She read it through again, calmly, critically this time, lingering over the paragraph which hinted at the things he had to offer the woman who became his wife.
"Diamonds and good clothes that means, a box at the Opera, fine horses and a limousine. The trollop! the----!" The epithet was the most offensive that she knew. "He knows she would like such things," she reasoned.
Her mind was working in a circuitous way toward a definite goal which she herself had not as yet perceived, but when she did see it, it came with the flash of inspiration. She all but bounded to her feet and began to pace the floor in the quick strides of mental excitement. A plan suddenly outlined itself before her with the clearness of a written text. Her crushing disappointment was almost forgotten in the keen joy of working out the details of her plot. If only she could influence certain minds--could manipulate conditions.
"I can! I _will_!" She emphasized her determination with clenched fist.
After a hasty toilette she surveyed herself in the gla.s.s with satisfaction. The jaded look was fast fading under the stimulus of the congenial work ahead of her and little trace of her intemperate indulgence of the night remained.
"You"re standing up well under the jolt, Harpe," she commented. "That letter was sure a body blow."
She seated herself at the breakfast table and in her habitual att.i.tude of slouching nonchalance sat with half-lowered lids watching Essie Tisdale as she moved about the dining-room. There was something in her crouching pose, the cruel eagerness of her eyes, which suggested a bird of prey, but it was not until they were alone that she asked carelessly--
"How"s the hand, Ess?"
The girl gave no sign of having heard.
"That was rather a bad fall you got."
Essie turned upon her with blazing eyes.
"Not so bad as you intended."
Dr. Harpe laughed softly and asked with a mocking pretence of surprise--
"Why, what do you mean?"
"You know perfectly well that I know you tripped me. You need not pretend with me. Don"t you think I know by this time that you would go to any length to injure me--in any way--that you already have done so?"
"You flatter me; you overestimate my power."
"Not at all. How can I when I see the evidence of it every day? You have left me practically without a friend; if that flatters you, enjoy it to the utmost." The girl"s eyes filled with tears.
"Not without _one_," she sneered significantly; "surely you don"t mean that?"
The peach-blow color rose in the girl"s cheeks.
"No," she answered with a touch of defiance, "not without one, or two when it comes to that."
"And who is--the other?"
"I can count on Mrs. Terriberry. Even you have no influence with her, Dr. Harpe."
"You are very sure of your two friends." The woman slouching over the table looked more than ever like a bird of prey.
"Very sure," Essie Tisdale answered, again in proud defiance.
"Then of course you know that Van Lennop left Crowheart this morning?"
She drawled the words in cruel enjoyment with her eyes fixed upon the girl"s face.
Her eyes shone malevolently as she saw it blanch.
"Didn"t he tell you he was going? I"m amazed."
The girl stood in stunned silence.
"Yes, a telegram sent him to Mexico to look after some important interests there. Quite unexpected. He left a letter for me saying good-by and regretting that he would not be back. So you see, my dear Essie, that when it comes to the actual count your friends have simmered down to one." It was not enough that she should crush her, she wanted somehow to wring from her a cry of pain.
"You made a fool of yourself over him, Ess! The whole town laughed at you. You should have known that a man like Van Lennop, of his position, doesn"t take a biscuit-shooter seriously. Green as you are you should have known that. You"ve ruined yourself in Crowheart, d.o.g.g.i.n" his footsteps every time he turned and all that sort of thing; he simply couldn"t shake you. You"re done for here; you"re down and out and you might as well quit the flat. It"s the best thing you can do, or marry the first man that asks you and settle down."
Essie Tisdale looked at her, speechless with pain and shock. She had no reply; in the face of such a leave-taking there seemed nothing for her to say. Every taunt was like a stab in her aching heart because she felt they must be true. It _was_ true, else he would not have left her without a word. What did it all mean? How could such sincerity be false!
Was no one true in all the world? Oh, the sickening misery of it all--of life!
She turned away and left the dining-room, swaying a little as she walked.
Dr. Harpe returned to her room with a smirk of deep satisfaction upon her face.
"I soaked the knife home _that_ time," she murmured, pinning on her stiff-brimmed Stetson before the mirror, but, mingled with her gratification was a slight feeling of uneasiness because she had gone farther than she had intended in mentioning Van Lennop"s letter and boasting that it had been left for her.
The pair of horses which she and Lamb owned in common was at the stable already harnessed for their semi-weekly trip to the camps along the Ditch, but Dr. Harpe turned their heads in the opposite direction and by noon had reached the sheep-camp of old Edouard Dubois.
She hitched her horses to the shearing-pen and opened the unlocked door of the cabin. A pan of freshly-made biscuit and a table covered with unwashed breakfast dishes told her that the cabin was being occupied, so she reasoned that it was safer to wait until some one returned than to search the hills for Dubois.
A barking sheep-dog told her of some one"s approach, and in relief she went out to meet him, for she was restless and impatient of any delay.
But instead of the lumbering old French Canadian she saw the Dago Duke coming leisurely from a near-by coulee, picturesque in the unpicturesque garb of a sheep-herder.
If there was no welcoming smile upon her face the Dago Duke was the last person to be embarra.s.sed by the omission.
"Ah, "Angels unawares" and so forth." The Dago Duke swept his hat from his head in a low bow. "A rare pleasure, Doctor, to return and find a lady----"
She flushed at the mocking emphasis.
"Cut that out; any fool can be sarcastic."
"You surprise and pain me. If it is sarcasm to refer to you as a lady----?"
"Where"s Dubois?"
He waved his hand toward the coulee and she walked away.
The Dago Duke looked after her with an expression of amused speculation in his handsome eyes. What deviltry was she up to now?
"Addio, mia bella Napoli," he whistled. "Addio! addio!" What difference did it make so long as she confined her activities to Dubois?--since he had no more liking for one than the other.
The Dago Duke had applied to Dubois for work as a sheep-herder and got it.
After the memorable midnight session with pink lizards and the Gila monster, the Dago Duke applied for work as a sheep-herder and got it, chiefly because of his indifference to the question of wages.