She rose and led the way through a short corridor to the conservatory,
where they found a stone bench under a palm.
He offered her his case, and she lit the cigarette daintily, holding it
by the very tips of her fingers, and steadying her hand against his own
as Wray would have done with a man's. Wray did not speak. He watched
her amusedly, aware of the extraordinary interest with which she
invested his pet vice.
"Thanks," she said gratefully. Turning toward him then, she lowered her
chin, opened her eyes, and looked straight into his.
"You know, you didn't come to me nearly as soon as I thought you would."
"I--I didn't know----"
"You should have known."
"Why should I----?"
"Because I wanted you to."
"I'm glad you wanted me. I think I'd have come anyway."
She smiled approvingly.
"Then my efforts were unnecessary."
"Your efforts?"
"Yes, I willed it. You interested me, you see."
He looked at her quickly. Her eyes only closed sleepily, then opened
again.
"I'm lucky," he said, "that's sure."
"How do you know? I may not be at all the kind of person you think I
am."
"I'll take a chance on that--but I wish you'd tell me what made you want
me."
"I was bored. I usually am. The Bent parties are so formal and
tiresome. Everybody always says the same things--does the same things."
She sighed deeply. "If Cousin Cornelius saw me now I'd be in disgrace.
I wonder why I always like to do the things people don't expect me to."
"You wouldn't be much of a woman if you didn't," he laughed. "But I
like surprises. There wouldn't be much in life if you knew what was
going to happen every minute."
"You didn't think I was going to happen then?"
"Er--no. Maybe I hoped so."
"Well," she smiled, "I have happened. What are you going to do about
it?"
"Be thankful--mostly. You seem sort of human, somehow. You do what you
want to--say what you want----"
"And if I don't get what I want, ask for it," she laughed. "I told
Gladys it was very inconsiderate of her not to send you in to dinner
with me. She's always doing that sort of thing. Gladys lacks a sense
of proportion. As it is, the evening is almost gone, and we've only
begun."
"I feel as if I'd known you for years," said Jeff heartily. "That's
funny, too," he added, "because you're so different from any other woman
I've ever known. You look as if you might have come from a book--but
you speak out like Mesa City."
"Tell me about Mesa City. You know I was out West last year."
"Were you? Sure?" eagerly. "In Colorado?"
"Oh, yes," she said slowly, "but I was living in Nevada."
"Nevada? That was my old stamping ground. I punched for the Bar Circle
down there. What part?"
"Reno."
"Oh!"
"I went there for my divorce."
His voice fell a note. "I didn't know that. I'm awfully sorry you were
so unfortunate. Won't you tell me about it?"
"There's nothing to tell. Cheyne and I were incompatible--at least
that's what the lawyers said. As such things go, I thought we got along
beautifully. We weren't in the least incompatible so long as Cheyne
went his way and let me go mine. It's so easy for married people to
manage, if they only knew how. But Cheyne didn't. He didn't want to be
with me himself--and he didn't want any one else to be. So things came
to a pretty pass. It actually got so bad that when people wanted either
of us to dinner they had to write first to inquire which of us was to
stay away. It made a lot of trouble, and the Cheyne family got to be a
bore--so we decided to break it up."
"Was he unkind to you--cruel?"
"Oh, dear, no! I wish he had been. Our life was one dreadful round of
cheerful monotony. I got so tired of the shape of his ears that I could
have screamed. Yes, I really think," she mused, "that it was his ears."
Wray examined her with his baby-like stare as though she had been a
specimen of ore. There seemed to be no doubt of the fact that she was
quite serious.
"I'm really sorry for him. It is--very sad----"
She threw her head back and laughed softly.
"My dear Mr. Wray, your sympathy is touching--he would appreciate it as
much as I do--if he had not already married again."
"Married? Here in New York?"
"Oh, yes. They're living within a stone's throw of my house."
"Do you see him?"
"Of course. I dined with them only last week. You see," and she leaned
toward him with an air of new confidences, "that's only human. I can't
really give up anything I've once possessed. You know, I try not to
sell horses that I've liked. I did sell one once, and he turned up one
morning in a hired brougham. That taught me a lesson I've never
forgotten. Now when they outlive their usefulness I turn them out on my
farm in Westchester. Of course, I couldn't do that to Harold, but I did
the next best thing. I've satisfied myself that he's properly looked
after--and I'm sure he'll reflect credit on his early training."
"And he's happy?"
"Blissfully so. It wouldn't be possible for a man to have the
advantages of a training like the one I have given him and not be able
to make a woman happy."
"But he didn't make _you_ happy."
"Me? Oh, I wasn't made for bondage of any kind. Most women marry
because they're bored or because they're curious. In either case they
pay a penalty. Marriage provides no panacea. One only becomes more
bored--with one's own husband--or more curious about other people's
husbands."
"Are you curious? You don't look as if you cared enough to be curious."
"I do care." She held her cigarette at arm's length and flicked off its
ash with her little finger. "Mr. Wray, I'll let you into a secret. A
woman never appears so bored as when she is intensely interested in
something--never so much interested as when she is bored to extinction.
I am curious. I am trying to learn (without asking you impertinent
questions) how on earth you and Mrs. Wray ever happened to marry."
She tilted her chin impudently and looked down her nose at him, her eyes
masked by her dark lashes, through which it hardly seemed possible that
she could see him at all. Jeff laughed. She had her nerve with her, he
thought, but her frankness was amusing. He liked the way she went after
what she wanted.
"Oh, Camilla--I don't know. It just happened, I guess. She's more your
kind than mine. I'm a good deal of a scrub, Mrs. Cheyne. You see, I
never went to college--or even to high school. Camilla knows a lot.
She used to teach, but I reckon she's about given up the idea of trying
to teach _me_. I'm a low-brow all right. I never read a novel in my
life."
"You haven't missed much. Books were only meant for people who are
willing to take life at second-hand. One year of the life you lived on
the range is worth a whole shelf-ful. The only way to see life is
through one's own eyes."
"Oh, I've seen life. I've been a cowboy, rancher, speculator, miner,
and other things. And I've seen some rough times. But I wouldn't have
worked at those things if I hadn't needed the money. Now I've got it,
maybe I'll learn something of the romantic side of life."
She leaned back and laughed at him. "You dear, delicious man. Then it
has never occurred to you that during all these years you've been living
a romance?"
He looked at her askance.
"And then, to cap it all," she finished, "you discover a gold mine, and
marry the prettiest woman in the West. I suppose you'll call that
prosaic, too. You're really quite remarkable. What is it that you
expect of life after all?"
"I don't know," he said slowly, "something more----"
"But there's nothing left."
"Oh, yes, there is. I've only tasted success, but it's good, and I like
it. What I've got makes me want more. There's only one thing in the
world that really means anything to me--and that's power----"
"But your money----"
"Yes, money. But money itself doesn't mean anything to me--idle
money--the kind of money you people in New York are content to live on,
the interest on land or bonds. It's what live, active money can do that
counts with me. My money has got to keep working the way I work--only
harder. Some people worship money for what it can buy their bodies. I
don't. I can't eat more than three square meals a day. I want my money
to make the desert bloom--to make the earth pay up what it owes, and
build railroads that will carry its products where they're needed. I
want it to take the miserable people away from the alleys in your city
slums and put them to work in God's country, where their efforts will
count for something in building up the waste ground that's waiting for
them out there. Why, Mrs. Cheyne, last year I took up a piece of
desert. There wasn't a thing on it but rabbit-brush. Last spring I
worked out a colonization plan and put it through. There's a town there
now called Wrayville, with five thousand inhabitants, two hotels, three
miles of paved sidewalk, a public school, four factories, and two
newspapers. All that in six months. It's a hummer, I can tell you."