A hard and bitter smile showed on her mouth. "Yours! Loved you!" she cried. "My G.o.d! You!"
Her unmistakable, unconcealed scorn was like a dagger thrust in the heart, and that stab of pain stirred his anger and restored him to himself. His face went almost purple, his cold eyes blazed. "Say," he cried roughly, "what are you driving at, anyway? Come down to cases now." He caught her by the wrist. "What did you let me come up here for?
Just to make a monkey of me? Have you been treasuring spite against me all these months, and is this your way of getting even?"
She dragged her hand away from him and stepped back. "I let you come, if you want to know it, because I thought I was in love with you. Lord, think of it!" she laughed drearily. "I haven"t fooled you any worse than I have myself."
He rubbed his hand across his eyes. "It ain"t true," he said loudly, positively, defiantly.
"Hush," she exclaimed, darting forward. "What was that?" There was a sound as if some one had trod the underbrush not many feet away. She listened intently a moment, a wild fear at her heart that Seagreave might have returned unexpectedly. It was probably some animal, for there was no further sound. "Oh," she cried, in involuntary relief, "it must have been Jose!"
A gleam came into his eyes, a light of triumph as at the remembrance of some potent weapon of which he had been carelessly forgetful. "And who is Jose?" he asked.
She lifted her startled gaze to his, the question recalled to her her own unthinking speech. "Oh, one of the miners," she said indifferently.
He knew her too well to fancy that he could trap her into any new admissions, and he had no wish to arouse her suspicions. Therefore he dropped the subject, especially as he felt fully answered.
He leaned against a tree and, drawing a cigar from his pocket, lighted it, although the hand with which he did so trembled. "I guess some explanations are in order between you and me," he said. "I guess it"s about time that you began to get it into your head that you can"t make a fool of me all the time. I"m ready and willing to admit that there was some excuse for you down in the desert. I made a bad break there, which I"m freely conceding was no way to treat a lady. But that don"t explain or excuse the way you"ve treated me this morning," he laughed bitterly.
"There"s no way to explain it unless living here in the mountains has gone to your head or unless there"s another man. Is there?" his eyes pierced her. "Is there?"
She looked back at him with a hard, inscrutable smile, but she did not answer.
Another man! He couldn"t, wouldn"t believe it. Why, it was only yesterday that they two had met and loved in the desert. Again he fell to pleading. "Oh, Pearl, be like what you were again. Don"t stand off from me that way, honey. It ain"t in you to be so cruel and hard. Come back to me, here in my arms. Have your spells; treat me like you please; but come back to me. Oh, honey, come."
She looked beyond him, not at him, and then ground a little heap of freshly fallen pine needles beneath her heel.
"What"s the use?" she said curtly. "It"s over. We can quit right here, Rudolf. I"m done with you, for good."
His outstretched arms fell by his side, his jaw set. "I guess that"s right," he said viciously. "Any bigger fool than me could see that; and I"m not going to waste any more time crawling around on my hands and knees after you; I can tell you that. But you can"t fool me on the other man proposition."
"I"m not trying to," she interjected cruelly.
"Who is he?" his voice was ragged and uneven. "Not Flick, I"ll bet my hat. He"s been your dog too long for you to fling him anything but a bone. You"ll never tell me, though."
"Not I," she answered indifferently.
"Then I"ll just satisfy myself--to-night."
She started and frowned. "You"re not staying for that," harshly. "It"s not safe."
"Oh, yes, I am staying for that, just to satisfy a little curiosity I"ve got, and I guess I"ll find it safe enough. I guess you"ve been playing with kids so far in your career, Miss Pearl Gallito; but you"ll find that the old man"s not quite so easy disposed of as you think. I"ve got an idea that you"ll be down on your knees trying to make terms with him before we"re precisely "quit" as you"ve just said."
"Bah!" she said. "Wind, wind. You can"t frighten me with threats. Stay and watch me dance all you please. That"s the only way you"ll ever see me again--from the audience." Without any appearance of haste, she lifted her scarf from the pine branch on which she had thrown it and twisted it slowly about her head, then picking up her crimson cape from the ground, she shook the pine needles from it, wrapped it about her, and without another word to him, without even a look, took her way down the trail.
She did not believe that he meant what he said, she did not believe that he meant to stay and see her dance that evening. The thought that he would do so had annoyed her at first, but as she walked downward through the wine-like amber air, she realized that she did not particularly care. Her whole being seemed absorbed in the revelation which had come to her in the first moment of her meeting with Hanson--her love for Seagreave. In this new, exclusive emotion, the recent interview and all that had led up to it became to her a mere unpleasant episode, upon which her indifferent imagination refused to dwell. She wanted to be alone, that she might fully realize this stupendous change in her feelings and in her entire outlook upon life. As she thought upon it she saw that it was no sudden miracle, wrought in the twinkling of an eye, but an alteration of standards and emotion so gradual that she had not been aware of it.
Back in the cabin she luxuriated, exulted in the fact that she would be alone all day. She piled high the fire with logs, and threw herself in an easy chair. Thus she could dream undisturbed, could lie watching the leaping flames and vision for herself again that fair, regular, serene face, that tall, strong, slender figure. She counted the hours until she should see him again, until she should dance for him, for it was for him, him alone, that she would dance.
Thus she pa.s.sed the greater part of the day, and even resented the intrusion upon her thoughts when her father returned a little earlier than usual from the mine.
"I got a telegram from Bob to-day," he said. "All that was in it was, "Coming up to see Pearl dance to-night.""
"What!" she cried, showing her dismay. "What is he doing that for?"
"What he says, I suppose," returned Gallito, "to see you dance."
She frowned vexedly, but said nothing.
Her father spoke again. "How are you going down? You will not walk with Bob and Hugh, Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas?"
"No," she answered carelessly, although a deeper crimson showed in her cheek. "Mr. Seagreave said last night that he would take me down in his cart."
Gallito nodded, apparently satisfied, and as Jose came in then to prepare supper, the matter was dropped.
As for Pearl, her vexation of the moment was gone; it could have no place in her mood of exaltation, and when, a few minutes later, she greeted Bob Flick, he thought that he had never seen her more gay. All through supper, too, her mood of gayety continued, but immediately after that meal she drew Flick aside.
"Bob, I want to tell you something," she said. "No use Hughie, nor Pop, nor any of the rest of them knowing anything about it," she hesitated a moment, "but Hanson came up to-day."
There was no change in his impa.s.sive face, only a leap of hard light in his eyes, and yet she knew that he was on guard in a moment. "Hanson?"
"Yes, and I saw him for a few moments," she lifted candid eyes to his, "and, honest, Bob, it"s all over. I never expect to see him again, and I never want to."
He looked at her, as if trying to read her soul. "Say, Pearl, what is this," he asked, "straight?"
"It"s what I"m telling you," she looked back at him, nodding emphatically, and then her face broke into a smile, her sweetest, her most alluring smile. "Say, Bob, I got to thank you for a good many things, not to speak of these," she touched the emeralds under her gown; "but the biggest thing you"ve ever done for me yet was to keep me from running away with Hanson."
Her sincerity was undoubted, and a flush of pleasure rose on his cheek, and a light came into his eyes which only she could bring there. He pressed her hands warmly, looking embarra.s.sed and yet delighted. "You never said anything in all your life, Pearl, that ever pleased me like that."
She patted his arm lightly and caressingly, and smiled at him again, under her lashes. She couldn"t help that with any man. "You"re awful good to me, Bob; I guess you"re the best and onliest friend I"ve got."
"I"m what you want me to be," he spoke a little sadly but very tenderly.
"It"ll never make any difference to me what you do or what you don"t do; there"ll never be any change in me."
She let her fingers lie in his clasp, but her glance was absent now, her thoughts had flown again to Seagreave. "Goodness!" she exclaimed, rousing suddenly and glancing at the clock, "I"ve got to make a hustle for it."
She was ready half an hour later when Seagreave stopped at the door.
Hugh and Bob Flick had already gone, her father and Jose had settled themselves for the evening over the cards, and Pearl stood before the fire, a long, dark cloak covering her from head to foot and a black mantilla over her head. Jose"s eyes were full of longing.
"Oh, that I might go, too," he cried. "The Black Pearl may dance, dance, after the spirit that is in her; may express her art, but I, although I grow mad to express mine, must stay mewed up in these mountains with nothing to do but cook and play cards and talk to a half saint and a stale, old sinner. If Nitschkan and the pet.i.te Thomas had not come, I should have died. Look at those!" he twinkled his long, delicate fingers in the air, "there is not such another pair of hands on a combination lock in all this world."
Seagreave and Gallito laughed, but paid no further heed to him, and Harry turned to Pearl with a pretense of disappointment.
"I thought I should see a b.u.t.terfly," he said, "a b.u.t.terfly that had flown up from the land of eternal summer, and you"re only a chrysalis."
"It"s too cold for b.u.t.terflies up here," she laughed. "Wait until I get down to the warm hall." But although she returned his banter, she did not look at him, her eyes were downcast, and on the drive down the hill she scarcely spoke. Seagreave was one of those rare persons who respect another"s mood of silence, and consequently he did not notice this new constraint which had overfallen her.
The hall, lighted with bull"s-eye lanterns, was crowded with people, every one of the chairs taken and every inch of standing room occupied.
There was no platform, but the s.p.a.ce upon which Pearl was to dance was screened off by red curtains.