Weary was standing pensively by the door, debating with himself the
advisability of going boldly over and claiming the first waltz with the
schoolma'am--and taking a chance on being refused--when Cal Emmett gave
him a vicious poke in the ribs by way of securing his attention.
"Do yuh see that bunch uh red loco over there by the organ?" he wanted
to know. "That's Bert Rogers' cousin from Iowa."
Weary looked and wilted against the wall. "Oh, Mamma!" he gasped.
"Ain't she a peach? There'll be more than one pair uh hands go into
the air to-night. It's a good thing Len got the drop on me first or
I'd be making seven kinds of a fool uh myself, chances is. Bert says
she's bad medicine--a man-killer from away back.
"Say, she's giving us the bad-eye. Don't rubber like that, Weary; it
ain't good manners, and besides; the schoolma'am's getting fighty, if
I'm any judge."
Weary pulled himself together and tried to look away, but a pair of
long blue eyes with heavy white lids drew him hypnotically across the
room. He did not want to go; he did not mean to go, but the first he
knew he was standing before her and she was smiling up at him just as
she used to do. And an evil spell seemed to fall upon Weary, so that
he thought one set of thoughts while his lips uttered sentences quite
apart from his wishes. He was telling her, for instance, that he was
glad to see her; and he was not glad. He was wishing the train which
brought her to Montana had jumped the track and gone over a high
cut-bank, somewhere.
She continued to smile up at him, and she called him Will and held out
her hand. When, squirming inward protest, he took it, she laid her
left hand upon his and somehow made him feel as if he were in a trap.
Her left hand was soft and plump and cool, and it was covered with
rings that gave flashes and sparkles of light when she moved, and her
nails were manicured to a degree not often seen in Dry Lake. She drew
her fingers caressingly over his hand and spoke to him in _italics_, in
the way that had made many a man lose his head and say things extremely
foolish. Her name was Myrtle Forsyth, as Weary had cause to remember.
"How strange to see you away out here," she murmured, and glanced to
where the musicians were beginning to play little preparatory strains.
"Have you forgotten how to _waltz_, Will? You used to dance so _well_!"
What could a man do after a hint as broad as that one? Weary held out
his arm meekly, while mentally he was gnashing his teeth, and muttered
something about her giving him a trial. And she slipped her hand under
his elbow with a proprietary air that was not lost upon a certain
brown-eyed young woman across the hall.
Weary had said some hard things to Myrtle Forsyth when he talked with
her last, away back in Iowa; he had hoped to heaven he never would see
her again. Now, she observed that he had not lost his good looks in
grieving over her. She decided that he was even better looking; there
was an air of strength and a self poise that was very becoming to his
broad shoulders and the six feet two inches of his height. She
thought, before the waltz was over, that she had made a mistake when
she threw him over--a mistake which she ought to rectify at once.
Weary never knew how she managed it--in truth, he was not aware that
she did it at all--but he seemed to dance a great many times with her
of the long eyes and the bright auburn hair. The schoolma'am seemed
always to be at the farther end of the room, and she appeared to be
enjoying herself very much and to dance incessantly.
Once he broke away from Miss Forsyth and went and asked Miss Satterly
for the next waltz; but she opened her big eyes at him and assured him
politely that she was engaged. He tried for a quadrille, a two-step, a
schottische--even for a polka, which she knew he hated; but the
schoolma'am was, apparently, the most engaged young woman in Dry Lake
that night.
So Weary owned himself beaten and went back to Miss Forsyth, who had
been watching and learning many things and making certain plans. Weary
danced with her once and took a fit of sulking, when he stood over by
the door and smoked cigarettes and watched moodily the whirling
couples. Miss Forsyth drifted to other acquaintances, which was
natural; what was not so natural, to Weary's mind, was to see her
sitting out a quadrille with the schoolma'am.
That did not look good to Weary, and he came near going over and
demanding to know what they were talking about. He was ready to bet
that Myrt Forsyte, with that smile, was up to some deviltry--and he
wished he knew what. She reminded him somewhat of Glory when Glory was
cloyed with peaceful living. He even told himself viciously that Myrt
Forsyth had hair the exact shade of Glory's, and it came near giving
him a dislike of the horse.
The conversation in the corner, after certain conventional subjects had
been exhausted, came to Miss Forsyth's desire something like this: She
said how she loved to waltz,--with the right partner, that is. Apropos
the right partner, she glanced slyly from the end of her long eyes and
remarked:
"Will--Mr. Davidson--is an _ideal_ partner, don't you think? Are
you--but of _course_ you must be _acquainted_ with him, living in the
same _neighborhood_?" Her inflection made a question of the
declaration.
"Certainly I am acquainted with Mr. Davidson," said Miss Satterly with
just the right shade of indifference. "He does dance very well, though
there are others I like better." That, of course, was a prevarication.
"You knew him before tonight?"
Miss Forsyth laughed that sort of laugh which may mean anything you
like. "_Knew_ him? Why, we were en--that is, we grew _up_ in the same
_town_. I was so perfectly _amazed_ to find him _here_, poor fellow."
"Why poor fellow?" asked Miss Satterly, the direct. "Because you found
him? or because he is here?"
The long eyes regarded her curiously. "Why, don't you _know_?
Hasn't--hasn't it _followed_ him?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," said the schoolma'am, calmly facing the
stare. "If you mean a dog, he doesn't own one, I believe. Cowboys
don't seem to take to dogs; they're afraid they might be mistaken for
sheep-herders, perhaps--and that would be a disgrace."
Miss Forsyth leaned back and her eyes, half closed as they were, saw
Weary away down by the door. "No, I didn't mean a _dog_. I'm _glad_
if he has gotten _quite away_ from--he's such a _dear_ fellow! Even if
he _did_--but I never believed it, you know. If only he had _trusted_
me, and _stayed_ to face-- But he went without telling me _goodbye_,
even, and we-- But he was _afraid_, you see--"
Miss Satterly also glanced across to where Weary stood gloomily alone,
his hands thrust into his pockets. "I really can't imagine Mr.
Davidson as being afraid," she remarked defensively.
"Oh, but you don't understand! Will is _physically_ brave--and he was
afraid I-- but I _believed_ in him, _always_--even when--" She broke
off suddenly and became prettily diffident. "I wonder _why_ I am
talking to _you_ like this. But there is something so _sympathetic_ in
your very _atmosphere_--and seeing _him_ so _unexpectedly_ brought it
all _back_--and it seemed as if I _must_ talk to _someone_, or I should
_shriek_." (Myrtle Forsyth was often just upon the point of
"shrieking") "And he was _so_ glad to see me--and when I _told_ him I
never _believed_ a _word_-- But you see, _leaving_ the way he _did_--"
"Well," said Miss Satterly rather unsympathetically, "and how did he
leave, then?"
Miss Forsyth twisted her watch chain and hesitated. "I really ought
_not_ to say a _word_--if you really don't _know_--what he _did_--"
"If it's to his discredit," said the schoolma'am, looking straight at
her, "I certainly don't know. It must have been something awful,
judging from your tone. Did he"--she spoke solemnly--"did he
_mur-r_der ten people, old men and children, and throw their bodies
into--a _well_?"
It is saying much for Miss Forsyth that she did not look as
disconcerted as she felt. She did, however, show a rather catty look
in her eyes, and her voice was tinged faintly with malice. "There are
_other_ crimes--beside--_murder_," she reminded. "I won't tell _what_
it was--but--but _Will_ found it necessary to _leave in the night_! He
did not even come to tell _me_ goodbye, and I have--but now we have met
by _chance_, and I could _explain_--and so," she smiled tremulously at
the schoolma'am, "I _know_ you can _understand_--and you will not
_mention_ to _anyone_ what I have told you. I'm too _impulsive_--and I
felt _drawn_ to you, somehow. I--I would _die_ if I thought any _harm_
could come to Will because of my _confiding_ in you. A woman," she
added pensively, "has so _much_ to bear--and this has been very
_hard_--because it was not a thing I could _talk over_--not even with
my own _mother_!" Miss Forsyth had the knack of saying very little
that was definite, and implying a great deal. This method saved her
the unpleasantness of retraction, and had quite as deep an effect is if
she came out plainly. She smiled confidingly down at the schoolma'am
and went off to waltz with Bert Rogers, apparently quite satisfied with
what she had accomplished.
Miss Satterly sat very still, scarce thinking consciously. She stared
at Weary and tried to imagine him a fugitive from his native town, and
in spite of herself wondered what it was he had done. It must be
something very bad, and she shrank from the thought. Then Cal Emmett
came up to ask her for a dance, and she went with him thankfully and
tried to forget the things she had heard.
Weary, after dancing with every woman but the one he wanted, and
finding himself beside Myrtle Forsyth with a frequency that puzzled
him, felt an unutterable disgust for the whole thing. After a waltz
quadrille, during which he seemed to get her out of his arms only to
find her swinging into them again, and smiling up at him in a way he
knew of old, he made desperately for the door; snatched up the first
gray hat he came to--which happened to belong to Chip--and went out
into the dewy darkness.
It was half an hour before he could draw the hostler of the Dry Lake
stable away from a crap game, and it was another half hour before he
succeeded in overcoming Glory's disinclination for a gallop over the
prairie alone.
But it was two hours before Miss Forsythe gave over watching furtively
the door, and it was daylight before Chip Emmett found a gray hat under
the water bench--a hat which he finally recognized as Weary's and so
appropriated to his own use.