Chapter 19

Imogene had been startled by a note in Lee's answer to her bantering question that she never before had heard him use. Though his words were uttered lightly, there nevertheless was a hard ring to them, a grate, as if his teeth were on edge. Something had happened. Ruth had driven during the afternoon to see him and returned exceedingly put out. If anything had occurred, Imogene hoped it was--well, one certain thing.

When Bryant brought her home that evening, he went with her into her cabin. In silence he built up the fire, fussed for a time with the lamp-wick, lighted a cigarette, took a turn across the cabin, inspected thoughtfully the back of one hand, and then lifted his gaze to Imogene. She had been waiting, with a vague alarm. And this his stern visage and burning eyes increased.

"Will Ruth marry me at once, do you think?" he questioned. "To-morrow--or the next day?" His tone was calm. He might have been speaking of the cabin, asking if it kept out the wind.

Imogene was dumbfounded by that voice and that inquiry. She had expected anything but either.

"Not then; not so soon, I suspect," she said, at length.

"When? At the end of a week, the end of a fortnight?"

"I can't say," she replied with a sensation now of being harried. This would not do; she must get herself in hand. "The fact is, Lee, I'm not in Ruth's confidence. Haven't been for some considerable time. We've drifted a little apart."

"Only a little?"

"Only a little--I hope."

The cigarette Bryant held had gone out. Presently he glanced at it, then crushed it in his palm and dropped it into a coat pocket.

"Don't fence with me, Imogene," he said. "Give me the truth."

The truth--well, why not? He was entitled to it. Besides, since he had eyes and a brain with which to reason he was not ignorant of the girls' waning friendship. Pretense was foolish. Imogene leaned forward in her seat and rested her crossed arms upon her knees, directing her look at the floor. Her fluffy golden hair had been slightly disarranged when she removed her hat and so remained. Her face was thinner than in the summer, with a pinched aspect about her lips.

"The situation is this," she began, slowly. "Ruth and I are not really on good terms and we've been perilously near a break several times. But I've restrained my temper and my tongue to avoid one, because I feel I must remain as long as she does. No, I can't leave her here alone--that would be brutal. And ruinous for her, too. I've thought it all out pretty carefully. You see, we both agreed to stay when we came, until we agreed to go or had proved up on our claims. Probably I don't make myself very clear to you. I think now that I made a mistake and that neither of us ought ever to have attempted homesteading. So much has happened that is different from what I anticipated. Not the existence itself; I don't mean that. Other things. Ruth's change, chiefly. See, Lee, I speak frankly, for we've usually been frank toward each other. You two are engaged, but"--she straightened up in order to meet his eyes--"she's treating you abominably and shamelessly. Ordinarily, I would hold my peace, I've held it hitherto, but I can no longer. Why, I choke sometimes! Going constantly with Gretzinger, who's so despicable that he tries to use her as a tool to reach and corrupt you, or Charlie Menocal, who's your out-and-out enemy, it's too much for me, Lee. And uncle and aunt are furious with me for staying. She listen to me? Ruth listens neither to me nor any one." She rose and came close to Bryant. "You're right to marry her immediately. If you two love each other, that is." Her look was penetrating, questioning. "For she needs a restraining influence. People in Kennard are talking----"

"My God!" Bryant cried, hoarsely. "No, no; not Ruth! She couldn't do anything wrong!"

"No, there's nothing bad. But she has given grounds for gossip, she and some other girls. She sees too much of this Gretzinger and Charlie Menocal and men like them; and the time may come when I'll tremble. I've begged her to be discreet and considerate of your good opinion and love, but she always declares that she's acting eminently proper. Lee."

"Yes."

"There's something more. Gretzinger's not only finding amusement in her company, he's in love with her. After the women he's been accustomed to in New York, the rouged and jaded type he naturally would know, her freshness and spirits appeal to him. But you know what sort of man he is--cynical, unscrupulous, without principles."

A long time passed before Bryant made a response. He stood knitting his brows, as if preoccupied. Imogene wondered if he had been following her at the last.

"I'll speak to him about his principles in connection with Ruth," he said. The utterance was amazingly dispassionate. Then quite unexpectedly he remarked, "I've never yet had to kill a man, never as yet."

Imogene shuddered, and she was terrified. It was as if a curtain had been jerked aside disclosing figures grouped for tragedy.

"It must never come to that," she breathed.

Bryant stirred, then began to look about the room. He grew observant.

"This is bad for you, Imogene," he said, presently. "Impossible! Your uncle is right. This wretched cabin doesn't keep out cold or wind; you have to chop wood and carry water, tasks beyond your strength; you're lonely, you're ill at times--"

"And Ruth?"

"Well?"

"You know her situation. Financial, I mean."

"I less than any one know it. Extraordinary, too, now that I think of it," he said, reflectively. "What is her situation?" Immediately he added, "Of course, I guess that she has no great means and she has said that she lacks training to earn a livelihood. But her family?"

"She lived with an aunt until she came here, Lee."

"So she mentioned."

"They didn't get on well together after Ruth went to stay with her on her parents' death," Imogene explained. "The woman was narrow-minded and exacting, especially in matters of amusements and religion. You know the type." Bryant nodded. "And Ruth was young, exuberant, and, as I now see, wilful. Their clashes were the cause of her desire to come West. We had been good friends, but not intimates; and I marvel at myself now at having gone so rashly into a thing like this, without inquiring whether our habits, tastes, desires, natures, everything, fitted us for prolonged companionship. Yes, I marvel." She sat motionless, staring at the lamp fixedly. "However, I'm in it now up to my neck. Ruth declares that she will never return to her aunt."

"And she can't earn a living."

"Nor would if she could, I fear," Imogene added, a little sadly. "At least, now. It would be too dull."

"Then I must marry her at once."

Imogene gave him a strange look.

"She is waiting," said she.

"For marriage?"

"No, to see how you succeed. Oh, to have to say these things is dreadful, Lee!" she exclaimed. But Bryant brushed this aside with a gesture almost august in its indifference. "If you finish your project on time, she will be ready for the ceremony," the girl went on. "If you fail, she'll postpone it until you're able to provide more than just a roof, a chair, and a broom. Her very words! Love must not prevent people from being practical, from her viewpoint. So, as I say, she's waiting to discover the outcome." A corner of her mouth twisted up while she paused. Then she concluded in a low voice, "And probably something else."

Bryant had again fallen into study. Imogene doubted if he had heard her added remark, and she could not divine from his countenance how fierce or in what direction his covered passion was beating.

"It will be too late," said he, suddenly and, as it seemed to her, irrelevantly.

Then she thought that she understood.

"He's going home in a few days, for the Christmas holidays," she stated. "Possibly then Ruth will--I'm planning for us all to be at uncle's, you with us."

"Gretzinger wasn't in my mind."

"You said 'too late'," she pursued. "Naturally I supposed your reference to be of them."

The gravity of his face deepened.

"I was thinking of myself," said he, turning his eyes upon her. "If we're not married soon, very soon, it will be too late. I mean that it would be a mockery. For me, at any rate. One may wish to go one way, and be swept another, especially when the mooring line is slack." His breast rose and fell at a quick, agitated breath. "But promise me that you'll not speak of this to Ruth."

"The very thing to bring her round, perhaps."

"More likely to fill her with despair."

This was something Imogene could not grasp. It was so inexplicable, so extravagant, so perverse, that her cheeks grew hot.

"I can't follow you at all," she cried, indignantly. "Ruth alarmed, jealous, in doubt--yes, I can credit her with any one of those feelings. But despair! She lays her plans too far ahead to be led into despair."

"Even if she knew I had ceased to love her? When she understood our marriage would be a hollow ceremony?"

"Would it be that if you succeed with your project?"

Bryant's eyes blazed suddenly.

"Great God, you talk as if she were to marry the canal!" he exclaimed. He glowered for a time. "I see now what you mean. You believe she would marry me if I win out with the ditch. Being practical, she would accept money as a substitute for love. That reminds me: she herself once declared that if circumstances necessitated she could take a rich man for his riches." Bryant uttered a harsh laugh. "My Lord, I was frightened lest in a fit of anguish at losing my love she should go to the devil!" Again he yielded to an outburst of laughter that made Imogene shudder. "I fancied that at finding herself out of money, unable to work, disinclined to work, unloved, miserable, she would recklessly hurl herself into perdition. And I was going to save her from that, marry her at once, sacrifice myself! Like an egotistical fool! When all the while there was never the slightest danger or need, when all the while she held the string, not I. And love isn't a consideration whatever. And she will marry me when I've completed the project. And complete it I must, of course. Not a way out, not a single loop-hole. Oh, my Lord, my Lord, Imogene, did you ever know of anything so devilishly laughable!" And his bitter, sardonic merriment broke forth anew.

The girl was appalled. All she could do was to gasp, "Oh, Lee, Lee! Don't laugh like that, don't think of it like that. You make it out worse than it is."

He stopped short. By his look he might have detested her.

"I state it as it is," he said. "Wherein is the actual situation better?"

"You could break your engagement; certainly she has given you sufficient cause."

"Yes, break with her, as might you. Why don't you?"

Imogene put out a hand in protest.

"You know why, Lee; I've told you," she said, earnestly.

"No more can I, for the same reason," was his reply. He turned and lifted his hat and gloves from the table. "I will have no act of mine cut her adrift and push her under. Much better to stand the gaff. I suppose one hardens to anything in time." His look wandered about the room. "And the diabolic part of it all is that this squeamish feeling of responsibility for another may achieve as much harm in the long run as its lack. Who knows?"

He glanced at her as if expecting an answer. Imogene remained silent; indeed, nothing need be said to so evident an enigma. For that matter, nothing more said at all. Bryant drew on his gloves and bade her good-night. At the door he remarked, quite in his accustomed manner:

"I'll send Dave over in the morning with more blankets and have him chop some wood. There's a drop in the temperature coming."