"Shamelessly?"
"You've insulted me. I'll never forgive you. Don't you think a woman
can tell? There are other ways of judging a man. I've interested you,
yes, because you've never known any real woman before," contemptuously.
"I suppose you're interested still. You ought to be. But you can never
care for any woman until you forget to be interested in yourself. For
you the sun rises and sets in Jeff Wray, and you want other people to
think so, too."
"I'm sorry you think so badly of me."
"Oh, no, I don't think badly of you. From the present moment I sha'n't
think of you at all. I--I dislike you--intensely. I want to be alone.
Will you please go?"
Wray gave her his blandest stare, and then shrugged his shoulders and
turned toward the door.
"You're willing to have me go like this?"
"Yes."
"I'm going West to-morrow."
"It makes no difference to me where you are going."
"Won't you forgive me?"
"No."
As he passed her, he offered his hand in one last appeal, but she turned
away from him, her hands behind her, and in a moment he was gone.
Rita Cheyne heard the hall door close behind him and then sank into the
chair before the open fire, her eyes staring before her at the tiny
flame which still played fitfully above the gray log. Her fish had
risen at last with such wanton viciousness that he had taken hook, line,
reel, and rod. Only her creel remained to her--her empty creel.
*CHAPTER XIV*
*FATHER AND SON*
Father and son had dined together alone, and for most of the time in
silence. Cornelius Bent had brought his business mien uptown with him,
and Cortland, with a discretion borrowed of experience, made only the
most perfunctory attempts at a conversation. Since the "Lone Tree"
affair there had happened a change in their relations which each of them
had come to understand. Cortland Bent's successive failures in various
employments had at last convinced his father that his son was not born
of the stuff of which Captains of Industry are made. The loss of the
mine had been the culminating stroke in Cortland's ill-fortune, and
since his return to New York he had been aware of a loss of caste in the
old man's eyes. General Bent had a habit of weighing men by their
business performances and their utility in the financial enterprises
which were controlled from the offices of Bent & Company. It was not
his custom to make allowances for differences in temperament in his
employees, or even to consider their social relationships except in so
far as they contributed to his own financial well-being. He had
accustomed himself for many years to regard the men under him as
integral parts of the complicated machinery of his office, each with its
own duty, upon the successful performance of which the whole fabric
depended. He had figured the coefficient of human frailty to a decimal
point, and was noted for the strength of his business organization.
To such a man an only son with incipient leanings toward literature,
music, and the arts was something in the nature of a reproach upon the
father himself. Cort had left college with an appreciation of AEschylus
and Euripides and a track record of ten-seconds flat. So far as Bent
Senior could see, these accomplishments were his only equipment for his
eventual control of the great business of the firm of which his father
was the founder. The Greek poets were Greek, indeed, to the General,
but the track record was less discouraging, so Cortland began the
business of life at twenty-three as a "runner" for the bank, rising in
time to the dignity of a post inside a brass cage, figuring discounts,
where for a time he was singularly contented, following the routine with
a cheerfulness born of desperation. As assistant to the cashier he was
less successful, and when his father took him into his own office later
and made him a seller of bonds, Cortland was quite sure that at last he
had come into his own. For the selling of bonds, it seemed, required
only tireless legs and tireless imagination--both of which he possessed.
Only after a month he was convinced that bond sellers are born--not
made.
The General, still hoping against hope, had now taken him back into his
office on a salary and an interest in business secured, and thus made
his son more or less dependent upon his own efforts for the means to
enjoy his leisure. Father and son existed now as they had always done,
on a basis of mutual tolerance--a hazardous relation which often
threatened to lead and often did lead to open rupture. To-night
Cortland was aware that a discussion of more than usual importance was
impending, and, when dinner was over, the General ordered the coffee
served in the smoking room, the door of which, after the departure of
the butler, he firmly closed.
General Bent lit his cigar with some deliberation, while Cortland
watched him, studying the hard familiar features, the aquiline nose, the
thin lips, the deeply indented chin, wondering, as he had often wondered
before, how a father and son could be so dissimilar. It was a freak of
heredity, Nature's little joke--at Cornelius Bent's expense. The
General sank into his armchair, thoughtfully contemplating his legs and
emitting a cloud of smoke as though seeking in the common rite of
tobacco some ground of understanding between his son and himself.
"I want to speak to you about the Wrays," he said at last.
Cortland's gaze found the fire and remained on it.
"You are aware that a situation has arisen within the past few weeks
which has made it impossible for Bent & Company or myself personally to
have any further relations, either financial or social, with Jeff Wray?
He has taken a stand in regard to his holdings in Saguache Valley which
I consider neither proper nor justifiable. To make short of a long
matter, I thought it best some weeks ago to forget the matter of the
mine and make Wray an offer for his entire interests in the Saguache
Valley. It was a generous offer, one that no man in his position had a
right to refuse. But he did refuse it in such terms that further
negotiations on the subject were impossible."
"Yes, sir, I know," put in his son.
"Wray's rise is one of those remarkable combinations of luck and
ability--I'll concede him that--which are to be found in every community
once in a decade. From obscure beginnings--God knows what the fellow
sprang from--he has worked his way up in a period of three years to a
position of commanding influence. He owns the biggest independent
smelter in the West--built it, we now believe, with the intention of
underbidding the Amalgamated. He has not done so yet because he hasn't
been sure enough of himself. But he's rapidly acquiring a notion that
nothing Jeff Wray can do will fail. That is his weak point--as it is
with every beggar on horseback. You are familiar with all of these
facts. You've had some occasion," bitterly, "to form your own judgment
of the man. When you came East I was under the impression that, aside
from business, there were other reasons, why you disliked him."
"That is correct, sir," muttered Cortland, "there were."
The General eyed his son sharply before he spoke again.
"Am I to understand that those reasons still exist? Or----"
"One moment, sir. I'd like to know just where this conversation is
drifting. My relations with Wray have never been pleasant. He isn't
the type of man I've ever cared much about. No conditions that I'm
aware of could ever make us friendly, and, aside from his personality,
which I don't admire, I'm not likely to forget the 'Lone Tree' matter
very soon."
"H--m! That still rankles, does it? It does with me--with all of us.
Oh, I'm not blaming you, Cort. If you had been a little sharper you
might have made one last investigation before you signed those papers.
But you didn't, and that's the end of that part of the matter. What I
want to know now is just what your relations with the Wray family are at
the present moment. You hate Wray, and yet most of your leisure moments
are spent in the company of his wife. Am I to understand----?"
"Wait a moment, sir----" Cortland had risen and moved uneasily to the
fireplace. "I'd prefer that Mrs. Wray's name be kept out of the
discussion. I can't see how my relations with her can have any
bearing----"
"They have," the General interrupted suavely. "If Mrs. Wray is to
receive your confidences I can't give you mine."
"Thank you," bitterly. "I didn't know I had ever done anything to
warrant such an attitude as this."
"Tut! tut! Don't misunderstand me. Whatever your sins, they've always
been those of omission. I don't believe you'd betray me wilfully. But
intimacies with pretty women are dangerous, especially intimacies with
the wives of one's financial enemies; unless, of course, there's some
method in one's madness."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm sorry I don't make my intention clear. If your friendship with
Mrs. Wray can be useful to Bent & Company I see no reason why it
shouldn't continue. But if it jeopardizes my business plans in any way,
it's time it stopped. In my office you are in a position and will, I
hope, in the near future be in a further position to learn all the
business plans of the Amalgamated and other companies. Of course, I
don't know how far Mrs. Wray enjoys the business confidences of-her
husband. But it is safe to assume that, being a woman, she knows much
more than her husband thinks she does. I don't intend that you should
be placed in an embarrassing position with respect to her or with
respect to me. I'm on the point of starting the machinery of my office
on a big financial operation for the Amalgamated Reduction Company--the
exact nature of which until the present moment has remained a secret.
Your part in this deal has been mapped out with some care, and the
responsibilities I have selected for you should give you a sense of my
renewed faith in your capabilities. But you can't carry water on both
shoulders----"
"You're very flattering, sir. I've never carried much water on either
shoulder; and my relations with Mrs. Wray hardly warrant----"
"I can't see that," impatiently. "You're so often together that people
are talking about you. Curtis Janney has spoken to me about it. Of
course, your affair with Gretchen is one that you must work out for
yourselves, but I'll confess I'm surprised that she stands for your
rather obvious attentions to a married woman."
Cortland Bent smiled at the ash of his cigar. His father saw it and
lost his temper.
"I'm tired of this shilly-shallying," he snapped. "You seem to make a
practice in life of skating along the edge of important issues. I'm not
going to tolerate it any longer, and I've got to know just where you
stand."
"Well, dad," calmly, "where shall we begin? With Gretchen? Very well.
Gretchen and I have decided that we're not going to be married."
"What?"
"We have no intention of marrying next year or at any other time."
"Well, of all the----! Curtis Janney doesn't know this."
"He should. Gretchen is in love with somebody else, and I----"
"_You_! I understand. You are, too. You're in love with Jeff Wray's
wife."
He paused, but his son made no reply, though the old man watched his
face curiously for a sign. The General knocked his cigar-ash into the
fire.
"Is that true?"
"Under the circumstances I should prefer not to discuss the matter."
"Why? You and I haven't always been in sympathy, but the fact remains
that I'm your father." The old man's long fingers clutched the chair
arm, and he looked straight before him, speaking slowly. "I suppose
you've got to have your fling. I did. Every man does. But you're
almost old enough to be through that period now. There was never a
woman in the world worth the pains and anxieties of an affair of this
kind. A woman who plays loose with one man will do it with another.
The fashion of making love to other men's wives did not exist when I was
young."
Cortland turned to the fire, his lips compressed, and with the tongs
replaced a fallen log.
"When I was young," the old man went on, "a man's claim upon his wife
was never questioned. Society managed things better in those days.
Ostracism was the fate of the careless woman; and men of your age who
sought married women by preference were denied the houses of the young
girls of their own condition. If a fellow of your type had oats to sow,
he sowed them with a decent privacy instead of bringing his mother, his
sister, into contact----"
Cortland straightened up, the tongs in his hand, his face pale with
fury, saying in stifled tones:
"For God's sake, stop, or I'll strike you as you sit."
The General moved forward in his chair almost imperceptibly, and the
cigar slipped from his fingers and rolled on the hearth. For a long
moment the two men looked into each other's eyes, the elder conscious
that for the first time in his life he had seen his son really aroused.
There was no fear in the father's look, only surprise and a kind of
reluctant admiration for a side of Cortland's character he had never
seen. He sank back into his chair and looked into the fire.
"Oh!" he muttered.
"You had no right to speak of Mrs. Wray in those terms," said Cortland,
his voice still quivering.
"I'm sorry. I did not know."
Cortland set down the fire tongs, his hands trembling, and put both
elbows on the mantel-shelf.
"Perhaps, since you know so much," he said in a suppressed voice, "I had
better add that I would have married her if Wray hadn't."
"Really? You surprise me."
There was a moment of silence which proved to both men the futility of
further discussion.
"If you don't mind, I'd rather we didn't speak of this. Mrs. Wray would
understand your viewpoint less clearly than I do. She is not familiar
with vice, and she does not return my feeling for her. If she did, I
should be the last person in the world she would see----"
"I can't believe you."
"It is the truth. Strange as it may seem to you and to me, she loves
her husband."
"She married him for his money."
Cortland was silent. Memory suddenly pictured the schoolroom at Mesa
City where he had won Camilla and lost her in the same unfortunate
hour--his hour of mistakes, spiritual and material--a crucial hour in
his life which he had met mistily, a slave of the caste which had bred
him, a trifler in the sight of the only woman he could love, just as he
had been a trifler before the world in letters and in business.
"No," he replied. "She did not marry him for money. She married
him--for other reasons. She found those reasons sufficient then--she
finds them sufficient now." He dropped heavily, with the air of a
broken man, into an armchair, and put a hand over his eyes as though the
light hurt them. "Don't try to influence me, sir. Let me think this
out in my own way. Perhaps, after what you've told me about the
Amalgamated, I ought to let you know."
"Speak to me freely, Cort," said the old man more kindly.
"I don't want you to think of Camilla as the wife of Jeff Wray. I want
you to think of her as I think of her--as herself--as the girl I knew
when I first went West, an English garden-rose growing alone in the
heart of the desert. How she had taken root there Heaven only knows,
but she had--and bloomed more tenderly because of the weeds that
surrounded her."
He paused a moment and glanced at his father. General Bent had sunk deep
in his chair, his shaggy brows hiding his deeply set eyes, which peered
like those of a seer of visions into the dying embers before him. A
spell seemed to have fallen over him. Cortland felt for the first time
in his life that there was between them now some subtle bond of
sympathy, unknown, undreamed of, even. Encouraged, he went on.
"She was different from the others. I thought then it was because of
the rough setting. I know now that it wasn't. She is the same here
that she was out there. I can't see anything in any other woman; I
don't want to see anything in any other woman. I couldn't make her out;
it puzzled me that I could do nothing with her. After school hours--she
was the schoolmistress, you know, sir--we rode far up into the
mountains. She got to be a habit with me; then a fever. I didn't know
what was the matter except that I was sick because of the need of her.
I didn't think of marriage then. She was nothing. Her father kept a
store in Abilene, Kansas. I thought of you. All my inherited instincts,
my sense of class distinction, of which we people in New York make such
a fetich, were revolted. But I loved her, and I told her so."
Cortland sat up, then leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and
followed his father's gaze into the fire.
"She was too clean to understand me, sir. I knew it almost before I had
spoken. In her eyes there dawned the horror, the fear, the self-pity
which could not be said in words. Then Jeff Wray came in and I left
her--left Mesa City. There was--nothing else--to do."
His voice, which had sunk to a lower key, halted and then was silent. A
chiming clock in the hallway struck the hour; other clocks in dainty
echo followed in different parts of the house; an automobile outside
hooted derisively; but for a long while the two men sat, each busied
with a thread of memory which the young man had unreeled from the spool
of life. In the midst of his thoughts Cort heard a voice at his elbow,
the voice of an old man, tremulous and uncertain, a softer voice than
his father's.
"It is strange--very, very strange!"
"What is strange, sir?"
Cornelius Bent passed his fingers before his eyes quickly and
straightened in his chair.
"Your story. It's strange. You know, Cort, I, too, once loved a woman
like that--the way you do. It's an old romance--before your mother,
Cort. Nobody knows--nobody in the East ever knew--even Caroline----"
He stopped speaking as though he had already said too much, got up
slowly and walked the length of the room, while Cortland watched him,
conscious again of the sudden unusual sense of conciliation in them
both. At the other end of the room the General stood a moment, his
hands behind his back, his gaze upon the floor.
"I am sorry, Cort," he said with sudden harshness. And then, after a
pause, "You must not see Mrs. Wray again."
Cortland's hands clenched until the knuckles were white, and his eyes
closed tightly, as though by a muscular effort he might rob them of a
persistent vision. When he spoke his voice was husky like that of a man
who had been silent for a long time.
"You're right, sir--I've thought so for some days. But it's not so easy.
Sometimes I think she needs me----"
"Needs you? Don't they get along?"
"I don't know. There are times when I feel that I am doing the right
sort of thing."
"He doesn't abuse her?"
"I don't know. She'd be the last person to speak of it if he did. But
I think she doesn't altogether want me to go."
General Bent shook his head slowly. "No, Cort. It won't do. What
you've just told me makes your duty very clear--your duty to her and
your duty to yourself. There's danger ahead--danger for you both. You
may not care for my advice--we've not always understood each other--but
I hope you'll believe me when I say that I offer it unselfishly, with
the single purpose of looking after your own welfare. Leave New York.
I'm prepared to send you West next week, if you'll go. There will be a
lot of work for us all. It's possible that I may go, too, before long.
I can give you duties which will keep you busy so that you won't have
time to think of other things. When I first spoke to you of this
business to-night I spoke as President of the Amalgamated Reduction
Company, now I am speaking to you as a father. I want you with us more
than ever--largely on our account, but more largely now upon your own.
Will you go?"
Cortland rose and leaned one elbow on the mantel.
"You want me to help you in the fight for Wray's smelter?"
"Yes, I do."
"Don't you want me to see her again?"
"It's wiser not to. No good can come of it--perhaps a great deal of
harm."
"She would not understand--she knows I dislike her husband, but it seems
to me I ought to tell her----"
"That you're making financial war upon her husband? Forewarn
him--forearm him? What else would you say. That doesn't seem fair to
me, does it?"
He paused, watching his son narrowly and yet with a kind of stealthy
pity. Cortland's struggle cost him something.
"I suppose you're right," he said at last. And then, turning around
toward his father, "I will not see her again. Give me the work, sir,
and I'll do my best. Perhaps I haven't always tried to do that. I will,
though, if you give me the chance."
"Your hand on it, Cort. I won't forget this. I'm glad you spoke to me.
It hasn't always been our custom to exchange confidences, but I'll give
you more of mine if you'll let me. I'm getting old. More and more I
feel the need of younger shoulders to lean on. I'm not all a business
document, but the habit of mercilessness grows on one downtown. Mercy
has no place in business, and it's the merciful man that goes to the
wall. But I have another side. There's a tender chord left in me
somewhere. You've struck it to-night, and there's a kind of sweetness in
the pain of it, Cort. It's rusty and out of use, but it can still sing
a little."
Cortland laid his hand on the old man's shoulder almost timidly, as he
might have done to a stranger.
"You'll forgive me, father----?"
"Oh, that"--and he took his son's hand--"I honor you for that, my son.
She was the woman you loved. You could not hear her badly spoken of.
Perhaps if I had known my duty--I should have guessed. Say nothing
more. You're ready to take my instructions?"
"Yes--and the sooner the better."
"Very good. You'll hear more of this to-morrow. I am--I'm a little
tired to-night. I will see you at the office."
Cortland watched him pass out of the door and listened to his heavy step
on the broad staircase. Cornelius Bent was paying the toll of his
merciless years.
When he was gone, Cortland sank into the big chair his father had
vacated, his head in his hands, and remained motionless.
*CHAPTER XV*
*INFATUATION*
The season was at its height. The Rumsen ball, the Warringtons'
dinner-dance, and some of the subscription affairs had passed into
social history, but a brilliant season of opera not yet half over and a
dozen large dances were still to follow. Camilla sat at her desk
assorting and arranging the cards of her many visitors, recording
engagements and obligations. When Jeff had left for the West she had
plunged into the social whirlpool with a desperation born of a desire to
forget, and, as she went out, there had come a bitter pleasure in the
knowledge that, after all, she had been able to win her way in New York
against all odds. People sought her now, not because she was a protegee
of Mrs. Worthington Rumsen, or because she was the wife of the rich Mr.
Wray, but because she was herself.
The dangers which threatened no longer caused her any dismay, for
ambition obsessed her. It was an appetite which had grown great with
feeding, and she let it take her where it would. There was not an hour
of the day when she was not busy--in the mornings with her notes and her
shopping, in the afternoons with luncheons, teas, and other smart
functions, at night with dinners, the theatre, or the opera and the
calendared dances. There were few opportunities for her to be alone,
and the thought of a reconciliation with her husband, which had at one
time seemed possible, had been relegated to her mental dust-bin in
company with an assorted lot of youthful ideals which she had found it
necessary to discard.
She could not remember the day when she had not been socially ambitious.
Five months ago, before she and Jeff had quarreled, there had been a
time when she had been willing to give up the world and go back with
him. She had been less ambitious at that moment than ever before in her
life. If he had taken her with him then, there might still have been
time to repair their damages and begin life on a basis of real
understanding. For a brief time she had abhorred the new life he had
found for her, had hated herself for the thing that she really was, a
social climber, a pariah--too good for her old acquaintances, not good
enough for her new ones--a creature with a mission of intrusion, a being
neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring, and yet perhaps something of
all three. But that period of mental probation had passed. She no
longer felt that she was climbing. There were many broken rungs below
her on the social ladder, but those above were sound, and her head was
among clouds tinted with pink and amber.
Such was the magic of success. She lived in an atmosphere of soft
excitements and pleasurable exhilarations, of compliments and of
flattery, of violets and roses. Bridge lessons had improved her game,
but she still discovered that the amounts she could lose in a week were
rather appalling. Checks for large amounts came regularly from the
West, and she spent them a little recklessly, convinced that she was
obeying to the letter her husband's injunction to strengthen their
social position, no matter what the cost. She had written Jeff twice in
the first week after his departure asking if she could not follow him to
Mesa City. His replies had been brief and unnecessarily offensive--so
that, though his image loomed large at times, pride refused further
advances. Cortland Bent had been with her continually and of course
people were talking. She heard that from Mrs. Rumsen, who, in the
course of a morning of casual "mothering," had spoken to Camilla with
characteristic freedom.
"I know there's no harm in his attentions, child," she said, "at least
so far as you're concerned. You have always struck me as being
singularly capable of looking after yourself--and of course Cort is old
enough to know what _he_ is about. But it never does any one any good
to be talked about--especially a woman who has her way to make in the
world. There is a simplicity almost rustic in the way you two young
people allow yourselves to be discovered in public places--which, to an
ancient philosopher like myself, carries complete conviction of
innocence. But others may not be so discerning. If you were ugly or
deformed it wouldn't make the slightest difference what you did, but,
being handsome, you are on trial; and every pretty woman in society is
on the jury of a court which convicts on circumstantial evidence alone."
Camilla thanked her preceptor for the warning, aware of an unpleasant
sense of shock at the revelation. She seemed to have reached a point in
her mad infatuation with life where warnings made no impression upon
her. She had not seen Cort Bent for several days now, and, while she
experienced a vague sense of loss in his absence, which had not been
explained, she was so busy that she had not even found time to analyze
it.
A belated cold season had set in--a season of snow and ice; and
fashionable New Yorkers, in a brief interlude of unimportant
engagements, flocked for the week-end to their country places to enjoy a
few days of old-fashioned winter weather. The Billy Havilands' farm was
within motoring distance of the town. It wasn't much of a place in the
modern sense, merely a charming old shingled farmhouse which had been
remodeled and added to, set in a big lawn like a baroque pearl in green
enamel, surrounded by ancient trees which still protected it with their
beneficent boughs. As Haviland and his wife preferred the city in
winter and went to their Newport cottage in summer, they only used The
Cove for small house parties between seasons. It was kept open for just
such occasions as the present one, and Camilla, who had joined this
party at the last moment, was looking forward with enjoyment to a
glimpse of winter life in a different sort of community.
Snow had fallen during the night, but the day was cold and clear--one of
those dry, sparkling days like the winter ones in Colorado when the
Saguache Peak was laid like a white paper-cutting against the turquoise
sky, and the trees at timber line were visible in silhouette to the
naked eye. It was freezing hard, and Camilla's skin tingled sharply
beneath her motor veil, but she lay back in her warm furs beside Dorothy
Haviland in the tonneau, drinking deep breaths of delight as she watched
the panorama of purple hills across the river. The snow was not too
deep for easy going, but in places it had drifted across the road waist
high. Rejoicing in the chance to test the mettle of his high-powered
car, Haviland took these drifts on the high gear, sending a cloud of
iridescent crystals over and about his guests, who pelted the
unresponsive back of his head with snowballs. Farmers in sleighs and
wagons on runners drew aside in alarm, to stare with open mouths at the
panting demon--which passed them by before their horses had time to be
frightened. Every ride with "Billy" was a "joy" ride--he hadn't driven
this car in the Vanderbilt Cup race for nothing. Jack Perot clung to the
robe rail, and alternately prayed and swore in Haviland's ear; the
Baroness Charny punctuated his remarks with cunning foreign cries, and
Dorothy herself admonished him to be careful, but Camilla, whatever she
felt, sat quietly between the two women, her pulses going fast, a prey
to the new excitement of speed.
Haviland had 'phoned his orders from the city to have the bobsled sent
over to the Country Club--and when they drove through the entrance
gates, the pond in the valley below the golf course was dotted with
skaters. A blue thread of smoke trailed skyward from the cabin of the
Fishing and Skating Club--a part of the larger organization--from which
people came and glided forth by twos and threes over the glossy blue
surface of the pond.
A surprise awaited the party, for as the motor drew up at the steps of
the Golf House it was greeted by a storm of soft snowballs from a crowd
ambushed in a snow fort on the lawn. The motor party got out hurriedly,
laughing like children, while Billy Haviland, like a good general,
marshaled his forces under the protecting bulk of the machine, while
they threw off their heavy furs and made snowballs enough to sally forth
valiantly to the attack. The battle was short and furious, until Jack
Perot and Camilla by a dexterous flank-movement assailed the unprotected
wings and came to close quarters with the enemy, Larry, Gretchen,
Cortland Bent, and Rita Cheyne. A well-aimed shot by Camilla caught
Cortland on the nose, which disconcerted him for a moment, and Haviland
improved his opportunity by washing Rita's face in snow. A truce was
declared, however, but not before the besiegers had entered the
breastworks and given three cheers for their victory.
"I'll never forgive you, Billy," laughed Rita, brushing the snow from
her neck. "Never--I'm simply soaking."
"Spoils of victory! You're lucky I didn't kiss you."
"Yes, I am," she said with sudden demureness. "I'd rather have my face
washed."
The machine was sent on, and, chatting gaily, the party made its way
down to the cabin by the lakeside, a path to which had been cleared
through the snow. Camilla glanced at Cortland Bent, who stood silently
at her side.
"What's the matter, Cort? Aren't you going to speak to me?" she asked
carelessly.