Читать книгу The Fur Bringers - Footner Hulbert - Страница 17

The instant the door closed behind Gaviller, Ambrose's eyes flamed up.

"What a stroke of luck!" he cried.

It had something the effect of an explosion there in the quiet room where they had been talking so prosily. Colina became panicky. "I don't understand you!" she said haughtily.

"You do!" he cried. "You know I didn't paddle three hundred miles up-stream to talk to him! Never in my life had I anything so hard to go through with as the last two hours. I didn't dare look at you for fear of giving myself away."

There was an extraordinary quality of passion in the simple words. Colina felt faint and terrified. What was one to do with a man like this! She mounted her queenliest manner. "Don't make me sorry I asked you here," she said.

"Sorry?" he said. "Why should you be? You can do what you like! I can't pretend. I must say my say the best way I can. I may not get another chance!"

Colina had to fight both herself and him. She made a gallant stand. "You are ridiculous!" she said. "I will leave the room until my father comes back if you can't contain yourself."

He was plainly terrified by the threat, nevertheless he had the assurance to put himself between her and the door.

"You have no cause to be angry with me," he said. "You know I do not disrespect you!" He was silent for a moment. His voice broke huskily. "You are wonderful to me! I have to keep telling myself you are only a woman—of flesh and blood like myself—else I would be groveling on the floor at your feet, and you would despise me!"

Colina stared at him in haughty silence.

"I love you!" he whispered with odd abruptness. "No woman need be insulted by hearing that. You came upon me to-day like a bolt of lightning. You have put your mark on me for life! I will never be myself again."

His voice changed; he faltered, and searched for words. "I know I'm rough! I know women like to be courted regularly. It's right, too! But I have no time! I may never see you alone again. Your father will take care of that! I must tell you while I can. You can take your time to answer."

Colina contrived to laugh.

The sound maddened him. He took a step forward, and a vein in his forehead stood out. She held her ground disdainfully.

"Don't do that!" he whispered. "It's not fair! I—I can't stand it!"

"Why must you tell me?" asked Colina. "What do you expect?"

"You!" he whispered hoarsely. "If God is good to me! For life."

"You are mad!" she murmured.

"Maybe," he said, eying her with the resentment which is so closely akin to love; "but I think you understand my madness. Talking gets us nowhere. A dozen times to-day your eyes answered mine. Either you feel it too or you are a coquette!"

This brought a genuine anger to Colina's aid. Her weakness fled. "How dare you!" she cried with blazing eyes.

"Coquette!" he repeated doggedly. "To dress yourself up like that to drive me mad!"

Colina forgot the social amenities. "You fool!" she cried. "This is my ordinary way of dressing at night! It is not for you!"

"It was for me!" he said sullenly. "You were happy when you saw its effect on me! If it's only a game I can't play it with you. It means too much to me!"

"Coquette!" still made a clangor in Colina's brain that deafened her to everything else. "You are a savage!" she cried. "I'm sorry I asked you here. You needn't wait for my father to come back. Go!"

"Not without a plain answer!" he said.

Colina tried to laugh; she was too angry. "My answer is no!" she cried with outrageous scorn. "Now go!"

He stood studying her from under lowering brows. The sight of her like that—head thrown back, eyes glittering, cheeks scarlet, and lips curled—was like a lash upon his manhood. The answer was plain enough, but an instinct from the great mother herself bade him disregard it. Suddenly his eyes flamed up.

"You beauty!" he cried.

Before she could move he had seized her in her finery. Colina was no weakling, but within those steely arms she was helpless. She strained away her head. He could only reach her neck, under the ear. She yielded shudderingly.

"I hate you! I hate you!" she murmured.

Their lips met.

Colina swayed ominously on his arm. She sank down on the sofa, still straining away from him, but weakly. Suddenly she burst into passionate weeping.

"What have you done to me!" she murmured.

At sight of the tears he collapsed. "Ah, don't!" he whispered brokenly. "You break my heart! My darling love! What is the matter?"

"I am a fool—a fool!—a fool!" she sobbed tempestuously. "To have given in to you! You will despise me!"

He slipped to the floor at her feet. He strove desperately to comfort her. Tenderness lent eloquence to his clumsy, unaccustomed tongue.

"Ah, don't say that! It's like sticking a knife in me! My lovely one! As if I could! You are everything to me! I have nothing in the world but you! Forgive me for being so rough! I couldn't help it! I couldn't go by anything you said. I had to find out for sure! It had to happen! What does it matter whether it was in a day or a year? The minute I saw you I knew how it was. I knew I had to have you or live like a priest till I died."

Colina was not to be comforted. "You think so now!" she said. "Later, when you have tired of me a little, or if we quarreled, you would remember that I—I was too easily won!"

"Ah, don't!" he cried exasperated. "If you say it again I'll have to swear. What more can I say? I love you like my life! I could not despise you without despising myself! I don't know how to put it. I sound like a fool! But—but this is what I mean. You make me seem worth while to myself."

Colina's hands stole to her breast. "Ah! If I could believe you!" she breathed.

"Give me time!" he begged. "What good does talking do! What I do will show you!"

Little by little she allowed him to console her. Her arm stole around his shoulders, her head was lowered until her cheek lay in his hair.

They came down to earth. Ambrose seated himself beside her, and looking in her shamed face laughed softly and deep. "You fraud," he said.

Colina hid her face. "Don't!" she begged.

He laughed more.

"What are you laughing at?" she demanded.

"To think how you scared me," he said. "With your grand clothes and high and mighty airs. I had to dig my toes into the floor to keep from cutting and running. And it was all bluff!"

"Scared you!" said Colina. "I never in my life knew a man so utterly regardless and brutal!"

"You like it," he said. Colina blushed.

"I had no line to go on," said Ambrose with his engaging simplicity. "I never made love to any girls. I haven't read many books either. I guess that's all guff, anyway. I didn't know how the thing ought to be carried through. But something told me if I knuckled under to you the least bit it would be all day with Ambrose."

They laughed together.

John Gaviller's step sounded on the porch outside. They sprang up aghast. They had completely forgotten his existence.

"Oh, Heavens!" whispered Colina. "He has eyes like a lynx!"

Ambrose's eyes, darting around the room, fell upon an album of snapshots lying on the table. He flung it open.

When Gaviller came in he found them standing at the table, their backs to him. He heard Ambrose ask:

"Who is that comical little guy?"

Colina replied: "Ahcunazie, one of the Kakisa Indians in his winter clothes."

Colina turned, presenting a sufficiently composed face to her father. "Oh," she said. "You were gone a long while. What was the matter with the bull?"

She strolled to the sofa and sat down. Ambrose idly closed the book and sat down across the room from her. Gaviller glanced from one to another—perhaps it was a little too well done. But his face instantly resumed its customary affability.

"Nothing serious," he said. "He is quite all right again."

Ambrose was tormented by the desire to laugh. He dared not meet Colina's eye. "It is terrible to lose a valuable animal up here," he said demurely.

After a few desultory polite exchanges Ambrose got up to go. "I was waiting to say good night to you," he explained.

"You are camping down the river, I believe."

"Half a mile below the English mission. I paddled up."

"I'll walk to the edge of the bank with you," said Gaviller politely.

As in nearly all company posts there was a flag-pole in the most conspicuous spot on the river-bank. It was halfway between Gaviller's house and the store. At the foot of the pole was a lookout-bench worn smooth by generations of sitters.

Leaving the house after a formal good night to Colina, Ambrose was escorted as far as the bench by John Gaviller. The trader held forth amiably upon the weather and crops. They paused.

"Sit down for a moment," said Gaviller. "I have something particular to say to you."

Ambrose suspected what was coming. But humming with happiness like a top as he was, he could not feel greatly concerned.

Still in the same calm, polite voice Gaviller said:

"I confess I was astonished at your assurance in coming to my house."

This was a frank declaration of war. Ambrose, steeling himself, replied warily: "I did not come on business."

"What did you come for?"

Ambrose did not feel obliged to be as frank with father as with daughter. "I am merely looking at the country."

"Well, now that you have seen Fort Enterprise," said Gaviller dryly, "you may go on or go back. I do not care so long as you do not linger."

Ambrose frowned. "If you were a younger man—" he began.

"You need not consider my age," said Gaviller.

Ambrose measured his man. He had to confess he had good pluck. The idea of a set-to with Colina's father was unthinkable. There was nothing for him to do but swallow the affront. He bethought himself of using a little guile.

"Why shouldn't I come here?" he demanded.

"I don't like the way you and your partner do business," said Gaviller.

There was nothing to be gained by a wordy dispute, but Ambrose was only human. "You are sore because we smashed the company's monopoly at Moultrie," he said.

"Not at all," said Gaviller calmly. "The trade is free to all. What little you have taken from us is not noticeable in the whole volume. But you have deliberately set to work to destroy what it has taken two centuries to build up—the white man's supremacy. You breed trouble among the Indians. You make them insolent and dangerous."

"Company talk," said Ambrose scornfully. "A man can make himself believe what he likes. We treat the Indians like human beings. Around us they're doing well for the first time. Here, where you have your monopoly, they're sick and starving!"

"That is not true," said Gaviller coolly. "And, in any case, I do not mean to discuss my business with you. I deal openly. You had the opportunity to do my daughter a slight service. I have repaid it with my hospitality. We are quits. I now warn you not to show your face here again."

"I shall do as I see fit," said Ambrose doggedly.

"You compel me to speak still more plainly," said Gaviller. "If you are found on the Company's property again, you will be thrown off."

"You cannot frighten me with threats," said Ambrose.

"You are warned!" said Gaviller. He strode off to his house.