"I don't think I meant – quite that," he said.
The girl offered no reply, and the man went on.
"You see, we have become sort of partners in most everything, haven't we? I don't seem to think of anything without you being in it." Then he laughed, a little nervous laugh. "I don't try to either. Say, I went out to the cattle station, and had a look at Slosson the other day. The boys have got him pretty right, and – I felt sorry for him."
"Why?" Hazel asked her question without thinking. She somehow felt incapable of thought just now. She felt like one drifting upon some tide which was beyond her control, and the only guiding hand that mattered was this man's.
Gordon gave one of his curious short laughs, which might have meant anything.
"I don't know," he said. Then: "Yes, I do though. Think of a fellow who's had his business queered, who's staked a big gamble and lost, not only that, but the girl he's crazy about, and meanwhile is rounded up in a shack that wouldn't keep a summer shower out, and seems as though it was set up on purpose by some crazy genius as a sort of playground for every sort of wind ever blew. Say, if I lost my partner now, I'd – Guess our partnership ought to expire in a month. This play will be through then."
"Yes."
With all her desire to talk on indifferently, Hazel could find no word to add to the monosyllable. She was trembling with a delightful apprehension she could not check. And somehow she had no desire to check it. This man was all powerful to sway her emotions, and she knew it. The moments were growing almost painful in the tenseness of her emotions.
"Another month. It's – awful for me to think of."
"Is it?"
The inanity of her remark would have made Hazel laugh at any other time. Now, it passed her by, its meaninglessness conveying nothing with the submerging of her humor in the sea of stronger emotions.
Gordon urged his horse to draw level with the mare. Then he deliberately drew it down to a walk on the rustling grass, and Hazel followed his example without protest. All about them was the delicate silver tracery of the moonlight through the trees. The warmth of the perfumed night air possessed a seductiveness only equaled by the night beauties of the scene about them. It was such a moment when the most timorous lover must become emboldened, and emulate the bravest. But Gordon knew no timidity. His only fear was for failure. Had he realized the tumult which his words had stirred within this girl's bosom he might well have flung all hesitation to the winds. As it was he threw the final cast with all the strength of his virile, impetuous nature.
"Another month. Must it end then, Hazel?" He reached out and seized, with gentle firmness, the girl's bridle hand. "Must it? Say, can't it be partners – for life?" His eyes were very tender, but their humor was still lurking in their depths. He leaned towards her and the girl's hand remained unresistingly in his. "D'you know, dear, I sort of feel to-night I'd like to have a dozen Slossons standing around waiting, while I scrapped 'em all in turn for you. Maybe that don't tell you much. It can't mean anything to you. It means this to me. It means I just want to be the fellow who's got to see to it that life runs as smooth as the wheels of a Pullman for you. It means I don't care a thing for anything else in the world but you, not even this play we're at now. I guess I just loved you the day I first saw you, and have gone on loving you worse and worse ever since, till I don't guess there's any doctor, but having you always with me, can save me from an early grave." Somehow the two horses had come to a standstill. Nor were they urged on. "I just want you, Hazel, all the time," Gordon went on, more and more tenderly. "You'll never get to know how badly I want you. Will you – shall it be – partners – always?"
The girl was gazing out over the moonlight scene so that Gordon could see nothing of the light of happiness shining in her pretty eyes. All he knew was the trembling of the hand he still held in his. Then, suddenly, while he waited, he felt the girl's other hand, soft, warm, full of that quiet strength which he knew to be hers, close over his, and a wild thrill swept through his whole body.
"Is it 'yes'?" he demanded, with a passionate pressure of his hand, and a great light burning in his eyes. "Mine! Mine! For – as long as we live?"
The girl still made no verbal reply, but she bowed her head and gently raised his hand, and tenderly pressed it to her soft bosom. In an instant she lay crushed in his arms while the two horses, with heads together, seemed lost in a friendly discussion of the extraordinary proceedings going on between their riders.
What they thought about them was apparently on the whole favorable, for presently, with mute expressions of good will, their handsome heads drew apart and lowered significantly. The next moment they were enjoying a pleasant siesta, such as only a four-footed creature can accomplish standing without risk to life and limb.
Half an hour later they were wide awake and full of bustling activity. The closed heels on their saddle cinchas warned them that even lovers' madness has its limits of duration, and that the practical affairs of life must inevitably become paramount in the end.
So they answered the call, and raced down the trail in the cool of the night.
CHAPTER XXIII
IN NEW YORK
Mrs. James Carbhoy had endured anything but a happy time for several weeks. She had received no news from her beloved son; her husband had spirited himself away on business and left her without a word of definite information as to his whereabouts; while even the trying presence of her young daughter was denied her, since she had been forced to dispatch that personification of childish willfulness to their estate at Tuxedo, that she might be put through a course of disciplining by her various governesses.
She was alone, she reminded herself not less than three times a day, and to be alone in her great mansion at Central Park was the limit of earthly punishment as she understood it. She detested it. She hated the hot summer landscape of the park; she was worried to death by the chorus of automobile hooters as the cars sped up and down the great asphalt way; she felt that the red-and-white stone palaces with which she was surrounded were the ugliest things ever hidden from blind eyes, and an army of servants could be, and was, the most nerve-racking thing she had ever been called upon to endure. For two peas she would pack a bag – no, her maid would have to pack it; she was denied even that pleasure – and hie herself to Europe.
This was something of the condition of mind to which she was reduced, when one morning two events happened almost simultaneously which changed the whole aspect of things, and created in her something approaching a desire to continue the dreary monotony of life.
The first was the advent of her mail, with a long letter from her son dated at Buffalo Point, and the second was an urgent request from her husband's manager, Mr. Harker, desiring permission to wait upon her, as he had the most encouraging news from the long-lost Gordon and her husband's affairs generally.
Gordon's mother did not read her son's letter at once. She saw the heading and glanced at the opening paragraph. The satisfaction so inspired caused her to set it aside for careful perusal after her breakfast. Mr. Harker would be up to see her at about eleven o'clock. That would give her ample time to have digested its contents before he arrived.
For the first time in weeks she ate an ample breakfast at her customary early hour. She further forgot to make her maid's life a burden during the process of dressing, and she even enjoyed glancing over the advertisements of the daily newspapers. Then came the hour of seclusion in her boudoir when she yielded herself to the perusal of her boy's letter.
"BUFFALO POINT,
Near Snake's Fall.
"DEAREST MUM:
"It seems so long since I sent you any mail, and I seem to have so much news to tell you, and I've so completely forgotten what I have already told you, that I hardly know where to begin. However, you'll see by the heading of this letter I am at Buffalo Point, and am glad to say I have received a visit from the dear old Dad, who is just as happy as any man of his devotion to work can be – on vacation. His visit to me here has placed me in a position of great trust in his affairs in the neighborhood, and I am very proud that, through my own efforts, I have been so placed. After this I feel that the dear old Dad will never have cause to question my ability in dealing with big affairs. I feel he will acknowledge that the seed of his example has really fallen on fruitful soil, and that, after all, perhaps I shall yet prove a worthy son of a great father.
"This, I guess, brings me to the discussion of a subject which has kind of interested me some these last days. It is the modern understanding of filial duty. I s'pose even such a duty changes in its aspect, as everything else seems to change, with the passage of time. Chasing around in the dark days of pre-civilized times filial duty seemed pretty clearly marked. One of the first duties of a son was, when his mother wasn't around to claim the privilege, to get in the way when his father wanted to hit something with his club. He was also kind of handy as a sacrifice, either well broiled or minced into fancy chunks, to make his father's Gods feel good and get benevolent. Then he was mighty useful doing chores around the home, so his father didn't have to do more work than it took him filling his stomach with Saurian steaks and Pterodactyl cutlets, and getting drunk on a sort of beer, which his wife had contracted the habit of making for him in the intervals between being laid out cold with a stone club.
"There don't seem to be much doubt about those days. A son's filial duty lasted just as long as his father could enforce it with physical discipline. When he couldn't do it that way any longer, then the son and father generally made a big talk together, and whatever odds and ends of the father could be collected at the finish of the pow-wow were handed over to some local soup kitchen to make stock.
"Then the son usually took a wife, and so the same old play went on.
"With variations and moderations these things seem to have gone on, on some such general lines, right down to our present day. In some grades of present-day life I don't think there's such a heap of change as you'd guess. The conditions prevail, only the weapons and things are different. However, that's by the way. The thing that requires careful study is how far filial duty is justified.
"Filial duty is a pretty arbitrary thing when a man who can really think looks into it. I maintain that obligation is too much imposed upon offspring. I contend they don't owe a thing to their parents. It's the parents who owe to the offspring. This may shock you, but I hope you will put all personal feeling aside and regard it in the nature of an academic discussion. First of all, the fact of life is dependent upon the whim of parents to impose it. It is not a thing which a child owes gratitude for. Say, take a feller who can't swim, tie half a ton of lead around his neck and boost him into a whirlpool full of rocks and things, and ask him for gratitude. I'm open to gamble when he gets his breath he won't say a thing – not a thing – about gratitude. Maybe he'll remember every other emotion ever given to erring humanity, but I don't guess he'd be able to spell the word gratitude, let alone talk it.
"We'll pass the subject of life for the moment. We've got it. We didn't want, but we got. And all the kicking won't alter it. Now filial duty demands obedience, and parents start right in from the first to make a kid's life a burden that way. Say, we'll take that whirlpool racket again. It's like two folks standing high and dry on a rock above it, and firing stones all around the poor darned fool struggling to win out. It don't matter which way he turns he's headed off with a rock dropped plumb ahead of him. Those rocks are labeled 'obey.' Say, after about twenty years of dodging those rocks parents 'll tell that feller of all they did for him in his youth, and say he's ungrateful just because he's learned enough sense to realize his parents are fools, anyway, and ought to be petrified mummies in a public museum.
"One of the worst sins of parents toward children is the fact that as soon as they take to sitting around in rockers, and their hinges start to creak when they get up, they don't ever seem to remember the time when their joints didn't have to make queer noises. When folks get that way they reckon it's the duty of all offspring just to sit around and gape in fool credulity, while they tell 'em what wonderful folk their parents – used to be, and how they – the children – if they lived a century, could never hope to be half as wonderful. A really bright kid generally hopes that for once his parent is talking truth. I say it with all respect that the gentlest, most harmless, most inoffensive father would resort to any subterfuge to have his son think he could lick creation if he fancied that way; and there isn't a woman so almighty plain but what she'll contrive to get her daughters – while they're still children – crazy enough to believe she was the beauty of her family, and that all their good looks are due to her side of the matrimonial contract.
"Of course, it isn't a desirable thought to picture your mother playing at holding hands in dark corners with fellers who never had a hundred-to-one chance of being your father; also it isn't just pleasant to speculate on the tricks she had to play to get your father to the jumping-off mark; neither do you care to dwell on what she thought of the chorus girls your father was in the habit of buying wine for, and decorating up with fancy clothes and jewels in his spare moments. You don't feel it's a nice thing to think of the numbers of times some one else has had to take off your father's boots for him overnight, and bathe his aching head with ice-water to get him down town in the morning to his office. But it wouldn't hurt you a thing if parents made a point of remembering all these things for themselves, and would give up making you quit playing parlor games during sermon in church on Sundays and inventing your own words to the hymn tunes.
"Now let's jump to what I call the breaking-point of filial duty. It's the point when a kid gets old enough to master the inner meaning of the expression 'damn fool,' which has probably been liberally applied to him for years. It's the moment when physical discipline can no longer obtain for – physical reasons. It's the point when two real live men, or two real live women, face each other with a contentious situation lying between them. Where does obligation lie? Does it remain – anyway?
"In Nature it does not. In human nature it remains – chiefly because of undue sentimentalism. Now sentimentalism should be a luxury, and not a law. This is obvious to any mind not suffocated by the gases of decadence. I'd like to say Nature's laws are sane and just, and, since they are inspired by a great and wise Providence, it's not reasonable to guess they can be improved upon by a psalm-smiting set of folks, who spend their whole lives in wrapping 'emselves around with cotton batten to keep out the wholesome draughts of Nature's lungs.
"So I feel that when the breaking-point of filial duty is reached it is no longer mother and daughter, father and son, in the practicalities of life. Take commerce. Father and son are in competition. Each is fighting for his own. How far is a son justified in emptying an automatic pistol into his father's food depot, when that mistaken parent guesses he's yearning to storm his son's stronghold of commercial enterprise? How far is that father justified in doping his son's liquor, so he won't lie awake at nights planning to roll him for his wad next morning? Take a daughter and her momma. Most mothers act as though they had to live all their lives with their daughters' husbands. And most daughters act as though they preferred their mommas should. I ask: how far has a mother right to butt in to run her daughter's home doings, and so muss up for some one else what she was never able to do right for herself? Why shouldn't a daughter be allowed to make her own mess of things, and later on, when she collects sense, clean it up again the best she knows?
"These are questions in my mind. These are questions I don't just seem able to answer right myself, and sort of feel they'd have given old Sol some insomnia, in spite of all his glory over the baby episode he made such a song about. Well, I put 'em down here, and maybe you can tell me about 'em, and, anyway, they make some problem.
"Maybe I haven't set out my news to the best advantage, but my mind is very busy with fixing things as they should go. You see, I'm working hard in the old Dad's interest, and am hoping soon to get that little word of approval from him which means so much, coming from so great a man. I am looking forward to seeing you again soon, and hope to see your dear, smiling face and pretty eyes just as bright and happy as I always remember them. Give my love to our Gracie, and tell her that the only way to get rid of those peculiarly spindle lower legs, which have always been one of her worst physical defects, is to adopt ankle exercises. It's a defect, like many others in her character, which can be improved with conscientious effort and patience.
"Your loving son,
"GORDON.
"P.S. – Your future daughter-in-law is just crazy to be taken into your motherly fold.
"G."
Mr. Harker's face was wreathed in smiles at the thought of the pleasant news it was his good fortune to be conveying to the wife of his chief. His smile remained until he heard the trim maid's announcement at the door of Mrs. Carbhoy's boudoir. Then the smile vanished, as though it had never been, and his well-nourished features became an assortment of troubled bewilderment. Furthermore, within five minutes of his ushering into the lady's presence he had registered a solemn vow that celibacy should remain his lot, until the day that saw his ample remains become a subject for cooking operations by the crematorium experts.
Mr. Harker was certainly unfortunate in his selection of the moment at which to pay his call. Mrs. James Carbhoy had had half an hour since reading her son's letter, in which to pursue that hateful hyphenated word "daughter-in-law" through every darkened channel of her somewhat limited mental machinery.
Daughter-in-law! It was everywhere. She could not lose sight of it. She could not escape its haunting meaning. It pursued her wherever she went. It was there, lurking amidst the folds of her gowns if she peered inside the great hanging wardrobes. It danced like a will-o'-the-wisp in every mirror which her troubled eyes chanced to encounter. It was interwoven with the patterns of the carpets; and the wall-paperings found a lurking-place for it amidst the unreal foliage which adorned them. It laughed at her when she angrily turned away to avoid it, and when she endeavored to defy it its mocking only increased. So it was that the unoffending Harker encountered the full tide of her angry alarm and maternal despair.
Mr. Harker had prepared a well-turned opening for his excellent news. But it was never used. Even as his lips moved to speak they remained sealed, held silent by the bitter cry of outraged maternal pride.
"He's married!" she cried. "Married – and I – I have never been consulted!"
Mr. Harker felt as though he had been caught up in the whirl of a physical encounter in which his opponent held all the advantage.
Mrs. Carbhoy waited for no comment. She rushed headlong, following up her advantage, smashing in "lefts" and "rights" indiscriminately.
"It's disgraceful – terrible! The ingratitude of it! After all his father and I have done for him! To think how we've always guided and taught him! The callous selfishness! The moment he's out of our sight – this – this is what happens. He's picked up with some wicked, designing female, whose father's certain to be a – a – gaolbird – or, anyway, ought to be. Not a word to a soul. We – we don't know who she is – or – or what. He don't even say her name. Daughter-in-law! It's – it's – Mr. Harker, I'm just wondering when I'll come over all crazy."
Mr. Harker welcomed the pause.
"You say Mr. Gordon's married?" he demanded incredulously.
"Yes – no. That is, he – he says 'your future daughter-in-law'!"
Mr. Harker breathed a deep relief and strove to smile confidence upon his chief's wife.
"Ah, yes. Mr. Gordon was always one for the girls. But he wouldn't make a fool of himself that way – "
In a moment the second round of the battle was raging.
"Fool? Fool? Every man's a fool, if some woman chooses!" cried Mrs. Carbhoy, and promptly hurled herself into a bitter tirade against her sex, sparing no race of monsters from likeness to it.
Mr. Harker was forced to submit from sheer inability to compete with the rapid flow of expression. But later on he had his opportunity at what he considered to be the termination of the "second round," while his opponent retired to her corner to be fanned by her seconds.
"Anyway, ma'am, if he's not yet married there's still hope. I guess Mr. Carbhoy's wise to what's doing with him. You see, he's been there with him."
"James Carbhoy!" The contemptuous emphasis on her husband's name opened the "third round," and Mr. Harker felt that the timekeeper had called "time" before he was ready.
For three full minutes the scornful wife of the millionaire recited an amplified denunciation upon husbands in general and millionaires in particular. But even so the round had to come to its natural conclusion, and when they were both resting once more in their "corners," Mr. Harker achieved something almost approaching success.
"You know, Mrs. Carbhoy, I was feeling pretty good coming along here in my automobile. Mr. Gordon's something more to me than just your son. We're real good friends, and I was feeling as anxious for his future as maybe you were. Well, when I got word from your husband at Snake's saying that he'd turned our affairs over to Mr. Gordon I was real glad, and I felt now here was the boy's chance. Then, day after day, along come his instructions, and I saw by the grip he'd got on things he'd taken his chance, and was pushing it through with as much smartness as Mr. Carbhoy himself might have shown. I was more than gratified, ma'am. Why, only to-day I've received word of a big coal option he's taken for us. As he's got it it's something for nothing. Nobody could have done better, not even your husband, ma'am. I really can't think there's going to be any mistakes about – strange females."
The man's tribute had a mollifying effect upon the mother. But she was still the "mother" rather than a creature of logic. She saw her boy being led to his undoing by some designing creature of her own sex, and her instinct warned her of the hideous dangers to millionaires' sons inherent in so guileful a race.
"If I could only feel that he was experienced in the world," she said helplessly. "But what does our poor Gordon know of women?"
Mr. Harker smiled. He was thinking with the intimacy of one man who knows another. He knew, too, something of the way in which Gordon's money had generally been spent.
"We must hope the best, ma'am," he said, with a hypocritical sigh. "He's evidently not married, so – what do you intend to do about it while Mr. Carbhoy is on the coast?"
"Do? Do? Why, I shall just go up to Snake's whatever-it-is, or Buffalo what's-its-name, and – and – "
"I should wait awhile, ma'am, if I were you," Mr. Harker interrupted her, fearing another outburst. "I'm expecting David Slosson in the city soon. He's one of our confidential men who's been working up at Snake's for us. I haven't heard from him for quite a while. He's sure to be along down soon, because he's got to make a report. Maybe he can tell us just how things are. Anyway, I wouldn't go up there. It's a queer, wild sort of place, and in no way fit for you."
"Will Slosson be around soon?"
"Sure, ma'am."
"Then I'll wait," cried the troubled mother, without cordiality. Then she appealed to the man who had always been something more than a mere commercial figure in her husband's life. "You know, if anything went wrong with my boy, Mr. Harker, it would just break my heart. I – I couldn't bear it. But I tell you right here there's no wretched female going to play her tricks on our Gordon with me around, and while I've got James Carbhoy's millions to my hand. And if your man Slosson don't give us satisfactory news of the boy, then, if Snake's what's-its-name were the worst place on earth – I should make it."
"If it comes to that, ma'am, there are other folks feel that way, too," said the manager earnestly. "But meanwhile I'd say don't worry a thing."
"I don't!" snapped the mother sharply. "The person who'll need to do all the worrying is that – female."