The Silver Horde. Rex Beach
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standing at her shoulder. Could he sing, she wondered, as he began to take up the words of the song? Then her dream-filled eyes widened as she listened to his voice breathing life into the beautiful words. He sang with the ease and flexibility of an artist, his powerful baritone blending perfectly with her contralto.
For the first time she felt the man's personality, his magnetism, as if he had dropped his cloak and stood at her side in his true semblance. As they finished the song she wheeled abruptly, her face flushed, her ripe lips smiling, her eyes moist, and looked up to find him marvelously transformed. His even teeth gleamed forth from a brown face that had become the mirror of a soul as spirited as her own, for the blending of their voices had brought them into a similar harmony of understanding.
"Oh, thank you," she breathed.
"Thank you," he said. "I—I—that's the first time in ages that I've had the heart to sing. I was hungry for music, I was starving for it. I've sat in my cabin at night longing for it until my soul fairly ached with the silence. I've frozen beneath the Northern Lights straining my ears for the melody that ought to go with them—they must have an accompaniment somewhere, don't you think so?"
"Yes, yes," she breathed.
"They must have; they are too gloriously, terribly beautiful to be silent. I've stood in the whispering spruce groves and tried to sing contentment back into my heart, but I couldn't do it. This is the first real taste I've had in three years. Three years!"
He was talking rapidly, his blue eyes dancing. Cherry remembered thinking at dinner that those eyes were of too light and hard a blue for tenderness. She now observed that they were singularly deep and passionate.
"Why, I've gone about with a comb and a piece of tissue-paper at my lips like any kid. I once made a banjo out of a cigar-box and bale wire, and while I was in the Kougarok I walked ten miles to hear a nigger play a harmonica. I did all sorts of things to coax music into this country, but it is silent and unresponsive, absolutely dead and discordant." He made a gesture which in a woman would have ended in a shudder.
He took a seat near the girl, and continued to talk feverishly, unable to give voice to his thoughts rapidly enough. His reserve vanished, his silence gave way to a confidential warmth which suffused his listener and drew her to him. The overpowering force of his strong nature swept her out of herself, while her ready sympathy took fire and caught at his half-expressed ideas and stumbling words, stimulating him with her warm understanding. Her quick wit rallied him and awoke echoes of his past youth, until they began to laugh and jest with the camaraderie of boy and girl. With their better acquaintance her assumption of masculinity fell from her, and she became the "womanly woman"—dainty, vivacious, captivating.
Fraser, whom both had forgotten, looked on at first in gaping, silent awe, staring and blinking at his travelling companion, who had undergone such a metamorphosis. But restraint and silence were impossible to him for long, and in time he ambled clumsily into the conversation. It jarred, of course, but he could not be ignored, and gradually he claimed more and more of the talk until the young couple yielded to the monologue, smiling at each other in mutual understanding.
Emerson listened tolerantly, idly running through the magazines at his hand, his hostess watching him covertly, albeit her ears were drummed by the other's monotone. How much better this mood became the young man! Suddenly the smile of amusement that lurked about his lip corners and gave him a pleasing look hardened in a queer fashion—he started, then stared at one of the pages while the color died out of his brown cheeks. Cherry saw the hand that held the magazine tremble. He looked up at her, and, disregarding Fraser, broke in, harshly:
"Have you read this magazine?"
"Not entirely. It came in the last mail."
"I'd like to take one page out of it," he said. "May I?"
"Why, certainly," she replied. "You may have the whole thing if you like." He produced a knife, and with one quick stroke cut a single leaf out of the magazine, which he folded and thrust into the breast of his coat.
"Thank you," he muttered; then fell to staring ahead of him, again heedless of his surroundings. This abrupt relapse into his former state of sullen and defiant silence tantalized the girl to the verge of anger, especially now that she had seen something of his true self. She was painfully conscious of a sense of betrayal at having yielded so easily to his pleasant mood, only to be shut out on an instant's whim, while a girlish curiosity to know the cause of the change overpowered her. He offered no explanation, however, and took no further part in the conversation until, noting the lateness of the hour, he rose and thanked her for her hospitality in the same deadly indifferent manner.
"The music was a great treat," he said, looking beyond her and holding aloof—"a very great treat. I enjoyed it immensely. Good-night."
Cherry Malotte had experienced a new sensation, and she didn't like it. She vowed angrily that she disliked men who looked past her; indeed, she could not recall any other who had ever done so. Her chief concern had always been to check their ardor. She resolved viciously that before she was through with this young man he would make her a less listless adieu. She assured herself that he was a selfish, sullen boor, who needed to be taught a lesson in manners for his own good if for nothing else; that a woman's curiosity had aught to do with her exasperation she would have denied. She abhorred curiosity. As a matter of fact, she told herself that he did not interest her in the least, except as a discourteous fellow who ought to be shocked into a consciousness of his bad manners, and therefore the moment the two men were well out of the room she darted to the table, snatched up the magazine, and skimmed through it feverishly. Ah! here was the place!
A woman's face with some meaningless name beneath filled each page. Along the top ran the heading, "Famous American Beauties." So it was a woman! She skipped backward and forward among the pages for further possible enlightenment, but there was no article accompanying the pictures. It was merely an illustrated section devoted to the photographs of prominent actresses and society women, most of whom she had never heard of, though here and there she saw a name that was familiar. In the centre was that tantalizingly clean-cut edge which had subtracted a face from the gallery—a face which she wanted very much to see. She paused and racked her brain, her brows furrowed with the effort at recollection, but she had only glanced at the pages when the magazine came, and had paid no attention to this part of it. Her anger at her failure to recall this particular face aroused her to the fact that she was acting very foolishly, at which she laughed aloud.
"Well, what of it?" she demanded of the empty room. "He's in love with some society ninny, and I don't care what she looks like." She shrugged her shoulders carelessly; then, in a sudden access of fury, she flung the mutilated magazine viciously into a far corner of the room.
The travellers slept late on the following morning, for the weariness of weeks was upon them, and the little bunk-room they occupied adjoined the main building and was dark. When they came forth they found Chakawana in the store, and a few moments later were called to breakfast.
"Where is your mistress?" inquired Boyd.
"She go see my sick broder," said the Indian girl, recalling Cherry's mention of the child ill with measles. "She all the time give medicine to Aleut babies," Chakawana continued. "All the time give, give, give something. Indian people love her."
"She's sort of a Lady Bountiful to these bums," remarked Fraser.
"Does she let them trade in yonder?" Boyd asked, indicating the store.
"Oh yes! Everything cheap to Indian people. Indian got no money, all the same." Then, as if realizing that her hasty tongue had betrayed some secret of moment, the Aleut girl paused, and, eying them sharply, demanded, "What for you ask?"
"No reason in particular."
"What for you ask?" she insisted. "Maybe you b'long Company, eh?" Emerson laughed, but she was not to be put off easily, and, with characteristic guile, announced boldly: "I lie to you. She no trade with Aleut people. No; Chakawana lie!"
"She's afraid we'll tell this fellow Marsh," Fraser remarked to Emerson; then, as if that name