Chapter 9

"TO THE GIRL I AM GOING TO KISS TO-NIGHT!"

An odd mood was upon him this afternoon. Perhaps since moods are contagious, his was caught from the girl, Ygerne. With a sort of jeering laughter in his heart he surrendered to his inclination. The world had gone stale in his mouth; a black depression beat at him with its stiffling [Transcriber's note: stifling?] wings; an hour with the girl might offer other amusement than the mere angering of Lemarc and Sefton. He wanted only one thing in the world; to be whole of body so that he might fare out on the trail again, a fresh trail now that gold lay at the end of it. But since he might not have the greater wish he contented himself with the lesser.

He shaved himself, grimly conscious of the contempt looking out at him from the haggard eyes in the mirror. Those eyes mocked him like another man's. Then he went to Père Marquette's store, paying scant attention to the three or four men he found there. He made known his wants and tossed his gold pieces to the counter, taking no stock of curious gazes. He saw that Kootanie George was there and that Kootanie's big boots were gummed with the red mud of the upper trail. He took no trouble to hide his sneer; Kootanie George, too, had been out in search of his gold and had returned empty handed.

To each question of Père Marquette his answer was the same:

"The best you've got; damn the price."

Marquette had but the one white silk shirt in the house and Drennen took it, paying the ten dollars without a word. There were many pairs of boots to fit him; one pair alone took his fancy, though he knew the rich black leather and the shapely high heels would cause him to hurl them away to-morrow as things unfit for the foot of man. He selected corduroy breeches and a soft black hat and returned to his dugout, leaving fifty dollars upon the counter. And when he had dressed and had laughed at himself he went back up the muddy road for Ygerne. But first he stopped at Joe's.

"I want the private room," he said, and Joe nodded eagerly as he saw Drennen's hand emerge from his pocket. "And I want the best dinner for two you can put on. Trimmings and all."

Joe, slipping the first of Drennen's money into his pocket and cherishing high hopes of more, set himself and his boy to work, seeing his way of arriving at the second gold piece with no great loss of time.

The long northern twilight was an hour old when Drennen called for Ygerne. She came out of her room at Marquette's ready for him. She had told him she must "dress" for the occasion. He had thought her joking. In spite of him he stared at her wonderingly a moment. And, despite her own gathering of will, a flush crept into her cheeks under his look while her own eyes widened to the alterations a little effort had made in the man. And the thing each noted swiftly of the other was scarcely less swiftly noted by all men and women in the Settlement before they had gone down to Joe's: he had suddenly become as handsome as a devil from hell; she as radiant as an angel.

"Are we just going to step into a ballroom for the masquerade?" she half whispered with a queer little intake of breath as she found his arm with a white gloved hand. "And is all this," waving at the Settlement itself, the river snaking its way through the narrow valley, the frowning fronts of Ironhead and Indian Peak against the saffron sky, "just so much painted canvas for the proper background?"

He laughed and brought his eyes away from the white throat and shoulders, letting them sweep upward to the mystery of her eyes, the dusky hair half seen, half guessed under the sheen of her scarf, wondering the while at the strange femininity of her in bringing such dainty articles of dress to such a land. Then, his eyes finding the prettily slippered and stockinged feet, he moved with her to the side of the road where the ground was harder.

Joe had seen with amazing rapidity that the "trimmings" were not wanting. With old knowledge born of many years of restaurant work, he knew that any day some prospector might find that which all prospectors endlessly sought and that then he would grind his bare grubstake contemptuously under his heel and demand to eat. Upon such occasions there would be no questions asked as to price if Joe but tickled the tingling palate. Joe had unlocked the padlock of the cellar trapdoor; he had gone down and had unlocked another padlock upon a great box. And all that which he had brought out, beginning with a white tablecloth and ending with nuts and raisins, had been a revelation to his boy assistant. There was potted chicken, there were tinned tomatoes and peaches, there were many things which David Drennen had not looked upon for the matter of years.

The "private room" into which Joe, even his apron changed for the occasion, showed them was simply the far end of the long lunch room, half shut off from the rest of the house by a flimsy partition having no door, but a wide, high arch let into it through which a man at the lunch counter might see the little table and both of the diners.

Drennen, stepping in front of Joe, took Ygerne's scarf, drew out her chair for her, and having seen her seated, took his own place with the table between them. He nodded approvingly as he noted that Joe had not been without taste; for the restaurant keeper had even thought of flowers and the best that the Settlement could provide, a flaming red snowplant, stood in the centre of the table in a glass bowl of clean white snow.

Joe brought the wine, a bucket at which the boy had scrubbed for ten minutes, holding the bottle as the glass bowl held the snow-plant, in a bed of snow. When he offered it a trifle uncertainly to Drennen's gaze and Drennen looked at it and away, nodding carelessly, Joe allowed himself to smile contentedly. Champagne here was like so much molten gold; it was assured that Drennen was "going the limit."

Drennen lifted his glass. His glance, busied a moment reminiscently with the bubbling amber fluid, travelled across the table. Ygerne Bellaire had raised her glass with him. Her eyes were sparkling, a little eager, a little excited, perhaps a little triumphant.

"Isn't it fun?" she said gaily.

He looked back gravely into her laughing eyes.

"May I drink your health?" he demanded. "And success to whatever venture has brought you so far from the beaten trail."

She set down her glass, making a little moue of pretended disappointment at him with her red mouth.

"And I was thinking that I was to have the honour of drawing something gallant, at least flattering, something befitting the occasion, from you!" she said. "Why don't you say, 'Here's lookin' at you,' and be done with it?"

He laughed.

"Then I'll say what I was thinking. May I drink this to the one woman I have ever seen whom I'd fall in love with . . . if I were a fool like other men?"

He drank his wine slowly, draining the glass, his eyes full upon hers. She laughed and when he had done said lightly,

"At least that's better." She sipped her own wine and set it aside again. "Why didn't you say that in the first place? Why must you think one thing and say another?"

"That way lies wisdom," he told her coolly.

"Or stupidity, which?" she retorted.

"Shall a man say all of the foolish things which flash into his brain?"

"Why not?" She shrugged, twisting her glass in slow fingers. "If all of the nonsense were taken out of life what would be left, I wonder?"

"I have the honour to entertain the high-born Lady Ygerne Bellaire at dinner," he said in mock deference. "Her request is my command. Shall I voice my second idiotic thought?"

She nodded, making her mouth smile at him while her eyes were gravely speculative.

"Then," and his bow was in accord with the mockery of his tone, "I was thinking that for the reason best known to the King of Fools I'd like to kiss that red mouth of yours, Ygerne!"

"You'd be the first man who had ever done so," she told him steadily.

"Quite sure of that?" he sneered.

"Yes."

"Tempting me further?" he laughed at her.

"I don't think you'd dare, with all of your presumption, Mr. Drennen."

"Because there are a couple of men out there to see, I suppose?"

"No. I don't think that that would stop you. Because of this."

A hand, dropped to her lap, came up to the level of the table top and in its palm he saw the shining barrel of a small automatic pistol. Again he laughed at her.

"It seems the latest fad for women to carry such playthings," he ridiculed her. "I wonder how frightened you'd have to be before you could pull the trigger?"

"Just merely angered," she smiled back at him, as the weapon went back into her lap, and out of sight.

"It's just a trifling episode, this shooting a man," he suggested. "I suppose you've done that sort of thing before?"

"If I hadn't perhaps I shouldn't be here now," she informed him as quietly as he had spoken.

It flashed upon Drennen, looking straight into her unfaltering eyes, that the girl was telling him the truth. Well, why not? There was Southern blood in her; her name suggested it and her appearance proclaimed it. And Southern blood is hot blood. His instinct was telling him that she was some new type of adventuress; her words seemed to assure him of the fact.

"Since I cannot be about my business these days," he said slowly, "I am fortunate in finding so entertaining a lady to share my idleness."

"And I in finding so gallant a host," she smiled back at him.

Joe served the first of his lighter courses and withdrew. As time passed a few men came into the lunch room, their eyes finding the two figures in the private room. Drennen observed them casually. He saw Marc Lemarc and Captain Sefton. The old hard smile clung for a moment to his lips as he marked the angry stare which the man with the coppery Vandyck beard bestowed upon him. He saw Kootanie George enter alone; he saw, a little later, Ernestine Dumont flirting with Ramon Garcia, ignoring the big Canadian. Garcia stepped to Joe's side to arrange for the use of the room in which Drennen and Ygerne were; Ernestine, thinking the room empty as it usually was, came on to the arch of the door before she saw its occupants. As her eyes swept quickly from Ygerne to Drennen a hot flush ran up into the woman's cheeks. Then, with a little, hard laugh, she turned back to find a seat with Garcia at one of the oilcloth covered tables. Garcia, for the first time seeing Ygerne, bowed sweepingly, his eyes frankly admiring her, before he sat down with Ernestine.

"Ygerne!" said Drennen out of a desultory conversation in which an idle question put and unanswered was promptly forgotten.

"Well?" she asked quietly.

"I am going to tell you something. You will note that I have had but the one glass of wine; I have drunk only one toast. Therefore we may admit that I am sober and know what I am about. We are going to talk of the thing I have found somewhere in the mountains. That is why we are met to-night . . . so that you may have your opportunity to try to learn what I alone know, what you and so many others want to know. When we have finished our little banquet you, being a free agent, are at liberty to call upon one of your friends there or even upon Joe, to see you to your room. Or you can accept my escort."

While she watched him, her elbows on the table, her chin upon her clasped hands, he poured himself a second glass. She saw the light in his eyes change subtly as he continued:

"A second toast, my Princess Ygerne! To the girl I am going to kiss to-night on our way between Joe's and Marquette's!" He held his glass up and laughed at her across the top of it. "To the girl I'd love now were I a fool; the girl I wouldn't know to-morrow if I saw her! The girl who pits the beauty of her body against the calm of a man's brain. The girl whose eyes are as beautiful as shining stars. The girl whose eyes are filled with the madness of the lust of gold! To a sweet-faced, cool-hearted little adventuress . . . My Lady Ygerne! Am I insulting? You knew that before you did me the honour to dine with me. Shall I drink the toast, Ygerne?"

She sat regarding him gravely, the dimples of a moment ago merely sweet memories, her eyes stars no longer but deep twin pools, mystery-filled.

"Was there a time when you were a gentleman, Mr. Drennen?" she asked steadily.

"Was there a time when you were as innocent as you look, Ygerne?" he answered coolly.

He saw the anger leap up in her eyes, he noted a sudden hard, tense curving of her lips. Then, lifting her white shoulders, she laughed softly as she leaned back in her chair, relaxing.

"Drink," she said lightly. "As you say, we shall talk of your new strike. As you say, that is why I am here with you. And then . . ."

He had tossed off his wine and now said sharply:

"Then you will allow me the pleasure of escorting you to the door of Père Marquette's . . . or you will get one of your hangdogs or Joe here to see you home. Which?"

"Do you think I am a coward?" she said quickly.

"All women are, I think," was his blunt answer.

"Then try to kiss me when you please! Since I am your guest to-night I shall expect you to see me to my room."

"I have told you what will happen."

She smiled at him. He saw the fleeting dimples at the corners of the red lipped mouth. And he saw too, in her eyes, the glint as of steel.

"Speaking of your discovery, Mr. Drennen. . ."

He laughed.