The Cow Puncher - Robert J. C. Stead (best reads .TXT) 📗

country until everybody calls him by his first name."

"Well, Mr. Elden seems to have made a hit, as you call it, with some of his acquaintances," said Mrs. Hardy, with a touch of acidity. "I think, Irene, you would do well to remember that we are not out on the ranges, and that Mr. Elden no longer pursues his living with a lariat."

"It may be a point of view I have acquired in the West," Irene persisted. "But I think it a greater courtesy to address a man by his Christian name than by any artificial title. It is something like admitting a guest into the kitchen—a privilege not extended to the casual visitor. It seems like taking him into the family——"

"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy. "Have we come to that?"

Irene's cheeks and eyes grew brighter still. "Oh, I didn't mean that," she protested. "I was—I was employing a figure of speech."

So the talk drifted on, sometimes safely, sometimes through tortuous channels that threatened at any moment to over-turn their little shell of convention. But no such catastrophe occurred, and when, at length, Mrs. Hardy began to show signs of weariness, Irene served coffee and cake, and the two men, taking that as an intimation that their welcome had run down, but would re-wind itself if not too continually drawn upon, left the house together. On their way they agreed that it was a very beautiful night.

Dave turned the situation over in his mind with some impatience. Irene had now been in the city for several weeks, and he had had opportunity for scarce a dozen personal words with her. Was he to be baulked by such an insufferable chaperonage as it seemed the purpose of Mrs. Hardy and Conward to establish over his love affair? No. In the act of undressing he told himself No, suiting to the word such vigour of behaviour that in the morning he found his shoes at opposite corners of the room. No! He who, as a boy, had not hesitated to assert a sort of proprietorship over Irene, would not hesitate now— He was keyed to the heroic.

Several days passed without any word from Irene, and he had almost made up his mind to attempt another telephone appointment, when he met her, quite accidentally, in the street. It was a beautiful afternoon; warm, but not hot, with a fresh breeze from the mountains flowing through the unclouded heavens, and a radiant sun pouring down upon all. But Irene looked more radiant still. She had been shopping, she said. The duty of household purchases fell mainly upon her. Her mother rested in the afternoons——

"How about a cup of tea?" said Dave. "And a thin sandwich? And a delicate morsel of cake? One can always count on thin sandwiches and delicate morsels of cake. Their function is purely a social one, having no relation to the physical requirements."

"I should be very glad," said Irene.

They found a quiet tea-room. When they were seated Dave, without preliminaries, plunged into the subject nearest his heart.

"I have been wanting an opportunity to talk to you—wanting it for weeks," he said. "But it always seemed——"

"Always seemed that you were thwarted," Irene completed his thought. "You didn't disguise your annoyance very well the other night."

"Do you blame me for being annoyed?"

"No. But I rather blame you for showing it. You see, I was annoyed too."

"Then you had nothing to do with—with bringing about the situation that existed?"

"Certainly not. Surely you do not think that I would—that I would——"

"I beg your pardon, Reenie," said Dave, contritely. "I should have known better. But it seemed such a strange coincidence."

She was toying with her cup, and for once her eyes avoided him. "You should hardly think, Dave," she ventured,—"you should hardly conclude that—what has been, you know, gives you the right—entitles you——"

"To a monopoly of your attentions. Perhaps not. But it gives me the right to a fair chance to win a monopoly of your attentions." He was speaking low and earnestly, and his voice had a deep, rich timbre in it that thrilled and almost frightened her. She could not resent his straightforwardness. She felt that he was already asserting his claim upon her, and there was something tender and delightful in the sense of being claimed by such a man.

"I must have a fair chance to win that monopoly," he repeated. "How did it happen that Conward was present?"

"I don't know. It just happened. A little after you telephoned me he called up and asked for mother, and the next I knew she said he was coming up to spend the evening. And then I said you were coming."

"And what did she say?"

Irene hesitated. "Please don't make me tell you," she whispered at length.

"Don't hesitate from any fear of hurting me," he said, with a laugh. "I know I have failed to make a hit with your mother. On your account I could wish I had been more successful, but perhaps she will be fairer when she knows me better. What did she say?"

"She just said, 'That cow puncher.' And I just told her that you were the man who put the punch in the Conward & Elden firm—you see I am learning your slang—and that everybody says so, and a few more things I told her, too."

But Dave had dropped into a sudden reverie. It was not so remarkable as it seemed that Conward should have telephoned Mrs. Hardy almost immediately after he had used the line. Conward's telephone and Dave's were on the same circuit; it was a simple matter for Conward, if he had happened to lift the receiver during Dave's conversation with Irene, to overhear all that was said. That might happen accidentally; at least, it might begin innocently enough. The fact that Conward had acted upon the information indicated two things; first, that he had no very troublesome sense of honour—which Dave had long suspected—and second, that he had deliberately planned a confliction with Dave's visit to the Hardy home. This indicated a policy of some kind; a scheme deeper than Dave was as yet able to fathom. He would at least guard against any further eavesdropping on his telephone.

He took a card from his pocket, and made some figures on it. "If you should have occasion to call me at the office at any time, please use that number, and ask for me," he said. "It is the accountant's number. 'There's a reason.'"

It flattered his masculine authority that she put the card in her purse without comment. She did not ask him to explain. Dave knew that when a woman no longer asks for explanations she pays man her highest compliment.

The cups were empty; the sandwiches and cake were gone, but they lingered on.

"I have been wondering," Dave ventured at length, "just where I stand—with you. You remember our agreement?"

She averted her eyes, but her voice was steady. "You have observed the terms?" she said.

"Yes—in all essential matters. I come to you now—in accordance with those terms. You said that we would know. Now I know; know as I have always known since those wonderful days in the foothills; those days from which I date my existence. Anything worth while that has ripened in my life was sown by your smile and your confidence and your strange pride in me, back in those sunny days. And I would repay it all—and at the same time double my debt—by returning it to you, if I may."

"I realize that I owe you an answer, now, Dave," she said, frankly. "And I find it very hard to make that answer. Marriage means so much more to a woman than it does to a man. I know you don't think so, but it does. Man, after the honeymoon, returns to his first love—his day's work. But woman cannot go back.… Don't misunderstand me, Dave. I would be ashamed to say I doubt myself, or that I don't know my mind, but you and I are no longer boy and girl. We are man and woman now. And I just want time—just want time to be sure that—that——"

"I suppose you are right," he answered. "I will not try to hurry your decision. I will only try to give you an opportunity to know—to be sure, as you said. Then, when you are sure, you will speak. I will not re-open the subject."

His words had something of the ring of an ultimatum, but no endearments that his lips might have uttered could have gripped her heart so surely. She knew they were the words of a man in deadly earnest, a man who had himself in hand, a man who made love with the same serious purpose as he had employed in the other projects of his successful life. She raised her eyes to his fine face. Decision was stamped all over it; from the firm jaw to the steady eyes that met her own. Suddenly she began to tremble. It was not fear. Afterwards she knew it to have been pride—pride in his great masterly manfulness; in a judgment so sure of itself that it dallied not a moment in stating the terms upon which all future happiness might hang. For if Dave had misread Irene's heart he had deliberately closed the only door through which he might hope to approach it. But Irene instinctively knew that he had not misread her heart; it seemed that this bold, daring manoeuvre had captured the citadel at a stroke. Had it not been for some strange sense of shame—some fear that too ready capitulation might be mistaken for weakness—she would have surrendered then.

"I think that is best," she managed so say. "We will let our acquaintanceship ripen."

He rose and helped her with her light wrap. His fingers touched her hand, and it seemed to him the battle was won.… But he had promised not to re-open the subject.

In the street he said, "If you will wait a moment I will take you home in my car." Their eyes met, and each of them knew what it meant. It meant announcement to her mother that she had met Dave down town. It meant, perhaps, a supposition on her mother's part that she had gone down town for that purpose. It was far-reaching. But she said simply, "I should enjoy driving home with you."

On the way they planned that the following Sunday they would drive into the foothills together. Of course they would ask Mrs. Hardy to accompany them. Of course. But it might happen that Mrs. Hardy would be indisposed. She was tired with the numerous duties incident to settling in a new home. Irene was of the opinion that what her mother needed now was rest.

As it happened, Mrs. Hardy was at the gate. She greeted Dave cordially enough; it was not possible for Mrs. Hardy to quite forget her conventional training, just as it was not possible for her to quite forget that Dave was a one-time cow puncher. Encouraged by her mood Irene determined to settle the Sunday programme at once.

"Dave was good enough to bring me up in his car," she said. "And just think! He invites us to drive into the foothills with him next Sunday. Will you come? It will be delightful. Or are you feeling——"

"Mr. Elden is very kind," said Mrs. Hardy, with dignity. "I have no doubt Mr. Conward will accompany us. He is to call this evening, and I will ask him.… Yes, I think it very likely we will go."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The summer wore on, and autumn followed on its heels. The processes which had been discerned by Conward and other astute operators were now apparent to the mob which forever follows in the wake of the successful, but usually at such a distance as to be overwhelmed in the receding flood. The forces which had built up fabulous fortunes were now in reverse gear, and the same mechanism that had built