COLINA.
John Gaviller and Colina were at breakfast in the big clap-boarded
villa at Fort Enterprise.
They were a good-looking pair, and at heart not dissimilar, though it
must be taken into account that the same qualities manifest themselves
differently in a man of affairs and a romantic, irresponsible young
woman.
They were secretly proud of each other--and quarreled continually.
Colina, by virtue of her reckless honesty, frequently got the better of
her canny father.
"Well," he said, now with a gesture of surrender, "if you're determined
to stay here, all right--but you must live differently."
At the word "must" an ominous gleam shot from under Colina's lashes.
"What's the matter with my way of living?" she asked with deceitful
mildness.
"This tearing around the country on horseback," he said. "Going off
all day hunting with this man and that--and spending the night in
native cabins. As long as I considered you were here on a visit I said
nothing--"
"Oh, didn't you!" murmured Colina sarcastically.
"--But if you are going to make this country your home, you must
consider your reputation in the community just the same as anywhere
else--more, indeed; we live in a tiny little world here, where our
smallest actions are scrutinized and discussed."
He took a swallow of coffee. Colina played with her food sulkily.
Her silence encouraged him to proceed: "Another thing," he said with a
deprecating smile, "comparatively speaking, I occupy an exalted
position now. I am the head of all things, such as they are. Great or
small this entails certain obligations on a man. I have to study all
my words and acts.
"If you are going to stay here with me I shall expect you to assume
your share; to consider my interests, to support me; to play the game
as they say. What I object to is your impulsiveness, your
outspokenness with the people. Remember, everybody here is your
dependent. It is always a mistake to be open and frank with
dependents. They don't understand it, and if they do, they presume
upon it.
"Be guided by my experience; no one could justly accuse me of any lack
of affability or friendliness in dealing with the people here--but they
never know what I am thinking of!"
"Admirable!" murmured Colina, "but I'm not a directors' meeting!"
"Colina!" said her father indignantly.
"It's not fair for you to drag that in about my standing by you and
supporting you!" she went on warmly. "You know I'll do that as long as
I live! But I must be allowed to do it in my own way. I'm an adult
and an individual. I differ from you. I've a right to differ from
you. It is because these people are my inferiors that I can afford to
be perfectly natural with them. As for their presuming on it, you
needn't fear! I know how to take care of that!"
"A little more reserve," murmured her father.
Colina paused and looked at him levelly. "Dad, what a fool you are
about me!" she said coolly.
"Colina!" he cried again, and pounded the table.
She met his indignant glance squarely.
"I mean it," she said. "I'm your daughter, am I not?--and mother's?
You must know yourself by this time; you must have known mother--you
ought to understand me a little but you won't try--you're clever enough
in everything else! You've made up an idea for yourself of what a
daughter ought to be, and you're always trying to make me fit it!"
Gaviller scarcely listened to this. "I'll have to bring in a chaperon
for you!" he cried.
"Oh, Lord!" groaned Colina. "Anything but that! What do you want me
to do?"
"Merely to live like other girls," said Gaviller; "to observe the
proprieties."
"That's why I couldn't get along at school," muttered Colina gloomily.
"You might as well send me back."
"You're simply headstrong!" said her father severely. "You won't try
to be different."
"Dad," said Colina suddenly, "what did you come north for in the first
place, thirty years ago?"
The question caught him a little off his guard. "A natural love of
adventure, I suppose," he said carelessly.
"Perfectly natural!" said Colina. "Was your father pleased?"
Gaviller began to see her drift. "No!" he said testily.
"And when you went back for her," Colina persisted, "didn't my mother
run away north with you, against the wishes of her parents?"
"Your mother was a saint!" cried Gaviller indignantly.
"Certainly," said Colina coolly, "but not the psalm-singing kind. What
do you expect of the child of such a couple?"
"Not another word!" cried Gaviller, banging the table--last refuge of
outraged fathers.
Colina was unimpressed. "Now you're simply raising a dust to conceal
the issue," she said relentlessly.
Gaviller chewed his mustache in offended silence.
Colina did not spare him. "Do you think you can make your child and
hers into a prim miss, to sit at home and work embroidery?" she
demanded. "Upon my word, if I were a boy I believe you'd suggest
putting me in a bank!"
John Gaviller helped himself to another egg with great dignity and
removed the top. "Don't be absurd, Colina," he said with a weary air.
It was a transparent assumption. Colina saw that she had reduced him
utterly. She smiled winningly. "Dad, if you'd only let me be myself!
We could be such pals if you wouldn't try to play the heavy father!"
"Is it being yourself to act like a harum-scarum tomboy?" inquired
Gaviller sarcastically.
Colina laughed. "Yes!" she said boldly. "If that's what you want to
call it? There's something in me," she went on seriously. "I don't
know what it is--some wild strain; something that drives me headlong;
makes me see red when I am balked! Maybe it is just too much physical
energy.
"Well, if you let me work it off it does no harm. If I can ride all
day, or paddle or swim, or go hunting with Michel or one of the others;
and be interested in what I'm doing, and come home tired and sleep
without dreaming--why everything is all right. But if you insist on
cooping me up!--well, I'm likely to turn out something worse than
harum-scarum, that's all!"
Gaviller flung up his arms.
"Really, you'll have to go back to your aunt," he said grimly. "The
responsibility of looking after you is too great!"
Colina laughed out of sheer vexation. "The silly ideas fathers have!"
she cried. "Nobody can look after _me_, not you, not my aunt, nobody
but myself! Why won't you understand that! I don't know exactly what
dangers you fancy are threatening me. If it is from men, be at ease!
I can put the fear of God into them! It is the sweet and gentle girl
you would like to have that is in danger there!"
"I'm afraid you'll have to go back," said Gaviller.
Colina drew her beautiful straight brows together. "You make me think
you simply want to get me off your hands," she said sullenly.
Gaviller shook his head. "You know I love to have you with me," he
said simply.
"Then consider me a fixture!" said Colina serenely. "This is my
country!" she went on enthusiastically. "It suits me. I like its
uglinesses and its hardships, too! I hated it in the city. Do you
know what they called me?--the wild Highlander!
"Up here everybody understands my wildness, and thinks none the worse
of me. It was different in the city--you've always lived in the north,
you old innocent--you don't know! Men, for instance, in society they
have a curious logic. They seem to think if a girl is natural she must
be bad! Sometimes they acted on that assumption--"
"What did I tell you!" cried her father. "Men are the same everywhere!"
"Well," said Colina, smiling to herself, "they didn't get very far.
And no man ever tried it twice. Up here--how different. I don't have
to think of such things."
"I have to think of settling you in life," said Gaviller gloomily.
"There is no one for you up here."
"I'm not bothering my head about that," said Colina. She went on with
a kind of splendid insolence: "Every man wants me. I'll choose one
when I'm ready. I can't see anything in men except as comrades. The
decent ones are timid with women, and the bold ones are--well--rather
beastly. I'm looking for a man who's brave and decent, too. If
there's no such thing--"
She rose from the table. Colina's was a body designed to fill a
riding-habit, and she wore one from morning till night. She was as
tall as a man of middle height, and her tawny hair piled on top of her
head made her seem taller.
"Well?" said Gaviller.
"Oh, I'll choose the handsomest beast I can find," she said, laughing
over her shoulder and escaping from the room before he could answer.
John Gaviller finished his egg with a frown. Colina had this trick of
breaking things off in the middle, and it irritated him. He had an
orderly mind.