The Forbidden Way. Gibbs George
yet, as month followed month and the things happened which he had so long predicted for himself and for the town, something of his old arrogance slipped away from him. If balked ambition and injured pride had made him boast before, it was success that tamed him. There was no time to swagger. Weighty problems gave him an air of seriousness which lent him a dignity he had never possessed. And if sometimes he blustered now, people listened. There was a difference.
As the time for her wedding approached, for the first time in her life Camilla felt the personality of the man. Why was it that she could not love him? Since that hour at the schoolhouse when Cortland Bent had shown her how near – and how fearful – could be the spiritual relation between a woman and a man, life had taken a different meaning to her.
Jeff's was a curious courtship. He made love to her bunglingly, and she realized that his diffidence was the expression of a kind of rustic humility which set her in a shrine at which he distantly worshipped. He seemed most like the Jeff of other days when he was talking of himself, and she allowed him to do this by the hour, listening, questioning, and encouraging. If this was to make the most of her life, perhaps it might be as well to get used to the idea. She could not deny that she was interested. Jeff's schemes seemed like a page out of a fairy book, and, whether she would or not, she went along with him. There seemed no limit to his invention, and there was little doubt in his mind, or, indeed, in hers, that the world was to be made to provide very generously for them both.
It was on the eve of their wedding day that Jeff first spoke of his childhood.
"I suppose you know, Camilla, I never had a father. That is," he corrected, "not one to brag about. My mother was a waitress in the Frontier Hotel at Fort Dodge. She died when I was born. That's my family tree. You knew it, I guess, but I thought maybe you'd like to change your mind."
He looked away from her. The words came slowly, and there was a note of heaviness in his voice. She realized how hard it was for him to speak of these things, and put her hand confidently in his.
"Yes, I knew," she said softly. "But I never weighed that against you, Jeff. It only makes me prouder of what you have become." And then, after a pause, "Did you never hear anything about him?"
"There were some letters written before I was born. I'll show them to you some day. He was from New York, that's all I know. Maybe you can guess now why I didn't like Cort Bent."
Camilla withdrew her hands from his and buried her face in them, while Wray sat gloomily gazing at the opposite wall. In a moment she raised her head, her cheeks burning.
"Yes, I understand now," she muttered. "He was not worth bothering about."
And now they were at the hotel in New York, where Jeff had come on business. The Empire drawing room overlooked Fifth Avenue and the cross street. There was a reception room in the French style, a dining room in English oak, a library (Flemish), smoking room (Turkish), a hall (Dutch), and a number of bedrooms, each a reproduction of a celebrated historical apartment. The wall hangings were of silk, the curtains of heavy brocade, the pictures poor copies of excellent old masters, the rugs costly; and the fixtures in Camilla's bathroom were of solid silver.
Camilla stood before the cheval glass in her dressing room (Recamier) trying on, with the assistance of her maid and a modiste, a fetching hat and afternoon costume. Chairs, tables, and the bed in her own sleeping room were covered with miscellaneous finery.
When the women had gone, Camilla dropped into a chair in the drawing room. There was something about the made-to-order magnificence which oppressed her with its emptiness. Everything that money could buy was hers for the asking. Her husband was going to be fabulously wealthy – every month since they had been married had developed new possibilities. His foresight was extraordinary, and his luck had become a by-word in the West. Each of his new ventures had attracted a large following, and money had flowed into the coffers of the company. It was difficult for her to realize all that happened in the wonderful period since she had sat at her humble desk in the schoolhouse at Mesa City. She was not sure what it was that she lacked, for she and Jeff got along admirably, but the room in which she sat seemed to be one expression of it – a room to be possessed but not enjoyed. Their good fortune was so brief that it had no perspective. Life had no personality. It was made of Things, like the articles in this drawing room, each one agreeably harmonious with the other, but devoid of associations, pleasant or unpleasant. The only difference between this room and the parlor at Mrs. Brennan's was that the furniture of the hotel had cost more money.
To tell the truth, Camilla was horribly bored. She had proposed to spend the mornings, when Jeff was downtown, in the agreeable task of providing herself with a suitable wardrobe. But she found that the time hung heavily on her hands. The wives of Jeff's business associates in New York had not yet called. Perhaps they never would call. Everything here spoke of wealth, and the entrance of a new millionaire upon the scene was not such a rare occurrence as to excite unusual comment. She peered out up the avenue at the endless tide of wealth and fashion which passed her by, and she felt very dreary and isolated, like a vacant house from which old tenants had departed and into which new ones would not enter.
She was in this mood when a servant entered. She had reached the point when even this interruption was welcome, but when she saw that the man bore a card tray her interest revived, and she took up the bit of pasteboard with a short sigh of relief. She looked at it, turned it over in her fingers, her blood slowing a little, then rushing hotly to her temples.
Cortland Bent! She let the card fall on the table beside her.
"Tell him that I am not – " she paused and glanced out of the window. The quick impulse was gone. "Tell him – to come up," she finished.
When the page disappeared she glanced about the room, then hurried to the door to recall him, but he had turned the corner into the corridor outside, and the message was on its way to a lower floor.
She paused, irresolute, then went in again, closing the outside door behind her. What had she done? A message of welcome to Cortland Bent, the one person in the world she had promised herself she should never see again; her husband's enemy, her own because he was her husband's; her own, too, because he had given her pride a wound from which it had not yet recovered! What should she do? She moved toward the door leading to her dressing room – to pause again.
What did it matter after all? Jeff wouldn't care. She laughed. Why should he? He could afford to be generous with the man who had lost the fortune he now possessed. He had, too, an implicit confidence in her own judgment, and never since they had been married had he questioned an action or motive of hers. As for herself – that was another matter. She tossed her head and looked at herself in her mirror. Should she not even welcome the opportunity to show Bent how small a place he now held in her memory? The mirror told her she was handsome, but she still lingered before it, arranging her hair, when her visitor was announced.
He stood with his hands behind his back studying the portrait over the fireplace, turning at the sound of her voice.
"It's very nice of you to see me," he said slowly. "How long have you been here?"
"A few weeks only. Won't you sit down?"
A warm color had come to her checks as she realized that he was carefully scrutinizing her from head to heel.
"Of course we're very much honored – " she began.
"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you," he broke in warmly. "I was tempted to write you a dozen times, but your engagement and marriage to Wray and" – he paused – "the trouble about the mine seemed to make it difficult, somehow."
"I'm sure my husband bears you no ill-will."
He gave a short laugh. "There's no reason why he should. There's nothing for him to be upset about. He got the fortune that should – which might have been mine – to say nothing of the girl – "
"Perhaps we had better leave the girl out of it," she put in calmly. "Even time hasn't explained that misunderstanding."
He shrugged a shoulder expressively. "As you please. I'll not parade any ghosts if I can help it. I'm too happy to see you. You're more wonderful than ever. Really I don't believe I should have known you.