"Who is Mr. Cheyne?" she asked suddenly.
"A perfectly amiable person with a bald head and a passion for
domesticity and music, both of which Rita affects to despise."
"Why did she marry him then?"
"Nobody knows. It was one of the marriages that weren't made in Heaven,
that's all."
"Few marriages are, but they're none the less binding because of that."
"Yes, I know," he said soberly.
She recognized the minor note and turned the subject quickly.
"What a heavenly spot! These are the stables, of course. And the
buildings beyond?"
"The kennels. Mr. Janney has his own pack--corking hounds. They've
been breeding this strain a long while in England. I suppose they're as
good as any in the world."
"I'm wild to see them."
The head groom met them at the door of the carriage house and showed
them through. The much despised touring car of the Havilands occupied a
negligible part of the great floor. The coach, brake, carryall, station
wagons, victoria, runabouts, and brake-carts--all in royal blue with
primrose running-gear--looked down with an old-fashioned dignity and
disapprobation on this product of a new civilization. The paneled walls
of the room were covered with sporting prints, and the trophy room, with
its cabinets of cups and ribbons, bore eloquent testimony to Curtis
Janney's success at horse shows in every large city of the country. In
the stables Camilla lost all sense of restraint. A stable had never
meant anything like this. The cement floors were spotless, and the long
line of stalls of polished wood with brass newels and fittings shone
like the silver in the drawing room. The mats and blankets were of
blue, and each bore the monogram of the owner in yellow.
"These are the coach and carriage horses, Camilla," Bent explained.
"Yes, ma'am," put in the groom. "The hunters are here," and he led the
way to the box stalls.
"Where is Mackinaw? Mr. Janney promised him to me for to-morrow."
"Oh, Mackinaw is right here, ma'am. And a fine bit of flesh he is." He
went in and threw off the blanket, while Camilla followed. "Not a
blemish. He'll take his four rails like they was two. Just give him his
head, and you won't be far off when they kill."
"Oh, what a darling! I'm wild to get on him. Is he gentle?"
She patted him on the neck, and he nosed her pocket for sugar. One by
one she saw them all, and they reached the kennels in time for the
evening meal.
"Oh, well," she sighed as they turned back toward the house, "I'm almost
reconciled to riches. One could live in a place like this and forget
there was anything else in the world."
"Yes, perhaps some people might," he said significantly. "I couldn't,
even if I wanted to. The only real joy in life is the memory of
Saguache Peak at sunset."
"Sunsets pass--they're symbols of the brevity of things beautiful----"
"But the night is long," he murmured. "So long, and so dark."
*CHAPTER VIII*
*THE BRUSH*
Jeff Wray was learning many things. The arrival of Lawrence Berkely on
the scene had at first seemed rather alarming. Several wires in cipher
before Larry reached New York had apprised Jeff of an uncertain state of
mind in members of the directorate of the Denver and Western Railroad
Company. Collins, Hardy, and even Jim Noakes had been approached by
representatives of the Chicago and Utah with flattering offers for their
interests in the D. & W., and Berkely reported them on the horns of a
dilemma. Collins and Hardy were big owners of land which lay along the
trunk line and were dependent on that company for all facilities for
moving their wheat and other crops. It had not always been easy to get
cars to haul their stuff to market, and this fall they only got their
hay and potatoes in by a dispensation from the men higher up. Noakes,
as Jeff well knew, owned stock in the through line, but the showing of
the Saguache Mountain Development Company for the year had been so
strong that he had felt sure his associates would see the importance of
keeping their interests intact, temporizing, where they could, with the
Denver crowd, who had it in their power to threaten his connections at
Saguache.
Mulrennan was wiring Jeff, too--copiously. There was an election
pending in Kinney, and the Denver crowd had advanced a candidate for
judge in opposition to the party with which Pete was affiliated. Other
reports both in New York and from the West indicated a strong pressure
from the East on the officers of the D. & W. Berkely viewed all these
indications of a concerted movement against Jeff's railroad with
increasing dismay and lost no time in giving him his opinion as to the
possible outcome of the raid.
But Jeff apparently was losing no sleep over the situation. He was
fully aware that the whole movement had originated in New York, and that
Cornelius Bent and his crowd were back of it. He knew, too, that the
Amalgamated Reduction Company wanted his new smelter. Long ago he had
foreseen this possibility and had laid his own plans accordingly. The
Denver and Saguache was his. With Noakes, Collins, and Hardy, he had a
control of the Denver and Western, but their possible defection, which
he had also foreseen, had made other plans necessary. Three months
before he came East he had unobtrusively secured through other persons a
right of way from Saguache to Pueblo, a distance of one hundred and
twenty miles. The line of this survey was well to the southward and
would open up a country occupied only by small settlers under the
Homestead laws. He had turned the organization of the Development
Company loose for two months on that vast tract of land, and had, at a
reasonably small expense, secured by purchase or long-time options the
most valuable land along his new line. His engineers were Germans,
imported for the work, who had no affiliations with other roads, and his
plans had so far worked out to a T. He had also worked out (on paper)
an irrigation scheme for the whole proposition.
At Pueblo the new road would connect with the Denver and California, a
line which had no connection with the Chicago and Utah, and which had
even been recently engaged in a rate war with the other roads to the
coast. Its officers were friendly, and Wray's plans had all been worked
out in their confidence and with their approval. Indeed, a good part of
his backing had been furnished by capitalists in San Francisco.
Jeff felt sure that the first move to capture the D. & W. was only a
bluff, and in his conferences with General Bent, Janney, and McIntyre,
had played a waiting game. The "Daisy" was now a producer--not a
producer like the "Lone Tree"--but it was paying, and the "Comet," a new
prospect that had been opened farther south, was doing a business of a
hundred to the ton. His stamps were working night and day, and the
smelter was doing its share in Wray's triumphant progress. All his
other plans were working out, and the longer he could wait the more
formidable he could make himself as an adversary. He knew that the crux
of the situation was the ambition of the Amalgamated Reduction Company.
They controlled every smelting concern in three states, and Wray's big
plant was a thorn in their side. By waiting, Jeff hoped that he could
make them show their hands, so he made no attempt to force an issue,
being content to play the part they themselves had assigned him. Their
hospitality, his welcome into their exclusive set, his use of their
clubs (to two of which he had been proposed for membership), the
business associations they were planning for him, did little to convince
Jeff of the sincerity of their attentions. But he acted the dupe with a
good grace, with one eye to windward, greatly amused at their
friendliness, which, while it failed to flatter, gave him an increasing
sense of the importance of his mission. General Bent had intimated that
within a week or so he would be in a position to make a definite
proposition for his railroad, which, of course, meant the absorption of
Wray's plant into the Trust. Financially, there were great possibilities
in a friendly association with these men.
They were closely in touch with No. -- Broadway and, if they chose,
could point the way to power such as he had never dreamed of. But in
his heart he mistrusted them. He thought of Mrs. Rumsen's words of
warning, and he knew that what she said was true. They would not spare
him if he offered them a chance which would give them a command of the
situation. Well, they hadn't command of it yet, and he knew he held
some cards which they had never seen. If they continued to weave their
web as they had begun it, there would still be time to side-step.
Meanwhile, he gave himself up to a thorough enjoyment of the situation.
There was nothing he liked better than a fight, and the fact that his
adversaries were formidable lent a zest to the situation. He reassured
Larry, sent a lot of wires to Mulrennan, took a few successful flyers in
the stock market (which went to show that his luck had not yet turned),
and spent his leisure moments in a riding school uptown going over the
jumps with Camilla.
Curtis Janney's dinner table held nothing in common with General Bent's.
The viands were well cooked but not heavy; the wines of a lighter
variety, dry, for the most part, and sparkling; the service deft and
dignified but not austere. The table decorations were not made up of
set-pieces from the florists', but came from Janney's own conservatories
and were more in the way of colored embroideries against the damask
cloth. General conversation was, therefore, continuous, and every
person at this table could see and be seen by every other. The
formality of the city seemed to be banished by common consent, and
Camilla, who went in with Cortland Bent (a mischievous dispensation of
Miss Janney), felt very much at home in the frank, friendly atmosphere.
Almost all the conversation, she discovered, was of the "horsey"
variety, at least at Camilla's end of the table, where their host
presided, and, as she had never ridden to hounds before, she seized the
opportunity to acquaint herself with the interesting details of the
morning which awaited her.
The Sunnybrook Hunt Club, she learned, was only a mile away, but on
certain days the Braebank hounds were used and members of the Hunt Club
living in the vicinity added their numbers to the field. There were
plenty of foxes, Mr. Janney assured her, and to-morrow they were to draw
a cover over toward the Chelten Hills. Mrs. Cheyne, she heard, was
thought to be the best horsewoman in the county. Her own country-place
was but five miles away, and, in spite of her boasted love of ease, she
was to be found at every Meet in the season, no matter how early the
hour. To-morrow was to be one of the big days of the year, Mr. Janney
informed Camilla, and all the farmers over whose fields they hunted were
invited to lunch after the Meet, in the Long Gallery.
So when, in the early morning, after a light breakfast, Mr. Janney's
guests met on the terrace, it was with a feeling of intense interest and
excitement that Camilla drew on her gloves and joined them. Of the men,
Curtis Janney, Worthington Rumsen, and Billy Haviland wore the pink
coats with gray facings of Sunnybrook, while their host wore in addition
the velvet cap which distinguished him as Master of the Hounds. The
hounds were already loose on the great lawn, while the Huntsman and
Whippers-in rode among them. The sun had not yet risen, and the heavy
frost which lay upon the lawns caught the chill greenish opalescent
tints of the dawn. Mrs. Cheyne was already in the saddle, her hunter, a
lean, rangy boy, pirouetting and mouthing his bits, eager to be off.
The Baroness Charny, dainty and very modish in a dark green habit and
silk hat, was chatting gaily with Larry Berkely while a groom adjusted
her stirrup-leather. Mrs. Haviland, Wray, Perot, and her host were
waiting for their horses, which the men were bringing up from the
stables. Curtis Janney came forward gaily when Camilla appeared.
"We're all here, Mrs. Wray," he greeted her. "The others will meet us at
the Chelten Crossroads. Your horse is ready," and then, with a glance
at her habit, "You're riding across, I believe?"