The Symes Irrigation Company was now well under way. The application for
segregation of 200,000 acres of irrigable land had been granted. The
surveyors had finished and the line of stakes stretching away across the
hills was a mecca for Sunday sight-seers. The contracts for the moving
of dirt from the intake to the first station had been let and when the
first furrow was turned and the first scoop of dirt removed from the
excavation, Crowheart all but carried Andy P. Symes on its shoulders.
"Nothing succeeds like success," he was wont to tell himself frequently
but without bitterness or resentment for previous lack of appreciation.
He could let bygones be bygones, for it was easy enough to be generous
in the hour of his triumph.
"He had it in him," one-time sceptics admitted.
"Blood will tell," declared his supporters emphatically and there was
now no dissenting voice to the oft-repeated aphorism.
Symes moved among his satellites with that benign unbending which is a
recognized attribute of the truly great. The large and opulent air which
formerly he had assumed when most in need of credit was now habitual,
but his patronage was regarded as a favor; indeed the Crowheart
Mercantile Company considered it the longest step in its career when the
commissary of the Symes Irrigation Company owed it nearly $7000.
Conditions changed rapidly in Crowheart once work actually began. The
call for laborers brought a new and strange class of people to its
streets--swarthy, chattering persons with long backs, and short legs, of
frugal habits, yet, after all, leaving much silver in the town on the
Saturday night which followed payday.
Symes's domestic life was moving as smoothly and as satisfactorily as
his business affairs. A lifetime seemed to lie between that memorable
journey on the "Main Line" with Augusta in her brown basque and dreadful
hat, and the present. She was improving wonderfully. He had to admit
that. "No, sir," he told himself occasionally, "Augusta isn't half bad."
Her unconcealed adoration and devotion to himself had awakened affection
in return, at least her gaucheries no longer exasperated him and they
were daily growing less. Dr. Harpe had been right when she had told him
that Augusta was as imitative as a parrot, and he often smiled to
himself at her affectations, directly traceable to her diligent perusal
of _The Ladies' Own_ and the column devoted to the queries of troubled
social aspirants. While it amused him he approved, for an imitation lady
was better than the frankly impossible girl he had married. Something of
this was in his mind while engaged one day in the absorbing occupation
of buttoning Mrs. Symes's blouse up the back.
He raised his head at the sound of a step on the narrow porch.
"Who's that?"
"Dr. Harpe."
"What--again?"
There was a suspicion of irritation in his voice, for now that he came
to think of it, he and Augusta had not dined alone a single evening that
week.
"What of it? Do you mind, Phidias?"
"Oh, no; only isn't she crowding the mourners a little? Isn't she rather
regular?"
"I asked her," Mrs. Symes replied uneasily.
"It's all right; I'm not complaining--only why don't you ask some one
else occasionally?"
"I don't want them," she answered bluntly.
"The best of reasons, my dear," and Symes turned away to complete his
own toilet while Augusta hastened out of the room to greet the Doctor.
Symes wondered if the installation of a meal ticket system at the
Terriberry House had anything to do with the frequency with which he
found Dr. Harpe at his table, and was immediately ashamed of himself for
the thought. It recalled, however, an incident which had amused him,
though it had since slipped his mind. He had found a pie in his writing
desk and had asked Grandma Kunkel, who still formed a part of his unique
menage, for an explanation.
"I'm hidin' it," she had answered shortly.
"From whom?"
"Dr. Harpe. I have to do it if I want anything for the next meal. She
helps herself. She's got an awful appetite."
He had laughed at the time at her injured tone and angry eyes and he
smiled now at the recollection. It was obvious that she did not like Dr.
Harpe, and he was not sure, he could not exactly say, that he liked her
himself, or rather, he did not entirely like this sudden and violent
intimacy between her and Augusta, which brought her so constantly to the
house. Some time he meant to ask Grandmother Kunkel why she so resented
Dr. Harpe's presence.
Dr. Harpe was seated in a porch chair, with one leg thrown over the arm,
swinging her dangling foot, when Mrs. Symes appeared. She turned her
head and eyed her critically, as she stood in the doorway.
"Gus, you're gettin' to be a looker."
Mrs. Symes smiled with pleasure at the compliment.
"You are for a fact; that's a nifty way you have of doin' your hair and
you walk as if you had some gumption. Come here, Gus."
Dr. Harpe pushed her unpinned Stetson to the back of her head with a
careless gesture; it was a man's gesture and her strong hand beneath the
stiff cuff of her tailored shirtwaist strengthened the impression of
masculinity.
She arose and motioned Mrs. Symes to take the chair she had vacated
while she seated herself upon the arm.
"Where have you been all day?" There was reproach in Mrs. Symes's dark
eyes as she raised them to the woman's face.
"Have you missed me?" A faint smile curved Dr. Harpe's lips.
"Missed you! I've been so nervous and restless all day that I couldn't
sit still."
"Why didn't you come over to the hotel?" Dr. Harpe was watching her
troubled face intently.
"I wanted to--I wanted to go so much that I determined not to give in to
the feeling. Really it frightened me."
Dr. Harpe's eyes looked a muddy green, like the sea when it washes among
the piling.
"Perhaps I was wishing for you--_willing_ you to come."
"Were you? I felt as though something was _making_ me go, making me
almost against my will, and each time I started toward the door I simply
had to force myself to go back. I can't explain exactly, but it was so
strange."
"Very strange, Gus." Her eyes now held a curious gleam. "But the next
time you want to come--_come_, do you hear? I shall be wishing for you."
"But why did you stay away all day?"
"I wanted to see if you would miss me--how much."
"I was miserably lonesome. Don't do it again--please!"
"You have your Phidias." There was a sneer in her voice.
"Oh, yes," Mrs. Symes responded simply, "but he has been gone all day."
"All day! Dreadful--how very sad!" She laughed disagreeably. "And are
you still so desperately in love with Phidias?"
"Of course. Why not? He's very good to me. Did you imagine I was not?"
"Oh, no," the other returned carelessly.
"Then why did you ask?"
"No reason at all except that--I like you pretty well myself. Clothes
have been the making of you, Gus. You're an attractive woman now."
Mrs. Symes flushed with pleasure at the unusual compliment from Doctor
Harpe.
"Am I? Really?"
"You are. I like women anyhow; men bore me mostly. I had a desperate
'crush' at boarding-school, but she quit me cold when she married. I've
taken a great shine to you, Gus; and there's one thing you mustn't
forget."
"What's that?" Mrs. Symes asked, smiling.
"I'm jealous--of your Phidias."
"How absurd!" Mrs. Symes laughed aloud.
"I mean it." Dr. Harpe spoke lightly and there was a smile upon her
straight lips, but earnestness, a kind of warning, was in her eyes.
A clatter of tinware at the kitchen window attracted Symes's attention
as he came from the bedroom.
"What's the matter, grandmother?" he asked in the teasing tone he
sometimes used in speaking to her. "Not the cooking sherry, I hope."
She did not smile at his badinage.
"There's enough drinkin' in this house without my help," she returned
sharply.
"What do you mean?" Symes's eyes opened. "Are you serious?"
The question he saw was superfluous.
"It's nothin' I'd joke about."
"You amaze me. Do you mean Augusta--drinks?"
"Too much."
"By herself?"
"No; always with Dr. Harpe. Dr. Harpe drinks like a man--that size." She
held up significant fingers.
Symes frowned.
"I know that Dr. Harpe's sentiments are not--er--strictly temperance,
but Augusta--this is news to me, and I don't like it." He thrust his
hands deep in his trousers pockets and leaned his shoulder against the
door jamb.
"When did this commence?"
"With the comin' of that woman to this house."
"It's curious--I've never noticed it."
"They've taken care of that. She's a--nuisance."
"You don't like Dr. Harpe?" Watching her face, Symes saw the change
which flashed over it with his question.
"Like her! Like Dr. Harpe?" She took a step toward him, and the
intensity in her voice startled him. Her little gray eyes seemed to dart
sparks as she answered--"I come nearer hatin' her than I ever have any
human bein'!"
"But why?" he persisted. Perhaps in her answer he would find an answer
to the question he had but recently asked himself.
There was confusion in the old woman's eyes as they fell before his.
"Because," she answered finally, with a tightening of her lips.
"There's no definite reason? Nothing except your prejudice and this
matter you've mentioned?"
A red spot burned on either withered cheek. She hesitated.
"No; I guess not," she said, and turned away.
"If I thought for a moment that her influence over Augusta was not good
I'd put an end to this intimacy at once; but I suppose it's natural that
she should desire some woman friend and it seems only reasonable to
believe that a professional woman would be a better companion than that
illiterate Parrott creature or the tittering Starrs." Symes shifted his
broad shoulders to the opposite side of the door and his tone was the
essence of complacency as he went on--
"Yes, if I had the shadow of a reason for forbidding this silly
schoolgirl friendship I'd stop it quick."
The old woman's lips twisted in a faintly cynical smile.
"And could you?"
Symes laughed. Nothing could have been more preposterous than the
suggestion that his control over Augusta was not absolute.
"Why, certainly. I mean to speak to Augusta at once in regard to this
matter of drinking. I've never approved of it for women. There are two
things that cannot be denied--Augusta is obedient and she's truthful."
His good-nature restored by the contemplation of these facts, he turned
away determined to demonstrate his control of the situation for his own
and the old woman's benefit at the earliest opportunity. In fact, the
present was as good as any.
He walked to the door opening upon the porch, where Dr. Harpe still sat
on the arm of the chair, her hand resting upon Augusta's shoulder.
"One moment, Augusta, if you please."
She arose at once with a slightly inquiring look and followed him
inside.
"I have reason to believe, or rather to know, that you have fallen into
the way of doing something of which I do not at all approve," he began.
"I mean drinking, Augusta. It's nothing serious, I am aware of that,
it's only that I do not like it, so oblige me by not doing that sort of
thing again." His tone was kindly but final.
He expected to see contrition in Augusta's face, her usual penitence
for mistakes; instead of which there was a sullen resentment in the
glance she flashed at him from her dark eyes.
"It's true, isn't it? You do not mean to deny it?"
"No."
"You intend to respect my wishes, of course?"
"Of course." She turned from him abruptly and went back to the porch.
The action was unlike her. He was still thinking of it when he put on
his hat and went down town to attend to an errand before dinner.