Читать книгу The Adventurers - Ernest Haycox - Страница 5

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SHERIDAN left his stateroom door open and, sitting in it with his cigar, watched the riverbank crawl through the closing darkness. The bruised spots on his body troubled him, and his slashed arm throbbed. He needed a long sleep, but he couldn't muster up enough enthusiasm to rise, shut the door and go to bed. All his life he had hated to go to bed.

He was, he decided, less sleepy than he was oppressed by being alone, and presently he rose and walked toward the saloon. But he saw nothing there to interest him, and continued to the parlor where he discovered Revelwood and Clara Dale. Sheridan pulled a chair forward, the three thus forming a group of their own in the parlor's corner.

"This is no place for people who have lost considerable sleep," he suggested. He felt extraordinarily close to these people and always would. Clara's dress had had some pressing and mending, though it was not the fashionable outfit it had been before, and she had taken a good deal of care with her hair; she was much as she had been on the Jennie North, softened by the comfort around her.

"George," he said, "what will you do?"

"No idea. I'm never much of a hand to worry over the future."

"Need any money to float you along?"

"I've got a little. I'll remember the offer, though."

"It's all in the lodge."

Revelwood gave him a glance which had none of the man's customary skepticism. "You know, that's true. A pretty exclusive lodge—Miss Dale, you and I, and the Irishman. The rest are dead and maybe I ought to feel sorry—and I do, but not deeply. I guess I fought too hard to stay alive. The truth is, it's hard for me to recollect now what some of those people looked like." He paused, he shrugged his shoulders. "They were important once. They're not now. Maybe we'll think of them a little. But that will stop and then the whole thing's forgotten. We're alive. That's the only fact which means anything. True, isn't it?"

The girl said, "Yes." The two of them had the same way of looking at it. Sheridan shook his head.

Revelwood good-naturedly challenged him. "I'm surprised at you. What more can you make out of it?"

Sheridan moved his hands around in an empty gesture. "I don't know—never think much about those things." He smiled at his failure, and the smile took the rough edges from his face. He bent over, arms across his knees, his shoulders loose. His hair, dark and coarse, made a straight line across his forehead; his mouth was long and fleshy and firm, with a chin flat below and a long heavy nose above.

Revelwood said, "You'll learn," and rose. "I still feel battered. I need a smoke. Then I'm going to bed." He gave them his bow and left the parlor.

Sheridan said to the girl, "Do you have people to meet you in Portland?"

"No. I have an aunt in San Francisco. She had a husband. He deserted her years ago and came up here. He died recently, leaving some property. A house, I think. I came up to settle the estate for her."

"Then you'll go back?"

"Maybe." She watched him with her smiling interest. "Maybe not. I'm old enough to do almost anything."

"Do you need money?"

"Yes—for a while. Mark—you'll look out for me?"

"Both Revelwood and I will."

He noticed a slight change on her face. "Do you trust him?"

"Now that he's in the lodge, I do."

She shrugged her shoulders and rose. She moved over the parlor to the doorway, and paused there, looking back—and waiting for him. He joined her and walked down the deck with her as far as her stateroom. She opened the door but she stood outside to watch the black mass of timber and shadow along the shore. The wind held on and a light rain fell over the river. She was silent and her shoulder touched him; she reached for his hand and held it. "I'm never going to be cold or hungry again. Never."

She waited for him to answer, and swung her head to watch him; it was too dark to see her face or its expression but the strong current of feeling was in her voice, and in the grip of her hand. She said: "Will you light my cabin lamp?"

He went into the dark cabin and stretched his hand across the table and touched the lamp. She was behind him. She said: "If I'm alive, you're the cause of it." He turned around and saw her shadow against the open door. She went on in the same smooth, drawling voice, "I'd never go to George for help. You're stronger than I am, but I'm stronger than he is. He hasn't any help in him. You have. I'd come to you."

He touched the lamp, withdrew his hand and turned around and reached out to her. She had waited for that, and came to him quite readily. Consent loosened her and the wish to meet and please him was the cushion against which he lay. He thought, "She's too easy." Then he checked that judgment. The fight to stay alive made a difference. It had jumped them across the usual maneuverings of a man and a woman. They had missed lovemaking and they had missed marriage; they had gone beyond both of those things and yet had neither. She lay quiet against him, still waiting. He lifted his hand against the back of her head, holding it in, and kissed her, and stepped back and lighted the lamp. "I shouldn't be seen in here," he said. "The news will carry to Portland—and you've got to live in Portland. Good night."

She was smiling, she was happy. When he passed her she caught his hand with a quick and warmhearted impulse. "Mark," she said, "don't trust George Revelwood too much."

"Why?"

"Just don't. Don't trust anybody as much as you do."

"Not you?"

"You kept me alive—so you have to trust me. But not other people. You like to believe in things—you don't see people's faults. Maybe," and she put something then into her glance he didn't understand, a shading or a warning or a request, "maybe you'd know me better, or any other woman, if you were a little bit of a scoundrel, like George."

He said, "Good night," and turned away. But she called his name and turned him back, and gave him a smile that had much tender wishfulness in it. "Sleep well," she said, and closed the stateroom door.

He went into the saloon and got a bottle and stood with his drink, thinking about Clara and feeling fine. Somebody said to him, "Join me," and he turned to see a gentleman considering him with a toothy, smiling interest. He was of the solid order, possessing a roughly handsome face—a short and square chin, a full mouth, brightly colored eyes and a crop of short-curled hair. He was a bulldog, Sheridan thought, a bulldog with a light disposition. "My name's Bogart—Charnel Bogart," said the man, and brought his lips farther back from his astonishingly white and massive teeth. "Join me?"

"Pleasure," said Sheridan, and gave his name. Bogart offered him a hard, brief handshake and motioned to the barkeep.

"I know you're from the wreck," said Bogart. "It's news aboard." He poured the drinks, saluted Sheridan and downed the liquor. "Damned brutal thing. The lady is remarkably fortunate. Related to you?"

"No."

Bogart put an elbow on the bar, stationing his other fist against a hip and continuing his attention. "You have business around here?"

"Looking for a venture."

"Well," said Bogart, "we all are. What's your liking?"

"Logs and lumber. I'm from Michigan."

Bogart nodded. He gestured with his hand. "Here's the greatest forest the world ever saw. Hundreds of miles of it. Monster trees. On the butts of some of them you could build a small cabin. A Michigan log, against this stuff, would be a matchstick. Actually."

Sheridan let the conversation fall; it was Bogart who revived it. "I should like to offer you and your party the service of my home."

"I can't speak for them," said Sheridan. "My private intention is to find a hotel and clean up. I'm obliged."

Bogart smiled, bowed and drifted away toward a corner poker game, and Sheridan, suddenly tired, turned toward his cabin.

He stepped from his stateroom in the morning to find the Western Wave tied at a river dock before Portland. The rain had stopped and the day was warmed by a sun somewhere above the fat and broken clouds which sailed low to a southwest wind still not entirely blown out. Light steam rose from the glistening rooftops and muddy streets and vacant grassy lots, and this gave the air a thickness he felt on his face and in his lungs. The forest had once marched directly forward to the edge of the river; from this solid timber the town had chopped out its elbow room and now extended backward from the river a dozen blocks or more, there fading into occasional houses, little farms and rows of cordwood. It was a place of about six thousand people.

Four hotel hacks stood near the dock and the shouted advertising of the drivers came over to Sheridan. There was also a small crowd of waiting people; he saw women crying.

Clara and Revelwood joined him and the three walked over the plank to the dock. A woman came out of the crowd to speak to Sheridan.

"You're from the Jennie North. Are there any more to come?"

"We saw one more man," said Clara Dale. "He stayed behind."

"What was he like?" asked the woman.

"A short man. Irish I think. He had a family on the ship. They were lost. I don't think anybody else survived."

"But of course," said the woman, half hoping and half arguing, "there might be others. You couldn't really know. There must be others." She looked at Clara Dale with what seemed like antagonism. "It wouldn't be fair for you people to live and all the rest not to. It wouldn't be right!"

Sheridan turned Clara Dale toward a hotel hack and handed her in; and these two, with Revelwood, were driven to the Pioneer Hotel. Sheridan registered and walked back to the street and for an hour was occupied with the buying of an outfit. Returning to the hotel, he shaved, put on his new clothes, and stood for a moment at the window which overlooked the main street of the town. Somewhere in Portland was the venture he was after. How did he find it?

He turned from the window and sat before the bedroom table. He found a pencil and he searched the empty drawers and located a half sheet of paper—an old sheet discarded by some previous tenant who had begun to write a letter. He turned over the page and wrote down the amount of money with which he had begun the trip; then he put upon the table the contents of his wallet and the small change in his pockets. He began to itemize what he had spent. He bent over the desk, searching his memory. Meals on the ship. Drinks. To the Morvains. Expenses at Astoria and on the Western Wave. These he added and found he was short of the required sum. He sat back and searched for the missing expenditures, and could not recall them; he grew irritated with himself, he rose and walked a line back and forth over the room. He knew he ought to have more careful financial habits, but this small bookkeeping always annoyed him and he never was successful at it. He thought wryly, "Good intentions gone to hell again," and went to the desk and put down the missing sum under the caption of "Not accounted for."

Morning was a wonderful time. He lighted a cigar and felt his confident impatience and walked down to the lobby. Charnel Bogart sat in a lobby chair with a paper before him; he lowered the paper to discover Sheridan.

"Sit down," he said. "I have a notion. Might be a good notion." He was an abrupt man and seemed to want to rush directly toward a point. "You said you knew lumber. Can you run a mill?"

"How big a mill?"

"Small outfit in the Tualatin Valley. Farmers drive up and pick the lumber off the pile. Crew of five in the mill. It'll turn out ten thousand feet a day. Another crew in the woods—six men. All local farmers."

"I can handle it."

Bogart paused. He had an offer in his mind. He gave Sheridan a direct, full-open look. "How'd you like to run it on shares half and half?"

"What's the matter with the man you've got on it now?"

"Been closed down," said Bogart. "Last good man went to the mines."

"Can you sell all you can cut?"

"Can't ever cut enough. This is young country. Everybody wants lumber."

Sheridan rolled the cigar between his teeth and looked upon this thick-chested man with the coarse-grained face with the features of a fighter and the light eyes of an adventurer. He took care of his appearance; his hair was well brushed, his gray suit was of the thickest and tightest weave, and his boots were freshly blacked. He wore no jewelry at all; his lips were meat-red. He was by no means the dry and sober kind of businessman. He put on something for a show and there was a sort of lusty bull pride in the corners of his eyes.

"Half and half," agreed Sheridan. "But a guaranteed two hundred dollars a month regardless."

"That's all right. I'll guarantee you two hundred dollars a month. At the end of each quarter year we'll figure out the profits and give you what you've got coming over the guarantee."

"Let's figure the profits each month instead of quarterly."

Bogart paused on the proposition, and seemed less impatient than he had formerly been. He ended the doubt by saying, "I'll agree," and extended his hand. Sheridan took it. A moment later Bogart's glance lifted from Sheridan and struck beyond him. The smiling confidence on the man's face shifted to the keenest sort of interest and he said, "Your lady, Sheridan," and promptly rose from his chair.

Sheridan stood up, watching Clara Dale come. She kept her glance on him, seeming not to be aware of Bogart. In some manner unknown to him, she had completely repaired the disasters of the trip and looked now as she had on the Jennie North.

He said: "Miss Dale, this is Charnel Bogart."

Clara Dale now permitted herself to give Charnel a direct glance and flattered him with a charming smile. He bowed. He said, "I want to express my regrets at your misfortune. Possibly, as a Portlander, I may be able to offer you my services."

She said in a smoother voice than Sheridan had so far heard from her, "That's so very nice of you."

The effect on him was noticeable. He was a small man—not much taller than Clara Dale—but his shoulders were wide and his chest quite deep and through him flowed a touched-off electricity which caused him to stand straighter, to give him a springy muscular tension, and to put a flashing vanity in his glance.

She turned her glance to Sheridan. "I'm to find a lawyer who had my uncle's estate. His name is Deady."

"The judge," said Bogart. "Give me the privilege of showing you there."

"That would be kind," said Clara.

Bogart said to Sheridan, "We'll drive out to the mill tomorrow. Now, since you and I are in a prospect together, I believe it would be good if you had dinner with Mrs. Bogart and me tonight." He looked at the girl and quickly added, "I should be most pleased to have you and the other gentleman as well."

She said, "It is nice of you," and thus implied her agreement.

Bogart dropped Sheridan a careless nod. "Tell your friend, will you? At six o'clock. It is on Fifth at Jefferson." With a gesture of gallantry he moved away with Clara Dale.

Sheridan now began a tour of the town. He saw Harvey Scott at the newspaper office. He discussed land with some real estate people. Out on Fourteenth and Stark—the last street in that direction before the town faded into stump land, woodchoppers' claims and Chinese truck gardens—he found a surveyor who enlightened him on the Tualatin and Willamette Valleys. When noon came he went into the Grotto Saloon on First and Pine for his first drink of the day, and had his meal at the Louvre. Later he walked a quarter mile southward to have a look at the Portland Steam sawmill, and still later he took the Stark Street Ferry to the east side of the Willamette and viewed the little settlement lying there. At five o'clock he returned to his hotel and discovered that Clara Dale had gone.

The clerk said, "Miss Dale left word that you are to call on her at seventy-nine Sixth Street."

This address, when he located it, was a small gray angular house sitting beyond a picket fence and flanked by other small gray houses common to the street. Clara Dale answered his knock. Revelwood had arrived earlier and seemed to be doing hard labor; he was in his shirtsleeves and at this moment he carried a pot of glue and used it on broken-away sections of wallpaper on the front room wall.

"This was my uncle's house," said the girl.

It was a one-story house with four furnished rooms. The front room had a center table, a round parlor stove, a sideboard, a sofa and a set of chairs. Against the wallpaper, whose pattern was an ivory-toned Greek urn repeating itself in vertical stripes against a gray background, stood several framed pictures—one of which struck him at once; it was of a lighthouse throwing its yellow beam against a raging night.

"Do you propose to keep that?"

Revelwood said, "I'd keep it to remind me of my luck."

"I want it destroyed," said Clara Dale. "I don't want to be reminded. Misery goes through me when I look at those waves."

"The artist," said Revelwood, "drew on his imagination, didn't he? Raging seas don't look that bad."

"How much do you remember?" asked Sheridan.

"I recall going overboard," said Revelwood. "Somebody took hold of me and I thought I'd be pulled under. I had to fight the man away. I got hold of a door. Mind you, there it was, knob and all. Even the hinges. I hung to the knob. Next clear thing I was on the shore."

Clara Dale said, "We must not talk about it. I won't have it." She spoke with a short firmness, and Sheridan observed that she was literally turned cold from the thought. "Mark," she said, "take it down and throw it in the woodshed."

He removed the picture and carried it out through the kitchen to the shed. When he returned he found Revelwood in the rocker. He wasn't in the best of shape, according to Sheridan's eyes. He seemed listless. The girl stood in the center of the room, watching Revelwood with an air of speculation.

"Who's this Bogart?" asked Revelwood.

"I've got a deal with him," said Sheridan. "Running a mill."

"That's fast," said Revelwood. "You're a hustler. You keep moving."

For some reason the girl disliked Revelwood's remark. "I'd be dead if he wasn't that way and so would you."

Revelwood glanced at her, mildly surprised. "It wasn't an unkind statement," he said. "The pushers will get along while the rest of us end up in some slack eddy and go around and around until we sink." Some of his old cynicism made its appearance on his face. "You've got a weak point, though. You believe the game comes out well. You think men are honest. About this fellow Bogart—it was a pretty quick deal. How did he choose you?"

"Men are scarce," said Sheridan. "They've gone to the mines."

Revelwood was dissatisfied. "I know about these fast deals. I've had a lot of experience with men who work that way. Putting any of your own money into it?"

"No."

Clara Dale still disliked Revelwood's forwardness. "It's Mark's business, isn't it?"

Revelwood smiled in a manner that took the disbelief from his face. "We're all together, aren't we? We can't permit bad fortune to happen to any of us."

"What a nice sentiment," said Clara, and forgot her displeasure.

Revelwood grew thoughtful. "There isn't much sentiment in me, but I am superstitious and I know in my bones that we three were picked out. We're tied together."

Sheridan said, "What will you do?"

The evasive cheerfulness returned to Revelwood. "I'll bide my time and get rich without work."

"That's what I thought," said Sheridan.

"Why, of course," said Revelwood coolly. "You both know me by now. I make my living from good people who lose their goodness at the smell of a profit. That's where I do my dealing. I'm somewhat of a specialist at it. I'll set up some small business and I'll make it appear that I have a very good thing. Sooner or later some sound citizen will think that he ought to have a share of my good thing. He will make me offers and I shall accept them. Then he will try to do me in." He stared at them, and dryly added: "They always fail and I always profit. I teach men the penalty of dishonesty."

Sheridan let go with a long shout of laughter. "You're an honest scoundrel."

"You people know me. You've discussed me, haven't you?"

"That's right," said Sheridan.

Revelwood became wholly serious. "Nobody knows anybody else too well. We just make guesses. Well, a man of my sort seldom has real friends and a man of my sort, when he finds such friends, never hurts them."

"George," said Sheridan, "we're all in the same boat. We'll stick together."

"So we shall," said Revelwood.

The girl watched Revelwood with a rather close interest. Conscious of it, Revelwood turned his eyes to her and for a considerable time these two were engaged in a silent conversation which excluded Sheridan. They had—he definitely felt it—some common thing that Sheridan lacked. They understood each other, and they were aware of it, and thus he was pushed aside. Suddenly the girl broke the glance by turning to Sheridan. She put her hand on his arm with a certain restlessness. Her voice was unsettled. She said to Revelwood: "Mark's the strongest one of us. I'd always turn to him for help."

"I expect that's true," said Revelwood. "That's why I'd not like to see him done in by strangers."

"Or done in by anybody."

"Yes," said Revelwood slowly. "By anybody at all."

"We'll go for the rig," said Sheridan, and motioned to Revelwood. The two men moved down Sixth to Oak, and down Oak to a stable and waited there while a surrey was hitched up. Half an hour later the three of them were let off before a large, homely house painted brown which sat in the center of a half block on the south edge of town. Bogart met them at the door.

He had changed into a brown suit. His intensely black and wavy hair had been brushed and polished until it fell in a perfect wave across one side of his forehead. He carried himself to his full height and against the thickness of his torso his legs seemed small and curved. He was at the peak of his vital good nature; his affability was a warm gush of wind from the interior of the house. "Come in, my friends. This is my distinct pleasure—mine and Mrs. Bogart's."

Mrs. Bogart was plain and thin and smileless. She acknowledged the girl's name with a shift of her mouth and a smile that came and rushed away. She bowed to the men, and then her glance went watchfully back to Clara Dale. "Charnel, will you pour the wine before we sit down?"

Frequently in later days Sheridan thought of that dinner and felt strangely embarrassed by the showing he had made. They were five strangers sitting at a table and never in the course of the evening did they become more than that. Bogart carried the conversation along with his bullying vitality, he let no silence grow awkward, he kept his humor in play, he maintained his courtesy—and all of this he did with such force that the lamplight at last glittered on the fine moisture along his forehead. Revelwood, too, sensed the strain and drew upon his long skill to match Bogart's liveliness.

Otherwise it was a strange meal. Clara Dale, charming enough, did most of her talking in the early stages. Later she fell back upon a smiling silence. Mrs. Bogart sat at the foot of the table, her thin body stiff and correct, making no pretense at genuine hospitality. She spoke for the maid when the maid was needed. She reminded Bogart to serve when serving was necessary. She mentioned the wine. She said: "Mr. Sheridan requires more meat, Mr. Bogart." She said: "I am afraid Miss Dale finds our table poor."

"I have not had much appetite since the wreck," said Clara. "The adventure left me unsettled."

"Adventures do. Mr. Bogart, will you offer Miss Dale more wine?"

Her barren courtesy had its vigilance. Behind the exact measure of deference she showed her husband was the clear impression of her own pride. She was not a pretty woman; in her spare body and lean frigid face there was no hint that she had ever been young. She was cold on the surface, but her eyes at unexpected times showed a deep-down heat. They were hard eyes to meet. They turned to Charnel Bogart and watched him with a heavy attention. They touched Sheridan and made him uneasy. They stopped on Clara Dale again and again and sucked out the meaning of this girl's presence; and the effect of that stare was to bring a greater chill to her face. Mrs. Bogart was a thousand years older than any of them.

Sheridan was glad to see Bogart rise at the end of the meal and lead them back to the living room. The cigars were passed and pleasantries were said. Charnel Bogart relaxed in his chair, and wiped his face with a handkerchief, and for the first time during the evening he permitted the conversation to go along without him.

Revelwood cast his glance and called upon his easy store of talk. "Do I understand there's not enough men around here?"

"The mines took 'em," said Bogart. "Gold is a bad thing. Raw gold. It drains a place. These men will drift back in a year or two. They'll be broke. They'll be out of the stream, out of the crowd—and maybe they'll never catch up. It's the old story. Potatoes and lumber and tinware will make a man rich. Gold dust will ruin him." There was silence again. Bogart stared at the tip of his cigar, shifted weight in the chair and nodded to Sheridan. "I'll come by the hotel for you about seven. There's a farmer near the mill. Name's Murdock. He'll board you reasonably. You'll have to recruit your crew from the neighborhood."

Mrs. Bogart was a stiff figure across the room. She had listened and her restless eyes had searched. Now she spoke to Clara Dale. "You're here temporarily?"

"I came to close my uncle's estate."

"Then," said Mrs. Bogart, "will you be returning to your home?"

"I've not decided," said Clara Dale.

Sheridan, who had said so little, now rose and paid his respects to Mrs. Bogart. "I thank you for your kindness," he said. Bogart immediately fetched Clara Dale's coat and held it for the girl, his gallantry visibly glowing. Revelwood did his courtesies. Clara Dale gave Mrs. Bogart her smile. "I shall remember my first hosts in Portland with pleasure." Bogart opened the door and in another moment the three of them were out of the house and walking along the street.

When the visitors had gone, Bogart closed the door with a quick push and went across the room to the parlor stove. He opened the top, knocked the ashes from his cigar, and turned about. He laced his hands behind his back. He took no notice of his wife. She stood against a wall, watching him, beating at him with her glance, reading the signs upon him. She had darkened; the mask of scrupulous, chilly courtesy was no longer necessary to her and she let it go gladly.

"You found her attractive, Mr. Bogart?"

He gave her the shortest possible glance. "She is, apparently, a friend of Sheridan's. I need Sheridan to open the Tualatin mill. It's a good idea to be nice to her."

"Not difficult, is it?"

"I feel for her, Emma. The shipwreck was brutal."

"She's a wench. You know that."

He gave an irritable twist to his shoulders and met her glance. "How in God's name could you know that about a woman you've only met?"

She said evenly, "How could you know it so soon?"

"I don't know it," he retorted.

"Yes," she said, "you know it. You knew she was the moment you saw her. That's why you brought her here. She's a wench at my table. To whom I was forced to be polite."

He let go with a short, noisy laugh. "I could have cut the gloom with an ax. By God, Emma, you were rude—it embarrassed me.

"Was it your intention for me to help you arrange an affair with the woman? Your wants were plain enough. You were a bull—a bull in heat."

He snatched the cigar from his mouth and threw it to the floor.

He walked past her toward the kitchen with a quick, bandy-legged stride. His face was scarlet; he swung his hating glance at her. She watched him and showed him her equal hatred. Her skin had turned sallow, as though from nausea, and her mouth was nothing more than a scar across her face. Her eyes had a staring roundness; she was trembling.

"There's always some goddamned evil in your head," he said.

She swung around; actually she jerked herself around and went up the stairs with a sluggish, aimless step, her hand striking the banister as she climbed. She went into her room and stopped there, enclosed by the room's darkness. Light came up the stairs to throw some small glow into the bedroom and to touch her eyes and to make them shine. She stood still. She was a shadow with shining eyes; she bent slightly forward, her muscles rigid, staring out of the darkness into the hallway. She hated Bogart, she hated the girl; and she hated and feared herself. She feared she was turning crazy.

They turned to Sixth and thus came to Clara's house, and found they had forgotten to put a fire in the stove. The house was cold. Sheridan found paper, built a fire and trimmed the damper. They stood around the stove.

"It was a dull evening," said Sheridan.

"Dull?" said Revelwood and stared at him. The girl, too, raised her eyes. "I'll tell you something," said Revelwood. "Your man is a crook. I've seen enough of that sort." He dropped his glance to the girl and spoke deliberately to her. "It wouldn't be wise for anybody to trust him."

"I'll watch for that," said Sheridan, not impressed. But Revelwood wasn't interested in his answer. He had his unfavorable glance still on Clara; she looked back at Revelwood and shrugged her shoulders.

"Perhaps," she said, "Mr. Bogart should take care of himself."

"He'll do that quite well," said Revelwood. "And those who play with him will regret it."

"Mrs. Bogart," said Sheridan, "was scarcely amiable."

"And let Mrs. Bogart also take care of herself," said Clara Dale with a greater force than was her custom.

"She was rude, of course," said Revelwood, still talking to Clara. It seemed to Sheridan that these two were arguing between themselves. He had lost the sense of this conversation. He was sleepy and he had his mind on tomorrow. "Even so," continued Revelwood, "she might have good reason to distrust her husband."

"I am not interested in what she thinks, or what he is," said Clara Dale.

"That's a wise conclusion," said Revelwood pointedly.

She displayed her annoyance at him, turned to Sheridan and put her hand on his arm, showing him a smile which seemed weary and wistful. "You don't look for the worst. You don't make things out of nothing. I wish we could all be that way."

Revelwood said with the sharpness still in his words, "Were we talking about that?"

"George," said Sheridan, "what are we talking about? I don't follow."

"George feels I may have encouraged Mr. Bogart's interest," Clara said.

Sheridan thought about the dinner and he remembered Mrs. Bogart's manner, and Bogart's flushed and lively face as he had placed the coat round Clara. He smiled. "I think Bogart may have caused his wife some concern in the past. I can see her possible concern now."

"You confuse me," said Revelwood. "I'm never able to make out what you see and what you don't see. But if you see this thing, what would you say to Miss Dale?"

"Nothing," said Sheridan and he looked down into Clara's face. He had first thought her to be a self-confident woman; that was the way she had seemed to him on the boat. He had learned more of her during the night ashore, and still more in the cabin of the Western Wave. He never saw her twice in the same way. He had been deceived by her smiling assurance at the Bogarts'. She had been hurt there, he realized—he saw the questioning and the uncertainty on her face now. At the present moment he felt only a resentment at Mrs. Bogart for the manner in which she had used Clara. "George," he said, "her business is not your business or mine, is it?" He looked around the room and shook his head. "But we shouldn't be here. This town's got eyes; and it might tell stories."

Clara, still with her hand on Sheridan's arm, gave Revelwood a look of small triumph, whereupon Revelwood turned out of the room without comment.

Clara looked up to Sheridan. "When will you be back?"

"I don't know."

The pressure of her hand increased on his arm. "Don't stay away too long."

"All right."

She waited for him to kiss her and he knew she wished it. This was something he couldn't unravel in his mind, this willingness a strictly good woman wouldn't have, or wouldn't show. Yet he could not call Clara bad; he could not bring himself to believe it. Her warmth and desire came out of her—as she no doubt intended it should—and disturbed him; even so, the sense of evil was absent.

He said, "Good night," and crossed the room. At the door he looked back and noticed her disappointment and its suggestion of loneliness. Revelwood waited for him at the gate and the two walked back to the Pioneer.