The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine. William MacLeod Raine
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a right good cattle man myself.”
“And—can you stay with me a reasonable time?”
He laughed. “I have no engagements across the Styx, ma'am.”
“My other foremen thought they were permanent fixtures here, too.”
“We're all liable to mistakes.”
“Even you, I suppose.”
“I'll sign a lease to give y'u possession of my skill for as long as y'u like.”
She settled herself comfortably back in an easy chair, as alluring a picture of buoyant, radiant youth as he had seen in many a day. “But the terms. I am afraid I can't offer you as much as you make at your present occupation.”
“I could keep that up as a side-line.”
“So you could. But if you use my time for your own profit, you ought to pay me a royalty on your intake.”
His eyes lit with laughter. “I reckon that can be arranged. Any percentage you think fair It will all be in the family, anyway.”
“I think that is one of the things about which we don't agree,” she made answer softly, flashing him the proper look of inviting disdain from under her silken lashes.
He leaned forward, elbow on the chair-arm and chin in hand. “We'll agree about it one of these days.”
“Think so?” she returned airily.
“I don't think. I know.”
Just an eyebeat her gaze met his, with that hint of shy questioning, of puzzled doubt that showed a growing interest. “I wonder,” she murmured, and recovered herself little laugh.
How she hated her task, and him! She was a singularly honest woman, but she must play the siren; must allure this scoundrel to forgetfulness, with a hurried and yet elude the very familiarity her manner invited. She knew her part, the heartless enticing coquette, compounded half of passion and half of selfishness. It was a hateful thing to do, this sacrifice of her personal reticence, of the individual abstraction in which she wrapped herself as a cloak, in order to hint at a possibility of some intimacy of feeling between them. She shrank from it with a repugnance hardly to be overcome, but she held herself with an iron will and consummate art to the role she had undertaken. Two lives hung on her success. She must not forget that. She would not let herself forget that—and one of them that of the man she loved.
So, bravely she played her part, repelling always with a hint of invitation, denying with the promise in her fascinated eyes of ultimate surrender to his ardor. In the zest of the pursuit the minutes slipped away unnoticed. Never had a woman seemed to him more subtly elusive, and never had he felt more sure of himself. Her charm grew on him, stirred his pulses to a faster beat. For it was his favorite sport, and this warm, supple young creature, who was to be the victim of his bow and arrow, showed herself worthy of his mettle.
The clock downstairs struck the half-hour, and Bannister, reminded of what lay before him outside, made a move to go. Her alert eyes had been expecting it, and she forestalled him by a change of tactics. Moved apparently by impulse, she seated herself on the piano-stool, swept the keys for an instant with her fingers, and plunged into the brilliant “Carmen” overture. Susceptible as this man was to the influence of music, he could not fail to be arrested by so perfect an interpretation of his mood. He stood rooted, was carried back again in imagination to a great artiste's rendering of that story of fierce passion and aching desire so brilliantly enacted under the white sunbeat of a country of cloudless skies. Imperceptibly she drifted into other parts of the opera. Was it the wild, gypsy seductiveness of Carmen that he felt, or, rather, this American girl's allurement? From “Love will like a birdling fly” she slipped into the exquisitely graceful snatches of song with which Carmen answers the officer's questions. Their rare buoyancy marched with his mood, and from them she carried him into the song “Over the hill,” that is so perfect and romantic an expression of the wanderlust.
How long she could have held him she will never know, for at that inopportune time came blundering one of his men into the room with a call for his presence to take charge of the situation outside.
“What do y'u want, Bostwick?” he demanded, with curt peremptoriness.
The man whispered in his ear.
“Can't wait any longer, can't they?” snapped his chief. “Y'u tell them they'll wait till I give the word. Understand?”
He almost flung the man out of the room, but Helen noticed that she had lost him. His interest was perfunctory, and, though he remained a little time longer, it was to establish his authority with the men rather than to listen to her. Twice he looked at his watch within five minutes.
He rose to go. “There is a little piece of business I have to put through. So I'll have to ask y'u to excuse me. I have had a delightful hour, and I hate to go.” He smiled, and quoted with mock sentimentality:
“The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over, every one apart, My rosary! My rosary!”
“Dear me! One certainly lives and learns. How could I have guessed that, with your reputation, you could afford to indulge in a rosary?” she mocked.
“Good night.” He offered his hand.
“Don't go yet,” she coaxed.
He shook his head. “Duty, y'u know.”
“Stay only a little longer. Just ten minutes more.”
His vanity purred, so softly she stroked it. “Can't. Wish I could. Y'u hear how noisy things are getting. I've got to take charge. So-long.”
She stood close, looking up at him with a face of seductive appeal.
“Don't go yet. Please!”
The triumph of victory mounted to his head. “I'll come back when I've done what I've got to do.”
“No, no. Stay a little longer just a little.”
“Not a minute, sweetheart.”
He bent to kiss her, and a little clenched fist struck his face.
“Don't you dare!” she cried.
The outraged woman in her, curbed all evening with an iron bit, escaped from control. Delightedly he laughed. The hot spirit in her pleased him mightily. He took her little hands and held them in one of his while he smiled down at her. “I guess that kiss will keep, my girl, till I come back.”
“My God! Are you going to kill your own cousin?”
All her terror, all her detestation and hatred of him, looked haggardly out of her unmasked face. His narrowed eyes searched her heart, and his countenance grew every second more sinister,
“Y'u have been fooling me all evening, then?”
“Yes, and hating you every minute of the time.”
“Y'u dared?” His face was black with rage.
“You would like to kill me. Why don't you?”
“Because I know a better revenge. I'm going out to take it now. After your lover is dead, I'll come back and make love to y'u again,” he sneered.
“Never!” She stood before him like a queen in her lissom, brave, defiant youth. “And as for your cousin, you may kill him, but you can't destroy his contempt for you. He will die despising you for a coward and a scoundrel.”
It was true, and he knew it. In his heart he cursed her, while he vainly sought some weapon that would strike home through her impervious armor.
“Y'u love him. I'll remember that when I see him kick,” he taunted.
“I make you a present of the information. I love him, and I despise you. Nothing can change those facts,” she retorted whitely.
“Mebbe,