Crowley, standing in front of Latisan, twisted his countenance into an
expression of deprecatory, appealing remorse.
"I have taken the liberty of apologizing to the young lady, sir! Now
that I know how matters stand, I want to beg your pardon very humbly. I
haven't meant anything wrong, but a man of my style gets cheeky without
realizing it."
Latisan had come off well in his interview with Echford Flagg. The old
man seemed to be in a chastened mood. When he had been informed of the
part the girl was playing, the master had admitted that the right kind
of a woman can influence a man to his own good.
Therefore, when the drive master strode down the hill, the radiance of
his expansive joy had cleared out all the shadows. He was willing to
meet a penitent halfway. He put out his hand frankly. Crowley held to
the hand for a moment and put his other palm upon Latisan's shoulder.
"Congratulations! I know my place, now that it has become a man-to-man
matter between us. But before--well, I'll tell you, Mr. Latisan, I had
met Miss Jones in New York in a sort of a business way and I was
probably a little fresh in trying to keep up the acquaintance."
Latisan had extricated his hand, intending to hurry on about his
affairs. But here was a person who seemed to be in a way to tell him
something more definite about one who was baffling his wild anxiety to
fathom her real identity. However, Latisan did not dare to ask
questions. His own pride and the spirit of protecting her reasons for
reticence, if she had any, fettered his tongue; he was ashamed to admit
to this man, whom he had so recently hated, that the real character of a
fiancee was a closed book.
"Honestly, she ought to have told you that she knew me," complained
Crowley. "It would have saved all that trouble between you and me." He
rubbed his ear reminiscently. "But perhaps she did," he pursued,
affecting to misinterpret the hardness which had come into Latisan's
face. "But how she could say anything against me, as far as she and I
are concerned, I can't understand."
"She has not mentioned you to me," returned Latisan, curtly.
"That's queer, too," said Crowley, wrinkling his brow, his demeanor
adding to the young man's conviction that the whole situation was
decidedly queer. Once more the smoldering embers were showing red
flames! "Mr. Latisan, get me right, now! I don't propose to discuss the
young lady, seeing what she is to you. But perhaps you'll allow me to
refer back to what you said to me, personally, in the tavern a little
while ago. We can make that our own business, can't we?"
Crowley accepted a stiff nod as his answer and went on. "You told me
that you are going back to the drive because the young lady has
insisted on your doing so. That right?"
"It is. But I fail to see how you can make it any part of your business
and mine."
"It happens to belong in my business." He put his hand to his breast
pocket as if to reassure himself. He proceeded with more confidence.
"Are you afraid of the truth, Mr. Latisan--scared to meet it face to
face in a showdown?"
"I'm in the habit of going after the truth, no matter where it hides
itself."
"Then I guess you'd better come along with me. I've got to the point
where I've got to have the truth, too, or else fetch up in a crazy
house."
Crowley's determination was set definitely on his mind's single track.
If a man had an urgent reason for doing a certain thing and the
compelling reason were removed, he might naturally be expected to do
something else, Crowley figured.
If Latisan proposed to go back to work because his love and allegiance
caused him to obey a girl's commands, he would do the opposite of what
she asked if his love and confidence were destroyed. It seemed to be a
case of two and two making four, as Crowley viewed the thing. He was
done with tangled subtleties.
He put his hand again on his breast pocket as he walked with the drive
master down the hill. There was a letter in that pocket; Crowley had
purloined it from the girl's bureau that day when he had so quickly
returned from following her. And he also had a telegram in that pocket;
the wire had come along that morning, addressed to Miss Patsy Jones, in
his care.
The job, as Crowley understood orders, was to keep Latisan off the river
that season. Crowley saw a way of doing that job and of getting the
credit for the performance.
The girl, staring through the window with strained attention, noting
every detail of the meeting, seeing the appearance of amity and of
understanding, beholding Crowley put his hand on Latisan's shoulder in
the pose of friendly adviser, suspected the worst; she was stricken with
anguished certainty when Latisan strode toward the tavern; according to
her belief, two men were now arrayed against her. The drive master's
haste indicated that she had been betrayed by the sullen botcher of
methods.
In that room she felt like a creature that had been run to
cover--cornered. She wanted to escape into the open. There was honesty
outside, anyway, under the sky, at the edge of the forest, where the
thunder of the great falls made human voices and mortal affairs so petty
by contrast.
She ran through the tavern office and faced Latisan in the yard; there
were curious spectators on the porch, the loungers of the hamlet, but
she paid no attention to them; she was searching the countenance of
Latisan, avidly anxious, fearfully uncertain regarding what mischief had
been wrought in him.