Part 20

The ex-Senator was hot, weary, and angry. He had arrived in Pinon City on the early train, just as the county attorney and the sheriff were about to set forth. A few words with these officials assuaged his anxiety for his daughter but increased his irritation towards Curtis. Leaving orders for another team to follow, he had taken passage with the sheriff, an action he regretted at once. The seats were too low and too narrow for his vast bulk, and his knees grew weary. The wind came from the plain hot and insolent, bringing no relief to the lungs; on the contrary, it filled his eyes and ears with dust and parched the skin like a furnace blast. Altogether the conditions of his ride had been torturing to the great man, and he had ridden the latter part of it in grim silence, mentally execrating both Lawson and Curtis for luring his daughter so far from civilization.

No one spoke till the agent, pacing calmly down to the gate, stepped into the road and said:

"Good-evening, gentlemen, will you get out and come in?"

Even then Brisbane made no reply, but the sheriff spoke up: "I suppose we'll have to. This is Senator Brisbane, Major. He was very anxious about his daughter and so came in with me. This is Mr. Grismore, our county attorney."

Curtis bowed slightly. "Mr. Grismore I have seen. Senator Brisbane I have met. Send your horses down to the corral, sheriff, and come in; you can't return to-night."

As the sheriff got out he said: "This second team is the Senator's, and the reporter for the Associated Press is in there with Streeter."

Brisbane got out slowly and painfully, and a yellow-gray pallor came into his face as he stood beside the carriage steadying himself by resting his hand on the wheel. The young county attorney, eager to serve the great politician, sprang out and offered a hand, and Curtis, with sudden pity in his heart, made a step forward, but Brisbane put them both aside harshly.

"No, no! I'm all right now. My legs were cramped--that's all. They'll limber up in a minute. The seats were too low for a man of my height. I should have stayed in the other carriage."

After all he was Elsie's father, and Curtis relented: "Senator, if you'll take a seat in my office, I'll go fetch your daughter."

"I prefer to go to her myself," Brisbane replied, menacingly formal. "Where is she?"

"I will show you if you will permit," Curtis coldly replied, and set out to cross the road.

The old man hobbled painfully at first, but soon recovered enough of his habitual power to follow Curtis, who did not wait, for he wished to have a private word with Elsie before her father came. She was lying down as he knocked, resting, waiting for the dinner call.

"Your father is here," he said, as she opened the door.

Her face expressed surprise, not pleasure.

"Here! Here at the agency?"

"Yes, and on his way to the studio. Moreover, he is very dirty, very disgusted, very crusty, and not at all well."

"Poor old father! Now he'll make it uncomfortable for us all. He has come for me, of course. Who is with him?"

"The sheriff, the county attorney, and some reporters."

She smiled. "Then he is 'after you,' too."

"It looks that way. But you must not go away without giving me another chance to talk with you. Will you promise that?" he demanded, abruptly, passionately. "I have something to say to you."

"I dare not promise," she responded, and her words chilled him even more than her action as she turned away to the door. "How slowly he walks! Poor old papa! You shouldn't have done this, popsey," she cried, as she met him with a kiss on his cheek.

Curtis walked away, leaving them alone, a hand of ice at his heart.

Brisbane took her kiss without changing to lighter mood.

"Why didn't you follow out my orders?" he demanded, harshly. "You see what I've had to go through just because you are so foolishly obstinate. That ride is enough to kill a man."

Her throat swelled with anger, but she choked it down and replied very gently. "Come into the studio and let me clean off the dust. I'm sorry."

He followed her in and sank heavily upon a chair. "I wouldn't take that journey again for ten thousand dollars. Why didn't you come to the railway as I ordered?"

"Because I saw no good reason for it. I knew what I was doing. Captain Curtis assured me--"

"Captain Curtis!" he sneered. "You'd take his word against mine, would you?"

"Yes, I would, for he is on the ground and knows all the conditions. He has the outbreak well in hand. You have seen only the outside exaggeration of it. He has acted with honor and good judgment--"

"Oh, he has, has he? Well, we'll see about that!" His mind had taken a new turn. "He won't have anything in his hand six months from now. No West Point dude like him can set himself up against the power of this State and live."

"Now, papa, don't start in to abuse Captain Curtis; he is our host, and it isn't seemly."

"Oh, it isn't! Well, I don't care whether it is or is not; I shall speak my mind. His whole attitude has been hostile to the best interests of the State, and he must get off his high horse."

As he growled and sneered his way through a long diatribe, she brought water and bathed his face and hands and brushed his hair, her anger melting into pity as she comprehended how weak and broken he was. She had observed it before in times of great fatigue, but the heat and dust and discomfort of the drive had reduced the big body, debilitated by lack of exercise, to a nerveless lump, his brain to a mass of incoherent and savage impulses. No matter what he said thereafter, she realized his pitiable weakness and felt no anger.

As he rested he grew calmer, and at last consented to lie down while she made a little tea on an alcohol lamp. After sipping the tea he fell asleep, and she sat by his side, her mind filled with the fundamental conception of a daughter's obligation to her sire. To her he was no longer a great politician, no longer a powerful, aggressive business man--he was only her poor, old, dying father, to whom she owed her every comfort, her education, her jewels, her art. He had never been a companion to her--his had been the rule absolute--and yet a hundred indulgences, a hundred really kind and considerate acts came thronging to her mind as she fanned his flushed face.

"I must go with him," she said; "it is my duty."

Curtis came to the door again and tapped. She put her finger to her lips, and so he stood silent, looking in at her. His eyes called her and she rose and tiptoed to the door.

"I came to ask you both to dinner," he whispered.

Her eyes filled with quick tears. "That's good of you," she returned, in a low voice. "But he would not come. He's only a poor, old, broken man, after all." Her voice was apologetic in tone. "I hope you will not be angry." They both stood looking down at him. "He has failed terribly in the last few weeks. His campaigning will kill him. I wish he would give it up. He needs rest and quiet. What can I do?"

Curtis, looking upon the livid old man, inert and lumpish, yet venerable because of his white hairs--and because he was the sire of his love--experienced a sudden melting of his own resolution. His throat choked, but he said:

"Go with him. He needs you."

At the moment words were unnecessary. She understood his deeper meaning, and lifted her hand to him. He took it in both his. "It may be a long time before I shall see you again. I--I ought not--" he struggled with himself and ceased to speak.

Her eyes wavered and she withdrew her hand. "My duty is with him now; perhaps I can carry him through his campaign, or dissuade him altogether. Don't you see that I am right?"

He drew himself up as though his general-in-chief were passing. "Duty is a word I can understand," he said, and turned away.

XXVIII

A WALK IN THE STARLIGHT

Having no further pretext for calling upon her, Curtis thought of Elsie as of a strain of music which had passed. He was rather silent at dinner, but not noticeably so, for Maynard absorbed most of the time and attention of those present. At the first opportunity he returned to his papers, and was deep in work when Jennie came in to tell him that Elsie was coming over to stay the night.

"She has given up her bed to her father, and so she will sleep here. Go over about nine and get her."

If she knew how deeply this command moved him, she was considerate enough to make no comment. "Very well, sis," he replied, quietly. "As soon as I finish this letter."

But he did not finish the letter--did not even complete the sentence with which his pen was engaged when Jennie interrupted him. After she went out he sat in silence and in complete immobility for nearly an hour. At last he rose and went out into the warm and windless night.

When he entered the studio he found her seated upon one trunk and surveying another.

"This looks like flight," he said.

"Yes; papa insists on our going early to-morrow morning. Isn't it preposterous! I can only pack my clothing. He says the trouble is only beginning, and that I must not remain here another day."

"I have come to fetch you to Jennie."

"I will be ready presently. I am just looking round to decide on what to take. Be seated, please, while I look over this pile of sketches."

He took a seat and looked at her sombrely. "You'll leave a great big empty place here when you go."

"Do you mean this studio?"

"I mean in my daily life."

She became reflective. "I hate to go, and that's the truth of it. I am just beginning to feel my grip tighten on this material. I know I could do some good work here, but really I was frightened at papa's condition this afternoon. He is better now, but I can see that he is failing. If he insists on campaigning I must go with him--but, oh, how I hate it! Think of standing up and shaking hands with all these queer people for months! I oughtn't to feel so, of course, but I can't help it. I've no patience with people who are half-baked, neither bread nor dough. I believe I like old Mary and Two Horns better."

"I fear you are voicing a mood, not a conviction. We ought not to condemn any one;" he paused a moment, then added: "I don't like you to even _say_ cruel things. It hurts me. As I look round this room I see nothing which has to do with duty or conviction or war or politics. There is peace and beauty here. You belong in this atmosphere; you are fitted to your environment. I admit that I was fired at first with a desire to convert you to my ways of thought; now, when a sense of duty troubles you, takes you away from the joy of your art, I question myself. You are too beautiful to wear yourself out in problems. I now say, remain an artist. There is something idyllic about your artist life as I now understand it. It is simple and childlike. In that respect it seems to have less troublesome questions of right or wrong to decide than science. Its one care seems to be, 'What will produce and preserve beauty, and so assuage the pain of the world?' No question of money or religion or politics--just the pursuit of an ideal in a sheltered nook."

"You have gone too far the other way, I fear," she said, sadly. "Our lives, even at the best, are far from being the ideal you present. It seems very strange to me to hear you say those things--"

"I have given the matter much thought," he replied. "If I have made you think of the woes of the world, so you have shown me glimpses of a life where men and women are almost free from care. We are mutually instructed." He rose at this point and, after hesitation, said: "When you go I wish you would leave this room just as it is, and when I am tired and irritable and lonely I'll come here and imagine myself a part of your world of harmonious colors, with no race questions to settle and no harsh duties to perform. Will you do this? These few hangings and lamps and easels are unimportant to you--you won't miss them; to me they will be priceless, and, besides, you may come back again some time. Say you will. It will comfort me."

There was a light in his eyes and an intensity in his voice which startled her. She stammered a little.

"Why, of course, if it will give you the slightest pleasure; there is nothing here of any particular value. I'll be glad to leave them."

"Thank you. So long as I have this room as it is I shall be able to persuade myself that you have not passed utterly out of my life."

She was a little alarmed now, and hastened to say: "I do not see why we should not meet again. I shall expect you to call when you come to Washington--" she checked herself. "I'm afraid my sense of duty to the Tetongs is not strong. Don't think too hardly of me because of it."

He seemed intent on another thought. "Do you know, you've given me a dim notion of a new philosophy. I haven't organized it yet, but it's something like this: Beauty is a sense of fitness, harmony. This sense of beauty--call it taste--demands positively a readjustment of the external facts of life, so that all angles, all suffering and violence, shall cease. If all men were lovers of the beautiful, the gentle, then the world would needs be suave and genial, and life harmoniously colored, like your own studio, and we would campaign only against ugliness. To civilize would mean a totally different thing. I'm not quite clear on my theory yet, but perhaps you can help me out."

"I think I see what you mean. But my world," she hastened to say, "is nothing like so blameless as you think it. Don't think artists are actually what they should be. They are very human, eager to succeed, to outstrip each other; and they are sordid, too. No, you are too kind to us. We are a poor lot when you take us as a whole, and the worst of it is the cleverest makers of the beautiful are often the least inspiring in their lives. I mean they're ignorant and spiteful, and often dishonorable." She stopped abruptly.

"I'm sorry to hear you say that. It certainly shatters a beautiful theory I had built up out of what you and other artists have said to me." After a little silence he resumed: "It comes down to this, then: that all arts and professions are a part of life, and life is a compromise between desire and duty. There are certain things I want to do to-day, but my duties for to-morrow forbid. You are right in going away with your father--I'm not one to keep you from doing that--but I must tell you how great has been the pleasure of having you here, and I hope you will come again. If you go to-morrow morning I shall not see you again."

"Why not?"

"I start at dawn to arrest Cut Finger."

"Alone?"

"No. The captain of the police goes with me."

Her face paled a little. "Oh! I wish you wouldn't! Why don't you take the soldiers?"

"They are not necessary. I shall leave here about four o'clock and surprise the guilty man in his bed. He will not fight me." He rose. "Are you ready to go now?"

"In a moment," she said, and softly crossed the floor to peep into the bedroom. "Poor papa, he looks almost bloodless as he sleeps."

As they stepped out into the darkness Curtis realized that this was their last walk together, and the thought was both sweet and sad.

"Will you take my arm?" he asked. "It is very dark, though there should be a new moon."

"It has gone down; I saw it," she replied, as she slipped her hand through his elbow. "How peaceful it all is! It doesn't seem possible that to-morrow you will risk your life in the performance of duty, and that I will leave here, never to return. I have a curious feeling about this place now. It seems as though I were settled here, and that I am to go on living here forever."

"I wish it were true. Women like you--you know what I mean; there are no women like you, of course--come into my life too seldom. I dread the empty futility of to-morrow. As an Indian agent, I must expect to live without companionship with such as you. I have a premonition that Jennie is going to leave me--as she ought."

"You will be very lonely then; what will you do?"

"Work harder; do more good, and so cheat myself into forgetfulness that time is flying."

"You are bitter to-night."

"Why shouldn't I be when you are going away? It wouldn't be decent of me to be gay."

"Your methods of flattery are always effective. At one moment you discuss the weightiest matters with me--which argues I have brains--and then you grow gloomy over my going and would seem to mean that I am charming, which I don't think is quite true."

"If I weren't a poor devil of an army officer I'd convince you of my sincerity by asking you not to go away at all."

"That _would_ be convincing," she said, laughingly. "Please don't do it!"

His tone became suddenly serious. "You are right, I can't ask you to share a life like mine. It is too uncertain. I may be ordered back to my regiment next winter, and then nothing remains but garrison duty. I think I will then resign. But I am unfitted for business, or for any money-getting, and so I've decided that as an honorable man I must not imperil the happiness of a woman. I claim to be a person of taste, and the girl I admired would have other chances in life. I can't afford to say to her, 'Give up all your comfort and security and come with me to the frontier.' She would be foolish to listen--no woman of the stamp I have in mind could do it." They were nearing "the parsonage" gate, and he ended in a low voice: "Don't you think I am right?"

"The theory is that nothing really counts in a woman's life but love," she replied, enigmatically.

"Yes, but theory aside--"

"Well, then, I can conceive of a girl--a very _young_ girl--leaving wealth and friends, and even her art, for the man she loved, but--"

He waited a moment as a culprit listens to his judge. "But then--but in case--"

"If the girl were grown up and loved luxurious living, and shared an enthusiasm--say for art--then--" She broke off and said, wearily, "Then she might palter and measure values and weigh chances, and take account of the future and end by not marrying at all."

They had reached the gate and he spoke with perceivable effort: "I've no right to ask it, of course, but if you take pity on my loneliness at any time and write to me, your letters will be more welcome than it is seemly in me to say, and I'll promise not to bore you with further details of my 'Injines.' Will you be kind to me?"

"I will be glad to write," she replied, but in her voice was something he did not understand. As they entered the house Elsie said: "Captain Maynard, Captain Curtis is going out to-morrow morning to arrest that crazy Indian. Do you think he ought to go alone?"

"Certainly not! It would be too dangerous. He shall have an escort," replied Maynard, emphatically.

"No, no!" said Curtis, decisively. "I am safer to go unarmed and alone."

"George!" protested Jennie, "you shall not go out there alone. Why don't you send the police?"

Maynard here interposed. "Don't take on worry; I'll go with him myself."

This last hour in Elsie's company was a mingled pain and pleasure to Curtis, for she was most charming. She laid aside all hauteur, all perversity, and gave herself unreservedly to her good friends. They were all at high tension, and the talk leaped from jest to protest, and back to laughter again, agile and inconsequent. The time and the place, the past and the future, counted for little to these four, for they were young and they were lovers.

At last Jennie rose. "If you people are to rise at dawn you must go to sleep now. Good-night! Come, Elsie Bee Bee."

Maynard followed Jennie into the hall with some jest, and Curtis seized the opportunity to delay Elsie. He offered his hand, and she laid hers therein with a motion of half-surrender.

"Good-night, Captain. I appreciate your kindness more than I can say."

"Don't try. I feel now that I have done nothing--nothing of what I should have done; but I didn't think you were to leave so soon. If I had known--"

"You have done more than you realize. Once more, good-night!"

"Good-night!" he said, in an unsteady voice; "and remember, you promised to write!"

"I will keep my promise." She turned at the door. "Don't try to write around your red people. I believe I'd like to hear how you get on with them."

"Defend me from mine enemies within the gates, and I'll work out my problem."

"I'll do my best. Good-bye!"

"No, not good-bye--just good-night!"

For a moment he stood meditating a further word, then stepped into the hall. Elsie, midway on the stairs, had turned and was looking down at him with a face wherein the eyes were wistful and brows perplexed. She guiltily lowered her lashes and turned away, but that momentary pause--that subtle interplay of doubt and dream--had given the soldier a pleasure deeper than words.

* * * * *

Jennie was waiting at the door of the tiny room in which Elsie was to sleep, her face glowing with admiration and love. "Oh, you queenly girl!" she cried, with a convulsive clasp of her strong arms. "I can't get over the wonder of your being here in our little house. You ought to live always in a castle."

Elsie smiled, but with tears in her eyes. "You're a dear, good girl. I never had a truer friend."

"I wish you were poor!" said Jennie, as they entered the plain little room; "then you could come here as a missionary or something, and we could have you with us all the time. I hate to think of your going away to-morrow."

"You must come and see me in Washington."

"Oh no! That wouldn't do!" said Jennie, half alarmed. "It might spoil me for life out here. You must visit us again."

There was a note of honest, almost boyish suffering in Jennie's entreaties which moved the daughter of wealth very deeply, and she went to her bed with a feeling of loss, as though she were taking leave of something very sweet and elementally comforting.

She thought of her first lover, and her cheeks burned with disgust of her folly. She thought of two or three good, manly suitors whose protestations of love had left her cold and humorously critical. On Lawson's suit she lingered, for he was still a possibility should she decide to put her soldier-lover away. "But I _have_ done so--definitely," she said to some pleading within herself. "I can't marry him; our lives are ordered on divergent lines. I can't come here to live."

"Happiness is not dependent on material things," argued her newly awakened self. "He loves you--he is handsome and true and good."

"But I don't love him."

"Yes, you do. When you returned Osborne Lawson's ring you quite plainly said so."

She burned with a new flame with this confession; but she protested, "Let us be sensible! Let us argue!"

"You cannot argue with love."

"I am not a child to be carried away by a momentary gust of emotion. See how impossible it is for me to share his work--his austere life."

And here entered the far-reaching question of the life and death of a race. In a most disturbing measure this obscure young soldier represented a view of life--of civilization antagonistic to her faith, and in stern opposition to the teachings of her father. In a subtle fashion he had warped the word _duty_ from its martial significance to a place in a lofty philosophy whose tenets were only just beginning to unfold their inner meaning to her.

Was it not true that she was less sympathetic with the poor brown peoples of the earth than with the animals? "How can you be contemptuous of God's children, whom the physical universe has colored brown or black or yellow--you, who are indignant when a beast is overburdened? If we repudiate and condemn to death those who do not please us, who will live?"