The Rose Dawn/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
I
AT THE Peyton and Brainerd places things were rather prosperous, on the whole. Neither was involved in the boom. The Colonel did not understand such things, and was not interested: Brainerd's clever brain did understand them and was amused. Partly because of such economies as Allie managed to bring about, but principally because it was one of the few producing concerns in a country stricken with economic idleness, Corona del Monte was a little better than holding its head above the burden of its debt. It could not be expected to do more on mere economies and favourable times; for the fault lay deeper in the fact that its system was of the past. The Bungalow, on the other hand, was showing constantly increasing returns.
Kenneth Boyd, too, avoided being caught up by the boom. Beside the sardonic comment of Brainerd and the frank scepticism of the Colonel, the whole influence of his father was against his becoming in any way involved. Patrick Boyd saw too clearly that this must be only a flash in the pan; and he wished to avoid imbuing Kenneth with wrong habits of thought. Truth to tell little pressure was needed. Kenneth liked the life, with its open air, its open skies. He was intensely interested in what he was doing. He knew and was thoroughly in sympathy with every living creature with whom or with which he worked. In other words he fitted his environment.
The only troubling thought in his mind was the Corona del Monte. Of course he had not the faintest notion that Colonel Peyton was in any financial difficulties. As far as he knew the Rancho was bringing in its accustomed princely living. Only he saw so clearly that it might do better. The weekly "reports" suggested by his father as valuable exercises had long since ceased; but they had continued long enough for Patrick Boyd to learn what he wanted, and for Kenneth Boyd to have formulated his ideas. He saw very clearly where, to his view, the management of the Rancho could be bettered. He used to chafe openly at old extravagant methods, that seemed to him silly, useless, and so easily remedied. Daphne listened to him with both sympathy and amusement.
"I dare say you're right," was her comment, "but the old Rancho has been going along for a good many years that way. It's the Colonel's way."
"But I don't believe the Colonel knows anything about some of these things," persisted Kenneth. "It isn't that such ways give him any particular pleasure or feeling of being used to them: only his attention just hasn't been called to them. If he noticed them, he'd change them."
"Well, why don't you mention some of them to him and see what he says?" suggested Daphne.
"I don't quite feel like that—it looks rather cocky, a kid of my age giving him advice."
Daphne surveyed him amusedly.
"Since when has the fount of all wisdom begun to go dry?" she enquired.
Kenneth flushed, but turned to her eagerly.
"Oh, say! Honest Injin!" he cried. "Has it struck you that I've been too fresh about things? I suppose that I have shot off my face an awful lot. It isn't that I'm stuck on my ideas so much, really it isn't! I'm just interested and full of it. Do you think your father thinks I'm too fresh?"
In spite of his twenty-three years he looked very boyish, his sunburned forehead wrinkled in anxiety below his close cropped curls, his clear eyes appealing for her opinion. A tide of maternal, tender amusement rose in Daphne's heart. She felt, for a moment, mature and wise and yearning beyond all expression.
"What nonsense!" she reassured him, briskly. "That wasn't what I meant at all, and you know it! But I shouldn't hesitate for a moment to mention anything I saw to Colonel Peyton. He's the dearest, most human old soul in the universe; and would be glad to hear what you have to say."
But Kenneth's clear brain had showed him something.
"It wouldn't do any good," he said. "It isn't patch work I would do, I suppose. It just strikes me that if I owned the ranch I'd run the whole thing on a different scheme."
"Tell me how you'd do it. Let's pretend. Dolman is great on making believe." They were seated on the lower limb of Dolman's House, a frequent haunt of theirs. "Now if Corona del Monte were yours, what would you do?"
Kenneth elaborated, his enthusiasm growing as he proceeded. His ideas, which might in ordinary circumstances have been haphazard and fragmentary, had been well-ordered by his former "reports" to his father. Daphne took fire. Her quick, eager, suggestive comments were caught up by Kenneth avidly. Sometimes they both talked at once. Sometimes they argued heatedly on opposite sides. Sometimes they had wonderful inspirations that were entirely new and that struck them momentarily dumb with admiration of their splendour. It was creation: as in childhood the building of cities. They finished rather breathlessly, staring at each other with brightened eyes. Then they both laughed.
"You see!" Daphne pointed out. "It's a fine scheme. And I believe it would work out, too. But it isn't the old Del Monte the least bit in the world. The Colonel wouldn't change all his life-time habits."
"I suppose that's true," conceded Kenneth, reluctantly. He grinned. "I really believe he was secretly a little relieved when the well fizzled, though he pretended nobly."
Daphne chuckled. "So you had that idea, too?"
The attempt for artesian water had failed. All that remained as souvenir was the piped hole and a little pile of borings on the side of the knoll.
"But," she went on, her imagination rekindling, "wouldn't you just love to have a big ranch like the Del Monte to do just as you pleased with?"
"I should like it better than anything else in the world," replied Kenneth, earnestly. "And some day I'm going to have it."
He meant that he intended some day to have such a ranch, and in this sense Daphne now understood him. But a time was to come when his speech was to return to torment her.
II
The next fifteen months passed. Arguello was jogging along again, but not quite as before. Its spirit was no more progressive than in the old days, but the force of circumstances had raised its normal. The railroad was in at last, subject still to delay of washout or avalanche, where it crept under the cliffs or tunnelled through the mountains, but nevertheless arriving every once in a while. The receding wash of the boom had left rich spoil in the shape of settlers. The little white stakes that bounded the old corner, lots still marked the graves of departed hopes, but more and more of them were being ploughed under each year. Men talked in terms not of profits, but of production. And Patrick Boyd knew that at last the time had come for him to forward his old scheme of irrigated small farms.
The idea had expanded: and curiously enough the cause of expansion was the failure of the experimental artesian well at Corona del Monte. Boyd now visioned a big water project in the Sur. During the rains water in plenty flowed back in the fastnesses of the ranges. It was possible to impound it and lead it down into the valley. Furthermore, Boyd saw a possibility of hydro-electricity, then quite a new thought. By means of suitable conduits this water could be widely distributed—over the sagebrush foothills of Boyd's original purchase, for example. To be sure most of that land belonged now in small bits to hundreds of would-be millionaires; but it could be repurchased at a song through Spinner. That young man, by the way, owned some of it: he was one of the chastened ex-millionaires. There were also other properties that would come in under such a development. But it could not be denied that the broad acres of Corona del Monte were the foundation of the scheme. Their proximity to town, their topographical character, and a dozen other considerations made them the keystone of the arch. With them the scheme was worth millions both to its originator and to the community. Without them it was still worth going into, but could not promise such rich pickings.
Boyd had long since little by little gathered the details of his project and worked them out on paper. His consulting engineers had ridden with him over all the ground. His preliminary surveys, even, had been made fairly under the noses of the Arguellans. If any of them saw the surveyors, it never occurred to them to be curious as to what it was all about. People were always running about with transits. His tables of costs were very complete, all things considered.
At the proper time a thin, gray-faced, tight-lipped silent man came to visit at the Boyd household. Nobody knew who he was, nor took more than a passing interest in him; for his personality was unobtrusive, he rarely opened his head, and he never stirred abroad except on horseback accompanied by his host. They knew him as Mr. Brown. Even Kenneth, retaining still his sleeping quarters in the house, knew—and cared—no more. But if the stranger's incognito had been guessed, what a furore there had been! For this was that mysterious, little known, powerful operator William Bates, who had never had his picture in the papers; had rarely appeared in person, and yet whose manipulations practically governed the stock market; whose constructive operations extended over two continents; whose wealth was uncounted, and whose power no man had ever been known fully to test. A lean, gray wolf-leader of the pack with which Boyd had formerly hunted.
A furore? If his presence had been guessed in Arguello the old dry bones of the defunct boom would have rattled and risen and clothed themselves with Me. For William Bates did not cast for small fry: he used whales for bait. If he considered it worth the trouble personally to make a long journey for the purpose of looking at a proposition, it would be because he considered the proposition had millions in it. Part of which was true. Bates, as a matter of fact, had come only from Pasadena; but he would not even have gone downtown for a small deal.
"Your proposition is feasible," he told Boyd in the den one evening, breaking his silence with the first business comment he had permitted himself. "It needs financing, for it is a big thing, if it is anything."
"That is why I asked you to look at it," Boyd pointed out.
"Of course. Tell you what I'll do." He went on in his clipping style, mentioning names high in finance, outlining the company and defining the interests. Bates was too old a hand to try for an advantage over Boyd here; and the latter was too old a hand to suspect him of it. A usual business arrangement was outlined, to which Boyd gave his assent.
"But we can't go to these people until we have our proposition cinched," said Bates. "It's all right on paper: but it's all on paper. We've got to get our water rights, our rights of way, and our land under option. Then we can go to them and get what we need. I propose that we undertake that ourselves and reserve in compensation the promotion stock. All right?"
"Suits me," agreed Boyd.
"You should get it cheap."
"No trouble about the mountains and the rights of way. The only difficulty is in the chief tract for the farms?"
"You mean that big ranch—what do you call it?"
"Corona del Monte? Yes. It will be impossible to buy that."
"At any reasonable price, you mean?"
"At all."
"Well, that of course would block the whole scheme if there were no way out. But I imagine you did not get me down here just to tell me that. What do you propose?"
"No, of course not. It's this way: this ranch, like all those old properties, is mortgaged to the eaves. All its paper is held by the First National Bank here, and as I am a director I know all about it. The owner, an extinct old fossil of the usual kind, just manages to scrabble along. He pays the interest, but it strains him to do it."
"Yet you say he won't sell any of it?" struck in Bates keenly.
"No; not an acre. You've just got to believe that I know what I'm talking about. He's that kind of an old fool."
"All right: go ahead."
"Now this paper has been renewed at the bank as often as it came due; and will continue to be renewed as long as the interest payments are kept up. You see the land is good security. But I have sufficient influence to induce them to sell those mortgages to us. Then we can do as we please when they come due."
"Then that means putting up the full amount of the loan instead of merely an option," interposed Bates, swiftly. "That will take a lot more money."
"Well," said Boyd, leaning back, "why did you suppose I let you in on this at all for, Will? Didn't you suppose I could raise enough to cover preliminary work and options myself, if that was all there was to it?"
"I was wondering. How much?"
Boyd told him.
"And how do you propose dividing?"
"Same as before," said Boyd, firmly.
"H'm! What's to prevent my taking this up by myself?"
"I am. You can't get on in this thing without me, Will, and you know it: not in this community."
Bates chewed his cigar for some time in silence.
"All right," he agreed at last. "I'll put it up. But I'd like to go see this old fellow first."
"It will do no good," said Boyd.
"It will do no harm," countered Bates.
At that moment Daphne and Kenneth were seated side by side on the great lower branch of Dolman's House. It was one of the tepid, caressing, almost tropical evenings that this season so often brings to Southern California, with a loud glad chorus of crickets and tree toads, and a deep brooding stillness back of them, and soft wandering breezes visiting flowers drowsily asleep. The house seemed small and stuffy and too much lighted. For some time they had been sitting in a happy sociable silence. Suddenly Daphne sat up with a sharp and frightened cry.
"What is it?" cried Kenneth, alarmed.
But for a few moments she was too much agitated to reply. She seized and held Kenneth's hand with both of hers. They were icy cold.
"Oh, I don't know what was the matter with me!" she cried at last. "It's too foolish! It's just one of those silly fits that once is a great while strike me all of a sudden before I know it. I'm all right now."
"What was it?" asked Kenneth.
"It sounds too fantastic and silly."
"Tell me," he urged.
"Well, you know Dolman—the tree spirit I told you I used to believe in when I was little."
"Yes."
"All of a sudden he seemed to swoop down on me—terribly. Something was terribly wrong. I felt the shivers go up my back. He seemed so excited; and always Dolman has been so calm. And something was terribly wrong," she repeated. "Isn't it too absurd. Bur-r, I'm chilly. Let's go home."
III
Bates preferred to make his call alone. He was directed by Sing Toy to the east paddock, where Colonel Peyton was looking at some colts. Thus when the two withdrew to the shade, they found themselves under the wide-spreading branches of Dolman's House.
Daphne was perched aloft and invisible, and as she heard them below her, she drew herself together in a panic lest she be seen before they had moved on. Daphne was now nineteen years old; not at all an age to be discovered roosting up a tree. She thought the two men had paused for a momentary chat. When it became evident that a longer conversation was forward, her first feeling was merely of annoyance that she must remain in a cramped position for so long. But after a few sentences it came to her that she was eavesdropping on what might be extremely private business affairs, and that she should make herself known. But now a strange thing happened to her. She could not move; her surroundings became hazy to her; withdrew a vast distance from the centre of her consciousness. It seemed to her that she was physically inhibited from movement and from speech, as one is bound in a dream. The motor messages sent from her brain resulted in nothing. Only the hearing and recording faculties were clear. It was as though Dolman had laid on her his spell, that another human being might become cognizant of the danger to his realm. Or a practical psychologist might have analyzed the cumulative effects of diverse inhibitions.
"I have to apologize for bothering you, Colonel Peyton," began Bates. "My excuse is that I am vitally interested in the prosperity of this community, and I assume you are."
With this opening he approached the subject. He bore very lightly on profits to be made; but emphasized the immense value in money and settlers to the community of Arguello that must result from the opening of the land. Because of this Colonel Peyton listened to him without comment or interruption. When Bates had quite finished this part of his exposition, he said:
"I think I see your point, Mr. Brown. I think it is a perfectly legitimate and praiseworthy point. But I have given a great deal of thought to it in the past: believe me, sir, it is not new to me. I have come to the conclusion that it may not after all be so important that this little community grow and expand as you have described it. I have lived here a great many years, and the people here have always been sufficiently prosperous and happy. How can it help them in that to have more people living here?"
"Why, the wealth they'd bring in: the public improvements" cried Bates.
"I see you cannot understand my point of view," interposed the Colonel. "That is natural. Few people do. But this is the point: I like my property the way it is. Nothing I could do with it would make me like it better. As far as that consideration applies, I wouldn't change for the world. And I can't see it is my duty, either: for the reasons I have given you."
"You do not believe it is every man's duty to think of the growth and prosperity of his community?"
"I am not convinced that growth and prosperity, as you consider it, make happiness."
"But if everybody held those views, we'd never get any- where."
The Colonel laughed gently, the fine lines wrinkling around his eyes.
"That used to bother me a considerable," he confessed, "and then one day it came to me that everybody doesn't hold those views. If everybody was a shoemaker, we'd have nothing but shoes." He chuckled again. "No, Mr. Brown, I've had time to think it over from all angles in the last few years. The only thing that would make me break into Corona del Monte would be because I thought I ought to. And I can't see where I ought to."
Bates considered. He had come out with a tentative idea of offering to pay off all the mortgages. Then there would be no question of their renewal or non-renewal. Also there would be no question of Patrick Boyd's retaining the whip hand in these negotiations. Of course Bates had no intention of throwing Boyd over completely—he would be of great use as being on the spot; but there was no reason why the traction man should get the lion's share. But Bates had not gained his present position by being slow at the uptake. The Colonel had said enough to afford a basis for judgment. Bates gave up his tentative plan to deal on a basis of profit or alleged duty. There remained to try the effects of a scare. His manner became icy.
"You say, Colonel Peyton, that your feeling of duty would be the only thing that would make you break up this property. I think you are mistaken. There is one other thing."
"I do not understand you, sir. What is it?"
"Necessity."
"Again I must confess that I do not understand you," a trace of formality crept into the Colonel's manner.
"I introduced myself as Brown. I am William Bates of Eleven Wall Street."
But this shot missed entirely.
"I regret. I suppose the name should be familiar; but it is not," said the Colonel.
Bates stared. Undoubtedly, incredible as it seemed, the man was sincere.
"It does not matter," continued the magnate. "I merely wanted to show that my opinion in these matters is of weight. I am acting in a friendly capacity, Colonel Peyton, however it may seem to you at the moment. I am a financier, and it is my business to know all about banking affairs. That must be my excuse for knowing so much of yours. Bluntly, I know that you are heavily mortgaged here. Has it ever occurred to you what you would do if for one reason or another these mortgages should not be renewed?"
Colonel Peyton struggled against his instinct to draw into his shell. In his opinion this sort of thing was an invasion of his private affairs; but he was broad enough to realize that from a business point of view it probably was not.
"The paper is held by our local bank, sir; and the bank is governed by my friends. The security is certainly good, as you will admit. While the interest is of course a burden to me, I anticipate no other difficulty."
The thin, gray face before him became inscrutable. It was time to throw the scare.
"You're sure it's governed by your friends?"
"What do you mean, sir?" cried the Colonel, "my life-long associates!"
"Colonel Peyton," pronounced the financier, "I am free to confess that I came out here to propose an arrangement in regard to your land that would be mutually profitable. I see you are in no mind to consider such a proposition. My personal interest in the matter naturally ceases. But I hate to see as fine a property in risk of being lost without compensation to you, when it would be so easy to arrange it otherwise." He leaned forward, fixing the Colonel with his small dead eyes and raising a long finger. "Let me tell you this, Colonel Peyton, there is an element in that bank that intends to take possession of this property. I refer to Patrick Boyd. He is a shrewd, forceful man. I have been with him and against him, and I know. He has the power and the knowledge. If he doesn't do it one way, he'll do it another." In his later report to Boyd, Bates referred to this casually as "I used your name to scare the old bird."
"I can hardly believe you," faltered the Colonel, impressed in spite of himself. "By what right do you slander Mr. Boyd in this way?"
"Slander!" repeated Bates, contemptuously. "It isn't slander to call any one a good business man. He sees here a good business opportunity. He can take advantage of it without the slightest unfairness. It's a matter of plain business. You must pardon me for saying so, sir, but if you cared enough for the sentiment of holding this ranch together, you should have gone at it with some foresight. When you get deeply into debt, you have to pay, you know."
The Colonel was so shaken and preoccupied with the main issue that he did not rear his crest at the rebuke.
"Mr. Boyd made me an offer, which I refused," said the Colonel.
"If it was a good offer, you were foolish," stated Bates. "It was decent of him to do so, for he can get the ranch without your acceptance, if he wants."
"I do not see how," argued the Colonel, but weakly. "—nor why. He is a wealthy 'man."
"How!" repeated Bates, contemptuously. "Colonel, it is very evident that you are no business man. I can think of half a dozen ways how. And, why! He has a son, hasn't he, in the ranching business? Don't you suppose a fine property like this would come in handy. No, Colonel, don't fool yourself." He started to move away. "I'll go now and leave you to think it over. You would better come in with me. I can save you your homestead, of course, and a good big farm around it; and a tidy sum of money to live on. Come, now, that's better than passing over the whole thing, isn't it? Like your Spanish friends who used to own Las Flores?"
He continued to move away. The Colonel stared after him, apparently benumbed.
"I'm staying at Boyd's, if you want to get hold of me," added Bates. "I'm known as Brown, remember. Travelling incog." He glanced again keenly at the Colonel's motionless figure, then strode away briskly toward his horse.
Dolman lifted his spell. Aflame with indignation and excitement Daphne scrambled down from her perch and flung herself tempestuously on the Colonel.
"Oh godpapa, godpapa!" she cried. "I couldn't help but hear! I'd no idea! Why haven't you told me? I never heard anything so atrocious!"
"Where did you come from, Puss?" asked the Colonel, wearily.
"I was up in the tree. I know I shouldn't have listened, but I couldn't help it. I'd no idea! I thought things were going on so well!"
"They're going on very ill, I'm afraid," replied the Colonel, dispiritedly.
"I don't believe him! I think he's lying!" stormed Daphne, "and the Boyds! That fat, brutal, sly old villain—and Ken!" she caught her breath in a little wail, then her wrath swept her on. "To think of his living with us, and working with us and learning with us—and spying on us—yes, spying on us!" she cried, vehemently, at some faint motion of dissent. "I know what I'm talking about. Spy! Spy! And we trusted and l-liked him so! Oh, godpapa!" She clung tight to the old man, her body shaken with dry sobs of excitement.
"There, there, Puss," he soothed, patting her. "Don't take it so hard. And don't let's pass hasty judgments. It isn't quite fair to condemn our young man just on the word of somebody we don't know at all—and don't like," he added.
But Daphne shook her head, her face still concealed against his shoulder.
"No, it's true," she insisted. "I know. He told me so himself."
"Told you so!" cried the Colonel, astonished.
"I didn't understand what he meant: but now I do. It's been a plot from the first. Oh! how I do hate a sneak!"
She raised her face, glowing with a new access of indignation that for the moment swept Kenneth and all his works into limbo.
"But what are you going to do?" she demanded. "Are you going to do what that odious man wants you to?"
"Let's sit down on the big limb and talk about it," said the Colonel. "Puss, I'd like to talk to somebody. I've had to keep it to myself; and I've thought and thought until I thought I'd go crazy."
"Oh, godpapa!" breathed Daphne, awed at this revelation of a Colonel so different from the one she, or anybody else, had ever known.
"I know that what these men advise is the sensible thing to do. Almost anybody would tell you that. I'm not a business man, Puss, but I've always got on in the old days, and made the ranch go and all the people on it. I'm afraid the old days have gone. It would be the sensible thing to deal with these men. I'd get out of debt, I'd still have the homestead and some land, and I'd have some money. They are perfectly right about it. I don't suppose anybody you'd ask could give one single reason why I shouldn't do it."
"But you won't! You can't! We must find a way!" flamed Daphne.
"Why do you say that?" asked the Colonel, turning to her with a distinct lessening of his discouraged lassitude.
"It would not be the ranch any more!" she cried, passionately—"the dear old ranch! Why it would be like cutting up, destroying a loved and living thing!"
"Ah, Puss!" the Colonel exhaled a deep sigh of relief. "You understand. I thought there could not be a person in the whole wide world who would understand."
IV
Before they separated they had talked it over more calmly. The Colonel insisted that for the time being the matter should remain between themselves.
"I would a little rather you would not tell your father of this," said the Colonel. "It would only embarrass matters. He and young Boyd are in partnership, you know."
"He wouldn't be in partnership two minutes if" began Daphne, with spirit.
"I know," interposed the Colonel, gently. "That is just it. Such partnerships cannot be dissolved on the spur of the moment. The only way would be for your father to buy him out—and you know he can't do that. The arrangement must continue."
"I suppose so—it seems intolerable," agreed Daphne after a moment, and with reluctant distaste. "But I can't bear the thought of his—I won't be even decent to him."
"I shouldn't go to extremes, my dear," advised the Colonel. "for your father's sake: and a little for mine."
"For yours? What do you mean, godpapa?"
"It may be that I shall have to deal with these men yet."
"Oh!" cried Daphne, aflame at once. "I thought"
"But I have your Aunt Allie to think of," the Colonel reminded her.
"But you won't"
"I won't do anything because these men want me to," said the Colonel. "I won't do anything unless I have to. Come now, things may not be so bad. Of course anything might happen—I might step on a nail and get lockjaw. But I don't see why we shouldn't pay interest, as we have been doing for years. All we're afraid of is the mystery of these men's threats. Let's not get stampeded."
Daphne made a noble effort not to treat Kenneth as though he had not hurt the very depths of her soul—for that was what it amounted to. The result vastly mystified the young man. At first he thought her new manner a joke, and tried to reply in kind. But soon he sensed a real though concealed hostility.
"What have I done?" he beseeched her. "Whatever it was, I certainly didn't mean it. Tell me what it is, at least."
"It's nothing at all," replied Daphne, primly.
"But it is something," he persisted. "Why are you treating me this way?"
"I am not treating you in any especial way."
"Oh, aren't you!" he cried, ruefully. "I feel like the worm that has overslept and wasn't on hand for the early bird."
She did not condescend to smile at this.
"And you won't go riding any more"
"I would go riding if I did not happen to be very busy just now. I haven't time."
"Busy!" repeated Kenneth. "Busy at what, I should like to know!"
But talk as long as he would, he could get no further in satisfaction. Indoors Daphne took pains never to be alone with him. In the presence of her father she sat to one side, sewing. Only when directly addressed by a question did she reply very briefly. Gone were her eager interpolations and high spirits. Brainerd glanced quizzically at her from time to time.
"What have you and Daffy been quarrelling about?" he asked Kenneth, as they rode together to the upper tunnel.
"I haven't any idea, sir," replied Kenneth. "I wish I knew. I've been trying to find out, but I can't get a thing from her but statements that she's treating me just as she always has, and that there isn't a thing the matter, and giving me the wide-eyed stare. She must think I'm an imbecile!" he ended bitterly.
Brainerd laughed softly.
"I thought it might really be something." He began to whistle La donna e mobile.
But to Kenneth it was no laughing matter. Against the smooth sweetly smiling opposition of her denial that things were not as usual he beat in vain.
"I'd like to shake you!" he cried one day, goaded to the limit of endurance.
For the first time her pose was dropped. She faced him straight with flashing eyes.
"I'd like to see you try!" she replied.
They stared at each other with hate.
"Well, good-bye. When you come to your senses I hope you'll let me know," rejoined Kenneth, and he turned on his heel.
For two weeks he confined his presence at the Bungalow to purely business hours, and took conspicuous pains to avoid the house itself. On the few occasions when he happened to meet Daphne, he lifted his Stetson gravely, and was bowed to gravely in return. He was very unhappy and bewildered and hurt about it. Naturally it seemed to him without all reason. But naturally, too, it brought him to a tumultuous realization of his love. Heretofore it had flowed so smoothly in the comfortable channel of their everyday joyous, open-air companionship that he had not recognized it fully. Now he suffered all the doubts and fears, the longings and despairs, to dreams and far-off hopes of his condition.
And Daphne—hurt to the soul, sick with disappointment in human nature, proud, ashamed that her confidence and trust and free companionship had been so misplaced, grieved that so fair and frank an appearance and manner should cover such falsity of heart, and unquenchingly aflame with indignation against treachery—can you not see her, one moment openly and regally scorning poor Kenneth, even as dust beneath the belly of the worm, and the next flinging herself in tears on the bed? And Kenneth spent more time than he should at the Fremont bar, and was seen dashing about in a spindly wheeled, varnished buggy with a very sporty looking damsel by his side—my dear, she had the impudence to tell me that her cheeks were such a trial to her because strangers always thought she rouged!—and these facts were told to Daphne, who said they did not interest her. And Daphne suddenly became a devotee of the Fremont hops, and was known to have danced four times in succession with that Sherwood boy from San Francisco, the one who is so dissipated, and disappeared from three more dances, but then what can you expect from any one brought up as she was: at which Kenneth laughed the approved, cynical laugh and said he didn't envy Sherwood. And each listening in all conversations to catch the other's name. Lovers separated by cruel misunderstanding: it is a situation as old as the old, old world!