A Breath of Prairie and other stories Part 22

"Tell Mr. Maurice I shall be pleased to see him."

The round face disappeared from the door.

"_Donnerwetter!_" commented the little landlord in the safe seclusion of the stairway. Later, in relating the incident to Minna, he tapped his forehead, suggestively.

Ichabod climbed the stair alone. "To your old room," Hans had said; and Ichabod knew the place well. He knocked on the panel, a voice answered: "Come," and he opened the door. Arnold had thrown away his cigar and opened the window. The room was clearing rapidly.

Ichabod stepped inside and closed the door carefully behind him. A few seconds he stood holding it, then swung it open quickly and glanced down the hallway. Answering, there was a sudden, scuttling sound, not unlike the escape of frightened rats, as Hans Becher precipitately disappeared. The tall man came back and for the second time slowly closed the door.

Asa Arnold had neither moved nor spoken since that first word,--"come"; and the self-invited visitor read the inaction correctly. No man, with the knowledge Ichabod possessed, could have misunderstood the challenge in that impa.s.sive face. No man, a year ago, would have accepted that challenge more quickly. Now--But G.o.d only knew whether or no he would forget,--now.

For a minute, which to an onlooker would have seemed interminable, the two men faced each other. Up from the street came the ring of a heavy hammer on a sweet-voiced anvil, as Jim Donovan, the blacksmith, sharpened anew the breaking ploughs which were battling the prairie sod for bread. In the street below, a group of farmers were swapping yarns, an occasional chorus of guffaws interrupting to punctuate the narrative. The combatants heard it all, as one hears the drone of the cicada on a sleepy summer day; at the moment, as a mere colorless background which later, Time, the greater adjuster, utilizes to harmonize the whole memory.

Ichabod had been standing; now he sat down upon the bed, his long legs stretched out before him.

"It would be useless for us to temporize," he initiated. "I've intruded my presence in order to ask you a question." The long fingers locked slowly over his knees. "What is your object here?"

The innate spirit of mockery sprang to the little man's face.

"You're mistaken," he smiled; "so far mistaken, that instead of your visit being an intrusion, I expected you"--an amending memory came to him--"although I wasn't looking for you quite so soon, perhaps." He paused for an instant, and the smile left his lips.

"As to the statement of object. I think"--slowly--"a disinterested observer would have put the question you ask into my mouth." He stared his tall visitor up and down critically, menacingly. Of a sudden, irresistibly, a very convulsion shot over his face. "G.o.d, man, you're brazen!" he commented c.u.mulatively.

Ichabod had gambled with this man in the past, and had seen him lose half he possessed without the twitch of an eyelid. A force which now could cause that sudden change of expression--no man on earth knew, better than Ichabod, its intensity. Perhaps a shade of the same feeling crept into his own answering voice.

"We'll quarrel later, if you wish,"--swiftly. "Neither of us can afford to do so now. I ask you again, what are your intentions?"

"And I repeat, the question is by right mine. It's not I who've changed my name and--and in other things emulated the hero of the yellow-back."

Ichabod's face turned a shade paler, though his answer was calm.

"We've known each other too well for either to attempt explanation or condemnation. You wish me to testify first." The long fingers unclasped from over his knee. "You know the story of the past year: it's the key to the future."

A smile, sardonic, distinctive, lifted the tips of Arnold's big moustaches.

"Your faith in your protecting G.o.ds is certainly beautiful."

Ichabod nursed a callous spot on one palm.

"I understand,"--very slowly. "At least, you'll answer my question now, perhaps," he suggested.

"With pleasure. You intimate the future will be but a repet.i.tion of the past. It'll be my endeavor to give that statement the lie."

"You insist on quarrelling?"

"I insist on but one thing,"--swiftly. "That you never again come into my sight, or into the sight of my wife."

One of Ichabod's long hands extended in gesture.

"And I insist you shall never again use the name of Camilla Maurice as your wife."

The old mocking smile sprang to Asa Arnold's face.

"Unconsciously, you're amusing," he derided. "The old story of the mouse who forbids the cat.... You forget, man, she is my wife."

Ichabod stood up, seemingly longer and gaunter than ever before.

"Good G.o.d, Arnold," he flashed, "haven't you the faintest element of pride, or of consistency in your make-up? Is it necessary for a woman to tell you more than once that she hates you? By your own statement your marriage, even at first, was merely of convenience; but even if this weren't so, every principle of the belief you hold releases her.

Before G.o.d, or man, you haven't the slightest claim, and you know it."

"And you--"

"I love her."

Asa Arnold did not stir, but the pupils of his eyes grew wider, until the whole eye seemed black.

"You fool!" he accented slowly. "You brazen egoist! Did it never occur to you that others than yourself could love?"

Score for the little man. Ichabod had been pinked first.

"You dare tell me to my face you loved her?"

"I do."

"You lie!" blazed Ichabod. "Every word and action of your life gives you the lie!"

Not five minutes had pa.s.sed since he came in and already he had forgotten!

Asa Arnold likewise was upon his feet and they two faced each other,--a bed length between; in their minds the past and future a blank, the present with its primitive animal hate blazing in their eyes.

"You know what it means to tell me that." Arnold's voice was a full note higher than usual. "You'll apologize?"

"Never. It's true. You lied, and you know you lied."

The surrounding world turned dark to the little man, and the dry-goods box with the tin dipper on its top, danced before his eyes. For the first time in his memory he felt himself losing self-control, and by main force of will he turned away to the window. For the instant all the savage of his nature was on the surface, and he could fairly feel his fingers gripping at the tall man's throat.

A moment he stood in the narrow south window, full in the smiling irony of Nature's suns.h.i.+ne; but only a moment. Then the mocking smile that had become an instinctive part of his nature spread over his face.

"I see but one way to settle this difficulty," he intimated.

A taunt sprang to Ichabod's tongue, but was as quickly repressed.

"There is but one, unless--" with meaning pause.

"I repeat, there is but one."

Ichabod's long face held like wood.