"I am. Do not think that the power is in me. But God loves the Garden
and His voice is never far from me. Neither are the spirits of the four
who lived here before me and made this place. When there is danger they
warn me. When I am in error the voice of God corrects me. And just as I
heard the voice against the woman, Ruth, and heed it not."
He seemed to have gathered conviction for himself, much needed
conviction, as he spoke. He turned now toward the girl.
"Be not wroth with Benjamin; and bear him no malice."
"I bear him none in the world," she answered truthfully, and held out
her hand.
But Connor was still in his role. He folded his arms and pointedly
disregarded the advance.
"Woman, let there be peace and few words between us. My will is the will
of David."
"There speaks my brother!" cried the master of the valley.
"And yet," muttered Connor, "why is she here?"
"She came to buy a horse."
"But they are not sold."
"That is true. Yet she has traveled far and she is in great need of food
and drink. Could I turn her away hungry, Benjamin?"
"She could have been fed at the gate. She could surely have rested
there."
It was easy to see that David was hardpressed. His eye roved eagerly to
Ruth. Then a triumphant explanation sparkled in his eye.
"It is the horse she rides, a gelding from my Garden. His lot in the
world has been hard. He is scarred with the spur and the whip. I have
determined to take him back, at a price. But who can arrange matters of
buying and selling all in a moment? It is a matter for much talk.
Therefore she is here."
"I am answered," said Connor, and turning to Ruth he winked broadly.
"It is well," said David, "and I foresee happy days. In the meantime
there is a duty before me. Abraham must be laid in his grave and I leave
Ruth to your keeping, Benjamin. Bear with her tenderly for my sake."
He stepped to the girl.
"You are not afraid?"
"I am not afraid," she answered.
"My thoughts shall be near you. Farewell."
He had hardly reached the gate of the patio when Joseph, going out after
finishing his labor at the fountain, passed between the gambler and the
girl. Connor stopped him with a sign.
"The whip hasn't fallen, you see," he said maliciously.
"There is still much time," replied Joseph. "And before the end it will
fall. Perhaps on you. Or on that!"
He indicated the girl with his pointing finger; his glance turned
savagely from one to the other, and then he went slowly out of the patio
and they were alone. She came to Connor at once and even touched his arm
in her excitement.
"What did he mean?"
"That's the one I told you about. The one David beat up with the whip.
He'd give his eye teeth to get back at me, and he has an idea that
there's going to be hell to pay because another person has come into the
valley. Bunk! But--what happened down the hill?"
"When he stopped me? Did you see that?"
"My heart stopped the same minute. What was it?"
"He had just heard the last words of Abraham. When he stopped me on the
hill his face was terrible. Like a wolf!"
"I know that look in him. How did you buck up under it?"
"I didn't. I felt my blood turn to water and I wanted to run."
"But you stuck it out--I saw! Did he say anything?"
"He said: 'Dying men do not lie. And I have been twice warned. Woman,
why are you here?'"
"And you?" gasped Connor. "What did you say?"
"Nothing. My head spun. I looked up the terrace. I wanted to see you,
but you weren't in sight. I felt terribly alone and absolutely helpless.
If I'd had a gun, I would have reached for it."
"Thank God you didn't!"
"But you don't know what his face was like! I expected him to tear me
off the horse and smash me with his hands. All at once I wanted to tell
him everything--beg him not to hurt me." Connor groaned.
"I knew it! I knew that was in your head!"
"But I didn't."
"Good girl."
"He said: 'Why are you here? What harm have you come to work in the
Garden?'"
"And you alone with him!" gasped Connor.
"That was what did it. I was so helpless that it made me bold. Can you
imagine smiling at a time like that?"
"Were you able to?"
"I don't know how. It took every ounce of strength in me. But I made
myself smile--straight into his face. Then I put out my hands to him all
at once.
"'How could I harm you?' I asked him.
"And then you should have seen his face change and the anger break up
like a cloud. I knew I was safe, then, but I was still dizzy--just as
if I'd looked over a cliff--you know?"
"And yet you rode up the hill after that laughing down to him! Ruth,
you're the gamest sport and the best pal in the world. The finest little
act I ever saw on the stage or off. It was Big Time stuff. My hat's off,
but--where'd you get the nerve?"
"I was frightened almost to death. Too much frightened for it to show.
When I saw you, my strength came back."
"But what do you think of him?"
"He's--simply a savage. What do I think of an Indian?"
"No more than that?"
"Ben, can you pet a tiger after you've seen his claws?"
He looked at her with anxiety.
"You're not going to break down later on--feeling as if he's dynamite
about to explode all the time?"
"I'm going to play the game through," she said with a sort of fierce
happiness. "I've felt like a sneak thief about this. But now it's
different. He's more of a wolf than a man. Ben, I saw murder in his
face, I swear! And if it isn't wrong to tame wild beasts it isn't wrong
to tame him. I'm going to play the game, lead him as far as I can until
we get the horses--and then it'll be easy enough to make up by being
good the rest of my life."
"Ruth--girl--you've covered the whole ground. And when you have the
coin--" He broke off with laughter that was filled with drunken
excitement. "But what did you think of my game?"
She did not hear him, and standing with her hands clasped lightly behind
her she looked beyond the roof of the house and over the tops of the
western mountains, with the sun-haze about them.
"I feel as if I were on the top of the world," she said at last. "And I
wouldn't have one thing changed. We're playing for big stakes, but we're
taking a chance that makes the game worth while. What we win we'll
earn--because he's a devil. Isn't it what you'd call a fair bet?"
"The squarest in the world," said Connor stoutly.
_CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR_
They had no means of knowing when David would return and the ominous
shadow of Joseph, lingering near the patio, determined Connor on a walk
out of any possible earshot. They went down to the lake with the singing
of the men on the other side of the hill growing dim as they descended.
The cool of the day was beginning, and they walked close to the edge of
the water with the brown treetrunks on one side and the green images
floating beyond. Peace lay over Eden valley and the bright river that
ran through it, but Ben Connor had no mind to dwell on unessentials.
He had found in the girl an ally of unexpected strength. He expected
only a difficult tool filled with scruples, drawing back, imperiling his
plans with her hesitation. Instead, she was on fire with the plan. He
thought well to fan that fire and keep it steadily blazing.
"It's better for David; better for him than it is for us. Look at the
poor fool! He's in prison here and doesn't know it. He thinks he's
happy, but he's simply kidding himself. In six months I'll have him
chatting with millionaires."
"Let a barber do a day's work on him first."
"No. It's just the long-haired nuts like that who get by with the
high-steppers. He has a lingo about flowers and trees that'll knock
their eye out. I know the gang. Always on edge for something
different--music that sounds like a riot in a junk shop and poetry that
reads like a drunken printing-press. Well, David ought to be different
enough to suit 'em. I'll boost him, though: 'The Man that Brought Out
the Eden Grays!' He'll be headline stuff!"
He laughed so heartily that he did not notice the quick glance of
criticism which the girl cast at him.
"I'm not taking anything from him, really," went on Connor. "I'm simply
sneaking around behind him so's I can pour his pockets full of the coin.
That's all there is to it. Outside of the looks, tell me if there's
anything crooked you can see?"
"I don't think there is," she murmured. "I almost hope that there
isn't!"
She was so dubious about it that Connor was alarmed. He was fond of Ruth
Manning, but she was just "different" enough to baffle him. Usually he
divided mankind into three or four categories for the sake of fast
thinking. There were the "boobs," the "regular guys," the "high
steppers," and the "nuts." Sometimes he came perilously close to
including Ruth in the last class--with David Eden. And if he did not do
so, it was mainly because she had given such an exhibition of cool
courage only a few moments before. He had finished his peroration, now,
with a feeling of actual virtue, but the shadow on her face made him
change his tactics and his talk.
He confined himself, thereafter, strictly to the future. First he
outlined his plans for raising the cash for the big "killing." He told
of the men to whom he could go for backing. There were "hard guys" who
would take a chance. "Wise ones" who would back his judgment. "Fall
guys" who would follow him blindly. For ten percent he would get all the
cash he could place. Then it remained to try out the grays in secret,
and in public let them go through the paces ridden under wraps and
heavily weighted. He described the means of placing the big money before
the great race.
And as he talked his figures mounted from tens to hundreds to thousands,
until he was speaking in millions. In all of this profit she and David
and Connor would share dollar for dollar. At the first corner of the
shore they turned she had arrived at a snug apartment in New York. She
would have a housekeeper-companion. There would be a cosy living room
and a paneled dining room. In the entrance hall of the apartment house,
imitation of encrusted marble, no doubt.
But as they came opposite a little wooded island in the lake she had
added a maid to the housekeeper. Also, there was now a guest room. Some
one from Lukin would be in that room; some one from Lukin would go
through the place with her, marveling at her good fortune.
And clothes! They made all the difference. Dressed as she would be
dressed, when she came into a room that queer, cold gleam of envy would
be in the eyes of the women and the men would sit straighter!
Yet when they reached the place where the shore line turned north and
west her imagination, spurred by Connor's talk, was stumbling along
dizzy heights. Her apartment occupied a whole floor. Her butler was a
miracle of dignity and her chef a genius in the kitchen. On the great
table the silver and glass were things of frosted light. Her chauffeur
drove a monster automobile with a great purring engine that whipped her
about the city with the color blown into her cheeks. In her box at the
opera she was allowing the deep, soft luxury of the fur collar to slide
down from her throat, while along the boxes, in the galleries, there was
a ripple of light as the thousand glasses turned upon her. Then she
found that Connor was smiling at her. She flushed, but snapped her
fingers.
"This thing is going through," she declared.
"You won't weaken?"
"I'm as cold as steel. Let's go back. He'll probably be in the house by
this time."
Time had slipped past her unnoticed, and the lake was violet and gold
with the sunset as they turned away; under the trees along the terraces
the brilliant wild flowers were dimmed by a blue shadow.
"But I never saw wild flowers like those," she said to Connor.
"Nobody else ever did. But old Matthew, whoever he was, grew 'em and
kept crossing 'em until he got those big fellows with all the colors of
the rainbow."
"Hurry! We're late!"
"No, David's probably on top of that hill, now; always goes up there to
watch the sun rise and the sun set. Can you beat that?"
He chuckled, but a shade had darkened the face of the girl for a moment.
Then she lifted her head resolutely.
"I'm not going to try to understand him. The minute you understand a
thing you stop being afraid of it; and as soon as I stop being afraid of
David Eden I might begin to like him--which is what I don't want."
"What's that?" cried Connor, breaking in on her last words. When Ruth
began to think aloud he always stopped listening; it was a maxim of his
to never listen when a woman became serious.
"It's that strange giant."
"Joseph!" exclaimed Connor heavily. "Whipping did him no good. He'll
need killing one of these days."
But she had already reverted to another thing.
"Do you think he worships the sun?"
"I don't think. Try to figure out a fellow like that and you get to be
just as much of a nut as he is. Go on toward the house and I'll follow
you in a minute. I want to talk to big Joe."
He turned aside into the trees briskly, and the moment he was out of
sight of the girl he called softly: "Joseph!"
He repeated the call after a trifling wait before he saw the big man
coming unconcernedly through the trees toward him. Joseph came close
before he stopped--very close, as a man will do when he wishes to make
another aware of his size, and from this point of vantage, he looked
over Connor from head to foot with a glance of lingering and insolent
criticism. The gambler was somewhat amused and a little alarmed by that
attitude.
"Now, Joseph," he said, "tell me frankly why you're dodging me about the
valley. Waiting for a chance to throw stones?"
His smile remained without a reflection on the stolid face of the
servant.
"Benjamin," answered the deep, solemn voice, "I know all!"
It made Connor peer into those broad features as into a dim light. Then
a moment of reflection assured him that Joseph could not have learned
the secret.
"Haneemar, whom you know," continued Joseph, "has told me about you."
"And where," asked Connor, completely at sea, "did you learn of
Haneemar?"
"From Abraham. And I know that this is the head of Haneemar."
He brought out in his palm the little watch-charm of carved ivory.
"Of course," nodded Connor, feeling his way. "And what is it that you
know from Haneemar?"
"That you are evil, Benjamin, and that you have come here for evil. You
entered by a trick; and you will stay here for evil purposes until the
end."
"You follow around to pick up a little dope, eh?" chuckled Connor. "You
trail me to find out what I intend to do? Why don't you go to David and
warn him?"
"Have I forgotten the whip?" asked Joseph, his nostrils trembling with
anger. "But the good Haneemar now gives me power and in the end he will
betray you into my hands. That is why I follow you. Wherever you go I
follow; I am even able to know what you think! But hearken to me,
Benjamin. Take back the head of Haneemar and the bad luck that lives in
it. Take it back, and I shall no longer follow you. I shall forget the
whip. I shall be ready to do you a service."
He extended the little piece of ivory eagerly, but Connor drew back. His
superstitions were under the surface of his mind, but, still, they were
there, and the fear which Joseph showed was contagious.
"Why don't you throw it away if you're afraid of it, Joseph?"
"You know as I know," returned Joseph, glowering, "that it cannot be
thrown away. It must be given and freely accepted, as I--oh
fool--accepted it from you."
There was such a profound conviction in this that Connor was affected in
spite of himself. That little trinket had been the entering wedge
through which he had worked his way into the Garden and started on the
road to fortune. He would rather have cut off his hand, now, than take
it back.
"Find some one else to take it," he suggested cheerily. "I don't want
the thing."
"Then all that Abraham told me is true!" muttered Joseph, closing his
hand over the trinket. "But I shall follow you, Benjamin. When you think
you are alone you shall find me by turning your head. Every day by
sunrise and every day by the dark I beg Haneemar to put his curse on
you. I have done you no wrong, and you have had me shamed."
"And now you're going to have me bewitched, eh?" asked Connor.
"You shall see."
The gambler drew back another pace and through the shadows he saw the
beginning of a smile of animal-cunning on the face of Joseph.
"The devil take you and Haneemar together," he growled. "Remember this,
Joseph. I've had you whipped once. The next time I'll have you flayed
alive."
Instead of answering, Joseph merely grinned more openly, and the
gambler, to forget the ape-face, wheeled and hurried out from the trees.
The touch of nightmare dread did not leave him until he rejoined Ruth on
the higher terrace.
They found the patio glowing with light, the table near the fountain,
and three chairs around it. David came out of the shadow of the arcade
to meet them, and he was as uneasy as a boy who had a surprise for
grown-ups. He had not even time for a greeting.
"You have not seen your room?" he said to Ruth. "I have made it ready
for you. Come!"
He led the way half a pace in front, glancing back at them as though to
reprove their slowness, until he reached a door at which he turned and
faced her, laughing with excitement. She could hardly believe that this
man with his childish gayety was the same whose fury had terrified the
servants that same afternoon.
"Close your eyes--close them fast. You will not look until I say?"
She obeyed, setting her teeth to keep from smiling.
"Now come forward--step high for the doorway. So! You are in. Now
wait--now open your eyes and look!"
She obeyed again and saw first David standing back with an anxious smile
and the gesture of one who reveals, but is not quite sure of its effect.
Then she heard a soft, startled exclamation from Connor behind her. Last
of all she saw the room.
It was as if the walls had been broken down and a garden let inside--it
gave an effect of open air, sunlight and wind. Purple flowers like warm
shadows banked the farther corners, and out of them rose a great vine
draping the window. It had been torn bodily from the earth, and now the
roots were packed with damp moss, yellow-green. It bore in clusters and
single flowers and abundant bloom, each blossom as large as the mallow,
and a dark gold so rich that Ruth well-nigh listened for the murmur of
bees working this mine of pollen. From above, the great flowers hung
down against the dull red of the sunset sky; and from below the distant
treetops on the terrace pointed up with glimmers of the lake between.
There was only the reflected light of the evening, now, but the cuplike
blossoms were filled to the brim with a glow of their own.
She looked away.
A dapple deerskin covered the bed like the shadow under a tree in
mid-day, and the yellow of the flowers was repeated dimly on the floor
by a great, tawny hide of a mountain-lion. She took up some of the
purple flowers, and letting the velvet petals trail over her finger
tips, she turned to David with a smile. But what Connor saw, and saw
with a thrill of alarm, was that her eyes were filling with tears.
"See!" said David gloomily. "I have done this to make you happy, and now
you are sad!"
"Because it is so beautiful."
"Yes," said David slowly. "I think I understand."
But Connor took one of the flowers from her hand. She cried out, but too
late to keep him from ripping the blossom to pieces, and now he held up
a single petal, long, graceful, red-purple at the broader end and deep
yellow at the narrow.
"Think of that a million times bigger," said Connor, "and made out of
velvet. That'd be a design for a cloak, eh? Cost about a thousand bucks
to imitate this petal, but it'd be worth it to see you in it, eh?"
She looked to David with a smile of apology for Connor, but her hand
accepted the petal, and her second smile was for Connor himself.
_CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE_
When they went out into the patio again, David had lost a large part of
his buoyancy of spirits, as though in some subtle manner Connor had
overcast the triumph of the room; he left them with word that the
evening meal would soon be ready and hurried off calling orders to
Zacharias.
"Why did you do it?" she asked Connor as soon as they were alone.
"Because it made me mad to see a stargazer like that turning your head."
"But didn't you think the room was beautiful?"
"Sure. Like a riot in a florist's shop. But don't let this David take
you off guard with his rooms full of flowers and full of silence."
"Silence?"
"Haven't I told you about his Room of Silence? That's one of his queer
dodges. That room; you see? When anything bothers him he goes over and
sits down in there, because--do you know what he thinks sits with him?"
"Well?"
"God!"
She was between a smile and a gasp.
"Yep, that's David," grinned Connor. "Just plain nut."
"What's inside?"
"I don't know. Maybe flowers."
"Let's find out."
He caught her arm quickly.
"Not in a thousand years!" He changed color at the thought and glanced
guiltily around. "That would be the smash of everything. Why, he turned
over the whole Garden of Eden to me. I can go anywhere, but not a step
inside that room. It's his Holy Ground, you see! Maybe it's where he
keeps his jack. And I've a hunch that he has a slough of it tucked away
somewhere."
She raised her hand as an idea came to her half way through this speech.
"Listen! I have an idea that the clew to all of David's mystery is in
that room!"
"Drop that idea, Ruth," he ordered gruffly. "You've seen David on one
rampage, but it's nothing to what would happen if you so much as peeked
into that place. When the servants pass that door they take off their
hats--watch 'em the next time you have a chance. You won't make a slip
about that room?"
"No." But she added: "I'd give my soul--for one look!"
Dinner that night under the stars with the whispering of the fountain
beside them was a ceremony which Connor never forgot. The moon rose late
and in the meantime the sky was heavy and dark with sheeted patchwork of
clouds, with the stars showing here and there. The wind blew in gusts.
A wave began with a whisper on the hill, came with a light rushing
across the patio, and then diminished quickly among the trees down the
terraces. Rough, iron-framed lanterns gave the light and showed the
arcade stepping away on either side and growing dim toward the entrance.
That uncertain illumination made the crude pillars seem to have only the
irregularity of vast antiquity, stable masses of stone. Where the circle
of lantern-light overlapped rose the fountain, a pale spray forever
dissolving in the upper shadow. Connor himself was more or less used to
these things, but he became newly aware of them as the girl sent quick,
eager glances here and there.
She had placed a single one of the great yellow blossoms in her hair and
it changed her shrewdly. It brought out the delicate coloring of her
skin, and to the darkness of her eyes it lent a tint of violet. Plainly
she enjoyed the scene with its newness. David, of course, was the spice
to everything, and his capitulation was complete; he kept the girl
always on an uneasy balance between happiness and laughter. And Connor
trembled for fear the mirth would show through. But each change of her
expression appeared to delight David more than the last.
Under his deft knife the choicest white meat came away from the breast
of a chicken and he heaped it at once on the plate of Ruth. Then he
dropped his chin upon his great brown fist and watched with silent
delight while she ate. It embarrassed her; but her flush had a tinge of
pleasure in it, as Connor very well knew.
"Look!" said David, speaking softly as though Ruth would not hear him.
"How pleasant it is, to be three together. When we were two, one talked
and the other grew weary--was it not so? But now we are complete. One
speaks, one listens, and the other judges. I have been alone. The
Garden of Eden has been to me a prison, at many times. And now there is
nothing wanting. And why? There were many men before. We were not
lacking in numbers. Yet there was an emptiness, and now comes one small
creature, as delicate as a colt of three months, this being of smiles
and curious glances, this small voice, this woman--and at once the gap
is filled. Is it not strange?"
He cast himself back in his chair, as though he wished to throw her into
perspective with her surroundings, and all the time he was staring as
though she were an image, a picture, and not a thing of flesh and blood.
Connor himself was on the verge of a smile, but when he saw the face of
Ruth Manning his mirth disappeared in a chill of terror. She was
struggling and struggling in vain against a rising tide of laughter,
laughter in the face of David Eden and his sensitive pride.
It came, it broke through all bonds, and now it was bubbling from her
lips. As one who awaits the falling of a blow, Connor glanced furtively
at the host, and again he was startled.
There was not a shade of evil temper in the face of David. He leaned
forward, indeed, with a surge of the great shoulders, but it was as one
who listens to an entrancing music. And when she ceased, abruptly, he
sighed.
"Speak to me," he commanded.
She murmured a faint reply.
"Again," said David, half closing his eyes. And Connor nodded a frantic
encouragement to her.
"But what shall I say?"
"For the meaning of what you say," said David, "I have no care, but only
for the sound. Have you heard dripping in a well, a sound like water
filling a bottle and never reaching the top? It keeps you listening for
an hour, perhaps, always a soft sound, but always rising toward a
climax? Or a drowsy day when the wind hardly moves and the whistling of
a bird comes now and then out of the trees, cool and contented? Or you
pass a meadow of flowers in the warm sun and hear the ground murmur of
the bees, and you think at once of the wax films of the honeycomb, and
the clear golden honey? All those things I heard and saw when you
spoke."
"Plain nut!" said Connor, framing the words with silent lips.
But though her eyes rested on him, apparently she did not see his face.
She looked back at Connor with a wistful little half-smile.
At once David cast out both his hands toward hers.
"Ah, you are strange, new, delightful!" He stopped abruptly. Then: "Does
it make you happy to hear me say these things?"
"Why do you ask me that?" she said curiously.
"Because it fills me with unspeakable happiness to say them. If I am
silent and only think then I am not so pleased. When I see Glani
standing on the hilltop I feel his speed in the slope of his muscles,
the flaunt of his tail, the pride of his head; but when I gallop him,
and the wind of his galloping strikes my face--ha, that is a joy! So it
is speaking with you. When I see you I say within: 'She is beautiful!'
But when I speak it aloud your lips tremble a little toward a smile,
your eyes darken with pleasure, and then my heart rises into my throat
and I wish to speak again and again and again to find new things to say,
to say old things in new words. So that I may watch the changes in your
face. Do you understand? But now you blush. Is that a sign of anger?"
"It is a sign that no other men have ever talked to me in this manner."
"Then other men are fools. What I say is true. I feel it ring in me,
that it is the truth. Benjamin, my brother, is it not so? Ha!"
She was raising the wine-cup; he checked her with his eager, extended
hand.
"See, Benjamin, how this mysterious thing is done, this raising of the
hand. _We_ raise the cup to drink. An ugly thing--let it be done and
forgotten. But when _she_ lifts the cup it is a thing to be remembered;
how her fingers curve and the weight of the cup presses into them, and
how her wrist droops."
She lowered the cup hastily and put her hand before her face.
"I see," said Connor dryly.
"Bah!" cried the master of the Garden. "You do not see. But you, Ruth,
are you angry? Are you shamed?"
He drew down her hands, frowning with intense anxiety. Her face was
crimson.
"No," she said faintly.
"He says that he sees, but he does not see," went on David. "He is
blind, this Benjamin of mine. I show him my noblest grove of the
eucalyptus trees, each tree as tall as a hill, as proud as a king, as
beautiful as a thought that springs up from the earth. I show him these
glorious trees. What does he say? 'You could build a whole town out of
that wood!' Bah! Is that seeing? No, he is blind! Such a man would give
you hard work to do. But I say to you, Ruth, that to be beautiful is to
be wise, and industrious, and good. Surely you are to me like the rising
of the sun--my heart leaps up! And you are like the coming of the night
making the world beautiful and mysterious. For behind your eyes and
behind your words, out of the sound of your voice and your glances, I
guess at new things, strange things, hidden things. Treasures which
cannot be held in the hands. Should you grow as old as Elijah, withered,
meager as a grasshopper, the treasures would still be there. I, who have
seen them, can never forget them!"
Once more she covered her eyes with her hand, and David started up from
his chair.
"What have I done?" he asked faintly of Connor. He hurried around the
table to her. "Look up! How have I harmed you?"
"I am only tired," she said.
"I am a fool! I should have known. Come!" said David.
He drew her from the chair and led her across the lawn, supporting her.
At her door: "May sleep be to you like the sound of running water,"
murmured David.
And when the door was closed he went hastily back to Connor.
_CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX_
"What have I done? What have I done?" he kept moaning. "She is in pain.
I have hurt her."
"Sit down," said Connor, deeply amused.
It had been a curious revelation to him, this open talk of a man who was
falling in love. He remembered the way he had proposed to a girl, once:
"Say, Betty, don't you think you and me would hit it off pretty well,
speaking permanently?"
This flaunting language was wholly ludicrous to Connor. It was
book-stuff.
David had obeyed him with childlike docility, and sat now like a pupil
about to be corrected by the master.
"That point is this," explained Connor gravely. "You have the wrong
idea. As far as I can make out, you like Ruth?"
"It is a weak word. Bah! It is not enough."
"But it's enough to tell her. You see, men outside of the Garden don't
talk to a girl the way you do, and it embarrasses her to have you talk
about her all the time."
"Is it true?" murmured the penitent David. "Then what should I have
said?"
"Well--er--you might have said--that the flower went pretty well in her
hair, and let it go at that."
"But it was more, more, more! Benjamin, my brother, these hands of mine
picked that very flower. And I see that it has pleased her. She had
taken it up and placed it in her hair. It changes her. My flower brings
her close to me. It means that we have found a thing which pleases us
both. Just as you and I, Benjamin, are drawn together by the love of one
horse. So that flower in her hair is a great sign. I dwell upon it. It
is like a golden moon rising in a black night. It lights my way to her.
Words rush up from my heart, but cannot express what I mean!"
"Let it go! Let it go!" said Connor hastily, brushing his way through
this outflow of verbiage, like a man bothered with gnats. "I gather what
you mean. But the point is that about nine-tenths of what you think
you'd better not say. If you want to talk--well, talk about yourself.
That's what I most generally do with a girl. They like to hear a man say
what he's done."
"Myself!" said David heavily. "Talk of a dead stump when there is a
great tree beside it? Well, I see that I have much to learn."
"You certainly have," said Connor with much meaning. "I'd hate to turn
you loose in Manhattan."
"In what?"
"Never mind. But here's another thing. You know that she'll have to
leave pretty soon?"
The meaning slowly filtered into David's mind.
"Benjamin," he said slowly, "you are wise in many ways, with horses and
with women, it seems. But that is a fool's talk. Let me hear no more of
it. Leave me? Why should she leave me?"
Triumph warmed the heart of Connor.
"Because a girl can't ramble off into the mountains and put up in a
valley where there are nothing but men. It isn't done."
"Why not?"
"Isn't good form."
"I fail to understand."
"My dear fellow, she'd be compromised for life if it were known that she
had lived here with us."
David shook his head blankly.
"In one word," said Connor, striving to make his point, "she'd be
pointed out by other women and by men. They'd never have anything to do
with her. They'd say things that would make her ashamed, hurt her, you
know."
Understanding and wrath gathered in David's face.
"To such a man--to such a dog of a man--I would talk with my hands!"
"I think you would," nodded Connor, not a little impressed. "But you
might not be around to hear the talk."
"But women surely live with men. There are wives--"
"Ah! Man and wife--all very well!"
"Then it is simple. I marry her and then I keep her here forever."
"Perhaps. But will she marry you?"
"Why not?"
"Well, does she love you?"
"True." He stood up. "I'll ask her."
"For Heaven's sake, no! Sit down! You mustn't rush at a woman like this
the first day you know her. Give her time. Let me tell you when!"
"Benjamin, my dear brother, you are wise and I am a fool!"
"You'll do in time. Let me coach you, that's all, and you'll come on
famously. I can tell you this: that I think she likes you very well
already."
"Your words are like a shower of light, a fragrant wind. Benjamin, I am
hot with happiness! When may I speak to her?"
"I don't know. She may have guessed something out of what you said
to-night." He swallowed a smile. "You might speak to her about this
marriage to-morrow."
"It will be hard; but I shall wait."
"And then you'll have to go out of the Garden with her to get married."
"Out of the Garden? Never! Why should we?"
"Why, you'll need a minister, you know, to marry you."
"True. Then I shall send for one."
"But he might not want to make this long journey for the sake of one
marriage ceremony."
"There are ways, perhaps, of persuading him to come," said David, making
a grim gesture.
"No force or you ruin everything."
"I shall be ruled by you, brother. It seems I have little knowledge."
"Go easy always and you'll come out all right. Give her plenty of time.
A woman always needs a lot of time to make up her mind, and even then
she's generally wrong."
"What do you mean by that?"
"No matter. She'll probably want to go back to her home for a while."
"Leave me?"
"Not necessarily. But you, when a man gets engaged, it's sometimes a
couple of years between the time a woman promises to marry him and the
day of the ceremony."
"Do they wait so long, and live apart?"
"A thousand miles, maybe."
"Then you men beyond the mountains are made of iron!"
"Do you have to be away from her? Why not go along with her when she
goes home?"
"Surely, Benjamin, you know that a law forbids it!"
"You make your own laws in important things like this."
"It cannot be."
And so the matter rested when Connor left his host and went to bed. He
had been careful not to press the point. So unbelievably much ground had
been covered in the first few hours that he was dizzy with success. It
seemed ages since that Ruth had come running to him in the patio in
terror of her life. From that moment how much had been done!
Closing his eyes as he lay on his bed, he went back over each incident
to see if a false step had been made. As far as he could see, there had
not been a single unsound measure undertaken. The first stroke had been
the masterpiece. Out of a danger which had threatened instant
destruction of their plan she had won complete victory by her facing of
David, and when she put her hand in his as a sign of weakness, Connor
could see that she had made David her slave.
As the scene came back vividly before his eyes he could not resist an
impulse to murmur aloud to the dark: "Brave girl!"
She had grown upon him marvelously in that single half-day. The ability
to rise to a great situation was something which he admired above all
things in man or woman. It was his own peculiar power--to judge a man or
a horse in a glance, and dare to venture a fortune on chance. Indeed, it
was hardly a wonder that David Eden or any other man should have fallen
in love with her in that one half-day. She was changed beyond
recognition from the pale girl who sat at the telegraph key in Lukin and
listened to the babble of the world. Now she was out in that world,
acting on the stage and proving herself worthy of a role.
He rehearsed her acts. And finally he found himself flushing hotly at
the memory of her mingled pleasure and shame and embarrassment as David
of Eden had poured out his amazing flow of compliments.
At this point Connor sat up suddenly and violently in his bed.
"Steady, Ben!" he cautioned himself. "Watch your step!"
_CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN_
Ben Connor awoke the next morning with the sun streaming across the room
and sprang out of bed at once, worried. For about dawn noises as a rule
began around the house and the singing of the old men farther down the
hill. The Garden of Eden awakened at sunrise, and this silence even when
the sun was high alarmed the gambler. He dressed hastily, and opening
his door, he saw David walking slowly up and down the patio. At the
sight of Connor he raised a warning finger.
"Let us keep a guard upon our voices," he murmured, coming to Connor. "I
have ordered my servants to move softly and to keep from the house if
they may."
"What's happened?"
"She sleeps, Benjamin." He turned toward her door with a smile that the
gambler never forgot. "Let her waken rested."
Connor looked at the sky.
"I've come too late for breakfast, even?"
A glance of mild rebuke was turned upon him.
"Surely, Benjamin, we who are strong will not eat before her who is
weak?"
"Are you going to starve yourself because she's sleepy?"
"But I have not felt hunger."