The Forbidden Way

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Gibbs George. The Forbidden Way

CHAPTER I. SHARP PRACTICE

CHAPTER II. CAMILLA

CHAPTER III. NEW YORK

CHAPTER IV. THE FORBIDDEN WAY

CHAPTER V. DINERS OUT

CHAPTER VI. MRS. CHEYNE

CHAPTER VII. BRAEBANK

CHAPTER VIII. THE BRUSH

CHAPTER IX. THE SHADOW

CHAPTER X. TRITON OF THE MINNOWS

CHAPTER XI. DISCORD

CHAPTER XII. TEA CUPS AND MUSIC

CHAPTER XIII. GOOD FISHING

CHAPTER XIV. FATHER AND SON

CHAPTER XV. INFATUATION

CHAPTER XVI. OLD DANGERS

CHAPTER XVII. OLD ROSE LEAVES

CHAPTER XVIII. COMBAT

CHAPTER XIX. THE LADY IN GRAY

CHAPTER XX. La Femme Propose

CHAPTER XXI. L'homme Dispose

CHAPTER XXII. PRIVATE MATTERS

CHAPTER XXIII. THE INTRUDER

CHAPTER XXIV. GRETCHEN DECIDES

CHAPTER XXV. THE CRISIS

CHAPTER XXVI. THE CALL OF THE HEART

CHAPTER XXVII. GENERAL BENT

CHAPTER XXVIII. HOUSEHOLD GODS – AND GODDESSES

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Her pupils had all been dismissed for the day and the schoolmistress sat at her desk, a half-written letter before her, gazing out through the open doorway over the squalid roofs of the "residence section" of Mesa City. The "Watch Us Grow" sign on the false front over Jeff Wray's office was just visible over the flat roof of the brick bank building. "Watch Us Grow!" The shadow in her eyes deepened. For two long years she had seen that sign from doorway and window of the school, and, even when she went home to Mrs. Brennan's bungalow up above, she must see it again from the veranda. Jeff's business card was the most prominent object in town, except perhaps Jeff himself. It was so much larger than it had any right to be, out of scale, so vulgar, so insistent, so – so like Jeff. Jeff had stood in the doorway of the schoolhouse while they were building his office, and, in his masterful way, had told her of the trade-mark he had adopted for his business; he wanted it in plain sight of her desk so that she could see it every day and watch Mesa City (and himself) fulfil the prophecy.

That seemed ages ago now. It was before the "Jeff Wray" had been painted out and "Wray and Berkely" put in its place, before Larry came out, or Cortland Bent, in the days when Jeff was a new kind of animal to her, when she had arrived fresh from her boarding school in Kansas. "Watch Us Grow!" How could any one grow in a place like this – grow anything, at least, but wrinkled and stale and ugly. The sign had been a continual mockery to her, a travesty on the deeper possibilities of life which Fate had so far denied her. She shut her eyes and resolutely turned her head away, but she could not get Jeff Wray out of her mind. She was thoroughly frightened. His air of proprietorship so suddenly assumed yesterday and the brutality of his kiss had brought her own feelings to a crisis – for she had learned in that moment that their relationship was impossible. But her fingers tingled still – at the memory of the blow she had given him. She had promised to marry him when he "made good." But in Mesa City that had seemed like no promise at all. How could any one succeed in anything here?

.....

Slowly she disengaged his arms and put the chair between them. There was even a smile on her lips. "You mean – that I – that you – " She paused, uncertain of her words.

"That I'll stick to you until Kingdom Come," he assented.

.....