The Fighting Shepherdess Part 66

"Oh, j.a.p! Whatever made you do that?"

His thin lips curled.

"Why shouldn't I? d.a.m.n her--I hate her, somehow. The upstart--the gutter-snipe!"

She laid her hand across his mouth.

"You--shock me, j.a.p! I don't understand why you are so--venomous toward Kate. Sometimes," she looked at him searchingly, "I've wondered if you've injured her."

"What do you mean?" He breathed hard, in sudden excitement.

She stood for a moment twisting a b.u.t.ton on his coat--her eyes downcast.

Finally:

"Nothing--much."

In the office of the Prouty House, redolent of the juniper and spruce boughs which took the bareness from the walls, the guests hungrily watched the hands of the clock creep towards the fas.h.i.+onable hour of eight.

"Among those present" was Mr. Clarence Teeters, circulating freely in a full dress coat and gray trousers--the latter worn over a pair of high-heeled cowboy boots and the former over a negligee s.h.i.+rt, beneath the cuffs of which two leather straps for strengthening the wrists peeped out. Fresh from the hands of the barber, Mr. Teeters' hair, sleek, glossy, fragrant, and brushed straight back, gave him a marked resemblance to a muskrat that has just come up from a dive.

With a sublimated confidence that was sickening to such citizens as had known him when he worked for wages and wore overalls, and particularly to Toomey, who took Teeters' success upon the ranch where he himself had failed as a personal affront, Mr. Teeters flitted among the ladies, as impartial as a bee in a bed of hollyhocks, tossing off compliments with an ease which was a revelation to those who remembered the time when his brain stopped working in the presence of the opposite s.e.x quite as effectually as though he had been hit with an axe.

Toomey not only resented Teeters' presence but the informality of his manner toward Prentiss, which Toomey regarded as his special prerogative. He already had had an argument with Sudds as to the advisability of including Teeters among the guests, and now during a lull his judgment was fully verified.

Mr. Teeters with a proud glance at the gaily draped room and at the table decorated with real carnations and festoons of smilax, which were visible through the double doors opening into the dining room, inquired of Prentiss with hearty friendliness:

"Say, feller, don't this swell lay-out kinda take you back to Chicago or New York?"

What further indiscretions of speech Teeters would have committed only his Maker knows, for at the moment the clerk at the desk called his name in an imperative voice. As the recipient of a telegram, Teeters had the attention of everybody in the room, and none could fail to observe his excitement as he folded the telegram and returned it to its envelope.

"I got me a dude comin' in on the train," addressing Sudds. "Could you fix a place for him to eat? The train bein' late like this, he won't git any supper otherwise. I wasn't expectin' of him for a month yet."

With an invitation thus publicly requisitioned, as it were, there was no alternative but to a.s.sent.

The hands of the office clock were close to eight when, as though on a signal, the hubbub of social intercourse ceased and eyes followed eyes to the top of the stairs where two white-slippered feet showed through the rungs of the bal.u.s.trade and a slim hand sparkling with jewels slipped gracefully along the polished rail. Then she appeared full length, in a white dinner gown--clinging, soft, exquisite in its simplicity and the perfection of its lines. With pearls in her ears and about her throat, her hair drawn back in a simple knot, Kate looked like one of the favorites of fortune of whom the Proutyites read in the ill.u.s.trated magazines and Sunday supplements. The least initiated was conscious of the perfect taste and skilful workmans.h.i.+p which had conspired to produce this result. Kate descended slowly, with neither undue deliberation nor haste, upon her lips the faint one-sided smile which was characteristic.

The moment was as dramatic as if the situation had been planned for the effect, since there were few present to whose minds did not leap to the picture of that other girl who had come bounding down the stairs, grotesque of dress and as a.s.sured and joyous in her ignorance as a frisky colt.

In a continued silence which no one seemed to have the temerity or the presence of mind to break, the Sheep Queen turned at the foot of the stairway, and the various groups separated on a common impulse to let her pa.s.s. She went straight to Prentiss, whose greeting was a smile of adoring tenderness.

"Am I late, father?"

The sharp intake of breath throughout the room might have come from one pair of lungs. "Father!" The rumor was true then! Amazement came first, and then uneasiness. What effect would the relations.h.i.+p have upon their personal interests? Had she any feeling which would lead her to use her influence to their detriment?

Kate and her father would have had more than their share of attention anywhere, for they had the same distinction of carriage, the same grave repose. Either one of them would have stood out in a far more brilliant a.s.sembly than that gathered in the Prouty House.

The social training Mrs. Abram Pantin had received at church functions in Keokuk now came to her rescue. Gathering herself, she was able to chirp:

"This _is_ a surprise!"

"You know my daughter, of course?" to Mrs. Sudds, whose jaw had dropped, so that she stood slightly open-mouthed, arrayed in a frock made in the fas.h.i.+on of the Moyen age and recently handed down from a great-uncle's relict who had pa.s.sed on. Since this confection bulged where it should have clung and clung where it should have bulged, it was the general impression that Mrs. Sudds was out in a maternity gown. Mrs. Neifkins in fourteen gores stood beside Mrs. Toomey in a hobble skirt reminiscent of her Chicago trip, while a faint odor of moth b.a.l.l.s, cedar chips and gasolene permeated the atmosphere in the immediate vicinity of all this ancient elegance.

"We all have met," Kate replied, and her glance included the group.

While there was no emphasis to suggest that the sentence contained any special significance, yet each of the ladies was conscious of an uncomfortable warmth, and the wish that dinner would be announced was so unanimous that their heads turned simultaneously towards the dining room; and, quite as if the concentrated thought had produced the result, the proprietor of the Prouty House conveyed the information to Sudds in a whisper from the corner of his mouth that all was in readiness.

After some embarra.s.sed uncertainty as to who was to conduct whom, and which arm should be used, the guests filed into the dining room at an hour when, commonly, they were preparing to retire.

In the confusion Mrs. Toomey found the opportunity to say:

"j.a.p, our goose is cooked!"

Adversity had sharpened her intuitions, developed her sensibilities; what others might fear, she knew, and this commonplace held all her disappointment, all the chagrin and hopelessness that in an instant had dissipated the roseate dreams she had again dared to entertain.

Toomey was too dazed to reply. What did it mean, he was asking himself in bewilderment as he found the seat at the table which had been a.s.signed him. When he had disparaged and insulted Kate, why had Prentiss not resented it verbally, knocked him down? Why had he made a secret of their relations.h.i.+p?

Notwithstanding Gov'nor Sudds's best efforts, ably supported by Mr.

Scales and Hiram Butefish, the banquet did not promise to be an unqualified success. There was a tension which did not make for a proper appreciation of the excellently prepared food. In truth, n.o.body was entirely at his ease save Prentiss and Kate--and Abram Pantin. The complacency of the cat who has eaten the canary was discontent beside the satisfaction upon Mr. Pantin's face as he sent triumphant glances at his wife. It was well towards the end of the banquet that the belated train whistled and Mr. Teeters excused himself--first reaching for a stalk of celery which he ate as he went, and looking, as Mr. Butefish observed to fill a pause, "like a pig with a corn husk hanging out of its mouth."

When the several courses had pa.s.sed in review, the tension increased with the realization that the moment which meant so much to everyone present had arrived at last.

So many times they had allowed themselves to hope only to know disappointment. But Prentiss inspired a confidence they never had had in the prospective investors who had gone before. He was of quite a different sort.

But the most adroit questioning had failed to extract the slightest hint as to his intentions. In any event, they would soon be out of their suspense, and they waited with an impatience not too well concealed for Gov'nor Sudds to finish his labored speech.

Toomey was called upon next but he begged to be excused, intimating that he was a man of deeds, not words.

Mr. Butefish then recounted the natural resources of the country with a glibness that carried the suggestion that he could do the same in his sleep, and Mr. Scales arose to affirm his confidence in the day when Prouty would be heralded as "the Denver of the State."

Noting the growing signs of restlessness, the Gov'nor ignored the expectant looks of other prominent citizens and called upon Mr.

Prentiss, admitting, as though he were conceding a disputed fact, that the decision they were antic.i.p.ating was a matter of interest--even of considerable concern--to the town.

So general was the appreciation of what Prentiss's speech meant that the cook came out of the kitchen and the waitresses hovered within hearing as Prentiss crumpled his napkin and slowly got up.

He looked thoroughly the man of affairs and of the world in his faultless dinner clothes, while the air of power which emanated from him seemed to be something concrete--definite. In the pleasant voice and well-chosen words of one accustomed to thinking on his feet, he thanked the Boosters Club graciously for their hospitality and courtesies extended during his short stay in the town. Then, without further preliminaries, he went direct to the subject which was uppermost in every mind.

The project had merit, he was convinced of that. It would take considerable capital to enlarge the ditch and to put it in perfect condition, but the returns would warrant the outlay in time. The numerous failures had complicated the affairs of the company somewhat, but patience and the desire to be just would straighten these entanglements out.

The loosening of the tension as he talked evidenced itself in audible breaths and growing smiles upon every face. The encouraging words acted as the stimulant of a hypodermic in sluggish veins, eyes brightening and cheeks flus.h.i.+ng at the mental pictures conjured up by the prospect of getting their money back.

"It is a proposition," Prentiss went on in his agreeable voice, "which I should feel justified either in taking up or letting alone. While it is legitimate and safe, in so far as I can see, I have on the other hand interests which claim a large share of my time, and this undertaking would be an additional demand.

"Therefore," his gaze traveled the length of the table and back to where Toomey sat, "I have concluded to determine the matter by a somewhat unique means. I shall leave the decision to my daughter here. Prouty, one may say, is her home. She has grown up among you. Many of you, no doubt, she numbers among her friends. At any rate, she has the final say. I have informed her of my intention, but I have no more notion than yourselves what her answer will be, and," he added, "I have quite as much curiosity."

Blank surprise was followed by the exchange of startled, inquiring looks. Abram Pantin was perhaps the only one who did not find some grounds for uneasiness.

The swift transition from relief to their former state of suspense was marked, and their feelings found an outlet in a sudden nervous movement of hands and feet. The town had given her rather a hard deal in some ways, all were ready to admit that, but had she felt it? Did she entertain resentment because of it? She looked so young, so feminine, so exquisitely soft that, somehow, they thought not.

Toomey's sallow skin had taken on a saffron shade, and Mrs. Toomey sat with her thin hands clenched in her lap, a strained smile fixed on her face, waiting for--she knew not what.