THE NOTE DISCORDANT
Bill had divested himself of the scowl. He smiled as a man who has
solved some knotty problem to his entire satisfaction. Moreover, he
bore no mark of conflict, none of the conventional scars of a
rough-and-tumble fight. His clothing was in perfect order, his tie and
collar properly arranged, as a gentleman's tie and collar should be.
For a moment Hazel found herself believing the _Herald_ story a pure
canard. But as he walked across the room her searching gaze discovered
that the knuckles of both his hands were bruised and bloody, the skin
broken. She picked up the paper.
"Is this true?" she asked tremulously, pointing to the offending
headlines.
Bill frowned.
"Substantially correct," he answered coolly.
"Bill, how could you?" she cried. "It's simply disgraceful. Brawling
in public like any saloon loafer, and getting in jail and all. Haven't
you any consideration for me--any pride?"
His eyes narrowed with an angry glint.
"Yes," he said deliberately. "I have. Pride in my word as a man. A
sort of pride that won't allow any bunch of lily-fingered crooks to
make me a party to any dirty deal. I don't propose to get the worst of
it in that way. I won't allow myself to be tarred with their stick."
"But they're not trying to give you the worst of it," she burst out.
Visions of utter humiliation arose to confront and madden her. "You've
insulted and abused our best friends--to say nothing of giving us all
the benefit of newspaper scandal. We'll be notorious!"
"Best friends? God save the mark!" he snorted contemptuously. "Our
best friends, as you please to call them, are crooks, thieves, and
liars. They're rotten. They stink with their moral rottenness. And
they have the gall to call it good business."
"Just because their business methods don't agree with your peculiar
ideas is no reason why you should call names," she flared. "Mr. Brooks
called just after you left at noon. _He_ told me something about this,
and assured me that you would find yourself mistaken if you'd only take
pains to think it over. I don't believe such men as they are would
stoop to anything crooked. Even if the opportunity offered, they have
too much at stake in this community. They couldn't afford to be
crooked."
"So Brooks came around to talk it over with you, eh?" Bill sneered.
"Told you it was all on the square, did he? Explained it all very
plausibly, I suppose. Probably suggested that you try smoothing me
down, too. It would be like 'em."
"He did explain about this stock-selling business," Hazel replied
defensively. "And I can't see why you find it necessary to make a
fuss. I don't see where the cheating and crookedness comes in.
Everybody who buys stock gets their money's worth, don't they? But I
don't care anything about your old mining deal. It's this fighting and
quarreling with people who are not used to that sort of brute
action--and the horrid things they'll say and think about us."
"About you, you mean--as the wife of such a boor--that's what's rubbing
you raw," Bill flung out passionately. "You're acquiring the class
psychology good and fast. Did you ever think of anybody but yourself?
Have I ever betrayed symptoms of idiocy? Do you think it natural or
even likely for me to raise the devil in a business affair like this
out of sheer malice? Don't I generally have a logical basis for any
position I take? Yet you don't wait or ask for any explanation from
_me_. You stand instinctively with the crowd that has swept you off
your feet in the last six months. You take another man's word that
it's all right and I'm all wrong, without waiting to hear my side of
it. And the petty-larceny incident of my knocking down two or three
men and being under arrest as much as thirty minutes looms up before
you as the utter depths of disgrace. Disgrace to you! It's all
you--you! How do you suppose it strikes me to have my wife take sides
against me on snap judgment like that? It shows a heap of faith and
trust and loyalty, doesn't it? Oh, it makes me real proud and glad of
my mate. It does. By thunder, if Granville had ever treated me as it
tried to treat you one time, according to your own account, I'd wipe my
feet on them at every opportunity."
"If you'd explain," Hazel began hesitatingly. She was thoroughly
startled at the smoldering wrath that flared out in this speech of his.
She bitterly resented being talked to in that fashion. It was unjust.
Particularly that last fling. And she was not taking sides. She
refused to admit that--even though she had a disturbing consciousness
that her attitude could scarcely be construed otherwise.
"I'll explain nothing," Bill flashed stormily. "Not at this stage of
the game. I'm through explaining. I'm going to act. I refuse to be
raked over the coals like a naughty child, and then asked to tell why I
did it. I'm right, and when I know I'm right I'll go the limit. I'm
going to take the kinks out of this Free Gold deal inside of
forty-eight hours. Then I'm through with Granville. Hereafter I
intend to fight shy of a breed of dogs who lose every sense of square
dealing when there is a bunch of money in sight. I shall be ready to
leave here within a week. And I want you to be ready, too."
"I won't," she cried, on the verge of hysterics. "I won't go back to
that cursed silence and loneliness. You made this trouble here, not I.
I won't go back to Pine River, or the Klappan. I won't, I tell you!"
Bill stared at her moodily for a second.
"Just as you please," he said quietly.
He walked into the spare bedroom. Hazel heard the door close gently
behind him, heard the soft click of a well-oiled lock. Then she
slumped, gasping, in the wide-armed chair by the window, and the hot
tears came in a blinding flood.