The moment being auspicious, Tom sounded the master of the Deer Trace coal lands on the reorganization scheme, and found nothing but complaisance. Whatever rearrangement commended itself to Tom and his father, and to Colonel Duxbury Farley, would be acceptable to the Major.
"I reckon I can trust you, Tom, and my ve"y good friend, youh fatheh, to watch out for Ardea"s little fo"tune," was the way he put it. "I haven"t so ve"y much longeh to stay in Paradise," he went on, with a silent little chuckle for the grim pun, "and what I"ve got goes to her, as a matteh of cou"se." Then he added a word that set Tom to thinking hard.
"I had planned to give her a little suhprise on her wedding-day: suppose you have the lawyehs make out that block of new stock to Mistress Vincent Farley instead of to me?"
Tom"s hard thinking crystallized into a guarded query.
"Of course, Major Dabney, if you say so. But wouldn"t it be more prudent to make it over in trust for her and her children before she becomes Mrs. Farley?"
The piercing Dabney eyes were on him, and the fierce white mustaches took the militant angle.
"Tell me, Tom, have you had _youh_ suspicions in that qua"teh, too? I"m speaking in confidence to a family friend, suh."
"It is just as well to be on the safe side," said Tom evasively. There was enough of the uplift left to make him reluctant to strike his enemy in the dark.
"No, suh, that isn"t what I mean. You"ve had youh suspicions aroused.
Tell me, suh, what they are."
"Suppose you tell me yours, Major," smiled the younger man.
Major Dabney became reflectively reminiscent. "I don"t know, Tom, and that"s the plain fact. Looking back oveh ouh acquaintance, thah"s nothing in that young man for me to put a fingeh on; but, Tom, I tell you in confidence, suh, I"d give five yeahs of my old life, if the good Lord has that many mo" in His book for me, if the blood of the Dabneys didn"t have to be--uh--mingled with that of these heah d.a.m.ned Yankees. I would, for a fact, suh!"
Tom rose and flung away the stub of his third cheroot.
"Then you"ll let me place your third of the new stock in trust for her and her children?" he said. "That will be best, on all accounts. By the way, where shall I find Miss Ardea?"
"She"s about the place, somewhahs," was the reply; and Tom pa.s.sed on to the electric-lighted lobby to send his card in search of her.
Chance saved him the trouble. Some one was playing in the music-room and he recognized her touch and turned aside to stand under the looped portieres. She was alone, and again, as many times before, it came on him with the sense of discovery that she was radiantly beautiful--that for him she had no peer among women.
It was the score of a Bach fugue that stood on the music-rack, and she was oblivious to everything else until her fingers had found and struck the final chords. Then she looked up and saw him.
There was no greeting, no welcoming light in the slate-blue eyes; and she did not seem to see when he came nearer and offered to shake hands.
"I"ve been talking to your grandfather for an hour or more," he began, "and I was just going to send my card after you. Haven"t you a word of welcome for me, Ardea?"
Her eyes were holding him at arm"s length.
"Do you think you deserve a welcome from any self-respecting woman?" she asked in low tones.
His smile became a scowl--the anger scowl of the Gordons.
"Why shouldn"t I?" he demanded. "What have I done to make every woman I meet look at me as if I were a leper?"
She rose from the piano-stool and confronted him bravely. It was now or never, if their future att.i.tude each to the other was to be succinctly defined.
"You know very well what you have done," she said evenly. "If you had a spark of manhood left in you, you would know what a dastardly thing you are doing now in coming here to see me."
"Well, I don"t," he returned doggedly. "And another thing: I"m not to be put off with hard words. I ask you again what has happened? Who has been lying about me this time?"
Three other guests of the hotel were entering the music-room and the quarrel had to pause. Ardea had a nerve-shaking conviction that it would never do to leave it in the air. He must be made to understand, once for all, that he had sinned beyond forgiveness. She caught up the light wrap she had been wearing earlier in the evening and turned to one of the windows opening on the rear veranda. "Come with me," she whispered; and he followed obediently.
But there was no privacy to be had out of doors. There was a goodly scattering of people in the veranda chairs enjoying the perfect night and the white moonlight. Ardea stopped suddenly.
"You were intending to walk down to the valley?" she asked.
He nodded.
"I will walk with you to the cliff edge."
It was a short hundred yards, and there were many abroad in the graveled walks: lovers in pairs, and groups of young people pensive or chattering. So it was not until they stood on the very battlements of the western cliff that they were measurably alone.
"Has no one told you what happened last March--on the day of the ice storm?" she asked coldly.
"No."
"Don"t you know it without being told?"
"Of course, I don"t; why should I?"
His angry impa.s.siveness shook her resolution. It seemed incredible that the most accomplished dissembler could rise to such supreme heights of seeming.
"I used to think I knew you," she said, faltering, "but I don"t. Why don"t you despise hypocrisy and double-dealing as you used to?"
"I do; more heartily than ever."
"Yet, in spite of that, you have--oh, it is perfectly unspeakable!"
"I am taking your word for it," he rejoined gloomily. "You are denying me what the most wretched criminal is taught to believe is his right--to know what he is accused of."
"Have you forgotten that night last winter when you--when I saw you at the gate with Nancy Bryerson?"
"I"m not likely to forget it."
She seized her courage and held it fast, putting maidenly shame to the wall.
"Tom, it is a terrible thing to say--and your punishment will be terrible. _But you must marry Nancy!_"
"And father another man"s child?--not much!" he answered brutally.
"And father your own children--two of them," she said, with bitter emphasis.
"Oh, that"s it, is it?" he said, with a deeper scowl. "So there are two of them, are there? That"s why no woman in Mr. Farley"s country colony is at home to me any more, I suppose." And then, still more bitterly: "Of course, you are all sure of this?--Nan has at last confessed that I am the guilty man?"
"You know she has not, Tom. Her loyalty is still as strong and true at it is mistaken. But your duty remains."
He was standing on the brink of the cliff, looking down on Paradise Valley, spread like a silver-etched map far below in the moonlight. The flare and sough of the furnace at the iron-works came and went with regular intermittency; and just beyond the group of Chiawa.s.see stacks a tiny orange spot appeared and disappeared like a will-o"-the-wisp. He was staring down at the curious spot when he said:
"If I say that I have no duty toward Nan, you will believe it is a lie--as you did once before. Have you ever reflected that it is possible to trample on love until it dies--even such love as I bear you?"