IN THE HOUSE OF POTIPHAR
Mrs. Robert Carter was far too astute a politician to openly offer any
opposition to her daughter's devotion for Douglass, though fully
determined to unravel what she deemed a preposterous and altogether
undesirable entanglement.
Having herself fought the hard fight against the ogres of Poverty and
Adversity, she had no foolish illusions in the premises, and had long
ago resolved that her daughter should be spared the grim heartaches that
even love cannot wholly bar from the proverbial cottage. Her chief
ambition was to see Grace established in a position commanding at the
very outset all the amenities to which the girl had been accustomed from
childhood, both of her children having come after Carter pere had
achieved a substantial competence. There were many among the girl's
suitors who offered this and more, and she felt a bitter impatience with
the extravagance of youthful passion which now so perversely menaced all
her plans.
While cordially conceding the beauty of love in the abstract, the
concreteness of wealth and social position appealed far more potently to
the world-worn old woman, who temporarily forgot her own girlish
exaltations of days long gone in her apprehensions for her daughter's
future.
Never was woman better qualified or disposed to appreciate youthful
virility and sterling manliness; her personal esteem for Douglass was
very high, and had it not been for the, to her, insuperable bar of his
comparative poverty, she would have welcomed him with open arms. As it
was, she was very indulgently disposed towards him. If his mines really
developed into bonanza she would interpose no obstacle in his way. But
in her wide experience she had known all too many just as promising
prospects as his turn out miserable failures; when he had
incontrovertibly established the value of his claims it would be time
enough to consider his proposed alliance with her family.
All this she said to him with frank candor in a letter answering his
request for her sanction to his engagement to Grace.
"I will give you two years," she concluded, "in which to demonstrate
your ability to give her all the comforts to which she is accustomed. In
the interim I shall take her abroad, and if at the expiration of that
time you have 'made good,' and both of you are still of the same mind, I
will give you my blessing with all my heart.
"But it must be distinctly understood that until then I recognize no
manner of bond between you; she must be free to change her mind if she
so chooses. I have no objection to a friendly exchange of correspondence
between you during our absence, relying upon your honor to use no undue
coercion. Please regard these stipulations as imperative and final."
He sent her a rather constrained acceptance and so it was arranged.
Directly after the holidays Mrs. Carter and Grace sailed for Europe.
One balmy day in the following spring he was over at Tin Cup awaiting
the coming of the stage. Two days before he had been advised by letter
of the coming of the Brevoorts for a season's outing on their
lately-acquired ranch. He had rather expected a letter from Grace by the
same mail and was proportionately elated. Everything had gone well with
him in the new year. He had secured the services of an experienced and
altogether dependable miner, an old friend of his assaying days, to
develop his mining claims, and the reports were eminently satisfying.
With every foot of depth attained on the vein the ore grew better, and
the property was yielding enough values to pay for its extensive
exploitation. The ore chute, paying from grass roots down, was getting
wider and richer; two promising "blind leads" had been struck in
addition, and the opinion of all the visiting experts was that Douglass
had struck it exceedingly rich. Should the improvement continue, his
term of probation would be over before snow flew again. He did not need
many more tons of that honeycombed quartz to satisfy Mrs. Carter's most
stringent exactions.
He was therefore in a wonderfully complaisant frame of mind as old
Timberline Tobe reined in his leaders with a flourish before Blount's
hotel. Constance Brevoort, clad in an exceedingly well-fitting
traveling costume of neutral gray, smiled her delight as he went forward
with uplifted hands to assist her descent from the seat of honor on the
box beside the driver. Of the two other passengers inside the stage he
took small note; Brevoort could look after himself and be hand-shaken
later. Just now the woman engrossed his whole attention.
Stiffened doubtlessly by her necessarily cramped position on the box
throughout a half-day's jolting over rough mountain roads, she slipped
awkwardly from the wheel and landed plump in his arms, her lips brushing
his in her descent as he protectingly caught her close to save her from
falling. His face was crimson, possibly from over-exertion, as he slowly
released her. But even though the vice-like grip of his arms had been a
moment or two overlong, Mrs. Brevoort made no protest; she only smiled
at his discomposure and said somewhat ambiguously:
"Don't look so distressed, Mr. Douglass. I alone am to blame for that
slip; and there have been no consequences."
He took her extended hand and shook it heartily. Into his eyes there
crept a flicker of amusement tinged with audacity.
"I am not so sure of that," he said with pretended ruefulness, feeling
in the breast pocket of his shirt. "My cigars are demolished. Were you
really so glad to see me as all that?" She looked at him coquettishly
through half-closed lids.
"Can you doubt, remembering how I threw myself into your arms in the
recklessness of my transports?" She laughed unaffectedly, but underneath
the dimples of her peachy cheeks spread the veriest wraith of a soft
rose tint. For into his eyes had suddenly flamed something, a subtle
spark that burned down through her body's jeweled sheath like a
white-hot coal. A little frightened at the hot wave surging through her
veins she was betrayed into another indiscretion.
"And you," she murmured seductively, "are you glad to see me?"
"I'll tell you later, when I am calm enough to phrase my joy in more
conventional words than my present distraction permits." They both
laughed a little constrainedly and he turned to greet the man who had
just descended from the stage. Imagine his surprise to see, instead of
the shriveled form of the financier, the portly bulk of a grinning
white-headed old negro who was assisting an equally robust damsel of
like ebon complexion, but considerably less years, to alight from the
dusty vehicle.
Constance laughed at his frank bewilderment.
"Two family retainers from my girlhood's home, Uncle 'Rastus, my butler,
and Lucindy, his daughter, my cook. At the last moment Mr. Brevoort was
called away to Europe on business," she explained somewhat hurriedly.
"He hopes to be able to join us in time for the fall hunting."
It was characteristic of the man that he did not mumble the conventional
regrets over the defection of her husband; on the contrary, he did not
hesitate to express his pleasure.
"That's nice!" was his rather startling comment to which, however, she
took no exception, mischievously misinterpreting the reference of his
words.
"Yes, I know you enjoy those hunting trips," she said demurely, "and Mr.
Brevoort is even more enthusiastic. He says you are positively the most
indefatigable man in the chase that he ever met. Have you chased much
since we left?"
He glanced at her dubiously; she was the embodiment of naive innocence
as she stood there struggling with her pearl-colored suedes, the
delicious color coming and going in her fresh, fair cheeks. He was not
at all sure of her, and he hesitated a little as he caught up her valise
and relieved her of her discarded wraps.
"I wonder if there was any double meaning in that?" he thought, watching
her out of the corner of his eye; but it was this man's creed, as has
been previously noted, to overlook no bets. Aloud he said:
"The open season ended the day you left, and I haven't been to town
since."
She bit her lip in discomfiture; there was a prematureness about this
frontier lance that made him exceedingly difficult to parry, skilled as
she was in the subtle art of fence. The insolent assurance of that
thrust through her guard angered and alarmed her.
"You will pay for that," she resolved mentally, wrathful at his coarse
arrogance. But her frown was only that of gentle wonderment as she
turned inquiringly. "The town! I do not understand. Is there any game to
be hunted there?"
"Only faro, and poker, and roulette, with other divertisements of divers
kinds and sorts," he said humorously. "But one does not have to hunt
much for any of them so far as my experience goes. Yet I've even left
the seductive tiger unbucked in his lair for over six long weary months.
I've been so good that even the very thought of it hurts."
"You poor thing," she said with mock compassion; "how your talents have
been wasted. What a pity that the virtue born of necessity is not
entitled to commendation."
"Is there any virtue entitled to that?" he asked shamelessly. She drew a
little apart from him, really shocked and not a little apprehensive.
"Certainly not that of Evolution," she said with some acerbity. "Against
the stone ax and brutal strength of the Cave Man, woman's helpless
trust, love and dependency are just as inadequate as it was in the
beginning, aeons ago. But even barbarians can, with profit, learn the
lesson of decent forbearance."
"Stung!" His comical grimace and slangy confession of her sharper point
completely disarmed her and she sheathed her rapier with a smile. But
for the life of her she could not resist the temptation to bait this
good-natured bear.
"After all, we are only a step removed from the Primitive," she said
plaintively, "and in this wonderful environment of yours one comes
actually within touch. Here we are at swords-points already, and only a
few moments ago I was in your arms." Her heart was quaking at her great
audacity as he made a sudden movement that brought him so near that his
elbow grazed her shapely waist.
"Backward, oh! backward, turn, Time, in thy flight!" he hummed
longingly. Unconsciously she swayed towards him for the fraction of an
inch. She was even closer to the border-land than she had deemed.
Red McVey, coming for the mail, greeted them as they ascended the porch
steps of the little hostelry. She very graciously laid her hand in his,
and her face beamed with positive pleasure as he awkwardly congratulated
her upon her splendid appearance.
"Well, little ole N'Yawk ain't done you no hurt as I kin see. Reckon
I'll have to winter theah a spell mahself when mah caows come home," he
said enthusiastically. "Yuah lookin' purtier 'n a red heifer."
Douglass grinned at her rosy confusion. "You've got a good eye for
color, Red. But you ought to cultivate the virtue of forbearance, ought
he not, Mrs. Brevoort?" But she scornfully ignored him and was rather
profuse in her protestations to Red of her happiness at being back in
"God's country" again.
At the dinner table that night Douglass maliciously reverted to the
topic of forbearance. Turning to McVey he assumed a becoming gravity
which the twinkle in his eyes belied.
"Say, old-timer, Mrs. Brevoort is skeptical of we poor cowpunchers'
virtue; she thinks we have no power of forbearance. Can't you help me to
convince her that we often keep from doing wicked things just for the
pure love of being good."
Red, catching the mischievous note in his question, rose to the occasion
manfully.
"Why, yuh ain't thinkin' that bad of us, are yuh?" he said with
sorrowful reproach to Constance. "Indeed, ma'am, we are real gentle by
spells. Why, I mind las' yeah when I was ridin' fences foh thu C Bar I
got to thinkin' haow foolish it were o' me to keep hankerin' after thu
delusions o' thu Alcazah, an' to keep wantin' to go oveh theah
simultaneous an' waste my hawd eahned money on thu see-ductions o' thu
flowin' bowl. So I braces up, an' says to thu devil o' temptation, kinda
contemptuous-like, 'Hit thu back trail, Satan!'
"Every time I feels thu iniquity o' thust comin' on me I jes' swaps the
price o' a drink from my sack to a leetle ole terbacca bag I totes
especial foh thet puppos, and goes an' dips my beak in healthy alkali
wateh like a sensibul, fohbeahing Christian should. It were two bits
every time an' by thu time Chris'mas comes raound thu smoke bag were
plumb full. I suttinly fohboah a heap thet summah."
Genuinely interested at the simple relation, Constance asked
sympathetically: "And what did you do with the money so heroically
saved, may I ask?"
"Well, I had thu price O' nine bottles o' booze in thu bag when I
counted her oveh at Tin Cup on Chrismus eve. Theah's five bottles goes
to a gallon, yuh know, so I rattles thu bones with thu perfessor an' o'
cose I wins thu odd bottle. Then I blows six bits fer a two-gallon jug
an'--"
Constance glared at him severely. Douglass laid his head on the table
and cried.
The greater portion of the next day was spent by Constance in shopping
and resting after her wearisome stage ride. Douglass had some saddlery
matters to attend to and Grace's letter to answer. Red had volunteered
to drive 'Rastus and Lucindy over to the VN ranch with the luggage and
so it happened that Douglass and Mrs. Brevoort rode out together alone
in the pleasant evening to her home-coming.
They jogged along very leisurely, talking only the veriest commonplaces
after they had exhausted the more interesting topics of ranch and mine.
Curiously enough, neither referred once to Grace Carter, her name not
being mentioned throughout the whole journey. Toward the end of their
ride both man and woman grew strangely silent. The white May moon was
just peeping over the horizon as he dismounted before the door of the
ranch house to assist her to alight.
As she released her foot from the stirrup and held out her hands, from
somewhere far out on the prairie came the call of a wolf. Telepathically
both turned toward the moonlit plain awaiting the answering cry; as it
rang out in not unmusical cadence through the stilly night she shivered
slightly and her hands trembled in his warm grasp. He leaned toward her,
his eyes gleaming.
"Come," he said, masterfully. Shifting her left hand to his shoulder he
threw his arm about her waist and lifted her from the saddle. But before
her feet touched the ground he had gathered her up in his arms and was
striding towards the house. Taken by surprise, she clung to him
breathlessly, one arm still tightly clasped about his neck as he placed
her feet upon the threshold. Very gently she disengaged herself from his
embrace but made no effort to enter the house. He looked hungrily at her
full red lips for a second, then stooped and laid his own upon the hand
which he still retained.
"Welcome, oh, Queen, to your lair!" he said softly. "May you have good
hunting."
Then, sombrero in hand, he bowed again and turning abruptly left her
standing there silent in the white moonlight. Not until the shadows of
the corral had swallowed him up did she so much as move a muscle.
Unto him a half hour later came old 'Rastus with her invitation to dine.
When he finally joined her she was secretly relieved at the very
presentable appearance he made in the modest suit of gray negligee
which, he apologetically stated with engaging candor, was the nearest
approximation he could make to full dress. All other cowboys of her
acquaintance, while delightfully picturesque in their range costume, had
looked disappointingly commonplace and uninteresting when clothed in
civilized habiliments; but there was neither _gaucherie_ nor
self-consciousness about this exceedingly self-possessed young fellow,
whose evident familiarity with the niceties of etiquette came as an
agreeable surprise. Every slave to Convention is more or less a snob,
and she had been under the yoke a whole lifetime. Her relief at his
perfect deportment changed to an irritating sense of chagrin as she
realized her own obtuseness in not recognizing from the first that this
man had assuredly been bred, if not born, a gentleman. How was she to
know if he were not even mentally amused at her inexcusable lack of
perspicacity?
The truth of the matter was that Douglass thought nothing at all about
it; he was thinking only of how attractive this woman was--in a
different way from Grace Carter.
Old 'Rastus he had captivated instanter by his critical commendation of
the really superb wine which she had, whimsically, it must be confessed,
and to the secret indignation of the old darkey, ordered served. 'Rastus
had mumbled something about the casting of pearls, but he melted
instantly at Douglass's evident appreciation.
"Chateau Yquem, is it not, and of a vintage surely previous to '57!" he
averred with the confidence of a connoisseur, lovingly rolling the
delicious liquor under his tongue. "You are an exaggerated Lady
Bountiful, my dear Mrs. Brevoort. This is ambrosia for the gods rather
than a tipple for an obscure cowpuncher!"
"Yes, this Yquem has been in our cellars since '59; so Mr. Brevoort
informs me. I am extremely fortunate in having selected it since it
meets with your favor!" Her tone was sweetly sincere and he was
inordinately flattered. She on her part was not a little amazed at the
anomaly of a mere ranch hand's knowledge of rare old vintages and looked
at him with a new interest. He was surely going to be worth
exploitation!
When the cloth had been removed they adjourned to a little room which
had been fitted up as a den by Brevoort. Here the coffee was served, and
over her cigarette she watched him deftly preparing the cognac and
kirschenwasser with all the assurance of an epicure, the caraffe having
been set beside him by the old servitor as a matter of course; there was
no doubt now in 'Rastus's mind about this "cow-gentleman" being to the
manner born.
It being an unusually mild night, the windows, which faced on the open
prairie land to the north, were partly open. The air was sweet with the
fragrance of the purpling lucerne, punctuated by the aroma of her
Turkish tobacco. In the mellow light of the rose-tinted acetylene globe
suspended overhead everything was invested with a deliciously soft
warmth. Douglass, puffing luxuriously at his havana, was filled with a
great conviction that he had not been so happy for years. This was what
he would have when his mines were in bonanza and he had come to his own!
But try as he would, he could not permanently establish Grace's presence
on the divan over yonder; somehow the conditions did not lend themselves
concordantly. The woman furtively watching him smiled intuitively; he
was a very transparent young man, after all!
And yet how perfectly he fitted into the environment's scheme! In the
soft rose light his clean-cut aquiline profile was as perfect as a
well-chiseled cameo in red bronze. Vigor, strength and indomitable power
breathed from every well-balanced line of his well-knit frame.
"Fit, and ready, to fight for his strong young life!" she was thinking
admiringly, "a man among a thousand in these degenerate days. A 'running
mate' who would go far with the wolf of his choosing. I wonder what he
ever saw in that insipid goody-goody. She will tame him down to
mediocrity, never realizing what she is desecrating, what she is robbing
some other better-fitted woman of. She ought to have married Anselm!"
At the thought of her husband her face hardened. Very contemptuous did
she wax in her merciless comparison of him with the stalwart young
fellow sitting there so lordly in the arrogance of lusty manliness. Now
that it was too late she realized that she had sold herself for a price!
Of course Brevoort had paid, generously, magnificently, and without
demur; but how had she benefited thereby? To the end only of being the
leader of her social set, queen regnant of a symposium of sexless
degenerates with whom she had not one mental or physical desire in
common! The best proof of it was that she was here, far from their
wearying inanities and hollow gilded gauds by deliberate choice. Her
meditations terminated abruptly at this point; was that the real reason
of her coming? She turned to him with a curious shyness, thankful for
that rose-colored globe.
"You are fond of children, Mr. Douglass?" It was more an assertion than
a question. His face lit up rarely.
"I love them!" he said, simply. "They are the sweetest flowers in God's
garden!"
"Even as I do!" There was something strangely like a sob in her low
voice, but she had not meant him to hear. "I congratulate you on your
conquest of the little Blount girl; her adoration of you is actually
idyllic!"
"Oh, Eulalie and I have been sweethearts for ages," he said, laughingly.
"It was a case of love at first sight."
"Happy Eulalie!" she said, enviously. "She has been favored beyond the
computation of the gods. That beatitude falls to the lot of but few of
her sex."
"Are you voicing a personal grievance?" His eyes were full of amused
incredulity. She smiled a little bitterly but evaded his question.
"What do you hear from Grace?" she asked, inconsequentially. He was
sobered instantly.
"She is well; and enjoying herself, I gather from her last letter. They
are on the wing constantly, you know, and it was unusually short. They
are now headed for Venice, with a certain Lord Ellerslie in train. Do
you happen to know him?" There was a mild anxiety in his tone.
"Yare Ellerslie? Yes, I know him very well. One of England's 'best'
types; a fine gentleman of mildewed lineage. He Is immensely wealthy!"
"Oh! I say, don't rub it into a fellow!" he protested, laughingly, but
his eyes held a glitter that caught Constance's attention disagreeably.
She rather pitied Lord Ellerslie at that moment.
"Oh! he is perfectly innocuous," she hastened to assure him; "nearly
every designing mamma has given him up as impossible. His price is above
the rubies of any woman's offering!" Her lip curled scornfully. "His
_metier_ is platonics."
"And you don't believe in their possibility," he concluded, dryly. She
eyed him narrowly.
"Do you?"
"Not in their putative purity at any event. Of course, I am not a
competent authority and my circle of acquaintances is limited to people
of flesh and blood. Imagine such an absurdity as platonics between--"
"Between--?" she prompted audaciously, her seductive face close his.
"Between you and me, for instance!" he finished, calmly, his cool
demeanor betraying nothing of the seething volcano beneath that
unruffled surface. She rose somewhat precipitately and went over and
stood by the window.
Faint and eerie from the muffling mazes of some far-off coulie came
again the wolf cry. She turned shudderingly away.
"It sounds like the wail of a lost soul!"
"Calling to another affinitive soul, neither of them knowing or caring,
in the all-compensative ecstasy of their own making, that they have lost
anything at all! Do you imagine that fellow is mouthing platonics out
there?"
He had risen unconsciously and laid his hot hand on her bare arm; she
shrank from it as though it burned her and deliberately placed the table
between them. She rang the silver call bell.
"I can imagine nothing more to-night but that it is time to retire," she
said, humorously. Before he could reply, Lucindy entered, bearing a
salver on which was a glass of milk and a pitcher of water. Constance
gave him her hand in gentle dismissal.
"Go to bed, Wolf," she said, mischievously, "and dream of--of platonics,
as befits your rugged constitution. Personally, I am not equal to more
than the inspirations of milk-and-water--as yet!"
As he opened the door the wolf howled in the distance. He turned with a
smile of sinister significance as an answering call rang out in the
night.
The fair hand holding the diluting pitcher wavered a trifle. A few drops
of water failed of their destination and spattered on the table.