Dennison Grant Part 18

His voice lingered on it as though it were a delightful remembrance.

She found herself holding one of her hands in the other. She could feel the pressure of Transley's ring on her palm, and she held it tighter still.

"Riding anywhere in particular?" he inquired.

"No. Just mooning." She looked up at him again, this time at close quarters. It was a quick, bright flash on his face--a moment only.

"Why mooning?"

She did not answer. Looking down in the water he met her gaze there.

"You're troubled!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, no! My--my ankle hurts a little."

He looked at her sympathetically. "But not that much," he said.

She gave a forced little laugh. "What a mind reader you are! Can you tell my fortune?"

"I should have to read it in your hand."

She would have extended her hand, but for Transley's ring.

"No.... No. You'll have to read it in--in the stars."

"Then look at me." She did so, innocently.

"I cannot read it there," he said, after his long gaze had begun to whip the color to her cheeks. "There is no answer."

She turned again to the water, and after a long while she heard his voice, very low and earnest.

"Zen, I could read a fortune for you, if you would not be offended. We are only chance acquaintances--not very well acquainted, yet--"

She knew what he meant, but she pretended she did not. Even in that moment something came to her of Transley's speech about love being a game of pretence. Very well, she would play the game--this once.

"I don't see how I could be offended at your reading my fortune," she murmured.

"Then this is the fortune I would read for you," he said boldly. "I see a young man, a rather foolish young man, perhaps, by ordinary standards, and yet one who has found a great deal of happiness in his simple, unconventional life. Until a short time ago he felt that life could give him all the happiness that was worth having. He had health, strength, hours of work and hours of pleasure, the fields, the hills, the mountains, the sky--all G.o.d's open places to live in and enjoy. He thought there was nothing more.

"Well, then he found, all of a sudden, that there was something more--everything more. He made that discovery on a calm autumn night, when fire had blackened all the foothills and still ran in dancing red ribbons over their distant crests. That night a great thing--two great things--came into his life. First was something he gave. Not very much, indeed, but typical of all it might be. It was service. And next was something he received, something so wonderful he did not understand it then, and does not understand it yet. It was trust. These were things he had been leaving largely out of his life, and suddenly he discovered how empty it was. I think there is one word for both these things, and, it may be, for even more. You know?"

"I know," she said, and her voice was scarcely audible.

"But it is YOUR fortune I am to read," he corrected himself. "It has been your fortune to open that new world to me. That can never be undone--those gates can never be closed--no matter where the paths may lead. Those two paths go down to the future--as all paths must--even as this road leads away through the valley to the sunset. Zen--if only, like this road, they could run side by side to the sunset--Oh! Zen, if they could?"

"I know," she said, and as she raised her face he saw that her eyes were wet. "I know--if only they could!"

There was a little sob in her voice, and in her beauty and distress she was altogether irresistible. He reached out his arms and would have taken her in them, but she thrust her hands in his and held herself back. She turned the diamond deliberately to his eyes. She could feel his grip relax and apparently grow suddenly cold. He stood speechless, like one dazed--benumbed.

"You see, I should not have let you talk--it is my fault," she said, speaking hurriedly. "I should not have let you talk. Please do not think I am shallow; that I let you suffer to gratify my vanity." Her eyes found his again. "If I had not believed every word you said--if I had not liked every word you said--if I had not--HOPED--every word you said, I would not have listened.... But you see how it is."

He was silent for so long that she thought he was not going to answer her at all. When he spoke it was in a dry, parched voice.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I should not have presumed--"

"I know, I know. If only--"

Then he looked straight at her and talked out.

"You liked me enough to let me speak as I did. I opened my heart to you. I ask no such concession in return. I hope you will not think me presumptuous, but I do not plead now for my happiness, but for yours. Is this irrevocable? Are--you--sure?"

He said the last words so slowly and deliberately that she felt that each of them was cutting the very rock from underneath her. She knew she was at a junction point in her life, and her mind strove to quickly appraise the situation. On one side was this man who had for her so strange and so powerful an appeal. It was only by sheer force of will that she could hold herself aloof from him. But he was a man who had broken with his family and quarrelled with her father--a man whom her father would certainly not for a moment consider as a son-in-law. He was a foreman; practically a ranch hand. Neither Zen nor her father were sn.o.bs, and if Grant worked for a living, so did Transley. That was not to be counted against him. The point was, what kind of living did he earn? What Transley had to offer was perhaps on a lower plane, but it was more substantial. It had been approved by her father, and her mother, and herself. It wasn't as though one man were good and the other bad; it wasn't as though one thing were right and the other wrong. It would have been easy then....

"I have promised," she said at last.

She released her hands from his, and, sitting down, silently put on her stocking and boot. She was aware that he was still standing near, as though waiting to be formally dismissed. She walked by him to her horse and put her foot in the stirrup. Then she looked at him and gave her hand a little farewell wave.

Then a great pang, irresistible in its yearning, swept over her. She drew her foot from the stirrup, and, rus.h.i.+ng down, threw her arms about his neck....

"I must go," she said. "I must go. We must both go and forget."

And Dennison Grant continued his way down the valley while Zen rode back to the Y.D., wondering if she could ever forget.

CHAPTER X

Linder scratched his tousled brown hair reflectively as he gazed after the retreating form of Transley. His hat was off, and the perspiration stood on his sunburned face--a face which, in point of handsomeness, needed make no apology to Transley.

"Well, by thunder!" said Linder; "by thunder, think of that!"

Linder stood for some time, thinking "of that" as deeply as his somewhat disorganized mental state would permit. For Transley had announced, with his usual directness, that he wanted so many men and teams for a house excavation in the most exclusive part of the city. So far they had been building in the cheaper districts a cheap type of house for those who, having little capital, are the easier deprived of what they have. The s.h.i.+ft in operations caused Linder to lift his eyebrows.

Transley laughed boyishly and clapped a palm on his shoulder.

"I may as well make you wise, Linder," he said. "We're going to build a house for Mr. and Mrs. Transley."

"MISSUS?" Linder echoed, incredulously.

"That's the good word," Transley confirmed. "Never expected it to happen to me, but it did, all of a sudden. You want to look out; maybe it's catching."

Transley was evidently in prime humor. Linder had, indeed, noted this good humor for some time, but had attributed it to the very successful operations in which his employer had been engaged. He pulled himself together enough to offer a somewhat confused congratulation.

"And may I ask who is to be the fortunate young lady?" he ventured.

"You may," said Transley, "but if you could see the length of your nose it wouldn't be necessary. Linder, you're the best foreman I ever had, just because you don't ever think of anything else. When you pa.s.s on there'll be no heaven for you unless they give you charge of a bunch of men and teams where you can raise a sweat and make money for the boss.

If you weren't like that you would have antic.i.p.ated what I've told you--or perhaps made a play for Zen yourself."