"That is the Casino," she said, misinterpreting his action, or pretending to--Heaven alone knows the extent of a woman"s divination where a man is concerned! "We play tennis there, in the evenings, when it"s so hot during the day. Are you a tennis-player, Derry?... Oh, I"m sorry! I quite forgot."
"I have been arousing your sympathy by false pretense," he said, and the laughter in his voice demanded a real effort. "I can walk and ride and jump and dance as well as ever, and I have taught three of the ranchmen to play tennis quite creditably. So, if the Newport stores run to flannels and rubber shoes----"
"Derry," she cooed, "you are not such a fraudulent person as you imagine. If you knew how much you have told me tonight about yourself, you would be awfully surprised, as they say in London. But here we are at Mrs. Van Ralten"s. Now, be nice to everybody; for I mean you to have a real good time in Newport. People here can be very pleasant acquaintances if you take them the right way."
CHAPTER VII
THE FORTY STEPS
During the next few days Power pa.s.sed imperceptibly through many phases of thought and emotion. When his judgment regained its natural equipoise after the first bitter-sweet intoxication of finding his old sweetheart desirous as ever of his companionship, he appeared to subside into a state of placid acceptance of such restricted blessings as the G.o.ds could offer. Nancy made good her promise, and Newport society threw wide its doors to the good-looking and well-mannered visitor. No doubts were raised concerning his financial or social status. A word from the horse-fancying judge made it clear that the Westerner could not be a poor man, seeing that he had already bought at stiff prices a magnificent hunter and the best-matched pair of hackneys in the States, and was in treaty for another round dozen of valuable animals; while Mrs. Hugh Marten"s manifest approval was sufficient to introduce any similarly favored young man to the most exclusive circle in the island.
Seeing that certain things were essential, Power spent money freely, supplying himself with a dog-cart, a groom, a valet, and the rest of the equipment which any man needed who would mix in that fashionable crowd without attracting attention by lack of it. Each morning he and Nancy, sometimes unaccompanied, but more often mingling with a lively party, rode about the island, following rough tracks which are smooth roads nowadays, and visiting every favorite stretch of cliff and open country time and again. When the weather moderated its torrid rigor, and sports became possible in the grounds of the Casino or within the Polo Club"s inclosure, he bore his full share. In all that pertained to horsemanship he was the equal of any man in Newport, and Nancy had not lost that perfect confidence in the saddle which life on a ranch demands. Someone gave prizes for a drag hunt, a hunting crop for the first man and a silver cup for the first woman in at the finish of a ten-miles" trail, and the two came in side by side, a furlong ahead of their closest follower. Luncheons, yachting parties, dinners, musicales, and dances crowded each day and often went far into the night. The heat-wave had put forward the almanac, and the Newport season was in full swing nearly a month in advance of its usual date.
Power retained his rooms at the Ocean House; but saw little of other inmates of the hotel unless they happened to mix in the same set. His friends of the dinner-table, except Dacre, had gone, and the Englishman, like Power, was made an honorary member of the Casino Club; so they kept up and developed an acquaintance which had begun so pleasantly.
The close intimacy between Mrs. Marten and the stranger from Colorado attracted slight comment. No breath of scandal fluttered the dovecotes of Newport. The behavior of the pair was exemplary, and, beyond the accepted fact that, if any hostess desired the presence of one she must invite the other, gossip about them was noticeable by its absence.
Their mutual use of Christian names from the outset established a tacit cousinship, and the only growl uttered behind their backs was an occasional complaint from some anxious mother who found her attractive daughters completely eclipsed, in the eyes of at least one eligible young man, by the millionaire"s wife.
Once, and once only, before the crash came, did Nancy allude to the purloined letters. She and Power were riding along the Cliff Walk before breakfast, when she broached the subject quite unexpectedly.
"Derry, I want to ask you something," she said seriously. "Did my father and you ever quarrel without my knowledge--before I left Bison, I mean?"
"No," he said.
"Don"t be stupid! I hate answers in monosyllables. When you say no like that, one suspects that it may really be a kind of yes."
"Then let me make it the most definite sort of negative. Remember, you fixed a period. The last time I spoke to Mr. Willard before I was--before I went to Sacramento--I had supper at the ranch."
He carried reminiscence no farther. She stole a look at him; but his eyes were fixed on a faint blur of smoke rising over the azure plain of the Atlantic from an invisible steamship. On that unforgetable night of three and a half years ago, a starlit night of spring, she had walked with him to the mouth of the Gulch, and in bidding each other farewell they had exchanged their first and last kiss.
"Father was certainly not an enemy of yours then," she went on, in a singularly even tone. Indeed, she might have been debating a matter of utmost triviality. "It seemed to me that he always welcomed you at the ranch. Why did he become so bitterly opposed to you afterward?"
He could have fenced with her, but deemed it preferable to speak freely.
"I think he was annoyed by my rapid success," he said. "He had made a failure of things generally, and I candidly admit it must have been exasperating to see a youngster like me, and a steady-going fossil like Mac, step in and secure a fortune out of a place where he had met with nothing but ill-luck. Those who get rich quick often incur animosity in that way."
For a brief s.p.a.ce there was silence. They seemed to be listening to the slumberous plash of the breakers on the rocks far below, which, with the pleasant creaking of saddlery, and the hoofbeats and deep breathing of eager horses held in restraint, were the only sounds audible in that wondrous solitude. They were pa.s.sing a part of the cliff known as the Forty Steps, a euphonious name describing a series of railed staircases, cut in the solid rock, which afforded an irregular if safe pa.s.sage to the beach. Ochre Point, with its millionaire residences, lay a mile, or less, in front, and on their left was the illimitable ocean. After a bath and breakfast they had promised to join a large party on a steam yacht bound for Narragansett Pier, when luncheon and a picnic at a lighthouse would fill the afternoon. This day was precisely similar to any other day of a whole fortnight in its round of amus.e.m.e.nts. The weather was nearly perfection, and distinctly unsuited for a heart-searching discussion; but Nancy seemed to be in a mood that either invited self-torture or wished to witness the writhings of her companion, because she would not leave a difficult subject alone.
"Supposing, Derry," she continued, "supposing I hadn"t got married when I did, do you think you would have discovered the mine just the same?"
Now he was compelled to go off at a tangent. "You resemble the majority of your s.e.x in your desire to raise non-existent bogies for the mere pleasure of slaying them," he began.
"Which is the bogy--my supposition or the mine?" she broke in.
"How can I imagine what would have happened in circ.u.mstances which did not take place? The discovery, or rediscovery, of the mine was one of those extraordinary bits of good luck which Fortune sometimes thrusts upon her favorites. It might have occurred if you had never left Bison; but, on the other hand, it might not."
She nodded her complete agreement. By not answering he had answered fully.
"Yes, the G.o.ddess was certainly kind to you," she said. "The cowboys did not often ride through the Gulch firing their revolvers. In fact, the only time I can recall any such riotous proceeding was on the day of my wedding. That must have been your lucky day."
She watched him closely; but his face showed no sign of emotion. Yet she was sure that his eyes narrowed somewhat as they continued to search the horizon, and his lips were set with a dourness hardly warranted by an enjoyable ride on a carefree morning.
Then she smiled, very slightly, as though she was well pleased. She was not cruel; but any woman who wants to a.s.sure herself that a man loves her will understand why Nancy Marten was putting Power on the rack, and even tightening the cords almost beyond endurance.
"I"m sorry if I have worried you, Derry," she said, with a tender caress in her voice that in no wise helped to mitigate his suffering. "One more question, and I have done. Have you told your mother that I am here?"
There was no help for it. He lied boldly.
"Yes," he said.
"What did she say?"
"I am expecting her reply any hour."
"And Mac? Did you give him my love?"
"I haven"t written to Mac since I came to Newport; but I shall not omit a word of your message when I see him, or write, whichever comes first.... Have you any idea what time it is?"
"Time these lazy gees were stirring themselves. Come, Hector!"
She shook the reins on her horse"s neck, and the big hunter jumped off in a fast canter. Power raced alongside, and the two struck into a byroad leading to Bellevue Avenue. Power was busying his brain to formulate some colorless phrase which would supply a natural-sounding comment by his mother on the fact that he had encountered an old friend in Newport. He knew well that he dared not tell her; for the tidings would distress her immeasurably. But he need not have troubled himself.
Nancy never mentioned the matter again, for the very convincing reason that she did not believe him. Her allusion to Mrs. Power was one last turn of the screw. She was as certain that he could no more explain her presence to his mother than she could explain his to her father. Twice had she written his name in letters to Denver, and twice had she destroyed the letter. On the night she met Power she had dashed off a hot and impetuous note asking Willard why Derry"s letters had been withheld; but, in calmer mood, this dangerous query was given to the flames. On a second occasion, about a week later, Power"s name crept inadvertently into a description of some incident at the Casino, and the warm blood rushed to her face and neck when she found how near she was to committing the letter to the post without having read it.
All that day Power was puzzled by a new serenity shining in Nancy"s eyes. He could not guess that, more candidly a.n.a.lytical than he, she had looked fearlessly into the future and had discounted its agonies. She felt now that she had been tricked into a loveless marriage; that Marten had purchased her with exactly the same cold calculation of values which he would have applied to a business undertaking. Willard had proved as potter"s clay in his hands, and every turn and twist of the project was clear to her vision as though her husband, yielding to sardonic impulse, had set forth the unsavory story in black and white. But it was one thing to recognize how she had been duped, and another to strike out boldly for instant freedom. And in that respect the woman was braver than the man. Power was content to live in the golden present, to stifle the longings and plaints of silent hours; while the woman who loved him thought only of the end she now held firmly in view and recked little of the means whereby that end might be achieved.
Their unhappy plight was intensified by the fact that their characters had deepened and broadened alike during the years of separation. The boy and girl attachment of those heedless days in Colorado might not have withstood the strain of being thrown together again constantly after so long an interval, if the woman"s nature had not advanced step by step with the man"s. Experience of life, and the educative influences of foreign travel and good society, had done for Nancy what quiet study and seclusion from his fellow-men had done for Power. By such widely different paths they had reached a common standard of earnest purpose and high resolve, and Nancy, at any rate, was pa.s.sionately determined not to sacrifice the remainder of her youth because of the unhallowed compact which sold her to gilded misery and robbed her of her one true mate in all the world.
As she did not blink the consequences, there remained but to carry through her desperate scheme as speedily and quietly as was compatible with no risk of failure. Her one difficulty lay with Power himself. She had first to break down his sense of honor, a task which could be accomplished only by making him see clearly that her life"s happiness was at stake. And she knew him, oh, so well--far better than he knew himself! Let Derry once find tears in her eyes, tears which he alone could dispel, and the seeming fortress of his self-control would crumble into dust. Let her once twine her arms around him, and what man-made laws would wrench them apart? For, by her reasoning, the solemn ordinances which govern frail human nature were wholly on her side. If marriage were, indeed, a divine inst.i.tution, its very essence was profaned when Hugh Marten laid his sorry plan and made it effective by sheer force of money. She, the woman, would be called on to pay for her liberty in the coin minted of ill-repute, that base metal for whose currency her s.e.x was mainly responsible. But those friends whom she valued would hear the truth, and they would rally round her, never fear!
Why, in this delightful island, where pain and anguish seemed to be banished by the imperious ukase of deities presiding over the revels of the rich, people recognized as leaders of society had pa.s.sed already through a furnace of scandal and scathing exposure such as she and her lover would never be called upon to face.
And that was why Power was at once bewildered and raised to the seventh heaven by her confident, contented smile when they met among the crowd of merrymakers on the yacht, or exchanged a few commonplace words when doing the round of Narragansett Bay and at dinner that evening in one of Newport"s summer palaces.
As his dog-cart was in waiting, he had no excuse to escort her home, but, in saying goodnight, she contrived again to perplex and delight him by a whispered request.
"Derry," she murmured, "make no outside engagement for tomorrow evening.
If you are already booked up, cry off. I want to dine with you in some quiet place--I suppose there is some hotel or cafe in Newport where none of our friends go. Find out, and send me a note, telling me the time and place. I shall come in a hired carriage, and quietly dressed--not in dinner clothes, I mean--and you must do the same. I must have a long talk with you, wholly independent of our servants, you understand."
"I shall obey, at any rate," he said, with a smile that failed to conceal the unbounded surprise in his eyes. "May I put a question?"
"No, not now. Full details later, as people say in telegrams."
They parted, and he was so plagued by foreboding that he would have driven past the Ocean House had not the horse turned in at the gateway of its own accord. If Nancy"s manner during the day had shown the least trace of worry or annoyance, he would have attributed her strange request to a desire to take him into her confidence. It was possible, for instance, that some busybody had warned her that a too marked preference for the society of one man among the many in Newport would probably reach her husband"s ears; but, in that event, her outraged pride could never have been veiled by such a mask of unsullied cheerfulness. If any more drastic explanation of the next day"s meeting suggested itself to his troubled mind, he crushed it resolutely. In his present mood, the slightest hint of scandal a.s.sociated with Nancy"s winsome personality due to their friendship was anathema. He would have endured any loss, fortune, even life itself, to save her name from besmirchment.
When he alighted from the dog-cart he knew it was useless to try and sleep; so he lit a cigar, and sat in a remote corner of the veranda.
Then he began seriously to a.n.a.lyze her words. They were to meet in clandestine fashion; not actually in the garments of disguise, but at a rendezvous so remote from the frequenters of the Casino as to run small risk of being identified. She would drive thither in a "hired carriage,"
and he was to leave his dog-cart and groom at home. Moreover, she inferred that he would not see her until the evening, since the locality of this _diner a deux_ was to be written; though they had hardly been separated by longer intervals than a couple of hours between seven o"clock in the morning and nearly midnight during each day of a fortnight. What did it all portend? Was this to be their last meeting?