The Bells of San Juan - Jackson Gregory (most read books TXT) 📗

sung in her ears. She leaned forward eagerly, her hands clasped to keep them from trembling. She was sixteen, he eighteen . . . and she had his assurance of a moment ago that they were no longer just "kids." And then and there their so-long-delayed quarrel began. Just at the wrong time, after the time-honored fashion of quarrels. He was ready to twine the vine about the veranda posts of the house on the knoll where the spring and the big trees were, she was ready to plant the fig-tree. Then she had glimpsed something just too funny for anything in the idea of Elmer raising pigs . . . for he had gone on to that, sagely anticipating a high market another season . . . and she laughed at him and all unintentionally wounded his feelings. In a flash he was Black Bill again and on his mettle, ready with the quick retort stung from him; and she, parrying his thrust, was at once Fluff, the mercuric. The spat was on . . . they would call it a spat to-morrow if to-morrow were kind to them . . . and Elmer's ranch and house and cow, horse and pigs were laughed to scorn.

Florrie departed leaving her cruellest laughter to ring in his ears. This might have been a repetition of any one of a dozen episodes familiar to them both, but never, perhaps, had Elmer's ears burned so or Florrie's heart so disturbed her with its beating. For, she thought regretfully as she hurried out into the street, they had been getting along so nicely. . . .

She had no business out alone at this time of night and she knew it. So she hurried on, anxious to get home before her father, who was returning late from a visit to one of his ranches. Abreast of the Casa Blanca she slowed up, looking in curiously. Then, as again she was hastening on, she heard Jim Galloway's deep voice in a quiet "Good evening, Miss Florence."

"Good evening!" gasped Florrie aloud. And "Oh!" said Florrie under her breath. For Galloway's figure had separated itself from the shadows at the side of his open door and had come out into the street, while Galloway was saying in a matter-of-fact way: "I'll see you home."

She wanted to run and could not. She hung a moment balancing upon a high heel in indecision. Galloway stepped forward swiftly, coming to her side. "Oh, dear," the inner Florrie was saying. A glance over her shoulder showed her Black Bill standing out in front of Struve's hotel. Well, there were compensations.

She started to hurry on, and had Jim Galloway been less sure of himself, troubled with the diffidence of youth as was Elmer, he must have either given over his purpose or else fairly run to keep up with her. But being Jim Galloway, he laid a gentle but none the less restraining hand upon her arm.

"Please," he said quietly. "I want to talk with you. May I?"

Florrie's arm burned where he had touched her. She was all in a flutter, half frightened and the other half flattered. A shade more leisurely they walked on toward the cottonwoods. Here, in the shadows, Galloway stopped and Florrie, although beginning to tremble, stopped with him.

"Men have given me a black name here," he was saying as he faced her. "They've made me somewhat worse than I am. I feel that I have few friends, certainly very few of my own class. I like to think of you as a friend. May I?"

It was distinctly pleasant to have a big man like Galloway, a man whom for good or for bad the whole State knew, pleading with her. It gave a new sort of assurance to her theory that she was "grown up"; it added to her importance in her own eyes.

"Why, yes," said Florrie.

"I am going away," he continued gravely. "For just how long I don't know. A week, perhaps a month, maybe longer. It is a business matter of considerable importance, Florence. Nor is it entirely without danger. It will take me down below the border, and an American in Mexico right now takes his life entirely into his own hands. You know that, don't you?"

"Then why do you go?"

Galloway smiled down at her.

"If I held back every time a danger-signal was thrown out," he said lightly, "I wouldn't travel very far. Oh, I'll come back all right; a man may go through fire itself and return if he has the incentive which I have." His tone altered subtly. Florrie started.

"But before I go," went on Galloway, "I am going to tell you something which I think you know already. You do, don't you, Florence?"

She would not have been Florrie at all, but some very different, unromantic, and unimaginative creature, had she failed of comprehension. Jim Galloway was actually making love to her!

"What do you mean, Mr. Galloway?" she managed to stammer.

"I mean that what I am telling you is for your ears alone. I am placing a confidence in you, the greatest confidence a man can place in a girl. Or in a woman, Florence. I am trusting that what I say will remain just between you and me for the present. . . . When I come back I will be no longer just Jim Galloway of the Casa Blanca, but Galloway of one of the biggest grants in Mexico, with mile after mile of fertile lands, with a small army of servants, vaqueros, and retainers, a sort of ruler of my own State! It sounds like a fairy-tale, Florence, but it is the sober truth made possible by conditions below the border. My estates will run down to the blue water of the Gulf; I shall have my own fleet of ocean-going yachts; there is a port upon my own land. There will be a home overlooking the sea like a king's palace. Will you think of all that while I am gone? Will you think of me a little, too? Will you remember that my little kingdom is crying out for its queen? . . . No; I am not asking you to answer me now. I am just asking that you hold this as our secret until I come back. Until I come back for you! . . . I shall stand here until you reach your home," he broke off suddenly. "Good night, my dear."

"Good night," said Florence faintly, a little dazed by all that he had said to her. Then, running through the shadows to her home, she was thinking of the boy who had wished to propose to her and of the man who had done so; of Elmer's little home upon the knoll surrounded by a cow, a horse, and some pigs . . . and of a big house like a palace looking out to sea across the swaying masts of white-sailed, sea-going yachts!

CHAPTER XXI (A CRISIS)

 

Like Norton, Virginia found life simplifying itself in a crisis. Upon three hundred and sixty days or more of the average year each individual has before him scores of avenues open to his thoughts or to his act; he may turn wheresoever he will. But in the supreme moments of his life, with brief time for hesitation granted him, he may be forced to do one of two things: he must leap back or plunge forward to escape the destiny rushing down upon him like a speeding engine threatening him who has come to stand upon the crossing. Now Virginia saw clearly that she must submit to Norton's mastery and remain silent in the King's Palace or she must seek to escape and tell what she knew or . . . Was there a remaining alternative? If so it must present itself as clearly as the others. Action was stripped down to essentials, bared to its component elements. True vision must necessarily result, since no side issues cluttered the view.

She sat upon a saddle-blanket upon the rock floor of the main chamber of the series of ancient dwelling-rooms, staring at the fire which Norton had builded against a wall where it might not be seen from without. The horses were in the meadow down by the stream; she and Norton had tethered them among the trees where they were fairly free from the chance of being seen. Norton was coming up, mounting the deep-worn steps in the cliff side. He had gone for water; he had not been out of sight nor away five minutes. And yet when she looked up to see him coming through the irregular doorway she had decided.

She saw in him both the man and the gentleman. Her anger had died down long ago, smothered in the ashes of her distress; now she summoned to the fore all that she might in extenuation of what he did. She did not blame him for the crimes which she knew he had committed because she was so confident that the chief crime of all had been the act resulting from Caleb Patten's abysmal ignorance. Nor now could she blame Norton that, embarked upon this flood of his life, he saw himself forced to make her his prisoner for a few hours. It was a man's birthright to protect himself, to guard his freedom. And her heart gave him high praise that toward her he acted with all deference, that with things as they were, while he was man enough to hold her here, he was too much the gentleman to make love to her. Would she have resisted, would she have opposed calm argument against a hot avowal? She did not know.

"Virginia," he said gravely as he slumped down upon the far side of the fire, "I feel the brute. But . . ."

Yes, she had decided, fully decided, whether if be for better or for worse. Now she surprised him with one of her quick, bright, friendly smiles while she interrupted:

"Let us make the best of a bad situation," she said swiftly. "I am not unhappy right now; I have no wish to run half-way to meet any unhappiness which may be coming our way. You are not the brute toward me; what you do, I do not so much as censure you for. I am not going to quarrel with you; were I in your boots I imagine I'd do just exactly as you are doing. I hope I'd be as nice about it, too. And now, before we drop the subject for good and all, let me say this: no matter what I do, should it even be the betraying you into the hands of your enemies, to put it quite tragically, I want you to know that I wish you well and that is why I do it. Can you understand me?"

"Yes," he said slowly. "It's sweet of you, Virginia. If you got my gun and shot my head off, I don't know who should blame you. I shouldn't!" he concluded with a forced attempt to match her smile.

"Then we understand each other? As long as each does the best he can see his way to do, the other finds no fault?" And when he nodded she