She gasped.
"And so I have come to place the question before you, because I know that you will decide honestly."
"Then I shall be honest," said the girl.
She was thinking: Why not have Landis back? It would keep the three men revolving around her. Landis on his feet and well would have been nothing; either of these men would have killed him. But Landis sick she might balance in turn against them both. Nelly had the instincts of a fencer; she loved balance.
But Donnegan was heaping up his effects. For by the shadow in her eyes he well knew what was pa.s.sing through her mind, and he dared not let her speak too quickly.
"There is more hanging upon it. In the first place, if Landis is left with the girl it gives the colonel a chance to work on him, and like as not the colonel will get the young fool to sign away the mines to him--frighten him, you see, though I"ve made sure that the colonel will not actually harm him."
"How have you made sure? They say the colonel is a devil."
"I have spoken with him. The colonel is not altogether without sensibility to fear."
She caught the glint in the little man"s eye and she believed.
"So much for that. Landis is safe, but his money may not be. Another thing still hangs upon your decision. Lord Nick wanted to know why I trusted to you? Because I felt you were honest. Why did I feel that?
There was nothing to do. Besides, how could I conceal myself from such a man? I spoke frankly and told him that I trusted you because I love you."
She closed her hand hard on the edge of the table to steady herself.
"And he made no move at you?"
"He restrained himself."
"Lord Nick?" gasped the incredulous girl.
"He is a gentleman," said Donnegan with a singular pride which she could not understand.
He went on: "And unfortunately I fear that if you decide in favor of my side of the argument, I fear that Lord Nick will feel that you--that you--"
He was apparently unable to complete his sentence.
"He will feel that you no longer care for him," said Donnegan at length.
The girl pondered him with cloudy eyes.
"What is behind all this frankness?" she asked coldly.
"I shall tell you. Hopelessness is behind it. Last night I poured my heart at your feet. And I had hope. Today I have seen Lord Nick and I no longer hope."
"Ah?"
"He is worthy of a lovely woman"s affection; and I--" He called her attention to himself with a deprecatory gesture.
"Do you ask me to hurt him like this?" said the girl. "His pride is the pride of the fiend. Love me? He would hate me!"
"It might be true. Still I know you would risk it, because--" he paused.
"Well?" asked the girl, whispering in her excitement.
"Because you are a lady."
He bowed to her.
"Because you are fair; because you are honest, Nelly Lebrun. Personally I think that you can win Lord Nick back with one minute of smiling. But you might not. You might alienate him forever. It will be clumsy to explain to him that you were influenced not by me, but by justice. He will make it a personal matter, whereas you and I know that it is only the right that you are seeing."
She propped her chin on the tips of her fingers, and her arm was a thing of grace. For the last moments that clouded expression had not cleared.
"If I only could read your mind," she murmured now. "There is something behind it all."
"I shall tell you what it is. It is the restraint that has fallen upon me. It is because I wish to lean closer to you across the table and speak to you of things which are at the other end of the world from Landis and the other girl. It is because I have to keep my hands gripped hard to control myself. Because, though I have given up hope, I would follow a forlorn chance, a lost cause, and tell you again and again that I love you, Nelly Lebrun!"
He had half lowered his eyes as he spoke; he had called up a vision, and the face of Lou Macon hovered dimly between him and Nelly Lebrun. If all that he spoke was a lie, let him be forgiven for it; it was the golden-haired girl whom he addressed, and it was she who gave the tremor and the fiber to his voice. And after all was he not pleading for her happiness as he believed?
He covered his eyes with his hand; but when he looked up again she could see the shadow of the pain which was slowly pa.s.sing. She had never seen such emotion in any man"s face, and if it was for another, how could she guess it? Her blood was singing in her veins, and the old, old question was flying back and forth through her brain like a shuttle through a loom: Which shall it be?
She called up the picture of Lord Nick, half-broken, but still terrible, she well knew. She pitied him, but when did pity wholly rule the heart of a woman? And as for Nelly Lebrun, she had the ambition of a young Caesar; she could not fill a second place. He who loved her must stand first, and she saw Donnegan as the invincible man. She had not believed half of his explanation. No, he was shielding Lord Nick; behind that shield the truth was that the big man had quailed before the small.
Of course she saw that Donnegan, pretending to be constrained by his agreement with Lord Nick, was in reality cunningly pleading his own cause. But his pa.s.sion excused him. When has a woman condemned a man for loving her beyond the rules of fair play?
"Whatever you may decide," Donnegan was saying. "I shall be prepared to stand by it without a murmur. Send Landis back to your father"s house and I submit: I leave The Corner and say farewell. But now, think quickly. For Lord Nick is coming to receive your answer."
37
If the meeting between Lord Nick and Donnegan earlier that day had wrought up the nerves of The Corner to the point of hysteria; if the singular end of that meeting had piled mystery upon excitement; if the appearance of Donnegan, sitting calmly at the table of the girl who was known to be engaged to Nick, had further stimulated public curiosity, the appearance of Lord Nick was now a crowning burden under which The Corner staggered.
Yet not a man or a woman stirred from his chair, for everyone knew that if the long-delayed battle between these two gunfighters was at length to take place, neither bullet was apt to fly astray.
But what happened completed the wreck of The Corner"s nerves, for Lord Nick walked quietly across the floor and sat down with Nelly Lebrun and his somber rival.
Oddly enough, he looked at Donnegan, not at the girl, and this token of the beaten man decided her.
"Well?" said Lord Nick.
"I have decided," said the girl. "Landis should stay where he is."
Neither of the two men stirred hand or eye. But Lord Nick turned gray.
At length he rose and asked Donnegan, quietly, to step aside with him.
Seeing them together, the difference between their sizes was more apparent: Donnegan seemed hardly larger than a child beside the splendid bulk of Lord Nick. But she could not overhear their talk.
"You"ve won," said Lord Nick, "both Landis and Nelly. And--"
"Wait," broke in Donnegan eagerly. "Henry, I"ve persuaded Nelly to see my side of the case, but that doesn"t mean that she has turned from you to--"