"Alas, yes."
"I do not understand--"
"In the North few of us understand," agreed the young man with a hint of bitterness seeping through his voice. "The mighty order, and so we obey. But that is beside the point. I have not told you these things to harrow you; I have tried to excuse myself for my actions. Does it touch you a little? Am I forgiven?"
"I do not understand how such things can be," she objected in some confusion, "why such journeys must exist. My mind cannot comprehend your explanations."
The stranger leaned forward abruptly, his eyes blazing with the magnetic personality of the man.
"But your heart?" he breathed.
It was the moment. "My heart--" she repeated, as though bewildered by the intensity of his eyes, "my heart--ah--yes!"
Immediately the blood rushed over her face and throat in a torrent.
She s.n.a.t.c.hed her eyes away, and cowered back in the corner, going red and white by turns, now angry, now frightened, now bewildered, until his gaze, half masterful, half pleading, again conquered hers. Galen Albret had ceased tapping his chair. In the dim light he sat, staring straight before him, ma.s.sive, inert, grim.
"I believe you--" she murmured hurriedly at last. "I pity you!"
She rose. Quick as light he barred her pa.s.sage.
"Don"t! don"t!" she pleaded. "I must go--you have shaken me--I--I do not understand myself--"
"I must see you again," he whispered eagerly. "To-night--by the guns."
"No, no!"
"To-night," he insisted.
She raised her eyes to his, this time naked of defence, so that the man saw down through their depths into her very soul.
"Oh," she begged, quivering, "let me pa.s.s. Don"t you see--I"m going to cry!"
_Chapter Six_
For a moment Ned Trent stared through the darkness into which Virginia had disappeared. Then he turned a troubled face to the task he had set himself, for the unexpectedly pathetic results of his fantastic attempt had shaken him. Twice he half turned as though to follow her.
Then shaking his shoulders he bent his attention to the old man in the shadow of the chair.
He was given no opportunity for further speech, however, for at the sound of the closing door Galen Albret"s impa.s.sivity had fallen from him. He sprang to his feet. The whole aspect of the man suddenly became electric, terrible. His eyes blazed; his heavy brows drew spasmodically toward each other; his jaws worked, twisting his beard into strange contortions; his ma.s.sive frame straightened formidably; and his voice rumbled from the arch of his deep chest in a torrent of pa.s.sionate sound.
"By G.o.d, young man!" he thundered, "you go too far! Take heed! I will not stand this! Do not you presume to make love to my daughter before my eyes!"
And Ned Trent, just within the dusky circle of lamplight, where the bold, sneering lines of his face stood out in relief against the twilight of the room, threw back his head and laughed. It was a clear laugh, but low, and in it were all the devils of triumph, and of insolence. Where the studied insult of words had failed, this single cachinnation succeeded. The Trader saw his opponent"s eyes narrow. For a moment he thought the Factor was about to spring on him.
Then, with an effort that blackened his face with blood, Galen Albret controlled himself, and fell to striking the call-bell violently and repeatedly with the palm of his hand. After a moment Matthews, the English servant, came running in. To him the Factor was at first physically unable to utter a syllable. Then finally he managed to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e the name of his bowsman with such violence of gesture that the frightened servant comprehended by sheer force of terror and ran out again in search of Me-en-gan.
This supreme effort seemed to clear the way for speech. Galen Albret began to address his opponent hoa.r.s.ely in quick, disjointed sentences, a gasp for breath between each.
"You revived an old legend--_la Longue Traverse_--the myth. It shall be real--to--you--I will make it so. By G.o.d, you shall not defy me--"
Ned Trent smiled. "You do not deceive me," he rejoined, coolly.
"Silence!" cried the Factor. "Silence!--You shall speak no more!--You have said enough--"
Me-en-gan glided into the room. Galen Albret at once addressed him in the Ojibway language, gaining control of himself as he went on.
"Listen to me well," he commanded. "You shall make a count of all rifles in this place--at once. Let no one furnish this man with food or arms. You know the story of _la Longue Traverse_. This man shall take it. So inform my people. I, the Factor, decree it so. Prepare all things at once--understand, _at once_!"
Ned Trent waited to hear no more, but sauntered from the room whistling gayly a boatman"s song. His point was gained.
Outside, the long Northern twilight with its beautiful shadows of crimson was descending from the upper regions of the east. A light wind breathed up-river from the bay. The Free Trader drew his lungs full of the evening air.
"Just the same, I think she will come," said he to himself. "_La Longue Traverse_, even at once, is a pretty slim chance. But this second string to my bow is better. I believe I"ll get the rifle--if she comes!"
_Chapter Seven_
Virginia ran quickly up the narrow stairs to her own room, where she threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillows.
As she had said, she was very much shaken. And, too, she was afraid.
She could not understand. Heretofore she had moved among the men around her, pure, lofty, serene. Now at one blow all this crumbled.
The stranger had outraged her finer feelings. He had insulted her father in her very presence;--for this she was angry. He had insulted herself;--for this she was afraid. He had demanded that she meet him again; but this--at least in the manner he had suggested--should not happen. And yet she confessed to herself a delicious wonder as to what he would do next, and a vague desire to see him again in order to find out. That she could not successfully combat this feeling made her angry at herself. And so in mingled fear, pride, anger, and longing she remained until Wishkobun, the Indian woman, glided in to dress her for the dinner whose formality she and her father consistently maintained. She fell to talking the soft Ojibway dialect, and in the conversation forgot some of her emotion and regained some of her calm.
Her surface thoughts, at least, were compelled for the moment to occupy themselves with other things. The Indian woman had to tell her of the silver fox brought in by Mu-hi-ken, an Indian of her own tribe; of the retort Achille Picard had made when MacLane had taunted him; of the forest fire that had declared itself far to the east, and of the theories to account for it where no campers had been. Yet underneath the rambling chatter Virginia was aware of something new in her consciousness, something delicious but as yet vague. In the gayest moment of her half-jesting, half-affectionate gossip with the Indian woman, she felt its uplift catching her breath from beneath, so that for the tiniest instant she would pause as though in readiness for some message which nevertheless delayed. A fresh delight in the present moment held her, a fresh antic.i.p.ation of the immediate future, though both delight and antic.i.p.ation were based on something without her knowledge. That would come later.
The sound of rapid footsteps echoed across the lower hall, a whistle ran into an air, sung gayly, with spirit:
_"J"ai perdu ma maitresse, Sans l"avoir merite, Pour un bouquet de roses Que je lui refusai.
Li ya longtemps que je t"aime, Jamais je ne t"oublierai!"_
She fell abruptly silent, and spoke no more until she descended to the council-room where the table was now spread for dinner.
Two silver candlesticks lit the place. The men were waiting for her when she entered, and at once took their seats in the worn, rude chairs. White linen and glittering silver adorned the service, Galen Albret occupied one end of the table, Virginia the other. On either side were Doctor and Mrs. c.o.c.kburn; McDonald, the Chief Trader; Richardson, the clerk, and Crane, the missionary of the Church of England. Matthews served with rigid precision in the order of importance, first the Factor, then Virginia, then the doctor, his wife, McDonald, the clerk, and Crane in due order. On entering a room the same precedence would have held good. Thus these people, six hundred miles as the crow flies from the nearest settlement, maintained their shadowy hold on civilization.
The gla.s.s was fine, the silver ma.s.sive, the linen dainty, Matthews waited faultlessly: but overhead hung the rough timbers of the wilderness post, across the river faintly could be heard the howling of wolves. The fare was rice, curry, salt pork, potatoes, and beans; for at this season the game was poor, and the fish hardly yet running with regularity.
Throughout the meal Virginia sat in a singular abstraction. No conscious thoughts took shape in her mind, but nevertheless she seemed to herself to be occupied in considering weighty matters. When directly addressed, she answered sweetly. Much of the time she studied her father"s face. She found it old. Those lines were already evident which, when first noted, bring a stab of surprised pain to the breast of a child--the droop of the mouth, the wrinkling of the temples, the patient weariness of the eyes. Virginia"s own eyes filled with tears.
The subjective pa.s.sive state into which a newly born but not yet recognized love had cast her, inclined her to gentleness. She accepted facts as they came to her. For the moment she forgot the mere happenings of the day, and lived only in the resulting mood of them all. The new-comer inspired her no longer with anger nor sorrow, attraction nor fear. Her active emotions in abeyance, she floated dreamily on the clouds of a new estate.
This very aloofness of spirit disinclined her for the company of the others after the meal was finished. The Factor closeted himself with Richardson. The doctor, lighting a cheroot, took his way across to his infirmary. McDonald, Crane, and Mrs. c.o.c.kburn entered the drawing-room and seated themselves near the piano. Virginia hesitated, then threw a shawl over her head and stepped out on the broad veranda.
At once the vast, splendid beauty of the Northern night broke over her soul. Straight before her gleamed and flashed and ebbed and palpitated the aurora. One moment its long arms shot beyond the zenith; the next it had broken and rippled back like a brook of light to its arch over the Great Bear. Never for an instant was it still. Its restlessness stole away the quiet of the evening; but left it magnificent.