It was evening when Hetty Torrance sat alone in a room of Mrs. Schuyler's
house at Hastings-on-the-Hudson. The room was pretty, though its adornment
was garish and somewhat miscellaneous, consisting as it did of the
trophies of Miss Schuyler's European tour. A Parisian clock, rich in
gilded scroll work to the verge of barbarity, contrasted with the artistic
severity of one or two good Italian marbles, while these in turn stood
quaintly upon choice examples of time-mellowed English cabinet-work. There
was taste in them all, but they suffered from the juxtaposition, which,
however, was somewhat characteristic of the country. Still, Miss Schuyler
had not spoiled the splendid parquetrie floor of American timber.
The windows were open wide, and when a little breeze from the darkening
river came up across the lawn, Hetty languidly raised her head. The
coolness was grateful, the silken cushions she reclined amidst luxurious,
but the girl's eyes grew thoughtful as they wandered round the room, for
that evening the suggestion of wealth in all she saw jarred upon her mood.
The great city lay not very far away, sweltering with its crowded tenement
houses under stifling heat; and she could picture the toilers who herded
there, gasping for air. Then her fancy fled further, following the long
emigrant train as it crawled west from side-track to side-track, close
packed with humanity that was much less cared for than her father's
cattle.
She had often before seen the dusty cars roll into a wayside depot to wait
until the luxurious limited passed, and the grimy faces at the windows,
pale and pinched, cunning, or coarsely brutal, after the fashion of their
kind, had roused no more than a passing pity. It was, however, different
that night, for Grant's words had roused her to thought, and she wondered
with a vague apprehension whether the tramp of weary feet she had listened
to would once more break in upon her sheltered life. Larry had foreseen
changes, and he was usually right. Then she brushed these fancies into the
background, for she had still a decision to make. Captain Cheyne would
shortly arrive, and she knew what he came to ask. He was also a personable
man, and, so far as the Schuylers knew, without reproach, while Hetty had
seen a good deal of him during the past twelve months. She admitted a
liking for him, but now that the time had come to decide, she was not
certain that she would care to spend her life with him. As a companion, he
left nothing to be desired, but, as had happened already with another man
with whom Miss Torrance had been pleased, that position did not appear to
content him; and she had misgivings about contracting a more permanent
bond. It was almost a relief when Miss Schuyler came in.
"Stand up, Hetty. I want to look at you," she said.
Miss Torrance obeyed and stood before her, girlishly slender in her long
dress, though there was an indefinite suggestion of imperiousness in her
dark eyes.
"Will I pass?" she asked.
Flora Schuyler surveyed her critically and then laughed. "Yes," she said.
"You're pretty enough to please anybody, and there's a style about you
that makes it quite plain you were of some importance out there on the
prairie. Now you can sit down again, because I want to talk to you. Who's
Larry Grant?"
"Tell me what you think of him."
Miss Schuyler pursed her lips reflectively. "Well," she said, "he's not
New York. Quite a good-looking man, with a good deal in him, but I'd like
to see him on horseback. Been in the cavalry? You're fond of them, you
know."
"No," said Hetty, "but he knows more about horses than any cavalry
officer. Larry's a cattle-baron."
"I never quite knew what the cattle-barons were, except that your father's
one, and they're mostly rich," said Miss Schuyler.
Hetty's eyes twinkled. "I don't think Larry's very rich. They're the men
or the sons of them, who went west when the prairie belonged to the
Indians and the Blackfeet, Crows, and Crees made them lots of trouble.
Still, they held the land they settled on, and covered it with cattle,
until the Government gave it to them, 'most as much as you could ride
across in a day, to each big rancher."
"Gave it to them?"
Hetty nodded. "A lease of it. It means the same thing. A few of them,
though I think it wasn't quite permitted, bought other leases in, and out
there a cattle-baron is a bigger man than a railroad king. You see, he
makes the law--all there is--as well as supports the industry, for there's
not a sheriff in the country dares question him. The cattle-boys are his
retainers, and we've a squadron of them at the Range. They'd do just what
Torrance of Cedar told them, whatever it was, and there are few men who
could ride with them in the U. S. Cavalry."
"Then," said Flora Schuyler, "if the Government ever encouraged
homesteading in their country they'd make trouble."
Hetty laughed. "Yes," she said drily, "I guess they would, but no
government dares meddle with us."
"Well," said Flora Schuyler, "you haven't told us yet who Larry is. You
know quite well what I mean."
Hetty smiled. "I called him my partner when I was home. Larry held me on
my first pony, and has done 'most whatever I wanted him ever since.
Fremont isn't very far from the Range, and when I wanted to ride anywhere,
or to have a new horse broken, Larry was handy."
Miss Schuyler appeared reflective, but there was a bond of confidence
between the two, and the reserve that characterizes the Briton is much
less usual in that country.
"It always seemed to me, my dear, that an arrangement of that kind is a
little rough on the man, and I think this one is too good to spoil," she
said.
Hetty coloured a trifle, but she smiled. "It is all right with Larry. He
never expected anything."
"No?" said Flora Schuyler. "He never tried to make love to you?"
The tinge of colour grew a trifle deeper in Hetty's cheek. "Only once, and
I scarcely think he meant it. It was quite a long while ago, and I told
him he must never do it again."
"And since then he has tamed your horses, and bought you all the latest
songs and books--good editions in English art bindings. It was Larry who
sent you those flowers when we could scarcely get one?"
Hetty for some reason turned away her head. "Don't you get things of that
kind?"
A trace of gravity crept into Flora Schuyler's blue eyes, which were
unusually attractive ones. "When they come too often I send them back,"
she said. "Oh, I know I'm careless now and then, but one has to do the
square thing, and I wouldn't let any man do all that for me unless I was
so fond of him that I meant to marry him. Now I'm going to talk quite
straight to you, Hetty. You'll have to give up Larry by and by, but if you
find that's going to hurt you, send the other man away."
"You don't understand," and there was a little flash in Hetty's dark eyes.
"Larry's kind to everyone--he can't help it; but he doesn't want me."
Flora Schuyler gravely patted her companion's arm. "My dear, we don't want
to quarrel, but you'll be careful--to please me. Jake Cheyne is coming,
and you might be sorry ever after if you made a mistake to-night."
Hetty made no answer, and there was silence for a space while the light
grew dimmer, until the sound of voices rose from without, and she felt her
heart beat a trifle faster than usual, when somebody said, "Captain
Cheyne!"
Then there was a rustle of draperies and Mrs. Schuyler, thin, angular, and
considerably more silent than is customary with women of her race, came
in, with her younger daughter and a man in her train. The latter bore the
stamp of the soldier plainly, but there was a distinction in his pose that
was not the result of a military training. Then as he shook hands with
Flora Schuyler the fading light from the window fell upon his face,
showing it clean cut from the broad forehead to the solid chin, and
reposeful instead of nervously mobile. His even, low-pitched voice was
also in keeping with it, for Jackson Cheyne was an unostentatious American
of culture widened by travel, and, though they are not always to be found
in the forefront in their own country, unless it has need of them, men of
his type have little to fear from comparison with those to be met with in
any other one.
He spoke when there was occasion, and was listened to, but some time had
passed before he turned to Mrs. Schuyler. "I wonder if it would be too
great a liberty if I asked Miss Torrance to give us some music," he said.
"I am going away to-morrow to a desolate outpost in New Mexico, and it
will be the last time for months that I shall have a treat of that kind."
Flora Schuyler opened the piano, and Hetty smiled at Cheyne as she took
her place; but the man made a little gesture of negation when Mrs.
Schuyler would have rung for lights.
"Wouldn't it be nicer as it is?" he said.
Hetty nodded, and there was silence before the first chords rang softly
through the room. Though it may have been that the absence of necessity to
strive and stain her daintiness amidst the press was responsible for much,
Hetty Torrance's voice had failed to win her fame; but she sang and played
better than most well-trained amateurs. Thus there was no rustle of
drapery or restless movements until the last low notes sank into the
stillness. Then the girl glanced at the man who had unobtrusively managed
to find a place close beside her.
"You know what that is?" she said.