By Right of Purchase Part 30

"I expected a break. Hadn't you better open the casket?"

"In a few minutes," said Carrie, leaving the room.

She wore a dinner-gown when she returned. Sitting down at the table, she opened the little metal-bound box before her. There was an inner box, and, when she opened that in turn, the sunlight struck a blaze of colour from the contents of the little velvet trays. Carrie looked at them with a curious softness in her eyes. When she turned to her companion, however, there was a lingering wistfulness in her smile.

"I can't resist putting them on--just this once," she said. "I shall probably never do it again."

Her companion watched her gravely as she placed a diamond crescent in her dusky hair, and then hung a string of pearls about her neck. They were exceptionally beautiful, but it was the few rubies that followed them and the gleam of the same stones set in the delicate bracelet the girl clasped on her wrist that roused Eveline Annersly, who had seen them before, to a little gasp of admiration. The blood-red stones shone with a wonderful l.u.s.tre on the polished whiteness of Carrie's neck and arm.

"They were, of course, never meant for a necklet, and your mother had always intended to have them properly set, but I suppose money was scarce at Barrock-holme then," she said. "You look positively dazzling, but you carry them well, my dear."

Carrie turned to the mirror in front of her, and surveyed herself for a minute with a curious gravity. Then the little wistful look once more crept into her eyes. After all, she had been accustomed to the smoother side of life, and the beauty of the gems appealed to her. She had worn some of them once or twice before, and had seen them stir men's admiration and other women's longing at brilliant functions in the Old Country. She also knew that they became her wonderfully well, and yet it was scarcely likely she would put them on again. Then she heard a little gasp, and, turning suddenly, saw Mrs. Nesbit gazing at her from the doorway in bewildered admiration.

"The boys are coming in. Shall I have the table set for supper?" she said.

"Not yet," said Carrie. "You might ask Mr. Leland to come up. I want him."

Mrs. Nesbit went out, apparently still lost in wonder. Carrie turned to her companion impulsively.

"I should like Charley to see me as I am--for once," she said.

Five minutes later, Eveline Annersly slipped away as Leland came in, dressed in worn and faded jean. He gave a start of astonishment and a look that almost suggested pain when Carrie turned to him. She looked imperial in the long, graceful dress. The diamonds in her dusky hair glinted crystal-clear, and the rubies gleamed on the polished ivory of her neck; but her eyes were more wonderful than any gem in their depths of tenderness. Then the man saw himself in the mirror, bronzed and hot and dusty, with hard hands and broken nails, and the stain of the soil upon him. Another glance at her, and he turned his eyes away.

"Aren't you pleased?" said Carrie.

Leland turned again, slowly, with a little sigh, one of his brown hands tightly clenched.

"You are beautiful, my dear," he said, "but, if you were old and dressed in rags, you would always be that to me. With those things s.h.i.+ning on you, you are wonderful, but it hurts me to see them."

"Why?"

"They make the difference between us too plain. You should wear them always. It was what you were meant for, and, when I married you, I had a notion that I might be able to give you such things some day and take you where other people wear them. Everything, however, is against me now. We may not even keep Prospect, and you are only the wife of a half-ruined prairie farmer."

Carrie held her arms out. "I wouldn't be anything else if I could. You know that, too. Come and kiss me, Charley, and never say anything of the kind again."

The man hesitated, and she guessed that he was thinking of his dusty jean.

"Have I lost my attractiveness that you need asking twice?" she said.

Leland came towards her, and she slipped an arm about his neck, regardless of the costly dress. Taking up his hard, brown hand, she looked tenderly at the broken nails.

"Ah," she said, "it has worked so hard for me. Do you think I don't know why you toil late and early this year, and never spend a cent on anything that is not for my pleasure? I must have cost you a good deal, Charley."

She saw the blood rise into the man's face, and laughed softly. "Oh, I know it all. Once I tried to hate you for it--and now, if it hadn't made it so hard for you, I should be almost glad. Still, Charley, I would do almost anything to make you feel that--it was worth while."

"My dear," said Leland hoa.r.s.ely, "I have never regretted it, and I would not even if I had to turn teamster and let Prospect go, except for the trouble it would bring you."

Carrie laughed softly. "Still, it will never come to that. This hand is too firm and capable to let anything go, and I fancy I can do something, too. After all, I do not think Mrs. Custer is very much stronger or cleverer than I am."

She pushed him gently away from her. "Now go and get ready for supper. I will be down presently."

Leland went away with glad obedience. When Eveline Annersly came in later, she found Carrie once more attired very plainly, and the casket locked. Her eyes were a trifle hazy, but she looked up with a smile.

"I shall not put them on again, but I do not mind," she said. "They will go to ploughing and harrowing next season. There is something to be done beforehand, and I want you to come in to the railroad station with me to-morrow."

They went down to supper, during which Carrie was unusually talkative.

When Eveline Annersly left them after the meal was over, she turned to her husband.

"Charley," she said, "you could get along alone for two or three days, if I went into Winnipeg?"

"I could," said Leland. "Still, I wouldn't like it. But what do you want to go there for?"

"Well," said Carrie, reflectively, "there are two or three things I want, and one or two I have to do--business things at the bank. I had a letter from Barrock-holme, you know. I suppose those bankers are really trustworthy people?"

Leland laughed. "Oh, yes, I think they could be trusted with anything you were likely to put into their hands."

"Well," said Carrie, "perhaps I will tell you what it is by and by. In the meanwhile, since I am going to-morrow, there are several things I have to see to."

Starting next morning with Eveline Annersly, she was on the following day ushered into the manager's room at Leland's bank. The gentleman who sat there appeared a trifle astonished when he saw her, as though he had scarcely expected to see the stamp of refinement and station on Leland's wife. He drew out a chair for her, and urbanely asked what he could do for her. Carrie laid a casket and a small bundle of papers upon the table.

"I think you are acquainted with my husband?" she said.

"Certainly," said the banker. "We have had the pleasure of doing business with Mr. Leland of Prospect for a good many years."

"Then," said Carrie, decisively, "you are on no account to tell him about any business you may do for me--that is, unless I give you permission to do so."

The banker concealed any astonishment he may have felt, merely saying that it was his part to fall in with his clients' wishes. Carrie held out a pa.s.s-book.

"I suppose I could have this money any time I wished?" she said.

"Certainly. You have only to write a cheque for it."

Carrie opened a paper, and handed it to him. "I have had it all explained to me, but I am afraid I don't understand it very well," she said. "Until I was married I could get only a little of the money as my trustees gave it to me, and they put the rest into an English bank for me. I have the book here. You will see how much the dividends and interest come to every year."

The banker studied the doc.u.ment carefully. Then he took the pa.s.s-book she handed him. "Well," he said, "you can do whatever you like with it now. Quite a sum of money has acc.u.mulated."

"I could put it into your bank here?"

"Of course. I should be glad to arrange it for you. You would also get more interest for it than you seem to have done in England."

"Then I want you to do it. You lend people money. I wonder if you could let me have as much now as I would get in the next four or five years.

Of course, you would charge me for doing it."

The banker smiled a little, and shook his head as he glanced at the doc.u.ment. "You will excuse my mentioning that the interest on the money involved is only to be paid--to you."

"Ah," said Carrie, "of course, I might die, and then, I remember, it would go back again. Still, that only makes what I want to do more necessary. I suppose I could make over to my husband all the money there is in the English bank and anything else that really belongs to me? That is, I could put it into his account here? You see, I don't want him to know--anything about it for a little while."

The banker reflected. He had done business for years with Leland and considered him a friend. This dainty woman's devotion to her husband appealed to him. He decided that he might, for once, go a little further than was usual from a business point of view. "Well," he said, reflectively, "I think I should wait a little. If you kept the money in your own name, you could hand him as much as you thought advisable at any time it appeared necessary. On the whole, I fancy that would be wiser."