The Cost Part 17

Olivia tried him on several subjects, but the conversation dragged. Of Pauline he would not talk; of Europe, he was interested only in the comfort of hotels and railway trains, in the comparative merits of the cooking and the wines in London and Paris. But his face--alert, shrewd, aggressive--and his mode of expression made her feel that he was uninteresting because he was thinking of something which he did not care to expose to her and could not take his mind from. And this was the truth. It was not until she adventured upon his business that he became talkative. And soon she had him telling her about his "combine"--frankly, boastfully, his face more and more flushed, for as he talked he drank.

"But," he said presently, "this little matter to-day is only a fair beginning. It seemed big until it was about accomplished. Then I saw it was only a suggestion for a scheme that'd be really worth, while."

And he went on to unfold one of those projects of to-day's commerce and finance that were regarded as fantastic, delirious a few years ago. He would reach out and out for hundreds of millions of capital; with his woolens "combine" as a basis he would build an enormous corporation to control the sheep industry of the world--to buy millions of acres of sheep-ranges; to raise scores of millions of sheep; to acquire and to construct hundreds of plants for utilizing every part of the raw product of the ranges; to sell wherever the human race had or could have a market.

Olivia was ambitious herself, usually was delighted by ambition in others. But his exhibit of imagination and energy repelled her, even while it fascinated. Partly through youth, more through that contempt for concealment which characterizes the courageous type of large man, he showed himself to her just as he was. And she saw him not as an ambition but as an appet.i.te, or rather a bundle of appet.i.tes.

"He has no ideals," she thought. "He's like a man who wants food merely for itself, not for the strength and the intellect it will build up. And he likes or dislikes human beings only as one likes or dislikes different things to eat."

"It'll take you years and years," she said to him, because she must say something.

"Not at all." He waved his hand--Olivia thought it looked as much like a claw as like a hand. "It's a sky-sc.r.a.per, but we build sky-sc.r.a.pers overnight. Time and s.p.a.ce used to be the big elements. WE practically disregard them." He followed this with a self-satisfied laugh and an emptying of his champagne gla.s.s at a gulp.

The women were rising to withdraw. After half an hour Langdon and Herron joined them. Dumont and Fanshaw did not come until eleven o'clock. Then Dumont was so abrupt and surly that every one was grateful to Mrs. Fanshaw for taking him away to the west veranda. At midnight all went to their rooms, Pauline going with Olivia, "to make sure you haven't been neglected."

She lingered until after one, and when they kissed each the other good night, she said: "It's done me a world of good to see you, 'Livia--more even than I hoped. I knew you'd be sympathetic with me where you understood. Now, I feel that you're sympathetic where you don't understand, too. And it's there that one really needs sympathy."

"That's what friends.h.i.+p means--and--love," said Olivia.

XIII.

"MY SISTER-IN-LAW, GLADYS."

The following afternoon Dumont took the Herrons, the Fanshaws and Langdon back to New York in his private car, and for three days Olivia and Pauline had the Eyrie to themselves. Olivia was about to write to Scarborough, asking him to call, when she saw in the News-Bulletin that he had gone to Denver to speak. A week after she left, Dumont returned, bringing his sister Gladys, just arrived from Europe, and Langdon. He stayed four days, took Langdon away with him and left Gladys.

Thus it came about that Scarborough, riding into Colonel Gardiner's grounds one hot afternoon in mid September, saw a phaeton-victoria with two women in it coming toward him on its way out. He drew his horse aside to make room. He was conscious that there were two women; he saw only one--she who was all in white except the scarlet poppies against the brim of her big white hat.

As he bowed the carriage stopped and Pauline said cordially: "Why, how d'ye do?"

He drew his horse close to the carriage and they shook hands. She introduced the other woman--"My sister-in-law, Gladys Dumont"--then went on: "We've been lunching and spending the afternoon with father and mother. They told us you returned this morning."

"I supposed you were in the East," said Scarborough--the first words he had spoken.

"Oh--I'm living here now--Gladys and I. Father says you never go anywhere, but I hope you'll make an exception for us."

"Thank you--I'll be glad to call."

"Why not dine with us--day after to-morrow night?"

"I'd like that--certainly, I'll come."

"We dine at half-past eight--at least we're supposed to."

Scarborough lifted his hat.

The carriage drove on.

"Why, he's not a bit as I expected," Gladys began at once. "He's much younger. ISN'T he handsome! That's the way a MAN ought to look. He's not married?"

"No," replied Pauline.

"Why did you look so queer when you first caught sight of him?"

"Did I?" Pauline replied tranquilly. "Probably it was because he very suddenly and vividly brought Battle Field back to me--that was the happiest time of my life. But I was too young or too foolish, or both, to know it till long afterward. At seventeen one takes happiness for granted."

"Did he look then as he does now?"

"No--and yes," said Pauline. "He was just from the farm and dressed badly and was awkward at times. But--really he was the same person. I guess it was the little change in him that startled me." And she became absorbed in her thoughts.

"I hope you'll send him in to dinner with me," said Gladys, presently.

"What did you say?" asked Pauline, absently.

"I was talking of Mr. Scarborough. I asked if you wouldn't send him in to dinner with me--unless you want to discuss old times with him."

"Yes--certainly--if you wish."

And Pauline gave Scarborough to Gladys and did her duty as hostess by taking in the dullest man in the party--Newnham. While Newnham droned and prosed, she watched Gladys lay herself out to please the distinguished Mr. Scarborough, successful as a lawyer, famous as an orator, deferred to because of his influence with the rank and file of his party in the middle West.

Gladys had blue-black hair which she wore pulled out into a sort of halo about her small, delicate face. There were points of light in her dark irises, giving them the look of black quartz in the suns.h.i.+ne. She was not tall, but her figure was perfect, and she had her dresses fitted immediately to it. Her appeal was frankly to the senses, the edge taken from its audacity by its artistic effectiveness and by her ingenuous, almost innocent, expression.

Seeing Pauline looking at her, she tilted her head to a graceful angle and sent a radiant glance between two blossom-laden branches of the green and white bush that towered and spread in the center of the table. "Mr. Scarborough says," she called out, "character isn't a development, it's a disclosure. He thinks one is born a certain kind of person and that one's life simply either gives it a chance to show or fails to give it a chance. He says the boy isn't father to the man, but the miniature of the man. What do you think, Pauline?"

"I haven't thought of it," replied Pauline. "But I'm certain it's true. I used to dispute Mr. Scarborough's ideas sometimes, but I learned better."

As she realized the implications of her careless remark, their eyes met squarely for the first time since Battle Field. Both hastily glanced away, and neither looked at the other again. When the men came up to the drawing-room to join the women, Gladys adroitly intercepted him.

When he went to Pauline to take leave, their manner each toward the other was formal, strained and even distant.

Dumont came again just after the November election. It had been an unexpected victory for the party which Scarborough advocated, and everywhere the talk was that he had been the chief factor--his skill in defining issues, his eloquence in presenting them, the public confidence in his party through the dominance of a man so obviously free from self-seeking or political trickery of any kind. Dumont, to whom control in both party machines and in the state government was a business necessity, told his political agent, Merriweather, that they had "let Scarborough go about far enough," unless he could be brought into their camp.

"I can't make out what he's looking for," said Merriweather. "One thing's certain--he'll do US no good. There's no way we can get our hooks in him. He don't give a d.a.m.n for money. And as for power--he can get more of that by fighting us than by falling in line. We ain't exactly popular."

This seemed to Dumont rank ingrat.i.tude. Had he not just divided a million dollars among charities and educational inst.i.tutions in the districts where opposition to his "merger" was strongest?

"Well, we'll see," he said. "If he isn't careful we'll have to kill him off in convention and make the committees stop his mouth."

"The trouble is he's been building up a following of his own--the sort of following that can't be honeyfugled," replied Merriweather. "The committees are afraid of him." Merriweather always took the gloomy view of everything, because he thus discounted his failures in advance and doubled the effect of his successes.

"I'll see--I'll see," said Dumont, impatiently. And he thought he was beginning to "see" when Gladys expanded to him upon the subject of Scarborough--his good looks, his wit, his "distinction."

Scarborough came to dinner a few evenings later and Dumont was particularly cordial to him; and Gladys made the most of the opportunity which Pauline again gave her. That night, when the others had left or had gone to bed, Gladys followed her brother into the smoke-room adjoining the library. They sat in silence drinking a "night-cap." In the dreaminess of her eyes, in the absent smile drifting round the corners of her full red lips, Gladys showed that her thoughts were pleasant and sentimental.

"What do you think of Scarborough?" her brother asked suddenly.

She started but did not flush--in her long European experience she had gained control of that signal of surprise. "How do you mean?" she asked. She rarely answered a question immediately, no matter how simple it was, but usually put another question in reply. Thus she insured herself time to think if time should be necessary.