The Girl from Keller's. Harold Bindloss
out. Suppose I ought to say I'm sorry; but I'm not. In fact, Sadie, I don't quite understand—”
“No,” she said, “you don't understand at all! That's the trouble.”
Charnock took out his tobacco pouch and began to make a cigarette. Sadie's cold dignity was something new and he thought she could not keep it up. If she did not break out in passionate anger, she would soon come round. As he finished the cigarette she turned to him with flashing eyes.
“Put that tobacco away or I'll throw it in the lake! Do you think you can kiss me when you like?”
“I wish I could,” said Charnock. “As a matter of fact, I haven't kissed you yet. But I'm sorry if you're vexed.”
For a moment Sadie hesitated and then fixed him with a fierce, scornful gaze.
“Oh,” she said, “you're cheap, and you'd make me as cheap as you! You want things for nothing; they must be given, where other men would work and fight. But you can't amuse yourself by making love to me.”
Charnock felt humiliated. If he had really offended her, she could have rebuked him with a look or sign. Her unnecessary frankness jarred.
“Very well; I must ask you to forget it. Of course, I was wrong, but I'll try not to vex you again. What are we going to do now?”
“Paddle back to the others as quick as you can.”
Throwing his cigarette into the water, Charnock turned the canoe. It was a relief to be energetic, because Sadie's demand for speed stung him. He glanced at her now and then, but she gave no sign of relenting; her face was whiter than usual and her look was strained. Getting angry, he drove the canoe down the lake with a curling wave at her bow, until the paddle snapped in a savage stroke and he flung the haft away. For a moment, he hoped Sadie would laugh, but she did not.
“Now you'll have to paddle with your hands until you pick up the broken blade,” she said.
Charnock did so and afterwards awkwardly propelled the craft towards the camp fire. He thought Sadie might have suggested their landing and walking back, but she was silent and calmly watched his clumsy efforts. He was glad when they reached the beach where the others were and he helped her out. An hour or two later he drove her home, but she did not talk. Her anger had gone, but she seemed strangely distant. After helping her down at the hotel he waited a moment.
“Can't we make this up and be friends again?” he asked.
She gave him a curious steady glance. “Not now. It looks as if you didn't know me yet.”
Then she left him, and Charnock drove home in a thoughtful mood. He had some idea about what she meant and had been rather surprised by the pride she had shown. Sadie had certainly led him on; but she was not altogether the girl he had thought.
CHAPTER III
KELLER INTERFERES
For two or three weeks after the picnic Charnock did not meet Sadie. The rebuff he had got did not rankle much, and was rather provocative than daunting, but he understood why she had told him he made her cheap. She meant to keep her caresses for her husband or declared lover, and if he wanted her, he must pay the regular price. This was very proper, from her point of view, but from his the price was high.
Sadie was pretty, capable, and amusing, but he was not sure he would like to see her every day, in his house and at his table. Besides, the house would really be hers, and Sadie would not forget this. She was determined and liked her own way. He had promised to marry another girl, of a very different stamp, but his conscience was clear on that point. It was better for Helen's sake that he should give her up, because he was on the edge of ruin and she was much too good for him. Irresolution, however, was perhaps his greatest failing, and now he must decide, he wavered and thought about what he had lost.
There were days when he would not admit that all was lost, and harnessing his team in the early morning, drove the gang-plow through the soil until the red sunset faded off the plain. In his heart, he knew the fight was hopeless; Festing, for example, in his place, might perhaps make good, but he had not the stamina for the long struggle. All the same, he worked with savage energy until his mood changed and he went off to hunt sandhill cranes. He would sooner have gone to the poolroom, but there was a risk of his meeting Sadie at the settlement.
In the meantime the days got warmer and a flush of vivid green spread across the grass. The roaring wind that swept the tableland drove clouds that never broke across the dazzling sky, and where there were belts of plowed land the harrows clanked across the furrows amidst a haze of blowing dust. The ducks and geese had gone, and red lilies began to sway above the rolling waves of grass. Farmer and hired man worked with tense activity, but Charnock's efforts were spasmodic and often slack.
In the meantime, trade was brisk at the settlement, and Keller found his business made demands on him that he could hardly meet. It was rapidly growing, and his strength got less. Indeed, he would have sold out but for Sadie. The girl was clever and had tone; he wanted her to find life smooth and taste pleasure her mother had not enjoyed. The latter had helped him in a hard fight when dollars were very scarce, and died, worn out, just before the tide turned. Since then he had schemed and sweated to make her child's future safe.
Now he thought he had done so, but it had been a struggle, and he knew he had held on too long. Keeping store in a wheat-growing district was not a simple matter of selling groceries; one was in reality a banker. Bills were not often paid until the crop was harvested, farmers began without much money, and one must know whom to trust. Indeed, one often financed a hustler who had no capital, and kept an honest man who had lost a crop on his feet; but the risk was great, and one felt the strain when there was rust and autumn frost.
One bright afternoon Keller stood on the sidewalk in front of the store. He was not old, but his hair was gray and his face was pinched. It was rather a hard face, for Keller's glance was keen and his lips were generally firmly set. Yet he was liked by his customers. Now he was breathing hard because he had helped a farmer to put a heavy bag of flour in his wagon. The farmer drove away and a cloud of dust the team stirred up blew down the street. The fronts of the wooden houses were cracking in the hot sun; there was not a tree to relieve the bare ugliness of the place, and the glare was dazzling. Keller at first imagined this was why he could not see the wagon well, but after a few moments he knew better.
He went into the store with a staggering step, and the rank smell of cheese and salt-pork nauseated him. The room felt very hot and was full of flies that buzzed in a tormenting cloud round his head. He wanted quietness and made his way to the dark back office, where he dropped into a chair.
“Go to the hotel,” he ordered the clerk who entered after him. “Tell Jake to give you a big glass of the special whisky. Be quick, but don't run and spill the stuff.”
The clerk came back in a few minutes, and Keller pulled himself together when he had drained the glass, though his forehead was damp with sweat.
“Now where's the list of the truck Gascoyne got?” he said. “I'll look it up.”
“Sure you feel all right?” the clerk inquired.
“Get the list,” said Keller. “Take that glass away.”
He picked up a pen, but put it down when he found his hand shook, and told the clerk to charge the goods. When the latter had gone, he sat still for some minutes and then opened a book of accounts. He had had another warning, sharper than the last, and had better put things straight while he could. With this object he worked later than usual, and when he returned to the hotel called Sadie into his private room. The girl