A BREAK IN THE STORY
Mary Radford had found the day too beautiful to remain indoors and so
directly after dinner she had caught up her pony and was off for a ride
through the cottonwood. She had been compelled to catch up the pony
herself, for of late Ben had been neglectful of this duty. Until the
last week or so he had always caught her pony and placed the saddle on
it before leaving in the morning, assuring her that if she did not ride
during his absence the pony would not suffer through being saddled and
bridled. But within the last week she thought she detected a change in
Ben's manner. He seemed preoccupied and glum, falling suddenly into a
taciturnity broken only by brief periods during which he condescended
to reply to her questions with--it seemed--grudging monosyllables.
Several times, too, she had caught him watching her with furtive
glances in which, she imagined, she detected a glint of speculation.
But of this she was not quite sure, for when she bluntly questioned him
concerning his moods he had invariably given her an evasive reply.
Fearing that there might have been a recurrence of the old trouble with
the Two Diamond manager--about which he had told her during her first
days at the cabin--she ventured a question. He had grimly assured her
that he anticipated no further trouble in that direction. So, unable
to get a direct reply from him she had decided that perhaps he would
speak when the time came, and so she had ceased questioning.
In spite of his negligence regarding the pony, she had not given up her
rides. Nor had she neglected to give a part of each morning to the
story.
The work of gradually developing her hero's character had been an
absorbing task; times when she lingered over the pages of the story she
found herself wondering whether she had sounded the depths of his
nature. She knew, at least, that she had made him attractive, for as
he moved among her pages, she--who should have been satiated with him
because of being compelled to record his every word and movement--found
his magnetic personality drawing her applause, found that he haunted
her dreams, discovered one day that her waking moments were filled with
thoughts of him.
But of late she had begun to suspect that her interest in him was not
all on account of the story; there were times when she sat long
thinking of him, seeing him, watching the lights and shadows of
expression come and go in his face. Somewhere between the real
Ferguson and the man who was impersonating him in her story was an
invisible line that she could not trace. There were times when she
could not have told whether the character she admired belonged to the
real or the unreal.
She was thinking much of this to-day while she rode into the subdued
light of the cottonwood. Was she, absorbed in the task of putting a
real character in her story, to confess that her interest in him was
not wholly the interest of the artist who sees the beauties and virtues
of a model only long enough to paint them into the picture? The
blushes came when she suddenly realized that her interest was not
wholly professional, that she had lately lingered long over her model,
at times when she had not been thinking of the story at all.
Then, too, she had considered her friends in the East. What would they
say if they knew of her friendship with the Two Diamond stray-man? The
standards of Eastern civilization were not elastic enough to include
the man whom she had come to know so well, who had strode as boldly
into her life as he had strode into her story, with his steady, serene
eyes, his picturesque rigging, and his two guns, their holsters tied so
suggestively and forebodingly down. Would her friends be able to see
the romance in him? Would they be able to estimate him according to
the standards of the world in which he lived, in which he moved so
gracefully?
She was aware that, measured by Eastern standards, Ferguson fell far
short of the average in those things that combine to produce the
polished gentleman. Yet she was also aware that these things were mere
accomplishments, a veneer acquired through constant practice--and that
usually the person known as "gentleman" could not be distinguished by
these things at all--that the real "gentleman" could be known only
through the measure of his quiet and genuine consideration and
unfailing Christian virtues.
As she rode through the cottonwood, into that deep solitude which
brings with it a mighty reverence for nature and a solemn desire for
communion with the soul--that solitude in which all affectation
disappears and man is face to face with his Maker--she tried to think
of Ferguson in an Eastern drawing room, attempting a sham courtesy,
affecting mannerisms that more than once had brought her own soul into
rebellion. But she could not get him into the imaginary picture. He
did not belong there; it seemed that she was trying to force a living
figure into a company of mechanical puppets. And so they were--puppets
who answered to the pulling strings of precedent and established
convention.
But at the same time she knew that this society which she affected to
despise would refuse to accept him; that if by any chance he should be
given a place in it he would be an object of ridicule, or at the least
passive contempt. The world did not want originality; would not
welcome in its drawing room the free, unaffected child of nature. No,
the world wanted pretense, imitation. It frowned upon truth and
applauded the sycophant.
She was not even certain that if she succeeded in making Ferguson a
real living character the world would be interested in him. But she
had reached that state of mind in which she cared very little about the
world's opinion. She, at least, was interested in him.
Upon the same afternoon--for there is no rule for the mere incidents of
life--Ferguson loped his pony through the shade of the cottonwood. He
was going to visit the cabin in Bear Flat. Would she be at home?
Would she be glad to see him? He could not bring his mind to give him
an affirmative answer to either of these questions.
But of one thing he was certain--she had treated him differently from
the other Two Diamond men who had attempted to win her friendship. Was
he to think then that she cared very little whether he came to the
cabin or not? He smiled over his pony's mane at the thought. He could
not help but see that she enjoyed his visits.
When he rode up to the cabin he found it deserted, but with a smile he
remounted Mustard and set out over the river trail, through the
cottonwood. He was sure that he would find her on the hill in the
flat, and when he had reached the edge of the cottonwood opposite the
hill he saw her.
When she heard the clatter of his pony's hoofs she turned and saw him,
waving a hand at him.
"I reckoned on findin' you here," he said when he came close enough to
be heard.
She shyly made room for him beside her on the rock, but there was
mischief in her eye. "It seems impossible to hide from you," she said
with a pretense of annoyance.
He laughed as he came around the edge of the rock and sat near her.
"Was you really tryin' to hide?" he questioned. "Because if you was,"
he continued, "you hadn't ought to have got up on this hill--where I
could see you without even lookin' for you."
"But of course you were not looking for me," she observed quietly.
He caught her gaze and held it--steadily. "I reckon I was lookin' for
you," he said.
"Why--why," she returned, suddenly fearful that something had happened
to Ben--"is anything wrong?"
He smiled. "Nothin' is wrong," he returned. "But I wanted to talk to
you, an' I expected to find you here."
There was a gentleness in his voice that she had not heard before, and
a quiet significance to his words that made her eyes droop away from
his with slight confusion. She replied without looking at him.
"But I came here to write," she said.
He gravely considered her, drawing one foot up on the rock and clasping
his hands about the knee. "I've thought a lot about that book," he
declared with a trace of embarrassment, "since you told me that you was
goin' to put real men an' women in it. I expect you've made them do
the things that you've wanted them to do an' made them say what you
wanted them to say. That part is right an' proper--there wouldn't be
any sense of anyone writin' a book unless they could put into it what
they thought was right. But what's been botherin' me is this; how can
you tell whether the things you've made them say is what they would
have said if they'd had any chance to talk? An' how can you tell what
their feelin's would be when you set them doin' somethin'?"
She laughed. "That is a prerogative which the writer assumes without
question," she returned. "The author of a novel makes his characters
think and act as the author himself imagines he would act in the same
circumstances."
He looked at her with amused eyes. "That's just what I was tryin' to
get at," he said. "You've put me into your book, an' you've made me do
an' say things out of your mind. But you don't know for sure whether I
would have done an' said things just like you've wrote them. Mebbe if
I would have had somethin' to say I wouldn't have done things your way
at all."
"I am sure you would," she returned positively.
"Well, now," he returned smiling, "you're speakin' as though you was
pretty certain about it. You must have wrote a whole lot of the story."
"It is two-thirds finished," she returned with a trace of satisfaction
in her voice which did not escape him.
"An' you've got all your characters doin' an' thinkin' things that you
think they ought to do?" His eyes gleamed craftily. "You got a man
an' a girl in it?"
"Of course."
"An' they're goin' to love one another?"
"No other outcome is popular with novel readers," she returned.
He rocked back and forth, his eyes languidly surveying the rim of hills
in the distance.
"I expect that outcome is popular in real life too," he observed.
"Nobody ever hears about it when it turns out some other way."
"I expect love is always a popular subject," she returned smiling.
His eyes were still languid, his gaze still on the rim of distant hills.
"You got any love talk in there--between the man an' the girl?" he
questioned.
"Of course."
"That's mighty interestin'," he returned. "I expect they do a good bit
of mushin'?"
"They do not talk extravagantly," she defended.
"Then I expect it must be pretty good," he returned. "I don't like
mushy love stories." And now he turned and looked fairly at her. "Of
course," he said slyly, "I don't know whether it's necessary or not,
but I've been thinkin' that to write a good love story the writer ought
to be in love. Whoever was writin' would know more about how it feels
to be in love."
She admired the cleverness with which he had led her up to this point,
but she was not to be trapped. She met his eyes fairly.
"I am sure it is not necessary for the writer to be in love," she said
quietly but positively. "I flatter myself that my love scenes are
rather real, and I have not found it necessary to love anyone."
This reply crippled him instantly. "Well, now," he said, eyeing her,
she thought, a bit reproachfully, "that comes pretty near stumpin' me.
But," he added, a subtle expression coming again into his eyes, "you
say you've got only two-thirds finished. Mebbe you'll be in love
before you get it all done. An' then mebbe you'll find that you didn't
get it right an' have to do it all over again. That would sure be too
bad, when you could have got in love an' wrote it real in the first
place."
"I don't think that I shall fall in love," she said laughing.
He looked quickly at her, suddenly grave. "I wouldn't want to think
you meant that," he said.
"Why?" she questioned in a low voice, her laughter subdued by his
earnestness.
"Why," he said steadily, as though stating a perfectly plain fact,
"I've thought right along that you liked me. Of course I ain't been
fool enough to think that you loved me"--and now he reddened a
little--, "but I don't deny that I've hoped that you would."
"Oh, dear!" she laughed; "and so you have planned it all out! And I
was hoping that you would not prove so deep as that. You know," she
went on, "you promised me a long while ago that you would not fall in
love with me."
"I don't reckon that I said that," he returned. "I told you that I
wasn't goin' to get fresh. I reckon I ain't fresh now. But I expect I
couldn't help lovin' you--I've done that since the first day."
She could not stop the blushes--they would come. And so would that
thrilling, breathless exultation. No man had ever talked to her like
this; no man had ever made her feel quite as she felt at this moment.
She turned a crimson face to him.
"But you hadn't any right to love me," she declared, feeling sure that
she had been unable to make him understand that she meant to rebuke
him. Evidently he did not understand that she meant to do that, for he
unclasped his hand from his knee and came closer to her, standing at
the edge of the rock, one hand resting upon it.
"Of course I didn't have any right," he said gravely, "but I loved you
just the same. There's been some things in my life that I couldn't
help doin'. Lovin' you is one. I expect that you'll think I'm pretty
fresh, but I've been thinkin' a whole lot about you an' I've got to
tell you. You ain't like the women I've been used to. An' I reckon I
ain't just the kind of man you've been acquainted with all your life.
You've been used to seein' men who was all slicked up an' clever. I
expect them kind of men appeal to any woman. I ain't claimin' to be
none of them clever kind, but I've been around quite a little an' I
ain't never done anything that I'm ashamed of. I can't offer you a
heap, but if you----"
She had looked up quickly, her cheeks burning.
"Please don't," she pleaded, rising and placing a hand on his arm,
gripping it tightly. "I have known for a long time, but I--I wanted to
be sure." He could not suspect that she had only just now begun to
realize that she was in danger of yielding to him and that the
knowledge frightened her.
"You wanted to be sure?" he questioned, his face clouding. "What is it
that you wanted to be sure of?"
"Why," she returned, laughing to hide her embarrassment, "I wanted to
be sure that you loved me!"
"Well, you c'n be sure now," he said.
"I believe I can," she laughed. "And," she continued, finding it
difficult to pretend seriousness, "knowing what I do will make writing
so much easier."
His face clouded again. "I don't see what your writin' has got to do
with it," he said.
"You don't?" she demanded, her eyes widening with pretended surprise.
"Why, don't you see that I wanted to be sure of your love so that I
might be able to portray a real love scene in my story?"
He did not reply instantly, but folded his arms over his chest and
stood looking at her. In his expression was much reproach and not a
little disappointment. The hopes that had filled his dreams had been
ruined by her frivolous words; he saw her at this moment a woman who
had trifled with him, who had led him cleverly on to a declaration of
love that she might in the end sacrifice him to her art. But in this
moment, when he might have been excused for exhibiting anger; for
heaping upon her the bitter reproaches of an outraged confidence, he
was supremely calm. The color fled from his face, leaving it slightly
pale, and his eyes swam with a deep feeling that told of the struggle
that he was making.
"I didn't think you'd do it, ma'am," he said finally, a little
hoarsely. "But I reckon you know your own business best." He smiled
slightly. "I don't think there's any use of you an' me meetin'
again--I don't want to be goin' on, bein' a dummy man that you c'n
watch. But I'm glad to have amused you some an' I have enjoyed myself,
talkin' to you. But I reckon you've done what you wanted to do, an' so
I'll be gettin' along."
He smiled grimly and with an effort turned and walked around the corner
of the rock, intending to descend the hill and mount his pony. But as
he passed around to the side of the rock he heard her voice:
"Wait, please," she said in a scarcely audible voice.
He halted, looking gravely at her from the opposite side of the rock.
"You wantin' to get somethin' more for your story?" he asked.
She turned and looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes luminous with
a tell-tale expression, her face crimson. "Why," she said smiling at
him, "do you really think that I could be so mean?"
He was around the rock again in half a dozen steps and standing above
her, his eyes alight, his lips parted slightly with surprise and
eagerness.
"Do you mean that you wantin' to make sure that I loved you wasn't all
for the sake of the story?" he demanded rapidly.
Her eyes drooped away from his. "Didn't you tell me that a writer
should be in love in order to be able to write of it?" she asked, her
face averted.
"Yes." He was trembling a little and leaning toward her. In this
position he caught her low reply.
"I think my love story will be real," she returned. "I have
learned----" But whatever she might have wanted to add was smothered
when his arms closed tightly about her.
A little later she drew a deep breath and looked up at him with moist,
eloquent eyes.
"Perhaps I _shall_ have to change the story a little," she said.
He drew her head to his shoulder, one hand caressing her hair. "If you
do," he said smiling, "don't have the hero thinkin' that the girl is
makin' a fool of him." He drew her close. "That cert'nly was a mighty
bad minute you give me," he added.