When I left the boat house I did not go directly home, but wandered along the beach. I had puzzled my brain with Mr. Keene and his errand until I determined not to puzzle it any longer that day. If my suspicions were unfounded and existed merely because of my dislike of the Bay Shore Company's representative, then they were not worth worry. If they were well founded I had almost a week in which to discover the fact. I would dismiss the whole matter from my thoughts. The question as to whether or not I would sell the land at all to anybody, which was, after all, the real question, I resolved to put off answering until I had had my talk with Mother.
I walked on by the water's edge until I reached the Lane; turning into that much coveted strip of territory I continued until I came opposite the Colton mansion, where, turning again, I strolled homeward by the path through the grove. Unconsciously my wandering thoughts strayed to Mabel Colton. It was here that I had met her on two occasions. I had an odd feeling that I should meet her here again, that she was here now. I had no reason for thinking such a thing, certainly the wish was not father to the thought, but at every bend in the path, as the undergrowth hid the way, I expected, as I turned the corner, to see her coming toward me.
But the path was, save for myself, untenanted. I was almost at its end, where the pines and bushes were scattering and the field of daisies, now in full bloom, began, when I heard a slight sound at my left. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw her. She was standing beneath a gnarled, moss-draped old pine by the bluff edge, looking out over the bay.
I stopped, involuntarily. Then I moved on again, as noiselessly as I could. But at my first step she turned and saw me. I raised my hat. She bowed, coldly, so it seemed to my supersensitive imagination, and I replaced the hat and continued my walk. I thought I heard the bushes near which she stood rustle as if she had moved, but I did not look back.
Then, close behind me, I heard her voice.
“Mr. Paine,” she said.
I turned. She had followed me and was standing in the path, a bit out of breath, as if she had hurried. I waited for her to speak, but she did not.
“Good afternoon, Miss Colton,” I said, awkwardly. Some one had to speak, we could not stand staring at each other like that.
She said “Good afternoon,” also. Then there was another interval of silence.
“You—you wished to speak to me?” I stammered.
“I DID speak to you,” with significant emphasis on the “did.” “I thought you might, possibly, be interested to know that Don and I reached home safely the other day.”
Considering that she had called upon Mother since, it seemed to me that my knowledge of her reaching home safely might have been taken for granted; but I said:
“I am very glad to hear it, Miss Colton.”
“We had no difficulty in finding the way after you left us.”
The way being almost straight, and over the main traveled roads, this, too, was fairly obvious.
“I felt sure you would have no trouble—after I left you,” I answered, with a significant emphasis of my own.
She did not reply and, as I had nothing further to say, I waited for her to continue, or to break off the interview. She did neither, but stood, as if irresolute, looking down and stirring with her foot the leaves at the edge of the path. Suddenly she looked up.
“Mr. Paine,” she said, “you are making it hard for me to say what I intended. But I think I should say it, and so I will. I beg your pardon for speaking as I did when I last saw you. I had no right to judge or criticize you, none whatever.”
“You do not need to apologize, Miss Colton. What you told me was probably true enough.”
The conventional answer to this would have been a half-hearted denial of my statement. I presume I expected something of the sort. But this girl was not conventional.
“Yes,” she said, thoughtfully, “I think it was. If I had not thought so I should not have said it. But that makes no difference. You and I are strangers, almost, and I had no right to speak as I did. I am impulsive, I know it, and I often do and say things on impulse which I am sorry for afterward. I offended you.”
“Oh no, no,” I put in, hurriedly. She had offended me, but this frank confession touched me more than the offense had hurt. She was doing a hard thing and doing it handsomely.
“Yes, I offended you,” she repeated, firmly. “I have considered the matter a good deal since then, and it seems to me that you were right to feel offended. You had been very kind to me on several occasions and I had been your”—with a half smile—“your guest that day. I should not have hurt your feelings. Will you accept my apology?”
“Why, yes, of course, since you insist, Miss Colton.”
“Thank you.”
She was turning to go; and I could not let her go thus. Although she had apologized for speaking her thought she had not retracted the thought itself. I was seized with a desire for justification in her eyes. I wanted to explain; forgetting for the moment that explanations were impossible.
“Miss Colton,” I said, impulsively.
“Yes?”
“May I—may I say a word?”
“Certainly, if you wish.”
She turned again and faced me.
“Miss Colton, I—I—” I began, and paused.
“Well?” she said, patiently, “What is it?”
“Miss Colton,” I blundered on, “you should not have apologized. You were right. Your estimate of me was pretty nearly correct. I realized that when you gave it and I have been realizing it ever since. I deserved what I got—perhaps. But I should not wish you to think—that is, I—well, I had reasons, they seemed to me reasons, for being what I was—what I am. I doubt if they were altogether good reasons; I am inclined now to think they were not. But I had come to think them good. You see, I—I—”
I stopped, face to face with the fact that I could not give those reasons to her or any one else. She was looking at me expectantly, and with, so it seemed to me, an expression of real, almost eager interest. I faltered, tried to go on, and then surrendered, absolutely, to the hopelessness of the situation.
“It is no use,” I said, “I can't tell you what those reasons were.”
I turned as I said it. I did not care to see her expression change. I knew what she must be thinking and I had no desire to read the thought in her eyes. I stood there, waiting for her to leave in disgust.
“I can't tell you,” I repeated, stubbornly.
“Very well.” Her tone was as coldly indifferent as I had anticipated. “Was that all you wished to say to me, Mr. Paine?”
“Miss Colton, I should like to explain if I could. But I cannot.”
“Pray don't trouble yourself. I assure you I had no intentions of asking for your—reasons. Good afternoon.”
I heard her skirts brush the leaves at the border of the path. She was going; and the contemptuous slur at my “reasons” proved that she did not believe them existent. She believed me to be a liar.
“Miss Colton,” I said, sharply; “wait.”
She kept on.
“Wait,” I said again. “Listen to me.”
She seemed to hesitate and then turned her head.
“I am listening,” she said. “What is it?”
“You have no right to disbelieve me.”
“I disbelieve you? Why should you think I disbelieve you? I am not sufficiently interested to believe or disbelieve, I assure you.”
“But you do. You judge me—”
“I judge you! You flatter yourself, Mr. Paine.”
“But you do. You apologized just now for judging me without a hearing the other day. You acknowledged that you should not have done it. You are doing the same thing now.”
“I apologized for presuming to offer advice to a stranger. I did not apologize for the advice itself. I think it good. I do not care to argue the matter further.”
“You are not asked to argue. But your sneer at my reasons proves that you believe that I have none and am merely trying to justify myself with trumped up and lying excuses. You are wrong, and since you presumed to judge me then you must listen to me now. I have—or had—reasons for living as I have done, for being the idler and good-for-nothing you believe me to be. I can't tell you what they are; I can tell no one. But I do ask you to believe that I have them, that they are real, and that my being what you termed ambitionless and a country loafer is not my condition from choice. It is my right to insist upon your believing that. Do you believe it?”
At last I had made an impression. My earnestness seemed to have shaken her contemptuous indifference. She looked at me steadily, frowning a little, but regarding me less as if I were a clod and more and more as if I were the puzzle she had once declared me to be. I did not shun her look now, but met it eye to eye.
“Do you believe me?” I demanded.
Slowly her frown was disappearing.
“Do you believe me?” I said, again. “You must.”
“Must?”
“Yes, you must. I shall make you. If not now, at some other time. You must believe me, Miss Colton.”
The frown disappeared altogether and she smiled.
“If you order me to I suppose I must,” she said, with a shrug of mock resignation. “I should have learned by this time that it is useless to say no when you say yes, Mr. Paine.”
“But do you?”
She turned altogether and faced me.
“I am very glad to believe you,” she said, with simple directness.
I stammered a “Thank you” and was silent. I dared not trust myself to speak at the moment. Somehow the sincerity of her words moved me far more than their trifling import warranted. She had declared her belief that I was not a liar, that was all; and yet I stood there fighting down all sorts of ridiculous emotions. The situation was decidedly strained, but, as usual, she saved it.
“It seems to me,” she said, with the twinkle which I had learned to recognize as a forerunner of mischief on her part, “that you are inclined to make mountains out of mole-hills, Mr. Paine. Was there any need to be quite so fiercely tragic? And, besides, I think that even now you have not told the whole truth.”
“The whole truth? Why, Miss Colton, I have just explained that—”
“Oh, not that truth! Your mysterious 'reasons' are not my affair. And I have told you that I was willing to take those on trust. But you have not been quite truthful in another particular. You intimated that you were an idler. I have been given to understand that you are far from being an idler just now.”
I was relieved. “Oh, I see!” I exclaimed. “You mean—some one has told you of my employment at the bank.”
“A number of persons have told me. Surely you did not expect to keep THAT a secret—in Denboro?”
“Well, scarcely,” I admitted, with a laugh. “That was known almost before I was sure of it myself. You should have seen Eldredge's face when I announced my intention. And Lute—Mrs. Rogers' husband—hasn't completely recovered yet. The sight of me, actually trying to earn a living, was too much for him. You see what a miracle worker you are, Miss Colton.”
“Did you really accept the position simply because of what I said to you?”
“Yes. The chance had been offered me before, but it was your frankness that shocked me into taking it.”
“Not really? You are joking.”
“No, I'm not. You are responsible. Are you sorry?”
Her answer was a question.
“Are you?” she asked.
“No. At first it seemed ridiculous and strange, even to myself; but now I like the work. It is like old times.”
“Old times?”
I was forgetting myself again; talking too much was a dangerous train—for me. I laughed, with pretended carelessness.
“Why, yes; I was employed in a bank at one time. I think I told you that. Have you been motoring much of late, Miss Colton?”
“Yes. Tell me, please: You really like your work?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then I will answer your question. I am not a bit sorry. I am glad I was impertinent and intrusive, especially now that I have apologized and you have accepted the apology. I am very glad I told you you should do something worth while.”
“Even if it were nothing more than to follow Thoph Newcomb's example and sell fish.”
“Yes,” laughingly, “even that. I WAS impertinent, wasn't I! I don't wonder you were offended.”
“I needed the impertinence, I guess. But frankly, Miss Colton, I can't see why you should be glad because I have gone to work. I can't see what difference my working or idling can possibly make to you.”
“Oh, it doesn't, of course—except on general principles. I am a dreadful idler myself; but then, I am a woman, and idleness is a woman's right.”
I thought of Dorinda and of the other housewives of Denboro and how little of that particular “right” they enjoyed; which thought brought again and forcibly to my mind the difference between this girl's life and theirs—and Mother's—and my own.
“A man,” continued Miss Colton, sagely, “should not idle. He should work and work hard—so that the rest of us may be as good for nothing as we please. That is philosophy, isn't it?”
“Yes.”
“You were good enough not to say what sort of philosophy. Thank you. But seriously, Mr. Paine, I am fond of your mother—very fond, considering our short acquaintance—and when I saw her lying there, so patient, and deprived of the little luxuries and conveniences which she needs, and which a little more money might bring to her, it seemed to me . . . Gracious! what a lot of nonsense I am talking! What is the matter with me this afternoon? Do let's change the subject. Have you sold your land yet, Mr. Paine? Of course you haven't! That is more nonsense, isn't it.”
I think she had again spoken merely on the impulse of the moment; doubtless there was no deliberate intention on her part to bring me to a realization of my position, the position I occupied in her thoughts; but if she had had such an intent she could not have done it more effectively. She believed me to have been neglecting Mother, and her interest in my “doing something worth while” was inspired merely because she wished Mother to be supplied with those “luxuries and conveniences” she had mentioned. Well, my question was answered; this was the difference my working or idling made to her. And, for a minute or two, I had been foolish enough to fancy her interested, as a friend, in my success or failure in life. I might have known better. And yet, because of the novelty of the thing, because I had so few friends, I felt a pang of disappointment.
But I resolved she should not know she had disappointed me. I might have been a fool, but I would keep my foolishness a secret.
“No, Miss Colton,” I said, with a smile, “I haven't sold yet.”
“Father said he saw you at the bank. Did he say anything about the land?”
“He said his offer was still open, that was all.”
“You are resolved not to sell.”
“To him? Yes, I am resolved. I think he knows it. I tried to make it plain.”
“You say to him. Are you thinking of selling to any one else? To the town?”
“No. Probably not to any one. Certainly not to your father or the town.”
She looked at me, with an odd expression, and seemed to hesitate.
“Mr. Paine,” she said, slowly, “would you resent my giving you another bit of—advice?”
“Not at all. What is it this time?”
“Why, nothing. I must not give you any advice at all. I won't. Instead I'll give you one of Father's pet proverbs. It isn't an elegant one, but he is very fond of repeating it. 'There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it to death with butter.' There! you will admit it is not elegant.”
“But Miss Colton! Killing a cat! What in the world?”
“You mustn't ask me. I shouldn't have said even that. But remember, it is father's pet proverb. I must go. Please give my love to your mother and tell her I shall call again soon. Good-by.”
She walked briskly away and did not look back. I went home. I thought a great deal during the evening and until late that night. When, at last, I did go to bed I had not made much progress in the problem of the cat, but I did believe that there was a rat in the vicinity. I was beginning to scent one. If I was not mistaken it called itself the Bay Shore Development Company.
I said nothing to Mother of the new proposal to buy our land, but next morning at the bank I wrote a letter to the cashier of a bank in Boston, one of our correspondents, and with which our little institution was on very friendly terms. I asked the cashier to make some guarded inquiries concerning the Bay Shore Company, to find out, if possible, who was behind it and also to inquire concerning Barclay and Keene, the real estate brokers of Milk Street.
The reply to my letter reached me on Friday. It was satisfactory, eminently so. And when, on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Keene, bland and smiling as ever, made his appearance at the house, I was ready for him. I stood on the step and made no move to invite him within. “Well, Mr. Paine,” he said, cordially, “are you ready to talk business?”
“Quite ready,” I answered.
He beamed with satisfaction.
“Good!” he exclaimed. “Then what is your figure?”
“My figure is a naught,” I replied, with emphasis. “You may tell your employer that I do not care to sell the land to him, no matter whether he calls himself James Colton or the Bay Shore Development Company. Oh yes; and, if you like, you may add that this particular cat declines to be choked.”
Mr. Keene showed signs of choking, himself, and I shut the door and left him outside. Lute, who had been listening at the dining-room window and had heard only fragments of the brief interview, was in a state of added incoherence.
“Well, by time!” he gasped. “What—what sort of talk was that? Chokin' a cat! A cat!! We ain't got no cat.”
“Haven't we?” I observed. “Why, no, so we haven't! Perhaps you had better explain that to Mr. Keene, Lute. It may help him to understand the situation. And add that I suggest his telling the person who sent him here that soft-soap is no improvement on butter.”
I think Lute did tell him just that, doubtless with all sorts of excuses for my insanity, for the next day, Sunday, as I walked along the beach, a big body came ploughing down the sandy slope and joined me.
“Hello!” said Colton.
“Good morning,” said I.
“How are independence and public spirit these days?”
“Very well, thank you. How are Development Companies developing?”
He put back his head and laughed. He did not seem a bit chagrined or discomfited. The joke was on him, but he could enjoy it, nevertheless. In spite of my antagonism toward this man I could not help admiring certain traits of his character. He was big, in every way. Little repulses or setbacks did not trouble him.
“Say,” he said, “how did you know about that cat?”
“Saw his footprints,” I replied. “They were all over the scheme. And your friend Keene purred too loud.”
“I don't mean that. Keene was a fool; that was plain enough for anyone to see. I had to use him; if Barclay hadn't been sick it might have been different. But how did you come to send me that message about the butter? Man, that is one of my favorite sayings—the choking the cat thing! How did you know that? I never said it to you.”
“Oh, it is an old saying. I have heard it often; and it did seem to fit in this case. I imagined you would understand and appreciate.”
“Um—yes,” dryly. “I appreciated all right. As to understanding—well, I'll understand later on. That's another little conundrum for me to work out. Somebody's been talking, of course. Here! hold on!” as I was walking away: “Don't go. I want to talk to you.”
He characteristically did not ask whether or not I wanted to talk to him, but, as I happened to be in no hurry, I stopped and waited for him to continue. He thrust his hands into his pockets and looked me over, very much as he might have looked over a horse he was thinking of buying.
“Paine,” he said, suddenly, “do you want to go to work?”
“Work?” I repeated. “I am at work already.”
“You've got a job, such as it is. It might be work for the average jay, but it isn't for you. I'll give you something to work at—yes, and work for.”
I stared at him in wondering suspicion.
“What is this; another Development Company?” I demanded.
“Ha! ha! not this time. No, this is straight. If you'll say that you'll work for me I'll make an opening for you in my New York office.”
I did not answer. I was trying to fathom the motive behind this new move.
“I'll put you to work in my office,” he went on. “It may not be much to begin with, but you can make it anything you like; that'll be up to you. As to salary—well, I don't know what you're getting in that one-horse bank, but I'll double it, whatever it is. That will be the start, of course. After that it is up to you, as I said.”
“Mr. Colton this may be a good joke, but I don't see it—yet.”
“I don't joke often in business; can't afford to.”
“You are really serious? You mean what you say?”
“Yes.”
“But why? You don't know anything about me.”
“I know all that is necessary. And I have found out that you are all right, so far as bank work goes. That fellow Taylor and some others told me that. But I didn't need their telling. Why, man, it is part of my trade to know men when I see them. I have to know 'em. I said a while ago that you didn't belong in this forsaken hole of a town. God knows it IS forsaken! Even my wife is beginning to admit that, and she was the keenest to come here. Some day I shall get sick of it and sell out, I suppose.”
“Sell out?”
“Oh, not yet. Mabel—my daughter—seems to like it here, for some unknown reason, and wants to stay. And I don't intend to sell until I've bought—what I set out to buy. But I'm not the subject we're talking about just now. You are. Come! here's your chance to be somebody. More chance than I had, I'll tell you that. You can go to work in my office next week, if you want to. Will you?”
I laughed at the idea. I believed I had found the motive I was seeking. “Of course not,” I said. “You can't close the Lane by that kind of bribery, Mr. Colton.”
“Bribery be hanged! Come, come, Paine! Wake up, or I shall think your brains aren't up to standard, after all. When I bribe I bribe. When I ask a man to work for me there are no strings tied to the offer. Forget your picayune land for a minute. Time enough to remember that when I've got it, which will be some day or other, of course. I'm making you this offer because I want you. You're sharp; you saw through that Development game. You're clever—your sending me that 'cat' message proves it. And your not telling me where the idea for the message came from proves that you can keep your mouth shut. I could use a dozen fellows like you, if I could get them. You interested me right at the start. A chap with sand enough to tell Jim Colton to go to the devil is always interesting. I'm offering you this chance because I think it is a good chance for both of us. Yes, and because I like you, I suppose, in spite of your pig-headedness. Will you take it?”
“No, thank you,” I answered.
“Why? Because you can't leave your sick mother? She'll be all right. I was talking with the doctor—Quimby, his name is, isn't it—and he happened to mention that he was encouraged about her. Said she had been distinctly better for the last month.”
I could not believe it. Doctor Quimby had said nothing of the sort to me. It was impossible. Mother BETTER!
“That doesn't mean she is going to be well and strong again, of course,” he added, not unkindly. “But I think Quimby believes she may be well enough to—perhaps—sit up one of these days. Be wheeled about in a chair, or something of that sort . . . Why! what is the matter? You looked as if I had knocked you out. Hasn't the doctor said anything to you?”
“No,” I stammered. I WAS knocked out. I could not believe it. Mother, the bed-ridden invalid of six long years, to be well enough to sit up! to use a wheeled chair! It could not be true. It was too good to be true.
“So, you see, you could leave her all right,” went on Colton. “If it was necessary you could get a nurse down here to look after her while you were away. And you might get home every fortnight or so. Better take my offer, Paine. Come!” with a grunt of impatient amusement, “don't keep me waiting too long. I am not used to coaxing people to work for me; it is usually the other way around. This offer of mine happens to be pretty nearly a disinterested one, and,” with one of his dry smiles, “all my offers are not that kind, as you ought to know. Will you say yes now? Or do you want till to-morrow to think it over?”
The news concerning Mother had upset me greatly, but my common-sense was not all gone. That there was something behind his offer I believed, but, even if there were not—if it was disinterested and made simply because my unearthing of the Bay Shore “cat” had caught his fancy—I did not consider for a moment accepting it. Not if Mother was like other women, well and strong, would I have accepted it. In Denboro I was Roscoe Paine, and my life story was my own secret. In New York how long would it be before that secret and my real name were known, and all the old disgrace and scandal resurrected?
“What do you say?” asked Colton, again. “Want more time to think about it, do you?”
I shook my head. “No,” I answered. “I have had time enough. I am obliged for the offer and I appreciate your kindness, but I cannot accept.”
I expected him to express impatience or, perhaps, anger; at least to ask my reasons for declining. But his only utterance was a “Humph!” For a moment he regarded me keenly. Then he said:
“Haven't got the answer yet, have I? All right. Well,” briskly, “when are you and I going on that shooting trip?”
“There is no shooting at present,” I answered, as soon as I could adjust my mind to this new switch in the conversation.
“That so? Any fishing?”
“I believe the squiteague are running outside. I heard they were.”
“What? Squit—which?”
“Squiteague. Weakfish some people call them.”
“They are pretty fair sport, aren't they?”
“Yes, fair. Nothing like bluefish, however.”
“All right. What is the matter with our going squint—squint—something or othering one of these days? Will you go? Or are you as pig-headed about that as you are about other things?”
I laughed. “Not quite,” I said. “I should be glad of your company, Mr. Colton.”
“Next Saturday suit you?”
“Yes. After bank hours.”
“All right. I'll look after the boat. You provide the bait and tackle. That's fair, isn't it? Right. Be on hand at my dock at one o'clock. Morning.”
He walked off. Neither of us had thought of the tide—he, probably, not realizing that high water was an important factor, and I being too much agitated by what he had said about Mother, and the suddenness with which the fishing trip was planned, to think calmly of anything.
That week was a strange one to me, and the first of many strange ones. My manner of life was changing, although I did not realize it and although the change came through no effort of my own. Our house, which had been so long almost a hermitage, if a home containing four persons might be called that, was gradually becoming a social center. Matilda Dean had called once a week regularly for some time and this particular week Captain Jed came with her. Captain Elisha Warren and his cousin and housekeeper, Miss Abbie Baker, drove down for a half-hour's stay. George Taylor and Nellie spent an evening with us. I feared the unaccustomed rush of company might have a bad effect upon Mother, but she seemed actually the better for it. She professed to believe that Denboro was awakening to the fact of my merits as a man and a citizen. “They are finding you out at last, Boy,” she said. I laughed at her. I knew better. It was because of my position in the bank that these people came. I was making good there, apparently, and the surprise at this caused Captain Warren and the rest to take a new, and no doubt transitory interest in me.
And I thought I knew Captain Jed's reason for coming. An interview between us gave me the inkling. Matilda was in Mother's room and Dean and I were together in the dining-room.
“Ros,” said the captain, suddenly, “you ain't backin' water, are you?”
“Backing water? What do you mean by that?”
“In this Lane business. You ain't cal'latin' to sell out to Colton, after all?”
“Well, hardly. Why do you say that?”
“Nothin', maybe. But they tell me you're kind of thick with the R'yal family lately. Beriah Holt says he see you and the Colton girl come out of the woods back of his place one afternoon a spell ago. She was on horseback and you was walkin', but Beriah says you and she was mighty friendly.”
I might have expected this. In Denboro one does few things unnoticed.
“She had lost her way in the woods and I helped her to find the road home,” I said, “that was all.”
“Hum! You helped her to find the road the night of the strawberry festival, too, didn't you?”
“How in the world did you find that out?”
“Oh, it just sort of drifted around. I've got pretty big ears—maybe you've noticed 'em—and they gen'rally catch some of what's blowin' past. There was a coachman mixed up in that night's work and he talked some, I shouldn't wonder; most of his kind do.”
“Well, what of it?” I asked, sharply. “I helped her as I would your daughter if she had been caught alone in a storm like that. I should have been ashamed not to.”
“Sartin! Needn't get mad about it. What's this about your takin' his Majesty off fishin' next Saturday?”
All of my personal affairs seemed to be common property. I was losing my temper in spite of my recent good resolutions.
“Look here, Captain Dean,” I said, “I have a right to take any one fishing, if I choose. Mr. Colton asked me to do it and I saw no reason for saying no.”
“Funny he should ask you. He ain't asked anybody else in town.”
“I don't know that and I don't care. I shall do as I please. I have no grievance against the Coltons. I shall not sell them my land, but I reserve the right to meet them—yes, and to associate with them—if I choose. You and your friends may as well understand that, Captain.”
“There! there! don't get huffy. I ain't got the right to say what your rights are, Ros. And I don't think for a minute you'd back water on the Lane business a-purpose. But I do think you're takin' chances. I tell you, honest, I'm scart of old Colton, in a way, and I ain't scart of many folks. He's a fighter and he's smart. He and I have had some talks—”
“You have?” I interrupted.
“Yup. Lively squabbles they was, too. Each of us expressin' our opinion of t'other and not holdin' back anything to speak of. I don't know how he felt when we quit, but I know I respected him—for his out and open cussedness and grit, if nothin' else. And I think he felt the same way about me. But he's smart—consarn him, he is! And HE never backs water. That's why I think you're takin' chances in bein' too friendly with him. He's layin' low and, if you get off your guard just once he'll grab.”
I hesitated; then I made up my mind.
“Captain Dean,” I said, “his smartness hasn't caught me yet. I'm going to tell you something, but first you must promise not to tell anyone else.”
He promised and I told him of Mr. Keene and the Bay Shore Company. He listened, interrupting with chuckles and exclamations. When I had finished he seized my hand and wrung it.
“By the everlastin'!” he exclaimed, “that was great! I say again, you're all right, Ros Paine. Even I swallered that Development Company, hook, line, and sinker. But YOU saw through it!”
“I tell you this,” I said, “so that you will understand I have no intention of backing water.”
“I know you ain't. Knew it afore and now I know it better. But I can't understand what the Colton game is—and there is a game, sure. That daughter of his, now—she may be in it or she may not. She's pretty and I will give in that she's folksy and sociable with us natives; it's surprisin', considerin' her bringin' up. Nellie and Matildy like her, Nellie especial. They're real chummy, as you might say. Talk and talk, just as easy and common as you and I this minute. I've heard 'em two or three times at my house when they thought I wasn't listenin' and twice out of the three they was talkin' about you.”
“About ME?” I repeated.
“Yes. I don't wonder you're surprised. I was myself. Asked Nellie about it and she just laughed. Said you was the principal object of interest in town just now, which is more or less true. But it makes me suspicious, all the same. Why should a girl like that Colton one talk about a feller like you? You're as fur apart, fur's anything in common is concerned, as molasses is from vinegar. Ain't that so?”
It was so, of course, but he need not have been so brutally frank in telling me. However, I nodded and admitted that he was right.
“Yes,” he said. “A blind horse could see there was no sensible, open and above-board reason for HER bein' interested in YOU. So there's another reason, the way I look at it, and that's why I'd be mighty careful, mighty careful, Ros. Her pa's got a new trick up his sleeve and she's helpin' him play it, that's my notion. So be careful, won't you.”
“I'll be careful,” said I. I knew, as well as I knew my real name—which he did not—that Mabel Colton was not helping her father play any tricks. I had seen enough of her to be certain she was not tricky. And, besides, if she were in sympathy with her parent, why had she given me the hint which put me on the trail of the Development Company? Why had she given me the hint at all? That was the real riddle, and I had not, as yet, hit upon a plausible answer. Those I had hit upon were ridiculous and impossible, and I put them from my mind. But she was not tricky, that I knew.
Captain Jed changed the subject and we talked of Nellie's wedding, which was to take place in a month. The captain was full of various emotions, regret at losing his daughter and joy because of her getting such a good husband. His last words were these:
“Ros,” he said, “be careful, for my sake full as much as yours. This Lane business and Nellie's gettin' married have sort of possessed me, same as the evil spirits did the swine, in scriptur'. I lay awake nights fussin' for fear the marriage won't turn out happy or for fear you'll sell the Lane after all. And one's just as likely to happen as t'other—which means they're both impossible, I cal'late. But look out for that Colton girl, whatever else you do. She's a good deal better lookin' than her dad, but she's just as dangerous. You mark my words, son, the feller that plays with fire takes chances. So don't be TOO sociable with any of the tribe.”
And the very next afternoon the dangerous person herself called and she and I spent an hour in Mother's room, where the three of us chatted like old friends. She had the rare power of making one forget self and personal worries and I could readily understand why Mother had been so completely won by her. She was bright and cheery and sympathetic. Here there was no trace of the pride of class and the arrogance which had caused me to hate her so heartily at first. It seemed almost as if she had set herself the task of making me like her in spite of my prejudices. My reason told me that this could not be; it was merely her fancy for Mother which caused her to notice me at all; she had as much as said so more than once. But I did like her; I acknowledged it in my thoughts; and, after she had gone, the room, with its drawn shades, seemed doubly dark and gloomy. Mother was silent for a few minutes and I, too, said nothing. Then:
“She is a wonderful girl, isn't she, Roscoe,” said Mother.
She was altogether too wonderful, that was the trouble. A girl like her had no place in our lives. I went out for a walk and a smoke by the bluff edge; and, almost before I knew it, I found myself standing at the border of the grove, looking at the great house and trying to guess which was her room and if she was there and of what or whom she might be thinking just then. “Mark my words, son,” Captain Jed had declared, “the feller that plays with fire takes chances.”
I turned on my heel and set out for home. I would take no chances. I must not play with fire, even though the flames had, for the moment, dazzled me. I had called myself a fool many times in the past few years, but I would not be so great a fool as that.
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