The Preliminaries Part 7

{104}

"Nor me," I confessed.

"I have been wondering if I unconsciously neglected Desire? People say that sometimes causes them to fly the track. I am a busy man. I work hard in an exacting profession. But, as I understand the marriage contract, my work is a part of what I endowed her with. It is my life, myself. We are not children. One does not marry for a playmate, does one? But perhaps women do. Do you think I can have been at fault in this matter?"

My only answer was an impatient snort of protest.

"I supposed she desired companions.h.i.+p with me as I am. Certainly that was what I thought I asked of her. She has such a way of making life seem vivid and interesting that her companions.h.i.+p was good to have,"

he said.

{105}

Something clutched at my heart strings as I saw the look of inextinguishable longing in his eyes.

"We spoiled her between us, I suspect," he said. "On our heads be it, for it is spoiled that she is. Mr. Raynie, I think of Desire as undisciplined, wayward--not as wanton.--Well, I have a dozen patients yet to see to-night. I must say good night, and thank you."

As he closed the door, I spoke aloud to myself and the witness-chair.

"There goes a gentleman," I said. "It seems they still exist. Confound that niece of mine!"

VI

After Desire departed for Reno, the winter dragged along, heavy-footed.

Mary Greening heard from her often, {106} and brought me the letters.

She rented a cottage in Reno, and began housekeeping bravely, but, presently, the servant question drove her temporarily to a hotel.

Very shortly we saw in the papers an account of a fire in the same hotel. This was followed by a telegram from Desire to the effect that she was as right as possible, and had only suffered the loss of a few garments.

A week later as I sat in my usual place, the wheeled chair by the study fire, I heard a carriage stop at my door. It was ten o'clock of a wild January night, furious with wind and snow. There were voices in the hall below; surprised e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns from Lena, the housemaid; at last a rap on my door, which swung inward to admit--Desire!

"Will you take me in, Uncle Ben?" {107} she inquired cheerfully. "It is such a frightful night! The cabman won't try to get me to Aunt Mary. He wanted to leave me at a hotel. But this was no farther--and I wanted to talk with you, anyhow."

I said the appropriate things, consumed meanwhile with wonder as to what this reappearance meant. Desire threw off her long wrap and her furs, vibrated about the room a little, then settled, like every one else, in the winged chair across the hearth, and smiled at me tremulously.

"Uncle Ben, something has happened to me."

"I judge it is something important, Desire."

"A big thing," she said gravely. "So big I don't understand it. I can only tell you how it is."

I waited quietly, but there was that {108} in her voice which made me catch my breath.

She seemed to find it hard to begin.

"I hated Reno," she said at last, abruptly. "The streets were so full of plump, self-satisfied blonde women, overdressed and underbred. The town was overrun with types one did n't like. It was--horrid! But it did n't concern me, so I stayed in the little house and wrote a great many letters to Aunt Mary and--Arthur Markham, and read, and amused myself as best I could. Then I lost my maids and moved to the hotel until I could arrange matters.

"You heard about the fire? The hotel was a wooden building with two wings, and my room was in the wing that burned. It was all very exciting, but I got out with my valuables and most of my wardrobe tied {109} up in a sheet, and they put the fire out.

"The rest of the building was unhurt, so the occupants opened their doors to the people who had been burned out. The manager asked me if I would accept the hospitality of a Mrs. Marshall, 'a very nice lady from up North!' I said I would be thankful for shelter of any description, so he took me to her door and introduced us."

Desire paused reflectively.

"I'd like to make it as clear as possible to you, Uncle Ben, if you don't mind my talking a lot. This Mrs. Marshall was just a girl, and very good-looking indeed in a way. She had well-cut features, a strong chin, blue eyes under dark lashes, and a great deal of vitality. So far as looks went, I might have met her anywhere.

{110}

"The big room was strewn with her things, for she had expected to be burned out, too; but she began to put them away at once, offering me closet room, and talking excitedly as she moved about.

"The place was full of department-store luxury, if you know what I mean. Her toilet-table was loaded with silver in a pattern of flamboyant, curly cupids,--I've often wondered who bought such things,--and there were gorgeous, gaudy garments lying about. Her belongings, all but a few frocks, were expensive and tasteless to the last degree. So much extravagance and so little beauty! It seemed so strange to me that it was interesting.

"She talked a good deal, showing me this and that. Her slangy speech had a certain piquancy, because she looked finer than her words. She was {111} absolutely sure of herself, and at ease. I made out that this was because she was conscious of no standards save those of money, and there, as she would have said, she could 'deliver the goods.' Were n't the evidences of her worth right under my eyes?

"I talked, too, as effusively as I knew how. I tried to meet her halfway. She was evidently a perfectly well-placed and admired person in her own world. I was excited and tired and lonely. It seemed good just to speak to some one.

"Presently the room was cleared, and we began to think of sleeping. I have n't forgotten a word of the conversation that followed.

"'It's very good of you to take me in. I hope I shan't disturb you very much,' I said.

"'Oh, I'm glad to have somebody to talk to. I think this living in Reno {112} is deadly, but it seems to be the easiest way to get results,'

she answered. 'How long you been here?'

"I told her.

"'Well, I'm a good deal nearer my freedom than you are. Don't it seem perfectly ridiculous that when you want to shake a man you can't just _shake_ him, without all this to-do?' she said. 'It makes me so mad to think I've got to stay down here six months by myself, just to get rid of Jim Marshall! Say, what does your husband do?'

"What could I say, Uncle Ben? It seemed sacrilegious to mention Arnold in that room, but I was her guest and dependent upon her for shelter and a bed.

"'He is a doctor,' I said.

"'That so? Jim's superintendent of a mine. Up in the mountains. It's {113} the lonesomest place you ever saw. Twenty miles from nowhere, with just a little track running down to the rail road, and nothing worth mentioning when you get there.

"'Jim was awfully gone on me. Put up a spiel that he could n't live without me, and all that. That was two years ago, and I was young and tender hearted. Father had just dropped a whole bunch of money, and I thought, 'Well, if any man wants to pay my bills as bad as that, I guess I'll let him.' It looked like easy meal-tickets to me. Say! There's no such thing as a soft snap in married life. You got to work for your living, whoever he is. And I got so bored up in the mountains I did n't know what to do. Any man's a bore if you see too much of him.

Jim's awful soft--wants to be babied all the time. Thought I did n't love {114} him unless I looked just so and talked just so. Jerusalem!

How can you love anybody when you're a hundred miles from a matinee?

People have got to have what they're used to, even if they are married, and that's a cinch. I used to go down to the city by myself once in a while to visit Jim's sister, but there was n't anything in that. She and I did n't get on. She never took me to a show once all the time I was there. These in-laws are always looking at you through a microscope. Ain't it awful? I don't claim my complexion will stand that scrutiny. Did you have any in-laws?'

"'A few,' I said, thinking how Madam Ackroyd would look if she could hear this conversation.

"'Well, anybody can have mine!' she said. 'Gee! How I hate to be bored!

I guess I'd be up on that mountain yet {115} if it hadn't been for that. Last spring the son of the man who owns the mine took to coming up to see about the output. I had him going in forty winks. I was just amusing myself, but Jim got frightfully jealous. "See here," I says, "I ain't going to let no mining man dictate to me, see? I'll tell you that right now!" I was sore. To think he could n't let me have a bit of fun, after the stupid winter I'd put in, frying his bacon. It seemed plain selfish. So things ran along, and I got huffier and huffier. Finally, when Joe volunteered he'd like to put up for me to take this trip to Reno, I packed my suit-case and came away. It served Jim right for being such an old grouch. What'd you think?

"I just opened my mouth and gasped. I could n't help it. Such callousness!

"The girl looked at me queerly when {116} I did n't answer. 'What's got _you_ that you did n't stay put?' she demanded. 'Here I've had a rush of words to the mouth and told you all I know and I don't know a thing about you.'

"I found my voice sufficiently to tell her my case was very different.