"Poor Searle! Poor Mr. Bostwick!"
Van drank the last of his coffee.
"Was Searle the only man you knew in all New York?"
She colored. "Certainly not. Of course not. Why do you ask such a question?"
"I was trying to understand the situation, but I give it up." He looked in her eyes with mock gravity, and she colored.
She understood precisely what he meant--the situation between herself and Bostwick, to whom, she feared, she had half confessed herself engaged. She started three times to make a reply, but halted each answer for a better.
"You don"t like Mr. Bostwick," she finally observed.
Van told her gravely: "I like him like the old woman kept tavern."
She could not entirely repress a smile.
"And how did she keep it--the tavern?"
"Like h.e.l.l," said Van. He rose to go, adding; "You like him about that way yourself--since yesterday."
Her eyes had been sparkling, but now they snapped.
"Why--how can you speak so rudely? You know that isn"t true! You know I like--admire Mr. Bost---- You haven"t any right to say a thing like that--no matter what you may have done for me!"
She too had risen. She faced him glowingly.
He suddenly took both her hands and held them in a firm, warm clasp from which there could be no escape.
"Beth," he said audaciously, "you are never going to marry that man."
She was struggling vainly to be free. Her face was crimson.
"Let me go!" she demanded. "Mr. Van--you let me go! I don"t see how you dare to say a thing like that. I don"t know why----"
"You can"t marry Searle," he interrupted, "because you are going to marry me."
He raised her hands to his lips and kissed them both.
"Be back by and by," he added, and off he went, through the kitchen, leaving Beth by the table speechless, burning and confused, with a hundred wild emotions in her heart.
He continued out at the rear of the place, where little Mrs. d.i.c.k was valiantly tugging at two large buckets of water. He relieved her of the burden.
"Say, Priscilla," he drawled, "if a smoke-faced Easterner comes around here while I"m gone, looking for--you know--Miss Kent, remember he can"t have a room in your house if he offers a million and walks on his hands and prays in thirteen languages."
Little Mrs. d.i.c.k glanced up at him shrewdly.
"Have you got it as bad as that? Snakes alive! All right, I guess I"ll remember."
"Be good," said Van, and off he went to the a.s.sayer"s shop for which he had started before.
The a.s.sayer glanced up briefly. He was busy at a bucking-board, where, with energetic application of a very heavy weight, on the end of a handle, he was grinding up a lot of dusty ore.
"Greeting, Van," said he. "Come in."
Van shook his outstretched hand.
"I thought I"d like to see those results," he said, "--that rock I fetched you last, remember? You thought you could finish the batch last week. Gold rock from the "See Saw" claim that I bought three weeks ago."
"Yes, oh yes. Now what did I do with---- Finished "em up and put "em away somewhere," said the a.s.sayer, dusting his hands and moving towards his desk. "Such a lot of stuff"s been coming in--here they are, I reckon." He drew a half dozen small printed forms from a cavity in the desk, glanced them over briefly and handed the lot to Van. "Nothing doing. Pretty good rock for building purposes."
"Nothing doing?" echoed Van incredulously, staring at the a.s.say records which showed in merciless bluntness that six different samples of reputed ore had proved to be absolutely worthless. "The samples you a.s.sayed first showed from ten to one hundred and fifty dollars to the ton, in gold."
"What"s that got to do with this?" inquired the master of acids and fire. "You don"t mean to say----"
"Do with it, man? It all came out of the same identical prospect," Van interrupted. "These were later samples than the others, that"s all."
The a.s.sayer glanced over his shoulder at the hope-destroying slips.
"The "See Saw" claim," he said perfunctorily. "You bought it, Van, who from?"
"From Selwyn Briggs."
"Sorry," said the a.s.sayer briefly. "H"m! That Briggs!"
"You don"t mean---- It couldn"t have been salted on me!" Van declared.
"I took my own samples, broke down a new face purposely, sacked it all myself--and sealed the sacks. No one touched those sacks till you broke the seals in this office. He couldn"t have salted me, Frank.
What possible chance----"
The a.s.sayer went to a shelf, took down a small canvas bag, glanced at a mark that identified it as one in which samples of "See Saw" rock had arrived for the former a.s.say, and turned it inside out.
"Once in a while I"ve heard of a cute one squirting a sharp syringe full of chloride of gold on worthless rock, through the meshes of the canvas, even after the samples were sealed," he imparted quietly.
"This sack looks to me like some I"ve encountered before that were pretty rich in gold. I"ll a.s.say the cloth if you like."
Van took the sack in his hand, examined it silently, then glanced as before at his papers.
"Salted--by that lump of a Briggs!" His lip was curved in a mirthless smile. "I guess I"ve got it in the neck all right. These last samples tell the real story." He slapped the papers across his hand, then tore them up in tiny bits and threw them on the floor."
"Sorry, old man," said the a.s.sayer, as before. "Hope you didn"t pay him much for the claim."
"Not much," said Van. "All I had--and some of it borrowed money."
The a.s.sayer puckered up his mouth.
"Briggs has skipped--gone East."
"I know. Well--all in a lifetime, I suppose. Pay you, Frank, when I can."
"That"s all right," his friend a.s.sured him. "Forget it if you like."