"I been discharged once on this job and taken back, and this time I mean
to stick until the job's done."
"No, you won't!" Archie shouted.
"Oh, so I won't?... Well, I ain't taking my orders from you. She's the
boss on the ranch, I guess."
He indicated Adelle with a nod. This came altogether too near the truth
to be pleasant for Archie.
"You damned--"
With his heavy polo whip raised he sprang at the mason. Adelle dragged
at his arm, and he turned to shake her off, raising his free hand
threateningly.
"Take care!" the mason called out. "Don't hit a woman!"
As if in defiance, as if to show that he could hit at least this woman
who belonged to him by law, even though her possessions might not belong
to him entirely, Archie's left hand came down upon Adelle's arm with
sufficient force to be called a blow. Adelle dropped her grip of her
husband's arm with a slight cry of fright and shame rather than of pain.
Archie did not have to step forward to get at the mason, for with one
bound Clark sprang from his seat on the box and dealt Archie such a
smashing blow in the middle of the face that he fell crumpled in a heap
on the ground between Adelle and the mason. He lay there gasping and
groaning for a few moments--long enough for Adelle to realize completely
how she loathed him. Before this she had known that she was not happy in
her marriage, that Archie was far from the lover she had dreamed of,
that he was lacking in certain common virtues very necessary in any
society. Indeed, he had treated her roughly before now, in accesses of
alcoholic irritation, but always there had been in her mind a lingering
affection for the boy she had once loved and spoiled--enough to make her
pardon and forget. But now she saw him beneath the skin with the deadly
clearness of vision that precludes all forgiveness.
At last Archie crawled giddily to his feet, his nose running with blood
which spattered over his rumpled silk shirt. He looked at his opponent
uncertainly, as if he would like to try conclusions again, but a glance
at the mason's large hard hands and stocky frame was enough. Turning, he
said,--"I'll fix you for this," and started for Highcourt.
"Oh, go to hell!" the mason called after him, resuming his seat on the
soap-box and relighting his pipe.
Adelle, before she followed her husband, said to her new-found cousin in
a tone clear enough to reach Archie's ears,--
"Of course you are not discharged. I am very sorry for this."
"That's all right," the mason replied. "I don't worry about him."
Archie kept on as if he had not heard, and Adelle followed back to
Highcourt at sufficient distance not to be forced to speak to him. They
did not meet or speak that night, which had happened before more than
once. Adelle lay awake far into the night, thinking many surprisingly
new thoughts--about the cousin in his shack, the way in which he had
taken her news of their relationship, and also the calm manner in which
he had stood her husband's outrageous behavior. She as nearly admired
the cold humor with which he received her husband's abuse until Archie
had struck her as she did anything she knew in the way of conduct. The
mason cousin might use bad grammar and chew tobacco and go on sprees
occasionally, but as between him and her husband he was the gentleman of
the two--better still, the man of the two. His patience under insult and
his treating Archie like a child when he saw that the "gentleman" had
been drinking were truly admirable!
As for Archie it was not a new experience for her latterly to lie awake
cogitating her marriage in unhappy sleeplessness. It had seemed to her
on such occasions that all the old banker's predictions about the
results of her marrying Archie had come true like a curse, and sooner
than might have been thought. But never before had she seen so clearly
how impossible Archie was, never before felt herself without one atom of
regard for him--not even desire. And yet her mind was too little fertile
in expedients to suggest to her any way out of her trouble. She was of
those many women who will not take a step even against the most brutal
of husbands until driven into it. So she quickly dismissed him from her
thoughts.
It was then that for the first time, in connection with her new cousin,
she thought of the money--the buried treasure of Clark's Field, which
had been discovered for her benefit and which had been of such poor use
to her apparently. Archie, she had said to herself, was less of a man
than this rough stone mason, Tom Clark. He was, after all, nothing more
than a very ordinary American citizen, with the prestige and power of
her wealth. If that other man had happened to have the money--and it was
here that light broke over her. It did belong to him, at least a large
part of it! She recalled now the substance of those legal lectures she
had received at different times from the officers of the trust company.
The trouble about Clark's Field all these years had been the
disappearance of an heir, the elder brother of her grandfather, and the
lack of absolute proof that he had left no heirs behind him when he
died, to claim his undivided half interest in the field. But he had left
heirs, a whole family of them, it seemed! And to them, of course,
belonged at least a half of the property quite as much as it did to her!
When she had arrived at this illumination she was in a great state of
excitement. She almost waked Archie from his alcoholic slumbers in the
neighboring room to tell him that he was not married to a rich woman--at
least to one as rich as he thought by a half. And the workman whom he
had insulted and discharged in his fury was really his superior, in
money as well as character, and might perhaps drive him out of
Highcourt, instead! But she decided to put off this ironical blow until
a more opportune time, when Archie was nagging her for money. He could
be too disagreeable in his present state.
Then she thought of breaking the astounding news to the stone mason
himself. She must do that the first thing in the morning. But presently
doubts began to rise in her mind. Of course, knowing nothing of law, she
resolved the problem by the very simple rules of thumb she was capable
of. These California Clarks, of whom the mason was one, undoubtedly
owned a half of Clark's Field,--in other words, of her estate,--for
Clark's Field had been sold for the most part and no longer belonged to
her. If so there would be only one half left for her and her child, and
she had good reason to fear that her half had considerably shrunken by
now, thanks to Archie's investments and their way of living, if it had
not wholly disappeared! What then? She would be poor, as poor as Tom
Clark was now. And it would all go to him--the thought made her smile.
But no, he had brothers and sisters, probably uncles and aunts and
cousins. He would have to share his half with them. And one of his
sisters was the sort of woman she had been taught to despise and abhor.
It was all a horrible tangle, which she felt herself incapable to see
through at once. She was not sure that she could tell Archie or even her
new cousin, anyway not until she had thought it out more clearly and
knew the case in all its bearings.
The truth was, perhaps, that Adelle's natural fund of egotism, which was
not small, had begun to work as soon as she realized that she might lose
her magic lamp altogether. It may be doubted that, if certain events had
not happened, Adelle ever would have risen to the point where she could
have told any one the truth as she was now convinced she knew it. For
the present she would put it off,--a few days. It was so much easier to
say nothing at all: the mason did not seem to suspect the truth. She
could let things go on as fate had shaped them thus far.
And there was her little boy, too, who was very precious to her. She
would be disinheriting him, which she had no right to do. It was all
horribly mixed up! Adelle did not get much sleep that night.