THE DINNER.
Colina did not see her father until he came home from the store for
dinner. She was already dressed and engaged in arranging the table.
John Gaviller's eyes gleamed approvingly at the sight of her in her
finery. Black silk became Colina's blond beauty admirably. Manlike,
he arrogated the extra preparations to himself. He thought it was a
kind of peace offering from Colina.
"Well!" he began jocularly, only to check himself at the sight of three
places set at the table. "Who's coming?" he demanded with natural
surprise.
Colina, busying herself attentively with the centerpiece of painter's
brush, wondered if her father had met Ambrose Doane. She gave him a
brief, offhand account of her adventure without mentioning their
guest's name.
"But who is it?" he asked.
She answered a little breathlessly; "Ambrose Doane of Moultrie."
Gaviller's face changed slightly. "H-m!" he said non-committally.
"Doesn't the table look nice?" said Colina quickly.
"Very nice," he said.
"We must prove to ourselves once in a while that we are not savages!"
"Naturally! Do you want me to dress?"
Colina, who had not looked at her father, nevertheless felt the
inimical atmosphere. She stooped to a touch of flattery. "You are
always well dressed," she said, smiling at him.
"Hm!" said Gaviller again. "Call me when you're ready." He marched
off to his library.
Colina breathed freely. So far so good! Ambrose Doane had not been to
call on her father. He was hardly the simple youth she had decided.
But she couldn't think the less of him for that.
When she heard the door-bell ring--Gaviller's house boasted the only
door-bell north of Caribou Lake--her heart astonished her with its
thumping. She ran up to her own room. Ambrose according to
instructions previously given was to be shown into the drawing-room.
Another wonder of Gaviller's house was the full-length mirror imported
for Colina. She ran to it now. It treated her kindly. The crisp,
thin, dead-black draperies showed up her white skin in dazzling
contrast.
On second thought she left off the string of pearls. The effect was
better without any ornament. Her face was her despair; her eyes were
misty and unsure; the color came and went in her cheeks; she could not
keep her lips closed.
"You fool! You fool!" she stormed at herself. "A man you have seen
once! He will despise you!"
She could not keep the dinner waiting. Bracing herself, she started
for the hall. A final glance in the mirror gave her better heart.
After all she was beautiful and beautifully dressed. She descended the
stairs slowly, whispering to herself at every step: "Be game!"
Though the sun was still shining out-of-doors, according to Colina's
fancy, every night at this hour the shutters were closed and the lamps
lighted. The drawing-room was lighted by a single, tall lamp with a
yellow shade.
Ambrose was standing in the middle of the room. He had changed his
clothes. His suit was somewhat wrinkled, and his boots unpolished, but
he looked less badly than he thought. At sight of Colina he caught his
breath and turned very pale. His eyes widened with something akin to
awe. Colina was suddenly relieved.
"So you dared to come!" she said with a careless smile.
He did not answer. Plainly he could not. He stood as if rooted to the
floor. Colina had meant to offer him her hand, but suddenly changed
her mind.
Instead, with reckless bravado considering her late state of mind, she
went to the lamp and turned it up. She felt his honest, stricken
glance following her, and thrilled under it.
"You have not met my father?"
Ambrose "took a brace" as he would have said. "No," he answered.
"I thought very likely you would see him this afternoon," she said with
a touch of smiling malice.
His directness foiled it.
"I waited down the river," he said. "I didn't want to have a row with
him that might spoil to-night."
"What a terrible opinion you have of poor father!" said Colina.
"Does he know I'm coming?" asked Ambrose.
"Certainly!"
"What did he say?"
"Nothing! What should he say?"
"He has boasted that no free-trader ever dared set foot in his
territory."
"I don't believe it! It's not like him. Come along and you'll see."
"Wait!" said Ambrose quickly. "Half a minute!"
Colina looked at him curiously.
"You don't know what this means to me!" he went on, his glowing,
unsmiling eyes fixed on her. "A lady's drawing-room! A lamp with a
soft, pretty shade!--and you--like that! I--I wasn't prepared for it!"
Colina laughed softly. She was filled with a great tenderness for him,
therefore she could jeer a little.
Ambrose had not moved from the spot where she found him.
"It's not fair," he went on. "You don't need that! It bowls a man
over."
This was the ordinary language of gallantry--yet it was different.
Colina liked it. "Come on," she said lightly, "father is like a bear
when he is kept waiting for dinner!"
The two men shook hands in a natural, friendly way. With another man
Ambrose was quite at ease. Colina approved the way her youth stood up
to the famous old trader without flinching. They took places at the
table, and the meal went swimmingly.
Ambrose, whether he felt his affable host's secret animosity and was
stimulated by it, or for another reason, suddenly blossomed into an
entertainer. When her father was present he addressed Colina's ear,
her chin or her golden top-knot, never her eyes.
John Gaviller apparently never looked at her either, but Colina knew he
was watching her closely. She was not alarmed. She had herself well
in hand, and there was nothing in her politely smiling, slightly
scornful air to give the most anxious parent concern.
Under the jokes, the laughter, and the friendly talk throughout dinner,
there were electric intimations that caused Colina's nostrils to
quiver. She loved the smell of danger.
It was no easy matter to keep the conversational bark on an even keel;
the rocks were thick on every hand. Business, politics, and local
affairs were all for obvious reasons tabooed. More than once they were
near an upset, as when they began to talk of Indians.
Ambrose had related the anecdote of Tom Beavertail who, upon seeing a
steamboat for the first time, had made a paddle-wheel for his canoe,
and forced his sons to turn him about the lake.
"Exactly like them!" said John Gaviller with his air of amused scorn.
"Ingenious in perfectly useless ways! Featherheaded as schoolboys!"
"But I like schoolboys!" Ambrose protested. "It isn't so long since I
was one myself."
"Schoolboys is too good a word," said Gaviller. "Say, apes."
"I have a kind of fellow-feeling for them," said Ambrose smiling.
"How long have you been in the north?"
"Two years."
"I've been dealing with them thirty years," said Gaviller with an air
of finality.
Ambrose refused to be silenced. Looking around the luxurious room he
felt inclined to remark, that Gaviller had made a pretty good thing out
of the despised race, but he checked himself.
"Sometimes I think we never give them a show," he said with a
deprecating air, "We're always trying to cut them to our own pattern
instead of taking them as they are. They are like schoolboys, as you
say.
"Most of the trouble with them comes from the fact that anybody can
lead them into mischief, just like boys. If we think of what we were
like ourselves before we put on long trousers it helps to understand
them."
Gaviller raised his eyebrows a little at hearing the law laid down by
twenty-five years old.
"Ah!" he said quizzically. "In my day the use of the rod was thought
necessary to make boys into men!"
Ambrose grew a little warm. "Certainly!" he said. "But it depends on
the spirit with which it is applied. How can we do anything with them
if we treat them like dirt?"
"You are quite successful in handling them?" queried Gaviller dryly.
"Peter Minot says so," said Ambrose simply. "That is why he took me
into partnership."
"He married a Cree, didn't he?" inquired Gaviller casually.
Colina glanced at her father in surprise. This was hardly playing fair
according to her notions.
"A half-breed," corrected Ambrose.
"Of course, Eva Lajeunesse, I remember now," said Gaviller. "She was
quite famous around Caribou Lake some years ago."
Ambrose with an effort kept his temper. "She has made him a good
wife," he said loyally.
"Ah, no doubt!" said Gaviller affably. "Do you live with them?"
"I have my own house," said Ambrose stiffly.
Here Colina made haste to create a diversion.
"Aren't the Indian kids comical little souls?" she remarked. "I go to
the mission school sometimes to sing and play for them. They don't
think much of it. One of the girls asked me for a hair. One hair was
all she wanted."
The subject of Indian children proved to be innocuous. They took
coffee in John Gaviller's library.
"Colina brought these new-fangled notions in with her," said her father.
"They're all right!" said Ambrose soberly.
Colina saw the hand that held his spoon tremble slightly, and wondered
why. The fact was the thought could not but occur to him: "How foolish
for me to think she could ever bring her lovely, ladylike ways to my
little shack!"
He thrust the unnerving thought away. "I can build a bigger house,
can't I?" he demanded of himself. "Anyway, I'll make the best play to
get her that I can!"
In the library they talked about furniture. It transpired that the
trader had a passion for cabinet making, and most of the objects that
surrounded them were examples of his skill. Ambrose admired them with
due politeness, meanwhile his heart was sinking. He could not see the
slightest chance of getting a word alone with Colina.
In the middle of the evening a breed came to the door, hat in hand, to
say that John Gaviller's Hereford bull was lying down in his stall and
groaning. The trader bit his lip and glanced at Colina.
"Would you like to come and see my beasts?" he asked affably.
"Thanks," said Ambrose just as politely. "I'm no hand with cattle."
He kept his eyes discreetly down.
Gaviller could not very well turn him out of the house. There was no
help for it. He went.