Читать книгу The Fur Bringers - Footner Hulbert - Страница 21

Ambrose and Colina had had no opportunity the night before to arrange for another meeting. Ambrose stuck close to his camp, feeling somehow that the next move should come from her.

It was not that he had been unduly alarmed by her father's threat, though he had a young man's healthy horror of being humiliated in the beloved one's presence.

But the real reason that kept him inactive was an instinctive compunction against embroiling Colina with her father. She had only known him, Ambrose, a day; she should have a chance to make sure of her own mind, he felt.

As to what he would do if Colina made no move, Ambrose could not make up his mind. He considered a night expedition to the fort; he considered sending a message by Tole. Either plan had serious disadvantages. It was a hard nut to crack.

Then he heard hoofs on the prairie overhead. His heart leaped up and his problems were forgotten. He sprang to the bank. Job heard the hoofs, too, and recognized the horse. Job hopped into the empty dugout, and lay down in the bow out of sight, like a child in disgrace.

At the sight of her racing toward him a dizzying joy swept over Ambrose; but something was wrong. She stopped short of him, and his heart seemed to stop, too.

She was pale; her eyes had a dark look. An inward voice whispered to him that it was no more than to be expected; his happiness had been too swift, too bright to be real.

He went toward her. "Colina!" he cried apprehensively.

"Don't touch me!" she said sharply.

He stopped. "What is the matter?" he faltered.

She made no move to dismount. She did not look at him. "I—I have had a bad night," she murmured. "I came to throw myself on your generosity."

"Generosity?" he echoed.

"To—to ask you to forget what happened last night. I was mad!"

Ambrose had become as pale as she. He had nothing to say.

She stole a glance at his face. At the sight of his blank, sick dismay she quickly turned her head. A little color came back to her cheeks.

There was a silence.

At last he said huskily: "What has happened to change you?"

"Nothing," she murmured. "I have come to my senses." His stony face and his silence terrified her. "Aren't you a little relieved?" she faltered. "It must have been a kind of madness in you, too."

He raised a sudden, penetrating glance to her face. She could not meet it. It came to him that he was being put to a test. The revulsion of feeling made him brutal. Striding forward, he seized her horse by the rein.

"Get off!" he harshly commanded.

Colina had no thought but to obey.

He tied the rein to a limb and, turning back, seized her roughly by the wrists.

"What kind of a game is this?" he demanded.

Colina, breathless, terrified, delighted, laughed shakily.

He dropped her as suddenly as he had seized her, and walked away to the edge of the bank and sat down, staring sightlessly across the river and striving to still the tumult of his blood. He was frightened by his own passion. He had wished to hurt her.

Colina went to him and humbly touched his arm.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He looked at her grimly.

"You should not try such tricks," he said. "A man's endurance has its limits."

There was something delicious to Colina in abasing herself before him.

She caught up his hand and pressed it to her cheek.

"How was I to know?" she murmured. "Other men are not like you."

"I might have surprised you," he said grimly.

"You did!" whispered Colina. The suspicion of a dimple showed in either cheek.

He rose. "Let me alone for a minute," he said. "I'll be all right."

He went to the horse and loosened the saddle girths.

Colina could have crawled through the grass to his feet. She lay where he had left her until he came back. He sat down again, but not touching her. He was still pale, but he had got a grip on himself.

"Tell me," he said quietly, "did you do it just for fun, or had you a reason?"

"I had a reason."

"What was it?" he asked in cold surprise.

"I—I can't tell you while you are angry with me," she faltered.

"I can't get over it right away," he said simply. "Give me time."

Colina hid her face in her arm and her shoulders shook a little. It is doubtful if any real tears flowed, but the move was just as successful. He leaned over and laid a tender hand on her shoulder.

"Ah, don't!" he said. "What need you care if I am angry. You know I love you. You know I—I am mad with loving you! Why—it would have been more merciful for you to shoot me down than come at me the way you did!"

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I never dreamed it would hurt so much! I had to do it—Ambrose!"

It was the first time she had spoken his name. He paused for a moment to consider the wonder of it.

"Why?" he asked dreamily.

Colina sat up.

"I worried all night about whether you would be sorry to-day," she said, averting her head from him. "I thought that nothing so swift could possibly be lasting. And then this morning father and I had a frightful row.

"I was starting out to come to you, and he caught me. He all but disowned me. I came right on—I told him I was coming. And on the way here I thought—I knew I would have to tell you what had happened.

"And I thought if you were secretly sorry—for last night—when you heard about father and I—you would feel that you had to stand by me anyway! And then I would never know if you really—So I had to find out, first."

This confused explanation was perfectly clear to Ambrose.

"Will you always be doubting me?" he asked wistfully. "Can't you believe what you see?"

She crept under his arm. "It was so sudden!" she murmured. "When I am not with you my heart fails me. How can I be sure?"

He undertook to assure her with what eloquence his heart lent his tongue. The feeling was rarer than the words.

"How wonderful," said Ambrose dreamily, "for two to feel the same toward each other! I always thought that women, well, just allowed men to love them."

"You dear innocent!" she whispered. "If you knew! Women are not supposed to give anything away! It makes men draw back. It makes them insufferable."

"It makes me humble," said Ambrose.

"You boy!" she breathed.

"I'm years older than you," he said.

"Women's hearts are born old," said Colina; "men's never grow out of babyhood."

Her head was lying back on the thick of his arm.

"Your throat is as lovely—as lovely as pearl!" he whispered, brooding over her.

The exquisite throat trembled with laughter.

"You're coming out!" she said.

"I don't care!" said Ambrose. "You're as beautiful as—what is the most beautiful thing I know?—as beautiful as a morning in June up North."

"I don't know which I like better," she murmured.

"Of what?" he asked.

"To have you praise me or abuse me. Both are so sweet!"

"Do you know," he said, "I am wondering this minute if I am dreaming!

I'm afraid to breathe hard for fear of waking up."

She smiled enchantingly.

"Kiss me!" she whispered. "These are real lips."

"Sit up," he said presently, with a sigh, "We must talk hard sense to each other. What the devil are we going to do?"

She leaned against his shoulder.

"Whatever you decide," she said mistily.

"What did your father say to you?" asked Ambrose.

She shuddered. "Hideous quarrelling!" she said. "I have the temper of a devil, Ambrose!"

"I don't care," he said.

"When I told him where I was going he took me back in the library and started in," she went on. "He was so angry he could scarcely speak. If he had let it go it wouldn't have been so bad. But to try to make believe he wasn't angry! His hypocrisy disgusted me.

"To go on about my own good and all that, and all the time he was just plain mad! I taunted him until he was almost in a state of ungovernable fury. He would not mention you until I forced him to.

"He said I must give him my word never to see you or speak to you again. I refused, of course. He threatened to lock me up. He said things about you that put me beside myself. We said ghastly things to each other. We are very much alike. You'd better think twice before you marry into such a family, Ambrose."

"I take my chance," he said.

"I'm sorry now," Colina went on. "I know he is, too. Poor old fellow!

I have you."

"You mustn't break with him yet," said Ambrose anxiously.

"I know. But how can I go back and humble myself?"

"He'll meet you half-way."

"If—if we could only get in the dugout and go now!" she breathed.

He did not answer. She saw him turn pale.

"Wouldn't it be the best way," she murmured, "since it's got to be anyway?"

He drew a long breath and shook his head.

"I wouldn't take you now," he said doggedly.

"Of course not!" she said quickly. "I was only joking. But why?" she added weakly. Her hand crept into his.

"It wouldn't be fair," he said, frowning. "It would be taking too much from you."

"Too much!" she murmured, with an obscure smile.

Ambrose struggled with the difficulty of explaining what he meant. "I never do anything prudent myself. I hate it. But I can't let you chuck everything—without thinking what you are doing. You ought to stay home a while—and be sure."

"It isn't going to be so easy," she said, "quarreling continually."

"I sha'n't see you again until I come for you," said Ambrose. "And it's useless to write letters from Moultrie to Enterprise. I'm out of the way. Why can't the question of me be dropped between you and your father?"

"Think of living on from month to month without a word! It will be ghastly!" she cried.

"You've only known me two days," he said sagely. "I could not leave such a gap as that."

"How coldly you can talk about it!" she cried rebelliously.

Ambrose frowned again. "When you call me cold you shut me up," he said quietly.

"But if you do not make a fuss about me every minute," she said naïvely, "it shames me because I am so foolish about you."

Ambrose laughed suddenly.

There followed another interlude of celestial silliness.

This time it was Colina who withdrew herself from him.

"Ah," she said with a catch of the breath, "every minute of this is making it harder. I shall want to die when you leave me."

Ambrose attempted to take her in his arms again.

"No," she insisted. "Let us try to be sensible. We haven't decided yet what we're going to do."

"I'm going home," said Ambrose, "to work like a galley-slave."

"It is so far," she murmured.

"I'll find some way of letting you hear from me. Twice before the winter sets in I'll send a messenger. And you, you keep a little book and write in it whenever you think of me, and send it back by my messenger."

"A little book won't hold it all," she said naïvely.

"Meanwhile I'll be making a place for you. I couldn't take you to

Moultrie."

She asked why.

"Eva, Peter's wife," he explained. "In a way Peter is my boss, you see. It would be a horrible situation."

"I see," said Colina. "But if there was no help for it I could."

"Ah, you're too good to me!" he cried. "But it won't be necessary. Peter and I have always intended to open other posts. I'll take the first one, and you and I will start on our own. Think of it! It makes me silly with happiness!"

Upon this foundation they raised a shining castle in the air.

"I must go," said Colina finally, "or father will be equipping an armed force to take me."

"You must go," he agreed, but weakly.

They repeated it at intervals without any move being made. At last she got up.

"Is this—good-by?" she faltered.

He nodded.

They both turned pale. They were silent. They gazed at each other deeply and wistfully.

"Ah! I can't! I can't!" murmured Colina brokenly. "Such a little time to be happy!"

They flew to each other's arms.

"No—not quite good-by!" said Ambrose shakily. "I'll write to you to-morrow morning—everything I think of to-night. I'll send it by Tole Grampierre. You can send an answer by him."

"Ah, my dear love, if you forget me I shall die!"

"You doubt me still! I tell you, you have changed everything for me.

I cannot forget you unless I lose my mind!"