At the Crossroads Part 16

"So that's the Northrup fellow, is it?" Mary-Clare flushed and had a sensation of being la.s.soed by an invisible hand.

"Yes. He is staying at the inn--I sent Noreen there this morning while I went over to the Point; he was bringing her home."

"He seemed to know that you weren't home."

"Children come in handy," Larry smiled pleasantly. "More potato, Mary-Clare?"

"No." Then, almost defiantly: "Larry, Mr. Northrup asked his way to the inn the day he was travelling through. I have never spoken to him since, until to-day. When he found the house empty this afternoon, he naturally----"

"Why the explanation?" Larry looked blank and again Mary-Clare flushed.

"I felt one was needed."

"I can't see why. By the way, Mary-Clare, those squatters at the Point are going to get a rough deal. Either they're going to pay regular, or be kicked out. I tell you when Tim Maclin sets his jaw, there is going to be something doing."

This was unfortunate, but Larry was ill at ease.

"Maclin doesn't own the Point, Larry."

"You better listen to Maclin and not Peter Heathcote." Larry retraced his steps. His doubt of Northrup had led him astray.

Mary-Clare gave him a startled look.

"Maclin's a brute," she said quietly. "I prefer to listen to my friends."

"Maclin's our friend. Yours and mine. You'll learn that some day."

"I doubt it, Larry, but he's your employer and I do not forget that."

"I wouldn't. And you're going to change your mind some fine day, my girl, about a lot of things."

"Perhaps."

"I'm sleeping outside, Mary-Clare." Larry rose lazily. "I just dropped in to--to call." He laughed unpleasantly.

"I'm sorry, Larry, that you feel as you do."

"Like h.e.l.l you are!" The words were barely audible. "I'm going to give you a free hand, Mary-Clare, but I'm going to let folks see your game.

That's square enough."

"All right, Larry." Mary-Clare's eyes flickered. Then: "Why did you take those letters?"

Larry looked blankly at her.

"I haven't taken any letters. What you hoaxing up?" He waited a moment but when Mary-Clare made no reply he stalked from the house angrily and into the night.

CHAPTER VII

Maclin rarely discussed Larry's private affairs with him, but he controlled them, nevertheless, indirectly. His hold on Larry was subtle and far-reaching. It had its beginning in the old college days when the older man discovered that the younger could be manipulated, by flattery and cheap tricks, into abject servitude. Larry was not as keen-witted as Maclin, but he had a superficial cleverness; a lack of moral fibre and a certain talent that, properly controlled, offered no end of possibility.

So Maclin affixed himself to young Rivers in the days before the doctor's death; he and Larry had often drifted apart but came together again like steel responding to the same magnet. While apparently intimate with Rivers, Maclin never permitted him to pa.s.s a given line, and this restriction often chafed Larry's pride and egotism; still, he dared not rebel, for there were things in his past that had best be forgotten, or at least not referred to.

When Maclin had discovered the old, deserted mines and bought them, apparently Larry was included in the sale. Maclin sought to be friendly with Mary-Clare when he first came to King's Forest; but failing in that direction, he shrugged his shoulders and made light of the matter. He never pushed his advantage nor forgave a slight.

"Never force a woman," he confided to Larry at that juncture, "that is, if she is independent."

"What you mean, independent?" Larry knew what he meant very well; knew the full significance of it. He fretted at it every time his desires clashed with Mary-Clare's. If he, not she, owned the yellow house; if she were obliged to take what he chose to give her, how different their lives might have been!

Larry was thinking of all this as he made his way to the mines after denying that he had taken the letters. Those letters lay snugly hid under his s.h.i.+rt--he had a use for them. He could feel them as he walked along; they seemed to be feeding a fire that was slowly igniting.

Larry was going now to Maclin with all barriers removed. His suspicious mind had accepted the coa.r.s.est interpretation of Mary-Clare's declaration of independence. Maclin's hints were, to him, established facts. There could be but one possible explanation for her act after long, dull years of acceptance.

"Well," Larry puffed and panted, "there is always a way to get the upper hand of a woman and, I reckon, Maclin, when he's free to speak out, can catch a fool woman and a sneaking man, who is on no fair business, unless I miss _my_ guess." Larry grunted the words out and stumbled along. "First and last," he went on, "there's just two ways to deal with women. Break 'em or let them break themselves."

Larry's idea now was to let Mary-Clare break herself with the Forest as audience. He wasn't going to do anything. No, not he! Living outside his home would set tongues wagging. All right, let Mary-Clare stop their wagging.

There was always, with Larry, this feeling of hot impotence when he retreated from Mary-Clare. For so vital and high-strung a woman, Mary-Clare could at critical moments be absolutely negative, to all appearances. Where another might show weakness or violence, she seemed to close all the windows and doors of her being, leaving her attacker in the outer darkness with nothing to strike at; no ear to a.s.sail. It was maddening to one of Larry's type.

So had Mary-Clare just now done. After asking him about the letters, she had withdrawn, but in the isolation where Larry was left he could almost hear the terrific truths he guiltily knew he deserved, hurled at him, but which his wife did not utter. Well, two could play at her game.

And in this mood he reached Maclin; accepted a cigar and stretched his feet toward the fire in his owner's office.

Maclin was in a humanly soothing mood. He fairly crooned over Larry and could tell to a nicety the workings of his mind.

He puffed and puffed at his enormous cigar; he was almost hidden from sight in the smoke but his words oozed forth as if they were cutting through a soft, thick substance.

"Now, Larry," he said; "don't make a mistake. Some women don't have weak spots, they have knots--weak ends tied together, so to speak. The cold, calculating breed--and your wife, no offence intended, is mighty chilly--can't be broken, as you intimate, but they can be untied and"--Maclin was pleased with his picturesque figures of speech--"left dangling."

This was amusing. Both men guffawed.

"Do you know, Rivers"--Maclin suddenly relapsed into seriousness--"it was a darned funny thing that a girl like your wife should fall into your open mouth, marry you off-hand, as one might say. Mighty funny, when you come to think of it, that your old man should let her--knowing all he knew and seeming to set such a store by the girl."

Larry winced and felt the lash on his back. So long had that lash hung unused that the stroke now made him cringe.

"No use harking back to that, Maclin," he said: "some things ain't common property, you know, even between you and me. We agreed to that."

"Yes?" the word came softly. Was it apologetic or threatening?

There was a pause. Then Maclin unbent.

"Larry," he began, tossing his cigar aside, "you haven't ever given me full credit, my boy, for what I've tried to do for you. See here, old man, I have got you out of more than one fix, haven't I?"

Larry looked back--the way was not a pleasant one.

"Yes," he admitted, "yes, you have, Maclin."