeply -annoyed with herself, but could think of nothing less -banal. He certainly was not easy to talk to.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you? It would be odd if you didn’t. One reason -I brought you up up here was because I wanted to look at -you in the starlight where you belong—the cold starlight—not -in that crowded gaudy room full of mere human -beings.”</p> - -<p>“Are you a poet? I have somehow received the impression -that you are a mere walking ambition.”</p> - -<p>“I’m no poet if you mean one of those writing fellows.” -His tone expressed unmitigated scorn.</p> - -<p>“Well, no doubt you have read a great deal of poetry, -little as one would suspect it.”</p> - -<p>“Never read a line of it except when I had to decline -it at school—any more than I’ve ever read a line of fiction.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you’ve missed a great deal,” said Ora tartly. -“Poetry is an essential part of the beauty of the world, -which you seem to appreciate. And the best of fiction is -the best expression of current history. What do you think -when you star-gaze?”</p> - -<p>“You mean, can I think at all when I haven’t read what -other men have thought?”</p> - -<p>“No.—No doubt the most original brains are those that -have not read too much, are not choked up.” Ora made -this admission reluctantly, but he had caught her fairly. -“Tell me at least what the stars suggest to you. About -everything has been said of them that can be said. The -poor old stars have been worked to death.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>“The stars above Montana are watchfires protecting the -treasure below. Perhaps they are bits of her treasures, -gold, silver, copper, sapphire, that flew upward in the final -cataclysm.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know whether that is poetical or gross materialism.”</p> - -<p>“No mines, no poets. Nearly all conquest from the -dawn of history down to the Boer War has had the acquisition -of mineral wealth as its real object. The civilisation -that follows is incidental; it merely means that the -strongest race, which, of course, knows the most, wins. If -ever we have a war with Mexico, what will be the cause? -Mines. Incidentally we will civilise her. Peru, Mexico, -India, the Americas—all have been invaded in their turn -by more civilised nations, and all after plunder. They -gave as much as they took, but little they cared about -that. What opened up California? This great Northwest? -Prospectors in search of gold. Excuse this lecture. -I am the least talkative of men, but you have jarred my -brain, somehow. Read the history of mines and mining -if you want romance.”</p> - -<p>“As a matter of fact few things interest me more. I -am so glad my mine has been leased for a year only. -When that is up I am going to mine it myself. I’ll build -a bungalow out there and go down every day. Perhaps -in time I could be my own manager. At all events, think -of the excitement of watching the ore as it comes up the -shaft; of running through a lean vein and coming suddenly -upon a chamber of an entirely different kind of -ore from what you had been taking out. Great shoots -full of free gold! Wire gold! Or that crisp brown-gold -that looks as if it were boiling out of the ore and makes -one want to bite it! Why are you staring so at me?”</p> - -<p>His eyes were more widely opened and brilliant than -she had seen them. “Do you mean that?” he asked. -“I’ve a great notion to tell you something that I’ve not -told anyone.”</p> - -<p>“Do tell me!”</p> - -<p>She leaned down eagerly. She had dismissed the feeling -of panic as something to be forgotten as quickly as possible. -But her brain was on fire to penetrate his. She felt an -extraordinary mental stimulation. But he relapsed into -absolute silence, although he held his head, lowered again,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span> -at an angle that suggested he might be thinking intently. -She moved impatiently, but he sat still, staring downward, -his eyes narrow once more. She noticed irrelevantly how -black his hair was, and her white hand went out stealthily -as if magnetised, but was immediately restored to order. -In the vibrating silence she had another glimmer of understanding. -He wanted to tell her something personal, but -his natural secretiveness and habit of reserve were engaged -in a struggle with the unusual impulse. She shifted the -ground.</p> - -<p>“I wish you would tell me something of your boyhood,” -she said abruptly.</p> - -<p>He looked up in astonishment. “I never talk about -myself——”</p> - -<p>“How very egoistical.”</p> - -<p>“Ego——”</p> - -<p>“No, I did not say egotistical.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” There was another pause, although he looked -at her with a frown. “I have talked to you more than -I ever talk to anyone,” he said resentfully.</p> - -<p>“It is the stars, to say nothing of the isolation. We -might be up on one of your escaped nuggets. Remember -that I have heard of you constantly for six years—and -met you before on one of those occasions when all persons -look alike. How could I escape curiosity?”</p> - -<p>“I brought you out to look at in the proper setting. I -can’t say I had any desire to talk to you. I suppose I -should not keep you out here——”</p> - -<p>“I am much happier and more comfortable than in that -hot room. But surely you need more recreation. Why -do you never go to dances?”</p> - -<p>“Dances? I? I only went tonight——” He, too, apparently, -was determined to keep their respective spouses -out of the conversation, for he veered off quickly. “It is a -sort of religion to attend the Prom even if you only show -yourself. I was about to beat a retreat when I saw you. -Of course it was my duty to shake hands. Besides, I -wanted to see if you were real.” And he smiled up into -her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Do you know that we are flirting?”</p> - -<p>“Well, let us flirt,” he replied comfortably. “I haven’t -the least idea what it is, but I am not a bit in love with -you, if that is what you mean.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>Ora drew herself up rigidly. “Well, you are——” she -began, aware that she had a temper. Then she laughed. -Why quarrel with a novel experience? Her anger turned -into a more subtle emotion. She was well aware of the -dazzling brightness of her eyes. She leaned forward and -concentrated her mind in an attempt to project her magnetism -through them, although again with a feeling of -panic; it was too much like the magnet rushing out to the -iron.</p> - -<p>He returned that powerful gaze unmoved, although an -expression of perplexity crossed his own eyes. She was -disconcerted and asked lamely:</p> - -<p>“Is it true that you used to run away and prospect in -the mountains?”</p> - -<p>His face lit up with an enthusiasm her fascinations had -been unable to inspire; and a richer note came into his -voice. “I was eleven the first time and stayed out for six -months. Two years after I ran away again. The next -time I went with my father’s permission. I worked in -one of the Butte mines one summer—but otherwise—well, -you see, there is a good deal to do on a ranch. This is the -first time I have been able to do as I please.”</p> - -<p>Ora looked at his long slim figure, his brown hands that -tonight, at least, expressed a sort of cruel deliberate repose. -Whatever they may have been in their ranch days they -were smooth and well cared for now.</p> - -<p>“Somehow, I can’t see you handling a pick,” she said -doubtfully. “Is it true that you intend to work in the -mines all summer?”</p> - -<p>“Part of it—when I am not working in a mill or a -smelter. I’d be ashamed of myself if I couldn’t do anything -that another man can do. Some of the best miners -look like rats.”</p> - -<p>He looked like a highly-bred mettlesome race-horse himself, -and Ora wondered, as she had before tonight: “Where -did he get it? Who were his ancestors?” She had seen -dukes that looked like farm hands, and royal princesses -that might have been upper housemaids, but her feminine -(and American) mind clung to the fallacy that it takes -generations to produce the clean-cut shell. She determined -to look up his family tree in Holland.</p> - -<p>“Well—Custer—my housekeeper—will look after you,” -she said as naturally as if her thoughts had not wandered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> -for a moment. “Shall you do any mining on your own -place before we come back from Europe?”</p> - -<p>He started and looked at her apprehensively, then -scowled.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter? You may not know it but at this -moment your face looks like an Indian battle-axe.”</p> - -<p>To her surprise he laughed boyishly. “You startled -me. I have heard of mind readers. Well, I will tell you -what I wanted to a while back. But you must promise -not to tell—anyone.”</p> - -<p>“I promise! I swear it! And do hurry. I’m afraid -you’ll shut up tight again.”</p> - -<p>“No, I won’t. I don’t know that I’d tell you were it not -that your own mine is just over the border; we may have -to consolidate some day to save a lawsuit—No, I will be -honest; I really want to tell you. It is this: Close to the -northeast boundary line of my ranch is an almost barren -hill of limestone and granite. Shortly before I left—last -October—I discovered float on the side of the hill. There -is no doubt in my mind that we have both come upon a -new mineral belt, although whether we are in the middle -or on one edge of it is another question.”</p> - -<p>He told her the story of the storm and of the uncovering -of the float. Nor did he end his confidence with a bare -statement of fact. He told her of his sensations as he sat -on the ragged ground leaning against the roots of the -slain trees, his mental struggle, and final resolution. Then -he told her of the hopes and dreams of his boyhood, and -what it had meant to him—this sudden revelation that -he had a mine under his feet—and all his own! He talked -for half an hour, with the deep satisfaction that only a -shy and silent person feels when talking into a sympathetic -mind for the first time. Ora listened with a curious -sense of excitement, as if she were overboard in a warm -and pleasant but unknown sea. There were times when -she felt like talking very fast herself. But she did nothing -of the sort, merely jogging him diplomatically when he -showed signs of relapsing into silence. Finally he stopped -in the middle of a sentence and said abruptly:</p> - -<p>“That’s all.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! And you really have made up your mind not to -begin work for a year?”</p> - -<p>“Quite!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>“But—have you thought—it is only tonight I learned -that the engineers who leased my mine have struck a rich -vein. Suppose it dips toward yours——”</p> - -<p>“It does——”</p> - -<p>“Have they put on a big force?”</p> - -<p>“Naturally. They are rushing things, as they know they -will not get the mine another year.”</p> - -<p>“Well, suppose their vein runs under your hill—through -their side-line?”</p> - -<p>He stirred uneasily. “I am watching them. So far -the dip is very slight. It may take a turn, or go down -straight; or,” and he smiled at her again, “it may pinch -out. Nothing is so uncertain as an ore vein.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think it will?” asked Ora anxiously.</p> - -<p>“No, don’t worry. I was down the other day; and did -some prospecting on my own account besides. I think -you’ve got a big mine.”</p> - -<p>“But suppose the vein should take a sudden dip to the -right—you don’t want them burrowing under your hill——”</p> - -<p>“They won’t burrow under my hill,” he said grimly. -“I should persuade them that there was an even richer -vein on their left.”</p> - -<p>“Is there?”</p> - -<p>“I have reason to think so. They naturally would want -to avoid the expenses of a lawsuit, and of course they -would waste a lot of time sinking a shaft or driving across. -Their lease would be pretty well up by the time——”</p> - -<p>“You <i>are</i> cold-blooded! What of me? I should be -making nothing, either.”</p> - -<p>“You’d make it all later on. How much do you expect -to spend in Europe anyway? You must have made a -thousand dollars a day since the first carload of ore was -smelted.”</p> - -<p>She was on the point of replying that a woman could -not have enough money in Europe, when she remembered -the conspiracy to make him believe that a thousand dollars -would cover the expenses of his wife.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it is merely that I don’t like being one of the -pawns in your game,” she said.</p> - -<p>“You’d have all the more later on. Ore doesn’t run -away.”</p> - -<p>“How <i>can</i> you stay away from your mine? I feel—after<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> -all that you have told me!—that you are wild to get -at it?”</p> - -<p>“So I am! So I am! But I said I wouldn’t and that -is the end of it. I want that last year at the School.”</p> - -<p>“What shall you do with all that money—if your hill -turns out to be full of gold? More, I hope, than the rest -of our millionaires have done for Montana—which is exactly -nothing. You might give the State a complete irrigating -system.”</p> - -<p>“Good idea! Perhaps I will. But that is in the future. -I want the fun first——”</p> - -<p>“Fun? It is the passion of your life, your great romance. -You’ll never love a woman like that.”</p> - -<p>“Of course not.” But he was staring at her. He had a -sensation of something swimming in the depths of his -mind, striving to reach the surface. He changed his position -suddenly and sat up. “And you?” he asked. “You -have the same vision. Couldn’t you feel the same absorbing -passion——”</p> - -<p>“For ore?” The scorn of her entire sex was in her -voice. “Dead cold metal——”</p> - -<p>“Every molecule, every individual atom is alive and -quivering——”</p> - -<p>“I am not interested in chemistry.”</p> - -<p>He still stared at her. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes -blazing. She sprang to her feet.</p> - -<p>“Ida is the wife for you! She’ll never ask much of you -and you never could hurt her, not even if you tried, she -is fortunate in lacking just that which you could hurt.”</p> - -<p>“What is it?” He spoke eagerly. He, too, had risen, -his eyes still on her face. Unconsciously he held his breath.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you wouldn’t understand it I told you—and I -haven’t the least desire to tell you. She will make you -comfortable, do you credit when you are a rich man, -spend your money royally. That is all <i>you</i> will ask of -<i>her</i>. Now, I’ll go back.”</p> - -<p>He was a step or two below her. Their eyes were on -a level. He looked at her sombrely for a moment, then -walked past her up the steps.</p> - -<p>“You need not call a cab. I shall go home. I should -only set them all talking if I appeared in the ballroom -again. You can tell Mark that I didn’t feel well and that -you took me home.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>They walked along the high terrace until they found a -point of easy descent.</p> - -<p>“What have I said to make you angry?” he asked.</p> - -<p>Ora laughed with determined good humour. “It was -not I. It was merely my sex that flared up. Please forget -it.”</p> - -<p>“I want to thank you for what you have done for -Ida,” he said abruptly, and it was evident that the words -cost him more than his former revelations. “It was a -great thing for you to do.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Ida has become my most intimate friend. I have -never enjoyed Butte so much as in these last few months.”</p> - -<p>“Has she? And Mark is my best friend.” He jerked -his head in annoyance; manifestly the remark had been -too spontaneous. They were before her gate. She extended -a limp hand, but he held it firmly. He was smiling -again although he looked depressed.</p> - -<p>“Do give me a friendly shake,” he said. “I do like you -and you will be going in a few days.”</p> - -<p>“I do not go for five months.”</p> - -<p>“You can go next week. I’ll square it with Mark.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t wish to go next week. Besides, Mark expects -some important people here in the autumn, and needs my -help. He has a deal on.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll dispossess Mark of any such notion. It’s all nonsense, -this idea of a man’s needing his wife’s help in business. -It’s a poor sort of man that can’t manage his own -affairs, and Mark is not a poor sort. Now, you are angry -again!”</p> - -<p>“That would be foolish of me,” she said icily. “You -merely don’t understand. You never could. Do you want -to get rid of me?” she asked abruptly.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I think I do.”</p> - -<p>Then Ora relented. She also gave him the smile that -she reserved as her most devastating weapon. “I am -sorry,” she murmured, “but I don’t think I can be ready -for at least three months. Nor Ida.”</p> - -<p>“You go next week,” he said.</p> - -<p>And go they did.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">GREGORY and Mark established their wives comfortably -in a drawing-room of the limited for Chicago, -asked the usual masculine questions about tickets and trunk -checks, expressed their masculine surprise that nothing -had been forgotten, told them to be careful not to lean -over the railing of the observation car, nor to make themselves -ill with the numerous boxes of candy sent to the -train, admonished them not to spend too much money in -New York, to send their trunks to the steamer the day -before they sailed, and give themselves at least two hours -to get to the docks; above all not to mislay their letters -of credit; then kissed them dutifully, and, as the train -moved out, stood on the platform with solemn faces and -hearts of indescribable buoyancy.</p> - -<p>“My Lord!” exclaimed Ida, as she blew her last kiss. -“If Greg was going along I’d have to take care of him -every step of the way. I wouldn’t trust him with the -tickets the length of the train. Men do make me tired. -They keep up the farce that we’re children just to keep -up that other grand farce that they run the Universe. Any -old plank to cling to.”</p> - -<p>Ora kept her sentiments to herself.</p> - -<p>If Mark, who was fond of his wife, and more or less -dependent upon her, wondered vaguely that he should -rejoice in the prospect of six months of bachelorhood, -Gregory was almost puzzled. Ida was now no more to him -personally than a responsibility he had voluntarily assumed -and was determined to treat with complete justice; but at -least she made him more comfortable than he had ever been -before, and he had trained her to let him alone. Since her -rapid improvement her speech had ceased to irritate him; -she was never untidy, never anything but a pleasant picture -to look at. He had also noted on the night of the -party that she was indisputably the handsomest woman in -the room and received the homage of men with dignity and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> -poise. He had felt proud of her, and comfortably certain -that he could trust her. Altogether a model wife.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless as he walked out Park Street after he left -Mark at his office (Ida not only had sent his personal -possessions to the Blake house but found time to unpack -and put them away) his brain, which had been curiously -depressed during the past week, felt as if full of effervescing -wine.</p> - -<p>“Jove!” he thought, “why do men marry? What has -any woman living to give a man half as good as his freedom.”</p> - -<p>His freedom was to be reasonably complete. He had -told Ida to expect no letters from him and not to write -herself unless she were in trouble. With all the fervour of -his masculine soul he hated to write letters. Long since -he had bought a typewriter, on which he rattled off necessary -business communications so briefly that they would -have cost him little more on the wire. He knew that he -should hear constantly of his wife’s welfare from Mark, -and had no desire to be inflicted with descriptions of -scenery and shops.</p> - -<p>He felt a spasm of envy, however, as he thought of the -letters Mark would receive from Ora. <i>Her</i> letters, no -doubt, would be worth reading, not only because she -had a mind, and already had seen too much of Europe -to comment on its obvious phases, but because they would -be redolent of her subtle exquisite personality. He had -once come upon a package of old letters among his mother’s -possessions and read them. They had been written by his -great-great-grandmother to her husband while he was a -soldier in the War of the Revolution. It was merely the -simple life of the family, the farm, and the woods, that -she described, but Gregory never recalled those letters without -feeling again the subtle psychological emanation of the -writer’s sweet and feminine but determinate personality; -it hovered like a wraith over the written words, imprisoned, -imperishable, until the paper should fall to dust. So, he -imagined, something of Ora’s essence would take wing on -the rustling sheets of her letters.</p> - -<p>But the spasm of envy passed. Ora would write no such -letters to Mark Blake. Her correspondence with her husband -would be perfunctory, practical, brief. To some man -she might write pages that would keep him up at night,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span> -reading and rereading, interpreting illusive phrases, -searching for hidden and personal meanings, while two -individualities met and melted.... But this yearning -passed also. To receive such letters a man must answer -them and that would be hell.</p> - -<p>He was on his way to change his clothes for overalls -and get his blue dinner pail, well filled, from Custer. But -before he reached the house he conceived an abrupt and -violent distaste for life underground, an uncontrollable -desire—or one which he made no effort to control—for long -rides over the ranch, and a glimpse of Limestone Hill. It -was seven months since he had seen his ranch save in -snatches, and he wanted it now for months on end. He was -not a town-bred man, and he suddenly hated the sight of -Butte with her naked angles and feverish energies. He -realised also that his mind insistently demanded a rest. -To be sure he had intended to work in the mines for eight -hours of the day, but he had planned to study for ten. -Well, he would have none of it! Caprice was no characteristic -of his, but he felt full of it this brilliant morning. -If the air was so light in Butte that his feet seemed barely -to touch the ground, so clear that the mountains seemed -walking down the valley, what must it be in the country?</p> - -<p>He went rapidly to the house, left a message for Mark, -packed a suit-case and took the next train for Pony. There -he hired a horse and rode to his ranch.</p> - -<p>One of the sudden June rains had come while he was -in the train. It had ceased, but a mass of low clouds -brushing the higher tree tops was almost black. Their -edges were silver: they were filled with a cold imprisoned -sunlight, which transformed the distant mountains into -glass, transparent, with black shadows in their depths. -Montana looked as giving an exhibition of her astral body. -But as he rode the clouds drifted away, the sky deepened -to the rich voluptuous blue of that high altitude; even -the grey soil showing through the thin grass of the granite -hills looked warmer. Where the soil was thicker the -ground was covered with a gorgeous tapestry of wildflowers; -the birds sang desperately as if they knew how short -was their springtime, affected like mortals by the thin -intoxicating air. Even the waters in the creek roared as -if making the most of their brief span. The mountains -lost their glassy look; blue, ice-topped, they were as full<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> -of young and vivid life as when they danced about, heedless -that the heaving earth purposed they should wait for -centuries before settling into things of beauty for unborn -man to admire. They never will look old, those mountains -of Montana; man may take the treasure from their veins -and the jewels from their crowns, but they drink forever -the elixir of the air. The blue dawn fills their spirit with -a deathless exultation, the long blue-gold days their bodies -with immortal life, the starry nights, swinging their lamps -so close to the snow fields, unroll the dramas of other -worlds. They are no mere masses of rock and dirt or -even of metal, these mountains of Montana, but man’s -vision of eternal youth.</p> - -<p>Gregory drew rein on the crest of one of his own hills. -Below lay the De Smet ranch, and he drew a long breath -with that sensation of serene pride which comes to men -when they contemplate their landed possessions, or their -wives on state occasions. All the arable soil, on flat and -hillside, was green; alfalfa, with its purple flowers, filled -the bottoms; the winter wheat was rippling in the wind; -the acres covered with the tender leaves of young flax were -like a densely woven lawn. On the hills and the public -range roamed his cattle. All of this fair land, including -its possible treasure, was his, absolutely. By the terms of -his father’s will he paid yearly dividends from the sale -of steers and crops to three aunts, now reduced to two. -Whether by accident or design, Mr. Compton had omitted -all mention of “minerals under the earth.” Gregory had -not the least objection to making these ladies rich, when -his mines yielded their wealth, but he was jealous of every -acre of his inheritance, far more of its secrets. All the -passionate intensity of his nature he had poured out on -his land and its subterranean mysteries, and he would have -hailed an invention which would enable him to dismiss -every man from his employ. But his head was hard and -he always smiled grimly at the finish of his fanciful desires.</p> - -<p>He turned his horse toward the distant group of farm -buildings, then wheeled abruptly and rode toward Limestone -Hill. He had anticipated a long talk with the enthusiastic -Oakley on the subject of crops, but he suddenly -realised that he was in no mood to talk to anyone and -that his secret reason for coming to the ranch was to visit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span> -his hill. Oakley would cling to him for hours. One glance -had assured him that the crops would have satisfied a state -experimental farm. Mining would fascinate him in its -every detail, but as far as agriculture was concerned, he -was interested only in results.</p> - -<p>As he rode toward the hill he frowned at the signs of -activity on the other side of his boundary line. A large -gasoline hoist had been installed. The waste dump was -almost as high as a hill, four “double-sixes”—six-horse -teams—stood waiting to be loaded from the ore bins. -There were a group of miners’ cabins, a long mess-house, -and a blacksmith’s shop. This was the only shadow on -his future: he wanted no lawsuits, nor did he want to enter -into partnership with anyone, not even Ora Blake.</p> - -<p>But he dismissed the matter from his mind, tied his -horse, and, although Montanans are a slow race on foot -out of deference to the altitude, ran up the hill. A glance -told him that his secret was undiscovered. He knelt -down and dug up the float, his heart hammering. And -then he deliberately let the prospector’s fever take possession -of him. The soles of his feet prickled as if responding -to the magnets below; he had a fancy that gold, molten, -was running through his veins. But his brain worked -clearly. He was aware that his exultation and excitement -were not due to the lure of gold alone, but to the still more -subtle pleasure that a strong and obstinate nature feels in -breaking a vow and deliberately succumbing to temptation. -He had vowed in good faith that he would not open -his mine until the third of June of the following year. -But a week before he had spent an enchanted hour with a -woman, and during the rest of that night—he had walked -half way to Silver Bow and back—he had wanted that -woman more than he had ever wanted anything on earth. -He had forgotten his mine.</p> - -<p>At first he had lashed himself with scorn, remembering -his infatuation for the woman he had married. He felt -something of the indignant astonishment of the small boy -who imagines himself catching a second attack of measles, -before he discovers it is scarlet fever. But it took him -only a brief time to realise that the passion inspired by -Ora Blake was so much deeper and more various than -the blind subservience to Nature that had driven him to -Ida (who had not the least idea of being a tool of Nature<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> -herself) that it was far more dangerous than the first inevitable -attack of youthful madness could ever be. It -humiliated his pride to have been the mere victim of -the race, the rudimentary male swept into matrimony by -the first woman who combined superlative femaleness with -virtue. Then he wondered if he could have loved Ora at -that time; he certainly felt ten years older today.</p> - -<p>The word love brought him to his senses. It was formidable -and definite. While he had believed himself to be in -the throes of a second fever caught from a beautiful -woman’s concordant magnetism, he had felt merely disgusted -at his weakness, not in the least disloyal to his -closest friend, whom he knew no woman could tempt him to -betray. But he realised with hideous abruptness that if -he were thrown with Ora Blake for any length of time she -would become so necessary to him through the comprehensive -appeal, which he only half understood, that he no -more could pluck her out of him by the roots, as men disposed -of the superficial passion when it became inconvenient, -than he could tear the veins out of his hill with -his hands.</p> - -<p>He had felt the danger dimly when with her, although -he had made up his mind even then to get her out of -Montana as quickly as possible. He vowed anew, with -the first sensation of panic he had ever experienced, that -the same sky should not cover them a week hence. He -knew his influence over Mark Blake.</p> - -<p>Then he made a deliberate attempt to banish the subject -from his mind, ordering his thoughts to their favorite -haunts underground. But one little insidious tract, so -difficult to control in all brains still young and human, -showed a disposition to create startling and vivid pictures, -to dream intensely, to cast up this woman’s face, fling it -into his consciousness, with an automatic regularity that -was like a diabolical challenge to his haughty will.</p> - -<p>He endeavoured to think of Ora with contempt: she had -married a good fellow, but one whom she must have been -compelled by the circumstances of her life to regard as her -social inferior, and who assuredly was in no sense suited -to her—merely from a parasitic dread of poverty. Other -women went to work, even if delicately nurtured. But he -was too masculine and too little influenced by certain -phases of modern thought to condemn any woman long for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> -turning to man in her extremity. Privately he detested -women that “did things”; better for them all to give some -man the right to protect them: marriage with a good fellow -like Mark Blake, even without love, spoilt them far less -than mixing up with the world in a scramble for bread. -It would have spoilt Ora, who was now merely undeveloped; -hardened, sharpened, coarsened her. He dismissed -his abortive attempt to despise her; also a dangerous -tendency to pity her.</p> - -<p>Before he finished his tramp he had recaptured his poise. -What a woman like Ora Blake might have to give him he -dared not think of, nor would he be betrayed again into -speculation. Doubtless it was all rubbish anyway, merely -another trick of the insatiable mating instinct. If it were -more—the primal instinct plus the almost equally insistent -demands of the civilised inheritances in the brain—so -much the worse, the more reason to “cut it out.” But -when he returned to the cottage in East Granite Street he -threw himself on the divan in the parlour and slept there.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THEREFORE was he in no mood to fight another -temptation; rather to take a sardonic pleasure in succumbing. -An hour later, in overalls, and assisted by two -of his labourers, outwardly more excited than he, for they -had worked underground and vowed they smelt ore, he -was running an open cut along the line of the float. As -there was no outcropping it was mere guesswork; it might -be weeks before he struck any definite sign of an ore body, -but he was prepared to level the hill if necessary. Until -he did come upon indications that would justify the expense, -however, he was resolved not to sink a shaft nor -drive a tunnel.</p> - -<p>They used pick and shovel until at the depth of eight -feet they struck rock. Gregory had been prepared for this -and sent the unwilling but interested Oakley into Pony -for drills and powder. For two days more they drilled -and blasted; then—Gregory took out his watch and noted -the hour, twenty-three minutes after four—one of the men -gave a shout and tossed a fragment into the air.</p> - -<p>“Stringer, by jinks!” he cried. “And it’s copper carbonate -or I’m a dead ’un.”</p> - -<p>Gregory frowned, but laid the bit of ore gently on his -palm and regarded it with awe. He wanted gold, but at -least this was his, and the first of his treasure to be torn -from its sanctuary. For a moment the merely personal -longing was lost in the enthusiasm of the geologist, for the -fragment in his hand was very beautiful, a soft rich -shaded green flecked with red; the vugs, or little cells, -looked as if lined with deep green velvet.</p> - -<p>But he turned and stared at the mining camp beyond -his boundary line. One of the bits of float he had found -last year had been gold quartz. Had it travelled, a mere -chip, from the original body to this distant point, or -danced here on the shoulders of an earthquake? Float, -even under a layer of soil was often found so far from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> -the ore body, that it was a more fallible guide than a prospector’s -guess. He walked to the end of the hill, while -his miners shrugged their shoulders and resumed the -drilling.</p> - -<p>The great vein of the Primo mine was dipping acutely to -the right. Might it not be wise for him to abandon his -present position and sink a shaft close to the line, trusting -to his practical knowledge and highly organized faculty to -strike the vein?</p> - -<p>He stood for half an hour debating the question, listening -to the intermittent roar of the engine, the rattle of ore -dumped from the buckets. Then he walked back to the -red gash in his own land. It would be the bitterest disappointment -of his life if he failed to find gold in his hill, -but the dominant voice in his brain was always practical, -and it advised him to follow the willing metal for the -present instead of incurring the expense of a shaft and -possible litigation.</p> - -<p>“’Nother stringer!” announced one of the men, as -Gregory arrived at the long deep cut. “Guess it’s time -for a windlass.”</p> - -<p>“Guess it is. Go down to the house and get some -lumber.”</p> - -<p>He descended into the cut and looked at the unmistakable -evidence of little veins. Were they really stringer, -tentacles of a great ore body climbing toward the surface, -or a mere series of independent and insignificant veins not -worth exploiting? He was in a pessimistic mood, but -laughed suddenly as he realised how disappointed he would -be should further excavation demonstrate there was no -chamber of copper ore below.</p> - -<p>Four hours later the windlass was finished and four -men were at work. At the end of the fortnight the windlass -had been discarded in favor of a gasoline hoist, and -twenty-five men in three shifts were employed upon a -chamber of copper carbonate ore. The nearest of the De -Smet hills began to take on the appearance of a mining -camp; a mess-house and a number of cabins were building. -Trees were falling, not only to make room for the new -“town” but to timber the mine when the time came to -sink or drift. At present those of the miners that could -not be housed by the disgusted Oakley occupied tents or -rude shacks. Oakley spent the greater part of his time<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span> -escorting the great six-horse teams from the ranch to the -public road, as their drivers showed an indifference to -his precious crops only rivalled by Gregory Compton’s.</p> - -<p>Mark took a week’s vacation after the first carload of -ore had been shipped from Pony to the sampling works in -Butte and netted $65 a ton. Gregory, who was working -with his men, far too impatient and surcharged with -energy to walk about as mere manager, paid scant attention -to him during the day; but Mark was content to sit -on the edge of the cut and smoke and calculate, merely -retreating in haste when the men lit the fuses.</p> - -<p>On the third morning, as he was approaching the mine -at dawn with his host, Gregory suddenly announced his -intention of sending for a manager; he purposed to sink -a shaft on the edge of the chamber in order to determine if -the present lode was the top of a vein.</p> - -<p>“Better take off your coat and go to work,” he added. -“Do you good. You’re getting too fat.”</p> - -<p>“Getting? Thanks. But I don’t mind. You’ve got -several hundred thousand dollars in that chamber by -the looks of things, but I suppose that wouldn’t satisfy -you?”</p> - -<p>“Lord, no. That is merely the necessary capital to -mine the entire hill—or fight the powers that be when -they get on to the fact that I’ve got another Anaconda.”</p> - -<p>“Do you believe it? Big pockets have been found in -solitary splendor before this.”</p> - -<p>“This hill is mineral from end to end,” said Gregory -with intense conviction. “And I want to get to the main -lode as quickly as possible.”</p> - -<p>“By the way,” said Mark abruptly, “why don’t you -locate your claim?”</p> - -<p>“Locate? Why, the land’s mine. Patent is all right. -My father even patented several placer claims——”</p> - -<p>“Mining laws are fearful and wonderful things. Judges, -with a fat roll in their pockets, have been known to make -fearful and wonderful interpretations before this. If -you’ve struck a new copper belt—well, the enemy has billions. -Better stake off the entire hill, and apply for patents. -You may be grey before you get them, but the application -is enough——”</p> - -<p>“It would cost a lot of money, and I don’t like the idea -of paying twice over. This is costing thousands——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>“And you’ll soon be taking out thousands a week. But -if you need it all I’ll lend you the money. It would be a -good investment for Ora. You can pay me four per cent. -I’ve a mind to go ahead today and begin staking off.”</p> - -<p>Gregory stood still with his head inclined at the angle -which indicated that he was concentrating his mind. -“Very well,” he said curtly. “Go ahead. And I don’t -need your money. Stake off every inch of the hill and -have a good map made. See that the side lines are flush -with the boundary. Of course I’d never have any trouble -with you, but Mrs. Blake might take it into her head to -sell. Get out a surveyor when you’re ready for him. -Don’t bother me until the thing is done.”</p> - -<p>Mark took a longer vacation and worked off some twenty -pounds. He wished ruefully that Ora would return suddenly, -for he doubted that his love of good living would -undo the excellent work when he was once more in Butte. -He employed a U. S. deputy mineral surveyor, the map -was made, Gregory applied for his patents; the lawyers’s -mind was at rest for the present, although he kept his ears -open in Butte.</p> - -<p>Gregory sank his shaft ostensibly to determine the dip -and width of the vein leading from the chamber, but -secretly with the hope of meeting the body of ore already -uncovered in the Primo Mine. He was elated with his -splendid “find” and sudden wealth, but his old dream -never left him for a moment. Indeed he would have been -more than willing to miss the pyroxenite if he could come -upon a lode of quartz containing free gold. That was what -he had visualised all his life. He wanted to stand in his -own stopes and flash his lantern along glittering seams, -not merely send masses of decomposed grey-black ore to -the sampling works and await returns. If he found a vein -worth the outlay he would erect his own stamp mill and -listen to its music. Such is the deathless boy that exists -in all men. Mere wealth meant far less to him than the -beautiful costly toy to play with for a while.</p> - -<p>The shaft at the end of a month had gone down eighty -feet; but had revealed only a lean vein of copper -carbonates which made him forget his dreams in the -fear that his mine was pinching out. But he persisted, -and one morning when he went to the bottom of the shaft -after the smoke of the blast had cleared away, and lit his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span> -candle, he picked up a lump of yellow ore that glittered -like quartz packed with free gold. For a moment his head -swam. He knelt down and brushed the shattered rock from -several other bits of what looked like virgin gold; and he -caressed them as gently as if they had been the cheek of -his first born. But he was a geologist. He stepped into -the ascending bucket a prey to misgivings. As soon as he -examined his treasure in the sunlight he knew it at once -for chalcopyrite—the great copper ore of the sulphide -zone.</p> - -<p>After he had assayed it he philosophically dismissed regret. -It ran $26 in copper with slight values of gold -and silver. Chalcopyrite ore, as a rule, runs about five -per cent. in copper, its commercial value lying in the immense -quantities in which it may be found, although it is -necessary to concentrate at the mine. If he had struck -one of the rare veins of massive chalcopyrite, averaging -$25 a ton, he would take out, after it was sufficiently developed, -several thousand dollars a day; and, like the -carbonates, it could go straight to the smelter. As a -matter of fact the vein when uncovered proved to be six -feet wide and grew slightly broader with depth. The -miners were jubilant over their “fool’s gold”, and a number -of people came out and asked for the privilege of -looking at what the foreman, Joshua Mann, declared to be -the prettiest pay streak in Montana.</p> - -<p>Gregory found his chalcopyrite during the third month -after he began to investigate the hill. The chamber already -had netted him over a hundred thousand dollars and -grew richer with depth. He put an extra force at work on -the promising shoot.</p> - -<p>In the Primo Mine the luck varied. The two engineers, -Osborne and Douglas, exhausted the first lode, struck a -poor vein, averaging ten dollars a ton, then ran into a body -of the ore netting as high as four hundred dollars. Two -months later they came up suddenly against a wall of -country rock. Undaunted, they drove through the mass, -and struck a lean shoot of chalcopyrite.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“WELL, what do you know about that?”</p> - -<p>Mark’s feet were on the table in the cabin Gregory -had had built for himself on the top of the hill. The news -had just been brought to them by one of the men who had a -faithful friend in the Primo Mine.</p> - -<p>Gregory was engaged in biting a cigar to pieces. He -waited some ten minutes before replying, during which -Mark smoked philosophically. “I think this,” he said -finally, “what those fellows are after is gold, not copper. -Better suggest to them to get out an expert geologist—Holmes -is a good friend of mine—who will tell them to -sink a shaft over on the right, or run a drift from the -original stope. All we need is time.”</p> - -<p>“I’m on. But will they do it? They’re not fools and -what they’re after mainly is cash.”</p> - -<p>“I think they’ll listen to reason. They’re not far from -the boundary line and there’s no possible doubt that the -vein apexes here. The moment they cross the line I’ll get -out an injunction. That would stop them anyhow, hold -them up until their lease had expired. And their chance -is good to recover the vein on the other side. No doubt it -has faulted. Have you noticed those aspens about a hundred -yards beyond their shaft? Where there are aspens -there is water. Now as there is no water in sight it must -be below the surface, and that would indicate faulting. -There might be no ore on the other side, but the chance -is worth taking. Better have a talk with Osborne tomorrow. -He’s the least mulish of the two.”</p> - -<p>“Good. I might offer them some inducement—give -them an extra month or two. Even so we’d win out. But -they’re not the only danger ahead. How long since you’ve -been in Butte?”</p> - -<p>“Not since I began work.”</p> - -<p>“Well, let me tell you that Amalgamated is buzzing.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span> -They’ve got on to the fact good and plenty that you’ve -got the biggest thing in copper that has been struck in -Montana for twenty years. Of course they get figures -regularly from the sampling works. They know you’ve -already taken out half a million dollars worth of ore—net—and -that the new shoot is getting richer every minute. -They’re talking loud about spoiling the market and -all the rest of it. Of course that’s rank nonsense. What -worries them is a rival in Montana. If your mine was in -Colorado or Michigan they wouldn’t care shucks. You -haven’t taken out enough yet to worry them about the -market. But if they can queer your game they’ll do it. -Lucky for you the smelting works need copper just now -as badly as you need them. If it were not for that strike -in the Stemwinder and the Corkscrew you might be having -trouble.”</p> - -<p>Gregory smiled, but as he set his jaw at the same time it -was not an agreeable smile. “I’m in a mood to fight somebody—and -win. I wanted gold and didn’t get it. A row -with Amalgamated would relieve my feelings—although -I’d rather use my fists.”</p> - -<p>“They’re mad, too, because you’ve named your mine -‘Perch of the Devil.’ That’s the old name for Butte, and -they look upon it as a direct challenge.”</p> - -<p>“So it is. And you don’t suppose I’d call my mine -Limestone Hill, do you? I shouldn’t get half the fun -out of it. What the devil can they do, anyhow?”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I’m worrying about. You never know -what Amalgamated has up its sleeve. There was just one -man who was too much for them—for a while—and that -was Heinze. And they got him in the end. I believe you’d -give them a run for their money, and I don’t rank you -second to Heinze or any other man when it comes to -brains or resource. But—well, they’ve got billions—and -the best legal talent in the state.”</p> - -<p>“You deserve a return compliment. You may consider -yourself counsel for Perch of the Devil Mine.”</p> - -<p>“Jimminy! But I’d like a chance at them.” Mark’s -cigar was burning his fingers but he only felt the fire in -his brain. “Do you mean it?”</p> - -<p>“Who else? Watch them. Put spies on them. Fight -them with their own weapons. They’ve spies among my -miners. That doesn’t worry me a bit. I merely mention<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span> -it. Let’s change the subject. I’ve got to sleep tonight. -What’s the news from Europe?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve got Ora’s last letter here; want to hear it?”</p> - -<p>“Good Lord, no. Tell me what they are doing. I sent -Ida five thousand dollars a few days ago, so I suppose -they’re flying high. She cabled her thanks and said they -were both well.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you really know what they’ve been doing?”</p> - -<p>“Not a thing.”</p> - -<p>“Well—let’s see. They went over in June. They did -France, Germany—lot of places in regulation tourist style—incidentally -met several of Mrs. Stratton’s old friends. -Then they went back to Paris, where they appear to have -indulged in an orgy of clothes preparatory to a round of -country house visits on the Continent and in England. -Ora writes with great enthusiasm of—er—Ida’s improvement. -Says you’d think she’d been on top all her life, especially -since she got those Paris duds, and met a lot of -smart people; makes a hit with everybody, and will astonish -Butte when she comes back.”</p> - -<p>“That will please her!” He felt no glow of tenderness, -but some satisfaction that he could gratify the ambitions -of the woman he had married. He was still too keen on -his own youthful dreams, and thankful at their partial -fulfillment, not to sympathise with those of others.</p> - -<p>Mark left him to accept the more commodious hospitality -of Oakley, and Gregory sat for another hour smoking, -hoping for the mood of sleep. But the news had excited -him, and he preferred to sit up rather than to toss about -his narrow bed. The last part of the conversation, however, -had given a new turn to his thoughts. Suddenly, -unbidden, Ora flashed into his mind and refused to be -dislodged. He walked up and down, striving to banish her -as he had done before, when, sleepless, she had peremptorily -demanded his attention. Tonight she was almost a -visible presence in the little room.</p> - -<p>He sat down again and grimly permitted his mind to -dwell upon his long communion with her on the steps of -the School of Mines. He tried to analyse his impulse to -take her there. Unconventional as he was it had never -occurred to him to do such a thing before, and there were -twenty women in the room whom he would have expected -to exercise a more potent fascination had he been in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> -humour for a flirtation. He had been quite honest in -telling Ora that he had taken her out merely to look at -her under the stars, and in intimating that to make love -to her was the last thing in his mind. She had hardly -seemed a woman at all there in the ballroom or when he -first sat at her feet; his mind was relaxed and the “queer” -romantic or poetical streak that he often deprecated had -taken possession of it; if he had had a suspicion of anything -more he would have fled from her at once, for she -was the wife of his friend. As it was he merely had dismissed -Mark from his mind and tried the experiment of -setting a bit of exquisite white poetry to the music of the -stars....</p> - -<p>As often as her memory had assailed him he had longed -to rehearse that scene; the conversation, desultory and personal; -her white profile against the flaming blue sky; the -intensity and brilliancy of her eyes, so unlooked for in her -young almost colorless face; her pink mouth that changed -its expression so often; her curious magnetism, so unlike -that of the full-blooded woman—all of that and something -more; the strange community of mind—or soul?—that -had drawn him on to pour out his secret self into another -self of whose contact he was almost literally sensible,—in -a sudden desire for comprehension that had been like -the birth of a new star in his mental constellation. He -had felt the thrill of her sympathy, her understanding, -then another thrill of perplexity, fear; then the little quarrel, -when he had thought her more adorable than ever, -and no longer bearing the least resemblance to a star-wraith, -but wholly feminine. When he left her it was -with the confused sense that he had sojourned for a bit -with the quintessence of womanhood whom Nature had -cast in a new and perilous mould.</p> - -<p>He went over the hour again and again, hoping to bore -himself, to arrive at the conclusion that it had been a mere -commonplace flirtation with a coquette who was as cold as -she looked. But he found the recaptured scene very sweet. -The power of concentration he possessed enabled him to -shut out the little room and sit at the feet of the woman -whose magic personality had penetrated the barriers he -so jealously had built about his soul and given him the -first sense of companionship he had ever known.</p> - -<p>He was filled with a longing that shook him and hurt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span> -him, to feel that sense of sympathetic companionship, of -spiritual contact, again. And far more. He knew that -she had loved no man, that all the glory and the riches -within her were waiting—and if she had waited, and he -had waited, and they had met unfettered that night——</p> - -<p>He sprang to his feet. His face in the smoky light -looked black.</p> - -<p>“God!” he muttered. “God! Have I fallen as low as -that? If ever I think of her again I’ll cut my heart out. -I hope to God the Amalgamated puts up the hell of a -fight. What I want is a man’s work in the world, not a -play actor’s.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXIV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">A WEEK later, Gregory, who was down in the bottom -of the shaft, received a message by way of a descending -miner that a gentleman from Butte, one Mr. John -Robinson, requested the favour of an interview, and -awaited him in the cabin on the top of the hill. At least -such is the polite translation of the message as delivered: -“Say, Boss, there’s a guy upstairs in your shack what says -he’s from Butte, and’s come out to have a chin with you—some -important. Says his name is John Robinson.”</p> - -<p>Gregory swore under his breath and for a minute his -face looked ugly and formidable. But as he stepped into -the bucket and gave the signal he permitted his expression -to change to one of grim amusement. Mr. Robinson was -one of the brilliant galaxy that guided the legal footsteps -of “Amalgamated”; that powerful company, financed by -Standard Oil, which owned thirty-one of the mines of -Butte openly, and exerted a power in Montana far exceeding -that of state or nation.</p> - -<p>Gregory wore corduroy trousers and coat, and these as -well as his face and hands were white with “muck”, a -mixture of rock-dust and water which spattered everyone -in the vicinity of the ore drills; but he wasted no time to -clean up before climbing to his cabin to meet the ambassador -from Amalgamated.</p> - -<p>Mr. Robinson, a portly gentleman, still young, but manifestly -the victim of easy fortune, rose from his chair before -the stove and greeted his host with beaming smile and -extended hand.</p> - -<p>“My dear Mr. Compton!” he exclaimed. “It is a great -pleasure to meet you again. Of course you have forgotten -me for I was two grades above you in the High, when you -were a little chap——”</p> - -<p>“What have you come here for? Out with it! I’ve no -time to waste. Sit down if you like.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>Mr. Robinson colored angrily. He knew little of the -man with whom he had come to deal, but had always relied -upon his urbanity and Western heartiness to “make a -hit.” He knew Mark Blake and, although he had heard, -like others, of Gregory Compton’s record at the School of -Mines, he had assumed that he was a mere student, and in -other respects more or less the same sort of man as his -chum. This man looked unlike any he had ever met. -He concealed his chagrin, however, and resumed his seat.</p> - -<p>“Really, Mr. Compton, you are somewhat abrupt——”</p> - -<p>“Get down to business. What does Amalgamated -want?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Robinson wisely took the cue.</p> - -<p>“To buy you out.”</p> - -<p>“How much will they pay?”</p> - -<p>“How much do you want?”</p> - -<p>“What do they offer?”</p> - -<p>“Well, between you and me. I fancy they might go as -high as a hundred thousand.”</p> - -<p>“Tell them to go to hell.”</p> - -<p>“How much do you want?”</p> - -<p>“A hundred millions.”</p> - -<p>“Good God, man, are you mad!”</p> - -<p>“If you had permitted me to finish. I should have added—in -other words, nothing. There isn’t money enough inside -of Montana, let alone on top, to buy one acre of this -ranch.”</p> - -<p>“But—you know what most mines are—pockety—yours -may peter out any minute.”</p> - -<p>“All right. I take the chances.”</p> - -<p>“The history of Butte Hill is unique. There will never -be another——”</p> - -<p>“How do you know?”</p> - -<p>“It stands to reason——”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord, man, if you are indulging in wild -dreams——!”</p> - -<p>“My dreams concern no one but myself. I’m satisfied -with my hill and that’s all there is to it.”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid not. Look here, you are a fine young fellow -with a big future—people talk a lot about you—I don’t -want to see you crushed——”</p> - -<p>“You won’t.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>“I’m not here to make threats, but you are not so—ah—unsophisticated -as to imagine that if Amalgamated sets -out to get rid of you, you can stand up against them?”</p> - -<p>“They can’t do a damned thing and you know it. They -might have a few years ago, when a roll could be passed on -the street to a judge who was to deny or grant an injunction -within a few hours, and at a time when there was no -prospect of the referendum and recall; when the people -of Montana took the buying and selling of men in the -legislature as part of the game, all in the day’s work. -But Montana has caught the reform spirit that has been -sweeping over the rest of the country, and she is also getting -pretty sick of corporation power. Now, sir, not only -have I a clear title to this ranch, but I’ve staked off the -entire hill and applied for patents. If Amalgamated -freezes me out of Anaconda and Great Falls, I’ll promote -a company and put up a plant of my own. With nearly a -million dollars in sight besides what I’ve taken out, you -can figure, yourself, how much trouble I’d have in New -York getting all the money I wanted. Amalgamated -knows that, and my ore will continue to be smelted in -Anaconda. Of course if I were within a mile or so of -Butte I might be in some danger. They’d bore through -and then claim that my ore vein apexed in one of their -properties. But I’m too far away for that.”</p> - -<p>Gregory saw the other man’s eyes flash wide open before -they were hastily lowered. Mr. Robinson regarded the -point of his cigar.</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes,” he said. “That’s all very true. Luck is -with you in a measure, but—well, take my advice and don’t -fight Amalgamated. They have in their employ some of -the most resourceful brains in the country—that are always -on the job. Heinze taught them a lesson they’ll never forget.”</p> - -<p>“Let’s drop the subject.” Gregory rose and opened a -cupboard. “Have something?”</p> - -<p>He poured whiskey into two glasses. The men smiled as -they drank, Gregory sardonically, Mr. Robinson ruefully -but with thoughtful eyes. He had what Ida called the -quick-rich face, large and round and fat, and it was an -admirable mask.</p> - -<p>“Like to see the mine?” asked Gregory.</p> - -<p>“Why, yes—do you mean it?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>“Why not? If it had any secrets your spies would have -turned them over before this. Glad to show it to you.”</p> - -<p>They went to the shafthead and descended in one of the -buckets.</p> - -<p>“How far down have you gone?” asked Mr. Robinson, -with an air of polite interest.</p> - -<p>“We found chalcopyrite at one hundred and ten feet, -after a narrow vein leading from the chamber near the -surface, and are stoping.”</p> - -<p>As they left the bucket they were greeted by the cheerful -rhythmical sound of hammers on the drills, and by -the light of the miners’ candles they saw the men working -at different points of the dark chamber, two on a scaffolding -above.</p> - -<p>“Great waste of labor,” said Gregory. “I shall install -a compressor before long as well as electric lighting. Of -course it is only the beginning of a mine.”</p> - -<p>He saw the ambassador from Amalgamated smile, and -turned on his heel. “They’ll be loading the holes in a -minute,” he said. “And I’d like to show you the upper -chamber.”</p> - -<p>When they reached the surface Mr. Robinson declined -to go down into the excavation, but stood on the edge -watching the busy hive below. “Great sight,” he said -admiringly. “How deep have you gone?”</p> - -<p>“About seventy-eight feet.”</p> - -<p>“And the end not in sight!”</p> - -<p>“Not yet, but of course it’s only a chamber.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve taken out close on half a million here alone.”</p> - -<p>“Pretty near. What the devil made you suppose I’d -take a paltry hundred thousand for the hill?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, just to avoid trouble. You have the reputation -of being a very clever man.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks. It’s cold standing round. Wouldn’t you like -to take a walk? How’d you like to see the Primo Mine?”</p> - -<p>As Gregory, who was watching him intently, anticipated, -the man’s face lit up. “I should like it!” he said definitely. -“I hear that they too have struck chalcopyrite. -Lost their gold vein.”</p> - -<p>“They’re nosing after it in another direction. When -the lease is up I shall consolidate with the Blakes.”</p> - -<p>“Quite natural. Of course it’s the same vein?—the -chalcopyrite, I mean.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>“Unquestionably. And it apexes in my property.”</p> - -<p>“Are you so sure of that?”</p> - -<p>“Not a doubt in the world. I struck the top of the -vein twelve feet below the surface. But it will never go -to the courts.”</p> - -<p>“Of course not.”</p> - -<p>Gregory, who looked remote, almost blank, lost not an -intonation of the other man’s voice, nor a flickering gleam -in his cunning eyes. His own head was a little on one side, -which, had Mr. Robinson had the good fortune to know -him better, would have warned him that the young man -for whom he had conceived a certain respect was thinking -hard and to some purpose.</p> - -<p>Douglas, who had a personal liking for his neighbor, -unaware that he had been the chief instrument in the upsetting -of skillful plans for untold wealth, readily gave -permission to visit the mine as soon as the smoke from a -recent blast would permit. Gregory and Mr. Robinson -walked about to keep warm, the former pointing out the -probability of a faulted ore vein under the aspens, and -enlarging upon the great fortune bound to be Mrs. Blake’s -in any case. Then as the man merely remarked, “Yes, -charming woman, Mrs. Blake; thought the night of the -Prom she was one of the prettiest women I ever saw. No -dead easy game there”; Gregory refrained from kicking -him and said innocently.</p> - -<p>“Good thing the law compels creditors to present their -claims within a limited time, or Amalgamated might grab -this mine and bore through to my hill. I understand Judge -Stratton was heavily in debt to the Anaconda Company -when he died.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Robinson’s face turned a deep brick-red, and he -shot a piercing glance into the narrow noncommittal eyes -opposite.</p> - -<p>“Of course—it’s too late for that, but—Oh, well——” -He broke off abruptly and walked toward the shaft as Osborne -beckoned. Gregory stood a moment, his head bent -forward. He had experienced the sensation of coming -into contact with an electrical wave. But he was smiling -pleasantly as he joined his guest at the shaft house.</p> - -<p>After the visit to the mine, during which he amiably -pointed out the dip of the vein toward his own property, -and Mr. Robinson succumbed to the charm which never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> -missed fire when Gregory chose to exert it, they walked -back to the ranch, where a team awaited the ambassador at -the foot of the hill.</p> - -<p>“I’ve had quite a delightful visit,” began Mr. Robinson, -when Gregory interrupted:</p> - -<p>“I’ve no intention of letting you go. You must have -supper at the farm and meet Oakley. I’ll send off the -rig and drive you in myself——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I couldn’t think of troubling you——” Robinson, -red again, stood in almost agitated embarrassment.</p> - -<p>“No train to Butte till nine-thirty. You don’t want -to spend four hours in Pony?”</p> - -<p>“The fact is——” But whatever he had on his mind -died on his lips. He looked sharply into the bland smiling -eyes opposite, and concluded abruptly, “All right. Many -thanks. Glad of the chance to know you better.”</p> - -<p>He paid off the driver of the team and they walked -toward the ranch house, Gregory commenting on Oakley’s -genius for dry farming, and expatiating upon the excellence -of the crops. Mining was not mentioned again during the -evening and the lawyer enjoyed an excellent supper.</p> - -<p>Gregory drove him to Pony, and clung to him so closely -that he had no opportunity to visit the telegraph office or -a telephone booth. They shook hands cordially as the -train moved off. When it was out of sight Gregory sent -a telegram to Mark telling him to take the first train next -morning for Virginia City and meet him in the Court -House. He took his car to a garage and spent the night -in Pony. On the following morning at nine o’clock he -walked into the Tax Collector’s office at the County Seat.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE County Treasurer, who had just come in, looked -blank for a moment, then greeted his visitor with -effusive cordiality.</p> - -<p>“Always glad to see you, Mr. Compton. It does a poor -clerk’s heart good just to look at a man who’s such a -favourite of fortune. Sit down, sir.”</p> - -<p>“I will. I’ve a good deal to say.”</p> - -<p>“Staked off the rest of your ranch? It’ll be some little -time yet before you get those patents through you’ve -applied for already——”</p> - -<p>“What do the taxes foot up on the Oro Fino Primo -Mine?”</p> - -<p>“Ah—What?” The man’s face turned scarlet, then -white. He was a young man, clerically able, but otherwise -insignificant. “Why——” Then he became voluble.</p> - -<p>“The Primo mine, over there near your place? It’s a new -claim, isn’t it? Never heard of it before those fellows -from New York sank a shaft and struck it rich. Why -should there be any taxes before the regular——”</p> - -<p>“You know as well as I do that Judge Stratton patented -that mine and did the necessary amount of development -work, then found it salted and abandoned it. That -was twenty-eight years ago. He forgot it, and so, apparently, -did this office. It was regarded as an abandoned -prospect hole, if anyone thought about it at all. I haven’t -discussed the matter with Mr. Blake, but assume that he’s -merely been waiting for his bill. Now, for reasons of my -own, I’ve telegraphed him to meet me here this morning, -but in case he can’t come I’m prepared to pay the amount -myself. How much?” and he took out his checque book.</p> - -<p>The treasurer looked as if the cane seat of his chair -had turned to hot coals. “Really—that is a large order, -Mr. Compton. Twenty-eight years. It will take time to go -over the records.”</p> - -<p>“I’m prepared to wait all day if necessary.”</p> - -<p>“But why this haste?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>“I have my reasons. They don’t concern you in the -least. Do they?”</p> - -<p>“Why—no—but I am very busy——”</p> - -<p>“Then put someone else on the job. I assume that the -county is not averse to raking in a tidy little sum in a -hurry.”</p> - -<p>“Really——”</p> - -<p>Gregory leaned back in his chair and smiled pleasantly.</p> - -<p>“You had a telephone from Mr. John Robinson this -morning.”</p> - -<p>This time the man started visibly, but he made an effort -to control himself. “I have just come in——”</p> - -<p>“He telephoned to you last night, did he not? What -did he offer you to permit him to pay those taxes today?”</p> - -<p>“I will not be insulted, sir.” The man’s voice was almost -a scream. He heartily wished he had been in training -a few years longer, a graduate of the famous Heinze-Amalgamated -orgy of corruption, or of the Clark-Daly -epoch, when nearly every man in office had been bribed -or hoped to be. “I never heard of Mr. Robinson!”</p> - -<p>“Of course he reminded you that as the taxes are long -delinquent the county has the right to put the property -up at public auction, and that in any case Mrs. Blake -would hardly be given the usual year in which to redeem -it. But why auction when the money is ready to be paid -over at once? How much did he offer you?”</p> - -<p>“I repeat——”</p> - -<p>“I think I can guess. It was five thousand dollars. -I’ll make it ten. Get to work.”</p> - -<p>The man, in whom excitement had destroyed his appetite -for breakfast, and who had started out in life with -the usual negative ideals of honesty, burst into tears. “My -God!” he sobbed. “I’ve heard of the third degree. Your -eyes bore a hole through one. They hurt, I say. To think -that you should come in here and accuse me of taking -bribes.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, hell, cut it out. Montana may be a great state, -but she has her rotten spot like any other. She’s been so -debauched the last twenty years by open bribery that I -doubt if you could lay your hand on a hundred men in -her that haven’t had a roll anywhere from five hundred -to twenty thousand dollars passed to them, and pocketed -it. Estimable citizens, too, but a man never knows his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> -weak spot until he has a wad of easy money thrust under -his nose—or flung over his transom. You are no worse -than the rest. Do you take my offer?”</p> - -<p>The County Treasurer recovered himself with amazing -alacrity. Ten thousand dollars in a lump never had -haunted his wildest dreams.</p> - -<p>“All right, sir. It’s a bargain. But I want bills. No -checks for me.”</p> - -<p>“I congratulate you on your foresight! But there have -been times in this state when checque books were not -opened for months. You shall have it in bills. Where are -the records?”</p> - -<p>“In the vault there.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll sit here. If you attempt to leave the room to -go to a telephone I’ll drag you out on the Court House -steps and tell the story to the town. Now get to work.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll keep my word, sir, and I know you’ll keep yours.” -He went into the vault and appeared later trundling out -a pile of records, then sat down at a table and concentrated -his mind as earnestly as if corruption had never blighted -it. Gregory watched him until Mark entered. Then the -two men went out into the corridor, standing where they -could see the table. Gregory recounted his interview with -Mr. John Robinson, and the present sequel.</p> - -<p>Mark listened with his mouth open, an expression of profound -chagrin loosening the muscles of his cheerful -healthy shrewd face.</p> - -<p>“By George!” he cried. “And to think that was the -one thing I never thought of. Of course I knew about -the delinquent taxes, and intended to pay them when I was -good and ready; but what’s the use of forking over till -you have to? But not to have thought of this! And I -pride myself upon sleeping with one eye open—never was -caught napping yet!” And for five minutes he exploited -his vocabulary of profanity, heaping each epithet upon his -own humiliated head.</p> - -<p>Gregory laughed. “Merely another proof that two -heads are better than one. Do you stand for the ten -thousand? If not I’ll pay half.”</p> - -<p>“I’d pay fifty——”</p> - -<p>“I’ll pay half,” said Gregory definitely. “It means as -much to me as to you.”</p> - -<p>“All right. Jimminy, but they’re clever!” He was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> -calmer and his astute legal brain was moved to admiration. -“But you are cleverer. I’ve always sworn by you. They’ll -get a jolt all right. How did you catch on, anyhow?”</p> - -<p>“I fancy I got a wireless. The other man was thinking -hard and so was I—had practically nothing else in our -minds. Those things will be better explained some day. -Perhaps it was merely a good guess.”</p> - -<p>“You hit the nail on the head all right. I’ll have a letter -to write to Ora next Sunday! She’s had a narrow -squeak, and she shall know whom to thank for it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, cut that out.”</p> - -<p>Gregory went to the bank and drew the ten thousand -dollars, while Mark kept watch. When the bill was finally -made out, Mark examined it critically, and then gave his -personal checque. Three months later the County Treasurer -resigned his office on the ground of ill health and -bought an orange grove in Southern California. There -he and his growing family enjoy a respected, prosperous, -bucolic life.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXVI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">GREGORY had scored against the most powerful combination -of capital in the world. He knew that they -knew he had scored, for he had met Mr. John Robinson as -he descended the Court House steps with the husband of -the delinquent taxpayer, and he felt reasonably elated. -But the keenest and canniest brains are not infallible, and -he underestimated the resources of his mighty and now -open enemy. Three mornings later, while he was still -asleep, Joshua Mann, the miner in his confidence and devoted -to his interests, burst into the cabin and shook -him.</p> - -<p>“There’s the devil to pay, sir,” he cried. “Amalgamated -has staked off a claim between our boundary line -and Primo.”</p> - -<p>Gregory sat up in bed. He never awakened dazed, but -with every faculty alert. “What are you talking about? -The Primo claim almost overlaps the ranch.”</p> - -<p>“So anyone would think. But it doesn’t. That’s the -point. Of course the old stakes of the Primo rotted long -ago. They must have got hold of the original map. But -there it is: a bit of unclaimed land between Primo and -the ranch. There isn’t much more than room to sink a -shaft, but there is, all right. Guess they’ve got us on the -hip.” And having delivered his news he relieved his mind -with profanity, of which he too had a choice assortment.</p> - -<p>Gregory flung on his clothes and accompanied by Mann -walked hastily to the edge of the hill. There, sure enough, -were the four posts and the flaunting notice of a located -claim.</p> - -<p>“Must have done it between shifts last night,” commented -the miner. “Didn’t take long and the moon -helped. By jing!—if I’d been round with a shotgun! -Well, there’ll be fun underground sames on top. The moment -they break through we’ll be ready for ’em. They -may get there but they won’t stay long. The boys will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> -like the fun; and we’d put our last cent on you—know a -winner when we see one.”</p> - -<p>“Put on an extra force and make them work like hell. -<i>We must get here first.</i> When I’m not below you’re boss.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you, sir. I’ll keep ’em on the job, all right.”</p> - -<p>“Promise them extra pay. Come up to me at eight -o’clock tonight and we’ll talk it over.”</p> - -<p>He went back to the cabin and telephoned to Mark to -come out at once. The lawyer arrived in the course of -the morning. The first ten minutes of the interview may -be passed over. Then Mark recovered his equilibrium. He -lit a cigar, demanded a drink, and elevated his feet to -the table.</p> - -<p>“We’ll just thresh this question out, turn the spot-light -on every side of it, present and future. We ought to have -done it before, but that first victory was a little too -heady. Nothing like a defeat to clear the brain. What’s -the first thing they’ll do? They won’t waste time sinking -a shaft if they can help it. That’s the hardest kind of -country rock. They’ll try to buy up the lease from -Douglas and Osborne. I haven’t the lease with me, but -most leases carry a clause which permits the original -lessees to sub-let. I fancy I could get out an injunction -and delay them, however, until the lease expired. But -what they can do, all right, is to bribe those two men to -give them the use of their cross-cut—the one that has -already struck your vein—while they were sinking the -shaft. Do you think they’ll fall for it?”</p> - -<p>“My experience is that most men can be bribed if the -roll is big enough. Osborne and Douglas are pretty discouraged, -although they’ve begun to drift across the fault. -I’ll talk to them, but they’re not square men. Amalgamated -could pretend to be sinking a shaft against time itself, -and be drifting for all they were worth on the Primo vein. -I understand that Amalgamated’s head geologist has been -nosing round for some time and has concluded there’s a -parallel fissure in their claim and that they can ‘prove’ -apex rights.”</p> - -<p>“How deep do you figure they’d have to sink to strike -the vein at that point?”</p> - -<p>“About two hundred feet, owing to that surface bump.”</p> - -<p>“And it apexes here. There’s no getting round that—with -a square deal. But they figure on proving that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span> -they’ve the main vein, and yours is an offshoot? The case -would go to Helena—to the Federal Courts—as Amalgamated -was incorporated out of the state. That’s bad. If -the case could be tried in Virginia City, and there was a -good healthy suspicion that the Judge was expecting to -retire in comfort, you could apply for a change of -venue—result of that odorous chapter in our history when -every judge was on the pay roll of either Heinze or -Amalgamated. Well, at least there’s public opinion to -be considered; the state is waking up. Here is one thing -we can do. If it comes to a knock-out fight and the case -goes to Helena, we can get out an expert geologist of -national reputation, whose record shows him to be above -bribes, and who will be bound to testify that the vein -apexes in your claim. Becke of the School of Mines, will -find the man we want. Now, what’s your first move?”</p> - -<p>“To stope the vein as far as the boundary line, which -of course is my side-line, and as far down as possible. If -they won in the courts I’d have to fork over eventually, -but they’d have to wait for it, and they’ll get a good jolt -underground.”</p> - -<p>“You’re much too calm. What have you got up your -sleeve?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you that when the time comes. It has nothing -to do with the present case. The best thing you can do -now is to make the whole thing public and get public -opinion behind us. They don’t own all the newspapers in -the state, and they don’t own all the newspapers in the -rest of the country, either. Are you on?”</p> - -<p>“You bet. Aren’t you afraid there’ll be a sudden strike -among your miners? After all, Amalgamated is popular -among the mining class. They pay good wages and treat -the men pretty squarely all round. I’ll say that much for -them.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not worrying about that. I’ll raise the wages of -my miners, and they like me. I call every one of them by -his first name, and they’re men—not a Bohunk among -them—and like the idea, too, of a fight under a good captain. -If I’d put an Eastern manager in who’d put on -dog, it might be different, but I’ve worked shoulder to -shoulder with them, and not one of them has stuck harder -to his job. Besides, Mann is devoted to me, and has great -influence over them.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>“Well, Amalgamated can’t queer you in the East, for -you get your roll from the Smelting Works. If that went -back on you——”</p> - -<p>“I’m not worrying about that, either. Torrence is a -friend of mine. He’s also a Mason. If things get hot he’ll -give headquarters a hint that my men, their blood being -up, are as likely as not to make a bonfire somewhere. Get -back to town and give the story to the new evening paper. -Its lay is to fight Amalgamated for the sake of notoriety. -See that their brightest man writes a story for one of the -biggest New York and Chicago newspapers. Now, clear out. -I’ve got to go below.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXVII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE next day Gregory visited a mine in Lewis and Clark -County which recently had shut down, and bought -a compressor at second hand. His miners with the air -drills were soon working at five times the rate of speed that -had been possible with the hand drills. The contractor in -charge of the development work on what was impudently -known as the Apex Mine, had installed a gasoline hoist, -every new device, and as large a force as it was possible at -that early stage to employ with profit. Gregory interviewed -Osborne and Douglas, and obtained profuse assurances, -but Mann soon discovered that there was an increased -force on the Primo copper vein. Their original -lease was nearly up but they had accepted Mark’s offer of -two months’ grace; an offer he deeply regretted now, but -the papers were signed and sealed. They made a feint of -pushing the drift across the fault, but as they employed -a small force at that point there was little room for doubt -that they had been amply compensated for a doubtful -undertaking.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile work on the great surface chamber of Perch -of the Devil Mine was drawing to a close. It had proved -to be a hundred feet long, thirty feet wide, and seventy feet -deep, and had netted half a million dollars. Some time -since one of the larger houses on the West Side in Butte, -built by a millionaire while still faithful to Montana, but -whose family now spent twelve months of the year in -Europe, New York, or California, had been thrown on the -market for less than a third of its cost; new millionaires -are not as plentiful in Amalgamated Butte as of old, and -that unique camp is still a perch, even for those that make -moderate fortunes; if no longer for the devil. It never -will be a favourite roost for the gamecock’s hens and -chicks. The hotels and “blocks” are always overcrowded, -and even bungalows are in demand by the energetic but -impermanent young engineers and managers of the various<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span> -companies; but “palatial residences,” built by enthusiastic -citizens who either died promptly or retired in favour of -their families, are a drug on that great market they -helped to build. When the Murphy house, therefore, was -advertised for sale Gregory bought it for Ida and cabled -her the news together with five thousand dollars Mark had -recently made for him on the stock-market.</p> - -<p>Above these and other expenditures, he now had half a -million dollars to his credit, but he wanted a million -more. The new vein was very rich for chalcopyrite, but -its depth was problematical, and it might drop in values at -any moment. If his belief in his hill was justified and -there were huge primary deposits below, there would be -no end to his riches; but it would take a year or more to -determine that point; and meanwhile he wanted at least -a million and a half, not only to meet the possible expenses -of litigation, but to mine at depth and to open up his other -claims in case Amalgamated, when it reached the chalcopyrite -vein, claimed that it apexed in their property, -got out an injunction, and forced him to cease work -on it.</p> - -<p>But he had another and to him a still more vital reason -for wishing to make a great sum of money. Half a million -dollars, particularly when spectacularly acquired, alters -a man’s position in his community at once, and the readjustment -of his own mental attitude toward life follows as -a matter of course; particularly in a country where money -not only talks but rules. He was now treated, when business -took him to any of the towns, as a permanent capitalist -of the great state of Montana; moreover, his romantic -attitude toward his hill having been inevitably dampened -by its yield of mere copper, his appreciation of its heavy -contribution to his bank account was wholly practical. -He not only began to forecast himself as one of the small -group of front-rank millionaires which Montana has donated -to the American Brotherhood of Millionaires, but -to be sensible of the sudden and active growth of those -business instincts he had always known were dormant -in his brain. It had needed but the rousing of his fighting -instinct, the success of its first move, and the swift countermove -of the enemy, to awaken the permanent desire, not -alone to pit his brains against Amalgamated, but to show -the world what he could do. In short he was on his mettle,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span> -and conscious for the first time of his powers and ultimate -ambitions.</p> - -<p>He had found his mine by an accident. Nature had -flung it into his lap. He was now determined to prove that -he could make money with the resources of his brain as -rapidly as the more famous of the Montanans had made it -in the past, when opportunities were supposed to be more -numerous. There never was a time when opportunity did -not coincide with the man, and of this Gregory was contemptuously -aware when he dismissed the usual Wall -Street resource as commonplace, beneath the consideration -of a man living in a state whose resources had barely been -tapped.</p> - -<p>When live brains of peculiar gifts think hard and uninterruptedly -on a given subject they become magnets. Gregory -paid frequent visits to Butte and Helena, talking -casually with many men. In less than a fortnight he found -his cue, and, accompanied by a civil engineer, disappeared -for a week.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXVIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">TWENTY years ago it was the ambition of every Californian, -no matter how blatant his state pride, to -move to New York. Today he hopes to live and die in -California, the main reason being that the women of his -family find themselves members of a comparatively old and -settled community, enjoying many advantages and no little -importance; given frequent trips abroad they are content -to remain at home in houses of modern architecture, -and to command a social position that New York has -granted to only two or three of California’s heiresses and -millionaires. Montanans, at present, those that are rich or -merely independent, are in the migratory phase of the -earlier Californian; but as New York has extended to -them an even more grudging welcome than it did to aspirants -from the more picturesque state, they visit it, -after successive social disappointments, merely for its -dressmakers and those exterior advantages that may be -exchanged for gold; the majority migrate to “The Coast,” -more particularly to Southern California. There they not -only find relief on the sea-level from an altitude that plays -havoc with the nerves, but, in the mushroom Southern -cities, social position may be had for the asking, and every -advantage for growing children.</p> - -<p>Gregory had heard of a man named Griffiths, owner of -the Circle-G Ranch, a tract of land covering seventy-five -thousand acres, who was anxious to sell and move to -Los Angeles. As the ranch was practically waterless and -thirty miles from a railroad, his only chance of disposing -of it was by means of an alluring bargain. He was willing -to sell the ranch, his large herds of horses and cattle, -and bands of sheep for half a million dollars.</p> - -<p>Gregory returned to Butte without the engineer, went -directly to Blake’s office, and laid his programme before his -astounded friend and legal adviser.</p> - -<p>He had found Griffiths a man unaccustomed to business<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> -but with his mind set upon retiring with a capital of -half a million dollars. His efforts in money-making -hitherto, had been confined to acquiring rather than -disposing of property, and his trading consisted of converting -live stock into such cash as was necessary for the -purchase of necessities not raised on his property. But -he was nearly sixty, his wife and four daughters had besought -him for years to sell out and take them to California, -and he was now persuaded that he was as tired of -life in the wilds of Montana as they were. He was, however, -possessed of one fixed idea, to leave each of his -“women folks” a hundred thousand dollars when he -died. Therefore would he not take a cent less than five -times that amount for his fine property; but although he -inserted the advertisement that had caught Gregory’s eye, -so far he had been unsuccessful. One man found the ranch -too far from a railroad, another no good for farming, save -intensive, as it was without a water supply; still another -was willing to pay only a third of the amount down, with -easy terms for the remainder.</p> - -<p>“It’s five hundred thousand cold cash,” said Mr. Griffiths -to Gregory; although in a burst of confidence later he -had said: “What the dickens I’m goin’ to do with that -great wad of money when I get it beats me! It turns me -cold to think of it.”</p> - -<p>Gregory had remained on the ranch two days, inventorying -its stock, buildings, and natural resources. He estimated -that seventy-five per cent. of the property was plow-land, -the rest “rough, wooded, and rolling.” There were -several sets of buildings on it, and the cattle and sheep -sheds were in good condition. The cattle, sheep, and horses -could be sold on a rising market for $200,000, thus reducing -the cost of the land to four dollars an acre. After asking -and receiving an option for thirty days, Gregory intimated -that he would like to extend his trip into the mountains -in search of float, and hired two riding horses and -a pack horse from his host, besides buying of him the -necessary food supply. Incidentally, in the course of -conversation he learned that there was a river “somewheres -in the mountains between thirty and forty miles -northeast.”</p> - -<p>He received more minute directions from a prospector -regarding this body of water, which was the object of his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> -trip, and six miles from Circle-G entered a ravine some -twenty-five miles long. After climbing one of the mountain -sides that bounded the ravine, descending and crossing -another gulch, and climbing again, he and his companion -saw, far below, between the narrow walls of a -cañon, an abundant mountain stream.</p> - -<p>The engineer proposed to divert this body of water to -Circle-G Ranch. Through the nearest mountain side he -should drive a tunnel six hundred feet long, and cross -the short and crooked ravine with a thousand feet of flume -to a point where it would be necessary to drive another -tunnel, about two hundred feet in length. This would conduct -the diverted body of water into the long ravine, down -which it would flow to a point six miles above the ranch. -Here the engineer purposed to construct a dam thirty -feet high for the purpose of raising the water to an elevation -from which it would flow through a canal or “ditch”, -to the more level portions of the ranch. A rough estimate -of the cost of this project, from headworks to ditch was -$300,000.</p> - -<p>He returned to Circle-G, told Mr. Griffiths that he had -found no float, but nevertheless liked the neighbourhood -and was inclined to buy the ranch and sell it in small -farms to settlers. He would return to Butte and think -it over. If he concluded to buy he would pay a half million -dollars in cash, and, if Mr. Griffiths were agreeable -borrow back $300,000, for improvements, giving a mortgage -at seven per cent. on the forty thousand acres he proposed -to make attractive for settlers. He gave no hint of his -irrigation project. Griffiths had known of this body of -water, but it had never occurred to him nor to anyone else -to divert it. He was a stock-grower, pure and simple, with -no “modern notions”, and Gregory had no intention of -enlarging his vision. He would pay the man his price, but -he had the ruthlessness of his type.</p> - -<p>He had more than one motive for offering to borrow -back $300,000 of the payment money; not only should he -need it at once, but he feared, after Mr. Griffiths’ confidence, -and knowing his kind, that the old man would withdraw -in terror at the last moment, preferring the safe -monotonies of his ranch to the unknown responsibilities of -a capitalist; like others he had heard that it is sometimes -easier to get money than to invest it. Gregory told him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> -to think it over and write to the Daly and Clark Banks in -Butte, and to the National Bank of Montana, in Helena, for -information regarding his own standing and financial condition. -He left the entire family in as hopeful a frame of -mind as himself.</p> - -<p>On confirmation of the report that forty thousand acres -could be put under water by gravity, he should close the -deal at once, file a notice of appropriation for forty -thousand miner’s inches of water, and begin work on the -first tunnel. He then intended to lay the matter before -one of the great land selling organisations of Chicago or -New York, proposing that he be paid $1,400,000 for the -forty thousand acres of irrigated land, subject to mortgage; -demonstrating that the land so purchased for thirty-five -dollars an acre (or forty-three and a half dollars including -the mortgage) could readily be sold to settlers -for one hundred, if railroad facilities were provided. As -a further inducement, to cover the cost of railroad construction, -he would execute a deed and place it in escrow, -as a guarantee and evidence of good faith, and accompanied -by a contract authorising the land selling company -to dispose of the remaining thirty-five thousand acres at -ten dollars an acre. The construction of the railroad would -add materially to the value of the unirrigated land also, -and a pledge of this portion of the property as security -that the railroad would be built would be acceptable, because -the estimated cost, with liberal allowances, was -under $350,000.</p> - -<p>The sum paid him by the land selling company would, -in addition to the large sum realised by the sale of the live -stock, give him at least $1,600,000, or $1,100,000 over the -half million originally invested.</p> - -<p>Mark listened with his eyes and mouth wide open.</p> - -<p>“By George!” he exclaimed, when Gregory finished. -“Did you dope all that out yourself? That’s the talk of -a man who’s been in the land business for years. How did -you ever think of it?”</p> - -<p>“What’s a man’s brain given to him for—to turn round -in a circle? Do you find the plan feasible?”</p> - -<p>“It’s feasible all right—given a cold half million in -hand and brains behind it—plus imagination. That’s where -you win out. You’ll be the richest man in Montana yet.”</p> - -<p>“I intend to be.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>“And the first man born here to make one of the old-time -fortunes.”</p> - -<p>“I hadn’t thought of that!”</p> - -<p>Mark dismissed enthusiasm and put his own astute brain -to work.</p> - -<p>“The hitch will be with your land selling company. -They might be dazzled, even convinced, but they’re cold-blooded, -and they never have any too much cash on hand. -What special line of argument do you propose to hand -out?”</p> - -<p>“Several. I didn’t go to the Circle-G Ranch without -making certain investigations beforehand. In the first -place Government statistics prove the productivity of Montana -soil without irrigation. I am not the first to discover -that this same soil when irrigated is insured against crop -failure. In the second place a study of the U. S. Government -reclamation projects convinced me that I could, all -things being favourable (such as water supply and gravity), -put a large tract of land under water at a very small -cost compared to the cost under the plan of procedure -adopted by the Government. By the plan I have mapped -out I can sell both land and water for less than the cost of -water alone under the Government direction. But I have a -final inducement which I believe will bring the selling -company to terms. Those forty thousand acres when irrigated -will be peculiarly adapted to the growing of seed -peas. This is the best soil in the country for peas. Now -the seed houses of the country are in great need of large -quantities of seed peas, and the selling company could -easily interest these concerns to the extent of securing their -financial backing. They would no doubt buy large blocks -themselves. Such an opportunity has never been offered -them—forty thousand acres under the ditch, and adequate -railroad service. This will enable the selling company to -raise an initial payment to me of $200,000. And if I -guarantee the ditch and the railroad they are in a position -to make the same guarantee to settlers to whom they may -make sales in a retail way. They’ll have no difficulty getting -$100 an acre retail; and the seed houses no doubt -would invest and become real owners, thus saving the profit -now paid to farmers who grow for them under contract. -Got it?”</p> - -<p>“I get you. But why put all of your own money into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> -the ranch? Ora has taken something like half a million -out of that mine. I could let you have that.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll risk no woman’s money. Of course I shouldn’t -put my own in if I didn’t believe it to be a dead sure -thing, but there’s always risk.” He took a packet of -papers from his overcoat pocket. “Here are the option -and abstract of titles. I wish you would examine them. -Say nothing of all this at present—nor for a long time -after. I’ll spring it when I’m ready—which will be after -I’ve disposed of the irrigated land. Will you go out with -me when I return to Circle-G? I shall want you to attend -to the details of sale and to the location of the water -rights.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll go all right. And I’m only living to see what -you’ll do next.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXIX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">MEANWHILE the story of the Compton-Amalgamated -war was the sensation not only of Montana but of the -entire country. The Butte morning papers ignored it, but -the <i>Evening Bugle</i> reaped a golden harvest. The editor -himself, who was the Montana correspondent of one of the -great New York dailies, made his reputation with the most -sensational “stuff” that had gone from the Northwest -since Heinze retired from the field. The hill swarmed with -reporters. Two Eastern newspapers sent special correspondents -to the spot. In less than a fortnight the public -knew all there was to know and far more. Perch of the -Devil Mine was photographed inside and out, and its uncompromising -ugliness but added to its magnetism; which -emanated from a “solid hill of metal just below a thin -layer of barren soil.” The general reader, who admired -the colour of copper, conceived that it emerged in solid -sheets.</p> - -<p>Gregory refused to be interviewed or photographed, but -was snapshotted; and his long sinewy figure and lean dark -face, his narrow eyes and fine mouth, won the championship -of every woman partial to the type. The women’s papers, -as well as those run by radicals, socialists, and conservative -men of independent tendencies, advocated his cause against -the wicked trust; nor was there a newspaper in the country, -however capitalised, that resisted the temptation to -make him “big news.” To his unspeakable annoyance he -began to receive letters by the score, most of them from -women; but he lost no time employing a secretary whose -duty was to read and burn them. He appreciated his fame -very vaguely, for between his mine and the innumerable -details connected with his new ranch, he had little time -to devote to newspapers or his own sensations. But although -personal notoriety was distasteful to him and -reporters a nuisance, he felt more than compensated by -the success of his publicity scheme, and the assurance that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> -it was causing the enemy unspeakable annoyance and apprehension.</p> - -<p>He paid a visit to Chicago after work had begun on -the first tunnel, and spent several days with the interested -but cautious officials of the greatest of the land selling companies. -Like all silent men, when he did talk it was not -only to the point, but he used carefully composed arguments -incisively expressed. He indulged in no rhetorical -flights, no enthusiasms, no embellishment of plain facts. -He might have been a mathematician working out an abstract -problem in algebra; and this attitude, combined with -his reputation as a “winner”, and the details of his -cautious purchase of Circle-G Ranch, finally impressed the -company to the extent of sending one of their number, -who was an expert in land values, to the ranch. Gregory -accompanied him, took him to the mountain river, showed -him the engineer’s report, pointed out the undeviating -slope between the river and the ranch, and the land’s rich -chocolate brown soil of unlimited depth. The upshot was -that the expert returned to Chicago almost as enthusiastic -as if the original scheme were his. After consultation -with several of the seed houses, the land company agreed -to buy on Compton’s terms, and to pay $200,000 down, -$500,000 at the end of sixty days, and $700,000 at the end -of four months.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Ora and Ida had asked for an extension of leave, as -they had not yet “done” Italy, Spain, and Egypt, and -both husbands had given a willing consent; Gregory from -sheer indifference; Mark because he was so busy that he -no longer had time to miss his wife. He refused to give -Ora’s picture to the enterprising correspondents, but they -found no difficulty with the local photographer. They had -not been long uncovering the romantic history of the Oro -Fino Primo Mine, and it made a welcome pendant to the -still recourseful “story” of Perch of the Devil. Ora’s -beauty, accomplishments, charm, family history, as well -as her present social progress in company with her “equally -beautiful friend”, the wife of the hero of the hour, became -public property.</p> - -<p>Altogether, Butte, after several years of oblivion, was -happy and excited. So far, although mineralogically the -most sensational state in the Union, and the third in size,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> -she had given to the world but four highly specialized individuals: -Marcus Daly, perhaps the greatest mine manager -and ore wizard of our time; W. A. Clark, who accumulated -millions as a moving picture show rolls in dimes; F. -Augustus Heinze, who should be the greatest financial -power in America if brains were all; and the Sapphic, -coruscatic, imperishable Mary McLane. An outstanding -quartette. But Daly was dead, Clark was but one of many -millionaires, submerged in New York, Heinze was reaping -the whirlwind, and the poet was nursing her wounds. -Montana was in the mood for a new hero, and the American -press for a new and picturesque subject to “play up for -all he was worth.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ORA and Ida were sitting at one of the little round -tables in the pretty green and wicker smoking-room of -the Hotel Bristol in Genoa, drinking their coffee and smoking -their after-luncheon cigarettes, when Ida, who was -glancing over the <i>Herald</i>, cried,</p> - -<p>“Aw!”</p> - -<p>Ora looked round in surprise. Ida often relieved the -strain when they were alone by relapsing into the vernacular, -but was impressively elegant in public.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” she asked apprehensively. “Anybody -we know dead? That is about all the news we ever get -in these Continental——”</p> - -<p>“Dead nothing. Greg’s struck a bigger bonanza than -I had any idea of, and Amalgamated is after it. They -tried to corral your mine for delinquent taxes, but got -left. Found a bit of unclaimed land between your claim -and the ranch and staked off. They’re sinking a shaft and -mean to prove that the vein—Greg’s—apexes in their -claim. Wouldn’t that come and get you! Just listen.” -And she read aloud an embellished but not untruthful tale. -“Glory, I hope they don’t get him! That would be the -end of all my fond dreams.”</p> - -<p>“I have an idea that Mr. Compton was born to win. -At all events you have your new house in Butte, and all -the money you can spend for the present.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but I want money to spend in Butte, live in that -house, and make things hum. However, I guess you’re -right. I’ll bet on Greg. Here come the letters. Hope -you get one from Mark as I’d like some real news.”</p> - -<p>A page with letters in his hand had entered the room. -He served the young American ladies first as their tips -were frequent and munificent, particularly Ora’s. The -other people in the room were English and Italian.</p> - -<p>Ida’s letters were from Ruby and Pearl. Ora’s from -Mark, Professor Becke, and two of her English friends.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span> -She opened her husband’s first. It contained an account -of the threatened loss of her mine, her narrow escape, and -Gregory’s rescue. It was graphically written. Mark -fancied himself as a letter writer and never was averse -from impressing his clever wife.</p> - -<p>Ora’s face flushed as she read; she lost her breath once -or twice. She pictured every expression of Gregory’s -eyes as he perforated the clerk; her heart hammered its -admiration. She was too thoroughly Montanan and the -daughter of her father to be horrified at bribery and corruption. -For the moment she forgot gratitude in her -exultation that he had triumphed over the mightiest trust -in the country. But before she finished the letter she -sighed and set her lips. She handed it deliberately to -Ida.</p> - -<p>“Here is an account of the first development,” she said -casually. “It will interest you.”</p> - -<p>Ida read the letter hastily. “Well, they caught him -napping after all,” she said with profound dissatisfaction. -“He dreams too much, that’s what. He’s got a practical -side all right, but he isn’t on the job all the time. I’d -like to write and tell him what I think of him but guess I’d -better keep my mouth shut.”</p> - -<p>“It was Mark’s fault as much as Mr. Compton’s—more. -He should have had a new map made of my claim; or, if -he did have one made, he should have studied it more carefully. -Anybody to look at it would assume that it touched -the boundary line of your—Mr. Compton’s ranch.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Greg’ll get out of it some way. When he does -sit up and take notice he doesn’t so much as wink, and so -far as he knew or cared the rest of the world might have -waltzed off into space. Lucky it hit him to buy the house -and send that last five thousand before he snapped close -on Amalgamated——”</p> - -<p>“What does Miss Miller have to say?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing much but ecstasies over my house. The -Murphys had taste, it seems, so I won’t have to do a thing -to it. Say, Ora, don’t you feel as if you’d like to go -back?”</p> - -<p>Ora looked up and her face turned white. “Go back? -I thought you wanted to stay over here for a year, at least. -We haven’t half seen Europe yet—to say nothing of -Egypt.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>“Yes—I know—but sometimes I feel homesick. It isn’t -only that I want to make Butte sit up; but—well, I suppose -you’ll laugh, but I miss the mountains. I never -thought much about them when I was there, but they’ve -kind of haunted me lately.”</p> - -<p>“There are mountains in Europe.”</p> - -<p>“I know, but they’re just scenery. Our mountains are -different.”</p> - -<p>Ora looked at her speculatively. It was not the first -time that Ida had surprised her with glow-worms flitting -across her spiritual night, although she seemed to be so -devoid of imagination, or what she would have called superfluous -nonsense, as to inspire her more highly organised -friend with envy. Her mental and artistic development -had been rapid and remarkable but uneven. She yawned -through the opera and symphony concerts. She would -always be bored by pictures unless she could read a -“story” in them, although she had now mastered the -jargon of art as well as most of her quick-witted country-women. -In Florence and Rome she had “struck” after -one morning of picture galleries, but she showed a spontaneous -and curious appreciation of the architecture of -the Renaissance. Ora had expected the usual ecstasies -over the old castles of England and Germany, but although -Ida admired them heartily, and even declared they made -her feel “real romantic,” it was for the Renaissance palaces -of France and of the cities they visited in Italy that -she reserved her instant and critical admiration. Ora, -who like most imaginative people played with the theory -of reincarnation, amused herself visioning Ida in Burne-Jones -costumes, haunting the chill midnight corridors of -a Florentine palace, dagger in hand, or brewing a poisoned -bowl. If Ida possessed a rudimentary soul, which suffered -a birth-pang now and then, Ora had caught more than one -glimpse of a savage temper combined with a cunning that -under her present advantages was rapidly developing into -subtlety. But Ida indulged too little in introspection to -develop her inmost ego other than automatically. To -mental progress she was willing to devote a certain amount -of labour. Whenever they were not on a train or visiting -at country houses, she spent an hour every morning with -a teacher of either French or Italian; German she had -refused to “tackle,” but, to use her own phrase, she “ate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span> -up” the Latin languages, and her diction was remarkably -good. If picture galleries replete with saints, virgins, -madonnas and Venuses bored her, she returned more -than once to the portrait rooms in the Pitti and the -Uffizi galleries, haunted the museums with their mediæval -and Renaissance furniture and tapestries, and eagerly -visited every palace to which the public was admitted.</p> - -<p>And she proved herself as adaptable as Ora had hoped. -In England she bored her way through the newspapers -until she was able to sustain her part in political conversation. -She soon discerned that English people of assured -position and wide social experience liked a certain degree -of picturesque Americanism when it was unaccompanied -by garrulity or blatant ill-breeding. She amused herself -by “giving them what they wanted,” and was a more -pronounced success than Ora, who was outwardly too -much like themselves, yet lacking the matchless fortune of -English birth. But this did not disturb Ora, who made -more real friends, and derived endless amusement observing -Ida. On one occasion they visited for a week at one -of the country homes of a duke and duchess that had entertained -Mrs. Stratton many years ago, and Ida had enchanted -these bored but liberal products of a nation that -led with too much indifference the Grand March of Civilisation -with her Western “breeziness” and terminology -(carefully selected), combined with her severely cut and -altogether admirable gowns, and her fine imposing carriage. -From this castle she went on with Ora to one leased by -an ambitious American more English than the English, -who permitted herself to indulge in a very little fashionable -slang, but had consigned the American vernacular to -oblivion in the grave of her ancestors. Here Ida was -languid and correct (save at the midnight hour when she -sought Ora, not only for relaxation but the instructions -she was never too proud to receive); her English slang -(which she had “swapped” for much of her own with her -various British admirers) was impeccable, and she flirted -like a stage duchess.</p> - -<p>She estimated the various aristocracies she entered under -Ora’s wing as a grand moving picture show run for the -benefit of Americans, and was grateful to have an inside -seat, although nothing would have bored her more than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span> -to take a permanent position in their midst. With their -history, traditions, psychology, she concerned herself not -at all; nor did she in any way manifest a desire to cultivate -the intellectual parts of her shrewd, observing, clutching -brain. She threw away as many opportunities as she devoured, -but on the whole proved herself somewhat more -adaptable than the usual American woman elevated suddenly -from the humbler walks of life to the raking searchlights -of Society. In Berlin and Vienna she repeated her -social triumphs, for, although Americans do not penetrate -far below the crust of Continental society, smart men -abound in the crust; Ida graduated as an adept in flirtation -with agreeable and subtle men of the world, yet keeping -the most practical at arm’s length with a carefully calculated -Western directness and artlessness that amounted to -genius.</p> - -<p>In France and Italy the dazzling fairness of Ora had -its innings. A vague suggestion of unreality, almost morbid, -and a very definite one of unawakened womanhood, -combined with a cultivated mind, ready wit, and air of high -breeding, gave her a success as genuine as Ida’s and somewhat -more perilous. But she soon learned to tread warily, -after her theories of European men had been vindicated by -personal experience. In fact, after the two girls had ceased -to be mere tourists they had taken the advice of one of Mrs. -Stratton’s friends and enlisted the services of an indigent -lady of title as chaperon. Lady Gower had been little -more than a figurehead but had served her purpose in -averting gossip; and now that her charges were tourists -again had returned to her lodgings in Belgravia. As maids -also are a doubtful luxury when travelling they had recently -dismissed the last of a long line.</p> - -<p>On the whole the two girls had got on together amazingly -well. They had had their differences of opinion, but -Ora was too proud to quarrel, Ida too easy-going and -appreciative of the butter on her bread. It was fortunate, -however, that Gregory had been able to provide his wife -with an abundance of money, for she was far too shrewd, -and far too interested in prices, to remain hoodwinked for -long. After three months of sight-seeing and <i>pensions</i> -both had been glad to leave the tourist class and mingle in -the more spectacular life of the great world, and that had -meant trousseaux in Paris. There Ida had “gowned”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> -herself for the first time, and her delight in her fashionable -wardrobe had been equalled only by her satisfaction -in driving a bargain. At present they were resting in -Genoa, a favourite city of Ora’s, after a hard ten weeks -in Rome.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXXI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THEY finished their letters and went up to their rooms -to rest, for they had “done” several churches and -the Campo Santo during the morning.</p> - -<p>“Thank the lord,” said Ida, as they walked up the -stairs after waiting ten minutes for the lift, “there are no -picture galleries in this town that one <i>must</i> see. The rest -of the programme is streets and architecture, which is -worth while. These internal streets make me feel as if I -were going right through to China, or whatever is underneath -Italy. Genoa, before it had any houses on it, must -have looked like Last Chance Gulch, Helena, Montana.”</p> - -<p>They had reached their connecting rooms. Ida extended -herself on a sofa, Ora made herself as comfortable as possible -in a chair and lit a cigarette.</p> - -<p>“Say, kid,” pursued Ida, “you smoke too much. Follow -my illustrious example. I go just so far and no -farther—one cigarette after each meal because it makes -me feel nice and aristocratic. You’re the kind that lets a -habit run away with you. I deliberate. You drift. See?”</p> - -<p>Ora laughed. “Funny thing, nature! Anyone would -say quite the opposite of each of us.”</p> - -<p>“It’s like life. Not a blooming thing is just what you -figure it out beforehand. Here I wanted the Collins house -and I’ve got the Murphy. And Greg, that I figured on -being a millionaire by the time I got back, has gone and -tied himself up in litigation, or is heading that way.”</p> - -<p>“You ungrateful wretch! You came to Europe ‘figuring’ -on making a thousand dollars serve for the entire trip and -you already have had eleven thousand. Most rules work -both ways. But you don’t really want to go back?”</p> - -<p>“I do. It’s been growing for some time and now it’s -ingrowing. You can get enough of anything and I’ve had -enough of Europe. Besides, I’d like to get back to a -country where lifts are elevators and don’t go to sleep a -few times on the way up; where it doesn’t take an hour<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> -to draw a bath, which it does wherever it’s pronounced -băth; where you can drink plain water, and don’t have -cheese or garlic or grease in all your food; where you are -never taken for what you ain’t; where you are never -cheated and overcharged because you’re an American; -where you don’t have to see a sight a minute; where you -don’t have to talk up to people who don’t give a hang -about anything that interests you; where you are not -looked upon as a rank outsider by ancient aristocrats and -concierges, no matter how polite they try to be; and where -the word democracy means what it is. Over here every -socialist—I’ll bet every anarchist—would give his front -teeth to be a king, a duke, or even a rich bourgeois. That’s -what’s the matter with all of them. Give me America, -above all, old Montana. A little money and a lot of ‘go’ -are all you need out there.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Ida! Ida! will you never appreciate the glory of -Europe? Is that all you have got out of it?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve squeezed it dry, all right, and I’ll take back a lot -more than I figured on. Watch me when I’m swelling -round Butte, imitating the chaste simplicity of a British -duchess—minus the duds they generally sport. There’s -nothing like Europe to teach you what’s what—especially -the way we’ve seen it—put you wise in ten thousand different -ways, and fill your mind with pretty pictures—that -ain’t in galleries. But after all it’s just a course in the -higher education, and you’re outside of it all, every minute. -To live you’ve got to go back to your own country.”</p> - -<p>“That’s true enough!”</p> - -<p>“Could you marry a European and live over here for -the rest of your life and never see those mountains again -that just seem to belong to you—or even screaming old -Butte?”</p> - -<p>“No!” Ora spoke with uncommon vehemence. “I -couldn’t!”</p> - -<p>Ida raised herself on her elbow and looked at her friend -shrewdly. “I can’t see that you’ve enjoyed yourself so -much over here. It seems to me that you’ve got your fun -out of showing me round. You had more real gaiety in -you in Butte. You may not know it but you look pretty -sad sometimes.”</p> - -<p>“Life is sad—mighty sad.”</p> - -<p>“Is it? That’s a new one for me. I think it a pretty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> -fine old proposition. What went wrong with you—early -in the game?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing. Travel is tiring, I’m not as strong as you -are.”</p> - -<p>“You’re as tough as a pine knot, for all you look like a -lily expecting to be decapitated by the first wind. Well, -you won’t tell if you won’t, but I’ll tell you what you need. -You’ve never been in love and that’s a sort of ache in -women until they’ve taken a good dose of the only medicine. -I rather hoped you’d met your fate in the Marchese -Valdobia. He’s the sort you once told me was your type, -and you seemed to like him pretty well for about five -weeks in Rome. The lord knows he was tall enough, and -dark enough, and thin enough, and looked as if he had a -beastly temper besides. Then you turned him down good -and hard. I was sorry——”</p> - -<p>“My dear Ida! Are you regretting that I did not -have a liaison with Valdobia? I remember your virtuous -sentiments in Butte. Perhaps it is time for us to return!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m all right. But I’m that advanced I wouldn’t -mind you having an affair the least bit if it would make -you happy——”</p> - -<p>“Happy! What happiness do you imagine there can -be when you are absolutely at the mercy of a man?—when -you never know whether you will see him again or not?—a -woman has no real hold on a lover. Matrimony with -the man you love may have its agonies, but at least you -live with him, you make his home; his interests are yours, -he is dependent upon you for comfort and sympathy; -there are a thousand ways in which you can endear and -enchain him. But a lover, whom you meet in secret for -one purpose only, who can give you no real companionship—oh, -no! I shall not court that particular form of suffering. -Life is hard enough without that! I’ve known women -with lovers and so have you.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t say it would last forever; nothing does, for -that matter. But at least you would live for a little while—come -down off the unearthly plane you roost on now. -Whatever you went through, it would leave you all-round -developed and philosophical—in a frame of mind to see -and accept life as it is. You need hardening. I was born -hard. You’re as soft as mush, for all you look like those -marble bores in the Vatican, and as romantic as if you’d<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> -spent all your life in a castle in a wood with the drawbridge -up. I believe you even keep a diary——”</p> - -<p>“Diary——” Ora sat up straight.</p> - -<p>“I’ve seen and heard you writing by the yard, late at -night, mostly. It wasn’t letters, because we always get -those off our chest just after breakfast—fine system. Unless -you’re a budding author——”</p> - -<p>“They were letters!” Ora, who was strung up to a -high pitch and merely smoking for relief, felt a defiant -impulse to indulge in the impudence of confession. “I’ve -written yards and yards of letters to a man——”</p> - -<p>“What? And you don’t send them off!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know him.”</p> - -<p>“Good lord, what next? An ideal, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>“Yes—that’s it.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean you never saw him—anyone to suggest -him—it? What gender has an ideal, anyhow?”</p> - -<p>“I saw him—talked with him, once. I said I didn’t -know him.”</p> - -<p>“And you’re in love with him!”</p> - -<p>“Not in the least. He simply jolted my imagination, -gave me the idea of what might be—have been. I—it is -hard to express—I feel in a sort of mental—spiritual?—affinity -with him. When I write I have a queer sense of -absolute communion—as if we were talking—I suppose it -is because I know he would understand if I could send -the letters——”</p> - -<p>“And you’ve never sent one?”</p> - -<p>“Of course not. It is—well, just a little private one-sided -drama I’m living; a sort of book of which I am -the heroine. While I write I am alive. The rest of the -time I wonder what I was put on this earth at all for.”</p> - -<p>“Look at here, Ora, the best thing we can do is to send -for old Gower and go back to Rome. You’ll be having -nerves first thing you know. No, we’d cut out the annex. -I’m dead sick of her, and everybody knows we’re all right; -in Rome they don’t care, anyhow. You could have a real -romance. We’d take one of those old palaces, haunted, -moth-eaten, with one of those antique porters that looks -as if he’d let out midnight lovers ten centuries ago, and -beds that twenty centuries have died in. That would just -suit you. I’d enjoy a second-hand romance first rate, and -be the trusted friend.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>“Ida, you are incorrigible! Even if I cared a penny -about Valdobia do you suppose I would betray my husband?”</p> - -<p>“Rats! Don’t you suppose Mark has a girl down on -The Flat? Greg has, I’ll bet—well, don’t look as if you -were going to faint. What’s the use of being a dog in -the manger? Mark’ll be the same old devoted when you -get back.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, do keep quiet! And I wish I might never see -Butte again. I think I’ll write to Mark and ask him to -move to New York. He now has plenty of money to wait, -and it wouldn’t take him long to establish himself anywhere——”</p> - -<p>“I thought you loved Montana—wanted to do something -big for her——”</p> - -<p>“We’ve been away a long time. I fancy I’m weaned. -It is only once in a while that I feel a pull—merely because -I was born there.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Mark won’t leave, believe me. He’s Western -from the cut of his back hair to his love of the free-and-easy. -No New York for him except the all-night two or -three times a year. Butte’s your fate unless you leave -him.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll never do that, but I’d like to stay over here for -another year or two. Remember, I was brought up in -Europe—and—and—I <i>might</i> meet the man—If you want -to know I’ve tried. I’d never go as far as you suggest, -but I could get something—companionship, perhaps, out -of it.”</p> - -<p>“When you meet the man you’ll forget all you ever -knew, and men don’t companion for a cent when there’s -nothing in it. I haven’t been turning them inside out -these last six months for nothing; what I don’t know -about men wouldn’t fill a thimble. Why don’t you round -up your letter-man?”</p> - -<p>“That is forever impossible.”</p> - -<p>“Do give me a hint who he is. I’m half dead with -curiosity. Where’d you meet him?”</p> - -<p>“Keep quiet. I’m going to take a nap.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Ida, yawning and stretching herself, “so -am I, if you’ve closed up. When we get back to Butte -and there’s no more sight-seeing on, we’ll have to cut out -these siestas or we’ll get fat, and then good-bye.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXXII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THEY went out at half-past five and joined the dense -sauntering throng under the arcade of the Via Venti -Settembre. All Genoa turns out at this hour with apparently -no object but to amble and stare. The two girls, particularly -Ora, who appeared to be the only blonde in the -city, were almost mobbed. Every other man spoke to -them, or rolled his eyes and twirled his moustache. But -they preserved a lofty and blank demeanour, and were -practically unmolested. The Genoese works almost as hard -as the American during a few hours of the day and haunts -the afternoon throngs only to amuse himself indolently. -If one woman ignores him he passes on philosophically to -the next.</p> - -<p>“Lord, but I’d like to get a move on!” exclaimed Ida. -“Why don’t they <i>walk</i>? Is this what they call exercise? -And I wouldn’t mind their ogling and speaking if they -only wouldn’t pinch. I’ll give this side a rest, anyhow.” -And she dexterously changed places and drew -Ora’s other arm through her own.</p> - -<p>“I love them, pinches and all,” said Ora, warmly. -“They are like children in one way, and yet they really -know how to rest and enjoy themselves, which is more -than our men ever do. Even the working-class enjoys -life over here. I wonder why they emigrate?”</p> - -<p>They had passed round the corner of the arcade and -entered the Piazza Defarrari, working their way toward -the Via Roma. Ora stopped before one of the cantinas -behind the statue of Garibaldi. “Look at those men drinking -their cheap wine and gossipping. They look as if they -hadn’t a care in the world.”</p> - -<p>“Give me the hustling American,” said Ida contemptuously. -“I don’t call this life. They’re just drifting along -waiting for the Angel Gabriel to blow his trump. What -makes them so lazy and contented? They know they can<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> -go just so far over here and no farther. Ancient history -made classes and masses, and while they have fun, some -of them, thinking they’re socialists, they know that most -of them will stay put. But the only real fun in life is -getting ahead of the next fellow and knowing that your -chance is as good as any.”</p> - -<p>“What a truly American sentiment!”</p> - -<p>“I’m American, all right, and that’s the reason I want -to get back to Butte, where things hum every minute, and -there’s no real poverty. Fancy calling these left-overs -‘middle-class’ like our miners. Every one of those looks -forward to being President of Amalgamated one of these -days, or striking it rich in the mountains.”</p> - -<p>“There are different varieties of happiness, fortunately -for several billions that are seeking it.”</p> - -<p>“Do you know,” said Ida, abruptly, as they turned into -the Galleria Mazzini from the Via Roma, “it’s queer, but -I feel more at home in Italy than I have anywhere else -over here, although I had a really better time in England -and Germany and Austria. I don’t hit it off much with -Italians, but—well—I have a more settled-down feeling.”</p> - -<p>“That’s odd!”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’ve been romancing about you a bit, fancying -you a reincarnation of one of those fascinating abominable -women of the Renaissance, who had innumerable lovers -and poisoned their husbands, or rivals. You would look -quite wonderful in those long velvet or brocaded gowns, -with sleeves that come down over the hands, and pearls -twined in your hair.”</p> - -<p>“That’s not a bad idea. Maybe I was, although I don’t -see myself with lovers or thinking anybody worth swinging -for. Several American reincarnations must have changed -my habits; but I don’t mind looking the part. Good idea—when -we get back to Paris I’ll have several of those -Renaissance costumes made. They won’t go out of style, -either. Greg can fork over the pearls later.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll be a picture. I wish I had thought of it before. -Don’t you think you are capable of jealousy?”</p> - -<p>“Nixie. To be jealous you’ve got to have a fearful -crush; and thank the lord I don’t love anybody but myself -and never shall.”</p> - -<p>“That is often the secret of love for some man—of most<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span> -men’s love for a woman, I imagine! Perhaps it creates -the most powerful delusion of all.”</p> - -<p>“Well, none of it in mine. Me for the great society act. -I’m going to be the grandest dame in Montana, and when -I’ve wrung that dry I’ll move on to New York. Greg says -he won’t, means to live and die in Montana, but I guess -he’ll manage to stand it if I desert him occasionally. If -he’s got a hill full of copper he won’t know whether I’m -in Butte or the Waldorf-Astoria. You look better, Ora; -you ought to stay out of doors more and watch these funny -old crowds. You’ve got a nice colour, and smile as if you -meant it—Oh! that’s it, is it? Well, thank goodness, I’ve -got a front seat——”</p> - -<p>“What on earth are you talking about?”</p> - -<p>“Pretending you haven’t seen him? I like that!”</p> - -<p>Ida felt the arm within her own stiffen. “Valdobia! -Don’t leave me for a moment.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t, although, believe me, the rôle of gooseberry -is no cinch.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve played it for you often enough.”</p> - -<p>“You have, and I’m a dead game sport. Lord! he looks -more bad-tempered than ever. Probably every meal he’s -eaten since you left has disagreed with him, including -macaroni.”</p> - -<p>“He’s not bad-tempered. Hot-tempered, no doubt, but -I’m sure he’s kind and quite amiable. He’s rather grim, -and of course he’s lived pretty hard and is disillusioned. -That is all.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right, stand up for him. Bad sign—or a good -one! He’s seen us!”</p> - -<p>Valdobia’s eyes flashed recognition, although he lifted -his hat with unsmiling lips, and made no effort to push his -way through the crowd. Ora favoured him with a glance -of chill indifference as she returned his salutation, but she -noticed that he made the young Genoese patricians look -provincial. He not only was tall and gracefully built, his -carriage military, but he had the air of repose and -distinction, as well as the keen, tolerant, detached glance, -of the man who has spent his life in the great world, and, -on the whole, subordinated his weaknesses to his brain. It -was evident that he was dressed from Conduit Street, and -at first glance, in spite of his dark colouring and fine -Roman features, his nationality was not obtrusive; he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span> -looked the cosmopolitan, the man-of-the-world, who might -have made his headquarters in any one of her great capitals. -As a matter of fact, while in the diplomatic service -he had lived in several, including a short sojourn in Washington; -but after coming into a large inheritance through -the death of his father and of an energetic uncle who had -boldly gone into business and prospered, he had travelled -for a year in Africa and India and then settled in Rome.</p> - -<p>If he was too indifferent or too wise to hurry he managed -to make his way consistently toward them, although -a crowd had formed about a bulletin board to read the -latest news from the seat of war. He stood opposite them -in three or four minutes and shook hands politely with -both.</p> - -<p>“At last!” he said. “I called at the Bristol, and have -been looking for you ever since.” He had a warm deep -voice but his tones and manner expressed less than his -words.</p> - -<p>“You don’t have to look far in Genoa,” said Ida, giving -him a cordial smile and handshake to cover Ora’s chilling -welcome. “If the whole town turns out for what it calls -exercise, each quarter seems to keep to itself. We see the -same faces every day.”</p> - -<p>Valdobia fell into step beside Ida, who at once began -to chatter questions about their common acquaintance in -Rome. She grinned mentally as she rattled off titles, recalling -the wiry little figure of her mother at the wash-tub, -and her father with his “muck”-spattered overalls -and blue dinner pail; but Valdobia, too accustomed to -titles to note whether Americans were lavish in their use -or not, replied naturally and refrained from glancing at -the woman who had given his self-centred ego the profoundest -shock it had ever received. He was now thirty-eight. -In his early manhood he had loved with the facility -and brevity of his race. Then for six years, after his -return to Rome, he had been the lover of a brilliant and -subtle woman ten years older than himself, who, for a -short time, inspired in him the belief that at last he had -entered the equatorial region of the <i>grande passion</i>. This -passed off, and she became a habit, which lasted until, with -the decline of her beauty, she lost much of her finesse, as -well as her control over both temper and complexion. It -had taken him a year or more to regain his liberty, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> -when he did, after scenes that he fain would dismiss from -his memory, he determined to keep it. His long experience -with a woman of many characteristics and one or two -noble qualities, before she gossipped and inflamed them to -death, had thoroughly disillusioned him, and since his -release his gallantries had been lighter than in his youth. -When he first met Ora Blake he was attracted merely by -her cold fairness, redeemed from classic severity by her -brilliant seeing eyes, which so often sparkled with humour, -and amused at her naïve and girlish attitude of happiness -in temporary freedom; so successfully practised by herself -and Ida. He had supposed her to be little more than -twenty, and had wondered if her husband were even -busier than the average American, to let her run away so -soon. When she told him she was twenty-seven, and had -been married seven years, he found himself speculating on -the temperament of a woman whom time and life had left -untouched. Shortly after, he received a biographical -sketch of her from Mrs. O’Neil, also of Butte, who was -wintering in Rome and entertaining such of the aristocracy -as she met at her Embassy. It was some time since his -thoughts had dwelt upon any woman when alone, and when -he found himself sitting by his window in the evening -dreaming over his cigar instead of amusing himself in the -varied life of Rome after his habit, he was at first amused, -then angry, finally apprehensive. He had no desire for -another period of torment, followed by the successive -stages that finished in impatience and satiety.</p> - -<p>He tried flirting with her, making her talk about herself, -focussing her mind on the years she seemed determined -to ignore, in the hope of discovering that she was -commonplace. But Ora, who found him more interesting -than any man she had met in Europe, also a conquest to -be proud of, continued to make herself interesting—and -elusive—with a skill and subtlety that so closely resembled -the frank ingenuousness of the West, that the man accustomed -to the patented finesse of European women experienced -the agreeable sensation of renewing his youth. -He felt himself falling in love like a schoolboy, and meditated -flight. He remained in Rome, however, and made -a deliberate attempt to fascinate her. Then one day -when Ida was pouring tea at the Embassy, chaperoned -by Lady Gower, he found Ora alone, indisposed after a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span> -sleepless night, and lost his head. Ora, who was in no -mood to let him down gently and reserve him for conversational -pleasures, dismissed him abruptly, and had not -seen him since. She had regretted her impatience, for he -was always worth talking to, her feminine liking for his -type was very strong, and she had amused herself fancying -that if she had not permitted another man to rule her -imagination she might have found her fate in this -one. But as he had presumed to follow her when she -had banished him summarily, she greeted him with -cool civility and resumed her study of the kaleidoscopic -crowd.</p> - -<p>Suddenly she moved her head in a fashion that suggested -the lifting of one of the little ears that lay so close -to her head and were not the least of her points. The ear -was on the side next to her companion in arms. Could it -be that Ida was flirting with Valdobia? Mrs. Compton’s -manner and speech were as correct as her smartly tailored -suit and hat of black velvet and the calm pride of her -bearing, but she was talking with sweet earnestness to -the Roman about himself and expressing her plaintive -gratitude that he had cared to follow them to Genoa, where -she at least was very lonely. It had not been possible for -Ora to see the flash of understanding these two had exchanged -after Valdobia’s first puzzled glance, but she did -see many heads turn to look at the handsome and well-matched -couple. Even the Italian women did not smile -ironically as they so often did at the too obvious American -tourist. Ida not only had delivered herself of every exterior -trace of commonness, but would no more have appeared -on the street looking the mere tourist than she -could be betrayed into adopting the extreme of any new -style by the persuasive Parisian. She saw Ora’s head -come round her shoulder, and her voice deepened to the -soft husky tones she reserved for decisive moments with -her agitated admirers, then dropped so low that only the -man, with his head bent, could hear the words. At this -stage of the flirtation’s progress Ora noted that the approving -glances of the sympathetic Italians were accompanied -by significant smiles.</p> - -<p>They had reached the end of the long Galleria for the -second time and turned. The crowd was thin. The restaurants -were filling. Shutters were rattling down over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> -the windows of the tempting shops. Said Ora abruptly,</p> - -<p>“I think I’d like to dine in one of these cafés—the Milano. -The Bristol dining-room is a little Ritz, and it’s a -bore to dress.”</p> - -<p>Valdobia leaned forward with a pleasant smile. “I -should like nothing better, but you must dine with me.”</p> - -<p>“Why not? What do you say, Ida?”</p> - -<p>“I’d love it. The food is good and the crowd more -interesting.”</p> - -<p>They entered the bright café and seated themselves at -one of the side tables, the two girls on the bench against -the wall, Valdobia in the chair opposite. A number of -the tables were already occupied, several by stout comfortable -couples, but the majority by men with their hats -on, playing dominoes or reading the evening papers. Opposite -the door was a long table set forth with the delicacies -of the season: raw meat, winter vegetables, oranges, and -kicking lobsters.</p> - -<p>Valdobia, assiduously waited upon by the proprietor -himself (whose wife, surrounded by several of her children, -smiled benignantly from the cashier’s desk), ordered a -special dinner; a light soup (the table d’hôte soup was a -meal in itself), spaghetti, inimitably cooked veal in brown -butter, salad, freshly caught fish, ices, and a bottle of the -host’s most precious Chianti.</p> - -<p>“I never could have pictured you in a Bohemian restaurant,” -said Ora, smiling brilliantly into the face of -her host. “Have you ever been in a place like this before?”</p> - -<p>“About as often as I have weeks to my credit.” He -looked steadily into her snapping eyes. “You have studied -Italians to little purpose if you’ve not discovered their -partiality for their native cooking. These plain little -cafés are the last strongholds in our large cities. Even -the restaurants where the business men go for luncheon -are queer imitations of London or Paris.”</p> - -<p>“We like to come here because the men pay no attention -to us. It is men of your class that know how to make us -thoroughly uncomfortable.”</p> - -<p>“Quite so. Every class has its own code. In ours it -may be said that the women set the pace. They demand -open admiration and we are gallant enough to give it. -This class bothers itself little about the unattainable, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span> -merely throws you the passing tribute they would throw -to the Queen, or to a beautiful work of art.”</p> - -<p>“Which they appreciate. Would that our working-classes -did. On this side the masses are as likely as not -to spend their holidays in a picture gallery or a museum. -Ours can think of nothing better than a saloon.”</p> - -<p>“That may be the fault of your great country. The -crude mind is easily trained. Give your working-people -more galleries and museums and fewer saloons—or cantinas -with their light wines, and beer gardens, instead of rum -and whiskey. But it is unfair to expect a new and heterogeneous—almost -chaotic—country to compete with twenty -centuries.” Two pairs of American eyes flashed, and he -continued suavely. “I fear that the old standards of -my own people are in danger of being demoralised by -socialism and the new craving for raw spirits. That is -becoming a serious question with us.” He turned to Ida. -“It is far more odd to see you without your usual train -of admirers—both of you. How do you stand it?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, we’re merely recuperating,” said Ida lightly, and -smiling into his admiring eyes. “We will return to the -fray refreshed and more dangerous than ever.”</p> - -<p>“How much longer shall you stay here?”</p> - -<p>“A week or two. Then we go on to Paris. After that -Egypt, Spain, or some other old place.”</p> - -<p>“But not without seeing Monte Carlo? You must let -me show it to you.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose that is an old stamping ground of yours?”</p> - -<p>“I go once a year, although, like a good many other -pleasures, it has lost its irresistible fascination. But I -shall enjoy seeing you catch the gambling fever.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not very susceptible to microbes, but I don’t doubt -Mrs. Blake will gamble the clothes off her back. That -would be the good old Montana style.” And she told him -something of life in Butte before it indulged in one of its -spasms of exterior reform, and of the present life on The -Flat.</p> - -<p>“I must see your Butte,” he said enthusiastically. “An -English friend of mine has a ranch in Wyoming, and I -may go out there next year.”</p> - -<p>Ora stood this until the fish had been removed; then she -emerged conclusively from the cold and nervous apathy -that had possessed her for several days, and began to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> -sparkle. Ida was no match for her when she chose to -exert herself, for that native product only really shone -when able to employ her own rich vocabulary. She subsided -with a smile and devoted herself to the excellent -dinner, while Ora entertained their fastidious host with -bright little stories of the adventures they never failed to -experience, being two young women who travelled with -their eyes and ears wide open. Valdobia, now satisfied -that he had recaptured the interest of his lady and been -in a measure forgiven, gave her all his attention; although -not a man disposed to conversational exertion, he took -pains to interest her in return. They discussed the news -of the day and the latest books; and his deference to her -opinions was very flattering, although he did not permit a -flash of his eyes to betray his passionate delight at being -once more with this woman whom he thought lovelier and -more desirable than ever. Ora wore a blue velvet suit, -not too dark, and a little hat of the same shade with a -long feather that nestled in her warm ashen hair. Her -cheeks were as pink as her lips, and she held her chin up -as if drinking in the elixir of her native air. She looked -very young and wholly without guile.</p> - -<p>She continued to enchant him until they were in the -Bristol, and the lift stopped at the first floor. Then she -abruptly bade him good-night, and ascended to her room, -while the others went into the smoking-room and ordered -coffee at one of the smaller tables.</p> - -<p>“Well?” said Ida, smiling. “I’m not the sort that -talks in circles except when I’m on parade. I’m glad -you’ve come. Ora was fearfully down about something. -I believe she likes you better than any man she has met -over here. A little flirtation will do her no end of good.”</p> - -<p>Valdobia coloured. He was as practical as most Italians, -but by no means given to the direct method of speech with -women. Love simplifies among other things, however, and -after a moment he put down his cup and looked her -straight in the eyes.</p> - -<p>“I think I shall take you into my confidence,” he said. -“I know that you are honest and that I can trust to your -discretion——”</p> - -<p>“You bet.”</p> - -<p>Ida relaxed her spine with her speech and settled herself -comfortably.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>“And you could give me great assistance. I want to -persuade your friend—may I call her Ora to you? It is -a beautiful name and I have said it so often to myself——”</p> - -<p>“Ora goes.”</p> - -<p>“I want to persuade Ora to divorce her husband and -marry me.”</p> - -<p>“Aw—that is—Good Lord!” Ida sat up straight and -nearly dropped her cup. “That’s a large order.”</p> - -<p>“Rather. But I—now—want nothing less. I am sick -of the other sort of thing, even if she were not too good -for it. I want to marry—and she is the only woman I -ever have wanted to marry.”</p> - -<p>“Hm. You Italians haven’t the name of being the best -husbands in the world. How long would you be faithful -to her?”</p> - -<p>“I have no intention of ever being anything else.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what they all say—think, no doubt.”</p> - -<p>“I shall be.” He spoke with intense conviction.</p> - -<p>“Well, perhaps—you’ve lived your life. I should think -you men would get mighty sick of dancing about and -never coming to anchor. But divorce? There’s Mark, you -know.”</p> - -<p>“Her present husband?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and a rattling good fellow. He married Ora -when she didn’t know which way to turn, and she is really -grateful to him, and as fond of him as if he were her own -brother. I don’t think she’ll turn him down.”</p> - -<p>“Women have been known to desert their brothers before -this! I mean to make her love me, and if I do—how she -could love a man!—I fancy I can persuade her.”</p> - -<p>“I like Mark and I don’t want to see him thrown down. -He’s not what you might call in love with Ora—he got -discouraged pretty early in the game. But he’s fond of -her and proud of her, and he has ambitions. She could -help him a lot.”</p> - -<p>Valdobia lit another cigarette.</p> - -<p>“Better have a liaison and get over it. Then he’ll never -know, and what men don’t know don’t hurt them.”</p> - -<p>“I shall do nothing of the sort. I mean to marry her. -Will you help me or not?”</p> - -<p>“Ora’d look fine all right in that old palace of yours. -It would suit her a long sight better than Butte, or even -Washington—let alone Helena; Mark wouldn’t mind a bit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> -being Governor of Montana. Have you got a castle in -the country?”</p> - -<p>“I have several.”</p> - -<p>“Fine! I’d visit you every year.”</p> - -<p>“No one would be half as welcome.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve been away from America so long and seen so -much, and Butte seems so far away, that I’ve kind of lost -my bearings. If you’d come over there and lay your -siege, I guess I’d fight you to the last ditch.”</p> - -<p>“Permit me to remind you that we are in Italy, a state -several centuries ahead of yours in civilisation, even if we -lack your facile divorce laws. I know something of Mr. -Blake from Mrs. O’Neil. Can you picture Ora finishing -her life with him?”</p> - -<p>“No, I can’t, and that’s a fact. I wonder there hasn’t -been a grand bust-up before this. It will come some day. -Why not now?”</p> - -<p>“Quite so.”</p> - -<p>“And Mark could get a dozen girls to suit him better, -make him nice and comfy. He’ll never get any real companionship -out of Ora, fine as she’s always treated him. -A man like that needs a running mate.”</p> - -<p>“I shall waste none of my mental energy in sympathy -for Mr. Mark Blake. American husbands, so far as I have -been permitted to observe, are accustomed not only to -being deserted for months and even years at a time, but to -periodical divorce.”</p> - -<p>“It’s not quite as bad as that, but Mark has the elasticity -of an india rubber ball, and that’s a fact.”</p> - -<p>“Good. Will you help me?”</p> - -<p>Ida hesitated an instant longer, then, dimly conscious -that her answer in a measure was dictated by a profound -instinct she made no attempt to define, exclaimed, “It’s a -go. I believe it will be all for the best. Shake.” And she -gave his hand a hearty grasp.</p> - -<p>“You are a brick,” he murmured, with a sensation of -gratitude he had rarely experienced. “But there is one -thing more. Please give her no hint of this, for the present -at least. Tell her, and make her believe it, that I have -not come here to trouble her, that she need never fear to -trust herself alone with me. Tell her that I only want to -enjoy her society and make things pleasant for her.”</p> - -<p>“Right you are. Ora’s not the sort you can rush. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> -don’t overdo it and make her think you’ve altogether got -over it. Sometimes that piques and works out all right -and sometimes it don’t. She’s as proud as Lucifer and -might get over her fancy for you while she was still mad.”</p> - -<p>“You do know your sex! I’ll use all the art I’ve ever -acquired.”</p> - -<p>“Respectful devotion without humility, and pained self-control. -That’s your lay.”</p> - -<p>He laughed heartily. “We’ll drift for the present.”</p> - -<p>“Well, now, drift out. I want to go up and sound her. -I’m simply expiring to know what she’s thinking about -at the present moment.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXXIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">WHEN Ida reached her room she put her ear to the -closed door leading into Ora’s, and heard the -scratch of the hotel pen.</p> - -<p>“May I come in?” she asked softly.</p> - -<p>There was a rattle of paper, the snap of a trunk lid, -and then Ora said in tones as dulcet, “Come in, dear.”</p> - -<p>Ida entered and found Ora extended on the sofa.</p> - -<p>“What did you run off like that for?” she asked, as -she selected the least uncomfortable of the chairs in the -fresh and artistic but hardly luxurious room. “The poor -man was as glum as a funeral until he’d had two cups of -coffee and several cigarettes.”</p> - -<p>“I was tired. And I really think he has followed you.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t think anything of the sort. His heart was -in his patent leathers when he met us, and I just tided -him over. He gave me a message for you. Shall I deliver -it?”</p> - -<p>“Why not?” asked Ora languidly.</p> - -<p>“He wants me to impress you with the fact that he’s not -come here to make love to you, just to enjoy your exhilarating -society——”</p> - -<p>“Is he over it?” Ora’s eyes flashed upward.</p> - -<p>“Not exactly, but he has no intention of making any -more breaks, and being cut off from the solace of your -company now and then—principally now, I guess. He’s -got to see you or go off to India and shoot tigers. But -he’s really much nicer than I had any idea of, and is anxious -to give us a good time. Life is a desert, kid, with -all the men we know in the next town. Men were invented -to amuse us, so do continue to thaw. You did bravely -when you got started, and no harm will be done. If you -can’t fall in love with him you can’t, and he’s prepared<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span> -to take his medicine. He’s a good sport. A man like that -can behave himself when he sets his mind to it.”</p> - -<p>“Is he indulging in the hope that I can be made to care -for him?”</p> - -<p>“Men are so conceited that they always hope for the -best. But he’ll not worry you, that’s the point. It will -be fine to have him pilot us about; perhaps he’ll get us -inside of one of those old palaces in the Via Garibaldi. -And he’ll take us to Monte Carlo. How do you feel about -it?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t care whether he goes or stays, but on the whole -I am rather glad he is here. He has brains and I like to -talk to clever men that have seen the world.”</p> - -<p>“And don’t keep me hitched to your elbow all the time, -for mercy’s sake. I hope he’ll dig up some friend of his -here who will beau me. Give him a chance and remember -he is a gentleman and has passed his word.”</p> - -<p>“Is this a plot?” Ora laughed. “Don’t worry. I -won’t bore you any more than I can help. I fancy I am -quite safe, for he never really can see me alone, as we -have no salon here. Besides, in long days of sight-seeing -he’ll no doubt recover, and we shall become merely the -best of friends.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I’m figuring on. Now, cut out those -love letters and come down to earth.”</p> - -<p>Ora sat up in her indignation. “Love letters? I’ve not -written a line of love.”</p> - -<p>“What in the name of goodness do you write about then -to this lover in the air?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I just—<i>talk</i>—about everything that interests me—the -things one says to a familiar spirit—that is if there -were such a thing—but otherwise has to keep to oneself -always.”</p> - -<p>“And you don’t call them love letters, because you leave -out the ‘darlings’ and ‘dears’? Good thing the man will -never see them. Good thing for more reasons than one. -Men hate long letters. If I’d disobeyed orders and inflicted -Greg, I never would have got that house and the -extra ten thousand.”</p> - -<p>“And yet he was in love with you once?”</p> - -<p>“Thought he was. Just had the usual attack of brain -fever men always get when they can’t have the girl they -want without marrying her. Lasted about a month. Greg<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span> -cares too much for other things for any woman to last -more than a few minutes in his life, anyway. Just the -husband for me.”</p> - -<p>Ora was swinging one foot and looking at the point of -her slipper.</p> - -<p>“I shan’t destroy those letters,” she said finally, “because -they have meant something to me that nothing in -this life ever will again. But I’ll write no more.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>They remained in Genoa for ten days longer. Valdobia, -who had taken rooms at the Miramare, gave them a dinner -and they met several of his Genoese friends, but none of -the men was blest with Ida’s critical approval. Her demand -for the admiration of men was merely a part of her -insolent pride in her beauty and magnetism and her love -of power; she had little natural coquetry, and wasted no -time on a man who bored her or was not “worth while.” -She particularly hated soft dark eyes, and the two unfortunate -young scions of the aristocracy of Genoa invited -by Valdobia, had peculiarly lovely orbs that they rolled -exceedingly. But it was a merry party, for no people -can be gayer than the Genoese, and they played baccarat -until two in the morning; a new experience for the Americans. -During the hours devoted to the game Ida had the -satisfaction of observing that two pairs of flaming dark -eyes had apparently forgotten the existence of woman. -Even Valdobia, who held the bank twice and lost a good -deal of money, became very keen on the table, although -he kept Ora beside him and taught her all that one can -learn of a game of chance. The stakes ran very high toward -the end, Valdobia lost several thousand francs, and -Ora five hundred. She would have lost more, no doubt, -for she found it an interesting and exciting experience, -but Valdobia dictated her stakes, and she meekly obeyed. -Ida, who had been wary, came out even.</p> - -<p>“You don’t catch me dropping good money when I -don’t get something good enough in return,” she announced -as they entered her room at the hotel. “It’s fun -all right, but like most things that are off on a side-track -from your main purpose in life, just to be nibbled at. I -prefer bridge anyhow.”</p> - -<p>“Do you? I think I like the game of chance. I don’t -mind losing——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>“Well, I do. It made me sick to see you lose five hundred -francs, and if it hadn’t been for Valdobia you’d have -lost as much more. I couldn’t sleep a wink if I’d lost a -hundred plunks.”</p> - -<p>Ora laughed. “It would be great fun to see you really -excited and carried away about something. I hope you -will have visions of sudden wealth at Monte Carlo and -forget the world.”</p> - -<p>“Not much!” said Ida contemptuously. “I’ll be rich, -all right, but it’ll be because I take no chances. I knew -whom I was marrying, and he’ll make the millions. You’ll -never see me spend a cent unless it brings in good interest, -like clothes, and tips, and entertaining. And the only -thing that could excite me would be if Amalgamated got -the hill, and Greg had to go to work to make his fortune -as a mining engineer. But I’m not the kind to get -wrinkles worrying. Lord! Don’t the people in this town -ever go to sleep?”</p> - -<p>Their windows were close to the Via Venti Settembre, -although on a short side street. It is possible that the -afternoon throngs are replaced by a different set in the -evening, and these again by lovers of the night; but certain -it is that the more inviting of the streets are rarely deserted -until dawn, and the later the revellers the more noisy -they are; following a universal law of nature. When the -light-hearted Genoese has sung all his songs to the stars -and chattered at the top of his voice for several hours, -he stands still and screams. The girls put their heads out -of the window, wondering if anyone were being murdered -below. A group of young men were standing in a circle -and outscreaming one another.</p> - -<p>Ida slammed the long windows together, fastened the -catch and covered them with the heavy shutters. “Me for -beauty sleep,” she said; “I like air all right, but I like -quiet better. Good night.”</p> - -<p>Ora left her window open and lay thinking for a long -time. She liked the new excitement of gambling, and she -was divided between regret and gratitude that for the last -five days she had enjoyed thoroughly the society of the -man who would have been the chief exponent of the type -she admired had he possessed more primitive strength of -personality; had he been obliged to develop his native -forces in a fierce battle with life instead of having been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span> -from, birth one of her favourites. But he was a man, brave, -unsoftened by luxury, quick, keen, resourceful, modern -to his finger-tips, an almost perfect companion. What -more could any woman ask? Ora wondered just what it -was she did ask. She felt very grateful to him, however. -Her regret was that her unreal life seemed to be over, or -slept profoundly when she perversely and tentatively summoned -it. That life had been terrible in its intensity, only -retreating now and again when real events crowded, or -she deliberately tried to interest herself in a new and -charming personality. But all men sooner or later faded -to the transparency of wraiths beside the vital figure that -dominated her imaginative life. Would Valdobia accomplish -the miracle? At least he gave her peace for the -moment. She fell asleep smiling and deliberately thinking -of him.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXXIV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ON the following day they lunched at a large restaurant -opposite the Bourse, a favourite resort of the two -girls; it amused them to watch the keen clever business -men of Genoa at their midday meal in leisurely conversation -and enjoyment of their excellent food and wine; -contrasting them with the American who took five minutes -for lunch, achieving dyspepsia instead of nutriment, and -possibly accomplishing less than a race which has been -commercial and acquisitive since the dawn of its history. -There is little real poverty in Genoa and great wealth.</p> - -<p>They had come too late to secure one of the tables overlooking -the Piazzi Defarrari, and were facing the windows, -at one of the longer tables, when Valdobia, who sat opposite, -rose with a word of apology and went behind them -to greet a man with a pleasant English voice.</p> - -<p>“Lord John Mowbray,” whispered Ida. “He’s all -right, but, lord, I’ll be glad to get back to a country where -a few men are plain mister.”</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, as the Englishman bent over her with a -delighted word of greeting, she lifted her heavy eyes to -his with the expression of one whose long suppressed hopes -have blossomed at last.</p> - -<p>“I wish I could join you,” he said ruefully, “but I am -with a party of friends.”</p> - -<p>“Get rid of them after lunch,” murmured Ida, “and -come with us. We are going to explore all those interesting -little streets down in the gulch—that is to say the -ravine, or whatever it was once—and it would be jolly to -have you along.”</p> - -<p>“I will,” he said, with fervour, “and I know what a -gulch is. My brother is ranching in Wyoming, and I may -join him there in a few months. I believe he also has -interests in Butte.”</p> - -<p>“Good! We’ll begin to get friendly right now. So<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span> -long.” Valdobia returned to his chair, and she asked, -“Is he a brother of your Wyoming friend?”</p> - -<p>“He is, and no doubt we’ll go out together. Your -Northwest must be the realest thing left in the world.”</p> - -<p>“It’s that, all right. And it will be no end of fun having -you out there!” She smiled sardonically, and Ora -coloured and moved restlessly. She was vaguely aware -of a new drama unfolding, and had no wish to analyse it.</p> - -<p>Mowbray, to Ida’s satisfaction, not only deserted his -friends after luncheon, but permitted them to go on to -Rome without him and lingered in Genoa. He was a fair -well set-up young Englishman, with a nonchalant manner -and an inflammable heart. Ida had met him at a country -house and amused herself “landing him,” but as she had -left England immediately after, and hunting had claimed -all his ardours, she neither had seen nor heard from him -since. Although she meant to keep him at her elbow as -long as he served her purpose, she knew him to be a shy -youth under his natural buoyancy and quick intelligence, -and did not disturb her placid mind with visions of -“scenes.” On the whole she liked Englishmen better than -any of the men she had met in Europe, for they had more -pride and self-control where women were concerned; if -things went deeper with them they were less likely to -offend her cold purity with outbursts of passion: which, -she confided to Ora, “made her sick.”</p> - -<p>To her delight Valdobia took them one afternoon to call -on an elderly relative who lived in one of the great palaces -of the Via Garibaldi. They were escorted up to the top -floor; the rooms on the other <i>pianos</i> were either closed -or emitted the chill breath of the tomb. Their destination -was a large lofty room, inadequately heated by a stove in -one corner; their noble hostess was fortified against the -cold by several shawls and a foot-warmer. She had invited -three other aristocratic relics in to look at “the Americans,” -and, although the principessa and her friends were -more polite than they would have been to intruding bourgeoises -of their own country, it was apparent that they -could find little to say to two young women from a land -of which they had a confused and wholly contemptuous -apprehension. They knew that its chief title to fame was -its original discovery by a Genoese, that the lower classes -emigrated to it a good deal, and that many American<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span> -women, who spent far too much money on their clothes, -visited Europe and occasionally married above them. -More than this they neither knew nor cared to know. So -far as they were concerned new countries did not exist.</p> - -<p>Conversation languished. Ida was suppressed, and -divided between a desire to laugh and to scream. Ora, -with a heroic effort, talked about the mistake the average -American made in seeing so little of Genoa; but, having -laid aside her furs out of politeness, she was shivering, -and unable to drink the strong coffee which immediately -succumbed to the temperature of the room.</p> - -<p>She sent an appealing glance to Valdobia, who was -smiling to himself. Lord John, who had been honoured -by a chair beside his hostess, treated with the consideration -due his ancient lineage, was delivering himself of spasmodic -clauses, with one eye on Valdobia.</p> - -<p>“Jimminy!” whispered Ida, who now felt quite at -home with her fellow conspirator, “if you don’t get us -out of this quick I’ll have high-strikes, and Ora’ll get a -cold and be laid up for a week. I always keep her in bed -when she has a cold.”</p> - -<p>Valdobia rose instantly. “We have an engagement in -half an hour,” he said to his mother’s second cousin. -“Perhaps you will permit me to show these ladies over the -palace?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, do!” exclaimed Mowbray, acting on instinct, for -he was too cold and too unnerved to think. “I’d like -jolly well to see it myself; must be rippin’.”</p> - -<p>The permission was given with some graciousness, and -the party bowed themselves out. As they descended the -grand staircase, they heard a buzz of voices behind them, -as of several elderly ladies talking at once.</p> - -<p>“We’d be roasting on red-hot coals this minute if there -were any in that refrigerator,” said Ida, “but I don’t -care so long as we are going to see the real part of the -palace.”</p> - -<p>An aged major domo showed them through the magnificent -reception rooms, built for entertaining a proud and -gorgeous aristocracy in the days when Genoa was known -throughout Europe as “La Superba.” They were hung -with tapestries or cordova leather, and filled with priceless -pictures, porcelains, enamels, gold and silver ware, and -massive furniture. Valdobia told them dramas sentimental<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span> -and tragic which had been enacted within the walls of the -historic house. But they had to stamp about to avoid a -chill, and were glad to emerge into the warmer air of even -the narrow street.</p> - -<p>“Well,” announced Ida, as they walked rapidly out of -the Via Garibaldi into the broad sunshine of the Piazza -delle Fontane Marose, “if that’s a sample of your ancient -aristocracy no more of it in mine. My curiosity is satisfied -for good and all. Why on earth don’t they live like human -beings?”</p> - -<p>“Or steam-heated Americans?” asked Valdobia, smiling. -“Console yourself with the assurance that you are the -only Americans that have ever crossed that threshold.”</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t console me one little bit, and I feel pneumonia -coming on. Let’s walk as fast as we know how!” -And accompanied by the willing Englishman she started -off with a stride that soon left the others far behind.</p> - -<p>“It is true,” said Valdobia disgustedly, “that this older -generation does not know how to live, not in any sense. -They possess the greatest wealth in Italy, and they hoard -it as if poverty stared them in the face. They have only -to turn on the electric lights once a week and provide a -simple supper to make Genoa one of the most delightful -cities in Europe, but they won’t even do that. They have -the finest jewels in Italy and never wear them except on -the rare occasions when the King and Queen visit Genoa -and command them to the royal palace. Thank heaven -there is a younger set, equally well born, that live in the -new apartment houses or in those villas up on the hills, -and are neither too economical nor too antiquated in their -ideas to enjoy life. Those old people are divided up into -intimate little sets and spend their lives gossipping about -the rest of Genoa or talking of the past. But I do hope -you did not take cold.”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t, and I really enjoyed it!” said Ora, smiling -mischievously. “I amused myself thinking what would -happen if I told our uncomfortable hostess that my father’s -sister had married a Roman relative of her husband; but -I wouldn’t have relieved the situation for the world. I -suppose they are fumigating themselves.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t doubt it. They think they are aristocratic and -are merely provincial.”</p> - -<p>“How different you are!” Ora looked at him admiringly.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span> -“One hardly could believe that you belonged to -the same race.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t. I am a Roman, and a citizen of the world. -No doubt you, too, have a root that runs back into the -dark ages, but today is all that counts with us. I mean -that in more senses than one!” And, although he smiled, -he gave her a quick side-glance.</p> - -<p>“I hope so. I am well aware that you are enjoying -yourself immensely.” Ora felt it quite safe to flirt with -him in the open street.</p> - -<p>“Do you like me a little better?”</p> - -<p>“Rather. Friendly companionship is my chief idea of -happiness, now that I am more or less tired of books.”</p> - -<p>“Is it? May it be my good fortune to initiate you into -a higher! You have everything to learn!”</p> - -<p>“Have I? I wonder!”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean by that? Have you ever been in -love?”</p> - -<p>“Not the least little bit!”</p> - -<p>“You said that rather too vehemently. It is my turn -to wonder.” This time he looked hard at her and his face -was grim. He had a way of setting his jaw that reminded -her of the man whose haunting memory had made her -alternately happy and miserable during many long months. -She looked away hastily.</p> - -<p>“The kind of love you mean I have not the very least -knowledge of. You must believe that.”</p> - -<p>“Of what other kind, then?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, all women dream, you know,” she said lightly. -“They have a sort of ideal that consoles them for missing -the realities of life. You come quite close to it,” and once -more she sparkled her eyes at him.</p> - -<p>“I have no intention of letting you flirt with me,” said -Valdobia calmly. “My flirting days are over. I shall -remain the best of your friends until you love me or send -me to the other end of the world.”</p> - -<p>“Well, don’t become serious and spoil everything.”</p> - -<p>“I shall not lose my head, if that is what you mean,” -he said drily. “I find the present state of affairs very -pleasant. Let us overtake the others and go for a drive.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXXV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“WELL,” said Ora, when she and Ida had returned -to the hotel to dress for dinner, “did you have a -queer feeling when you were prowling through those dim -old rooms, furnished three or four hundred years ago, and -the scene of all sorts of romance and tragedy?”</p> - -<p>“I had a queer feeling all right. Had visions of rheumatism, -sciatica, pneumonia, and a red nose for a week. -I suppose those wonderful velvet gowns they wore—in -pictures, anyhow—were padded inside, and they slept in -them; didn’t take them off all winter. If I lived in one -of those palaces today I’d surely lose all my good American -habits.”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you have any haunting sense of mystery—of -having been there before?”</p> - -<p>“Nixie! No wonder I murdered if I ever was. However,” -she added thoughtfully, “there’s no telling what I -might have felt if they’d had a furnace in the house. -There was something wonderful about it, all right—being -in those musty old rooms, that fairly smelt of the past. I -guess they’ll haunt me as some of those Roman palaces -have that are not shown to the public. But don’t put -weird ideas into my head, Ora. They don’t gee with -Butte. The severely practical is my lay.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think there could be romance and tragedy -in Butte?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, plenty of shooting, if you mean that; and mixing-up. -But people don’t stay jealous long enough to get real -tragic about it; they just get a divorce. We’ve improved -on daggers and poisoned bowls and rings, and the rest of -it. Good old Butte!”</p> - -<p>They all dined at the Bristol that night, and soon after -nine o’clock had the smoking-room to themselves. Ida, -indeed, carried Mowbray off into the reading-room. Ora -sighed as she found herself alone with the handsome distinguished -Roman of the type that even in minor exponents<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span> -so often compelled her response. Why didn’t she love -him? He was proving himself the ideal companion. There -was apparently no question to which he had not given -some thought, and he knew far more about the subjects -that appealed to her than she did herself. They discussed -the ever-fascinating sexual problems impersonally, delicately, -and exhaustively, a feat in itself, an experience -Ora never had enjoyed before; for while it drew them -together it apparently neither disturbed Valdobia nor -altered his attitude toward her. His analyses of politics -and of the fashionable authors of the day were the acutest -she had heard or read, and he enlarged her knowledge of -the world by his anecdotes of life in the different capitals -of Europe that he knew so well. He could be personal -without egotism, and his sense of humour was keener than -her own. While he treated her ideas and criticisms with -deference he forced her to look up to him and to feel only -pleasure in his masterful mind and great experience.</p> - -<p>Tonight he made her talk about herself; and, artfully -beating about her life’s most significant chapter, she expressed -herself with a freedom and veracity which she -found another novel and fascinating experience; her confidences -to Ida were superficial and sporadic. She could -feel his sympathy and understanding flow toward her, -although he uttered no sentimental platitudes, and let -only his eyes express a little of what he felt. But for -the hour she glowed with a sense of utter companionship, -her mind was stimulated to the pitch of excitement; she -caught herself wishing that they could have these long -intimate talks for the rest of their lives, and that he would -sometimes hold her hand to complete the sense of perfect -understanding.</p> - -<p>When they parted at midnight and she walked slowly -up the stairs alone—Ida had dismissed Mowbray an hour -since—she sighed again. Why didn’t she feel the pull? -What was the nature of that mysterious current that -seemed to vibrate between two people only out of the world’s -billions, and was quite independent of mental identities? -Certainly passion was not the only source. If she had -been free and never had met Gregory Compton she would -have married Valdobia and given him all he craved; for -his magnetism was by no means confined to his brain. Why -could not she love him as it was? She had not been the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> -heroine of one of those passionate love affairs that leave -a woman cold for several years, perhaps for ever. The -intensity of emotion she had experienced during these -months in Europe had been one-sided, a mere madness of -the imagination. She had yet to realise that a woman can -live more profoundly and completely with a man in her -imagination than when in daily contact with his discouraging -weaknesses, his inability to reach her impossible standard, -and impinged upon by the disintegrating forces of -daily life.</p> - -<p>Such women as Ora Blake, endowed with a certain measure -of creative imagination, yet spending their maturing -years unnaturalised citizens in a cross-section of life which -barely brushes their aloofness in passing, develop as unnormally -as those that cultivate this exotic garden of the -mind for fame and fortune. If they find a mate while the -imagination is still as young as their years, these highly -organised women, with every sense and faculty keenly -alert, and stimulated by mental contact as others may be -by drugs and wine, have the opportunity at least to be the -happiest beings on earth. If they marry a brute, or are -forced to fight the world for bread, a wide channel is dug -in the brain through which flow the normal and crowding -thoughts of the average, commonplace, adaptable woman; -which is perhaps the best of all educations for life.</p> - -<p>But Ora had married a kind prosaic man who soon -learned to let her alone, and kept her in a comfort that -burdened her days with leisure. If she had been unimaginative -no harm would have been done. She either -would have grown fond of her essential husband and become -a domestic angel, or consoled herself with society and -bridge. But, misplaced in life, she belonged to the intellectual -aristocracy of the earth, who are the loneliest of -its inhabitants, unless they can establish an invisible bond -with their fellow-beings by offerings from that mental -garden which is at once their curse and their compensation -for the doubtful gift of life.</p> - -<p>Ora was too indifferent to the world to care to weave -this gossamer bridge, and had grown accustomed to mental -solitude. But she had never placed any curb on her imagination. -In the days when her only solace was books it -enabled her to visualise the <i>mise-en-scène</i> of the remote or -immediate past, the procession of the traveller, or the abstractions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span> -of science; as if she were in one of those theatres -where the great modern manager threatens to atrophy -what imagination is left in the world. It even enabled her -to enjoy fiction whose scene was a land of which she had -no personal knowledge; a rare gift in the American, whose -demand for familiar settings and characters keeps our -literature commonplace. And she could at will shut her -eyes and wander in Europe when Butte became insufferable.</p> - -<p>Her surrender to the obsession of Gregory Compton had -been gradual; she had fought it, not only out of loyalty -to her husband and her friend, but because the future -menaced terrors against which she had no desire to pit -her strength. But she had finally cast defiance to the -future, and dismissed her phantom loyalty with a shrug. -Mark no doubt had consoled himself for her defection -long since; to Ida a husband was a money-maker pure and -simple. She herself would never see Gregory Compton -again if she could avoid it; or, if life took her inevitably -back to Butte, no doubt her infatuation would have been -cured by mental satiety, and she would be able to greet him -with the indifference that is ever the portion of the discarded -lover.</p> - -<p>Having arrived at this reasonable conclusion, she had -dismissed cynicism, cowardice, and qualms, to limbo, and -entered upon one of those exalting, tormenting, incredibly -sweet, and profoundly depressing mental love affairs, -which, lacking the element of comedy inevitable in all -actual relations between men and women, obsess the mind -and detach it from life.</p> - -<p>After she parted from Valdobia, puzzled and wistful, -she recalled one week during which she had been completely -happy. Ida was visiting friends uncongenial to -herself, and she had gone alone to Bruges. In that ancient -city of almost perfect beauty, she had given the wildness -in her nature uninterrupted liberty. She had written -letters that no woman yet has sent to a man without regretting -it, for in this stage of man’s progress, at least, -he wants little of the soul of woman. It is possible that -the women who live in their imaginations are the most -fortunate, after all, for they arbitrarily make man the -perfect mate he possibly may be some centuries hence. At -all events Ora imagined Gregory Compton with her unremittingly,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span> -deliberately ignoring the depression that must -descend upon her when once more companioned by his wife. -It had seemed to her that her step had never been so -buoyant, her body so light. People had paused to stare -at the beautiful young American with her head in the air -looking as if she were about to sing. It had been a wonderful, -an almost incredible experience, and she never had -been able quite to recapture it even when alone in the -night. But she had wondered sometimes if life held any -happiness as real as that had been, and she wondered -again as she switched off her light and flung herself into -the bed that had witnessed so much despair before Valdobia -had appeared and put a quietus on her imagination. -She wondered also if the passion of the soul were so much -greater than the common experience of man and woman -that its indulgence must forever make life itself unreal. -She felt that this question threw some light on her problem, -then dismissed the subject peremptorily. She might -regret that extraordinary love affair, with its terrors and -its delights, but she would bury it once for all; and she -fell asleep with the wise remark:</p> - -<p>“What fools we are! Oh, lord, what fools!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXXVI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap2">AFTER this she discarded what was left of her crust, -and emerged like a butterfly. The present was delightful, -she would enjoy it without analysis or retrospect. -She met several clever and interesting men, but had eyes -for no one but Valdobia. They explored Genoa until they -knew it almost as well as the natives, spending hours down -in the long twisted streets, so narrow that no vehicle had -ever visited them, and swarming like the inside of an anthill. -Harrowing adventures were impossible, for the -Genoese masses if discourteous are neither a lawless nor -an impertinent race. Ora and Ida might have roamed -alone, and been unmolested save by the enterprising shopkeepers -that dealt in filigree. They rode over the steep -hills in the trams, and took long motor drives in the brilliant -winter sunshine to the picturesque towns and villages -down the Riviera. Then, on a Saturday morning, -they bade good-bye to the ancient city and took the train -for Monte Carlo.</p> - -<p>The girls established themselves in a small hotel opposite -the Casino Gardens, the men in the great hotel that lies -between the Casino and the International Sporting Club.</p> - -<p>“I suppose we really should have sent for Lady Gower,” -said Ora, doubtfully, as they hooked each other up for -dinner. “It’s stretching the point rather to come to a -place like Monte Carlo with two men. We’ll be sure to -run into a dozen people we know.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, bother! I love the idea of feeling real devilish for -once. Besides, anything goes at Monte Carlo, and everybody -is interested in gambling and nothing else. What -good would old Norfolk-Howard do us, anyhow, asleep on -a sofa. She never could keep awake after ten, and nobody’d -know in those big rooms whether she was there or -not. We’re Americans, anyhow, and I’m having the time -of my life. Lord John is a perfect dear.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>“Well, at least I am thankful that you are no longer in -a hurry to return to Butte.”</p> - -<p>“Butte’ll keep, I guess. The more experiences I take -back the more they’ll think of me. Gives me backbone to -feel a real woman-of-the-world. Besides, kid, it’s good philosophy -to drink the passing moment dry. Amalgamated -may bust us any minute. You look prettier every day, -and I’m not going off either.”</p> - -<p>She wore a severely cut gown of black velvet, the corsage -draped with coral-coloured chiffon. Her first evening -gowns, cut by the ruthless Parisian, had caused her many -qualms but they had been growing more <i>décolleté</i> ever -since; and so superb were her neck and shoulders that she -had ceased to regret her lack of jewels. Ora had refrained -from buying any, although she longed for sapphires; but -she always wore her pearls. Tonight her gown was of a -misty pale green material from which she rose like a lily -from its calyx. She still wore her hair massed softly on -the top of her head, and although not as tall as Ida, and -far from being as fully developed, was an equally arresting -figure. No two women were ever more excellent foils, and -that may have been one secret of their amicable relations.</p> - -<p>They dined with their cavaliers at one of the fashionable -restaurants, then, after an hour in the Casino rooms, which -were not at all to their taste, with their ornate walls and -dingy crowd, went by means of lifts and underground -corridors over to the International Sporting Club. Valdobia -and Mowbray had put them up at this exclusive -resort during the afternoon and they entered the roulette -rooms at once. Here the walls were chastely hung with -pale grey satin, and all the colour was in the company. -The long tables were crowded with smart-looking men and -women of both worlds, although only the ladies that had -stepped down from ancestral halls dared to show a grey -hair or a wrinkle. The cocottes were so young and fresh -as well as beautiful that to Ora and Ida they looked much -like girls of their own class. All, young and old, were -splendidly dressed and bejewelled; and if there was excitement -in their brains there was no evidence of it in -their calm or animated faces. They might have been a -great house-party amusing themselves with some new and -innocuous game.</p> - -<p>Our party walked about for a time dividing their attention<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> -between the spinning balls, the faces of the players, -and the gowns of the women; even those of the cocottes -were not eccentric, although worn with a certain inimitable -style. Their ropes of pearls were also the longest in the -room. A number of the most notable men in Europe -were present, princes of reigning houses, and statesmen -high in the service of their country.</p> - -<p>In spite of the absence of that feverish excitement which -is supposed to pervade these gambling rooms of Monte -Carlo (and which is absent from the Casino even when a -man shoots himself and is whisked out), Ora wandered -about in a curious state of exaltation. The cool splendour -of the rooms, the atmosphere of high breeding and restraint, -the gratification of the æsthetic sense at every turn, -the beauty of the women and the distinguished appearance -of the men made it a romantic and memorable scene. Notwithstanding -the constant clink of gold, the monotonous -admonitions of the croupiers, it was a sort of worldly fairyland, -this apotheosis of one of the most perilous of human -indulgences. These people might be gambling for greed -or mere excitement, being blasé of other mundane diversions, -but they were at the same time so frank and so reserved, -so pleased and so indifferent, that they produced -the illusion of sojourning on a plane high above the common -mortal with his commonplace loves and disasters and -struggles to exist or shine. No wonder that men came -here to forget the burdens of state, women Society’s conservatisms -or the inconstancy of man. For the hour, and -the hour generally lasted until four in the morning, they -lived in a world apart, and a duchess sat next to a cocotte -with a serene indifference that amounted almost to -democracy.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that romantic is the word I should use,” -said Valdobia, laughing; Ora had uttered some of her -thoughts aloud; “but I think I know what you mean. The -people that come here can afford to lose; their minds are -almost as carefully composed as their costumes; they are -both pleasantly reckless and frivolous; this is their real -play-time; the world beyond these four walls is obliterated; -if they lose they shrug their shoulders, and if they win -they experience something like a real thrill; in short, being -soaked in worldliness, it is their only chance to feel primitive—for -gambling was practised by the most ancient<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> -tribes of which we have any knowledge. At the Casino -most of those people are subconsciously wondering how -they are going to pay their hotel bills and get out of -Monte Carlo, calm as they manage to look; but here—well, -here you see the quintessence of the world’s frivolity. No -wonder it creates a heady atmosphere. Do you want to -gamble?”</p> - -<p>“Of course I do.”</p> - -<p>“Well, put a louis on the red. I’ll follow your stakes. -Perhaps we’ll bring each other luck.”</p> - -<p>They staked and won, staked and won again, seven -times running without removing their winnings from the -red. Then Valdobia said, “Don’t tempt fortune too far. -The luck may turn to the green any moment. Suppose -we try ours <i>en plein</i>.” He selected the number 39, and -once more they won. Ora, her hands full of gold, turned -to him with blazing eyes. Her cheeks were crimson. Valdobia -laughed.</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t look so happy,” he said teasingly, -“or these old stagers will know that you are what your -friend calls a hayseed. Better change all this gold into -notes.”</p> - -<p>“Notes? I want my gold. Paper never did mean anything -to me.”</p> - -<p>“What a child you are—ah! I must leave you for a -moment. The Duc——” he mentioned a prince of his -royal house—“wishes to speak to me. Don’t try <i>en plein</i> -again. That rarely happens twice. Put a louis at a time -on the red.”</p> - -<p>He left her. Ora deliberately placed not only her double -handful of gold on the red, but pushed forward the pile -that had accumulated before her. Red came up and -doubled her winnings. She added to her already imposing -hillock the gold shoved toward her, and, with a quick -glance at Valdobia, who was deep in conversation with -his prince, took a thousand franc note from her châtelaine -bag and laid it on top of the gold. Once more she won, -and met the sympathetic smiles of the croupiers, who in -the Sporting Club, at least, are very human persons. She -was about to add another thousand franc note, when Valdobia -returned. He swept her gold and notes off the red -just as <i>rien ne va plus</i> sounded above the buzz of conversation -behind the tables.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>“What on earth are you doing?” he asked angrily. “I -don’t like to see a woman gamble like that.”</p> - -<p>Ora pouted and looked like a naughty child.</p> - -<p>“But I want to gamble. Give me my money. What -have you to say about it?”</p> - -<p>“I brought you here—and I shall not bring you again -if you are going to gamble like that old Frankfurt banker -over there. Why not follow the example of Mrs. Compton, -who is decorously putting five franc pieces on the green -at the next table?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Ida! I like the sensation of doing big things. -You just said we enjoyed letting loose our primitive instincts.”</p> - -<p>“Is that the way you felt? Well, here are three louis. -Stake one at a time. I shall change the rest into notes -and give them to you at the hotel.”</p> - -<p>He kept his eye on her, and she staked her gold pieces one -after another and lost.</p> - -<p>“Now,” he said, “come into the bar and have a glass of -wine or a lemon squash. I want to talk to you.”</p> - -<p>They found seats in a corner of the bar behind a little -table, and Ora demurely ordered a lemonade. “I suppose -you are going to scold me,” she murmured, although her -cheeks were still flushed and her eyes rebellious. “What -difference did it make? I am not poor, and I had won -nearly all that I risked, anyhow. You have seen women -gamble all your life. One would think that you were a -hayseed, yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I be quite honest? I fancy I was jealous. For -the first time I saw you completely carried away. I had -hoped to furnish that impulse myself!”</p> - -<p>“It is a wonderful sensation,” she said provokingly. -“I doubt if anything but gambling could inspire it.”</p> - -<p>“Do you?” But he knew that it was no time for sentiment, -and asked curiously, “Are you so fond of gold? I -never saw such a greedy little thing.”</p> - -<p>“Remember I’ve walked round over gold for the best -part of my life, and have a mine of my own. It fascinates -me, but not because I care much about riches—I like the -liberty that plenty of money gives; that, to my mind, is all -that wealth means. But I loved the feeling of being possessed, -of being absolutely reckless. I should have liked -to know that my whole fortune depended upon that spinning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span> -ball. That would have been worth while! It makes -one forget everything—everything!”</p> - -<p>He looked at her with half-closed eyes. “You have a -secret chapter in your life,” he said. “Some day I shall -read it. But I can’t make up my mind whether you are a -born gambler or not.”</p> - -<p>Ora shrugged her shoulders. “To tell you the truth I -shouldn’t care if I never saw a gambling table again. I -have had the sensation. That is enough. I will admit I -was rather disappointed not to lose that immense stake. -Lucky at cards, you know.”</p> - -<p>“And you think you are unlucky in love?” Valdobia -laughed, but his face was still grim. “How many men -have you had in love with you already?”</p> - -<p>“That doesn’t count!”</p> - -<p>He turned pale. “What do you mean by that?”</p> - -<p>“I mean that I don’t believe I am destined to happiness. -Don’t you think we know our lines instinctively?”</p> - -<p>“I know that you are trying to torment me. You are -still excited and angry, so I shall not permit your words, -significant as they are, to keep me awake tonight.” He -was smiling again, but she saw the anger in his own eyes, -and said impulsively:</p> - -<p>“I rather like you better than usual tonight. You have -made me do something I didn’t want to do, and anger is -becoming to you.”</p> - -<p>“The eternal female! Well, God knows, I wouldn’t -have you abnormal. What is this?”</p> - -<p>A page was standing before the table with a telegram in -his hand. “Pour M. le Marquis de Valdobia,” he said.</p> - -<p>With a word of apology Valdobia opened the telegram. -Ora, watching him, saw his face turn white.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” she asked anxiously. “I do hope it is -not bad news.” She felt a sharp pang at the possibility -of losing him.</p> - -<p>He rose and looked at his watch. “My mother is very -ill,” he said. “A train goes in an hour and ten minutes. -I must take it. But there is something I want to say to you -before I go; I may be detained in Rome. Will you get -your wrap and come into the gardens for a few moments?”</p> - -<p>“I am so sorry,” murmured Ora, with real sympathy. -“Of course I will go.”</p> - -<p>He took her to the cloak-room. “Wait here for a moment,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span> -he said. “I must telephone to my man to pack and -meet me at the train; and tell Mowbray not to look for us -later.”</p> - -<p>He left her, and Ora watched the passing couples, trying -not to think. She was a little frightened, but still too -excited to shrink from a possible ordeal.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXXVII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">HE returned in a few moments, and they left the Club -House by the main entrance and strolled toward -the gardens; then he suddenly led her to the terrace. -There were many people walking in the tropical scented -park of the Casino, but the digue above the Mediterranean -was deserted. Monte Carlo can be cold in May but it can -be as warm as July in February, and the night was mild -and beautiful. The sea under the stars was almost as -blue as by day. The air was very still, although a band -was playing somewhere, far away. From the other side -of the bay came the faint humming of an aeroplane. There -was to be an aviation meet on the morrow, and no doubt -one of the airmen was about to make a trial flight.</p> - -<p>They sat down on one of the benches, and Valdobia -folded his arms, then turned and leaned his elbow on the -back of the seat and his head on his hand.</p> - -<p>“I am not quite in the mood for love-making,” he said, -“after the news I have received; but I can’t go without -letting you know why I followed you to Genoa—without -some sort of an understanding.”</p> - -<p>Ora looked at him out of the corner of her eye. His -face was set and determined, but she concluded that he -was not the man to be dangerous when grieving for his -mother.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” she asked softly. “I know, of course, that -you—like me.”</p> - -<p>“I love you, and I want to marry you. I wish you to -divorce your husband and marry me. Don’t give me your -final answer now,” he continued, as Ora interrupted him. -“It is not a question to decide in a moment. But while I -am gone think it over. You do not love your husband. -I know all your arguments from your friend. She made -them when I first gave her my confidence. They don’t -weigh with me for a moment. You will never spend your -life with that man, good as he may be. As for obligations,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span> -you discharged them long ago. I can make you -happy, and I believe that you know I can.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know.” Ora, stunned for a moment, felt -thrilled and breathless. “Oh, I don’t know!”</p> - -<p>“I have begun to feel sure that you have loved another -man, or fancied that you loved him. Would it be possible -for you to marry him if you divorced your husband?”</p> - -<p>Ora hesitated, then answered, “No.”</p> - -<p>“Why is he not your lover?”</p> - -<p>“That would be impossible, even if I would do such a -thing, and you know I would not.”</p> - -<p>He gave a sharp sigh of relief. “I <i>felt</i> that he had not -been. Why is it impossible?”</p> - -<p>“There are complications. I cannot explain them. But -he could not be less to me if he were dead.”</p> - -<p>“Does he love you?”</p> - -<p>Ora hesitated again. “I have sometimes felt—no, of -course, it is impossible. I let my imagination run away -with me, that was all.”</p> - -<p>“You mean that he never told you—that he doesn’t -write to you?”</p> - -<p>“I met him only once, and I have never seen his handwriting.”</p> - -<p>“Well, dismiss him from your mind. You have imagination -and have dreamed, because your demands upon life -are very great, greater than you know; and oddly enough, -considering your opportunities, fruition has eluded you. -But the time has come for you to live; and you could -live!”</p> - -<p>Ora looked down at her hands. They were ungloved -and looked very white and small. Valdobia suddenly covered -them with one of his own, and bent his face close to -hers. She saw that he had forgotten his mother, and gave -a little gasp.</p> - -<p>“Ora!” he said. “Don’t you know how happy I could -make you? I not only could teach you love, of which you -know nothing, but we could always be companions, and -you are the loneliest little creature I have ever met.”</p> - -<p>To her astonishment she saw two tears splash on his -hand, and winking rapidly discovered that they had fallen -from her own eyes. As she would have detested to see a -man cry, she melted further, and whispered,</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, life with you would be very delightful. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> -know that. I fancy the other man, even if I could marry -him, would make me miserable. He—American men that -amount to anything give their wives very little of themselves.”</p> - -<p>“And you would be lonelier still! I have known American -women that loved their busy husbands—that <i>seeking</i> -type. They interested me, poor things—rushing madly -about trying to fill their lives. If you join that sisterhood -it will kill you. I am not an idler, for I have business -interests to which I devote a certain amount of time, but -I have leisure, and I not only should give you the companionship -you have craved all your life, but I can offer -you the world in all its variety. Now dismiss this man, -whoever he is, from your mind. Even were I beside the -question, it is your duty to yourself as a woman of character, -not a sentimental schoolgirl.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that is true.”</p> - -<p>“That sort of thing is morbid, besides being quite beneath -a woman of pride and dignity. But women often -romance about some dream-hero until they have found the -right man. Can you doubt that I am the man for you? -You were made for Europe, not for America, and for a -man that can give you everything—everything!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know.” She moved restlessly. “If I could -only feel just one thing more for you! I hardly know -what to call it—I like you better than anyone in the -world. I almost love you. Why don’t I?” Her voice was -suddenly full of passion and she clasped both of her hands -about his own. “If you could only make me, I should -worship you.”</p> - -<p>He glanced about rapidly. They were quite alone. He -put his arm round her and she felt it vibrate. His face -was flushed and his breath short. She could feel his heart -thumping against her head, and she was fascinated for -more reasons than one: she knew that it was many years -since any woman had roused him to strong emotion, and -it was the first great passion that had ever been close to -her save in her stormy imagination. She was enthralled -for a moment, and some of the wildness in her own nature -stirred. But it was too soon, she must have time to think. -She cast about desperately and found her inspiration.</p> - -<p>“We have been here a long time!” she said hurriedly. -“You will miss your train. Your mother may be very ill.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>He dropped his arm, and stood up.</p> - -<p>“You are a woman of infinite resource,” he said. “And -no little cruelty. Will you consider what I have asked -you—seriously?”</p> - -<p>His anger as well as his power to control himself always -fascinated her, and she also experienced a spasm of contrition. -She rose and gave him her hand; her eyes were -frank and kind.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said. “I will consider it, and think of you -always—and miss you horribly. Will you telegraph to -me every day?”</p> - -<p>“Two or three times a day, probably. And don’t think -I am really angry with you. If you are cruel it is only -because you don’t understand. I am glad that you do not, -for it is only women that have loved greatly that have -forgotten how to be cruel. Come. I must take you to -your hotel.”</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">PART II</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span> -<p class="ph3">PART II</p> -</div> - -<h3 class="nobreak">I</h3> - -<p class="drop-cap">TWO weeks later Ora and Ida sailed from Havre. Gregory -had cabled, and the <i>Herald</i> had published a -dramatic account, of the wounding of Mr. Mark Blake in -the tunnel of his wife’s mine. The engineers’ lease had -expired and he had closed down the mine temporarily. -The sinking of the inclined shaft in the “Apex” had proceeded -very slowly owing to the uncommon hardness of the -rock; it would seem that Nature herself had taken a hand -in the great fight and enlisted for once on the side of the -weaker power. Although when Osborne and Douglas had -turned over the mine, their cross-cut almost had reached -the point on the vein which the new shaft expected to -strike, Gregory had risen twice in the night and walked -along the hill beyond his boundary, reasonably sure that -all the blasting was not in the shaft, his keen ear detecting -muffled reverberations slightly to the east and at a greater -depth. He communicated his suspicions to Mark, and -on the following night they examined the lock on the -Primo shaft house and discovered that it had been tampered -with. They went down by way of the ladder; and -in the cross-cut on the chalcopyrite vein they found miners -working with hand drills. There was a desperate -hand-to-hand fight with the manager and shift boss; the -miners, who were bohunks, proceeding phlegmatically with -their work.</p> - -<p>The four men had wrestled out into the station at the -foot of the shaft, where they had drawn their “guns”; -each had been wounded, but only Mark seriously. He had -received a ball in the lung and another in the leg. The -night was bitterly cold and it was some time before Gregory -and the two antagonists could get him to the surface. He -had insisted upon being taken to a hospital in Butte; and,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span> -between loss of blood, shock, and pneumonia, his condition -was precarious.</p> - -<p>The girls, who had left Monte Carlo two days after -Valdobia’s sudden departure, received the news in Paris, -where they were replenishing their wardrobes. Ora, torn -with remorse, and terrified with vague and tragic visions -of the future, was in a distracted condition; but Ida, although -she sincerely lamented the possible demise of her -old friend, did not lose her head. She gave final and -minute orders to tailors and dressmakers, instructed them -to send the trousseaux in bond directly to Great Falls, Montana, -devoted a morning to the selection of hats both for -herself and her friend, and packed all the trunks. Mowbray, -always willing to be useful, bought their tickets and -escorted them to Havre. Ida thanked him with something -like real warmth as they parted at the head of the gangplank, -and promised him the “time of his life” when he -came to Montana in the summer.</p> - -<p>“Now, buck up,” she said, smiling into his disconsolate -face; “you know I’m not flirting with you. We’re -the best of pals. I’ll be glad to see you, all right, and -perhaps I’ll find a nice little heiress for you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t!” Mowbray tried to arrange his features -for the benefit of the passersby. “You know I’m fond -of you no end. Why——”</p> - -<p>“Get along now. That’s the last whistle. Good-bye, and -write me nice gossippy letters. It’s only a few months, -anyhow.”</p> - -<p>Mowbray walked down the gangplank with his head in -the air, and, as he turned on the dock to lift his hat, Ida -noticed that his face, whose charm was its boyish gayety, -looked suddenly older, and almost as determined as Valdobia’s.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord!” she thought, as she turned away, “men! -They’re as alike as lead pencils in a box. But I guess I -can manage him.”</p> - -<p>Ora stayed in bed for two days; reaction left her physically -exhausted and she slept most of the time. On the -third day Ida peremptorily dressed her and took her on -deck. A wireless from Gregory, announcing that Mark -was holding his own, further revived her, and before they -reached New York another wireless was still more reassuring. -A few years before, when the ores of Butte Hill were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span> -roasted in the open and the poisonous fumes were often -as thick as the worst of London fogs, pneumonia ran its -course in twenty-four hours to the grave, but in these days -the patient had a fighting chance despite the altitude. The -Butte doctors were experts in pneumonia, so many of the -careless miners were afflicted, and Mark not only had a -sound constitution but never had been a heavy drinker. -There was every reason to expect him to pull through, as -Ida assured her friend whenever they were alone; but she -managed to meet several agreeable people, and kept herself -and Ora companioned by them throughout the voyage.</p> - -<p>Valdobia was still in Rome; his mother was dying. He -had written daily to Ora and she had read and reread -his letters. They said neither too much nor too little; but -he was one of life’s artists and he managed to pervade -them with an atmosphere that was both sweet and disturbing. -His telegram, when he had read the news of her -husband’s misadventure in the newspapers, was a masterpiece. -If he was unable to grieve over the possibility of -Mr. Blake’s abrupt removal from a scene where he was -the one superfluous actor, too well-bred to betray his relief, -and too little of a hypocrite to be verbose in condolence, -his attitude was so finely impersonal, and it was so obvious -that he knew exactly how she felt, that Ora liked him -more than ever if only for rousing her stricken sense of -humour.</p> - -<p>She had thrust his letters and telegrams into the depths -of her steamer trunk, but after she had made up her mind -that Mark would recover (her lively imagination picturing -him hobbling among the orange groves of Southern California -while she guided his footsteps and diverted his -mind), she retrieved the correspondence and read it every -night when alone in her stateroom. Valdobia’s devotion -not only gave her courage, but his strong imposing personality -stood with a haughty and confident menace between -herself and Gregory Compton. She refused to -think on her future, beyond the long convalescence of her -husband, but had it not been for her meeting with Valdobia -and her deliberate installment of his image on the -throne of her adventurous imagination, she doubted if she -would have had the courage to return to Montana. As it -was there were moments when the poignant mental life she -had led with Gregory Compton reached a long finger from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span> -the depths to which it had been consigned and sketched -his image in her mind as vividly as if he stood before her; -while her whole being ached with longing and despair. -But her will was strong; she banished him summarily -and reinstated the Roman who was so like and so unlike the -man compounded of the old world and the new in the -mortar of the Northwest.</p> - -<p>Ida, with an unexpected delicacy, refrained from curiosity, -and although she had too much tact to avoid all mention -of Valdobia, only alluded to him casually. She left -Europe out of the conversation as much as possible, and -amused Ora, when they were alone, with the plans of her -campaign in Butte. When they reached quarantine Ora -was horrified to find herself surrounded by reporters. The -Paris <i>Herald</i> had published the story of her mine as well -as her picture and Ida’s, but they hardly had been sensible -of their notoriety until, on the steamer, they were among -Americans once more. It was manifest that they were -“big news” in their own country, and Ora fled to her -stateroom, leaving Ida to face the reporters alone.</p> - -<p>Ida was undaunted; moreover she was quick to seize -her first opportunity to dazzle Butte. She made herself -amiable and interesting to the young men, her natural -cunning steering her mid-stream, in this her first interview: -an ordeal in which most novices are wrecked on the -tropic or the arctic shore. She thanked them as warmly -for their news that Mr. Blake had left that morning with -his doctors and nurses in a private car for Southern California, -and expected his wife to go directly to Los Angeles, -as if Ora had not received a wireless to that effect an hour -before; she modestly told them something of her social -experiences abroad, answered the inevitable questions regarding -suffrage, excused Ora, “who was naturally upset”, -and expatiated upon her happiness in returning to -live in Butte. They thought this odd, but were so delighted -with her mixture of dignity and naïveté that they rushed -to their respective desks and told the world that the wife -of Gregory Compton had been the guest of princes and -was the handsomest woman in America.</p> - -<p>Ora was almost gay at the prospect of going directly to -California, although she was obliged to make the journey -alone. It was early in the afternoon when they landed. -Ida established Ora in the first Overland Limited that left<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span> -the Grand Central Station, and returned to the Waldorf-Astoria, -where she had engaged rooms for a month. She -had no intention of returning to Butte ignorant of New -York. Westerners of wealth, old and recent, visited New -York casually several times a year; and not to know it, -even with Europe to her credit, stamped a woman with -the newness of the new-rich who wore all their jewels all -the time. Ida had seen many women make fools of themselves -and had no intention of leaving any penetrable -spaces in her armour. She spent every morning in the -shops, or in the establishments of the exclusive dressmakers, -tailors and milliners that were patronized by the fashionable -women of Butte and Helena, giving them liberal -orders. She saw all the new plays, heard the more famous -of the opera singers, and even attended three symphony -concerts. She drove in the Park every afternoon or joined -the throngs on Fifth Avenue; and she took tea or lunch in -the different hotels and restaurants devoted to fashion. -Sometimes she sat in the gangways of her own famous -hostellerie, recalling with a tolerant smile her early crude -ambitions—had they died less than a year ago?—to trail -her feathers up and down Peacock Alley. She wore one -of her severest tailored suits upon these occasions, and -maintained an air of stately detachment that somewhat -counteracted the always startling beauty of her face and -figure. No man took his courage in his hand.</p> - -<p>One afternoon she sat longer than usual, for she had set -her teeth that day and walked through the Metropolitan -Museum. She fell to musing, and with a more sustained -introspection than was her habit, upon the changes that -had taken place within herself during the past year; wondering -“how deep they had struck”, if she really were as -altered as she must appear even to the raking eye of -Butte; or if she merely had developed her native characteristics -while polishing her surface and furnishing her -mind.</p> - -<p>She also endeavoured to analyse her attitude toward -returning to her husband, but gave this up, although puzzled -that it was not more obvious. But her mind was clear -on one point. If Gregory desired her society he must spend -his week-ends in Butte; nothing would induce her to return -to the De Smet ranch. She had not even a spasm of -curiosity to see the famous Perch of the Devil Mine.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">II</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IDA was not given to imaginative excursions, but during -the three days’ journey from New York to Butte, she -made no acquaintances, resting in the seclusion of her drawing-room; -and after she had read all the magazines her -mind began to people itself. Although the ladies of Butte, -whom she now regarded as equals, moved along the central -highway, Gregory was always turning the corners, and -she visualised him most frequently advancing hurriedly -toward the station as the train entered—both late, of -course. She rehearsed the meeting many times, never -without a pricking sense of awkwardness, for she now fully -realised that when a woman and her husband have not -communicated save on the wire for nearly a year, the first -interview is liable to constraint. He always had been difficult -to talk to. Would he be bored if she tried to entertain -him as Ora would entertain Mark: with such excerpts -of their many experiences as a confiding husband -might appreciate? She never had understood him. Out -of her greater knowledge of the world and men should she -be better able to fathom the reserves of that strange silent -nature—or did she really care whether she could or not? -Although she had made up her mind to greet him at the -station with the warmth of an old friend, and flatter him -with her delight in returning home, she had not the faintest -idea how she should carry off the long evening—if the -train were on time.</p> - -<p>It was not. Probably no Northwestern train has arrived -on time in the history of the three railroads. Ida’s train, -due at seven in the evening, arrived at midnight. Her -Pullman was at the end of the long dark platform, and -as she walked slowly toward the station building—which -looked like the bunk-house of an abandoned mining -camp in the desert—searching for someone to carry her -hand baggage—porters being non-existent in the Northwest—she -saw neither Gregory nor any other familiar face. -For the first time in her life she felt a disposition to cry.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span> -But as she tossed her head higher and set her lips, a young -man approached and asked if she were Mrs. Gregory -Compton. He was a pleasant looking youth, and she was -so grateful to be called by name that she forgot her new -reserve and replied emphatically that she was.</p> - -<p>“I am your chauffeur,” he said. “Your new car arrived -a few days ago, and Mr. Compton ’phoned me to meet -you. Have you any hand baggage?”</p> - -<p>Ida indicated her portmanteau and hat box in the dark -perspective and went on to inspect her car. It was a handsome -limousine, lighted with electricity, and for a moment -she took a childish pleasure in examining its fittings. -But as the man returned and piled her baggage in front -she asked irrepressibly:</p> - -<p>“Is Mr. Compton not in Butte?”</p> - -<p>“No, ma’am. He hasn’t been in Butte for weeks. Lively -times out at the mine, I guess.”</p> - -<p>“And my house? Had I not better go to a hotel?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the house is all right. Mr. Compton’s secretary -’phoned to an agency, and they put in three or four in help. -I guess you’ll find everything all right.”</p> - -<p>Ida entered her car, but scowled at its luxuries. By -this time she was “mad clean through.” “The famous -American husband!” she thought, gritting her teeth. -“Best in the world—not. If it’s my horse, my dog, my -wife with an Englishman, it’s business first last and always -with an American. European men are courteous -whether they mean it or not, but Americans only remember -to be polite when they have time. Ten months and he can’t -leave his mine long enough to meet me when I arrive at -midnight!”</p> - -<p>Her pleasure in returning to Butte had turned as flat -as spilt champagne. She did not even glance at the gay -electric signs and midnight activities of Broadway as her -car rolled through that sleepless thoroughfare toward the -West Side. But when her chauffeur, who had ignored -the speed limit, stopped abruptly before a large house of -admirable architecture and blazing with lights, her face -flushed with excitement and she forgot her recalcitrant -spouse. The door was opened at once and two maid servants -ran down the steps. They were young, neatly dressed and -capped, and it was evident that their service was dictated -not only by curiosity but by sympathy.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>“Welcome home, ma’am,” one of them, a Swede, said -shyly as Ida stepped to the pavement. “It’s too bad your -train was so late. The cook’s got a nice hot supper for -you.”</p> - -<p>Ida, who was not easily touched, felt as grateful to these -smiling girls as to her friendly chauffeur, and for a moment -was tempted to “come down off her perch” and revel -in human companionship. But she knew that it “wouldn’t -work”; she merely thanked them graciously and ascended -the wide steps of her new home, that palatial residence of -cream-colored pressed brick of her unswerving desires. -While the maids were taking her bags and boxes upstairs, -she walked through the large rooms of the lower floor. -Everything was in the best modern style of furnishing, the -prevailing tone dim and rich, with Eastern rugs on the -hardwood floors; French tapestries and carved oak furniture -and stained glass in the library—also a few books; -paler tapestries set in panels in the immense drawing-room, -and many beautiful pieces of furniture carefully -selected with an eye to both contrast and mating. Out of -this room opened a dining-room that looked like a baronial -hall, and although the Murphys had taken their silverware -they had left their china, imported from Limoges, and -their glass ware, made for them by a Venetian firm that -had supplied Ida’s grandes dames for thirty years. In -short it was one of those stately and sumptuous interiors, -furnished by the best houses in New York, which one associates -exclusively with the three or four great cities of -the United States, and is always unwarrantably surprised -to find in the newer cities of the West.</p> - -<p>Ida made a pretence of eating her dainty supper, remembered -that she was now a grande dame and visited -the kitchen to say an appreciative word to the cook, then -ascended to her bedroom divided between anger and a -depression so foreign to her temperament that she barely -recognised it for what it was.</p> - -<p>The large upper hall had been fitted up as a billiard -room, and with a continuous divan broken only by the -doors of the bedrooms. Ida threw it an appreciative glance, -but it merely emphasised the fact that there was no man in -the house, and she did not linger. Mrs. Murphy, evidently -a brunette, had furnished her bedroom and dressing-room -in primrose yellow and much lace. Ida approved both as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span> -unreservedly as she had the rest of the house, thankful -there was nothing to alter; like many women she had consummate -taste in dress and none whatever for house decoration; -although unlike most of these disparate ladies she was -quite aware of her deficiencies. She knew when a room -was all that it should be, but could not have conceived -one of the details, much less the unimpeachable combination. -The sex instinct teaches those subtleties of personal -adornment likely to allure the male, and arrest the anxious -eye of other females, but ancestral brain-cells are necessary -for the more civilised accomplishment.</p> - -<p>Ida’s eyes fell on the telephone beside her bed and -lingered. She forgot her beautiful room and the successive -throbs of gratified ambition, in an overwhelming desire -to call up Gregory and tell him what she thought of -him. But she was a woman in whom calculation was -stronger than impulse, and in the past year she had learned -to control her temper, not only because a carefully nourished -refinement had crowded out some of the weeds of -her nature, but because her ever-growing intelligence -despised lack of self-control in all things. So she merely -undressed herself, her eyes wandering every few minutes -to the telephone. It was incredible that he did not ring her -up. That, at least, would take but a few moments of his -precious time.</p> - -<p>However, she fell asleep immediately after her bath, and -it was the telephone bell that awakened her at eight -o’clock. This time she frowned at it, for she wanted to -sleep; but she sat up, put the receiver to her ear and asked -languidly: “Well?”</p> - -<p>A strange man’s voice replied: “Is this Mrs. Compton?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Why am I disturbed so early?”</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry—this is Mr. Compton’s secretary speaking—but -Mr. Compton told me to call you at eight o’clock. -He always comes in for breakfast at this time—here he is.”</p> - -<p>“Hello! How are you? What time did you get in?” -Gregory’s voice was elaborately polite and as eager as any -lover’s of yesteryear.</p> - -<p>“Are you interested?” Ida’s heart beat thickly, but her -tones were crisp. “I arrived at midnight. Really, I expected -you to meet me. That is generally considered the -decent thing to do.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>“Oh! I’m sorry it was impossible. I can’t leave the -mine at present. How did you like the house?”</p> - -<p>“I am enchanted with it—and with the limousine. When -are you coming in?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t say at present. I dare not leave for a moment. -You will find a deposit to your credit at the Daly bank.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks. Would—shall I run out?”</p> - -<p>“Better not. There is always danger of rows.”</p> - -<p>“But of course I’m wild to see the mine. You forget -how famous it is.”</p> - -<p>“Better wait awhile. It really isn’t safe.”</p> - -<p>“Very well. How’s your wound? Where were you -hurt, anyhow?”</p> - -<p>“Not worth mentioning, as I cabled you, and I suppose -you got my telegram in New York saying I was all right -again. Sure you got everything you want?”</p> - -<p>“I am overwhelmed by all this luxury, and your generosity.”</p> - -<p>“Glad you like it. Has Mrs. Blake gone to California?”</p> - -<p>“She went directly from the steamer. How is Mark -getting on. I’ve had only notes from Ora.”</p> - -<p>“All right. He doesn’t write but has telegraphed once -or twice. He’d better stay below several months. Write -Mrs. Blake to persuade him to take things easy. He had -a close call. I can get along without him for awhile, -but I can’t afford to lose him. Will you see to this?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll write Ora today. She’s in no hurry to return to -Butte—was delighted at the prospect of going to California, -and intends to take Mark to Santa Barbara, where -she knows a lot of people.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! Good. Well, I must get some breakfast. Amuse -yourself.”</p> - -<p>“And you won’t be in for several days?”</p> - -<p>“Afraid not. Good-bye.”</p> - -<p>Ida set the receiver back on the table, but it was some -minutes before she lay down again. She sat thinking, -with compressed lips. Born with intuitive knowledge of -men, she had, as she once remarked to Ora, turned a -goodly number of them inside out during the past year. -Gregory Compton did not intend to live with her again. -She knew this as conclusively as if his kind matter-of-fact -tones had expressed the direct message. Before she left -home it never had occurred to Ida to wonder if her husband<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span> -still loved her or not, and she had learned to accept -his consuming masculine interest in matters mineralogic -as all in the day’s work. Now she wondered if he had -ceased to love her then or since. That he took no further -interest in her as a woman, although amiably determined -to do his duty as her legal provider, would have been almost -patent to an imagination as riotous as Ora’s; to Ida, -practical and clear-sighted, there was not a loophole for -delusion.</p> - -<p>In a few moments she relaxed the tension of her body -and lay down.</p> - -<p>“Well!” she thought impatiently, “what’s the matter -with me, anyhow? Isn’t it what I always hopefully looked -forward to? Did I ever pretend to be anything but resigned—or -to be in love with him after the first few weeks? -I guess I’m spoiled with too much devotion, that’s what. -Seeing too many men lose their heads. Much their old -heads are worth. But I guess I don’t like being turned -down for once. Goose. It’s my lay to cut out pique and -sing a song of thanksgiving that I’ve got pretty nearly -everything I ever romanced about and set my mind on. -It’s a pretty good old world when things come your way, -and women’ll never be happy till they learn to put men -in the same place that men put us—on a handy little side-track. -I’ve got a whole parlour car instead of an upper -berth like some poor devils, so I’ll quit whining. But if -there’s another woman in the case, let them both look out—that’s -all!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">III</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IDA slept for two hours longer and rose in a philosophical -mood. As she more than once had remarked to Ora, -“nothing in life is just what you figured it out beforehand”; -and this, one of life’s most unwelcome lessons, -it had not taken her twenty-six years to learn. She had, -in fact, accepted and docketed it while women twice her -age were nursing their illusions.</p> - -<p>She had expected to be met at the station not only by -her husband but by Ruby and Pearl, to say nothing of -reporters. “She had slunk in like a nobody,” and her husband -declined to feed the fires of her vanity, blazing so -merrily these last ten months. Never mind. She had the -genius of quick readjustment and a sharp eye for the next -move in the great law of compensation.</p> - -<p>“And believe me,” she thought, as she put the finishing -touches to her smart morning street costume, and -taught the admiring Swede how to pin on a veil, “the -gods have provided the goods pretty liberally, and I don’t -belong to the immortal order of female jackasses. Nine-tenths -of women’s troubles, mental and physical, sprout -in that hothouse corner of their skulls they call imagination. -None of it in mine. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow -we shall die. Wait till I’m launched in Butte. -And just wait till I give a dinner party to the second son -of an English duke. Tra la la!”</p> - -<p>Before the morning was over even philosophy had folded -her wings. If life had been niggardly yesterday she gave -with both hands today. When Ida arrived at the bank she -was received with exceeding deference by the vice-president -and informed that he had recently invested two hundred -thousand dollars in her name, acting on instructions -from Mr. Compton; and that as a large part of it -was in mortgages the interest in some cases ran as high -as eight per cent. The money had been placed in his hands -for investment shortly after the great land deal, details<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span> -of which had reached the public ear in due course and -greatly added to the prestige of Gregory Compton. In -fact it had invested his remote and ambiguous personality -with an almost sinister significance. As Ida listened to -the story of this transaction (she barely had opened a -newspaper in New York and knew nothing of it), she -found herself wondering if it could be true that once she -had possessed this man of whom even bankers spoke with -bated breath. It was patent that they stood in awe not -only of the rapid and masterly strokes which had increased -his little patrimony by something over two millions in less -than a year, but of his colossal luck, his sensational reputation -as a “winner”, and his open defiance of the greatest -of all great trusts.</p> - -<p>It seemed to Ida, as she sat in the vice-president’s office -listening to his classification of her husband with -Marcus Daly, W. A. Clark, and F. Augustus Heinze, the -three commanding figures heretofore in the financial history -of Montana, and to predictions that Compton would -go farther than any one of his predecessors, that she -might have known Gregory in his extreme youth or in -some previous existence; but that this man who now not -only ranked first in the eyes of all Montana, but had -focussed the attention of a continent, no longer touched -her life save as a fairy-godfather. It was the first time -that she had appreciated his fame. She had been absorbed -in Europe and its diversions—and diverters; the -new wealth had been accepted as a matter of course; her -imagination had not been powerful enough to visualise at -a distance what her mind grasped the moment the facts -were presented to her in the measured yet glowing terms -of a bank’s president.</p> - -<p>“He always did feel himself a cut above me,” she -thought grimly as she left the building and walked down -Main Street. “And now, I suppose, he thinks Perch of the -Devil is Mount Olympus, and that he is some god. It -would be fun to put a nick or two in his halo—but never -mind: I’ve got a cool two hundred thousand—<i>and</i> a palatial -residence, <i>and</i> a limousine—sounds like a fairy tale. -There’s nothing mean about him, anyhow.”</p> - -<p>When she reached her beautiful home she found four -reporters awaiting her. They apologised for not meeting -her at the train, but as hour after hour had passed with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span> -discouraging reports, they finally had gone home to recuperate -for the next day’s labours. Ida dismissed the last -of her regrets, and told them all that she wished Butte -to know at once, showed the women the contents of her -trunks, which the maids were unpacking, promised to let -them know when the newer Paris wardrobe arrived, and -finally gave them lunch. Reporters are the quickest people -in the world to detect affectations, assumptions, and -false values, and the most merciless in their exposure; -but, although these four were on the alert, they could find -neither traces of original commonness nor imitation of the -British aristocracy. Ida apparently had consigned the -slang of her former class to the limbo of careless grammar, -and she was so simple and natural that they failed -to discover how clever she was; they agreed, as they walked -down Broadway, that she was merely a marvel of adaptability, -like so many others that had done credit to the -great state of Montana, to say nothing of the fluid West in -general.</p> - -<p>But, although Ida could be anything she chose when -occasion demanded, she always sought relief from the -strain as quickly as possible. Immediately after the departure -of the reporters she telephoned for her limousine -and drove to the large “Block” in the heart of the business -district where Miss Ruby Miller kept the looks of -the Butte ladies up to par. As she left the elevator she -saw that the familiar door was open as usual and the old -screen before it. She tapped discreetly, and Miss Ruby -came out into the hall, removing the cold cream from her -hands with her apron.</p> - -<p>“Ide!” she cried rapturously, throwing both arms about -her friend’s velvet shoulders. “Glory be, but I’m glad to -see you and you do look fine——”</p> - -<p>“How mean of you not to meet me——”</p> - -<p>“We had it all fixed and supper here, but gave it up at -ten o’clock. For all we knew you might not get in till -morning, and you know how we work——”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ll forgive you if you both come to dinner with -me tonight. I want to have one good old time before I -sit up and play the grande dame act for weeks on end——”</p> - -<p>“I guess you’re one now without any play-acting. You -look the real thing all right. And I guess we won’t see -so awful much of you now——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>“Do you mean because I’m harnessed up to a bunch of -money——” began Ida in high indignation.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know you’ll always feel the same, but grand -dames and our sort don’t gee at the same table. The West -is democratic but it ain’t too democratic. Don’t think -I’m jealous. You’re just where I’d like to be myself, and -I’m proud that one of us has got to the top so quick. My! -But Mr. Compton’s a wonder. To think that I ever dared -call him Greg—even behind his back. Well, he’ll be just -as proud of you as you are of him. Pearl’ll want to see -your hats.”</p> - -<p>“She can copy them all. Be sure to come early.”</p> - -<p>She felt warmed by the little interview, but as she went -down in the elevator she admitted to herself that her future -intercourse with her old friends must be sporadic, no matter -what her loyalty; and she wondered if her new friends -would take their place; or even be to her the half of what -Ora had become in the long intimacy of travel. She -shrugged her handsome shoulders. If you elected to mount -in life, you must pay the toll. Were she abruptly returned -to the old cottage in East Granite Street certainly -Ruby and Pearl would not compensate her. No, not for a -moment. You may slip back in life if you are not strong -enough to hold on, but you do not deliberately turn back -even for the friends of your youth. Neither does Progress -halt and sit down to wait for its failures to catch up. -Ida leaned back in her limousine and met the interested -eyes of many pedestrians of both sexes as her chauffeur -drove her about for an hour to get the air, and incidentally -to be looked at.</p> - -<p>Today she was in a mood to enjoy Butte, and she deliberately -summoned the long anticipated sensations. She -revelled in the gaunt grey ugliness of Anaconda Hill which -flung its arrogant head high above the eastern end of the -great hill itself; in the sensation of driving over miles -of subterranean numbered streets, some of them three -thousand feet below, to which that famous mass of rock -and dirt and angular buildings was the portal. She -leaned far out of her car to admire the glittering mountains -that looked like blue ice topped with white, and decided -that they were far more original and beautiful than the -Alps of Austria and Switzerland; certainly they tugged -at her heartstrings and at the same time filled her with an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span> -unprecedented desire to sing. She noticed for the first -time that the violet foothills against the nearer mountain -east of the city seemed to close the end of the streets as -the Alps did in Innspruck, and gave the ragged overgrown -camp clinging to its high perch in the Rockies a redeeming -touch of perfect beauty.</p> - -<p>She drove out to Columbia Gardens, bought flowers from -the conservatory for her rooms, and wandered about recalling -the many gay times she had had in the dancing -pavilion. But her eye was suddenly arrested by the steep -mountain behind, then dropped slowly to the base. It -was there that she had promised to marry Gregory Compton. -She remembered his young passion and her own. -She had never felt anything like it again; nor had he ever -been quite the same. Was it one of those “supreme moments” -novelists so blithely alluded to? The logical inference -of that old bit of bathos was that such moments -had no duplicates. She felt faint and dizzy for a moment; -then walked back to her car, smiling grimly as she -realised that she had experienced a fleeting echo of that -vast unattainable desire women live and die cherishing -or bewailing. “Poor things! Poor things!” she thought, -with the first pang of pity her sex had ever inspired. “No -wonder they go in for suffrage, art, work, any old thing. -Home,” she added to the chauffeur.</p> - -<p>She peremptorily dismissed all thought of the past during -the drive back to town and reverted to her pleasure -in once more feeling a part of her surroundings, hideous -though they might, for the most part, be; instead of walking -with alert critical eye through what always must seem -to her the animated pages of ancient history. But her -complacency received a sudden shock. The car was rolling -along Park Street when her eye rested upon a man’s -face vaguely familiar. She had bowed graciously and the -face was behind her before she realised that the man was -Professor Whalen, and that, for a second, she had looked -into a pair of pale blue eyes that sent her a swift message -of hate.</p> - -<p>Ida shuddered. The warm light air of her beloved -Rockies turned cold and heavy. “I feel as if I’d stepped -on a snake and just missed getting bitten,” she thought, -putting her sensations into a concrete form, after her -habit. “I had forgotten the little viper was alive, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> -I wish to goodness he wasn’t.” She had flouted superstition -always, but she could not shake off the sense of menace -and evil that had vibrated from the man until she was -within her own doors once more. Then she became as -oblivious of Whalen’s existence as during that late exotic -period when everything connected with her old life had -seemed too crude to be real.</p> - -<p>The parlour maid handed her a note that had arrived an -hour before from Mr. Luning, Mark’s partner. Mrs. -Blake, he wrote, had bought a present for Mrs. Compton -in Paris and sent it to the care of her husband’s firm. -Mr. Luning had gone the day before to Great Falls to -clear it in the Custom House, and now had the pleasure of -forwarding the boxes, etc.</p> - -<p>“Good gracious!” exclaimed Ida, “what can it be?”</p> - -<p>“There’s four big boxes in the back hall, ma’am.”</p> - -<p>Ida lost no time. If Ora had given her a present it -must be worth looking at, and she went as rapidly as -dignity would permit to the nether regions and ordered -the boxes opened. The present proved to be a magnificent -silver service, from many dozens of “flat ware” to massive -platters, vegetable dishes, flower, fruit and bon-bon pieces, -and candelabra. The delighted servants made a shining -display on the dining-room table, and after Ida had -gloated over it for a time and informed her audience that -it was copied from a royal service in the Louvre, she went -suddenly up to her bedroom. This time she did shed a few -tears, and as she looked at her handkerchief in some wonder -she decided that there was at least one person that -she loved, “hard-headed” as she was, and that Ora Blake -had found the one soft spot in her flinty heart and wormed -herself into it. She went to her desk immediately and -wrote Ora a letter that was almost tender, admitting that -she missed her “like fury”, and begging her to return -soon.</p> - -<p>“Greg telephoned this morning,” she concluded, oblivious -that she was betraying the fact that she had not -seen her husband, “and told me to tell you to keep Mark -down below for several months. But his lungs must be -well by this time or he’d be dead. And the rest of him -will mend all the sooner in this magnificent air. Heavens, -but it’s good to breathe it again! It makes one feel as -if the atmosphere of Europe hadn’t been aired for a century.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span> -I’ve got a wonder of a house and a jim dandy of a -limousine, but ever since I came I’ve felt kind of homesick, -and I’ve just realised it’s for you, old girl. So, come -home. Once more ten million thanks.”</p> - -<p>And when Ruby and Pearl dined with her that night she -realised that all her old zest in their society was gone. -Ida Hook, at least, had “passed on.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">IV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IT was on the morning of this same day that Gregory -sat alone in his cabin uncommonly idle, for he still -spent the greater part of his time underground, when not -away on business connected with his new investments and -deals. For the last week he had not left the hill, and although -he was on the alert to hear his geological acumen -vindicated, he was in no mood to find pleasure in his mine. -His conscience, an organ that troubled him little, was -restive. In spite of his liberal disbursements, he knew -that he had treated Ida unfairly. He had long since made -up his mind to obliterate her from his personal life, and, -if the truth must be told about a man who had snapped -his fingers in the face of the most formidable combination -of capital in the world, he was afraid to meet his wife. -Vanity, he argued, in such women takes the place of -warmth, and he had no mind to burden his memory and -resource with an endless chain of subterfuges; nor had -he any relish for the bald statement that since he could -not have the woman he wanted he would have none; and -that his mine, as complex and mysterious, as provocative of -dreams, as capricious and satisfying as woman herself—to -say nothing of hard work and increasing power—was to -fill his life.</p> - -<p>Ida might rage, stamp, scream, with her hands on her -hips, her superb eyes flashing. Worse still, she might weep, -lamenting that he loved her no longer—if he made her -hurried friendly calls. Far, far worse, he might succumb -to her beauty and superlative femaleness and hate -himself ever after. His was to be a life of unremitting -and constructive work; he must keep that blue flame -burning on the altar in his sanctuary. If he never paused -to draw it up into his consciousness he must know it was -there.</p> - -<p>Better stay away until she understood all that it was -necessary she should know, wore out her pique in private,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span> -and accepted the situation. But he would have felt better -this morning if he had heard that her train had arrived -early in the evening. He might be ruthless, even where -women were concerned, but he was also sensitive and -capable of tenderness.</p> - -<p>But he was not thinking of Ida alone. He was listening -for the footsteps of Joshua Mann, and in a few moments -he heard them, as well as the angry growl of his -foreman’s voice. Mann entered without ceremony.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been looking for you, sir. We’ve the devil’s own -luck again——”</p> - -<p>“Apex struck the Primo vein?”</p> - -<p>“No, and won’t for fifty feet yet. But—well—I hate -to say it—we’ve lost our vein—cut off as short as if it had -been sawed. Of course, it’s faulted, and God only knows -where its dropped to—or how far. A prettier shoot of -ore was never uncovered. What’s worrying me is that—oh, -hell!—just suppose that’s what Amalgamated is sinking -on. My head’s going round. Can I have something?”</p> - -<p>Gregory waved his hand toward the cupboard where -his visitors found refreshment. When Mann had braced -himself, his employer tapped a large sheet of paper that -lay on the table.</p> - -<p>“Come here,” he said. “I made this map some time -ago, and calculated to a day when you would lose the -vein. I guessed our vein had faulted before Amalgamated -got busy. But don’t worry. They’re either on a -parallel vein or on a mere fork.” His pencil moved along -the vein already stoped, travelled over the fault line and -recovered a vein further down. “Hundred feet,” he said. -“With air drills and unless the fault breccia is uncommonly -hard, which I don’t think is the case, we should find -it in less than three weeks. They can’t get through that -rock for at least a month. Even then they may not touch -us, but then again they may, and we must be there first. -Cut across the fault at once and follow it on the footwall -side to the east. Get well into the footwall. If you don’t -recover the vein inside of a hundred feet I’ll stand to lose -a thousand dollars and you’ll be the winner.”</p> - -<p>“I guess not,” said Mann admiringly. “But, by -jing! I was worried. You never can tell about them -faults. When the old earth split herself up and got to -slipping she not only lost one side of herself sometimes,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span> -but twisted about as if she was having fun with the apex -law of Montana in advance. But I figure out that you’re -like old Marcus Daly—you’ve got a sort of X-ray in your -eye that sees the ore winking below. So long.”</p> - -<p>He departed to carry encouragement to the anxious -miners, and Gregory went out and walked along his hill. -By this time he knew every inch of it, and had found indications -of ore in his other claims while superintending -the development work necessary before perfecting his patents. -If Amalgamated sank on his present vein and the -courts enjoined him from working it until the matter of -apex rights was settled, he would simply go ahead and sink -through the carbonates in his other claims to those vast -deposits of chalcopyrite with which he was convinced his -hill was packed. He knew the geological history of every -mine in Montana, and while he had given up all hope of -finding gold on his estate save in small incidental values, -he believed that he possessed one of the greatest copper -deposits in the Rocky Mountains. And now that even one -vein of his hill was threatened, he dismissed his old dreams -with a shrug and transferred his undivided affection to -the exciting treasure the earth had given him. There were -few surprises in gold mines. A great copper mine might -make geological history. In two districts, Butte and Castle -Mountain, copper glance, an ore of secondary enrichment, -had been found far down in the sulphide zone below chalcopyrite, -chief of the primary ores. He believed that he -should find glance at depth of nine hundred feet. If -there were masses of it he should take out millions in a -year, for chalcopyrite was the richest of the permanent copper -ores of this region, running as high as 79.8.</p> - -<p>He had been on amiable terms with the manager and -engineer of the Apex Mine since the battle underground, -and he crossed the claim unmolested to make his daily -inspection of the Primo shaft house. But there had -been no further attempt to use the cross-cut, although -the Apex people had managed before they were discovered -to drive to the point upon which they expected -to sink.</p> - -<p>Gregory walked up the hill beyond to look at the cottage -just completed, which was to be occupied by the manager -and foreman of the Primo Mine as soon as Mark reopened -it. He had been about to begin operations, cutting across<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span> -the fault Gregory had demonstrated—a fault parallel to -the one in Perch of the Devil—when he was shot nearly -to death.</p> - -<p>The cottage was situated in a clearing in the pine woods, -somewhat apart from the cabins, which were being renovated -and made comfortable for the miners. Gregory was -so positive that the pyroxenite vein would be recovered -just beyond the row of aspens, some sixty feet below -the tableland, that Mark, who believed his friend to be an -inspired geologist, was preparing for a long period of -mining; although if it had been a quartz mine Gregory, -sure as he was of his judgment, would not have permitted -him to put up a mill and concentrating plant until sufficient -ore had been blocked out to warrant the expense. But -pyroxenite went direct to the smelter, and a cottage could -always be rented.</p> - -<p>The little bungalow had two bedrooms besides one for -a Chinese servant, a bathroom, and a large living-room -with a deep fireplace, a raftered ceiling, and pine walls -stained brown. Gregory, as he realised how cosy it would -be when furnished, wondered that he had been satisfied -with his two-roomed cabin for so long. He had been too -absorbed to think of comfort, but today he felt a desire for -something more nearly resembling a home than a perch. -He looked through the windows at the sibilant pines, the -pink carpet of primrose moss, the distant forests rising to -the blue and white mountains; and then he sighed as he -glanced slowly about the long room and pictured it furnished -in warm tones of red and brown, wondering if either -of the men would be married. It would be an ideal home -for a honeymoon.</p> - -<p>He twitched his shoulders impatiently and went outside. -To his surprise he saw a wagon ascending the hill laden -with lumber, the seats occupied by the contractor and carpenters -that had built the bungalow.</p> - -<p>“What’s up?” he asked, as the contractor leaped to -the ground.</p> - -<p>“Another bungalow. Perhaps you could suggest a site. -It’s to be near this, and the same size. We had a telegram -from Mr. Blake yesterday.”</p> - -<p>“But what does he want of two cottages?”</p> - -<p>“Can’t say, sir, unless he means to come out here to -get well.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>“That’s nonsense. He knows he could stay at my house -on the ranch.”</p> - -<p>But Gregory was not in the habit of thinking aloud. -After indicating a site he swung back to his hill, angry -and apprehensive. Could it be possible that Mark intended -to spend the summer at the mine and bring his wife -with him? As soon as he reached his cabin he sat down at -his table, and after getting his friend’s present address -from Luning, telephoned a long distance message to Pony -to be telegraphed to Mr. Mark Blake in Santa Barbara. -Its gist was that the weather was abominable and that Mark -must not think of anything so foolish as to bring his -weakened heart and lungs to this altitude. His services -would be imperative later when his solicitous friend locked -horns with Amalgamated, and meanwhile he was, for heaven’s -sake, to take care of himself and remain on the coast -until he was in a condition to work day and night.</p> - -<p>He received an answer that afternoon.</p> - -<p>“No intention of leaving here for two months. Lungs -pretty good, but shall wait for leg to heal. Ora wants -present cottage for herself as she intends to spend summer -at mine. Will you be on the lookout for a manager? He -can live in the lessee’s shack until the new cottage is built. -Might begin operations at once. Hope this not too much -trouble. Mark.”</p> - -<p>This message was transmitted over the telephone, and, -to the excessive annoyance of the operator, who happened -to be the belle of Pony, Gregory asked her three times, -and with no excess of politeness, to repeat it. The third -time he wrote it out and stared at the words as if the -unsteady characters were recombining into a sketch of the -infernal regions.</p> - -<p>“Good God!” he thought. “And I can’t get away!”</p> - -<p>Was Mark mad? Was she mad? Then he realised the -blissful ignorance of both regarding the drama he so often -had swept from the stage of his mind, that secret dweller -in the most secret recesses of his soul. Doubtless Ora -never had thrown him a thought since they parted at her -gate. He remembered her expressed intention to live at -her mine when the lease was up, her desire to adventure -underground, her intense appreciation of the romance of -mining. He closed his eyes, his face relaxed. So long as -she cared nothing for him there was no danger; he might<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> -daydream about her a bit. At least—at last!—he should -see her again, talk to her, work with her, help her as no -one else could help her. If the association he would have -avoided was inevitable why not welcome it as a brief oasis -in what must be an arid life, so far as mortal companionship -was concerned?</p> - -<p>But he was not the man to dream long. Presently he -opened his eyes, set his jaw until it looked a yard long, put -on his overalls, and went underground.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">V</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">BUTTE long since had made up its mind as to the social -future of Mrs. Gregory Compton. That Ida’s mother -had been a laundress and her father a miner concerned -the ladies of Butte as little as many similar outcroppings -of family history peculiar not only to Montana but to all -regions of recent exploitation and rapid growth.</p> - -<p>In the hearty welcome extended to the newcomer, with -either the money or the personality to command its attention, -Butte more nearly resembles London than any other -city in the world. To pasts she is indifferent, provided -they are not resurrected as models for a present: she asks -no questions of a pretty, amiable, amusing woman who -pays her the compliment of sojourning in her midst, so -long as the lady exercises an equal reticence—assuming -reticence to be her virtue—and plays the social game with -<i>savoir faire</i>. Distractions on that high perch are few, -social life ebbs oftener than it flows, many of the large -houses are closed for the greater part of the year, and only -the very young, who care not where they are so long as -they may dance, find life in an overgrown mining camp as -satisfactory as their elders find New York.</p> - -<p>But the hospitality of Butte is genuine and founded -largely upon common sense. Most of the women composing -its society have enjoyed wealth for many years: they -have travelled extensively; and if they continue to make -their homes in Butte it is solely on account of their own -business interests or those of their men. They argue that -to deprive themselves of even the casual diversion, assuming -the exclusive airs of large and resourceful communities, -would merely put them on a level with thousands of other -small towns slowly stagnating, be unworthy of their -worldly experience, and of the large free spirit of the -Northwest which has pervaded that isolated camp since -they came with their husbands or fathers to take a hand -in its history.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>As for Mrs. Gregory Compton all they knew of her -in her present stage of development was favourable, although -several had a lively remembrance of the rosy black-haired -Ida Hook delivering her excellent mother’s laundry -work at their back door, and receiving more or less of her -“cheek.” But they had heard, at the time, of her lessons -with Professor Whalen, and of Ora Blake’s coincident interest. -Of her social advantages and triumphs in Europe -the press had kept them informed; she returned to Butte, -in fact, as one new-born. Moreover, she now owned one -of the finest houses in the city for entertaining, they knew -that she had elected to shine in Butte rather than in -London (that Mecca of so many quick-rich women without -position in their own country); and above all she was the -wife of Gregory Compton, the man in whom Montana was -beginning to feel assured it could take an unequivocal -pride, not only for his diabolical cleverness, but because -he was as “straight” as the Twentieth Century in the -United States of America would permit. Butte felt devoutly -grateful to Ida for being and returning, and, with -that utter lack of affectation that characterised it, began -calling two days after her arrival.</p> - -<p>Ida would have been glad to have had Ora’s support and -advice during this ordeal—which caused her far more -apprehension than ducal week-ends. But she summoned -all her acquired knowledge and tact, fortified it with her -native and supreme confidence in herself, and made no -mistakes. Butte was charmed with the severe rich gowns -that set off her haughty head and warmly colored face -and the long, flowing, yet stately lines of her beautiful -figure; charmed also with a manner that was both simple -and dignified. She showed no enthusiasm at being taken -up so promptly, neither did she quite accept it as a matter of course. -If her talk ranged freely over common acquaintance -in London, the Paris dressmakers of the season, -the new opera, the plays of the moment in New York, it -was without glibness, and she took a firm hold on the -older and more important women of the community by confiding -to them that she should not make her first venture -in the difficult art of entertaining until her friend Mrs. -Blake returned to help her through the novitiate. Many -of the younger women were the wives of Amalgamated -officials and attorneys, or of men in a relationship to that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span> -mighty power but one degree further removed; but the -men individually were too broad-minded to cherish a personal -grudge against Compton, and they were, moreover, -quite as eager as their mates to meet his handsome wife.</p> - -<p>During the ensuing fortnight Ida dined out every night, -went to a bridge party every afternoon, as well as to -several luncheons, teas, and dances. She wore a different -costume every time she appeared in public; but although -there was at the moment nothing in Butte to compare with -her gowns she never produced the effect of outshining the -other women by anything but her beauty and individual -style. In short her success was so immediate and so final -that, although she liked these ladies of her native town -even better than she had anticipated, her rapid conquest -soon lost its novelty, and she wished that Ora would return; -not only because she missed her increasingly, but because -to entertain in her great house would give her a new and -really poignant excitement, and lift her definitely from -the ranks of the merely received.</p> - -<p>Gregory telephoned every few days, and never twice at -the same hour. When she found herself restlessly awaiting -the ring of the instrument, she dashed out of the house -angrily and took a walk. If she found upon her return -that he had called her up, she felt that he had given her -the excuse to telephone to him, and she soon learned at -what hours she could find him either in his cabin or down -in the mine, where he had a booth. She was furious at -what she called her raging female vanity, and if she could -have found another man to assuage it she would not have -hesitated to press him into service at whatever cost to -himself. But, as happens more often than not, there was -not an unmarried man in Butte old enough to be worthy -of a fastidious woman’s notice. She would have yawned -in the face of “Brownies”, and, although more than one -roving husband would have placed himself at her disposal, -she was the last woman to court scandal or even -gossip. She longed for the advent of Lord John Mowbray, -whose gayety would distract her mind, and whose devotion -make her forget that she was a neglected wife. She could -throw dust into the eyes of Butte by pretending to be his -matrimonial sponsor.</p> - -<p>But for the first time she wished that she had children. -The great house seemed to demand the patter of small<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span> -feet, the slamming of doors, a row of naughty faces peering -over the banister of the second floor. It was terribly -silent. And yet she had felt settled down in that house -at once, so long had one of its kind been the object of her -unswerving desire; its atmosphere already seemed to hang -listless with ennui. She subscribed to both the state and -city suffrage fund, for she felt a new sympathy for women -who were trying to fill their lives, and sincerely hoped -they would invent some game that would make them independent -of men.</p> - -<p>Seventeen days after her return she was sitting in the -library, trying to forget her solitary luncheon in a novel -when she heard the front doorbell ring. Her servants -were amiable but not too competent, and she waited -impatiently and in vain for one of them to answer the -summons. She restrained the impulse to open the door -herself. This was now an obsolete custom among her new -acquaintance; although having the front door shut in -one’s face while the colored maid took one’s card to the -lady of the stately mansion was hardly an improvement, -and this had been her experience a day or two ago. She -rang the bell in the library. Still there was no sign of life -from the high-priced young women who doubtless were -gossipping over the back fence. Ida’s curiosity overcame -her. The hour was too early for callers. It might be a -cable. She stole to the front door and peered through its -curtain of Honiton lace. Then she gave a war whoop which -would have horrified her servants—who, careless as they -were, stood in awe of her—flung the door open, caught Ora -in her arms and almost carried her into the library.</p> - -<p>“Good Lord, but I’m glad to see you!” she cried. “I’m -just about dead of lonesomeness. Why didn’t you telegraph? -I’d have met you if your train didn’t get in till -two in the morning.”</p> - -<p>Ora laughed and disentangled herself, although she -kissed Ida warmly. “I just got in—came here on the -way from the station and sent my bags to the house—but -I always did hate to be met. How beautiful your -house is.”</p> - -<p>“It’s all right. But it’s about as cheerful to live alone -in as one of those palaces in the Via Garibaldi! My, but -I’m glad you’re here. You’re the only person I ever -missed, and being a real lady for weeks on end is telling on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span> -my plebeian health. I didn’t have any relief even in New -York. How’s Mark?”</p> - -<p>“Quite well, except for his broken leg.”</p> - -<p>“Is he here?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no—I left him in Santa Barbara—that is to say -at the Club House at Montecito, the fashionable suburb. -He has a jolly circle of friends there, and has no desire to -travel any further until he can walk.”</p> - -<p>Ida put her hands on Ora’s shoulders and turned her -round to the light. “What’s up?” she demanded. “You -look fine, as pretty as a picture—but—different, somehow.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve left Mark.”</p> - -<p>Ida glanced into the hall. The opening of back doors -indicated that one of the maids had condescended -to remember she was a wage earner. “Let’s go upstairs,” said -Ida; and as they crossed the hall she said to the girl who -was hastening to the front door with a propitiating smile, -“You’re just about ten minutes too late, as usual, and the -next time it happens you lose your job. I’m not the sort -that sits down and wails over the servant question. This -house will be run properly if I have to send East for help. -Now put on your hat and run down to Mrs. Blake’s house -and bring up her bags, and tell them to send her trunks -here.</p> - -<p>“Yes, you’re going to stay with me for the present,” -she said, as Ora protested. “Don’t say another word -about it.”</p> - -<p>Ora shrugged her shoulders, and when they were in -Ida’s bedroom she took off her hat and coat and wandered -about aimlessly for a few moments. Ida was almost breathless -with impatience and a curious sense of apprehension -that vaguely recalled the strange terror Ora had inspired -on the day of their meeting. Ora wore a blue frock, and -Ida noticed that the yellow room did not dim her fair -radiance. If possible she was holding her head higher than -usual, her skin “gleamed” more than ever, there was a -curious light in her always brilliant eyes, half defiant, half -exultant.</p> - -<p>“Do sit down!” said Ida sharply, cutting short Ora’s -voluble approval of the room. “There, that’s right,” as -Ora flung herself into a chair. “Now, fire away. You’re -brimming over with something. Do you mean that you’ve -left Mark for good and all?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Told him so?”</p> - -<p>Ora nodded.</p> - -<p>“Did you tell him about Valdobia, or what? For heaven’s -sake open up.”</p> - -<p>“No, I—I thought I wouldn’t tell him everything at -once. I told him that I meant to spend the rest of my -life in Europe, and that it was only fair to himself to -divorce me—he can do it easily on the ground of desertion—and -marry someone who would make a real home for -him—make him happy.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! Mark’s the sort women marry but don’t fall in -love with. And what did he say when you handed him -that?”</p> - -<p>“He was rather broken up.”</p> - -<p>“Really! And you? I always had an idea that when -it came to the point you wouldn’t do it. You have high-falutin’ -notions about honor, noblesse oblige, and all the -rest of it, to say nothing of being really soft, as I once told -you. There’s only one thing that would make you hard—to -everyone else—and that’s being in love——”</p> - -<p>“That is it!” exclaimed Ora eagerly. “I’ve made -up my mind to marry Valdobia. I wasn’t so sure when -I left Europe, but you know what separation often -does——”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Ida dryly, “I do. Well, Mark will have to -take his medicine, I guess. I’ve never doubted, since Valdobia -joined us in Genoa, that he was the man for you. -It’s fate, I guess. But tell me what Mark said, after all. -Did he consent?”</p> - -<p>“There was nothing else to do. He knew I meant it. -I broke it to him by degrees. Besides, he knew how it was -long before I left for Europe. He had practically given -me up. Of course he was fond of me—I had become a -habit and made him comfortable, besides being useful to -him—but—well, I gave him six years—my youth!” she -burst out passionately. “What wouldn’t I give to wipe -out those years, be twenty again and free! I tried to make -him understand that I was no longer in the least like the -bewildered undeveloped girl he had married; and that I -bore as little resemblance to the intellectual automaton I -made of myself later. I told him that I was awake once -for all, and that rather than live again with a man I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span> -couldn’t care for I’d be boiled in oil. Then he understood.”</p> - -<p>“I should think he might! Of course he asked if there -was another man?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but I told him that was neither here nor there; -that in any case I should leave him and live in Europe.”</p> - -<p>“Poor Mark! Tied by the leg, and lost in the shuffle!”</p> - -<p>“You know as well as I do that I have nothing in me for -Mark and that if I cared as little for Valdobia it would -only be fair to give him a second throw for happiness. -When I left him he was quite resigned, and we have agreed -to remain the best of friends. I shall leave him my power -of attorney as before, and he will continue to manage my -affairs.”</p> - -<p>“How much more sensible we are in our Twentieth Century! -No doubt he will visit you in the Palazzo Valdobia -when he takes a whirl at Europe.”</p> - -<p>“Why not? But tell me you think I did right, Ida?” -Ora’s voice was very sweet and plaintive.</p> - -<p>“You did what you were bound to do, I guess, when you -met a man that could throw a lariat round the neck of that -romantic imagination of yours. Right? I don’t know. I -guess I’ve got the same old streak of Puritan Americanism -in me, although if other people want to have <i>liaisons</i> and -divorces it’s none of my affair. Women will do more -and more as they damn please, I guess, men having set -them such a good example for a few centuries. But I -simply hate the idea of losing you. I want you right here -in Butte. Lord, I’ve almost forgotten may slang!”</p> - -<p>Ora laughed with something like her old merriment. -“Oh, you’ll have me for an escape valve for a while yet. -Valdobia’s mother is dying of some lingering horrible -disease. It wouldn’t be decent for me to go to Rome, and -I should be lonely anywhere else. So, I’ve made up my -mind to stay here during the summer at least, and realise -a dream I used to indulge in before I ever knew I could -fall in love.” Once more she looked straight at Ida, this -time with the slow expectant smile of a child. “I’m -going to reopen my mine and run it myself—of course I -shall have a manager. Mark has written, or telegraphed, -to Mr. Compton to find one for me—but I shall live out -there and go down every day, and make believe I am doing -something, too—at all events realise that it <i>is</i> my mine.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span> -Mining has always—that is, always did fascinate me more -than anything else on earth. I shall be devoted to Valdobia -when I am married to him, but I simply must have that -adventure first——”</p> - -<p>“For heaven’s sake don’t go dotty like Gregory over -a hole in the ground. If you get that bee buzzing round -in your skull I pity poor Valdobia. If it were not for his -mother I’d cable to him to come out——”</p> - -<p>Ora’s face set with a hardness that arrested Ida’s observant -eye. “Don’t you do anything of the sort. Mark -said once about my father, ‘It was characteristic of him -that when he quit he quit for good.’ I am always discovering -more and more of my father in me. I’ll live that old -dream and it will finish when Valdobia and I both are free. -Then I shall wipe it off the slate—consign it to limbo.” -She sprang to her feet and stretched out her arms. “I am -going to do exactly as I please as long as I am free. Of -course I am mad about Valdobia—you know that I -wouldn’t marry him if I were not—but I am mad too about -liberty and my mine. This is my only chance. And I am -a Montanan, born in the Rocky Mountains. I want something -of the life that has made my state famous before I -become a European. I’ve never had anything of her but -Butte. I want the wild mountains—I want, above all, -the mine that has given me my freedom. I’m going to -wear overalls and go down into the mine every day.”</p> - -<p>“A sweet sight you’ll be!” said Ida disgustedly. “And -the miners—Oh, they’ll just love the idea of having a -woman at their heels! What on earth has got hold of you? -It’s the only time I’ve ever known you to get off your base. -Why, there’s nothing a woman can do at a mine unless -she’s a graduated mining engineer, and nothing then that -a man couldn’t do better. You’ll be in the way and you’ll -soon be bored to death yourself. If you’re so crazy about -Montana why don’t you do some of those great things for -her that your father suggested? And how do you reconcile -your marriage to an Italian with your devotion to -your father’s memory?”</p> - -<p>Ora turned away her head. “My father gave me too -much of himself to expect me to play the rôle of ministering -angel to anything. I intend to invest in Montana the -greater part of all that I take out of my mine. If it gives -me one of the great fortunes I shall endow my state in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span> -some way—as Mark may suggest. But I cannot live here. -That is for ever settled. When I go to Europe I shall -never return—not even to America. I shall forget my life -here, everything connected with it—everything! One -side of me is already European. I shall become -wholly so.”</p> - -<p>“Somehow,” said Ida slowly, and with the sensation of -being so close to something that she couldn’t see it, “I -don’t get the idea that you’re so mad about Valdobia. -Long since I figured that when you did love a man you’d -be a sort of white pillar of flame about him. I firmly -believe that Valdobia is the man for you, but, well—he fell -too quickly. He didn’t make you suffer, never kept you -guessing for a minute. The women that turn men’s heads -are a good deal like men themselves; they’ve got to be -hurt hard and kept on tenterhooks before they are in a -condition to accommodate the virus. You are fond of -Valdobia, and well you may be, but mad isn’t the right -word——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes it is! It is!” Ora was walking up and down -the room. “You must believe that I love him as I never -dreamed I could love anybody——”</p> - -<p>“Hi!” cried Ida. “Your letter-man! That’s what! -You were more nearly in love with him than you are with -Valdobia, and because, for some reason or other, you -couldn’t get him. Where is he?”</p> - -<p>Ora’s eyes looked large and blank. “That! I had quite -forgotten it. It was the last of a long line of mental love -affairs. Those always evaporate even from the memory -when the real man comes along.” She sighed heavily and -sat down once more. “I know that I shall be happy with -Valdobia, only I am not happy now. That is so far off! -And of course I feel badly about poor Mark. But I -couldn’t help it. Not to do it would have been worse. And -I should go off my head meanwhile if I didn’t have this -mine. Do you think I could remain here in Butte and go to -dinners and bridge parties? I should scream in their -faces. I must have work. Be sure I can find something -to do at the mine—I suppose there are a laboratory and -assay office. And there will always be the excitement of -hoping to find free milling gold—at present what could -be more exciting than to drift for that lost vein?”</p> - -<p>“It wouldn’t keep me awake nights. But have your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span> -own way. I don’t want you down with nerves, and that -will happen if you don’t look out.”</p> - -<p>“If I don’t get my own way.”</p> - -<p>“Exactly. But I wish your way marched with mine. -I’ve missed you like fury—Say!—here’s an idea: I’ll go -back to Europe with you now if you like, and stay until -you marry. There are lots of places we planned to go to -and didn’t——”</p> - -<p>“Ida, you are a dear! And you longed so for Butte. -Why it would be like tearing an author from his unfinished -magnum opus. Besides—well—you have a husband——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord! Gregory is running the Universe at present. -Women don’t exist for him. Shall we go?”</p> - -<p>Ora shook her head. Her face had turned from white -to pale. “No. I must spend these last months of my -freedom here in my state. And that lost vein—it pulls -me. I <i>must</i> have that life for a few months—for the first -and last time. You—you—might spend your week-ends -with me.”</p> - -<p>Ida scowled and turned away her head. She had no -intention of admitting even to Ora that Gregory deliberately -avoided her. “Not I. I hate the sight of the De -Smet ranch. Go, if you like, but I feel sure you will -come in often. And before you go I wish you would do -me a favour.”</p> - -<p>“Of course I will.”</p> - -<p>“Let me give you a dinner. I want to begin that sort -of thing and you’ll furnish the excuse besides helping me -out.”</p> - -<p>“Very well. Have it soon. I want to go to the mine -as quickly as possible. I shall begin to send out the furniture -for my bungalow tomorrow.”</p> - -<p>“A week’s notice will be enough. I’ll write the invitations -today. There’s another reason I want to give this -dinner. Gregory hasn’t been seen anywhere with me—hates -going out. But I shall make him understand that -he must come to my first dinner—or people will be talking—and -I hate people prying into my affairs. Besides, it -will be his duty to you as the wife of his best friend. -(He needn’t know you’ve left Mark yet awhile.) I’m not -hankering for the rôle of the neglected wife; and I’m sick -of making excuses. For all Butte knew I might not have -laid eyes on my husband since my return.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>And although she spoke bravely Ora knew that she had -not. “We’ll have the dinner,” she said warmly. “And -it will be great fun to get it up——”</p> - -<p>“Now, come this minute and go to bed. You are to -stay with me as long as you are in this camp, and I’m -going to tone you up, and make you rest as we used to -in Europe every afternoon—hard work in this altitude -but it can be done. I’ve got to go to a bridge party now, -and you are to sleep. If you feel rested when I get -back, I’ll call up two or three of your old friends and ask -them to come informally to dinner. So long.”</p> - -<p>She closed the door of her best spare room on Ora and -walked slowly back to her own, her brows drawn; once -more quick with a sensation of profound uneasiness, of -being close to something that she could not see. But it -was not her habit to ponder for long over the elusive and -obscure. “Guess I’m worried about Ora’s health,” she -thought impatiently, and rang for her maid.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">VI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">TWO days later Gregory received the following note -from his wife:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><span class="smcap">Dear Gregory</span>:</p> - -<p>Ora is here, and before going out to the mine has promised to help -me through the ordeal of my first big dinner. Entertaining goes with -this house, and although I am beginning somewhat sooner, perhaps, -than is necessary, I have my reasons. I have asked twenty-four -people, the most important of the older and the younger married -sets. The dinner is to be at eight o’clock Tuesday. I want you to -come. Yow have been very generous, but there is one thing more -that you can do for me and I feel that I have the right to demand -it. If you no longer care for me, that is something I cannot help; -nor you either for that matter. But so far as the world knows, I am -your wife, and if we are never seen together there is bound to be -disagreeable gossip. I don’t want to be gossipped about. It is vulgar -and it complicates life. The Butte women I most wanted to -know are all right, but the town has the usual allowance of fools and -scandal mongers. By showing yourself at my first dinner in your -own house you will muzzle them. You can arrive in time for dinner -and take a late train back to Pony, if there is one. But please come. -I am sure if you think it over you will admit that I am merely proving -my new knowledge of the world in asking for your formal protection.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ida.</span></p> -</div> - -<p>Gregory read this note hastily when he found it in his -morning mail-bag in company with many business letters, -to which he also gave scant attention: he was in haste to -go underground. There was still no sign of the lost vein, -and nineteen days of the three weeks’ limit he had set -himself were gone. But they broke into it that same -afternoon. He barely left the mine until the following -morning, but he finally sought his cabin and bed satisfied -that the recovered vein of copper pyrite was, like the -original, six feet thick and as rich in values. When he -awoke he remembered Ida’s note, and although it had provoked -a frown of annoyance when he read it, his spirits -were now so ebullient that he not only admitted the justice<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span> -of her demand, but would have granted almost anyone a -reasonable request.</p> - -<p>Moreover, as he reread the note, its restraint and dignity -struck him forcibly, as well as its remote likeness to -the Ida Hook he had wooed in Nine Mile Cañon. Certainly -she had made the most of her opportunities!</p> - -<p>And apparently she had recovered from her first disappointment, -or pique—if, indeed, she had felt either—and -he assumed that the last year, crowded with exceptional -experiences, had made her over into something like a -woman of the world. No doubt among her many accomplishments -she had acquired self-control. (That she might -also have acquired finesse did not occur to him.) He -dismissed the fear that she would make a scene—and -himself thoroughly uncomfortable. On the whole it would -be interesting to see Ida as a bird of paradise. He remembered -her in shirtwaists and serviceable skirts, and recalled -that he had sometimes thought it a pity she should -not have the plumage worthy of her beauty and style.</p> - -<p>And if the fates had willed that he must meet Ora -Blake again he preferred that the first interview should -be in public.</p> - -<p>He rang up Pony and in the course of half an hour was -connected with Butte.</p> - -<p>“Hello!” he said cordially, as he heard his wife’s voice. -“Got your letter, but couldn’t find time to answer before. -I’ll come to the dinner with pleasure.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I am so glad.” Ida’s tones were crisp and cool. -There was none of the husky warmth that Gregory suddenly -remembered; nor any of the old common inflection. -“Are your evening togs at Mark’s?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, will you send for them?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll have everything here in one of the spare rooms. -The maid will show you up if you are late. It takes me -hours to dress.”</p> - -<p>“All right. Say—Ida—I wish you’d persuade Mrs. -Blake to give up that idea of coming out here. It won’t -work. She’ll only be in the way of the men, and if there -was a big row on would be one more responsibility for her -manager. I suppose she knows I’ve opened up her mine. -Besides, it’s no place for a woman anyhow. There are -only a few women—miners’ wives—in my camp; none in -the others.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span>“I’ve told her all that. But—well—you don’t know -Ora. Gambling—taking long chances—is in her blood, I -guess. You should have seen her at Monte Carlo. You -must take in Mrs. Cameron, but I am putting Ora on your -left as it is time you two got acquainted. Try to dissuade -her. I want her to stay here with me.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll do my best. How are you getting on? Butte still -panning out?”</p> - -<p>“I adore Butte and find nothing to change. It’s too -wonderful—to have all your old dreams come true like -this! I hope your mine is behaving. I heard a rumour -the other day that you had lost your vein——”</p> - -<p>“Just found it again!”</p> - -<p>Ida noted the exultant ring of his voice, and was about -to laugh when she changed her tactics swiftly. “Good! -I know just how fine you feel—and that it wasn’t the loss -of money that worried you either. Well, the dinner will -be a sort of celebration. Good-bye.”</p> - -<p>“Good-bye.” There was a faint accent of surprise in -Gregory’s voice. Ida smiled and returned to her interrupted -toilette.</p> - -<p>“Just let me get a good chance at him once more,” she -thought. “I’ll be eating copper before I get through, but -I don’t know him or his sex if he won’t be nibbling off -the same chunk.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">VII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE next week was the busiest she had ever known. -All the people that had called on her called again on -Ora. Her cook collapsed when told to prepare a dinner -for twenty-eight people, and Ida, who would not hearken -to a public caterer and his too familiar idiosyncrasies, -telegraphed to St. Paul for a chef. What moments she -had to spare after consultations with this autocrat, with -a temperamental designer of menu cards, and with two -high-handed young women whom she had been persuaded -by the charitable Mrs. Cameron to engage to decorate her -rooms, were spent with certain works on copper and mining -that she had procured from the public library.</p> - -<p>She looked forward to the evening of her dinner party -with a secret excitement that seemed to fork its lightning -into every recess of her brain, and electrify it with a sense -of the fulness of life—that hinted intoxicatingly of life’s -perfections. Not only was she to live the wildest dream -of Ida Hook, but she had made up her mind to bring the -most important man in Montana to her feet on that -triumphant night. That the man was her husband, won -the first time without an effort, lost through her own indifference -and ignorance, added tenfold to the zest of the -game. She knew the impression he must retain of her: -crude, obvious in her sex allurement, cheaply dressed, a -sort of respectable mining-camp siren; all her fascinations -second-rate, and her best points in the eyes of an absent-minded -husband her good-natured mothering and admirable -cooking.</p> - -<p>If she had returned to find him as she had left him, a -mere brilliant hard-working student, and automatically attentive -to his home partner, no doubt she would have -slipped into her original rôle at once, for she was normally -amiable, and she had strict ideas of wifely duties, which her -insistent vanity and deliberate flirtations never for a moment -endangered. They also filled the practical wants of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span> -a nature not derived from artistic ancestors. She had had -her “flyer”, and, allowing for social triumphs, returned -to Butte to settle down; although it had been with a certain -complacency that she had reflected during the homeward -journey upon the altered circumstances which would -enable her to live like a civilised being in her own apartments -and see far less of her husband than formerly.</p> - -<p>Her complacency had been treated to a succession of -shocks since her return; it had, in fact, finally gasped out -its life; although it had left self-confidence behind to sit -at the feet of her shrewd clear mind. She found a zest -entirely new in bringing to his knees a man who had -been her husband when she was too raw and conceited -to appreciate him, who had developed into a personage, -and who had conquered his mere maleness and put women -out of his life: she had consulted a detective agency and -convinced herself that her only rival was the mine. Ida -was nothing if not practical. Before preparing for her -siege she chose to know exactly where she stood. A rival -of her sex would have demanded one sort of tactics; a mere -mine and the quickened business instinct of a dreaming -but outclassing brain, although she did not underrate their -peculiar dead walls and buffers, exacted a different and -more impersonal assault—at first.</p> - -<p>Much that she had failed to understand in her young -husband was clear to her now. His silences, his formidable -powers of concentration, his habit of thinking out his -purposes unto the smallest detail before verbal expression, -his tendency to dream, combined with lightning processes -of thought, were the indispensable allies of his peculiar -gifts: she had talked with too many brilliant and active -men during the past year, to say nothing of her daily association -with Ora, for whose inherited and progressive intellect -she had the highest respect, and her own development -had been too positive, rapid, and normal, not to be -fully aware that men born with the genius to conquer life -were equipped with powerful imaginations that necessarily -made them silent thinkers.</p> - -<p>She had become intensely proud of her husband since -her return, and his neglect, coupled with his scrupulous -generosity, had stung her pride and aroused both desire -and determination to recapture what she had lost. She -had no great faith in her capacity for love; but not only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span> -was she fascinated by Gregory for the first time but she -found him more worthy of her accomplished coquetry than -any man she had met in Europe. She was firm in her -resolve to repossess her husband, but not merely to satisfy -that pride which was the evolution of a more primitive -vanity; she felt a certain joyousness, a lilt of the spirit, -at the thought of spending her life with him, of being the -complete helpmate of such a man; even a disposition to -dream, which was so new in her experience that she banished -it with a frown. “If I let go like other fool women, -I’ll make a grand mess of it,” was her characteristic reflection.</p> - -<p>She was dressing for the dinner when she heard him -enter the house. The parlour maid for once remembered -her instructions, and led him up to his room, which was -on the opposite side of the hall from his wife’s and at -the extreme end. Her door was ajar, she heard his voice—whose -depth and richness were decimated by the telephone—his -light foot ascending the stair. For the moment -she lost her breath, then with an angry jerk of the -shoulders regained her poise, and, in tones careless enough -to reassure any husband suddenly overwhelmed with the -awkwardness of his position, called out:</p> - -<p>“Good evening, Gregory. Hope you’ll find everything -you want in your room. Ring if you don’t. See you -downstairs.”</p> - -<p>“Oh—thanks!” Gregory swallowed an immense sigh -of relief. “I’ll be on time.”</p> - -<p>Ida, assisted by the “upstairs girl”—she had not yet -found a ladies’ maid willing to come to Butte—continued -her toilette. Her gown was as nearly Renaissance as she -thought her native Northwest would stand at this stage -of her social progress. It was “built”—a word more appropriate -to woman’s dress <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span> 1600 than today—of -heavy turquoise-blue brocade, the design outlined here -and there with gold thread. The long wrinkled sleeves -almost covered her hands, and, like the deep square of -the neck, were tipped with fur. Her mass of blue-black -hair was closely twisted around her head from brow to the -nape of her neck, held above the low forehead by a jewelled -stiletto Ora had given her in Genoa, “to remind her of her -midnight diversions in the Renaissance palace over which -her dim ancestral memories brooded.” This she had dismissed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span> -as damn nonsense, but she liked the stiletto with -its rudely set stones, and had promised to wear it the first -time she got inside one of her near-Renaissance gowns.</p> - -<p>The pale subtle blue of the dress made her eyes look -light and altogether blue, the thick black underlashes and -full white underlids giving them an expression when in -repose of cold voluptuousness. Her skin against the dark -edge of fur was as white as warm new milk. Her costume -and her regal air would have made her noticeable in the -proudest assemblage. She was well aware that not only -was she a very beautiful woman tonight but a dangerous -one. And she might have stepped from one of the tarnished -frames in the Palazzo Valdobia.</p> - -<p>After the maid had been dismissed, she examined herself -even more critically. The coral of lip and cheek, while -still eloquent of youth and health, was more delicate than -of old; all suggestion of buxomness had disappeared. She -looked older than when she had left Butte; the casual -observer would have given her thirty years; her cheeks -were less full, her mouth had firmer lines; the cold grey-blue -eyes more depth, justified their classic setting. Even -her profile, released by the finer contour of cheek and -thrown into high relief by the severe arrangement of her -hair, contributed to the antique harmonies of her head and -form.</p> - -<p>“You’ll do,” she said to her image, and went down -stairs.</p> - -<p>Several guests arrived at once and she was standing before -her antique English chimneypiece carved in California, -chatting with three of them when Gregory entered -the room. She nodded amiably as if they had met too -recently for formalities. He took the cue and paused to -exchange a few words with two men that stood near the -door. But Ida had seen the startled opening of his narrow -eyes which meant so much in him. She also noted -that, as other guests came in, he looked at her again and -again. In truth Gregory was startled almost out of his -trained stolidity. He had known a certain side of Ida’s -cleverness, and believed when he sent her abroad that she -would make much of her opportunities, the greatest of -which was her constant association with Ora Blake; but -that she would return in less than a year looking the great -lady, and the handsomest woman he had ever seen, even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span> -his energetic imagination had failed to consider. Magnetism, -as of old, surrounded her like an aura, but to this he -was insensible, his own magnetism having been caught and -entangled with that of another. He felt very proud of his -wife, however, and, with a sudden impulse of loyalty, he -crossed the room and stood at her side. He also was -prompted to say in a tone pitched to reach other ears:</p> - -<p>“By George, you are simply stunning. I haven’t seen -this—a—frock—dress—before.”</p> - -<p>“Gown, my dear, gown. It only arrived a few days -ago. I shall take you to Europe with me next time—”</p> - -<p>“Take him soon!” said Mrs. Cameron. “Don’t give him -time to wear out before he has begun to live. Our tired -business men!”</p> - -<p>“Next year!” said Ida, gayly. “He has half-promised -and I’ll not let him off.” As she looked into his eyes -with bright friendliness, his face relaxed with the smile -which, she suddenly remembered, always had won her from -anger or indifference. He was openly delighted with her, -the more completely as he was both puzzled and relieved to -see that those splendid eyes held neither cold anger nor -feminine reproach. Moreover, although they softened for -an instant before she was obliged to turn away, it was with -an expression that made her look merely sweet and -womanly, not in the least coquette or siren. Other guests -claimed her attention. He heard her give a little hiss, and -saw her eyes flash. Then he forgot her. Ora had entered -the room.</p> - -<p>Her gown, of some soft imponderable fabric that gave the -impression of depth in colour, was the peculiar flaming blue -of the night sky of Montana. Gregory was reminded instantly -of the night they had sat on the steps of the -School of Mines, with the pulsing sky so close above them. -The upper part of the gown was cut in points that curved -above her slight bust, the spaces between filled with snow-white -chiffon which appeared to be folded softly about -the body. She wore her pearls, but at the base of her -slender throat was a closely fitting string of Montana -sapphires, of the same hot almost angry blue. Her little -head with its masses of soft ashen hair seemed to sway on -the long stem-like neck, her stellar eyes blazed. Her -costume extinguished every other blue in the room.</p> - -<p>“Really!” said Mrs. Cameron, whose black eyes under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span> -her coronet of iron grey hair were snapping, “these two -dear friends should have had a consultation over their -costumes for tonight.” She had never liked Ora, and -although, as the leader of Butte society, she made a point -of speaking well of all whom she did not feel obliged to -ignore, she had taken a deep liking to Ida; moreover, -always a handsome woman herself, she felt both sympathetic -and indignant. This was Ida’s night, and she -scented treachery.</p> - -<p>She had addressed her remark to Gregory, but although -he looked at her politely he would not have heard thunder -crashing on the roof. He wondered if he were standing -erect; he had a confused impression that that wonderful -blue gown was burning alcohol whose fumes were in his -head and whose flames swirled through all his senses. And -the woman within those curling blue flames was so much -more beautiful than his memory of her that he forgot -not only his recent tribute to Ida, but her bare existence -until she tapped him sharply on the arm.</p> - -<p>“Dinner has been announced,” she said. “You are -to take in Mrs. Cameron.” Ida was smiling again; she had -dismissed anger and annoyance; nothing was to dim the -radiance of her spirits tonight. She and Ora would be at -opposite ends of the table, and she could keep the length -of the drawing-room between them when they returned.</p> - -<p>Gregory’s face never betrayed him, particularly when -he kept his eyelids down, and, as he shook hands with Ora -in the dining-room he told her he was glad to see her -again as casually as if his hand had not tingled to crush -hers. He talked with Mrs. Cameron, however, as long -as possible, but when her attention was claimed by the -man on her right, he was obliged to turn to Ora. By this -time his blood was still. Eating is commonplace work, and -talking the inevitable platitudes of a dinner’s earlier -courses will steady the most riotous pulses.</p> - -<p>Ora smiled impersonally; her eyes might have beheld the -husband of her friend for the first time.</p> - -<p>“I am so glad to be able to ask you something about -my mine,” she said. “Ida tells me that you have reopened -it.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, they are already through the fault and driving -for the vein. There happened to be a good man here looking -for a job when I got Mark’s telegram, a young engineer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span> -from the East, named Raymond. The miners are good -capable men, too, and as Osborne and Douglas installed -a compressor, the work should be pretty quick. I fancy -you’ll recover the vein in a week or two.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder if I shall? Mark thinks you infallible, but -it seems too good to be true.”</p> - -<p>“The vein is there, about a hundred feet down, but -how rich it is I do not venture to predict.”</p> - -<p>“Well, never mind,” Ora smiled happily. “I shall have -the fun of looking for it, and I want to be with the men -when they find it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh—Ah—It really would be better for you to give -up that idea of going out there to stay——”</p> - -<p>“I thought I would give to you the opportunity to say -that at once! Do go on and relieve your mind.”</p> - -<p>“It is neither safe nor desirable,” he said sulkily. “I -may have a row on my hands any minute. Your men and -my men are a decent lot, but the Apex have employed a -lot of scum so ignorant that there is no knowing what they -may do in a crisis—in the hope of currying favour with -their superiors. They would merely be made scapegoats or—canned—I -beg pardon, fired—but they don’t know that, -and they’re as hard a lot as Europe ever kicked on to our -dump heap. Better stay here for the present.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve sent out all the furniture for the bungalow, and -Custer and a Chinaman to put it in order. I suppose my -engineer can camp in the other cottage until it is finished. -That is quite close to mine, I understand.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, of course—but why not stay at my ranch -house——”</p> - -<p>“That is too far from the scene of operations. Please -don’t bother about me. I should hate to think I was on -your mind—you have enough! I shall be well protected, -and I’ve even bought an automatic. I suppose being a -born Westerner I should call it a gun. But it’s such a -little one. I shall carry it always——”</p> - -<p>“Yes, promise that.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve even had a little bag made, like those they wore -years ago, to fasten to my belt, and I shall keep it in -that.”</p> - -<p>“Very well.” He dismissed the subject. “I—ah—there’s -something I heard today, but perhaps I should not -speak of it. Only Mark is such an old friend of mine——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>“I suppose you saw Mr. Luning and he told you that -we are to separate.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that is it.”</p> - -<p>“I intend to live in Europe: I suppose you think that -a callous reason.”</p> - -<p>“It’s as good as most reasons for divorce in this country. -When is Mark coming back?”</p> - -<p>“Not for two months. Nothing will be done until then. -I want to have my mining experience first and I shall -leave Montana as soon as the papers are served.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!”</p> - -<p>Her partner claimed her at the moment and, his own -still being occupied, he observed her furtively. He thought -that she too looked older, but not because advantages had -improved her; rather—he groped for the words that would -give definiteness to his impression—as if some experience -had saddened her. She had a softer expression. The blood -rushed to his head and he almost choked with jealousy, his -intuitions carrying him straight to the truth. “By God! -She has loved some man,” he thought. Then he set his -teeth. So much the better.</p> - -<p>But when she turned to him again, he said impulsively, -although his tones were light:</p> - -<p>“You never did fit this Western life of ours. Of course -you have found a more civilised mate in Europe?”</p> - -<p>“You are all wrong,” she said gaily. “My only love -at present is my mine. My mine! You should understand -if anybody can.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I understand that magnet. But I naturally -thought——”</p> - -<p>“What everybody else will think when the news is out. -But I am astonished that you should jump at anything so -commonplace.” Her heart was hammering under the concentrated -intensity of his gaze; and as if he realised suddenly -that he might be betraying himself he said sarcastically:</p> - -<p>“As there are—I was told today—no less than six divorces -pending in this set which my wife has the honour -to entertain tonight, and as all are to intermarry, so to -speak, when liberated, my conclusion in your case was -probably due to the force of suggestion.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I forgive you if you promise to believe none of -the absurd stories you are sure to hear. I am in love<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span> -with freedom. Now tell me what you think of Ida? Isn’t -she wonderful?”</p> - -<p>Gregory looked down the table at his wife sitting between -the two most important men in Butte and entertaining -both with animated dignity. She met his eyes and -smiled brilliantly. She knew that he was proud of her; -she had accomplished the second manœuvre in her flank -attack: her first had been to put him at his ease.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said to Ora. “She is. It is almost beyond -belief. And she is your handiwork!” The two might have -been life-long intimates, and Ida a mere kinswoman of -both, so little did the oddity of this discussion occur to -Gregory at least.</p> - -<p>“And in a way my present to you.” Ora spoke with a -charming graciousness. “Mark had given me a tremendous -idea of your abilities. The day I met Ida I saw her -possibilities, and I made up my mind then and there that -when the world claimed you your wife should be not only -an inspiration but equipped to render you the practical and -social help that every rising man needs. Isn’t it splendid to -think that she will always sit at the head of your table?”</p> - -<p>Gregory was staring hard at her again. “You did that -deliberately?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes. Deliberately. Ida is so clever that she was -bound to develop with your rising fortunes, particularly if -you sent her to Europe. But it would have taken longer. -I couldn’t wait. My father inspired me with the deepest -admiration and respect for our Western men. I had made -up my mind that you were born into the front rank, and -I wanted, as a Western woman, and my father’s daughter, -to do something to help you. Tell me that you are satisfied -and that you are as proud of Ida as she is of you—that—that—you -simply adore her.” She did not flinch, -and looked him straight in the eyes, her own full of young, -almost gushing, enthusiasm. Her heart had almost stopped -beating.</p> - -<p>“I certainly am proud of her, and grateful to you. No -doubt she will be very helpful if I am forced into politics -to conserve my interests.” His tones were flat. He had -come to his senses, and he was too loyal to hint that he no -longer loved his wife: but Ora’s face was suddenly flooded -with a lovely colour, and her eyes looked like grey mist -through which the sun was bursting. She asked him,</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span>“Aren’t you going to stay with us for a few days! -We’d love to have you?”</p> - -<p>“I take the 6.10 for Pony in the morning. If I disappear -before the others it will be to snatch a few hours’ -sleep in that gorgeous four-poster in my room. After living -in two rooms for so long I am oppressed with all this -magnificence——”</p> - -<p>“Two rooms!” Ora’s voice rang out like an excited -child’s. Gregory, marvelling at the quick transitions of -her sex, thought he had never seen anyone look so happy. -The gentle melancholy that had roused his jealousy was -obliterated. “Two rooms!”</p> - -<p>“There is another shack just beyond where my Chinaman -cooks for me, and bunks, but I have only a bedroom -and office—and a bathroom of sorts. Even my secretary -sleeps at the ranch house.”</p> - -<p>“You dear innocent millionaire. No doubt the proletariat, -reading of your sudden wealth, and cursing you, -pictures you wallowing in luxury. Well, you shall come -and sit sometimes in my comfortable living-room. It is -time you relearned the a, b, c, of comfort—before you -relapse into the pioneer.”</p> - -<p>“Your bungalow looks as if it could be made very homelike.” -He spoke with unconscious wistfulness, and she -raised friendly and impersonal eyes to his.</p> - -<p>“You shall see. I have what the French call the gift -of installation, and I have sent out nice things. I shall -make tea for you when you come to the surface at the -end of the afternoon shift, and you shall sit in the deepest -of my chairs.”</p> - -<p>“It sounds like heaven,” said Gregory, who despised -tea.</p> - -<p>Professor Becke, who had taken her in, and Mrs. Cameron -simultaneously addressed their temporary partners, -and Gregory was now to listen to an account, both spirited -and kindly, of the admiration his wife had excited in her -native town. Mrs. Cameron suspected the breach, in spite -of the clever acting of both, and made up her mind to do -what she could to bridge it. She had not an inkling of -the cause, for, like Ida, she knew nothing of that fateful -hour on the steps of the School of Mines; but as there was -no gossip abroad about either Gregory or his wife, she inferred -that it was one of those misunderstandings that so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span> -often separate young couples, always prone to take themselves -too seriously. She knew that Gregory would value -her praise; he not only had been fond of her as a schoolboy, -when he spent an occasional Saturday with her son, -but he knew that her experience of the world was very -wide. She was a woman whom long years of wealth had -enabled to travel extensively, she visited intimately at -some of the greatest country homes in Europe, and she -had her own position in New York. She subtly made -Gregory feel prouder still of Ida, and then said teasingly:</p> - -<p>“It is well that you have her devotion. I know of three -men that are quite off their heads about her——”</p> - -<p>“Ah? Who are they?” A sultan may weary of his -sultana, but his sultana she is all the same.</p> - -<p>“That I’ll not tell you. Even your wife could not, I -fancy. I’ve never seen a woman treat men with a more -careless impartiality. What a relief—with all these divorces -pending. Merely a shuffling of cards, too, I understand. -It is disgusting. I asked your wife as a personal -favour to me to invite none of them tonight. Butte either -has long orgies of respectability or goes quite off her -head.”</p> - -<p>“My wife is singularly indifferent to men for a beautiful -woman,” replied Gregory, comfortably ignorant of his -beautiful wife’s depredations abroad. “Nor is she likely -to countenance divorce. She has a good deal of her old -New England mother in her.” He had a haughty contempt -for explanations as a rule, but his quick instinct had -caught the significance of his companion’s remarks; knowing -that Ida must wish to stand well with this amiable but -rigid arbiter of Butte’s court of last resort, he added:</p> - -<p>“I am sorry not to be in Butte oftener, and give her -what little assistance a man may, but it is all I can do to -leave the mine for a few hours every week or two.”</p> - -<p>“That is the fate of too many of our American women -married to our too busy American men. But—well—Gregory—I -have married sons and daughters, and I am an -old friend of yours. Young wives must not be neglected, -and resentment eats like a cancer until women are old -enough to be philosophical. Just think that over.” And -before he could answer Ida gave the signal and the men -were left alone.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">VIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap2">AS the women dispersed about the long drawing-room -Ora laid her arm lightly round the waist of Ida, who -was standing for the moment apart.</p> - -<p>“Your dinner is a tremendous success, my dear,” she -said, “and so are you. That gown! It makes mine look -so crude. I wish I had worn white as I intended until -the last minute. How splendidly everything went off. Not -a detail to criticise, and every woman has worn something -new from New York or Paris. But you—well, Ida, you -are always beautiful, of course, but tonight you are something -more than lovely.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, am I?” Ida gave a little gasp, forgetting her passing -astonishment at so much tribute from Ora at once. -“Well, I ought to be. I never felt quite like this in all my -life. Geewhil—no, I’m too happy even for slang. I wish -I could sing.”</p> - -<p>Ora sighed. “I’ve always known you would get everything -you wanted, and I can guess just how you feel tonight. -You are a complete success. How many people -ever are able to say that?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I feel as if I owned the earth!” But her brows -met in a puzzled frown. “I never felt, though, as if even -the conquest of Butte would all but send me off my head. -I never feel very much excited about any old thing; it’s -not my make; but I’ve got a sort of shiver inside of me, -and a watery feeling in the heart region. If that chef had -spoilt the dinner I’d have gone out and wrung his neck.”</p> - -<p>“Well, nothing can go wrong now. The worst is over, -and no dinner was ever more delicious. Why don’t you -let them dance? I know that Mrs. O’Hara plays.”</p> - -<p>“Good idea! I’ll ring this minute for a few of those -extra near-waiters to take out the rugs and move the furniture.”</p> - -<p>Two of the younger women, who had returned not long -since from San Francisco, were showing their scandalised<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span> -friends the turkey-trot when the men came down the hall -from the dining-room. Ida drew Gregory aside.</p> - -<p>“Tell me,” she asked, with an eager almost childish -note in her voice new to him. “Did it go off well? Am -I all I ought to be after all the money you have spent on -me? Do I look nice in my fine clothes?”</p> - -<p>Gregory patted her on the shoulder. “I know little -about such things,” he said kindly, “but it outclassed all -the banquets I’ve been obliged to attend in the last six or -eight months. I felt quite proud that it was in my own -house—yours, to be literal—and Mrs. Blake assured me -that she had never seen anything better done.”</p> - -<p>“Ora is an angel, and without her—but you know all -that. Tell me—well, Gregory, I want a good old-fashioned -compliment!”</p> - -<p>His voice lost its bantering tone and became formal with -gallantry: “You are, as ever, the handsomest woman in -Montana. I shouldn’t wonder a bit if those New York -reporters were right and that you are the handsomest -woman in America.”</p> - -<p>Ida looked for a long moment into his eyes. Again her -brows met in a puzzled frown, this time because her singular -lightness of spirit had fled abruptly. She was too -proud, too far developed beyond the old Ida, to put forth -the arts of the siren until they were alone; but she asked -softly, and again with that almost childish naïveté:</p> - -<p>“Do you really admire me?”</p> - -<p>“You are all right,” he said with a heartiness that -masked a sudden misgiving. “I must come in and take -you to the theatre the next time a good show comes to -town. Let me know. I’ll gratify my vanity by sitting -beside you in a box——”</p> - -<p>“There’s a play tomorrow night. Stay over!”</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry. I don’t dare. Apex is sinking for all she’s -worth. We may have a set-to any minute. It was a risk -even to come away for a night.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, do let me go out, and down into the mine——”</p> - -<p>“I should think not. And do your best to keep Mrs. -Blake in Butte for at least a week.”</p> - -<p>“Well, let me go out when the danger is over. I long to -see chalcopyrite in the vein. I saw some beautiful specimens -at the School of Mines the other day. It looks like -pure gold.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span>He looked at her in amazement. “What on earth do -you know about ores? Did you include Freiberg in your -itinerary?”</p> - -<p>“This is Butte, remember. I no sooner returned than -I realised how interesting she was.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, well, when this affair is settled, come out and stay -with Mrs. Blake and I’ll take you down. I’ve no place to -put you up. Even the ranch house is full. Mrs. Blake’s -manager and foreman are boarding there at present, and -Oakley also puts up my secretary——”</p> - -<p>“And those crops Oakley put in with such enthusiasm?” -cried Ida with a sudden inspiration, and racking her memory. -“Did they turn out as he expected? Was there a -drought—in—in—those states?”</p> - -<p>“What a memory you have! Yes, Oakley is doing wonders, -and the drought arrived as per schedule. He would -scorn to put the ranch under the ditch, although that is -my long suit at present.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose Circle-G Ranch looks like Holland by this -time.”</p> - -<p>“Not quite yet! But the work is progressing splendidly, -all except——” He paused. It had never been his habit -to talk to her, and the complicated details of business he -regarded as beyond the intelligent apprehension of any -woman. But as Ida moved closer to him with wide-open -eyes she looked intelligent enough to understand anything, -and a letter received that morning had been on his mind -ever since. “There is some trouble about the railroad,” -he said. “The Land Company was to build it, but either -doesn’t want the bother or really has lost a lot of money, as -it claims. I placed a deed in escrow which pledges me to -build it if the Land Company failed to keep its agreement; -and the seed houses, which bought several large blocks of -land, and a number of private settlers are demanding -that the railroad be begun—it was to be finished at the -end of a year——”</p> - -<p>Ida saw her opportunity and grasped it. “We both -must do our duty, and not monopolise each other,” she -said hurriedly. “But tell me all about it after they have -gone. Now, go and dance with Kitty Collier. She’s the -best-looking woman in Butte. I can’t dance in this harness, -but I’ll talk English politics with my portlier guests.” -As he smiled and moved toward the music, she laid her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span> -hand lightly on his arm. “I want to thank you for coming -tonight, Gregory,” she said. “It means a great deal to -me socially. Besides, it is good to see you again.” And -this time she looked very sweet; but there was a slight -aloofness in her manner, as if to admonish him that, although -he was forgiven, there was still a breach which it -was for him to close. Then she added lightly: “Well, -we’ll talk it all over later. Go, now, and dance.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Gregory stood by the front door talking to two of the -men, whose wives had walked on; their homes were but a -door or two away. Ida ran up the stairs to Ora’s room, -where they unhooked each other.</p> - -<p>“You look tired,” said Ida, sympathetically.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I am tired,” replied Ora, her arms hanging. -“Tired. Tired.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a long while since you danced like that. Just -drop into bed. Lend me a scarf, will you?”</p> - -<p>She covered her opened gown with the lace and walked -slowly over to her room. Then she suddenly turned back -to the head of the stairs. The three men were still talking -below.</p> - -<p>“Gregory,” she called, and her voice was very sweet.</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“Lock up, will you? The servants have gone to bed.”</p> - -<p>“I will.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t forget,” and omitting to add a good-night, she -went swiftly to her room, changed her formal evening -gown for a soft combination of yellow silk and lace that -made her look like a tulip in a primrose bed, let down the -black masses of her hair, and threw herself into a deep -chair. But there was no repose in her attitude. More -than once her body stiffened and she raised her head. -Pride and shrewdness forbade her to leave her door open, -and it would be impossible to hear that light panther-like -tread on the heavy carpet of the stair. The front door -might have closed while she was changing in the dressing-room.</p> - -<p>Suddenly she heard it slam. Nervous as she was she -smiled reminiscently. Gregory might be soft of foot, but -otherwise he was as noisy as most men. Then the smile -froze until her lips were distended in a grin. Another -door had slammed. Gregory was in his own room.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span>After a few moments she became aware that her body -was rigid and that she was grasping the arms of her chair. -She rose with an exclamation of impatience, but stood -with her head bent, listening intently. Suddenly she -swayed a little, once more flooded with that sense of excited -gladness with which guests and chefs had had naught -to do: she thought she heard a door open softly, a light -footfall. But her straining ear-drums had deceived her. -The house was as still as a mausoleum. She pressed her -hands against her breast in the gesture the stage has borrowed -from life; her heart felt as if swimming against an -undertow.</p> - -<p>Then she began pacing up and down. After her habit -she tried to arrange her thoughts by putting them into -words, and, as people still do off the stage, muttered them -aloud.</p> - -<p>“My God! Do I care as much as that? Do I really -<i>care</i>? No! No! No! Any woman of pride, let alone -vanity, would make up her mind to bring her husband -back—especially if she could make him as proud of her -as I made him of me tonight. And when he still thinks -me beautiful. What woman wouldn’t? Even if she didn’t -have an ounce of any kind of feeling for him? Men are -only interesting when they forget about us in that purely -masculine world where women are warned off the grass. -To lure them back—that is the spice of life in this country. -And if one doesn’t succeed the first time—he may be so -tired and sleepy that he’s forgotten about me—or shy, -afraid I’d laugh at him—the world does not come to an -end tonight—What an idiot I am! I made him admire me -more than ever, astonished him—why am I not satisfied -for the present?—It can’t be that I care—that I long for -him to come—Good God! I’d rather be dead than <i>that</i>!”</p> - -<p>But she went to the door and, laying her ear against it, -listened until she became aware that her lungs were bursting -with imprisoned breath. Then she sank into a chair -trembling, her eyes filled with fear. A moment more and -she flung her arms over the table and dropped her face -upon them and broke into heavy weeping.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">IX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ORA looked round the large living-room of her bungalow -with a deep sense of content. The walls were -covered with a material coarse in weave and of a red warm -but not too bright. The colour was repeated in the divan -and chairs, melting softly into browns that harmonised -with the heavy beams of the ceiling. A few Navajo rugs -covered the floor. Above the divan of many cushions was -a bookshelf crowded with the new fiction of two continents. -Several shelves, built like a bookcase, occupied a corner -and were furnished more ponderously. In the middle of -the room a large table was half covered with the best -periodicals of the day, although there was room for a -large lamp with a red shade and a vase filled with wild -flowers. Down at the far end of the room, which was -about thirty feet long, and opposite the kitchen, were the -dining-table and a small sideboard. The main door -opened upon a verandah, and one beside the fireplace into -a narrow hall, giving privacy to the bedrooms. Ora had -no atavistic yearnings for the life of the pioneer; she might -feel as much at home in a bungalow as in a palace, but -elementals, save when pictorially valuable, like overhead -beams, were rigidly excluded.</p> - -<p>Her hands clasped behind her, she drifted up and down -the long room, her mode of ambulation expressing the state -of her mind. Quick and final as she could be in decision, -if necessity spurred, the deeper sensuousness in her nature -impelled her to drift whenever circumstances would permit. -For two months she intended to drift—or gamble! -She had not come out here further to alienate the affections -of her friend’s husband, and those old tumultuous dreams -were still crowded in some remote brain cell with seals -on the door. She had even told herself in so many words -that she had no desire for anything so terrific as their -complete materialisation. She had plumbed the depth and -intensity of life in her imagination. Let that suffice. And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span> -reality was not so much to be feared because of the wreck -it might make of her life as because it was reasonably -sure to leave a corpse in her memory, instead of that ever -burning soul of past delights.</p> - -<p>But she had come out to her mine to enjoy the constant -companionship of Gregory Compton before she left her -country for ever and married a European. That much she -owed to the extraordinary imaginative experience in which -they had been one. If she could spend long hours with -him, make him as eager for her companionship as she was -for his, forget his mine now and then, feel that mysterious -and satisfying bond of the spirit, she would ask no more, -not even an admission of love when they parted.</p> - -<p>When a woman goes on a still hunt for a man’s soul she -is far more dangerous than the obvious siren, for her self-delusion -is complete, her guards are down, her wiles disarming. -Ora had had too little practical experience of men -to be prepared to admit, in spite of her abstract knowledge -of life, that there has been but one foundation of love since -the world began, and never will be another till life on this -planet ends, whatever may be the starry mysteries of the -spheres. But while she was (spasmodically) too honest to -deny even her own sex encumbrance, she believed, like -many other, particularly American women of narrow experience, -that it had been politely emasculated by the -higher civilisation, was merely synonymous with poetry, -romance, and sentiment. This convention was imported -to the New World by England’s middle-class and became -a convenient national superstition. It is on the wane.</p> - -<p>That Gregory, granted she were successful in capturing -his soul, might desire to contribute the rest of himself to -the spoils, now that she no longer was the wife of his -friend, let loose those subversive passions she had divined -the night of their meeting and dared to recognise in the -realm of imagination, she would have refused to admit had -the possibility occurred to her. She was out for the ideal, -and not yet had she learned to take her imagination in -hand like a refractory child. Moreover, she had an imperious -will, gracefully as she concealed it. This last year -of freedom and wealth and feminine triumphs had tempered -that will into a pliable and dangerous weapon. -What she wanted she would have. As she planned a thing -so should it work out. But the details—ah, they were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span> -veiled in the future, and from their mysteries came this -reflex vibration, this pleasant sense of drifting, of wondering -how it would all begin and what would happen next.</p> - -<p>In a sense it had begun. Gregory had called two days -before to ask if she were comfortable. He was in his overalls -(purposely), and had refused at first to sit down, but -finally had succumbed to the deepest of the chairs before -the log fire. He had finished by remaining for supper, -and again had occupied the chair until eleven o’clock. -Neither had suspected the other’s secret passion, for love -before union, being nine parts imagination, needs solitude -for indulgence, and is capable, moreover, of long and -satisfying quietudes if fed with externals. There was -sheer delight in sitting together by that warm intimate -fire, at the dining-table at the end of the long shadowy -room, in feeling cut off from the world on the edge of -that rough mountain camp, in listening to the soughing -of the pines during the silences. That both were on their -guard lest the other take fright and the experience be -impossible of repetition but exaggerated the atmosphere -of friendliness, of almost sexless comradeship. Gregory -betrayed one only of his reflections: he admitted to himself -what Ora subtly compelled him to admit, and had no difficulty -in divining, that the companionship of woman was a -blessed thing, and that he had been the loneliest of men.</p> - -<p>Their talk was mainly of ores! She was permitted to -learn how little else interested him in comparison with the -enthralling inside of Montana. But he told her also the -legends of the great copper mines on Lake Superior, so -old that copper was found pure, looking much like the -smelted product from the copper ores of the later geological -formations of the Rocky Mountains. These vast mines, -particularly that on Isle Royal, bore unmistakable signs -of having been worked systematically by a prehistoric -people experienced in mining; presumably by the Atlantans, -who, after their own mines were worked out and -they still demanded “orichalcum” for their monuments -and bronze for their implements, went annually in ships for -the metal. That there had been a self-supporting mining -colony on Isle Royal was indicated by certain agricultural -remains.</p> - -<p>Gregory and Ora had amused themselves reconstructing -that old time when the metal island was as lively as today,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span> -and considerably more picturesque—owing to the alternative -of skins for muck-spattered overalls; an underground -chapter of the Niebelungenlied, its gnomes toiling -down in those two miles of workings, stoping out less in -a hundred years than the methods of today force a mine -to yield in one. How they must have swarmed to the surface, -regardless of discipline, at the first signal of the -approaching ships, their one link with a world that was -not all water and forest and underground cavern. By -what tortuous way did those archaic ships travel from the -Atlantic to the northwest corner of that vast inland sheet; -unless, indeed, which is likely, subsequent upheavals have -destroyed a waterway which may have connected sea and -lake prior to 10000 B.C.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> How many of those old ships -lie in the bed of Lake Superior, laden with rude nuggets -of copper, pounded from the gangue, or, who knows? -smelted by a lost art into sheets and blocks? Archaic -ships rode high, and no doubt those from Atlantis were -overladen; for what has kept Atlantis in the realm of -myth so long save the unscientific legend that she perished -of greed and its vicious offspring? What archaic mysteries -may not the terrible storms of that great north lake yet -uncover? What strange variety of copper, washed and -bitten by the waters of twelve thousand years, for which -the enraptured geologist must find a new name? Who -knows?—the bed of Lake Superior may be one unbroken -floor of malachite; and the North American Indian of -that region the descendant of those ancient miners, abandoned -and forgotten when Atlantis plunged to the bottom -of the sea.</p> - -<p>It was Ora who advanced these last frivolous theories, -and—the clock striking eleven—Gregory sprang to his feet.</p> - -<p>“Likely as any,” he said. “All theories change about -as often as it is time to get out a new edition of an encyclopædia,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span> -or develop a ‘new school’ which makes its reputation -by the short cut of upsetting the solemn conclusions -of its predecessors. I’m going down into the mine.” He -bolted out with no further ceremony, but Ora was long -since accustomed to the manners of Western men. She -went to bed feeling that sadness had gone out of the world.</p> - -<p>She had not seen him since. Nor had anything new and -interesting happened. Her manager, Raymond, refused to -take her down in the mine, alleging that when Apex broke -into the workings of Perch of the Devil, there was sure -to be a fight, and the bohunks would retreat, not up their -own shaft but through the tunnels of the Primo mine. -The young man was manifestly distressed to refuse any -boon to so charming a woman, and he and his foreman -had moved at once into the half-finished cottage, but he -heartily wished her back in Butte, nevertheless. The best -of miners love a fight, and it would be impossible to protect -her from flying bullets if the row was continued above -ground. Ora merely had laughed when he begged her to -return or to remain within doors, but had promised to be -prudent and flourished her automatic .25.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">X</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">SHE glanced at the clock. It was half-past three. She -knew that Gregory frequently went below in the -morning, and had half expected that he would cross over -to her hill for a moment when he came up at three o’clock. -The drifting mood vanished. She decided that two days -were enough for feminine passivity and went to her bedroom -and changed her pretty house frock for a stout out-of-doors’ -costume of forest green tweed: as she had no -mind to look either the outworn Western heroine of romance, -or a fright, she had omitted khaki from her mountain -wardrobe. She tied a light green veil round her -head, put on a pair of loose chamois gloves, selected a -green parasol lined with pink, and went out to give the -fates a gentle shove.</p> - -<p>Hitherto she had so far yielded to the solicitude of her -manager as to take her walks through the pine woods -above her bungalow, but today she marched deliberately -through her grove and stood for several moments on the -edge of the little bluff above the tableland on which her -claim was located. It was her first prolonged look at the -three mining camps, for she had arrived at night. She -had driven out occasionally to mining camps with her -father, once or twice with Mark; the scene was both typical -and picturesquely ugly. In or near the centre of each -claim was the shaft house; fifty feet beyond—the distance -prescribed by law to prevent overhead fires from communicating -with underground timbers—were the buildings containing -the hoisting machinery and the compressed air -plant. Scattered about were the shacks of the miners, -the long bunk- and mess-houses, blacksmith and carpenter -shops. Just below the Apex claim, and on Government -land, an enterprising publican had established himself. -On all sides were other claims of recent location, for there -had been the inevitable rush.</p> - -<p>The rude buildings were grey and weather-beaten, and -all traces of the gentle spring verdure had disappeared.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span> -About the collar of each shaft was an immense dump heap, -waste rock brought up from the depths, and the highest -of these was on Perch of the Devil. Near each were the -ore bins, but these for the most part were empty, and, -save on the De Smet hill, there was a notable absence of -“double-sixes.” The Primo vein had not been recovered, -Apex had not yet touched bottom; Gregory Compton, for -reasons best known to himself, had changed his original -plan and was merely uncovering his new vein, taking out -as little of its ore as possible. His bins were furnished -with ore from the second level of his mine, where work -had proceeded steadily on the original vein.</p> - -<p>The men off shift were standing about in groups as -they did in Butte, or passing in and out of the saloon. -And the racket was deafening: the roar of the machinery -in the hoisting and compressor houses, the crash of rock -dumped from the buckets or skips, the ringing of hammer -on anvil. The scene was not beautiful but it was alive! -One could fancy the thrill of the hidden metals, knowing -that their hour, after vast geological ages of waiting, was -come; that, like mortals, they were to agonise in the crucible -of life and achieve their ultimate destiny.</p> - -<p>Ora walked through the grove until she was beyond the -long mess-house at the back of her claim, climbed over the -abrupt rise of Apex—which, combined with the hardness -of the rock, had made its task so long—and, ascertaining -that the larger buildings hid her, crawled under the De -Smet fence, and drew a long breath as she set her feet -squarely on the famous Perch of the Devil. Here the -buildings, large and small, were scattered up to the brow -of the hill and over on the other side. It had, in fact, -something of the appearance of a growing village with -irregular streets; and before several of the cabins children -were playing, or women took their Monday washing from -the line. The fronts of some of these cottages were painted -white, and here and there flowers grew in boxes. There -were even a reading-room and a large “general store.” Altogether -Perch of the Devil looked as if it might grow -larger, and more solid and permanent of aspect, with the -years.</p> - -<p>Ora walked through the crooked streets on the steep -hillside until she reached the deep chamber into which -had leached the acids of the centuries to enrich the ores,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span> -and incidentally Gregory Compton. Thousands of tons of -dump made a hill in itself and shut off the view to the -south, but below were the acres of waving wheat, the -alfalfa with its purple flower, the sprouting flax, the -winding creek that was often dry but sometimes wet, the -brush sheds for the cattle, the substantial farm buildings. -The broad peaceful expanse looked as if even a winter -wind had never shaken it, so entirely did it seem dissociated -from the frantic energies of its northeast corner. -And still beyond was perfect beauty: the massive pine-covered -mountains, rising tier above tier, ridges of the great -Rockies, far away and up to the sky-cutting line, glittering -with eternal snows. For a few moments Ora forgot -the raucous noises about her, Nature delivering herself of -her precious children with loud protesting pains. Then -she turned suddenly and looked upward.</p> - -<p>Gregory had just stepped from his cabin. For a moment -he did not see her, but stood staring, his hands in his -pockets, at the distant mountains. He wore his favourite -overalls and a battered cap on the back of his head; but -he looked so remote in spirit from that materialising costume -that Ora watched him with a sensation of helpless -jealousy. Not for a moment could she delude herself that -he was thinking of her. He looked like a seer.</p> - -<p>“Can you see right into the heart of those mountains?” -she asked lightly, as she walked up the hill toward him. -“You looked as if your imagination were ‘blocking out’ -thousands of tons of gold quartz.”</p> - -<p>He started and coloured, but smiled with a sudden -pleasure at the charming picture in the foreground. -“Something like that. This mine is all right, and now -that I’ve got over my disappointment, I have a feeling -for it that I guess I’ll never have for another mine—something -like the affection for one’s first born! But all -the same I intend to have a gold mine one of these days. -Have you been admiring my view?”</p> - -<p>He had walked down and joined her.</p> - -<p>“Yes, but that is not what I came over here for. Nor -is it what I came out to the mines for. I brought a small -library, but I find I am not in the humour for books. I -want to be doing something myself. Mr. Raymond won’t -take me down into my mine. I want to go down into -yours—now.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>He hesitated a moment. “Well—why not? Apex is -not working this afternoon—something the matter with -their compressor. They sounded pretty close to our workings -this morning, but the men quit about one o’clock, -and as they didn’t blast it was probably because the holes -weren’t deep enough. I’ve just been told that they can’t -get to work again before tomorrow. But you look much -too fine!”</p> - -<p>“Everything cleans; and I’ll leave my veil and parasol -in the shaft house.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” he said abruptly. “Come along.”</p> - -<p>When they were in the shaft house he asked, “Will you -go down in the skip or by the ladder?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I couldn’t possibly do anything so ignominious as -to go down in a bucket, and I’m very agile. How far -is it?”</p> - -<p>“A hundred feet. I shall only take you to the first -level.”</p> - -<p>Ora peered down into the black and slanting and apparently -bottomless well. A ladder was built flat against -one side. A skip full of ore was banging against the sides -of the other compartment on its way up. She looked -again at the ladder, shuddered, and set her teeth.</p> - -<p>Gregory put two candles in his pocket, inserted his long -limber body into the narrow aperture and ran down sideways.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” gasped Ora. “I can’t do that. Please wait. -I—I think I’d better go down backward.”</p> - -<p>“By all means. Sit down and turn round. I’ll catch -hold of one of your feet and put it on a rung. The rest -will be easy.”</p> - -<p>Ora followed these instructions gingerly, concluding -that the skip would have been more dignified. Then she -forgot dignity and only wondered if her bones had gone -out of her: she had rolled over on her equatorial zone and -was kicking helplessly in the void. But as Gregory caught -her feet and planted them safely she set her teeth once -more and summoned her pride.</p> - -<p>“Glad you have on stout boots,” he said, practically. -“We’ve not enough water in the mine for pumps, but it’s -a little damp underfoot. Wait a minute while I light a -candle.” He struck a match and performed this feat; -how, Ora could not even guess; but she glanced down sideways<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span> -and saw that he was holding the lighted candle up -at arm’s length.</p> - -<p>“Come on,” he said. “You mustn’t be frightened.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not a bit frightened, but don’t go too fast.”</p> - -<p>Gregory, who was running down the ladder, moderated -his pace, and sent up an occasional word of cheer. Suddenly -Ora heard a horrid noise below like the crash and -roar of an express train. “Has the mine fallen in?” she -gasped.</p> - -<p>“Hope not. That’s the tram with ore and rock for the -skip. By and by we’ll use the waste rock to fill up the -stopes with, but we’re only blocking out at present.”</p> - -<p>“How frightfully interesting mining is—in all its details!” -Ora’s hands were smarting, and every part of -her, not excluding her imagination, felt as if on the rack. -“That noise is over!”</p> - -<p>“Did I hear you say ‘Thank heaven’?”</p> - -<p>“Of course not. How much farther is it? Haven’t -we passed the first level?”</p> - -<p>“If we had I should be carrying you. Only about -twenty feet more.”</p> - -<p>And a few moments later, with the deepest sigh of -relief she had ever drawn, she was standing in the small -station beside the shaft.</p> - -<p>“It’s hard work the first time,” he said sympathetically. -“But you’ll soon get used to it.”</p> - -<p>“How dark it is!”</p> - -<p>“I’ll put in electricity when my troubles with Amalgamated -are over.” He lit another candle and handed it to -her. “Be careful of your frock.”</p> - -<p>The ore car was rumbling away in the distance. Gregory -followed the sound down the tunnel and Ora kept -close at his heels. “I suppose we’ll see something after a -while?” she ventured. “I can’t see even you now, only -your candle.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll soon be out of this,” he said cheerfully. “You -see, we’ve had to walk under the chamber from which I -took that great deposit of carbonates, and then some——” -He paused a moment, but not before he had turned acutely -to the left. “This is where I lost the vein. We are in -the fault now. How would you like to be in an earthquake -that broke a vein in two and hurled one end——” -His voice was lost in the rattling roar of the compressed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span> -air drills, although there was nothing to be seen until they -reached another little station and faced a wider drift on -the right, some twelve feet long. Candles were flaring -from the miners’ candlesticks, whose long points were -thrust into stulls or the softer part of the rock, and four -men were manipulating two of the cumbersome air drills -which stood on tripods. Gregory made a sign to the shift -boss, who shut off a valve, and the din stopped abruptly.</p> - -<p>“Now,” said Gregory. “This is what you have come -for.” He moved his candle along the brassy glitter of -chalcopyrite in the vein, steadying her with his arm, for -the floor was uneven and littered.</p> - -<p>Ora trembled. She forgot the arm about her; it felt -like mere steel for that matter; she was in one of the -magic caverns of her dreams and she thrilled to the magnet -of the ores. “It looks like pure gold,” she whispered.</p> - -<p>“So it is in a sense, and far more beautiful to look at -in the vein.” They had been standing near the opening -of the drift. He guided her down toward the farther -end; the miners made way for them and went out to the -station nothing loath; owing their lives to what has cost -many a man his life and more, the caprice of a woman.</p> - -<p>“I want to show you how the holes look before we put -the sticks of powder in,” Gregory began, as he waved his -candle once more aloft, this time over a less dazzling surface. -He stopped abruptly. She felt his body stiffen. -Then, as he whirled her about, he screamed to the men:</p> - -<p>“Get out! Run!”</p> - -<p>Ora had the sensation of being swept along by a bar of -steel burrowing into the flesh of her waist. But in another -instant she had lost all sense of her body. There -was a shock as if something had hit the hill at its foundations, -a dull roar, and then the crash of falling rock behind -them.</p> - -<p>The men were all ahead. Ora dimly could see them -running like rabbits up the fault drift. Then she became -conscious of the stifling sickening smell of powder and a -bursting sensation in her head. No one paused for a -second, nor drew breath until all had turned the corner -and were in the main level. For a space nothing was -heard but the hoarse effort to refill tormented lungs. The -men leaned against the walls of the tunnel. Ora leaned -against Gregory. All sense of fear had departed out of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span> -her. She had had her baptism of fire and doubted if she -ever should be capable of the sensation of fear again.</p> - -<p>The silence lasted but a moment. Out of the intense -darkness flew oaths like red-hot rocks from boiling -craters.</p> - -<p>“Shut up!” said Gregory sharply. “There’s a lady -here. And light up if you have any extra candles. I’ve -dropped mine. We must find out if anybody is missing.”</p> - -<p>“I held on to mine,” said Ora proudly. Gregory lit it, -and the shift boss counted his men. “All here, sir; but -by jink, it was a narrow squeak. The—the—the——”</p> - -<p>“Never mind—who’s this?” A man was running toward -them from the direction of the shaft.</p> - -<p>“It’s me, sir.” Gregory recognised Mann’s voice. “I’ve -just got on to what they were up to. There wasn’t a -blamed thing the matter with the compressor. They just -meant to catch us off guard—anybody hurt?”</p> - -<p>“All right. How did you find out?”</p> - -<p>“I suspicioned something crooked, so I got one of those -damned bohunks drunk and bribed him. They’d put in -the sticks before they quit, pretending the compressor had -gone wrong and they couldn’t finish drilling. I suppose -they sneaked back while I was getting the story, and lit -the fuses.”</p> - -<p>“You’ll let us get back at ’em, boss?” demanded the -men.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes,” said Gregory, in a voice of deadly irony. -“We’ll get back at them.”</p> - -<p>He was holding the candle. Ora saw him bend his head -forward in the attitude so characteristic of him. But he -raised it in a moment.</p> - -<p>“Go up, every one of you,” he said, “and down to the -saloon. Talk about what happened, but assume that it -was an accident. Any fighting above ground and you’ll -be canned. Say that there’s a big cave-in and we’re -obliged to quit work on this level for the present. See -that that spreads all over Apex camp. Say that I’ve -given you the rest of the shift off. Come down as soon as -you’ve had your drink and said your say. Jerry”—to -the shift boss—“you watch the Apex shaft house. I don’t -figure that they’ll go down under an hour, on account of -the smoke, but if they do just drop below. I’ll wait for -you here. And before you come,” he added grimly, “go<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span> -over to the compressor house and tell them to turn the -steam on the air line.”</p> - -<p>“Hooray!” The shouting of the men made almost as -much noise in the tunnel as the recent explosion. “That’s -the ticket, boss. Oh, we won’t do a thing to them!”</p> - -<p>“Get out of this,” said the shift boss. “Don’t take -more than one drink; and hold on to your tempers, or -there’ll be no fun below.”</p> - -<p>A moment later Gregory and Ora were alone in the -tunnel.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“HOW did you guess?” asked Ora.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t guess. I saw a drill hole just beyond -where my men were working. I also did a little quick -deduction. Miners blast just before they go off shift. -The afternoon change of shift is at three o’clock. As I -told you I had seen the Apex men come up about one -o’clock when their compressor stopped. That hole not -only told me that they were closer than we had thought, -but that they were up to devilment. I guessed that they -had timed to blast just before we were ready to drill at -that point. Were you very much frightened?”</p> - -<p>“I didn’t like it.” Ora knew that bravery in woman -makes no appeal to the lordly male. “But I hardly had -time to think; and after all you left me nothing to do.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you were game and didn’t scream or cry,” he -conceded handsomely. “Let’s light up.”</p> - -<p>They had walked as far as the station at the foot of -the shaft. Gregory unlocked the door of a small cupboard, -found two candles and inserted them in miners’ -candlesticks that were stabbed into the walls. They flickered -in the draft as a skip rattled up from the second -level, but relieved the oppressive darkness.</p> - -<p>“Why, your hair is down!” exclaimed Gregory.</p> - -<p>Ora put up a hand. “So it is! Well—I am sure I never -should know if my hair fell down at a good play, and -ours was live drama. I’ll braid it and put on my veil up -above.”</p> - -<p>He watched her for a moment as she sat on a box braiding -her long fair hair, vaguely recalling the legend of -the Lorelei. He noticed that her eyes as she peered up at -him looked green in that uncertain light. But in a moment -his thoughts wandered from her. He folded his arms -and stared downward.</p> - -<p>Ora leaned back against the wall. She saw that he had -forgotten her, but had made up her mind to accept him as -he was; she had no more desire to dictate his moods than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span> -to read in advance the book of the next two months. -There was the same pleasurably painful vibration in her -nerves as on the night when she had piled stake upon stake -at Monte Carlo. From that scene her thoughts travelled -naturally to Valdobia and she suddenly laughed aloud.</p> - -<p>“What are you laughing at?” demanded Gregory suspiciously.</p> - -<p>“I was trying to imagine that we were imprisoned in -the underground dungeon of an Italian palace in the -middle ages.”</p> - -<p>“Hard work, I should think. Although if we had a -cave-in I guess the results would be about the same.”</p> - -<p>“And you? Were you seeing your minerals winking -three thousand feet below?”</p> - -<p>He laughed then, and sat beside her. “At all events -the mystery down there is more romantic than your -mediæval dungeons—and so will the great underground -caverns be when the ores have been taken out.”</p> - -<p>“Pity the caverns—stopes!—have to be filled up with -débris to prevent the mine caving in,” said Ora flippantly. -“I went underground in Butte last week—to the -eighteenth level of the Leonard. Nothing but endless -streets and cross-alleys, all numbered——”</p> - -<p>“And you didn’t find that interesting?” he asked indignantly. -“To be a third of a mile below the surface -of the earth and find it laid out like a city, with streets -and rooms, and stations ten times as large as this, and -lighted with electricity?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but the knowledge that you have a third of a mile -of those streets and rooms—seventeen levels of them—on -top of you, supported only by waste rock in the stopes, and -timbers that are always snapping in two from the terrific -pressure—timbermen working at every turn—‘Save -YOURSELF’ the first thing you see when you leave that -cage—Oh, well, I felt there was quite enough romance on -top of the earth.”</p> - -<p>“I am deeply disappointed in you. You told me once—why, -even lately——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I haven’t changed the least little bit. Nothing in -life,” and she looked at him with laughing eyes, “interests -me as much at present as these two mines. But I am -thankful that we are still within a reasonable distance of -the surface. I am quite content to screw up my eyes and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span> -wander in fancy among the primary deposits close to the -central fires. If I had a mine like yours, full of the beautiful -copper ores instead of that hideous pyroxenite of -mine, I should leave a glittering layer in every stope, support -the roof with polished stone columns, light with -hidden electric bulbs, and wander from one to the other -imagining myself in Aladdin’s palace.”</p> - -<p>“A fine practical miner you would make. It’s lucky -that your mine is pyroxenite, not quartz. That is if you -want to live in Europe.—Do you?”</p> - -<p>“Of course. What have I in this part of the world? -A mine cannot satisfy a woman for ever. I suppose you -wouldn’t care if you never saw a woman again!”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” He was looking hard at her.</p> - -<p>“What else were you thinking of just now?” asked -Ora, with that perverse desire to be superficial which so -often possesses American women in decisive moments.</p> - -<p>He sighed impatiently. “I’ve got a big job on my -hands, one that will take me away from here more or less. -Did Mark tell you of a land deal I put through?”</p> - -<p>“I should think so!”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ve got to build that railroad. Apex will close -down when it finds I won’t let its men work underground. -Amalgamated’s next move will be to bring suit for apex -rights, and get out an injunction to enjoin me from working -on that vein until the case is decided. As soon as I -have driven them out now, however, I must get to work -on the railroad—find my engineers—Oh, there are too -many details to bother you with. But it means that I -must spend a good deal of time in Butte until the thing -is started——”</p> - -<p>“How delighted Ida will be!” interrupted Ora softly. -“And that house will be so comfortable after your cabin.”</p> - -<p>For a moment he did not speak. Nor did his face betray -him; but she fancied that his muscles stiffened. He replied -suavely: “I should have gone on to say that it is -more likely I shall have to attend to the matter in Helena. -That is the centre of the land interest. It is doubtful if -I could find the sort of men I want in Butte.”</p> - -<p>“Have you any other land schemes on hand?”</p> - -<p>“Not at present.”</p> - -<p>“What does that mean?”</p> - -<p>“Well—when I have taken a couple more millions out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span> -of this hill I shall begin to buy land, put it under the -ditch, build the short railroads that may be necessary, and -sell to small farmers—in other words push along the -colonisation of this state. I believe you gave me that idea—the -night we talked Butte—the first time, I mean.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you had forgotten that night altogether.”</p> - -<p>“Forgotten it!” Ora’s heart stood still at the explicit -vibration in his well-ordered voice. She leaned back and -closed her eyes. He had loved her all these months, dreamed -of her as she had dreamed of him. Her first sensation -of wonder and delight was succeeded by a faint disappointment.</p> - -<p>She had the instinct of the born huntress, although she -was far too highly civilised to have recognised it before. -She wondered if his capitulation meant her own deliverance, -too ignorant in the ways of love to guess that -whether this were a passing or a permanent phase depended -on the man.</p> - -<p>While Gregory hurried on to tell her of all he should -be able to do for Montana with the millions at present -locked in the vaults of his hill, she had a full moment of -honesty, and confessed that she had come out here to make -Gregory Compton love her. And he did! It was a mighty -personality to conquer; and the victory had been won long -since! But the disappointment passed in a cynical smile. -That he had no intention of declaring himself her lover -was as patent as his inhuman power of self-control. Here -were barricades to storm if barricades she wanted? What -difference? And did she?</p> - -<p>He sprang to his feet and stood at the foot of the shaft, -looking up.</p> - -<p>“They’re coming down,” he said.</p> - -<p>Joshua Mann emerged a moment later.</p> - -<p>“Apex bunch being rounded up to go below,” he said. -“Our men are on the way.”</p> - -<p>“Steam on the air line?”</p> - -<p>“You bet!”</p> - -<p>“Let’s get to work.” He turned to Ora. “Stay here -till I come back,” he said peremptorily. “I can’t take -you up in the skip now.”</p> - -<p>“I am quite comfortable,” said Ora, coolly. “How -many men will come down?”</p> - -<p>“Five.” And he and Mann disappeared into the tunnel.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span>Ora waited until the other men had descended one by -one and run into the blackness. Then she dislodged one -of the candlesticks from the wall and ran after them. -When she reached the fault drift she thrust the long point -of the candlestick into a stull before turning the corner. -Then she crept toward the station, from which she could -witness the punishment about to be inflicted upon the -Apex men, whatever it might be.</p> - -<p>There was a glimmer of light in the new drift. Ora -saw the men binding a piece of hose to the same length of -pipe. They attached the hose to the air line and held it -just inside the ragged hole some twelve feet above.</p> - -<p>There was a distant murmur of voices overhead and to -the right. The solitary candle was extinguished. The -murmur of voices in the drift which led from Apex -shaft along the continuation of the Primo vein grew -louder. Men were laughing. One man was giving orders. -It appeared that they were to let themselves down and -go systematically to work on the Perch vein, which was -now driving under the Apex claim.</p> - -<p>Ora heard a sharp whispered word: “Now!” and barely -recognised Gregory’s voice. A second later and she was -deafened by the roar and hiss of escaping steam, mingled -with shrieks of agony above, and fiendish cat-calls and -jeers below, all expressed in the spectacular profanity of -the mining camp. The episode was over in a moment. -The Apex men tumbled over one another in their anxiety -to leave the scene, and those manifestly disabled—Ora -could hear them gasping horribly as the steam was turned -off abruptly—were dragged away. She felt her own way -rapidly along the fault drift, snatched her candlestick -from the wall as she turned the corner, and scampered -back to the shaft station. When the men arrived she was -sitting demurely on the box. Gregory evidently had telephoned -from the other station, for the skip came rattling -down just before his appearance at the head of his laughing, -cursing column.</p> - -<p>“Did it go off well?” asked Ora.</p> - -<p>“Did it?” cried Mann, tossing his cap in the air.</p> - -<p>“They’re settled for the moment,” said Gregory. -“They’ll come back at us later with steam on their own -air line, and slacked lime; but we’ll be ready for them. -They stand no show.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>Two of the men had been left on watch. Gregory lifted -Ora into the skip. He and Mann stood on the edge. A -second more and Ora was holding her breath as they were -hurtled upward at express speed, the metal car banging -from side to side of the shaft. In something under three-quarters -of a minute Gregory helped her to alight in the -shaft house, while the skip descended for the miners.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said, smiling, as she lifted her braid to the -top of her head and wound the veil about it, “have you -supped full of sensations for one day?”</p> - -<p>“The last was the worst! And I do mean the skip. -Now that we are where you cannot beat me I will confess -that I followed you and saw your neat little mediæval revenge -from the station——”</p> - -<p>“Hush!” Gregory glanced about apprehensively, and -drew her outside. “You mustn’t tell anyone else that. -You don’t want to be summoned to the witness stand, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>Ora gasped. “I never thought of that.”</p> - -<p>“When will women let men do their thinking?” Gregory -looked the primeval male as he scowled down at her. -Nor did he mitigate her alarms with the information that -underground battles seldom were continued in the courts. -“Now, I am going to take you to your cottage, and I want -you to stay there until the trouble is over. The men are -bound to get drunk and fight. Better go to Butte——”</p> - -<p>“I won’t.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, then, stay in your house.”</p> - -<p>“And be bored to death? Besides. I need exercise. I’ll -roam all over the place unless you promise to come to -supper every night and then take me for a walk in the -woods.”</p> - -<p>His eyes flickered. “Perhaps your engineer——”</p> - -<p>“He’s a mere child. I hate boys. And I must have -exercise.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her with apparent stolidity for another -moment, but she knew that he was investigating her expressive -orbs. They expressed nothing that could be construed -as flirtation, coquetry, or personal interest in himself. -He saw himself mirrored there merely as the friend -of her husband and the husband of her friend. “Very -well,” he said curtly and swung on his heel. “I suppose -I must look out for you. Come along.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">GREGORY had worn a clean suit of overalls into the -mine. He was now spattered from head to foot, including -his face and hands, but he swung along beside -Ora with an unconsciousness of his disreputable appearance -that was quite superb. All the miners of the three -camps’ off shift were gathered about the saloon. As Gregory -appeared the greater number of these men cheered -wildly, but the “dark men,” who stood apart, maintained -an ominous silence.</p> - -<p>“Aren’t you afraid they’ll take a shot at you some -night?” asked Ora. “How they must hate you!”</p> - -<p>“You don’t go into any business nowadays and put it -over without running the risk of being shot by some sort -of down-and-outer. What’s the sense in worrying? Unless -I’m much mistaken we’ll be rid of that scum inside -of twenty-four hours.”</p> - -<p>And he was right. There was another battle underground, -in which more of the Apex men were scalded, -and the Perch men unhurt. Then the Apex men refused -to work, and the mine closed. Gregory was shot at on -the following night, and Joshua Mann was slightly -wounded. Both the Perch and Primo men tumbled out of -bed, hunted down the offenders, and chased them into -Pony, riddling the air with shot and rending it with bloodthirsty -yells. It would be some time before Apex would -be able to hire miners of any nationality willing to trust -themselves between the two belligerent camps. But bohunks—more -recent importations—would return in the -future, if any. These ignorant and friendless South Europeans -can be killed for about two hundred dollars apiece, -whereas it costs several thousands to kill an American, -Cornishman, or Irishman, as he leaves behind him an -equally intelligent family or friends. It was unlikely, in -any case, that high class miners would “take a job” in the -predatory Apex. They not only liked Gregory Compton<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span> -because he was his own manager and worshipped by his -miners, but because he possessed in overflowing measure -the two qualities that the American in his heart of hearts -respects most, luck and bluff.</p> - -<p>Amalgamated immediately brought suit against Gregory -Compton, charging not only that the faulted vein apexed -in their claim, but that his original patent was agricultural -and gave him no lateral rights in mining; furthermore, -that a patented claim could not be repatented. This -was a fine legal point and could impoverish several generations -before it was decided.</p> - -<p>Gregory paid no attention to this suit beyond issuing -an invitation through the press to eight of the leading -geologists of the United States and Canada to come to -Montana at his expense and make a personal inspection -of the two veins. If they did not agree that the vein on -which he had been working, containing a shoot of chalcopyrite -six feet wide, and of the highest grade, was the -original vein, and the Primo-Apex a mere stringer, or at -most a fork from his, he would let the suit go by default. -The geologists promptly accepted, and it was agreed that -they should all arrive in Butte on the second of June.</p> - -<p>Once more Gregory Compton had scored. Scientific -men are normally honest, although the great fees offered to -geologists frequently infuse their judgment with that malleable -quality peculiar to the lawyer under the subtle influence -of his brief. But these men, all of high repute, -would be too afraid of one another, and of the merciless -newspaper men that would accompany them, to deliver -aught but a just verdict. Gregory knew that Amalgamated -was profoundly disconcerted, and that in the face -of public opinion it was improbable that the suit ever -would be brought into court. But they could devil him -meanwhile, and he was enjoined from working on the -recovered vein until the case should be decided. He accepted -the injunction without protest and transferred the -miners, whom he had kept hard at work blocking out until -the last minute, down to the second level of the mine.</p> - -<p>“They’ll get a jolt from that quarter, too,” said Gregory -to Ora, and he was not referring to the miners. -“They’ll go on fighting me for years, no doubt, but I’ll -spring some sort of a facer on them every time. They may -have more money, but I have enough.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span>“You never feel afraid they may beat you in the end?”</p> - -<p>“Beat me?” Gregory’s eyes glittered. “Not unless -they bore a hole in my skull and introduce a microbe that -will devour my brains. I can get ahead of them in more -ways than one. Long before all the ore on the second -level is stoped out I shall be in a position to put up my -own reduction works if they freeze me out of Anaconda -or Great Falls. If I ever go into politics it will be to -fight for a state smelter.”</p> - -<p>Ora looked at him speculatively. He was walking up -and down her living-room with a swift gliding motion -peculiar to him in certain moods; his head was a little -bent as if his narrow concentrated gaze were following a -trail.</p> - -<p>“I believe you love the fight as much as any part of -it,” she said.</p> - -<p>“I do. And as soon as I’ve taken out money enough -I’m going to buy a big tract of land, irrigate it, plant it -in beets, put up a sugar refinery and fight the Havemeyer -trust.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you form a company, buy your beet land, -and put up the factory now? You could raise all the -money you wanted.”</p> - -<p>“No companies or partners for me,” he said curtly. -“What I’ll do I’ll do alone. I want no man’s help and -no man’s money. And I certainly want no other man’s -ideas interfering with mine.”</p> - -<p>Ora sighed. He had been away for a week on his railroad -and land business, and during this, their first meeting -since his return, he had talked of nothing save his -mine and the new possibilities of Circle-G Ranch. Investigation -of the soil and timber values of the 35,000 acres -which he had originally hypothecated as a guarantee that -the railroad should be built, but which perforce had reverted -to him when the Land Selling Company had failed -to keep this part of their contract, would be worth, after -proper transportation facilities were insured, not less than -twenty-five dollars an acre. A member of the Land Selling -Company whom he had taken with him had been convinced -of this, and that the soil was peculiarly adapted -to the raising of apples by intensive culture. As soon -as the railroad was built there would be no difficulty in -selling the timber and the rest of the land, and the Company<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span> -had agreed to buy it. His profits would be $875,000, -and the railroad would cost but $300,000.</p> - -<p>No wonder, thought Ora, that a man with a business -brain of that calibre had little place in it for woman. -True, he had called her up once from Helena, evidently -seized with a sudden desire to hear her voice, but he had -been interrupted; and the only tangible result had been -to keep her in such a fever of expectancy that she barely -had left the house lest he call her up again and she miss -him. He did not, and her nerves had become so ragged -that she almost had hated him and obeyed the impulse to -pack her trunks and flee to Europe. He had come to see -her within an hour of his return, but, beyond his rare delightful -smile and a hard pressure of the hand, he had -manifestly been too absorbed to feel any personal appeal -beyond her always welcome companionship.</p> - -<p>And the next morning he telephoned that he was leaving -for Butte. Ida had reminded him of his promise to -appear in public with her. Mary Garden was to sing that -night and she had taken a box. He had grumbled but -finally agreed to go, as he had business in Butte which -might as well be transacted that afternoon. Ida thanked -him politely and promised him an interesting party at -dinner. Then she called up Ora and invited her, but Ora -declined on the plea of good taste; the story of her impending -divorce was common property, and it was hardly -decent for her to appear in public.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">REACTION, after the emotional recognition of the -subtle but certain change that had been wrought in -her unsuspected depths, had filled Ida for many hours -with a sullen rage against Gregory Compton and herself. -But in a day or two the buoyancy of youth and the common -sense, of which she possessed an uncommon store, -asserted themselves, and, while devoting her time to the -small daily distractions of society, her determination to -win back her husband never waned for a moment. She -knew that she must play the waiting game, keep a sharp -eye out for the blessed opportunity and pounce upon it, -but make no attempt to “rush things.”</p> - -<p>The day after the Apex mine closed down, she rang him -up and offered her congratulations, told him something of -the excitement in Butte, then rang off before he began to -feel detained. As he passed through Butte later, on his -way to Helena, he could do no less than call on her, and, -to his relief and her secret rage, he found several pleasant -people taking tea in the library. But she showed her -pride in him so frankly that he could not but be flattered, -and talked so intelligently of the undoubted sequel of the -battle underground that he forgot her guests and addressed -his conversation to her. She drew him on to describe -that grim but picturesque episode underground, and -he would have been less than man had he failed to be -sensible of the rise of his chest while surrounded by a -breathless circle of charming women. When they were -about to withdraw tactfully and leave him alone with his -wife, he glanced at his watch, bade them all a hasty good-bye -and bolted out to catch his train. Ida once more had -been able to exhibit to her little world an evidence of the -pleasant understanding between herself and her busy husband, -and got what consolation out of this fact that she -could.</p> - -<p>“I can wait,” she thought grimly. “I can wait! I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span> -guess patience is my one all-wool-and-a-yard-wide virtue. -I’ll wait!”</p> - -<p>She gave several small dinners and a dancing party, -devoted to the new excitement of “ragging,” in which -no one became more proficient than herself. She “went” -harder than ever, and even joined the more extreme -younger set (elegantly known as “The Bunch”) one -night in a progress among the road houses of The Flat, -and danced in the ballroom of the Five Mile House until -dawn. But she had no real taste for this side of life; and -did penance by visiting the Poor Farm and several other -charities under the wing of Mrs. Cameron. Her popularity -on all sides was unchallenged, and not only was she -firmly established in the city of her heart, but Mrs. Cameron -had offered to take a house with her in New York -for the following winter if she cared to mount still higher. -She was gratified and grateful, but she was filled with that -desperate loneliness that only a man can banish.</p> - -<p>On the night of the opera she wore black velvet unrelieved -and never had looked handsomer. The neck of -the apparently inseverable gown was cut square, and her -beautiful arms were exposed as far to the top as fashion -permitted; she wore her hair banded closely about her -head, and, at the base of her throat, a barbaric necklace of -dull red and blue stones that she had picked up in an -antiquity shop in Munich. As she sat in her box between -Mrs. Cameron and Mrs. Collier, one of the handsomest -and best dressed of the younger women of Butte, Gregory, -who sat behind and facing the house, saw that during the -first entr’acte the audience levelled its glasses at her -constantly, and that, indisputably, she divided the honours -of the night with the prima donna.</p> - -<p>He looked at her more than once himself, her classic -beauty, or the classic effect she made it produce, appealing -to his æsthetic sense as beauty in any form always -did. He wondered a little that it should so have lost its -once irresistible appeal to his senses, wondered again if -he could not still have loved her well enough to live with -had Ora never entered his life. Certainly he was very -proud of her, and her conversation as well as her personality -interested him. He respected her profoundly for -what she had achieved, giving her full credit for the -revolution in appearance, manners, and speech, in spite of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span> -her exceptional opportunities. Then he forgot her as his -thoughts wandered to Ora, whom he saw sitting alone in -her warm shadowy room, in which he had come to feel so -much at home. As he always went to her when he was -tired, after a day filled with excitement or hard physical -labour, he experienced only peace and content in her nearness; -but when away, as tonight, and with the music of -Thaïs singing into his keen responsive nerves, he was filled -with an inexpressible longing.</p> - -<p>He was roused by a faint exclamation from Ida. She -was leaning forward. A moment later a man, whom he -had never seen before and who looked like an Englishman -of distinction, silently entered the box. Ida left her chair, -and gave him both her hands in greeting, then went with -him out into the passageway where their conversation -would not interfere with her guests’ enjoyment of the -music.</p> - -<p>Gregory felt very much like any other husband at that -moment. He was conscious of no sting of jealousy, or -stab of doubt, but he did not like it. He also received a -distinct impression that his rights of proprietorship were -menaced. Moreover, he was so invaded by mere curiosity -that it was with difficulty he refrained from gratifying it -at once. But, although he belonged to the type of Western -man who would shoot the filcher of his woman without an -instant’s consideration, he was the last man in the world -to make a fool of himself.</p> - -<p>Ida tried his patience but a few moments. As soon as -the curtain fell she re-entered the box and presented the -stranger as Lord John Mowbray, who had arrived by the -evening train and sought the opera house as a relief from -the hotel. She did not add that he had telephoned at -once to her house and followed her as quickly as he could -change his clothes.</p> - -<p>The husband was the last to be made known to the -distinguished stranger, and in spite of Mowbray’s ability -to look vacuous, and Gregory’s to look like a graven image, -neither could repress a spark under his lowered lids. -Mowbray reared his haughty crest at once and turned -away. Like many young Englishman he blushed easily, -and he was by no means the first man to feel uncomfortable -under the eyes of Gregory Compton. He felt the -colour rising to his white forehead, and was not sorry to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span> -present his splendid back and length of limb to that searching -gaze.</p> - -<p>He sat close to Ida during the last act, and then the -party went to her house to supper, there being no restaurant -worthy the name in Butte. Gregory detained Ida -at the door after the other had entered.</p> - -<p>“Good night,” he said. “Luning promised to wait for -me at his office. I shall talk to him until it is time to -catch the train for Pony.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Ida politely, and smiling -charmingly. “So will the others be. And I wanted you -to talk to Lord John. His brother has a ranch in Wyoming, -and he has come here on some mining business. I -am so glad to see him again. The men here are—well, they -are all right, but quite absorbed in one thing only—whatever -their profession or business happens to be. Lord -John knows a little about everything. I am sure you -would like him. Do ask me to take him out to the mine. -He is a friend of Ora’s, too. She will ask us if you don’t.”</p> - -<p>“Come whenever you like. If I’m not there my foreman -will show you round. Good night.” And he was -off. Ida, feeling that Mowbray’s arrival had been timed -by Providence, went in to her guests.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XIV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“WHO is this Mowbray?” Gregory asked Ora abruptly -on the following evening. He was in Ora’s living-room, -his long legs stretched out to the fire.</p> - -<p>Ora, who was working on a small piece of embroidery in -a frame, superlatively feminine, enveloped in a tea gown -imponderable and white, looked up in surprise. They had -been sitting together for an hour or more and their conversation -had been wholly of his plans to entertain his -party of geologists, and the attention this sensational flank -attack had attracted throughout the country.</p> - -<p>“Is Lord John here?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. Came into the box last night. Handsome chap.”</p> - -<p>“Mowbray is a dear. We saw a great deal of him, and -he bought our tickets and helped us off generally, when -we were so upset over your cable.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! Tame cat? General utility man?”</p> - -<p>“Hardly! He’s full of life and a charming companion.”</p> - -<p>“Hm.”</p> - -<p>There was another silence and then he asked abruptly: -“Is he in love with Ida?”</p> - -<p>This time Ora dropped her work and sat up rigidly; -her hands turned cold. There was a peculiar alteration -of pitch in Gregory’s voice that might register jealousy in -a hypersensitive ear. And when his face looked most like -a bronze reproduction of itself, his friends deduced that -he was masking emotion.</p> - -<p>Ora’s brain always worked swiftly. Was it possible -that by subtle manipulation she could reunite this man -and her friend? That he loved herself she no longer -doubted, but it was equally doubtful if he would ever -confess it; on the cards that if he did he never would see -her again. If she left the country after adroitly re-awakening -his interest in Ida and playing on his vanity -and jealousy, would not reaction, the desire for consolation -and companionship, carry him straight to the wife<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span> -whose beauty and magnetism had once, and not so long -ago, aroused all the ardours of his manhood? Ida was far -more beautiful now, and quite capable of holding any -man. Ora did not for a moment believe that Ida loved -her husband, or never would she herself have returned to -Butte; but she had divined her mortification, her wounded -pride; and as a young and beautiful woman Ida needed -and was entitled to the protection of her husband.</p> - -<p>Was this her moment? Her great opportunity? Her -bosom heaved, her breath came short. Almost she experienced -the subtle delights of renunciation, of sacrifice, of -the martyrdom of woman. It would be a great rôle to -play, a great memory. And after all she had Valdobia. -It was this last irresistible reflection that gave her soaring -spirit a sharp tumble and she laughed aloud.</p> - -<p>Gregory turned his head and smiled as he met the -cynical amusement in her eyes. “What is it?”</p> - -<p>“I was merely commiserating poor Mowbray. Of course -he is more or less <i>épris</i>; but Ida—she hasn’t it in her to -love any man.”</p> - -<p>“That is the conclusion I arrived at long ago. But it -looked as if he had followed her here, and I don’t care for -that sort of talk.”</p> - -<p>“He had planned to visit his brother in Wyoming before -we met him in Genoa. Don’t worry. Ida never will let -any man compromise her. She’ll parade her son of a duke -for the benefit of Butte, but if he shows signs of getting -out of hand she’ll pack him off.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Ida is too ambitious to compromise herself.”</p> - -<p>And then another little arrow flew into Ora’s brain. -Her hands trembled, but she clenched them in her lap. -“Gregory,” she said steadily, “as you and Ida no longer -love each other, why don’t you suggest a divorce? She -could marry Mowbray and have a big position in London—his -brother is almost sure not to marry—is a wreck—Ida -would be quite in her element as a duchess—and you—you -would be free—if you ever wanted to marry again.”</p> - -<p>When nature has given a man a dark skin and he has -permitted it to accumulate yearly coats of tan, it is difficult -for him to turn white under the stress of emotion; -but Gregory achieved this phenomenon as he realised -abruptly what freedom might mean to him. He stood up -and leaned his back against the high chimneypiece, thrusting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span> -his hands into his pockets; he had long nervous fingers -which sometimes betrayed him when his face was set.</p> - -<p>“Ida would never consent to a divorce,” he said heavily. -“She’s got all sorts of old-fashioned American ideals. The -West has the reputation for being lawless, and it’s got -more Puritans to the square inch than are left in New -England. Ida’s one of them.”</p> - -<p>“She may have acquired more liberal ideas in Europe.”</p> - -<p>“She told me that she didn’t care if she never saw -Europe again. Last night I had quite a long talk with -her before the others came in for dinner. She said she -thought it the duty of Western women—particularly the -women of the newer Northwest—to live in their native -state and only go away occasionally in order to bring -something back to it. She intimated that you put that idea -into her head when you two first met.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I believe that to be right, whatever I may do, -myself.”</p> - -<p>“What is your idea in going to Europe to live? You -are just the sort of woman the West needs.” He bit out -his words in the effort to be calm and casual.</p> - -<p>“I don’t feel that I have any place here.”</p> - -<p>Gregory started on a restless walk up and down the room.</p> - -<p>“Look at here,” he shot out finally, “are you—I haven’t -said anything about it—but—of course I’ve wanted to—are -you determined to leave Mark? He’s one of the best -fellows in the world. I hate to see him thrown down. -You—you—I think you should reconsider.”</p> - -<p>“I had done all my considering before I spoke to Mark. -I am doing him the greatest possible kindness. He needs -another sort of woman altogether to make him happy. -And I? Have I not my right to happiness? Do you -think I could find it with Mark?”</p> - -<p>“No!” The word exploded. “And you—shall you -marry again?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know.” Ora spoke in a strangled voice. New -possibilities were shaking her to her foundations. For a -moment the perverse imp in the purely feminine section -of her brain counselled her to run away as ever from the -serious mood in man, to play with great issues and then -dodge them. But she brushed the prompting aside with -frantic haste and summoned her courage. If this was -happiness coming to her grasp she would seize it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span>Gregory came swiftly back from the farther end of the -room and stood before her. He had set the muscles of the -lower part of his face so tightly that he could hardly open -his mouth, but his narrow eyes were blazing. “If Ida -would give me my freedom,” he said, “I should want to -marry you. Do you understand?”</p> - -<p>Ora stood up. Her white face was so radiant that -Gregory fell back. “You love me?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes.—Oh, yes——”</p> - -<p>“You would marry me?”</p> - -<p>“Yes!”</p> - -<p>Gregory stared at her, wondering if she really were -suffused with white fire. Her hands fluttered toward him, -and his own face was suddenly relaxed, unmasked. Ora’s -lips parted and she bent forward. She knew then why -men and women sacrificed the world when they found -their predestined mates. Here was the one man who could -give her primal joy, suffocate her intellect. And the -knowledge that she was capable of such passion and of the -sacrifices it might involve gave her far more satisfaction -than her former brief mood of renunciation.</p> - -<p>She made another step forward, but Gregory was at -the door. “Talk to Ida!” he said harshly. “I leave it -to you. Go to see her tomorrow. You can do anything -with her. You must!”</p> - -<p>And he was out of the house. He left the door open -and Ora could hear his light running footsteps.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ON the following morning Gregory, who had spent the -night in the mine and had just come up to the cabin, -heard his telephone ring as he was about to take his bath -and go to bed. His first impulse was to ignore the summons, -but, his business instinct prevailing, he went into -the office and unhooked the receiver.</p> - -<p>“Well?” he asked, in a voice both flat and uninviting.</p> - -<p>“It is Ida. How tired your voice sounds. I won’t keep -you a minute. I have a plan to suggest. Why not let me -put up those geologists? Mrs. Cameron has asked me to -stay with her and will come over and help me entertain -them at meals. It will not only save you a fearful hotel -bill but keep them from wandering into the wrong fold.”</p> - -<p>“Good idea!” Gregory’s voice was more animated.</p> - -<p>“I’ll get Professor Becke to take them down into one -of the big mines here, take them out myself to yours, amuse -them between times with the prettiest women in town—in -short stick to them closer than a brother.”</p> - -<p>“Good! You are the right sort. I’ll meet them at the -train—on the night of the second, it is—and take them -right up to your house. It’s putting you to a lot——”</p> - -<p>“Not a bit. It will be immense fun. Good-bye.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>On that same morning Ora went to Butte. She had -telephoned to Ida, and Mowbray met her at the train with -the limousine.</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Compton had to go to some charity meeting or -other,” he said, as they shook hands warmly. “I am to -drive you about for an hour.”</p> - -<p>This was better fortune than Ora, who possessed little of -Ida’s patience and talent for the waiting game, had dared -to anticipate.</p> - -<p>“How jolly!” Her face lost its traces of a sleepless -night as it flashed with hope and enthusiasm. “And after -that dreadful train! Drive to the Gardens,” she said to -the chauffeur.</p> - -<p>She pointed out Anaconda Hill as they passed under -that famous portal, and the shaft houses of other mines,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span> -suggesting that he go down with the geologists when they -made the inevitable descent. “But you will find your -visit to Mr. Compton’s mine more satisfactory,” she added -lightly. “You will see more ore in the vein. How do you -like him?”</p> - -<p>Mowbray growled something in his thick inarticulate -English voice, and Ora grasped her opportunity. She -turned to him with the uncompromising directness her -sinuous mind knew so well how to assume.</p> - -<p>“Take me into your confidence,” she said peremptorily. -“I can help you. At all events keep you from making -any mistakes with Ida. She is what is called a difficult -proposition. Are you in love with her?”</p> - -<p>Mowbray turned a deep brick-red and frowned, but he -answered intelligibly: “You know jolly well I am.”</p> - -<p>“Then let me tell you that there is only one way you -can get her. Ida is moral to the marrow of her bones. -You might make her love you, for she and her husband -are practically separated, but you can get her only by -persuading her to divorce Mr. Compton.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve thought of that. Of course I’d rather marry her. -I’m a decent sort myself—hate skulking—and lying—she’s -the last woman I’d want to compromise. But I’m so -beastly poor. I’ve only twelve hundred pounds a year.”</p> - -<p>“And she has forty thousand pounds now of her own. -You need not hesitate to spend the capital, for Mr. Compton -is most generous, and is sure to give her much more. -He is bound to be a multimillionaire—it is only a question -of a few years.”</p> - -<p>“Does he want his own freedom?”</p> - -<p>“I am not in his confidence. But as they no longer -care for each other and have agreed to live apart—merely -showing themselves together in public occasionally to avoid -gossip—it is natural to suppose that he would be indifferent, -at least. He cannot be more than thirty, and will -be sure to want his freedom sooner or later.”</p> - -<p>“This is splendid of you!” cried the Englishman gratefully. -“She’s not happy. I know that, and now I shall -know just what to do.”</p> - -<p>“Sympathise with her. Make yourself necessary—make -her feel the neglected wife, and what a devoted husband -would mean. You have the game in your own hands, and -I will help you.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XVI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ORA discerned certain changes in Ida as the three reunited -friends, with so many pleasant memories in -common, talked gaily at luncheon. It was not only that -she was a trifle thinner but there were shadows in her -eyes that gave them troubled depths. The curves of her -mouth also were less assured, and her strong, rather large, -but beautiful hands had a restless movement. Ora, whose -imagination was always ready to spring from the leash -and visualise a desired conclusion, pictured Ida, if not -already in love with this good-looking and delightful Englishman, -as circling close; neglected and mortified, she -longed for the opportunity to live her life with him; in -short was champing the bit.</p> - -<p>Ora led the conversation—no great adroitness was necessary—to -the many divorces pending in Butte at the moment. -Ida sniffed. Ora asserted gaily that they were -merely a casual result of an era of universal progress and -individualism; one of the commonplaces of modern life -that hardly called for comment. “You are so up to date -in everything else, my dear,” she concluded, “that I wonder -you cling to such old middle-class prejudices.”</p> - -<p>“I guess there are a few conservatives and brakes left -in this country,” said Ida, drily. “I may look back with -horror at the time when I chewed gum and walked out of -a restaurant with a toothpick in my mouth, but Ma hammered -most of my good old-fashioned prejudices into my -back with the broom-handle, and I’m no more likely to -forget her opinion of divorce—the poor get it sometimes -as well as the rich—than the bastings I got if I played -hookey from school, or sneaked out after dark alone with -a beau.”</p> - -<p>“My mother was exactly the same,” said Ora, with that -charming spontaneity which so often robbed her words -of the subtle insult of condescension, or the more cryptic -of irony. “If I hadn’t happened to be a book-worm and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span> -had indulged in clandestine love affairs I should have been -shut up on bread and water. And she had all a Southern -woman’s horror of divorce. But, dear Ida! That was -in the dark ages. We live in the most enlightened and -individualistic era of the world’s history. I have kept my -eyes and ears open ever since. Nor do I believe for a -moment that we are getting any worse—we merely have -achieved a more well-bred indifference toward other people’s -affairs. One can hear a scandal a minute in large -towns and small, if one has nothing better to do than -listen; but whereas in our mothers’ time a woman was -dropped if she was ‘talked about,’ today we don’t turn a -hair at anything short of a quite superlative divorce court -scandal—not even about girls; always provided that they -continue to dress well, and keep on being charming and -spending money.”</p> - -<p>“That is about the most cynical thing I ever heard you -say.”</p> - -<p>“The truth always sounds cynical. You laugh at me -for dreaming and being an idealist, but I never have shut -my mind to facts as you do.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t even blink the old facts. I don’t like them, -that’s all. I don’t say, of course, that if I were married -to a brute who came home drunk and beat me—but this -swapping husbands like horses—well, I’m content to be a -brake as long as there’s any wheel to freeze to. You know -I’m not hitting at you,” she added hastily. “I’d give you -the moon if you wanted it; but I put you in a class by -yourself, that’s all.”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” cried Ora, laughing. “Let us change the subject -before you prove that your logic turns feminine at -the crucial test. Heavens! How hideous Butte is. We -drove——”</p> - -<p>“Hideous? Butte?” demanded Ida indignantly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you see it through the glamour of a triumphal -progress. Wait until the novelty has worn off. How do -you find it?” she asked Mowbray, who had relished his -excellent luncheon and admired his ally’s tactics.</p> - -<p>“Rippin’ air. Nearly took a header out of the window -this mornin’ thinkin’ I had wings. But as for looks—those -mountains in the distance are not half-bad, but the -foreground is—er—a little ragged—and—new—you -know.” He smiled into Ida’s warning eyes. “Really,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span> -dear lady, I can understand that you were keen on gettin’ -home again, because home is home, don’t you know. But -beauty—tell me just where you do find it.”</p> - -<p>Ida tossed her head. “Beauty is in the eye of the -beholder, and mine beholds it. That is enough for me. -Now, run along to the Club. I haven’t seen Ora for ages. -You may come back for tea.”</p> - -<p>She led the way up to her bedroom and they made themselves -comfortable and lit their cigarettes.</p> - -<p>“Odd as it would seem,” said Ida, “to those east and -west of us who have an idea that Butte has been on one -prolonged spree since she was really a camp, I have to -enjoy my occasional cigarette on the sly. A few of the -younger women smoke, when they have locked the doors -and pulled the blinds down—and of course The Bunch -does; but the majority—and those that never bat an eyelash -at cocktails and champagne—think it indecent for a -woman to smoke. Funny world.”</p> - -<p>“Butte is a provincial hole. As there are no strangers -present you needn’t bother to defend it. I’ve just had a -brilliant idea. Why don’t you divorce Mr. Compton and -marry Mowbray?”</p> - -<p>“Aw!” Ida dropped her cigarette and burned a hole -in her skirt. “Are you raving crazy?”</p> - -<p>“I thought I was advancing a peculiarly level-headed -suggestion——”</p> - -<p>“None of it in mine!”</p> - -<p>“But, my dear Ida, you will tire inevitably of this old -camp. The glamour of all this return in a gilded chariot -drawn by the cheering populace will wear off in about six -months. So will your own novelty for them. It is all -indescribably cheap, anyhow. If you send Mowbray away -now, he will try to forget you, and forgetting is man’s -peculiar accomplishment. You will have missed a great -opportunity. You and Mr. Compton are manifestly indifferent -to each other. Seize your chance, dear—not only -for happiness, but for a splendid social position, before——”</p> - -<p>Ora paused. Ida was glaring ahead of her with her -heavy black brows pushed low over her flaming eyes. Her -lips were drawn back over her sharp little teeth. Her -nostrils were distended. She looked like some magnificent -beast of the jungle stalking her prey.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span>“By God!” she whispered, her whole body heaving, -“I’ll have him back. I was a fool before I left, and maybe -I shouldn’t have left him at all. It’s never safe to leave -a man. But when I do get him back he’ll be glad of all -I’ve learned. He’s like a lunatic with a fixed idea just -now—but wait.”</p> - -<p>Ora felt cold and numb. She tried to rise, and wondered -if the shock had paralysed her. She managed to articulate: -“You love him then?”</p> - -<p>But not even to Ora could Ida make any such admission; -she who always had flouted both sentiment and passion! -She recovered herself and tossed her head.</p> - -<p>“Love! Who cares about love? Do you think I’m the -sort of woman a man can throw down for a mine? I -wouldn’t stand it even it were another woman—but ore! -It makes me sick. I won’t be thrown down. And I’ll get -him back!”</p> - -<p>Ora too had recovered herself. She lit another cigarette. -“I’m so glad you don’t care, dear. No man is worth -agonising over, as you so often have said yourself. Forgive -the doubt. I should have remembered that you were -far too clever and worldly-wise for that sort of thing. -That is the main reason that I am willing to marry Valdobia: -I can be fond of him, like him always, be grateful -for his companionship, but he can’t tear my heart out.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you told me when you came back that you -were mad about him?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I fancy I was strung up that day. When I am -excited I always exaggerate. But do think over what I -have said about Mowbray. And it would be heavenly to -have you in Europe.”</p> - -<p>“My mind’s made up. I guess I’m American to my core -and marrow. Titles will never seem natural to me, and -I guess we’ll both live to see them so tangled up with -democracy that those that are left will look like old labels -on new cans. No has-beens in mine. Oh, chuck it! What’s -this I hear about little Whalen—that he’s resigned from -the High and been out in the mountains prospecting since -the beginning of Spring? I’ve only seen him once since I -came back and then he looked like a viper that had been -stepped on.”</p> - -<p>“I met him the other day when I was out walking. He -bought a claim of one of the prospectors that swarmed out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span> -there as soon as they heard of the Primo and the Perch -strikes. He wore overalls and a beard. I scarcely knew -him. He talked rather wildly about the hill he has located -on being another Perch of the Devil.”</p> - -<p>“I guess Gregory is responsible for that and a good -many other wild dreams. I hear that a lot of young men -are coming out from the East this Summer to prospect in -those hills. Well, they’ll succeed or fail according to their -luck mostly. Let’s go out. You’ve got two hours before -your train goes—but if you’ve got a list a yard long——”</p> - -<p>And the two sallied forth in perfect peace to shop.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XVII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ORA had more than one cause for uneasiness when she -returned to her little home in the pine woods, but -paramount was the fear that she should not see Gregory -Compton again unless by accident. She rose early after -another almost sleepless night and spent a distracted day -wandering over the hills, returning at intervals to inquire -if her telephone bell had rung. Once more she felt a disposition -to run away, anathematising the slavery of love. -Only the hope that Mowbray would wear down Ida’s -resistance kept her from yielding to the impatient, imaginative, -too highly organised woman’s impulse to flee -when love seems hopeless and a nervous explosion imminent. -She still refused to feel traitorous to Ida, but she -did wonder once or twice if she ever should dare to face -her as Mrs. Gregory Compton. Ida was the reverse of a -fool. She might be blind now, for obvious reasons—but -Ora shrugged her shoulders at the vision of Ida’s horror -and wrath. What did she care for Ida or any other -woman if she got her man?</p> - -<p>She made one of her sudden dashes into the house -as the telephone bell was ringing. For the moment she -thought she was about to faint; then, both appalled and -angry at the lawless behaviour of her nerves, she stamped -her foot, shook herself, marched over to the telephone, took -down the receiver, and asked in a bored voice: “Well?”</p> - -<p>“I shall come to supper tonight if you will have me?” -Gregory’s tones were those he employed when “canning” -a miner.</p> - -<p>“Delighted.” Ora’s nerves fell into place like good -little soldiers. “Will you be here at seven?”</p> - -<p>“About. I prefer to have you tell me here what she had -to say.”</p> - -<p>“Constitutionally opposed at present, but that was to -be expected. Seeds always sprout if well planted and -judiciously watered. Our friend from England will do -his part.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>“Good. We’ll say no more about it. But I shall go to -see you as usual.”</p> - -<p>“Why not? We are not fools or children. Any new -developments at the mine?”</p> - -<p>“Shaft has reached third level. Vein seems to be about -the same richness as on the second. Mann is here. Good-bye.”</p> - -<p>As Ora, her body no longer braced and rigid, but so filled -with the languor of happiness that she wanted to throw -herself down on the divan and sleep, crossed the room, -she became aware that someone was standing in the outer -doorway. His hat was in his hand, and as she focussed her -absent gaze she managed to recognise Professor Whalen. -Her impulse was to turn her back and run into her bedroom; -but Ora was always a great lady. She could be -extremely rude to a member of her own class, but she had -never permitted herself to wound the morbid sensitiveness -of those to whom fortune had been less kind. So, secretly -wondering if the little man really stood there, or if anything -so insignificant mattered, she went forward smiling -and offered him her hand.</p> - -<p>“So good of you to come and have a cup of tea with -me.” She rang a bell and ordered tea of her Chinaman. -“But why did you dress up? I am accustomed to overalls -and flannel shirts, and quite like the idea of living in a -mining camp.”</p> - -<p>Whalen sat on the edge of his chair and stared into the -fire, twirling his hat in his hands. “I guess I’ve got to be -a gentleman again,” he said with a short laugh. “There’s -nothing else left for me to be.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! I hope——”</p> - -<p>“My find—and I paid a thousand dollars for the claim—was -nothing but a gash vein. Nothing in that but low -grade carbonates.”</p> - -<p>“But are you so sure? Often veins appears to pinch out -a hundred feet or more above a really rich lode.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve poured into that hole all my savings; all I had -saved from my salary during four years, and every cent -of my reward in the field of letters. I even—and against -my secret resolutions—consumed a legacy left me by an -uncle.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps if you would ask Mr. Compton to look at -your claim—he is a sort of ore wizard——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span>“I’ll ask no favours of Gregory Compton!” Whalen -burst out, violently. “Were it not for him I never would -have been enticed into this foolish venture. I cannot -realise it—I, who was brought up in the most conservative -corner of this conservative country—I, a pedagogue, a man -of letters, that I should have so far descended as to become -a prospector—live in a hut, cook my own bacon, -dig with a pick——” He paused choking.</p> - -<p>“Doubtless you remembered that some of the greatest -millionaires in the country began that way. Or possibly -the Northwest kindled your sense of adventure—that is -inherent in every real man. But why blame Mr. Compton?”</p> - -<p>Whalen had recovered his breath. He spat out his -words. “Why should a man like that have all the luck? -And such colossal luck! Who is he? What is he? In -what way does he compare with me—a man of no family, -of no culture, of no intellect——”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Compton has given evidence that he has one of the -best brains this country has produced.” Ora spoke evenly -but with a glint in her eye.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, <i>brains</i>! I make a fine distinction between mere -brains and intellect. He has the sort of mental composition -those men always seem to have in order that they may -make use of their luck and roll up millions. But intellect? -Not a cell. He has never read anything. I journeyed -with him from Pony to Butte not long since and -endeavoured to engage him in conversation. I might as -well have tried to talk to a mummy—and an ill-mannered -one at that. The moment I left the subject of mines he -merely looked out of the window.”</p> - -<p>Ora laughed merrily, and poured out the tea the Chinaman -had brought in. “Perhaps it is just that lack of -overdevelopment that we call intellect which permits these -men to concentrate upon their genius for making money.”</p> - -<p>“But that has nothing to do with their luck in the -beginning. Luck! Blind luck! Fool’s luck! And why -not to me? Why to this Gregory Compton? I never believed -in luck before, but since this rush, and my own personal -experience——” He swallowed a mouthful of tea -too hastily, scalded himself, and, while he was gasping, Ora -said soothingly:</p> - -<p>“You cannot help believing in luck if you study the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span> -early history of any mining state. There are hundreds -of stories of prospectors—you have told of many yourself; -the majority had little or no education, less science. Out -of a hundred evenly equipped with grit, common sense, -some practical knowledge of ores, perhaps two would find -a rich pocket or placer. Four or five possibly made a -strike that would insure them a competence if they neither -gambled nor drank. The rest nothing—not after forty -years of prospecting in these mountains. I fancy there -is something in that old phrase about the lucky star; in -astronomical parlance the position of the planets at the moment -of one’s birth.”</p> - -<p>“But why not I?” wailed the professor. “Why—why -this—well, he is a friend of yours—Gregory Compton?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Why not?</i>”</p> - -<p>“I am infinitely his superior in every way!” cried -Whalen in perfect good faith. “It is I who should have discovered -those millions and taken them to Beacon Street, -not this obscure young Westerner, son of an illiterate old -ranchman——”</p> - -<p>“But you didn’t,” said Ora, patiently. “Besides, the -fates are not unjust. They made you a member of the -New England aristocracy, and gave you intellect. Do not -be unreasonable and demand the mere prospector’s luck as -well.”</p> - -<p>Whalen looked at her suspiciously, but her eyes were -teasing, not satiric. He had admired her always more than -any woman he had met in the West, and had come to her -blindly to be consoled. Suddenly he saw an indefinable -change steal over her face, although her mouth remained -curled with the stereotyped smile she kept for the Whalens. -It was as if something deep in her brilliant eyes -came to life, and her slight bust rose under the stiff shirtwaist. -Whalen’s ears were not acute and he did not hear -the light footstep that preceded a peremptory knock. Ora -crossed the room swiftly and opened the door. Whalen -was no fool, and he had written fiction for four years. -He had guessed at once that his beautiful hostess loved the -man who demanded admittance, and when he heard Gregory -Compton’s voice he almost whistled. But he merely -arose and frowned.</p> - -<p>“Knocked off and thought I would run in early,” Gregory -was beginning, when he saw Whalen. “How are you?”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span> -he asked with more cordiality than he usually wasted upon -the little man. His spirits always flew to his head when -he met Ora, stolid as he might look. “How’s your mine -getting on?” he added, as he selected the longest of the -chairs before the fire. “Heard it had petered out.”</p> - -<p>“It has!”</p> - -<p>“I’ll go over and have a look at it tomorrow if you like. -I fancy you’re located too close to one of the faults. The -trouble with you amateur prospectors—or buyers of prospectors’ -claims—is that you don’t take a geologist out -with you. You lose your heads over an assay report -on exceptional specimens. But I’d like to see for myself.”</p> - -<p>“It’s no use,” said Whalen gloomily. “I have used up -all my money in that——” He had learned to swear in -mining camp society, but he pulled himself up hastily, -“that hole.”</p> - -<p>“If I think there is anything there I’ll grub-stake you. -Nobody would buy your claim, but somebody might jump -it if you let it lapse, and I want to know who my neighbours -are. Have you patented it?”</p> - -<p>“Not yet.”</p> - -<p>“Spent five hundred dollars on it?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Have</i> I!”</p> - -<p>“Well, I’ll look at it tomorrow, and if I think it’s good -for anything I’ll help you out. I am going to Helena in -a day or two. Come along and apply for your patent.”</p> - -<p>“You are very kind.” Whalen felt repentant, and -more grateful than he had ever condescended to feel before. -“I’ll expect you tomorrow.” He inferred that he -could best show his gratitude by taking himself off, and -rose. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Blake. This hour has been -refreshing and inspiring after my long absence from -civilisation.”</p> - -<p>“You must come soon again,” said Ora sweetly, as she -marshalled him out. “The best of luck.”</p> - -<p>She went to her bedroom for a few moments, and when -she returned wore a soft tea gown made of several shades -of woodland greens. She seated herself in her favourite -chair, straight, with a high carved back, and took up her -neglected embroidery. “Dinner will not be ready for -half an hour,” she said. “How long that little man did -stay. I am glad you made a friend of him, for I have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span> -always imagined that he could be venomous, and before -you came in he was by way of hating you. Now tell me -the surprise you have for the geologists and newspaper men -on the second level.”</p> - -<p>And for the next three hours they talked of ores.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XVIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“GIVE me your hand, Gregory. I am no coward, but -this is the first time I have ever been underground. -My father would never permit it, nor my mother after -him.”</p> - -<p>Gregory extended his long arm behind him and Ida’s -warm firm fingers clung to his hand. They had just left -the skip at the second level of his mine. The geologists -and the newspaper men, together with herself, Lord John, -Gregory, and Mann, had entered the mine by way of the -Primo shaft, inspected the insignificant vein of copper -which had merely been blocked out, awaiting the possible -erection of a concentrating plant—for it was not worth the -expense of freight to Anaconda—thence down the ladder -from the hole blasted by Apex, and into the drift where -the magnificent vein of Perch of the Devil also merely had -been blocked out; but for a more subtle reason. The -case in Gregory’s favour was so flagrant that the great men -had laughed, although gracefully submitting to interviews -on the spot and expressing themselves with as few technicalities -as possible. That the Primo copper upon which -Apex had also sunk was a mere attenuated fork of the -great vein which indisputably had faulted from the original -vein in Gregory Compton’s property the reporters -could see for themselves. Under the Apex law Gregory -was within his lateral rights in sinking under the adjoining -claim and thence under the Primo mine; and as -far beyond as the vein persisted.</p> - -<p>Against a man less determined and resourceful than -Gregory Compton a wealthy corporation could obtain any -verdict it demanded; but to persist in a suit for Apex rights -after this public exposition would make any trust the -laughing-stock of a continent. Even to persist in the claim -that he was mining under an agricultural patent, and -therefore outside his rights, would be mere petty persecution; -and inevitably both suits would steal noiselessly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span> -to limbo. Amalgamated knew when it was beaten and -would take its medicine with a grimace and watch for its -next opportunity.</p> - -<p>Ida, although she disliked the sensation of being underground, -the chill of the tunnels and the drip of candle-grease -on her smart linen skirt, had been deeply impressed -by the scene in the excavation on the Perch vein: the men -with their keen upturned faces, their peering eyes so -close to the moving candles, the little yellow flames travelling -along the beautiful yellow metal, the eager nervous -hands of the newspaper men, the intense blackness beyond -the radius of the candles. But her eyes returned constantly -to her husband’s face. His eyes gleamed with -copper fires. His profile against the dark background of -the cavern looked as if carved in the rock by some prehistoric -race.</p> - -<p>The blood scorched her face and her heart leapt with -pride as she heard these distinguished men defer to him, -express their admiration without reserve. A year ago he -had been as little known as when she married him. Today -his extraordinary abilities were recognised by the entire -country, and tomorrow he would be one of its colossi.</p> - -<p>She was the only woman that had gone down. Mrs. -Cameron and Mrs. Collier had preferred to remain comfortably -with Ora in the bungalow, or to help her spread -the tables under the pines, where luncheon was to be -served. Therefore was she privileged to keep close to -the host, and when they descended into the blackness of -the second level she embraced further her feminine prerogatives. -Mann had gone down first, the guests had followed, -and Gregory, after a vain protest, had taken her -down in the skip when it returned for himself.</p> - -<p>The rest of the party had pushed forward, for they had -been promised a surprise. Ida would have lingered, but -Gregory pulled her on. He wanted to hear the comments. -The racket of the drills had stopped. Ida saw the -last of the guests disappear up a short ladder.</p> - -<p>“Am I to go up into a stope?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“If you want to see what we’ve come for.” He ran up -the ladder, and she followed, insinuated herself into the -hole and stood upright in the large excavation on the -vein.</p> - -<p>“Is it gold?” she gasped.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span>“No, but it’s a streak—a shoot—of chalcopyrite ten -feet wide and of the highest value. And it may go down -eight or nine hundred feet before it loses its richness and -degenerates into a lower grade of ore. But there may be -millions of tons of that. This is one of the few great -shoots of chalcopyrite known.”</p> - -<p>“Gregory!” said Ida ecstatically, “do you remember -I always had such faith in you that I urged you so often -to prospect on the ranch that you got quite cross?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I remember.”</p> - -<p>“Never say I doubted you. I may be enchanted at all -this success and recognition of your abilities, but I have -never had the least sensation of surprise.”</p> - -<p>Gregory smiled down into the eager beautiful face so -close to his shoulder. She had manipulated him down the -ladder into the tunnel and for the moment they were alone. -“I hope you are half as proud of me as I am of you,” he -said gallantly, although he was a trifle uneasy; not because -she looked as if she might kiss him there in the semi-dark, -but because he felt an impulse to kiss her. For the moment -he regretted the wild romance upon which he was -embarked, the torments of its present, the tragic possibilities -of its future. Ida now would make an ideal wife, demanding -far less of his jealously guarded inner self, to -say nothing of his time, than Ora, who had that most -terrible of all gifts, a passionate soul. But this disloyalty -was brief, and he frowned and disengaged his hand, although -he was far from suspecting that Ida had yielded to -the temptation to pay him deliberate court.</p> - -<p>“I shall be able to give you a string of pearls before -long,” he said lightly, “or a million or two to play with. -I want to hear what these men have to say. Suppose you -go back with Lord John, and tell them that we are coming -up soon for lunch. Ring the bell in the station twice for -the skip and three times for hoist.”</p> - -<p>Ida shrank back against the wall as if she had been -struck, but when Lord John, who had made several futile -attempts to separate her from her husband, came eagerly -forward, she left Gregory to the chorus of enthusiasm and -congratulation, and obeyed his directions.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XIX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IDA was in such high spirits during the luncheon that -she managed to be brilliant and amusing within the -limits of her expurgated vocabulary. Only Ora, who knew -her so well, saw the sombre fire in the depths of her eyes, -the sudden twist of her mouth at the corners, noted that -her cheeks were crimson instead of their usual delicate -coral, the occasional clenching of her hands. But she had -little time to speculate upon the cause, for the large party -were her guests, and, like any other Rocky Mountain -hostess in the liquid month of June, she feared the sudden -drenching of her tables.</p> - -<p>But the day remained fine, and the geologists, who ever -since their arrival in Butte had evinced a remarkable indifference -to geology as a topic for conversation, were as -lively as the newspaper men, and deeply appreciative of -the good looks and animated conversation of the four -women who ate almost nothing in their efforts at mental -subdivision. Ora had invited also her engineer and Professor -Whalen, placing the latter as far from Ida as possible; -but she saw that he was covertly watching the -woman he must hate. Ida had thrown him a careless nod -when they met by the tables in the grove; and he had returned -it with a bow of surpassing dignity.</p> - -<p>Gregory, now that the men of science and of the press -had served his purpose, was eager to be rid of them, and -excused himself when the luncheon was half over, on the -plea that he was his own manager and needed at the mine. -He disappeared into the Primo shaft house, as he often -took that short cut to his own shaft, and Mowbray, who -had been silent, for Gregory affected his buoyant spirits -unaccountably, moved his chair up beside Ida and endeavoured -to divert her mind from the general to the -specific. But she snubbed him and he relapsed into gloom. -On the train, however, when she saw that Whalen, who -was on his way to Helena to apply for his patent, was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span> -watching her, she flirted pointedly with the handsome -Englishman.</p> - -<p>The guests were to leave Butte on the seven o’clock -train, which, fortunately for the strain that all were beginning -to feel, was only half an hour late. When it -had pulled out and Ida had waved her last farewell, she -walked in silence to her car, and intimated with a curt -nod that Mowbray might take the seat beside her. “But -tell Ben where you want to go,” she said, “for I can’t -ask you to dine with me tonight.”</p> - -<p>Mowbray told the chauffeur to drop him at the Club -and then asked his lady, whose animation had dropped to -zero, if anything had happened to annoy her, or if she were -merely worn out.</p> - -<p>“Don’t ask me any questions,” said Ida sharply. “I’m -sorry to seem inhospitable but I’ve got something to think -out. You can go to the dance at the Country Club.”</p> - -<p>“I shall more likely go to my rooms and write letters. -Don’t worry about me. Shall we have a ride tomorrow -morning?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>Mowbray was always philosophical about women, having -been brought up with many sisters. “You are tired out,” -he said without too much sympathy. “Just call me up -if you feel like doing anything in the morning.”</p> - -<p>“All right. Good night.”</p> - -<p>She left him at the Silver Bow Club. Her own house -was only a few blocks distant. She told the maid who -admitted her that she wanted no dinner and should go -to bed at once and without assistance. When she reached -the seclusion of her bedroom she locked the door, flung -her hat on the floor and stamped on it, broke several valuable -objects, and then paced up and down, gritting her -teeth to keep from screaming.</p> - -<p>There was but one person on earth that she hated more -than she hated Gregory Compton and that was herself. -She had meant to play a waiting game of many interviews, -in which her fine calculation had mapped out the -insidious approach, the adroit pushing aside of barrier -after barrier, until Gregory returned almost inadvertently -to his allegiance. She had no desire for romantic scenes; -they would have embarrassed herself, and with her instinctive -knowledge of man, she knew that Gregory would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span> -shrink back from any situation that might involve explanations. -Nor did she wish to let a man so absorbed -as Gregory feel that he was loved too much, lest he chafe -at the thought of feminine exactions, and his mind continue -to dwell upon the delights of freedom. He might be -capable of moments when the woman alone existed, but -there would be long intervals when he would hate a -woman’s clinging arms if they made him ten minutes late -for his work, particularly if he was headed for his beloved -mine. Ida, shrewd, self-controlled, watchful, knew herself, -now that her powers were developed, to be the natural -mate for such a man. He would drive a temperamental -woman mad.</p> - -<p>And she had seemed to make a steady progress. The -geologists had remained for three days in Butte before -visiting Perch of the Devil. On the second evening they -had been entertained by the professors of the School of -Mines, but on the other two evenings she had given them -elaborate dinners, and Gregory had attended each. She -had seen that he was increasingly proud of her, and grateful. -Upon both occasions they not only had had a little -talk apart but he had drifted back to her more than once.</p> - -<p>And today she had spoiled everything! In the darkness -of that mine she had weakened and made open love to -him. She had practically offered herself—she ground her -teeth as she thought of her clinging fingers, her appealing -eyes, her cheek almost brushing his—and he had rejected -her—with consideration, but finality!</p> - -<p>If he had knocked her down she would have cherished -hope. But in this hour she had none. His indifference -was colossal. The busiest men in America had their -women; she no longer could comfort herself with the delusion -that the mine was a controlling and exclusive passion; -she merely had ceased completely to attract him—and -she remembered how thorough he was; she no more -could relight those old fires than she could blow life into -the dead ashes of Big Butte. He would turn to another -woman one of these days; it was not within human possibility -that he would go through life without love; but -not to her! not to her! She would do to entertain his -friends, to flaunt his wealth and advertise his success; in -time no doubt he would treat her as a confidential friend; -but sexually she was an old story. It was apparent that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span> -the mere thought bored him; it was only when Gregory -was bored that he was really polite.</p> - -<p>If she could but have accepted this, resigned all hope, -instead of subjecting herself to humiliation; she, who -had never failed to send the blood to a man’s head with -a glance! She didn’t want to hate him. She didn’t want -to hate herself. Why could she not have been content to -accept the inevitable with philosophy and grace?</p> - -<p>The answer that, owing to some mysterious law of her -being, she loved him, made her want to smash everything -else in the room; but she would have some difficulty concealing -the present wreckage from her servants, so she bit -her handkerchief to shreds instead.</p> - -<p>When the furies had tired her body she fell into a chair -and although her brain was still hot with the blood sent -there by excitement and lack of food, she admitted frankly -that the peculiar nature of her agitation was due to -wounded pride and intense mortification; had she arrived -at a point where she no longer could hope, but without -self-betrayal, she might have wept bitter tears, but there -still would have been a secret sweetness in loving him. -Now, she growled out her hatred. She longed to do something -to hurt him. If she only were another sort of -woman! She would go to Mowbray’s rooms, go to Helena -with him for a week. And simultaneously she yearned to -be consoled, not only in her heart but in her wounded -pride.</p> - -<p>Should she ask her husband for a divorce; revenge -herself by becoming an English duchess? Ora, in the -moment or two they had found together at the station, -had told her that Mowbray’s older brother was at Davos, -unmistakably dying of tuberculosis, and that his engagement, -insisted upon by his father, had been broken. Valdobia -had given her this news in his last letter, adding -the hope that his friend would bring Ida back with him -that they might all be together once more.</p> - -<p>Was this the solution of her problem? A marriage that -would demonstrate to Gregory Compton that her moment -of seeming weakness was mere coquetry; a marriage that -would raise her an immeasurable social distance above -him; a permanent dissociation from everything that could -remind her of him and this terrible obsession that had disorganised -her being, reduced her to the grovelling level<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span> -of the women whose dependence on the favour of man she -had always despised?</p> - -<p>When she reflected that her revenge would fall flat, -Gregory’s not being the order of mind to appreciate the -social pre-eminence of a titled race, she ground her teeth, -again. There was nothing left but to consider herself. -Should she choose the part that not only would exalt her -station and fill her life with the multifarious interests -of a British peeress, but banish this man in time from her -memory; or stay on and alternate torments with moments -of indescribable sweetness when he smiled upon her? And -might she not yet manipulate him into her net if she -continued to play the waiting game? Or would she go -wholly to pieces the first time they were alone together?</p> - -<p>Her pride strangled at this possibility and brought her -to her feet. The blood was still boiling in her head, she -knew what nerves were for the first time in her life. She -made up her mind to go out and walk. In this part of -the town she was not likely to meet anyone.</p> - -<p>She found another hat, put on a warm coat, and let -herself out of the house. It was ten o’clock. All the -West Side, no doubt, was at the Country Club.</p> - -<p>For a time she walked rapidly and aimlessly, trying -to focus her mind on other things. But when a woman is -in love and the path is stony, she is obsessed much as -people are that suffer from shock and reiterate ceaselessly -the circumstances of its cause. Her brain seethed with -hate, longed for revenge. Nothing would have gratified -her more than to take the secret revenge of infidelity. -Many a woman has taken a lover for the satisfaction of -laughing to herself at her husband’s dishonour; to dishonour -being the most satisfactory of all vengeance, -whether open or concealed.</p> - -<p>She realised abruptly that her thoughts had led her unconsciously -to the door of John Mowbray’s lodgings. The -flat had been lent him by a banker to whom he had brought -a letter from his brother, and who had gone East immediately -after his arrival; the banker’s wife lived in Southern -California. It occupied the second story of a house in -West Broadway and had its own entrance on a side street. -Mowbray had given a tea there a day or two before, and -Ida had presided.</p> - -<p>She did not delude herself for a moment that she could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span> -take her full revenge upon the unconscious Gregory, but -at least she could do something quite shocking, something -that would infuriate a husband. Ida was not afraid of -any man, least of all one that wished to make a duchess -of her, but it would be an additional satisfaction to torment -him, and an adventure with a spice of danger in it no -doubt would restore her equilibrium. If Mowbray made -violent love to her she felt, by some obscure process of -feminine logic, that she would forgive Gregory Compton.</p> - -<p>She glanced hastily up and down the street, then more -sharply, wondering if she had dreamed that once or twice -she had looked over her shoulder with the sense of being -followed. It was a bright moonlight night. No one was -in sight. She rang the bell of Mowbray’s flat. The door -was opened from above. At the head of the stairs stood the -Jap who served as housekeeper and valet.</p> - -<p>She hesitated a moment, taken aback. She had forgotten -the servant. Then she closed the door behind her. -“Is Lord John in?” she asked negligently.</p> - -<p>The Jap spread out his hands deprecatingly. “His -lordship not at home,” he announced.</p> - -<p>Ida hesitated another moment, then ascended the stair -and entered the living-room. “Turn on the lights,” she -said, “I shall wait for him.”</p> - -<p>The Jap obeyed orders, bowed, and withdrew. For a -moment Ida was tempted to telephone to the Silver Bow -Club, but Mowbray was sure to return soon to write his -letters, and she liked the idea of giving him a surprise. -She lit a cigarette, selected a novel from the bookcase, and -sank into the most comfortable of the chairs. The room -was warm; both body and brain were very weary. The -cool night air had driven the blood from her head. She -yawned, dropped the book, fell sound asleep.</p> - -<p>She awoke as the clock was striking half-past one. She -was still alone. For a moment she stared about her, bewildered, -then rose and laughed aloud.</p> - -<p>“This is about the flattest——” She went swiftly out -into the hall and awoke the slumbering Jap. “You little -yellow devil,” she cried, “why didn’t you tell me that his -lordship had gone to the party at the Country Club?”</p> - -<p>Once more the Jap was deprecating. “Madam did not -ask.”</p> - -<p>Ida produced a gold piece. “Well, you are not to tell<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span> -him that I came, nor anyone else. If you do I’ll wring -your neck.”</p> - -<p>The Jap’s eyes, fixed upon the gold, glistened. “Why -should I tell?” he asked philosophically; and having -pocketed the coin ran downstairs and bowed the lady out.</p> - -<p>When Ida was about to turn the corner she whirled -about, this time with a definite sensation of being followed. -But the street was empty save for a man slouching down -the hill with an unsteady gait, his head nodding toward -his chest. It was a familiar sight in any mining town; -nevertheless she quickened her steps, and in a moment -was safe within her own house.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XX</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ON the morning following the departure of the geologists -Gregory took the bit between his teeth and went in -to Butte to see his wife. In his first moment of shock -and confusion it had seemed to him best that Ora, whose -subtlety he recognised, was the one to manipulate Ida’s -still too formalistic mind toward the divorce court; but he -was unaccustomed to relegate any part of his affairs to -others, least of all to a woman. Nor did he think it necessary -to inform Ora of his sudden decision. He might -work almost double shift to keep her out of his thoughts -and diminish temptation, and he might marry her and continue -to love her passionately; but she would obtain little -ascendency over him. He knew what he wanted; he had -trained his will until at times it appeared formidable -even to himself, and he was as nearly the complete male -that regards woman, however wonderful, as the supplementary -female as still survives.</p> - -<p>He had few illusions about himself, and it had crossed -his mind more than once, since the hope of divorce had -dazzled both of them, that for a year or two or least there -must be a certain amount of friction between a nature like -his and a complex, super-civilised, overgrown feminine -ego like Ora Blake. While he had sat with his legs -stretched out to the fire and his eyes half closed, his body -weary, but mentally alert, he had received certain definite -impressions of an independent almost anarchical mind, -contemptuous of the world and its midges save as they -might be of use to herself; of a mind too well-bred ever -to be managing and exacting in any vulgar sense, but inexorable -in its desires and as unscrupulous in their pursuit -as her father had been; of a superlative refinement coupled -with a power of intense and reckless passion found only -in women possessing that quality of imagination that -exalts and idealises the common mortal attributes. Moreover,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span> -it was a mind that, the first joy of submission and -surrender diminished, would think for itself.</p> - -<p>Until that night when both had dropped the mask for -a moment he had never thought of her as a complicated -ego, merely as one from whom he felt temporarily separated -after a union of centuries; and it had been the reluctant -admission that he knew her very little, save as a -gracious woman and his own companion, that had enabled -him to school himself to spend long hours with her alone as -before. He had tumbled blindly into matrimony once, -and no matter how much he might love this woman, to -whom he had seemed from the first to be united by a secret -and ancient bond, he was determined none the less to -marry the second time with his eyes wide open.</p> - -<p>But although his glimpses of Ora’s winding depths gave -him moments of uneasiness he always fell back upon the -complacent reflection that he was a man, a man, moreover, -with a cast-iron will, and that the woman did not live who -would not have to adapt herself to him did he take her to -wife.</p> - -<p>Until the day before the party at the mines he had been -content to drift, but a certain moment down in his own -mine had given a new and abrupt turn to both thoughts -and purpose. Ida might have spared herself her agonies -of shame: she had not betrayed her love, but she had given -him a distinct impression that she was employing her redoubtable -feminine weapons to reduce him to his old allegiance. -He had remembered for a poignant moment that -he once had loved this woman to distraction, and during -that moment he saw her again as the most beautiful and -distracting of her sex. His brief surrender had filled him -with fury. He had no intention of despising himself. -From boyhood up he had had nothing but contempt for -the man that did not know his own mind. If it had not -been for this serene confidence in himself, he, who was -constitutionally wary in spite of the secret and wistful -springs of romance in his nature and the apparent suddenness -of his bold plunges, never would have married Ida -Hook, nor any woman, until he had sounded her thoroughly. -But he had behaved like any hot-headed and conceited -young fool, and, much as he now admired Ida, it both -infuriated him and appalled him to feel even for a moment -toward her as he had in his raw inexperienced youth.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span>He therefore made up his mind to go to her like a -rational being and ask her to give him his freedom. They -had made a mistake. They were reasonable members of -an advanced civilisation, where mistakes were recognised -and rectified whenever possible. He did not doubt for a -moment that reason and logic must appeal as forcibly to a -woman as to himself.</p> - -<p>The door of his wife’s house was opened after the usual -delay, and the maid told him that Mrs. Compton was upstairs -in the billiard room “or somewheres.” He took the -stairs three steps at a time lest his courage evaporate; -but drew a long breath of relief when he entered the large -square hall and saw nothing of Ida. He would have rung -for the maid, but reflected that no doubt he had already -provided enough gossip for the republic below stairs without -admitting that he did not know his way round his -wife’s house. He was about to knock on each door in turn -when he noticed that one in a corner at the end of the -hall was open and that it led into a narrow passageway. -Beyond there was light, possibly in one of those boudoirs -of which he had heard. Mrs. Murphy would have been sure -to have a boudoir, and no doubt Ida, little disposed as she -was to indolence, spent some part of her mornings in it.</p> - -<p>He adventured down the passageway that terminated in -a large room full of sunlight. He saw his wife standing in -the middle of this room looking about her with a curious -expression of wistfulness. The little hall was carpeted, but -she heard him almost as soon as he saw her; she would -have known those light swift footsteps in a marching army. -He was inside the room before she could reach the doorway -and close it behind her and astonished to see a deep blush -suffuse her face. His quick darting glance took in his surroundings -as he shook hands with her. The room was a -nursery.</p> - -<p>“I had two beds put in here and have just seen that -they were taken out,” stammered Ida.</p> - -<p>Her embarrassment was communicable, but he said gruffly -as he walked to the window, “Didn’t know the Murphys -had children.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, they had two little ones. Seven in all. I -think it odd they should have left the toys here even if -they are rich enough to buy toys every day. There is -something sacred about a child’s toys.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span>Ida was merely talking against time, but she hardly -could have said anything better calculated to arrest his -attention.</p> - -<p>He turned and looked at her in astonishment.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to intimate—that you wish you had -children? You?”</p> - -<p>Ida’s brain as well as her body was very weary, but -it sprang to action at once. “Oh, yes,” she said intensely. -“Oh, yes! And I might have had two! They would be -wonderful in this house.”</p> - -<p>“But——” He cast about desperately. “With two -children you could not have gone to Europe.”</p> - -<p>“That wouldn’t have mattered.”</p> - -<p>“But—don’t you realise that it is this last year of unusual -advantages that has developed you so—so—remarkably? -You hated children——”</p> - -<p>“And do you suppose it was Europe that made me want -children?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, of course, nothing is as simple as that. You -were taken out of yourself, out of your narrow self-sufficient -little life; all your fine latent powers were developed——”</p> - -<p>“But not altogether by Europe! Still, I don’t deny that -it woke me up, gave me not one new point of view but -many, developed me, if you like that better. Would you -like lunch earlier? You get up at such unearthly -hours——”</p> - -<p>“I’m not hungry. I want to talk to you. That is what -I came for. Won’t you sit down—no, not here! Let us -go where there are comfortable chairs. I—I am tired.”</p> - -<p>“Very well. Let us go down to the library.” As she -walked before him he noted that her superb body, which -usually looked as if set with fine steel springs, was heavy -and listless.</p> - -<p>The masculine looking room below restored his balance.</p> - -<p>“You don’t look as well as usual,” he remarked, as he -threw himself into the deepest of the chairs. “Yesterday -was a hard day, and you had had those men on your -hands for——”</p> - -<p>“I am tired,” said Ida briefly, “but it doesn’t matter. -What do you want to talk to me about?”</p> - -<p>He did not answer for a few moments, then he stood -up and thrust his hands into his pockets and scowled at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[337]</span> -carpet. Involuntarily Ida also rose to her feet and braced -herself, crossing her arms over her breast.</p> - -<p>“It is impossible for this to go on,” said Gregory rapidly. -“It is unnatural. People don’t submit to broken -lives in these days. I think you had better get a divorce -and be happy. Mowbray seems to be a fine fellow. Of -course no one doubts that he has followed you here. He -could make you happy, and as soon as I am able—in a -year or two—I shall give you a million; in time more.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! Oh!”</p> - -<p>“You surely cannot want to live for ever like—like—this!”</p> - -<p>“I have no desire to marry again. Have you?” She -shot the question at him, every nerve on edge with suspicion.</p> - -<p>But the last thing in his mind was to betray Ora, and -he answered promptly. “No. But I am absorbed in my -mine, and my life will be more crowded every year with -accumulating interests. You are a woman. You are young—and—and—you -wish for children.”</p> - -<p>Ida believed that after her revelation of yesterday he -had come to let her down gently. She determined to -throw her all on one heavy stake. If she lost, at least she -would have had the satisfaction of telling him that she -loved him; she had already sacrificed her pride, and there -was a reckless sweetness in the thought of revealing herself -absolutely to this man. When a woman loves a man not -quite hopelessly she experiences almost as much satisfaction -in listening to her own confession as to his.</p> - -<p>She drew herself up, her arms still across her breast, -and Gregory thought he had never seen a woman look so -dignified and so noble.</p> - -<p>“Listen, Gregory,” she said, with no tremor in her -voice but deepening sadness in her eyes, “I regret that I -have no children because they would be yours. I am willing -to live and die alone because I have lost your love. -I know how I lost it, but, as I look back over my crudity -and ignorance, I do not see how I could have kept it. You -were immeasurably above and beyond me. Nature, or some -mental inheritance, gave you sensitiveness, refinement, distinction, -to say nothing of brains. I had to achieve all -that I am now. I was a raw conceited fool like thousands -of American girls of any class, who think they are just a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[338]</span> -little too good for this world. I had ceased to love you -in my inordinate love of myself, and the natural consequence -was, that as I made no attempt to improve myself, -I lost you as soon as my halo of novelty had disappeared. -I took for granted, however, that I was returning from -Europe to the old conditions. When I discovered that you -had no such intention I was piqued, astonished, angry. -But when I thought it all out I understood. You were -within your rights, and you have behaved with decency -and self-respect. I have nothing but unmitigated contempt -for two people that continue to live together as a mere -matter of habit and convenience. They are the real immoralists -of the world, and the girls that ‘go wrong’ know -it and laugh at the reformers. Of course I never had -ceased to love you down deep, but it took just the course -of conduct you pursued to make me known to myself. I -realise that it is hopeless—too late. I never intended to -betray myself, but I did so in an unguarded moment yesterday. -Otherwise I never should have told you all this. -I have realised since then that I have lost you irrevocably, -but at least if I cannot be your wife I will be no man’s, -and I shall continue to bear your name—and see you -sometimes.”</p> - -<p>Gregory, feeling as if he were being flayed, had dropped -upon the edge of a chair and buried his face in his hands. -When she finished he said hoarsely: “I never dreamed—I -never imagined—I thought you incapable of real feeling——”</p> - -<p>“I think I was then. And since—Well, you are only -a man, after all, and I made you think what I chose until -yesterday—Do you mean——” she added sharply, “that -you did not guess—did not <i>know</i> yesterday?”</p> - -<p>“It never occurred to me. I thought you merely were -flirting a little——”</p> - -<p>“Hi!” cried Ida. Then she got back into her rôle. “It -doesn’t matter,” she said with sad triumph. “I am glad -I have told you. As for the future? You have convinced -Butte that we are the best of friends. Stay away if you -wish unless I give an entertainment where your absence -would cause too much comment. You don’t want to -marry again, but you may feel yourself as free as air. And -one day—when you are worn out, tired of the everlasting -struggle in which you moneymakers work harder than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[339]</span> -the day labourer, with his eight-hour laws and freedom from -the terrific responsibilities of money; when you begin to -break and want a home, I will make one for you. There is -the doorbell. Lord John is coming for lunch. I shall -give him his dismissal—once for all.”</p> - -<p>Gregory stood up and took her hand. He had a vague -masculine sense of unfairness somewhere but he could not -begin to define it, and he was as deeply impressed as discouraged. -“You are a grand woman, Ida,” he said. -“This is not an hour that any man forgets. I wish that -you might be happy.”</p> - -<p>“Nature never intended that people on this planet -should be happy—only in spots, anyhow. And don’t worry -about me. You have put me in the way of getting a great -deal out of this old game we call life, and I am grateful -to you. Good-bye.”</p> - -<p>They shook hands and Gregory went out into the hall -as the maid was admitting Lord John. This time the men -made no pretence at politeness. They merely glared and -passed.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[340]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXI</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE Primo vein had been recovered some time since and -Ora had traversed the fault drift twice and watched -the drilling from the station; not only to assert her rights -as mistress of the mine but to experience the sensations -she had anticipated. She soon discovered that when a -woman is in love, and the issue doubtful, other interests -fail to provide sensations. But she went down into the -mine every day and roamed through the older workings. -She was tormented and restless, but by no means without -hope; and this being the case she sometimes wondered why -she continued to write to Valdobia as if nothing had occurred -to interfere with their tacit engagement. It was -her duty to tell him the truth, at once, but she switched -off all other currents every Saturday morning and wrote -her Roman long gay tantalising letters; being gifted as a -scribe, like so many women, she made them notable with -amusing and enlightening incidents of mining-camp life.</p> - -<p>She had not seen Gregory since Monday evening. He -had gone suddenly to Butte on the morning following the -visit of the geologists, and had telephoned her that he -should take the afternoon train to the Capital and no doubt -be detained for several days. She had expected that he -would telephone or telegraph from Helena; that he would -write was too much to expect; she had never seen his handwriting. -But he had not recognised her existence.</p> - -<p>Four days after his departure she went down into her -mine and walked as far as the ragged opening blasted -by the Apex men, thinking of Ida. How much longer -would it be before Mowbray overcame her prejudices, and -her own independent and proud spirit revolted under her -husband’s complete indifference? Few women were given -such an opportunity for revenge both subtle and open as -Mowbray was offering to Ida Compton.</p> - -<p>It was at this point in her reflections that Ora heard a -light footfall coming down the fault drift of Perch of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[341]</span> -Devil. Without an instant’s hesitation she descended the -short ladder that had been placed between the two drifts -for the benefit of the geologists, and relit her candle. She -met Gregory in the little station. He also held a candle, -but he was so startled at the apparition that he dropped -it. She thrust the point of her candlestick into a wooden -post.</p> - -<p>“I was going over to see you,” he said unsteadily as -he picked up his candle, relighted it, and mechanically followed -her example. He turned abruptly and walked half -way up the drift and back, while she stood still, shivering -with anxiety. Something had put his determined serenity -out of joint. A crisis impended. She felt her unsteadiness -and sat down suddenly on the edge of an ore car, -fancying this dimly lighted room and the black passage -leading to it looked as a death-house cell must look on the -eve of execution.</p> - -<p>Finally she stammered: “What is it? Please tell -me?”</p> - -<p>He leaned against the wall in front of her. “I am afraid -it’s all up,” he said lifelessly. “I went in on Tuesday to -ask Ida to obtain a divorce. She refused to listen. She -has no wish to remarry and will have none of divorce. -Nothing could have been more definite than our interview.”</p> - -<p>“But—but surely in time—if we have patience——”</p> - -<p>“There is no hope. Mowbray entered as I left. She -intended to dismiss him at once.”</p> - -<p>Ora, without reasoning, of which she was incapable -at the moment, felt that he had been convinced by more -than argument and mere words. She flung her arms over -her lap and dropping her head upon them burst into a -wild transport of tears and sobs; she was so unused to all -expression of emotion that she neither knew nor cared -how to control it, and the tears swept out the floodgates -that had held her passion in check.</p> - -<p>She looked up suddenly and saw Gregory standing over -her with twitching face and clenched hands; and exulting -in the complete abandonment of all the controls that civilisation -has bred, she sprang to her feet, flung herself into -his arms and her own arms about his neck. She had her -immediate reward, for he nearly crushed her, and he kissed -her until they both were breathless and reeling.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[342]</span>This was the passion she had read and dreamed of; for -once the realities were commensurate; instinct warned her -to postpone argument and prolong the moment to its -utmost. There was room in her brain for the doubt if such -a moment ever could come again, so little of love-making is -wholly unpremeditated. So she clung to him and kissed -him, and in that dim cavern his dark face, so reminiscent -of those great prehistoric races that interested him, looked -as he felt, primeval man that had found his mate.</p> - -<p>But, whatever his ancient inheritance, he was the immediate -product of a highly practical civilisation. His keen -calculating brain sent a lightning flash across his passion. -He lifted her off her feet and sat her down on the ore -car. Then he took a candlestick in either hand.</p> - -<p>“Come to the other station,” he said peremptorily, and -led the way to a less dangerous seclusion.</p> - -<p>He was half way up the fault drift before Ora, subdued -but rebellious, stooped mechanically and found the -veil that she wore in place of a hat when in the mines. She -followed him slowly. She felt rather than reasoned that -she had missed her opportunity and wished angrily that -she had had lovers and knew better how to manage men. -By the time she reached the shaft station the confusion -in her mind had lifted somewhat and she had arrived -at the conclusion that she could not overcome him in the -same way again, but must use her brains. She sat down -on the box and smoothed her hair with apparent unconcern.</p> - -<p>Gregory had disposed of the two candlesticks and said, -his voice still unsteady: “There isn’t much to say, but I -want to have my last interview with you in my mine. I -cannot get away from here for two or three days. Will -you leave at once?”</p> - -<p>“Will you listen to me? I have my right to be heard?”</p> - -<p>“What is there to say?”</p> - -<p>She clasped her hands in her lap and looked up at him. -Gregory sighed and set his teeth. She looked surpassingly -lovely and rather helpless—women, at their best, always -seemed to him pathetic.</p> - -<p>“Gregory,” she said, “you don’t doubt that I love -you?”</p> - -<p>“No. But what is the use? Do you suppose I am going -to make you my mistress—all Montana would know it in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[343]</span> -less than no time. I’m no saint, but it wouldn’t work—not -for us!”</p> - -<p>“But you want me?”</p> - -<p>“Oh!” He turned away, then swung round upon her. -She had stood up. Her head was bent forward. “You -should help me out!” he cried angrily. “Can’t you see—it’s -you I’m thinking of. Do you suppose I want all the -sporting women in Butte making horrible jokes about you—all -your friends cutting you? What’s a man good for -if he doesn’t protect a woman?”</p> - -<p>“Love affairs have lasted for years without being found -out.”</p> - -<p>“Precious seldom. And we are not buried in a big -city. I must live out here and you would either have to -live out here too, or I should be sneaking into your house -in Butte. A business-like intrigue! Remember I lived -somewhat before I married. Sentiment and romance soon -evaporate——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, that is always what I have thought when I -have read the American novelists’ attempts to portray -what they call a ‘guilty love’. The only word that expresses -it delicately is <i>liaison</i>, and the setting should be -foreign as well. There is no background here. We are -still under the drab shadow of Puritanism. I have heard -it estimated that twenty-five thousand American women -go abroad every year to indulge in a fleeting <i>liaison</i> that -gives them courage to endure the desperately material and -commonplace life of this country for another year. You -don’t understand that because you never have been in -Europe. But Egypt—Italy—in Southern Europe anywhere—with -its unbridled beauties of nature and its far -more poetic beauties that centuries of art have given it—and -a thousand years of love behind us—Oh, cannot you -imagine how wonderful love would be? Do you think <i>I</i> -should ever want to come back?”</p> - -<p>Gregory was staring at her. “Do you mean,” he stammered, -“that you would sacrifice your reputation openly—your -future—do you care enough for that?”</p> - -<p>“I mean I love you so exclusively that I wish I had a -thousand times more to sacrifice.”</p> - -<p>“But—but—there are always Americans travelling—and -you know many Europeans——”</p> - -<p>“They are always easy to avoid. There are villas with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[344]</span> -walls, and pink flowers on top of the walls. And we could -travel and see the wonders of art when the tourist season -was over. Nor would I monopolise you. You could have -the society of men of brains and achievement everywhere.”</p> - -<p>He continued to stare at her radiant wistful face. He -had known that she loved him, but it had never occurred to -him that she would be willing to give up the world for his -sake. She was a proud woman, an aristocrat, she had an -exceptional position everywhere; the great world when -they parted stood ready to offer its consolations.</p> - -<p>She had unrolled a heavenly vision! His mind had revolted -from debasing her to the status of what is euphemistically -known in the West as “sporting women”; he also -remembered the immediate disillusionments of his younger -manhood and wondered if the hideousness of Butte had -been responsible. The Mediterranean with its ancient civilisations -flourishing and forgotten before the historic period, -Egypt, full-grown offspring of a still more ancient -but vanished civilisation—both called to that archæological -instinct so closely allied to the geological, made him fancy -he heard faint ancestral voices. Ora’s eyes were holding -his, and her gaze was as powerful as his own. For the -moment he no longer was a son of the newest section of -the newest world. The turquoise waters of the Mediterranean -spread before him, but he saw it alive with galleys——</p> - -<p>He jerked his eyes away, folded his arms and stared -downward. He must think rationally, not with vapours -in his brain. It might be that he would be more than -fool to sacrifice to any consideration the one chance for -happiness in perfect union that life would offer him.</p> - -<p>Suddenly he became aware that he was staring at the -rocky floor of his mine, of its first level; the flickering candle -flames revealed bits of bright yellow metal. And below -was the second level with its superb shoot of copper ore -ten feet wide. And below, on the third level, still was the -vein far more beautiful than virgin gold. And down—down—in -those vast unlocked caverns—what mysteries—what -wonder-ores might not the earth harbour for him -alone to find and name——</p> - -<p>“What are you thinking of?” cried Ora sharply. Then -she threw out her arms wildly. “I know! I know! It -is those accursed ores! Oh, God! What have I in me,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[345]</span> -I, a mere woman, to compensate for the loss of a mine? I -was a fool—Of course! Of course!”</p> - -<p>But Gregory, although his blood had frozen in his veins -at the horrid vision of a permanent divorce from his mine, -would make no such admission.</p> - -<p>“Ora,” he said quietly, “it would be very wonderful—for -about three months. You would despise me if I were -content to dawdle away my life in an olive grove, or throw -away my best years and these great energies nature has -given me, doing nothing in that old civilisation in which I -could find no place. And in time you would resent the -weakness that had stranded you with no recourse in life but -myself. That sort of thing has never been a success and -never will be, because nature did not make man to live on -love alone, and it is much the same with the intellectual -woman. It wouldn’t work. Not with us. I have known -from the beginning that it must be marriage or nothing. -And Ida would not divorce me if I ran away with you. -She would be entitled to her revenge and she would take -it.” He leaned forward and signalled the station call. -“Please take the skip when it comes. I am going below.” -And he ran down the ladder.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[346]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ORA got into the skip and was whisked to the surface.</p> - -<p>She drew the veil over her head and face, wishing -dimly that she had gone home through the mines; but a -moment later the veil fell to her shoulders unnoticed. As -she crossed the Apex claim she was vaguely aware that -someone, almost in her path, lifted his hat. She bowed -automatically, feeling like those poor wound-up royalties -who must smile graciously upon their loyal people even -though a cancer devour the body or the brain reel with -sorrow.</p> - -<p>Whalen, abnormal in vanity and conceit though he was, -took no offence; not only was this in his estimation the one -great lady of the Western annex, but he was startled by -the expression in her fixed eyes of anguish, terror, and surprise. -He had seen Gregory Compton go down into his -mine not a half an hour ago, and it was easy for his fictionised -if unimaginative mind to conjure up a hazy picture -of the scene underground. He turned very red, partly -from gratification at being so close to human passion and -pain, but more from the knowledge that he shortly could -offer all the elements for another and a still more dramatic -crisis. At the same time he could do the one woman he -admired in this wilderness a good turn and heal his cankerous -ache for vengeance.</p> - -<p>Ora went on to her little house and sank into a chair -before the burnt-out logs. Her body felt as if it were a -vessel into which had been poured all the waters of woman’s -bitterness and despair. Nevertheless, her predominant -sensation was astonishment. For a year she had lived -in a fool’s paradise, indissolubly mated with Gregory -Compton. It was only in the moment when the idea of -his own divorce flashed into her mind that she realised she -had meant to have him for ever, that her imagination had -been a mere playground on which she had romped, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[347]</span> -abruptly abandoned when she saw reality standing at the -gate.</p> - -<p>Since that day, interrupted only by the fevers and doubts -of love, she had accepted with joy her predestined fate as -the visible mate of Gregory Compton. Else what did it all -mean? She had counted on marriage, but that respectable -solution had faded into utter insignificance as soon as the -shock of Ida’s refusal had passed. To fling the world aside, -to regard it as a mere whirling speck in the void, followed -as a matter of course. She and this man would fill all -space.</p> - -<p>And she had lost. It was over. <i>Over. Over.</i> For a -time the astonishment consequent upon the mental reiteration -of this fact held her. Her mind, quick, alert, sinuous -as she had always found it, was unable to readjust itself. -How could anything be over that manifestly had been -created to go on for ever? What, then, did it all mean: -that mutual recognition when they had sat together that -night in Butte, that long mental obsession, this later perfect -understanding, this indubitable power to find in each -other complete happiness? Over. And by the man’s decree. -How odd. How odd. And what a tragic waste.</p> - -<p>She knew that the mine had pulled him, but she was -too much the woman to take a mine seriously. There had -been some other reason. He loved her; she never doubted -that. He had resisted—why? She groped back through -her limited experience, wondering if the trouble were that -she had had so little. Life had not begun with her until a -year ago. She had been a mere student, deliberately living -in the unreal, often deluding, world of books, the worst -of all preparations for life.</p> - -<p>Some women were independent of experience, knew men -by instinct. She felt that Ida, in a similar situation, would -have had her way. She had not managed cleverly; no -doubt with all her charm and her natural allurement for -men, even a certain acquired coquetry, she was one of -those women that could theorise brilliantly, but failed -utterly to manage their own affairs at critical moments.</p> - -<p>She was well aware that she had not been developing -along ideal lines of late, particularly since she had come -out here with the unadmitted intention of stealing her -friend’s husband. By all the laws of tradition she should -be wicked all through. Pride, diffidence, fastidiousness—one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[348]</span> -or all, she was in no condition to decide—had prevented -her from playing the deliberate rôle of siren. She -sighed and wished that life could be played upon the -formula adopted by so many brilliant novelists: a steady -unrelenting development of character upon strictly logical -lines and by means of cunningly created situations, that -was as much like life as a mother’s formula would be for -the thoughts and deeds of her children at a given hour a -year hence.</p> - -<p>Ora did not know that most people in their rare moments -of honest introspection find themselves singularly -imperfect. She had looked for greater consistency in her -complex recesses; assuming that if she made up her mind -to take the husband of any woman, and that woman her -best friend, she would be wholly hard and wicked, and, -for the sake of the result, quite willing to achieve this consistent -imperfection. And such hardness would be the -surest of all solaces in the event of failure. She felt neither -hard nor nearly as wicked as she should, but she did recognise -the fact that if she had one more chance she would win -by hook or crook.</p> - -<p>Her thoughts swung to Ida. What had she said to -Gregory in that last decisive interview? Ida was as clever -as the devil. She would watch her chance and make just -the right appeal at the right moment. Gregory could be -ruthless to the woman of whom he had wearied or to the -woman he loved, but if his wife played upon his honour, -his Western chivalry, his sense of fair play, and reiterated -her own rights—to her would he lower his flag if it struck -the life out of his own heart, and left himself nothing to -feed the deep passion and romance of his nature for the -rest of his life.</p> - -<p>In any case Ida had won.</p> - -<p>Once more Ora wished that she had gone to work when -she found herself penniless after her father’s death. She -would have developed normally, and it was unthinkable -that in the little world of Butte she would not have met -Gregory Compton while he was free. Then not only would -she be happy today but know nothing of those abysmal -depths in her soul which she execrated while yielding to -them and lamenting that for the time being they were no -worse. Love may be divine when all goes well, or one is -born into the cult of the martyr, but when it comes too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[349]</span> -late to passionate natures associated with virile and accomplished -minds, it can be the very spawn of hell. Ora’s -regret that she was not of the breed of those finished wantons -of history that rose to fame on the shattered hearts -of men was born of expediency. Could she have been -given her choice and Gregory Compton she would have -elected to be fine and noble, consummating the lofty dictates -of her superior intellectual endowment. Not yet had -she realised that lacking a ruthless centralised ideal, rarely -allied to brilliant intellects, the souls of women even more -than those of men (who have less time and more poise) are -the playthings of Circumstance.</p> - -<p>She became aware that her Chinaman was crossing the -room, and before she could refocus her wandering mental -vision and intercept him, he had opened the front door and -admitted Professor Whalen.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[350]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXIII</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IDA had broken a dinner engagement and sat alone in her -library. She knew that Gregory had passed through -Butte that day on his way from Helena to Pony; she had -seen him leave the Block where his lawyers had their offices -and jump into a waiting taxi. He was not the man to take -a cab for anything but an imminent train. She had -rushed home, but he had neither called nor telephoned. -She reasoned that he would be more than man if he were -not reluctant to see her again after their last embarrassing -interview, that there was no cause for fresh doubts, and -that there was literally nothing for her to do at present -but continue to play her waiting game. But she felt both -sad and nervous, and wondered if it were in her to despair, -to “cut and run” like other women; or whether it might -not be wise to absent herself for a time. Gregory was the -sort of man to appreciate delicacy, and after an absence of -two months they would meet quite naturally. She could -visit Yellowstone and Glacier Park, and send him pleasant -impersonal postcards.</p> - -<p>But although she hesitated to acknowledge it, she was -tired of her waiting game, she wished that “fate would get -a move on”, and she had left her husband once with unforeseen -results. She leaned her elbows on her knees and -pressed her hands against her face. She had always -cherished a high opinion of her cleverness in regard to -men, but she was nonplussed. For a woman of her resource -there should be some alternative to waiting. She -knew that she had made a deep impression on her husband -in that momentous interview, but who could say that he -had not deliberately put the memory of it out of his -mind? Certainly there was no sign that it had softened him -or paved the way for her reinstatement into his life.</p> - -<p>She was alarmed at her waning self-control. During -these last few days she barely had been able to play her -part in society; the people at the various functions she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[351]</span> -had attended had seemed to her confused and absent mind -like marionettes that she could sweep off the stage with her -arm, and she had retreated into her shell lest she insult -them irreparably.</p> - -<p>She brought her heavy brows together. Could there be -another woman after all? Gregory was cleverer than any -detective. Why should it occur to him to suggest divorce, -he a man so absorbed in a mine that he had forgotten -how to live—merely out of consideration for a discarded -wife whose existence he generally managed to forget? -It was certainly odd, and its idiosyncrasies grew and -swelled as she brooded. She wondered if she had been a -fool. But who in heaven’s name could the woman be? -Of course it was only a passing fancy, but could she -wait, <i>could she wait</i>?</p> - -<p>She was aroused by a slight cough, discreet but full of -subtle insolence. She sprang to her feet, and Whalen -smiled as he saw her drawn face and bloodshot eyes. He -stood just within the door, and held a cap in his hand. -He wore a light automobile coat; a pair of goggles only -half covered his bulging brow. His upper teeth were -clamped down over his lower lip, a habit when steadying -his nerves. Ida thought she had never seen him look so -hideous, so like a mongrel cur.</p> - -<p>“What do you want?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“How gracious you are! How like Mrs. Blake, who -would not forget her manners if she——”</p> - -<p>“I’ve got no manners for your sort. Get out.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, not yet. I’ve something to say. I’ve waited for -over a year, but my time has come——”</p> - -<p>“You’ll go out the way you went last time if you don’t -say what you’ve got to say pretty quick and get out by -yourself.”</p> - -<p>Whalen looked over his shoulder nervously, and measured -the distance to the front door. He had asked leave -of the maid to announce himself, and, when she had disappeared, -reopened the door and left it ajar.</p> - -<p>“It won’t take me long,” he said grimly. “It took me -a little longer to tell Mrs. Blake, for she was hard to convince; -but she <i>was</i> convinced before I left. It is merely -this: I saw you go into Lord John Mowbray’s rooms on -Monday night shortly after ten o’clock and come out at -half-past one.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[352]</span>“Oh, you did, did you? I had a feeling all the time -there was a sneak in the neighbourhood. Well, much good -your spying will do you. Lord John was at the Country -Club until three in the morning and everybody knows it.”</p> - -<p>She spoke calmly, but she was profoundly disturbed. -She continued, however, in the same tones of cutting contempt, -for she saw that he was taken aback, “I merely misunderstood -an invitation of Lord John’s for a bridge -party. I thought it was for that night, and although I -was surprised to find myself the first and Lord John not -there, I sat down to wait and fell asleep. I had had a -hard day. I only condescend to explain,” she continued -witheringly, “because you are as venomous as a mad dog -and it is as well to muzzle you at once.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t believe a word of that yarn, and neither will -anyone else. I certainly managed to convince Mrs. -Blake——”</p> - -<p>“Not she. She must have laughed in your face——”</p> - -<p>“Oh no! Not Mrs. Blake! But I will admit that it was -not easy to make her believe ill of you. Perhaps I should -not have succeeded, but when a woman is eager to believe——” -He laughed and shrugged his shoulders; but -once more he cast a quick glance at the line of retreat. -The heavy library table was between them.</p> - -<p>“What the devil do you mean?” Ida spoke roughly, but -her heart began to hammer. She felt a sudden impulse to -run away, but she stood rigidly and glared at him. -“Here!” she continued, “come to the point. Spit out -your poison. What particular object had you in trying to -set my best friend against me? It would have been more -like you to run to a newspaper.”</p> - -<p>“That later. I wanted to do Mrs. Blake a good turn -and at the same time let her be the one to tell your husband -that he could secure his freedom without further -delay——”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean? What do you mean?” Ida’s -eyes were staring as if they saw a vision of herself at the -stake; she tossed off her pride as she would a hampering -cloak. “Ora! Ora! Oh, not Ora! You liar!” she -screamed. “Prove what you said quick——” But he saw -that she had caught the edge of the table and that her -body was swaying.</p> - -<p>“Oh, neither will deny it now,” he replied in a tone of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[353]</span> -deadly quiet. “She went out there to be near him, no -doubt of that; and he’s spent hours on end in that bungalow. -I went to Helena and back with him and I guessed -that something was up, for he was glummer and more -disagreeable than usual; and this afternoon when I saw -her come up out of his mine I guessed they had had a -painful scene and parted. So I told her she had the -game in her own hands, and that I’d go on the stand and -swear to what I saw. No husband would believe anything -but the truth, nor this town either. You might prove -that your lord made a fool of you and amused himself -elsewhere, but you’re done for all the same; and I guess -Mr. Compton would manage his divorce all right. Then -two people that are madly in love will be happy——”</p> - -<p>Ida’s strength rushed back and the world turned scarlet. -She picked up a heavy bronze from the table and hurled -it at him. But Whalen was expecting a physical assault -in some form. He ducked and fled. When she reached -the open door he was not in sight.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[354]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXIV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ORA watched the clock until twenty minutes after eleven.</p> - -<p>The miners changed shift promptly, and the last -should have gone down the Primo shaft by a quarter past -at the latest. The shaft house would be empty, as no hoisting -was being done on the night shift.</p> - -<p>She turned out the light in her living-room, wrapped -herself in a dark lodenmantel, a long cape with a hood -that she had worn while climbing in Bavaria, and let herself -out. She walked through the grove to the edge of the -bluff above her camp and stood for a few moments, listening -intently. Some ten minutes since she had heard the -warning shriek of an automobile horn, but the garage of -her manager, who had motored Whalen into Butte, was -on the flat, and he had had time either to go down into -the mine or climb to his own cottage.</p> - -<p>The moon was at the full and the scene as sharply outlined -as by day, although less animated. Save for the -usual raucous noises of a mining camp the only sign of -life was in the saloon. Some one was playing a pianola, -and through the open door she saw men standing at the -bar. For a moment she was tempted to take the surface -path across the camps; but the risk was too great. Some -one was sure to be abroad, and although she had been willing -to brave the scorn of the world when there was no -apparent alternative, she shrank from the plain Saxon the -miners would use if they saw her. From Gregory’s shaft -house she could reach his cabin by the path behind the -abandoned cut.</p> - -<p>A light was burning in her shaft house. She was not -expert enough to descend the ladder candle in hand, and -for a moment faltered above the darkness of the well; she -had not been down before at night. Then she reflected that -it was always night in the mines and descended without -further hesitation.</p> - -<p>At the foot of the shaft the usual station was one with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[355]</span> -the chamber left after removing the first large deposit of -ore. They had merely cut through the vein at this point -without stoping, and the great excavation had a lofty -roof. Ora struck a match and lit a candle near by. On -the day of the geologists’ visit a number of miner’s candlesticks -had been thrust into what little wood there was in -the chamber, and the candles were but half burnt out. -Then she lit the one she had brought in her pocket. Accustomed -as she was by this time to the route underground -by chamber and gallery to the Perch mine, she always -picked her way carefully, particularly down the first drift; -her lessees, impatient at the leanness of the connecting -vein, and not wishing to spend either the time or the money -to sink the shaft another hundred feet, had understoped, -and the holes were ill-covered.</p> - -<p>She crossed the large black cavern toward the first of -these tunnels, or drifts, sweeping the candle about her -head, and then holding it downward, for she always -feared cave-ins. The room was almost untimbered, owing -to the hardness of the rock.</p> - -<p>She had almost reached the mouth of the drift, when -she paused suddenly, listened intently, and then blew out -her candle. Some one was on the ladder. It was one of -the miners, no doubt. Something had detained him above -ground, and not daring to summon the shaft house man, -he was sneaking down the ladder. He would go on down -to the second level of the mine. Ora stood motionless, her -hood pulled over her white face. Her miners were good -average men, but the saloon flourished, and was no doubt -responsible for the present delinquency.</p> - -<p>Then once more she listened intently. The upper part -of her body stiffened like a startled animal’s. Whoever -was coming down was making his first descent by foot; not -only was his progress slow, but he was breathing heavily, -and hesitating between rungs, as if it were his first experience -of an inclined ladder. Miners hate the shaft ladder, -and will resort to any subterfuge to avoid it, but they are -experts in “negotiating” it nevertheless. No doubt this -was some green hand, recently employed. Or possibly the -man was drunk.</p> - -<p>Then suddenly Ora turned cold with the chill of the -mine itself, a mere physical attribute that her warm blood -had never deigned to notice before. A form was slowly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[356]</span> -coming into view below the high roof of the cavern, and -although it was little more than a blot on the general -blackness, Ora’s keen eyes, accustomed to the faint relief -given by the candle near the shaft, noted as it descended -further that it covered more of the ladder than it should. -Miners are almost invariably thin and they wear overalls. -This person wore a heavy cape like her own. But it was -not alone the garment, which any miner would scorn, that -betrayed the sex of the invader; it may have been the -physical awkwardness, the shallow breathing, or some -subtle psychical emanation—or all—that warned Ora of -the approach not only of a woman but of a malignant force.</p> - -<p>And this woman was following her. There was no doubt -in her mind of that. She suffered a moment or two of -furious unreasoning terror as she crouched against the wall -and watched that shadow against a shadow slowly descend -the final rungs of the ladder. Her first impulse had been -to flee down the drift, but there was danger of falling into -one of the gouge holes and disabling herself. She dared -not relight her candle.</p> - -<p>Shaking, terrified as she never had been in her life—for -she was normally brave, and it was not a normal woman -she feared but that aura of hate and lust for vengeance—undecided, -putting up a frantic prayer that Gregory would -come to her rescue, she pulled the hood over her face and -almost sank to her knees. The woman, breathing heavily, -reached the last rung and touched the ground as warily -as a cat. For a moment she stood drawing in deep breaths -like sighs, but which escaped, to tormented ears, like a hiss. -Ora, her eyelids almost meeting over the intense concentration -of her gaze, saw the woman fling back the mantle that -covered her, throw out her arms as if to relax the muscles -after the strain of the descent. Then she turned suddenly, -snatched the candlestick from the wall and held it -above her head.</p> - -<p>For the moment Ora thought her heart had stopped. -The woman was Ida. Her heavy lowered brows were like -a heavy band across the white ghastliness of her face. Her -eyes glittered horribly. Her lips were a mere tight line. -Her black hair, loosened, fell over her face. Ora’s hypnotised -gaze tore itself from those slowly moving eyes and -lowered itself instinctively to Ida’s right hand. It held -the stiletto she had given her in Genoa. The slanting rays<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[357]</span> -of the candle fell on the jewels of the hilt. Then she knew -that Ida had followed her down into the mine to kill her.</p> - -<p>Her courage came back as quickly as it had fled. Ora’s -brain might be democratic but her soul was haughty. -The friendship of the past eighteen months between herself -and this woman suddenly shaped itself as forced and artificial, -and she was filled with a cold surprise and anger. -<i>Who</i> was Ida Hook that she should presume to question -Ora Stratton? Similar reflections, no doubt, stiffened many -a noble when on his way to the guillotine at the behest -of the <i>canaille</i>.</p> - -<p>Ora was beyond the ray of the candle at present but -Ida was beginning to move forward, her eyes almost blank -in spite of their brilliancy, moving from side to side, striving -to pierce the darkness, her head bent forward to catch -the slightest sound. It was evident that she had seen Ora -go into the shaft house, and knew that she could not be -far off.</p> - -<p>Ora took the automatic from the bag at her waist, -pointed it at the roof of the cave and fired twice. The din -was terrific in that confined space. Ida shrieked, dropped -the stiletto and candle, and flung her arms about her head. -Ora hastily lighted two other candles, and then retreated -against the wall. She believed that the terrible inhibition -in Ida’s tormented mind was shattered, but she kept the -automatic in her hand, nevertheless.</p> - -<p>The reverberations died away and once more the mine -was as silent as only a deserted level of a mine can be. -Ida raised her head and saw Ora. She gave a strangled -cry and moved forward a step. Then her arms fell heavily -to her side. She did not even pick up the dagger. The -inhuman tension of her mind relaxed, the body barely had -force enough to hold itself together.</p> - -<p>“I came here to kill you,” she said. “But I can’t do -it. I’ve been mad for hours, and I wish I could have -found you in bed as I thought I would. I could have -killed you then. But I saw you come down here—Have -you told him?”</p> - -<p>“No. He was down in the mine until eleven. I was on -my way to tell him—to break down his resistance tonight!”</p> - -<p>“His resistance?” Ida raised her head. She had lost -the pitch necessary for murder, but her mind began to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[358]</span> -recover its alertness and her drooping body to set its -springs in motion. “What do you mean by that? I -thought he was in love with you.”</p> - -<p>Ora laughed. She was filled with an utter despair, but -the knife was still in Ida and she could turn it round. -“Oh, yes, make no doubt of that. He loves me and will -as long as he lives——”</p> - -<p>“Not much he won’t!” roared Ida. “If I’ve been too -quick for you you’ll never tell him now, and he practically -gave me his word the other day that he’d never even ask -me for a divorce again. That means you go and go quick, -and if you think Gregory will have nothing to do but sit -down and nurse your memory——”</p> - -<p>The blood flew to Ora’s head and she hastily dropped -the automatic into her bag. “I’ll not go!” she said. “And -what is more I shall tell him. When Gregory knows that -you spent three hours in Mowbray’s rooms at night——”</p> - -<p>“Mowbray was not there! He was at the Country -Club——”</p> - -<p>“<i>Was</i> he?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and it can be proved. Moreover, you know me -well enough——”</p> - -<p>“It doesn’t matter what can be proved or what I believe. -You waited for Mowbray—Do you suppose that Gregory—or -any court of law——”</p> - -<p>“My God!” cried Ida. “You! You! I think it was -that drove me off my head more than the prospect of disgrace -and losing Gregory. You! What in God’s name is -possessing you? I always knew that you would be the concentrated -essence of all damn fool women that ever lived -when you did fall in love, but I never believed it was in -you to do anything dishonourable——”</p> - -<p>“And would you have believed that you, the concentrated -essence of all that is cool, deliberate, calculating, -would ever be inspired to commit murder? And for a -man? What’s the use of talking? People possessed by love -either are wholly themselves while it lasts, or are abnormal -and should not be held accountable even to the law. I -suppose this means that you too love Gregory Compton?”</p> - -<p>“Yes it does!” cried Ida, the more vehemently because -it shamed her to put this unwonted weakness into words. -“I do, damn it all! I do. I thought I was immune, but I -guess we are all born with the microbe and it bites when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[359]</span> -the soil is good and ready.” Her anger had vanished, for -in spite of Ora’s defiance she knew that she was master of -the situation. She kicked the stiletto contemptuously aside, -clasped her hips with her large firm hands and threw -back her shoulders. “Now!” she said, “admit right here -that you know I didn’t go to Mowbray’s rooms for any old -intrigue. That kind of thing isn’t in me and you know -it.”</p> - -<p>“I will confess I was surprised—I refused to believe it -at first—Oh, I suppose I don’t. But it doesn’t matter——”</p> - -<p>“Are you ready to come with me this minute to Gregory -and tell him that yarn—knowing that I can prove Mowbray -wasn’t there—I say <i>go with me</i>—not by yourself.”</p> - -<p>Ora made no reply. She was beaten but she was not -ready to admit it.</p> - -<p>“You may bet your life on one thing,” continued Ida. -“You go with me or you don’t go at all, for I’ll stick to you -like wet paint until this thing is settled once for all. Now -just tell me what you meant a while back by Gregory’s -resistance? When you found I wouldn’t consent to a divorce—of -course you put him up to ask me, you traitorous -little white devil—did you want him to elope with -you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes I did!”</p> - -<p>“And he wouldn’t!”</p> - -<p>“He—he would not sacrifice me——”</p> - -<p>“Shucks! Where did you want him to go? To Europe?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Good Lord! And what did you think you were going -to do with him over there? Spoon in orange groves for -forty years?”</p> - -<p>“There are several thousand resources in Europe besides -orange groves—but you would never understand——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t I understand? It’s I that does understand, -not you, or you would never have made such an asinine -proposition to Gregory Compton. Why on earth didn’t -you propose some place with <i>mines</i>—Mexico, Alaska, -China—Then you might have stood some show—but Europe—Gregory—Do -you remember those American business -men that always looked as if they had left their -minds in an office at the top of a thirty-story building, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[360]</span> -their bodies were being led round by a string? The vision -of Gregory astray in Europe for the rest of his life would -be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. Talk about the conceit -of man. It isn’t a patch on that of a woman when she gets -the bug inside her head that she can be ‘everything’ to a -man. I can manage Gregory till doomsday when I get -him back, but you’d lose him inside of six months no matter -which way you got him——”</p> - -<p>“That couldn’t be true! I recognised that he was mine—<i>mine</i>—the -night we met before I left——”</p> - -<p>“What’s that?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I met him once before I went abroad with -you—we talked for an hour——”</p> - -<p>“And he was the man you wrote those letters to in -Europe——”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“And I your most intimate friend!”</p> - -<p>“I never sent them, and you did not care for him -then——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t see you apologising if you had turned -heaven into hell. You made up your mind then to have -him, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“No. And not even when I came out here. I only -wanted to be with him—know him a little better—have -that much—Oh, I couldn’t make you understand any more -than that I can suffer as much as if I were the best -of women who had lost her husband by death. It -was only after Mowbray came—there seemed a prospect——”</p> - -<p>“Well, I don’t know that I blame you so much, for I -certainly bluffed it pretty well. I can forgive you for that -but not for meaning to make me out a strumpet and send -me to the muck heap, disgraced for the rest of my life. -Well, come along. Let us go straight to Gregory and let -him decide.”</p> - -<p>Ora did not move.</p> - -<p>“It’s either that or you go back to Butte with me tonight -and start for Europe tomorrow morning.”</p> - -<p>“I know when I am beaten. I will leave. And don’t -imagine that you have won because you are in the right. -We have emerged from the dark ages of superstition, and -we know that the wicked are not punished if they are -strong enough. Nor are the virtuous rewarded for mere<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[361]</span> -virtue—not once in ten thousand times. You have won -because you are stronger than I. That is all.”</p> - -<p>“It’s enough for me.”</p> - -<p>Ora laughed. “Do you really believe that you can win -him back? He’ll not forget me, because I can always fire -his imagination. He is as indifferent to you as only a -man can be when the woman is an old story.”</p> - -<p>“That was a nasty one! But I’m not worrying. I have -been at a disadvantage since I got back, thinking my only -rival was a hole in the ground. But take this from me, -Ora: when a woman knows where she stands, and has the -inside track, and has her nerve with her, the man has -no show whatever. Nor the other woman. I’ll get him -back all right. And he’ll forget you. That’s a man’s -long suit.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll neither of us ever know, so it doesn’t matter. -I shall never see him again. That is all that matters to -me.”</p> - -<p>“And Valdobia?”</p> - -<p>“I shall marry him. I suppose—after a while.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind saying that he is much too good for -you.”</p> - -<p>“Possibly. And he’ll love me the more.”</p> - -<p>“And shall you tell him of this little interlude?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly not.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I always have maintained that the woman who -confessed anything to a man was a fool, but it certainly is -a queer mix up.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that I should so much mind telling him, -after all. Men are too practical to resent any but the -literal infidelity. And he is the only person living that -understands me. Gregory does not and never would care -to. Why could not I have had this madness for the one -man who is really fitted to be my mate—whose ideas of -life are my own, who has so much the same order of -mind? Why should I love Gregory Compton, a man I -not only cannot marry, but with whom I never could find -a real companionship. My God! Why? Why?”</p> - -<p>“There are several ways of getting ahead of life,” said -Ida drily, “and one is not asking ‘Why’ too often. That’s -just one of her little traps to keep you discontented. You -and Gregory Compton! It certainly is funny. What did -you talk about anyway?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[362]</span>Ora threw out her arms and laughed wildly. “Ores. -Ores. Ores. I tried to interest him in many of the things -that interested me. He didn’t even try to understand -what I was driving at. One night I offered to read to -him—I had a lively new volume of memoirs in mind—he -asked if I had any work on copper. I read to him for -three hours from a book called ‘The Copper Mines of -the World,’ technicalities and all. Of course he had read -it before, but it seemed to delight him. We literally had -no common meeting ground but ores, but we loved each -other madly. Oh, don’t tell me that it was mere passion!” -she broke out as angrily as if Ida had interrupted -her. “Valdobia is attractive in far more ways and better -looking. Gregory has met many women.—If that were -all we should have bored each other long since—we never -could have held each other’s imaginations while apart.—I -tell you it is some deep primary bond—something that -older races perhaps could explain. Why should we meet -at all in this life——”</p> - -<p>“I guess when we understand all the different brands -of love we’ll vaccinate and be immune. Shut your teeth, -Ora, and take your medicine. And for heaven’s sake let -us get out of this damp hole. I’ll help you and Custer -pack and we’ll go to Butte in the car I came out in. Have -I got to go up that ladder!”</p> - -<p>“No, we’ll go over to the Perch mine and ring for the -skip there. My engineer is not on duty during the ‘graveyard -shift.’”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[363]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">XXV</h3> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ON the following morning Ida, having seen Ora on the -train bound for Chicago, went at once to a public -garage, rented the touring car she had used the night -before, and was driven out to the mines. She walked up -to the cabin on the crest of Perch of the Devil and, finding -it empty, summoned a miner who was lounging near and -bade him call Mr. Compton. The man asked to be allowed -to use the telephone in the office, obtained connection with -the second level of the mine, and announced in a few -moments that the boss was on his way up.</p> - -<p>Ida, who had dropped wearily into a chair, merely -nodded as Gregory entered. He was as pale as a dark -man can be, and his voice when he spoke sounded as if -he had been running.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” he demanded. “Has anything happened——”</p> - -<p>“To Ora? Nothing, except that she is on her way East -and to Europe. Tired, no doubt, but quite well.”</p> - -<p>Gregory drew a short sigh of relief, and sat down before -his table, shading his eyes with his hand. “Well?” he -asked. “What is it?”</p> - -<p>“I haven’t come out here to make a scene, or even to -reproach you. I believe that I should have the self-restraint -to ignore the subject altogether if it were not -for that man, Whalen. Some one must put an extinguisher -on him at once and you are the one to do it. That is why -I am obliged to tell you that I found out yesterday about -you and Ora. I had begun to believe there must be some -woman in the case but I had not the least suspicion of -Ora. I not only believed her to be the soul of honour, but -I thought she was really in love with the Marchese Valdobia, -a Roman who has everything to offer that a woman -of her type demands, and to marry whom she had demanded -a divorce from Mark. She has been tacitly engaged -to him ever since we left Europe.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[364]</span>Ida saw the muscles in Gregory’s long body stiffen as -if he were about to spring, and his eyes glitter through -the lattice of his fingers. But he made no comment, and -after giving him time to assimilate her information, she -added more gently:</p> - -<p>“Console yourself with the reflection that she would -have thrown him over for you. But she knows now what -a mistake she would have made. Ora is one of those atavistic -Americans that are far more at home in Europe -than in the new world. She has gone where she belongs -and Valdobia is her man.”</p> - -<p>She paused again. He was still silent, and she continued -less fluently: “Now I come to the unpleasant part for myself. -To begin at the beginning: I made an enemy of -little Whalen before I went abroad. He had the sublime -impudence to kiss me one day, and I simply took him by -the back of his neck and the seat of his pants and threw -him out of the window. He has had it in for me ever -since.”</p> - -<p>In spite of the various emotions raging within him, -Gregory laughed aloud at the picture. The atmosphere -felt clearer. Ida went on with more confidence:</p> - -<p>“Of course you know that Lord John Mowbray followed -me here. He wanted me to get a divorce and marry him, -as Valdobia had planned with Ora. I liked him well -enough, but even if I had been free it never would have -occurred to me to marry him, and no one knew better -than he that I didn’t care a copper cent for him. His -hope after he came here—a hope in which he was encouraged -by Ora—was that, as you were so loudly indifferent, -pride might drive me to leave you and make a brilliant -marriage. Well, I was tempted for a moment. It was on -the night of the day I had been down in the mine with -you. I believed that I had given myself away absolutely, -offered myself and been refused as casually as if I had -been some woman of the streets; told you almost in so -many words that I loved you and been invited with excruciating -politeness to go to the devil.</p> - -<p>“Well, that night I nearly went off my head. I had a -whole mind, for a few moments, to ring up Mowbray and -tell him that I would get my freedom and leave the country -for ever. But that passed. I couldn’t have done it, -and I knew it, in spite of the blood pumping in my head.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[365]</span> -I went out for a walk, for I had smashed a few things -already. Then the mad impulse came to me to call on -Mowbray. I knew that I’d treat him no better than I -had treated Whalen if he so much as tried to kiss me. But -I wasn’t afraid. He was too keen on marrying me to take -any risks. What I wanted was to do something real -devilish—to be more elegant, something quite the antithesis -of all that is <i>comme il faut</i>. So I went. Mowbray -wasn’t there. He had gone to the dance at the Country -Club. I sat down to wait for him and fell asleep. When -I awoke it was after one o’clock and I was still alone. I can -tell you I got out pretty quick. I had slept the blood out -of my head and I felt like a fool. I bribed the Jap not -to tell Mowbray or anyone else.</p> - -<p>“Well, the point of all this is—and the only reason I -have told you—Whalen saw me go in and waited for me -to come out. He believed that he had found his chance -for revenge at last. No doubt he would have told you on -the way to Helena, but he hasn’t the spunk of a road -agent at the wrong end of a gun. So he took his tale to -Ora when he got back.—But before I go any further -I want you to say that you believe I had no wrong -motive in going to Mowbray’s rooms. Of course a hundred -people could testify that he did not leave the Country -Club until three o’clock, but that is not the point with -you.”</p> - -<p>“I believe you,” said Gregory. He was intensely interested.</p> - -<p>Ida drew a long sigh and the colour came back to her -face. Her eyes, heavy with fatigue, sparkled. “Well! -Whalen was all for drinking his cup of revenge down to -the dregs. It wasn’t enough to spring a mine under me, -he must see what I looked like when it blew up the first -time. After he told Ora he posted into Butte and managed -to get into my house unannounced—that maid has -been fired. I was in the library on the other side of the -room. The doorway was good enough for him. He told -me. Some time I’ll tell you all I felt. After he had lit -out with the Venus of Milo flying after him, I went stark -mad. I made up what mind I had left to kill Ora and kill -her quick.”</p> - -<p>“What?” Gregory sat up and stared at her, his eyes -wide open. And, astounded as he was, the immortal vanity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[366]</span> -of man thrilled responsively to the reckless and destructive -passions he had inspired in these two remarkable -women.</p> - -<p>“I got a touring car and arrived at the foot of her hill—a -little after eleven it was, I guess. There was a light in -her living-room, and I made up my mind to wait until I -was sure she was alone and in her bedroom. Then I -intended to get in somehow or other and kill her with that -stiletto she gave me in Genoa. It was a notion of hers that -I had been one of the wicked dames of the Renaissance, -and I just naturally took the hint. While I was waiting -the light went out and almost immediately I saw her hurry -down the path that led to her claim and go into her shaft -house. I knew on the instant that she was going to you, -and that she took that route to avoid being seen. My -mind could grasp that much in spite of the fixed idea in -it—that she was on her way to tell you Whalen’s story. -This was true as I found out afterwards. She went that -night, partly because she couldn’t keep it any longer, -partly because she wanted to tell you when you were alone -in your cabin at night and she could also bind you hand -and foot with that Lorelei hair of hers. It takes the hyper-civilised -super-refined Oras to stick at nothing when their -primitive instincts loosen up.</p> - -<p>“Well—I went into the shaft house, and listened until -I no longer could hear her on the ladder. Then I followed. -Glory! Shall I ever forget going down that ladder? -I felt as if every muscle in my body were being -torn up by the roots; and I had to carry the stiletto -between my teeth. And pitch dark. All my clothes in -the way every step. It was enough to take the starch out -of tragedy, and I guess it would have flattened me out if -it hadn’t been just the one thing that could make me madder -still.</p> - -<p>“I’ll give you the details of that scene some other time. -I’m too tired now. It is enough to say that she had a -pistol and made such an infernal racket with it—shooting -at the roof—that something busted in my head and I -came to. Then we had it out. She agreed to leave because -she knew me too well to believe I had gone to Mowbray’s -rooms for any horrid purpose, and he hadn’t been there -anyway. I told her that if she told you it would have to -be before me, and she knew that she couldn’t brazen it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[367]</span> -through. So I packed her and got her off this morning. -That means that I had no sleep last night.”</p> - -<p>She stood up and Gregory rose also. “Now, there are -two things more,” she said with no lack of decision in her -voice, whatever her fatigue of body. “You must settle -Whalen, and you must move to Butte and live in my house, -even if you are only there once or twice a week. Whalen, -the moment he discovers that Ora has gone, will run about -Butte defaming me, or carry the story to the papers. It -wouldn’t do me much good to prove that Mowbray wasn’t -there. People like to believe the worst, and in time would -forget that Mowbray had been at the Club on that particular -night. My set might be all right. But the rest—and -my servants—and Ruby and Pearl! They always -use the word ‘bad,’ and, as Ora says, an intrigue is only -decent in a foreign language. It gives me the horrors to -think of it. But if we are seen together twice a week, and -you are known to be living in the house, however often -you must be absent, nobody will listen to a story that is -not headed toward the divorce court.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll buy Whalen’s claim and tell him to get out of -Montana. He’ll go! As for the rest of your programme—please -be sure, Ida, that I stand ready to protect you now -and always. You are not only my wife but an extraordinary -woman, and I am very proud of you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the extraordinary woman hasn’t been born yet, in -spite of the big fight the sex is putting up,” said Ida -lightly, as they left the cabin and walked down the hill. -“When women really are extraordinary they will be just -as happy without men as they now want to be with them. -They try with all their might to be hard, and they can ring -outside like metal, but inside they are just one perpetual -shriek for the right man to come along—that is all but a -few hundred thousand tribadists. But they’ve made a -beginning, and one day they’ll really be able to take men -as incidentally as men take women. Then we’ll all be -happy. Don’t you fool yourself that that’s what I’m -aiming at, though. I’m the sort that hangs on to her man -like grim death.”</p> - -<p>“You’re all right!” said Gregory, who, man-like, was -automatically readjusting himself to the inevitable.</p> - -<p>He handed her into the tonneau of the car, and tucked -the robe about her. She gave his hand a hearty friendly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[368]</span> -shake, for she was much too wise and too tired for sentiment. -“Don’t you worry about Ora,” she said. “Custer -is with her and she has the drawing-room, and is probably -sound asleep at this moment. It must be very restful to -get a tragic love affair off your chest.”</p> - -<p>And then the car rolled off and she fell asleep at once.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[369]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">PART III</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[370]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[371]</span> -<p class="ph3">PART III</p> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THEY stood together in the dawn, the blue dawn of -Montana. Silver stars were winking dimly in the -silver sky, clear save above the glittering peaks of the -distant range, which reflected the blue of a bank of clouds -above. And all the vast and snowy expanse was blue; and -the snow on the pine trees of the forest.</p> - -<p>No one stirred in the two camps, not abroad at least; -and even the shacks and larger buildings built with as -little regard for beauty were transformed and glorified -by the white splendour of winter. On the crest of Perch -of the Devil was a long gracefully built bungalow, also -heavily laden with snow, and between the posts of its -verandah hung icicles, iridescent blue in the dawn.</p> - -<p>A small lawn had been cultivated, and they leaned over -the gate of the fence that surrounded it, not wrapped in -one buffalo robe, but in heavy automobile coats, their -heads protected from the intense cold by fur caps. But -they stood close together, and even a passing stranger -would have known that there was harmony between them. -Both were looking at the cold loveliness of the dawn and -admiring it subconsciously, and both were thinking of -other things. Gregory was visualising a ranch he had -bought not long since near those mountains, and the wire -gold but a few feet below the surface, found a fortnight -ago while ditching. He had his gold mine at last, but it -merely would hasten his grooming for the millionaire -brotherhood, and had given him none of the exultant -ecstasy he had dreamed of in the days before he had -opened Perch of the Devil. The gold mine was not in his -hill! Only the sharp, cool, calculating business wing of -his brain appreciated it. The mine beneath his feet was -still the object of his deep affections.</p> - -<p>And sometimes, down in the depths of that mine (never -above ground), he sat alone for a few moments and thought -of Ora. He had forced her out of his mind when she went<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[372]</span> -out of his life, but nothing could dislodge her from his -ivory tower, although in time to come she might gather -dust for years on end. For months after she married Valdobia -she seemed to have taken his memory to Rome with -her; but she brought it back in time.</p> - -<p>In those rare moments when he peered through the windows -of that inner temple, he, too, sometimes asked, -“Why?” What had it all meant? It had been perfect -love—yet so lamentably imperfect; not only because they -were torn apart, but because they would not have found -permanent happiness together. Between some subtle essence -of their beings there was an indissoluble bond, but -their minds were not in accord, and neither would have -been adaptable save during that fluid period when even -strong egos lose their bearings and float on that inevitable -sea of many tides called Love; knowing that when it casts -them on the shore whence they came, once more will they -be as malleable as rock crystal. But what had it all meant?</p> - -<p>And his wife made him very happy. He found her -increasingly desirable as a life companion. She adapted -herself to every angle of his character while losing none -of her own picturesque individuality; made no impossible -exactions either on his soul or his time; was always beautiful -to look at; and the most level-headed of his friends.</p> - -<p>Even men of less complicated egos have been able to -love two women at once and survive.</p> - -<p>And Ida? She at least had what she wanted, she was -a philosopher, and therefore as happy as may be. By -constant manœuvring she saw more of her busy husband -than falls to the lot of most American wives married to -too successful men. She had made herself so necessary -to him that he returned from his many absences almost as -eager to see her as his mine. On these hurried trips she -never accompanied him, not only because it was wise to -let him miss her, and to think of her always in the home -setting, but because they gave her the opportunity to -retain her hold on Butte; to enjoy her beautiful house -there and her many friends.</p> - -<p>Suddenly Gregory raised his head. Then he lifted the -ear flap of his fur cap. High above there was a loud humming, -as of the wind along telegraph wires, or the droning -of many bees, or the strumming of an aerial harp. The -month was March and the weather forty degrees below<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[373]</span> -zero. The very sky, whose silver was growing dim, looked -frosted, but a moment later Gregory felt a warm puff of -air on his cheek.</p> - -<p>“The Chinook!” he said softly.</p> - -<p>Another puff touched them both lightly, then a long -wave of warm air swept down and about them.</p> - -<p>“It’s chinooking, certainly,” said Ida, opening her fur -coat and pushing back her cap. “I hope that means we’ve -had the last of winter.”</p> - -<p>Again there was a long diving wave, almost hot in its -contrast to the cold air rising from the ground, and still -accompanied by that humming orchestra above. But in a -few moments the hum had deepened into a roar down in -the tree tops and about the corners of the buildings on the -hill. The icicles fell from the eaves and lay shattered and -dissolving on the porch, the snow was blown up in frosty -clouds and melted as it fell.</p> - -<p>“It’s the last of winter, I guess,” said Gregory. “We’re -not likely to have another long spell of cold. Spring has -come. And so has daylight. Let’s go in, old girl.”</p> - -<p class="center">THE END</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph1">FOOTNOTES:</p> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[A]</a> Pronounced Bute.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[B]</a> Plato dates the submergence of the last of Atlantis (the island -of Poseidonis) about 9,000 years before the priests of Sais told its -story to Solon, who lived 600 B.C. The Troano MSS. in the British -Museum, written by the Mayas of Yucatan about 3500 B.C., assert -that it took place 11560 B.C. The archaic records of India give the -date of the fourth and final catastrophe that overwhelmed the remnant -of the once vast continent (which Darwin and other naturalists -claim must have extended from the American to the European continent -to account for the migration of plants found in Miocene strata) -as 9564 B.C.</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="transnote"> -<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> - -<p>Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.</p> -</div></div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERCH OF THE DEVIL ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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