All this produced in Serviss an uneasiness. To him she was a lamb venturing among wolves. "She should not expose herself to the coa.r.s.e comment, the seeking eyes of these fellows," he indignantly commented, blaming the acquiescent mother and the absent-minded step-father.
"This childlike trust is charming, but it is not war."
Her essential weakness of defence, her innocence, began to move him deeply, dangerously. He began to understand how she had turned to Clarke for companionship, not merely because he was a clergyman, but because he was a young man of more than usual culture and attainment, whose sympathy and counsel promised aid and comfort in her loneliness.
"She does not love him; she merely admires certain sides of his character; she fears to marry him, and quite properly. His morbid faith would destroy her."
As they were returning to the office they met the young driver of the mule-train, and Viola introduced him as "Mr. Ward, of Boston."
He was tall and spare, with a fine, sensitive, boyish face--a face of refinement which his rough, gray shirt, faded leggings, and badly battered hat belied.
"Mr. Ward is out here for his health, also," Viola explained. "All the really nice people are "one-lungers.""
"Isn"t it sad?" said Ward, gravely. "However, Miss Lambert is only partly right. I made my health an excuse. I"m here because I like it."
Serviss bent a keen look upon him. "You don"t look as if you had ever been sick."
"I"m not. I came out here to escape college--and my father"s business." He laughed. "But don"t betray me. I"m supposed to be "slowly improving.""
There was something fine and hawklike in the young fellow"s profile as he stood negligently leaning on the door-frame, his eyes on the flushed face of the girl; and Serviss experienced another pang of jealous pain--they were so young, so comely, so full of the fire and imagination of youth. At the moment his own fame and special tasks were of small account.
Upon their return to the office Lambert met them in the same absent-minded, apologetic way. "I"m just getting some new machinery into place and haven"t a minute, but you must make yourself as much at home as you can. Viola will show you around."
Serviss protested that he needed no entertainment, that he was not tired, and that he was well content to sit in the door and smoke and watch the changing glory of the peaks, and this he did while Viola moved about among the workmen in earnest conversation with her step-father.
"She is explaining me," Serviss reasoned. "I wish I could hear what she says. It would be amusing to know myself as she sees me. I hope she doesn"t think me middle-aged as well as wise."
Lambert listened to his daughter"s words with attention, for a professor in a college was an exalted person in his eyes, and one of his chief regrets at the moment was that he was unable to say to Serviss, "I am a college man myself"; but this he could not do for the reason that the death of his father had taken him out of his cla.s.s at the beginning of his third year, and put him at the head of a large family as its breadwinner.
"He looks like a very young man, almost a boy--too young to be a professor; but then"--here his eyes twinkled--"when I was at Jefferson all professors seemed old to me. What"s he doing here?"
"Just riding through the mountains on his vacation."
"What does your mother think of him?"
"She likes him very much."
"Well, I won"t make any objection, then."
Viola stared--then blushed furiously. "What do you mean?"
"Why, didn"t you bring him up here to see how I liked him?"
She pounded him with her little brown fist while tears of mortification filled her eyes. "Now, you stop that! You"re teasing me.
Why, I"ve only known him three days."
He laughed silently, shaking his head. "Well, these things move quickly sometimes--and how was I to know but you"d known him in the East--you seemed so chummy-like--"
"You"ve spoiled everything," she wailed, deeply disturbed and painfully self-conscious. "You"re mean to me."
He became instantly contrite. "There, now, don"t you mind my joking.
Of course I was fooling. It"s all safe between us, anyway."
But the mischief was done. She forgave him, but never again would she be the same to him, to her mother, or to the imperturbable young man smoking his pipe beneath the firs. He _was_ young--that was only too plain to her now; not so young as Clinton, but not the middle-aged person she had been fancying him to be.
As they were about to start on their homeward trail, Serviss sought opportunity to say: "Mr. Lambert, I met this man Clarke at your house last night, and I want to say that I don"t think his influence on your family is particularly wholesome. He"s morbid and given to fads."
Lambert replied: "I know what you mean, professor, and I believe you"re right. I don"t believe in him myself, and I don"t take any stock in any of his notions, but my wife does. She thinks he"s of the Covenant, somehow. I wish you"d talk with her and try to have her let up on Viola. I don"t think they"re doin" right by her. If she was my own girl I"d stop it--I would so." Then he added, in a curious tone, this vague defence: "As for Viola, she would be all right if they would leave her alone. She"s gifted in a way I don"t understand; but if she isn"t twisted by Clarke"s foolishness she"s going to make some man a good wife. She"s a good girl, and, as I say, if she was my own child I"d serve notice that this circle business should stop. I wish you"d talk to "em. I don"t count--but they"ll listen to you. I"m glad to have met you. I hope you"ll come up again. I"d like to mill that business over with you; it"s all very curious, but I"m just plumb distracted with work now."
"I beg you not to apologize--it"s time to start back, anyhow."
As they rode away down the valley, the girl silent and constrained, Serviss pondered Lambert"s words, which were plainly directed against Clarke. His sense of responsibility was increased by Lambert"s trust in him. "This won"t do," he decided; "I must pull out or I will find myself laden with the woes of the entire family, and Clarke"s distresses besides."
The girl was invested now with compelling pathos. Each mile they descended seemed to deepen the returning shadow on her face. The gayety, the buoyancy of the upward trail was gone. She was silent, constrained, and sad; and he set to work to restore her to the simple and girlish candor of the morning. He called attention to the wonders of the western sky. He shouted to induce echoes, and challenged her to a race, and at the last descent dared her to ride down in one of the ore-buckets, seeking to bring the smiles back to her lips.
She responded to his cheer, but not as before. Something clouded her clear glance--her smiles died quickly, and the poise of her head was less alert.
When they had reached the wagon-road and he could ride by her side, he, too, became serious. "I hope I haven"t given offence in any way, Miss Lambert? If I have, I a.s.sure you it was entirely unintentional, and I beg your pardon."
She looked away. "You have done nothing," she said, slowly.
"But you seem distinctly less friendly to me. I hope you didn"t take anything I said concerning your mother"s faith to heart. I had no intention of attacking her beliefs, but I must be honest with you--I don"t like Mr. Clarke. There"s something unwholesome about him, and what you"ve told me to-day is not rea.s.suring. Evidently he took the death of his wife very hard, and it has added to his natural tendency towards a sort of spiritual monomania. As a matter of fact, he"s more Spiritualist than Calvinist at present. Isn"t that so?"
The girl"s face grew sullen and weary. "Oh, I don"t know, I"m tired of it all."
"He endlessly talks his grind, I suppose. How foolish, how sickly it all seems--here in the presence of uncontaminated nature! In such sunlight as this it seems insanity to sit in a book-walled room and grow bloodless with dreaming over insoluble problems. And yet a friend of mine told me that these towns, and especially California towns, were filled with seers and prophets. The occult flourishes in the high, dry atmosphere, those of the faith say. Don"t you permit Clarke to destroy your love of nature, Miss Lambert; you belong to the sane and sunny world, and he has no right to bring his gloomy conceptions home to you. You are too young and too naturally joyous to be concerned with the problems of disease and death. You were made to be happy."
He ended with greater earnestness than he had intended to use, and the effect of his words on the girl was very great. She could not speak; tears were in her eyes, and her bosom heaved most piteously. His sense of her helplessness deepened, and he added, "Will you permit me to talk to Mr. Clarke about you and your plans?"
This seemed to alarm her. "No, no!" she cried out, distressfully.
"Please don"t say anything to him about me. It will do no good. You don"t understand, and I can"t tell you," she added, breathlessly.
"Very well," he said, soothingly; "but, remember, your case interests me exceedingly, and you may call on me at any time and I will gladly help."
She turned a pale and tearful face towards him and extended her hand.
"I thank you very, very much. You _have_ helped me more than I can say."
During the remainder of the ride he discussed the springs, the source of the streams, the caverns, and other natural features of the scene, and had the satisfaction of seeing her face in a smile before he left her.
He went back to his hotel with a feeling of having spent six days in her company rather than six hours. She absorbed his entire thought, and so keen was his sense of her beleaguerment that he resolved to call upon Clarke in order to define his character and to understand his motives. "His pa.s.sions or his doubt overshadow the girl"s sky, and I"m going to find out whether his designs are those of friend or fiend." At the moment he had a feeling that they were those of a devouring fiend.
VII
THE FORCES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS
Clarke"s church typified the decaying faith of its pastor. Gra.s.s was serenely pushing up through the rotting planks of the walk which led from the street to the bas.e.m.e.nt "study" just as the natural goodness and cheer of man returns to dominion through the barriers of custom.