The Secret of the Reef Part 9

Ruth looked up at her with an air of thoughtful regret.

"Yes; I often feel that, when I think of the hard struggle she must have had. Though I was very young then, I can remember the shabby boardinghouses we stayed in, and my mother's pale, anxious face when she and my father used to talk in the evenings. He seldom speaks about those days, but I know he does not forget."

"It is to his credit that he never married again," Miss Dexter remarked with a bluntness in which there was nothing coa.r.s.e. "He loved your mother, and one can forgive him much for that."

"But have you much to forgive? And, after all, men do sometimes marry twice."

"And sometimes oftener! No doubt they're good enough for the women who take them; but the love of a true man or woman is stronger than death!"

There was a warmth in the voice of this apparently unsentimental aunt that surprised Ruth.

"You seem to speak with feeling," the girl said, half mockingly.

A shadow crept into Miss Dexter's eyes as she gazed, unseeingly, at a seabird poised over the water; but almost immediately she turned to her niece with her usual matter-of-fact calm.

"We were talking of your father's affairs," she said. "I notice a sinful extravagance here: servants you do not need, a gasoline launch, and two automobiles."

Ruth laughed.

"Father must get to town quickly, and cars sometimes break down; besides, I believe he can afford them all. I sometimes think you are rather hard on him."

"I'll admit that I have often wondered how he got his money. One cannot make a fortune quickly without meeting many temptations. I suppose you know your Uncle Charles had to lend him a thousand dollars soon after you were born, and it was not paid back until a few years ago? Does your father never tell you anything about his business?"

"I haven't thought of asking him," Ruth answered with some warmth. "He has always been very kind to me, and I know that whatever he does is right."

"A proper feeling," her aunt commented. "No doubt, he is no worse than the others; but men's ideas are very lax nowadays."

Ruth was more amused than resentful. Though she was her father's staunch partisan, she believed her aunt distrusted the makers of rapid fortunes as a cla.s.s rather than her brother-in-law in particular, and that her frugal mind shrank with old-fas.h.i.+oned aversion from modern luxury. For all that, Caroline Dexter had roused the girl's curiosity as to her father's fortune and she determined to learn something about his years of struggle when opportunity offered.

A moving cloud of dust rose among the firs where the descending road crossed the hillside, and a big gray automobile flashed across an opening. Ruth knew the car, and there was only one man of her acquaintance who would bring it down the water-seamed dip at that reckless speed.

"It's Aynsley," she said, with a pleased expression. "I'll bring him here."

"And who is Aynsley?"

"I forgot you don't know. He's Aynsley Clay, the son of my father's old partner, and runs in and out of the house when he's at home."

Turning away, she hurried toward the house, and as she reached it a young man came out on the veranda. He was dressed in white flannel, with a straw hat and blue serge jacket, and his pleasant face was bronzed by the sea.

"I came right through," he said, holding out his hand. "It was particularly nice of you to leave your chair to meet me."

"I'm glad to see you back," Ruth responded. "Did you have a pleasant time? When did you get home?"

"Left the yacht at Portland yesterday, and came straight on. Found the old man out of town, and decided I'd stop at Martin's place. I'm due there this evening."

"But it's twenty miles off over the mountains, and this isn't the nearest way."

Clay laughed, with a touch of diffidence that became him.

"What's twenty miles, even on a hill road, when you're anxious to see your friends?"

He watched her as closely as he dared, for some hint of response, but he was puzzled by her manner.

"It isn't a road," she laughed. "Some day you'll come here in pieces."

"I wonder whether you'd be sorry?"

"You ought to know. But come along-I believe my aunt is curious about you."

When he was presented, Miss Dexter gave him a glance of candid scrutiny.

Aynsley was marked by a certain elegance and careless good humor, which were not the qualities she most admired in young men, but she liked his face and the frankness of his gaze. If he were one of the idle rich, he was, she thought, a rather good specimen.

"What is your profession?" she asked him bluntly, when they had talked a few moments.

"It's rather difficult to state, because my talents and pursuits are varied. I'm a bit of a naturalist, and something of a yachtsman, while I really think I'm smart at handling a refractory automobile. When I was younger, it was my ambition to ride a raw cayuse, but now one grapples with the mysteries of valves and cams. The times change, though one can't be sure that they improve."

"Then you don't do anything?"

"I'm afraid you hold my father's utilitarian views, but there's room for a difference of opinion about what const.i.tutes hard work. To-day, for instance, I spent two hours lying on my back beneath the car and fitting awkward little bolts into holes; then I drove her fifty miles in three hours over a villainous road, graded with rocks and split fir-trees. As I've another twenty miles to go, my own opinion is that I'll have done enough for any ordinary man when I get through."

"And how much better off is the community for your labors?"

"It's some consolation that n.o.body's much the worse, but I've known the community suffer when it was slow in getting out of the way."

Though she shook her head disapprovingly, there was a gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt in Miss Dexter's eyes.

"I suppose you're a product of your age, and can't be blamed for the outlook your environment has forced upon you. After all, there are more harmful toys than cars and yachts; enjoy them strenuously while you can.

It may fit you for something sterner when you lose your taste for them.

And there's something in your look which makes me think that time may come."

A half-hour later Ruth and Aynsley were strolling together through a grove of pines by the water's edge.

"What did you think of my aunt?" she asked.

"I think Miss Dexter is a very fine lady. What's more, I begin to see where you got something I've noticed about you. I suppose you know that you and she are not unlike?"

Ruth smiled. Her aunt was hard-featured and very badly dressed; but she knew that these were not the points which had impressed him.

"The good impression seems to have been mutual," she said; "and to tell the truth, I was slightly surprised. She's generally severe to idlers."

"I knew she'd spot me by my clothes, and I played up to the part. It pleases people when you fall in with the ideas they form about you. But speaking of idlers reminds me that before I went away the old man was getting after me about wasting my talents; opined it was time I did something, and said he'd stand for the losses I'd no doubt make in the first two years if I'd run the Canadian mill he's lately bought. I pointed out that it might cost him more than the boats and cars, and he answered that he'd consider it as a fine for the way he brought me up.

However, we won't talk about that. It's too fine a day."

This was characteristic of him and Ruth laughed. He was careless and inconsequent, but they had been friends for a long time and she liked him. It was perhaps curious that she had never troubled herself about his feeling for her, and had gone on taking his unexacting friends.h.i.+p for granted. It was seldom that he became sentimental, and then she had no trouble in checking him.

"Well," she said, "you have told me nothing about your voyage. You must have seen something of interest, and had a few adventures."

"It's a good rule to avoid adventures when you can, and we followed it.

Perhaps the most interesting thing was my meeting with three men who were fis.h.i.+ng on a lonely island far up to the north."