It was well that the work which Helen was doing when Elijah left the
office was mechanical, else it might have lacked the finish which made
her in demand above all others. She could not keep her thoughts from
this man and his work. With a frown, she glanced at her watch. Returning
it to her belt, she drew her finished work from her machine and began to
put the office in order. She stood absently before a mirror as she
pinned her hat in place, turning with perfunctory pats here and there,
touching a stray lock into order and smoothing down her gown. She passed
out into the street, locking the door behind her, and turned to
Winston's office. Her light footsteps as she entered, did not arouse his
attention. For a moment she stood, looking at him as he bent over his
work.
"You are cordial, I must confess."
Ralph looked up.
"Ah! What's the matter?" he concluded, noting her sober face.
"What is the matter?"
"Why, you're as solemn as an owl."
"Do you object to my sitting down for a moment?"
"Not for two moments. I'm glad to see you." Winston rose hastily and
swung a chair into position.
"That's better," she approved.
"Good! Now if you'll get better, I shall know where I'm at."
"I've come here to find out where _I'm_ at."
"If you are lost, it's the first time, I'm thinking, and I'm not so sure
that I can set you straight."
"I'll take my chances. Who is Elijah Berl?"
Winston laughed.
"Oh, he's gotten hold of you, has he?"
"No, he hasn't; but I want to get hold of him to the extent of five
thousand dollars. That is the limit of my cash money."
Winston smiled tolerantly.
"Elijah has certainly missed his calling. If he can work you up five
thousand dollars' worth in an hour or so, I'll play him the limit
against Wall street."
"No you won't. You don't know Elijah Berl."
"Then what are you asking me about him for?"
"Oh! that was just a starter. I had to begin somewhere."
"Isn't five thousand dollars a pretty heavy starter for you, Helen?"
Winston asked the question soberly, for he saw that Helen was in
earnest.
"No. I've kept out of Ysleta because it wasn't worth while. I want to
get into Las Cruces because it is."
"It may be, Helen. It is full of promise, but it may not mature. I know
the proposition pretty thoroughly and I know Elijah Berl. The elements
of this may not be so solid as they appear."
"The watershed is all right, isn't it?"
"Without a question."
"The water can be brought from the reservoir to the lands?"
"No question about that, either."
"And the land is fertile and suited to oranges?"
"That's true too, but it needs money."
"You'll get that all right."
"I expect to, without doubt."
Helen had spoken with growing animation.
"Then the whole doubt in your mind centres in Elijah Berl?"
"You've hit it exactly."
"And yet you are a friend of Elijah's?" There was a touch of contempt in
her voice.
"Yes."
"Then I must say that I don't value your friendship quite so highly as I
did." Helen made no attempt to conceal her disapproval.
Winston spoke deliberately, weighing every word.
"I'm sorry to hear you say that, Helen. Your friendship means a great
deal to me. Just remember that in a way you have come to me for advice.
If not advice exactly, you really ask for the approval of what I cannot
approve without reserve. I have counted you as my friend. If I have
seemed to be a traitor to Elijah, it is only that I might be true to
you. I would not say to any one else what I have said to you."
Helen's resentment died away before Winston's words.
"You haven't answered my first question yet. You seem able, if you only
will."
"In a way, yes. Elijah Berl and I are partners."
"Partners!" Helen did not try to conceal her surprise.
"Yes. The agreement was signed today. Elijah was more than generous in
his terms."
"And yet you could say what you did of him!"
"Yes. I gave him fair warning. I didn't tell him in so many words that I
distrusted him; I simply said that our different views of things might
in the future bring us into conflict. If he couldn't understand that, it
was useless to say more."
"And yet, distrusting him, you have tied yourself to him. It doesn't
seem quite harmonious to me and not a bit like you."
"It isn't harmonious. Nothing is, for that matter, unless you make it
so."
"Then the success of the whole business depends upon your ability to
manage Elijah Berl?"
"That's about the gist of it."
"Yours must be a comfortable state of mind." There was sarcasm in the
voice.
"I am speaking as freely to you, Helen, as I do to myself. I thought our
standing would allow that."
Helen made no reply. She sat gazing absently into the street. She was in
an uncomfortable frame of mind. Twice that day she had been swept hither
and thither under influences outside herself. It was unusual for her and
it was discomposing. The Las Cruces Irrigation Company had looked so
safe as a permanent and a big paying investment, and Elijah Berl himself
had stirred her as she had never before been stirred. And now Ralph
Winston had told her in so many words that she did not know what she was
about. She resented this hotly. She resented it the more strongly,
because she recognized the injustice she was doing Ralph. It was long
before she had herself under control. At length she turned from the
street and looked at Winston.
"I had a letter from home today."
Winston responded eagerly to her changed mood.
"How are they all?"
"Just as well as ever. Mother says that father bobbed up from under that
anti-debris decision like a cork in salt water. He says he is going to
put up a dam that the debris commission can't look over in a week's
climbing. Jimmie is his ablest assistant."
"Little rascal! Say, Helen, you ought to take him in hand and make him
go to college. You're the only one who can manage him. He has the making
of one of the biggest engineers in the country."
"Why don't you try your hand, Ralph? Mother says that you are his god
yet. When he gets cornered, he insists that his way is just what Mr.
Winston would do, and there he sticks. Father and mother both ask when
you are coming back."
Winston shook his head almost regretfully. "I sometimes wish I had never
left, but that's too late now. When I get a little despondent, the roar
of the monitors eating into the gravel, the swish of the water and the
clatter of boulders in the sluices get into my ears till I'm nearly
wild."
"That is all over now. When I came away there were only a few
discouraged miners digging in the banks and listening for the officers
to come around and stop even that."
Winston went on even more regretfully.
"And I remember when you and I went barefoot, wading around with gold
pans and scrapping as to which had the biggest pan--"
Helen rose to go. Her intuition told her that they were on dangerous
ground.
"Old things and times are gone. We have put away childish things and
gold pans, for something new."
Winston took her hand. A momentary pressure on her part and she withdrew
it. She could not look into his eyes.
"Be careful about the new, Helen. There's fool's gold in these diggings
too."
"Which reminds me, our last scrap as children was over that very thing."
Then the door closed behind her and Winston was alone.