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The Trail of Conflict

By EMILIE LORING

PUBLISHERS
Grosset & Dunlap
NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT 1922 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY

MADE IN THE U. S. A.

CONTENTS

[CHAPTER I]
[CHAPTER II]
[CHAPTER III]
[CHAPTER IV]
[CHAPTER V]
[CHAPTER VI]
[CHAPTER VII]
[CHAPTER VIII]
[CHAPTER IX]
[CHAPTER X]
[CHAPTER XI]
[CHAPTER XII]
[CHAPTER XIII]
[CHAPTER XIV]
[CHAPTER XV]
[CHAPTER XVI]
[CHAPTER XVII]
[CHAPTER XVIII]
[CHAPTER XIX]
[CHAPTER XX]
[CHAPTER XXI]
[CHAPTER XXII]
[BOOKS BY EMILIE LORING]

CHAPTER I

"That is your ultimatum, Glamorgan? My boy for your girl or you scoop up my possessions and transfuse them into yours?"

Peter Courtlandt tapped the arm of his chair nervously as he regarded the man who sat opposite in front of the fire. The two men were in striking contrast. Courtlandt seemed a component part of the room in which they sat, a room which with its dull, velvety mahogany, its costly Eastern rugs, its rare old portraits and book-lined walls, proclaimed generations of ancestors who had been born to purple and fine linen. He was spare and tall. His features might have served as the model for the portrait of Nelson in the Metropolitan Museum. His eyes were darkly luminous, the eyes of a dreamer; his white hair curled in soft rings over his head; his hands were long and patrician. Glamorgan was built on the Colossus plan, large head, heavy features into which the elements had ground a dull color, a huge body without the least trace of fat. Only his eyes were small. They looked as though they had been forgotten until the last moment, as though the designer had then hastily poked holes beneath the Websterian brows to insert two brilliant green beads. He was a handsome man in a clean-souled, massive way; moreover he looked to be a person who would crash through obstacles and win out by sheer persistence.

He flung the remains of his cigar into the fire as he answered Courtlandt. With the cushion-tipped fingers of his large hands spread upon his knees he bent forward and fixed his interrogator with his emerald gaze.

"That statement sounds raw but it's true. I've been playing my cards for what you call a scoop for some time. Fifty years ago my mother brought her family from Wales to this country. We had come from the coal region. Coal was all the older children knew, so we drifted to Pennsylvania. Until I was seventeen I picked coal. Occasionally I saw the stockholders who came to inspect the mines. One day your father brought you. You passed me as though I were a post, but right then and there I learned the difference between mere money and money with family behind it. That day I laid my plans for life. I'd make money, Lord, how I'd pile it up; I'd cut out the dissipations of my kind, I'd marry the most refined girl who'd have me, and I'd have one of my children, at least, marry into a family like yours. My grandchildren should have ancestors who counted. Well, I got the girl. She had good Virginia stock behind her. Geraldine was born and after five years Margaret, and then my wife died. I began to pile. I denied myself everything but books, that my girls could be fitted to fill the position I was determined they should have. I——"

Peter Courtlandt's clear, high-bred voice interrupted. There was a trace of amusement in his tone:

"Did you never think that your daughters might develop plans of their own? That they might refuse to be disposed of so high-handedly?"

"Margaret may, but Jerry won't. Since she was a little thing she's been brought up with the idea of marrying for social position; she knows that my heart is set on it. Why, I used to visit her at school dressed in my roughest clothes, that the difference between me and the other fathers would soak in thoroughly. Oh well, smile. I acknowledge that the idea is an obsession with me; every man has some weak joint; that's mine. I'll say for Jerry that she never once flinched from owning up to me as hers. I've seen the color steal to her eyes when I appeared in my rough clothes, but she'd slip her hand into mine, for all the world as though she were protecting me, cling tight to it, and introduce me to her friends. The girls and teachers loved her, or she couldn't have got away with it. Her friends were among the best at college. Oh, she'll marry to please me. Even if she didn't want to, she'd do it to give Peg a chance; she's crazy about her, but I know her, she won't go back on her old Dad. Besides, Courtlandt, I have a firm conviction that a person can put through any worthy thing on which he is determined. How else do you account for the seeming miracles men got away with in the World War? The test is, how much do you want it? I've gone on that principle all my life, and it's worked, I tell you, it's worked!"

He waved away the box of cigars Courtlandt offered and pulled a vicious-looking specimen of the weed from his pocket. He stuck it between his teeth before he resumed:

"After I left the coal-mines I beat it to Texas, got an option on land there and began to make my pile in the oil-fields. I worked like a slave days and studied nights. I didn't mean to give Jerry cause to be ashamed of her Dad when she did land. Then I set my lawyer to looking up the affairs of the Courtlandt family. I found that you had a boy, handsome, upstanding and decent. I had him well watched, I assure you. I wasn't throwing Jerry away on a regular guy even if I was stuck on your family. I found also that your money was getting scarcer than hen's teeth. I took the mortgage on this house, on every piece of property in your estate. I knew when the boy chucked his law course and went into the army. I had him watched while he was overseas and I know that he came through that seething furnace of temptation straight. On the day your boy marries my girl and brings her to this house to live I'll turn your property over to you free and clear. It is in fine condition and will give you a handsome income. It won't be sufficient for you and the young people to live as I want to see them, but I'll take care of that. You've known me now for three months. You know that I'm absolutely on the level in my business dealings. What say?"

Courtlandt rose impetuously and stood with his back to the fire, one arm resting on the carved mantel.

"Good Lord, man, I'm not the one to say. It isn't my life that's being tied up. This property can go to the——" he stopped, and looked about the beautiful room. He stared for a moment at the portrait of a seventeenth century Courtlandt which hung opposite, then up at the beautiful face of the woman in the painting set like a jewel in the dark paneling above the mantel. Her eyes looked back at him, gravely, searchingly. His voice was husky as he added quickly, "I'll talk with Steve to-night and if he——"

Glamorgan nodded approvingly.

"I'm glad you named him Stephen. It was Stephanus Courtlandt whose estate was erected into the lordship and manor of Courtlandt by William the third, wasn't it? You see I know your family history backward. I never buy a pig in a poke," with rough frankness. He rose and stretched to his great height. The man watching him thought of the Russian bear which had roused and shaken himself with such tragic results. "Why don't you and Steve run in town to-night and have supper with Jerry and me after the theatre?"

"Thank you; if Steve has no engagement we will."

Glamorgan thrust his hands deep into his pockets and glowered at the man by the mantel.

"I'll leave you now to deal with him. You might mention to Steve the fact that if he refuses my offer I foreclose within forty-eight hours."

The blood rushed to Courtlandt's face as though it would burst through the thin, ivory skin. He touched a bell, his voice was cold with repression as he answered the threat:

"I'll talk with Stephen this evening. Judson, Mr. Glamorgan's coat," to the smooth-haired, smooth-faced, smooth-footed butler who answered the ring.

The big man paused a moment, his little green eyes flames of suspicion.

"You'll let me hear from you to-morrow? No shilly-shallying, mind. A straight 'Yes' or 'No.'"

"A straight 'Yes' or 'No' to-morrow it is, Glamorgan. Good-night! Judson, when Mr. Stephen comes in ask him to come to me here."

After his guest had departed Courtlandt snapped off the lights and plunged the room in darkness save for the soft glow from the blazing logs. He sank into a wing-chair before the fire and rested his head on his thin hand. What a mess he had made of things. He had lost his inheritance, not through extravagance, but because he had not been enough of a business man to steer his financial ship clear of reefs during the last years of swiftly shifting values. To have the Courtlandt property swept away! It was impossible. He didn't care for himself but for Steve and Steve's children. He was a liar! He did care for himself. It would break his heart to have this old home, which had been the manor, fall into the hands of an erstwhile coal-picker. The town house was different. The location of that had followed the trail of fashion, it had no traditions, but this——He rose and paced the floor then returned to his old place before the mantel and listened. There was the sound of whistling in the hall, virile, tuneful, the sort that brings a smile to the lips of the most sophisticated. "The Whistling Lieut.!" Courtlandt remembered Steve had been called in the army. He dropped his head to his extended arm and stared unseeingly down at the flames. What would he say——?

"Holloa, Sir Peter! Fire-worshiping?" a clear voice called buoyantly. "You're as dark in here as though you expected an air-raid. Let's light up and be cheerio, what say?" The speaker pressed a button and flooded the room with soft light. "Judson said you wanted me. Shall I stay now or come back when I've changed?"

Courtlandt senior straightened and looked at his son with the appraising eyes of a stranger. He admitted to himself regretfully that the boy looked older than his twenty-seven years. He was tall and lean and lithe, not an ounce of superfluous flesh on him. He stood with his feet slightly apart, a golf-bag dragging from one arm, his other hand in his coat pocket. His black hair had a rebellious kink, his eyes were dark blue, his nose clean-cut, his lips and chin hinted at a somewhat formidable strength of purpose. Courtlandt's courage oozed as he regarded those last features.

"I—I merely wanted to ask you to give me this evening, Steve. I—I—well, there's business to be talked over."

The son looked back at his father. A slight frown wrinkled his broad forehead. He started to speak, then lifted the golf-bag and went toward the door.

"The evening is yours, Sir Peter."

His father listened till his whistle trailed off into silence in the upper regions. His dark eyes clouded with regret. Steve had adapted his selection to dirge tempo.

As father and son smoked and drank their coffee in front of the library fire after dinner, Peter Courtlandt found it even more difficult to approach the distasteful subject. He talked nervously of politics, labor conditions and the latest play. His son watched him keenly through narrowed lids. He emptied and filled his pipe thoughtfully as he waited for a break in his father's flood of words. When it came he dashed in.

"What's the business you wanted to talk with me about, Sir Peter? Fire away and let's get it over. Anything wrong?"

The elder man bent forward to knock the ashes from his cigar. The gravity of Steve's "Sir Peter" had moved him curiously. It was the name his wife had called him, which the boy had adopted when he was too grown-up to say "Daddy." Silent seconds lengthened into minutes as he sat there. The quiet of the room was subtly portentous. There was a hint of unsteadiness in his voice when he finally spoke.

"It's all wrong, Steve. Everything we have is mortgaged to the gunwales."

"But I thought——" The end of the sentence was submerged in stunned amazement.

"That we couldn't go broke? Well, we have. We lose everything we have to-morrow unless——" He dropped his head on his hand.

"Unless what?" prompted Steve.

Courtlandt leaned his white head against the back of his chair and looked at his son with haggard eyes. His voice was strained, humiliated.

"Unless—unless you marry Glamorgan's daughter."

"What!"

The exclamation brought Steve Courtlandt to his feet. The color surged to his dark hair then ebbed slowly back again. His lips whitened.

"Look here, Sir Peter, you don't know what you're saying! You've forgotten that we are living in the twentieth century. Marry Glamorgan's daughter! I've never seen her. I didn't know the old piker had a daughter. What does he know about me? I've never spoken to him more than twice and then when I couldn't help it. I don't like him, he's——"

"Sit down, Steve. Stop raging up and down the room. I want to tell you all about it."

The younger man flung the cigarette he had just lighted into the red coals and dropped into a chair. He kept his eyes on the fading, flaring lights of the fire as his father told of his interview with Glamorgan. The muscles of his jaw tightened, his blue eyes smoldered as he listened.

"What sort of a girl would let herself be traded like that?" he demanded when his father paused.

"That is for you to find out, Steve. I started to have Judson turn the Welshman out of the house after he made his astounding proposition, to tell him to go to the devil—then I thought of you. That I had no right to fling away your inheritance without giving you a voice in the matter. The Courtlandts have held some of the property since the first of the family came from Holland in the seven——"

"Oh, I know all about those old boys; it is what their descendant is up against that's worrying me. Have you tried Uncle Nick?"

The slow color tinged Peter Courtlandt's face.

"Yes. I've appealed to Nicholas Fairfax twice. But you know as well as I that he has never forgiven your mother and me for not letting him have you six months out of every year. He contended that as you, the only son of his sister, were to be his heir, he should have an equal share in bringing you up. Your mother and I couldn't see it that way and so——"

"But I spent every summer there until I went overseas—and, oh boy, how I worked. While my pals were vacationing I was ranching, and ranching under Old Nick is no vacation. I'm as capable of running the Double O now as Ranlett is. Lord, the nights I've come in so stiff that I'd fall on the bed with my boots on. I'd got to shoot and rope, ride and round-up, drive a tractor, know the difference in the quality of the wheat-seed and the grades of cattle. Nick wasn't contented with my doing things as well as his outfit, I'd got to go them one better. But I loved the life and I'll confess that I love Old Nick in spite of his fool ideas."

"I'll try him once more, Steve—but——"

"I'll be darned if you will. Isn't there some other way we can raise money until I——"

"My boy, what can you do? What can you earn at present? You finished your law course after you came out of the army, but it will be several years, as times are now, before you can more than support yourself."

"You don't think I'd touch a penny of the old coal-picker's money even if I married the daughter, do you?" interrupted Steve furiously. "I'd break stones in the road first. Look here, be honest now, what would you do if we lost this place?"

"Blow my brains out," with passionate impulsiveness; then as he saw his son's face whiten and his jaw set, he realized the effect of his words. "No, no, Steve, of course I didn't mean that. The Courtlandts have never been quitters. I swear I wouldn't break the record. Forget that sob-stuff. You and I would go somewhere together and I—perhaps I'll keep younger if I have less leisure."

"When are you to give Glamorgan his answer?" Steve seemed the elder of the two now, seemed to have taken the reins into his hands.

"To-morrow."

"To-morrow! Before the girl sees me? Before she has been given a chance to decide whether the encumbrance which goes with the name and social position is worth her thirty pieces of silver?"

"Try not to be bitter, Steve. Remember that when a big man has an obsession it's in proportion to his bigness, and you'll have to admit that Glamorgan's a giant in his world. You have a chance to see the girl before to-morrow. Her father suggested that we run in for supper with them to-night after the theatre. I have a feeling that the daughter is willing to sacrifice herself to make the great dream of her father's life come true, just as you are willing to sacrifice yourself for me—no, don't deny it,"—as his son impetuously opened his lips. "I haven't lived with you for twenty-seven years without knowing some of your mental processes, my boy. If it were only myself I'd tell Glamorgan to go to the devil, but the property will be yours after me and your children——"

Steve interrupted with a short laugh.

"My children! It's going some to make a mess of my life for prospective children. Take it from me, they'll keep on playing with the angels for some time yet."

"Then don't make a mess of your life. Is—is there any other girl? Are you in love, Steve?"

His son thrust his hands hard into the pockets of his dinner coat.

"I've never been swept off my feet at the sight of a girl's face, if you mean that according-to-fiction stuff. Before I went across I thought Felice Peyton——"

"Felice! But she married Phil Denbigh while you were away and now——" He stopped in perturbed realization of what had happened.

"And now they've separated and Felice is cynical and hard. I know that. I never really approved of her in my heart, her ideas, her ideals—oh well, she hasn't any; she wouldn't recognize an ideal if it tapped her on the shoulder. Her plan of life wasn't mine, but somehow I was eternally tagging after her. Moth and candle stuff, I suppose."

Courtlandt stared into the fire for a moment before he raised his head and looked at his son.

"We won't go on with this, Steve. It's taking too many chances. I'll tell Glamorgan in the morning that he can foreclose and be——"

"No you won't, at least not until we have met the daughter. Have you ever seen her?" then as his father shook his head, "I'll give you a close-up of the lady. Amazon variety—look at the size of Glamorgan—little eyes, prominent teeth, a laugh that would raise the dead and, oh boy,—I'll bet she's kittenish." He glanced at the tall clock in the corner. "I'll tell Judson to have the sedan brought round. We'll have just time to array ourselves for the sacrifice, and motor to town before the theatres are out."

As the older man's eyes, turbulent with affection and anxiety met his, he exclaimed with a sporting attempt at a laugh:

"I'll bet a hat, sir, that when the lady sees you nothing short of being the Mrs. Courtlandt will satisfy her soaring ambition. She won't stand for being merely Mrs. Stephen. By the way, what's the prospect's name?"

"Geraldine. Her father calls her Jerry." Courtlandt senior laughed for the first time that evening. "That's a great idea of yours, Steve. I hadn't thought of offering myself. Perhaps as she only wants the name and position she'd take me and let you off. Your mother would understand," with a tender smile at the woman over the mantel. Her lovely eyes seemed to answer his. For an instant a look of unutterable yearning saddened the man's eyes—then he straightened and looked at his son.

"But no, Glamorgan expressly stipulated that he'd have you for a son-in-law or——"

The light died out of Stephen Courtlandt's face as he muttered furiously under his breath:

"Glamorgan be hanged!"

CHAPTER II

The telephone in the luxurious living-room of their suite rang sharply as Daniel Glamorgan and his daughter entered. The girl looked at the instrument as though she suspected a concealed bomb in its mysterious depths, then appealingly at her father. He took down the receiver.

"Yes. All right. Send them up." He replaced it with a click. His grim mouth softened into a self-congratulatory smile. "Courtlandt and his son are down-stairs," he announced. "Did you order supper, Jerry?"

"Yes, Dad. The table is laid in the breakfast-room. Leon will serve it when you ring. I'll—I'll go to my room and leave my wrap."

His green eyes dilated with pride as he regarded her.

"You look like a princess to-night, my girl."

"I feel like a princess. They're usually disposed of to a title or some little thing like that, aren't they?" she asked with a laugh which held a sob of terror.

"Look here, Jerry. You're not losing your nerve? You're not going back on me, are you?"

She met his eyes squarely.

"I am not, Dad. The fewer ancestors one has behind one the better ancestor one must make of oneself. When I make a promise I make it to keep. I promised you that if Stephen Courtlandt asked me to marry him I'd say 'Yes.'"

Glamorgan's eyes glistened with satisfaction.

"You have the right idea, Jerry. Here they are now," as the bell rang.

"You meet them. I'll take off my wrap—I'll——" In sudden panic the girl entered her room and closed the door behind her. She leaned against it. Her heart beat like mad. In the process of making the dream of her father's life come true was she wrecking her own life? But he had been such a wonderful father—and—to be honest with herself, the romance and tradition and social standing of the Courtlandt name made an alluring appeal to her. She had envied friends at school and college for their careless references to their grandfathers; her earliest recollection was of a room full of hot, grimy miners in a little home near the coal-fields. To marry into the Courtlandt family in America would be commensurate with marrying into a dukedom in England. She breathed a fervent prayer of thanksgiving that her father's ambition hadn't urged him in that direction, also that character had counted with him before social position when he selected his prospective son-in-law.

Her shimmering wrap dropped to the floor as she crossed to her dressing-table and gravely appraised her reflection in the mirror. Was the girl staring so intently back at her fitted to preside over the Courtlandt Manor? She tested every detail of her appearance. Her orchid evening gown set off her arms and the curves of her white shoulders to perfection. Her hair was of glistening brown, brown shot through with red and gold where its soft waves caught the light. Her eyes were brown, large and dark and velvety, like deep pools reflecting a myriad tiny gold stars now when she was deeply moved and excited. Her mouth seemed fashioned for laughter. The lips were vivid and exquisitely curved, and when they smiled a deep dimple dented one cheek. Her ringless hands were slender and beautifully formed.

"Dad says that you have Mother to thank for your hands," she told the looking-glass girl. She lingered before the mirror, aimlessly moving the gold and enameled appointments on the dressing-table. She dreaded to enter the next room. Her life might be changed for all time, doubtless would be, for she would marry Stephen Courtlandt if he wanted to save his estate enough to take her on her own conditions. She flushed then whitened. Perhaps he wouldn't want her after all. Well, that would soon be settled. Better to have the awkward meeting over as soon as possible. She picked up a large feather fan that was a shade deeper than her gown. As she touched it she felt armed for any contingency, and not without reason, for a fan in the hands of a beautiful woman is as effective as a machine-gun directed by an expert rifleman. Jerry swept her vis-à-vis a profound courtesy.

"I'll say you'll do, Mrs. Stephen Courtlandt," she encouraged with gay inelegance. The laugh still lingered on her lips and lurked in her eyes as she entered the living-room.

The three men who had been looking into the fire turned. The girl's heart went out to the elder Courtlandt in a rush of sympathy. His head was so high, his face so white, his eyes so full of hurt pride. The younger man's face was quite as white, his head quite as high, but there was an aggressive set to lips and jaw, a mixture of amazement and antagonism in his eyes, then something else flamed there which she couldn't diagnose as easily.

"He looks stunned. What did he expect, the pig-faced lady?" the girl thought contemptuously even as she advanced with extended hand and smiled up at the elder Courtlandt.

"Mr. Courtlandt, you seem like an old friend, my father has spoken of you so often," she welcomed in her charming, well-bred voice which had a curiously stimulating lilt in it.

The color rushed back to Peter Courtlandt's face, the expression in his eyes changed to one of relief and honest admiration as he bent over her hand.

"I realize now how much I have lost in not accepting your father's invitation to call before. Will you permit me to present my son, Stephen?"

Jerry crushed down an hysterical desire to laugh. It was so ridiculous, the casual, pleased-to-meet-you attitude of the three persons whom her father was moving at his will about the checker-board of life. She murmured something in which the words "a pleasure" were alone audible. Steve acknowledged them stiffly. Her eyes met his with their faint scornful smile which she felt masked so much. They held hers for a second before she turned to her father.

"Shall we go out to supper?" With engaging camaraderie she slipped her hand under Peter Courtlandt's arm. The expression of his eyes when they had first met hers had won her tender heart. "We'll let the younger set follow us," she laughed. He shook his head.

"I defy Steve to feel as young as I feel now," he asserted with a gallant promptness which delighted her.

At supper she devoted herself to him. He laughed and jested with her and but for his white hair looked almost as young as his son. Steve, angered by her persistent avoidance of himself, broke into their conversation with a banality which caused his father to look at him in amazed incredulity.

"Are you enjoying New York, Miss Glamorgan?"

Jerry regarded him for a moment from under long lashes before, with a smile which she was sure made him want to shake her, she answered:

"Immensely; but this is not my first winter in the city. Dad and I have made our headquarters here since I grew up." She turned to his father, but Steve refused to be ignored.

"Do you like it?"

"Like it? I love it! It's so big, so beautiful and—and—and so faulty," her pose of indifference had fallen from her like a discarded veil; she was all eager enthusiasm. "I—I like to be where there are many people. I would starve for companionship, not food, in the wilderness." Steve raised his brows and smiled unsmilingly.

"Then you believe in love?"

The color burned over her face to her scornful eyes. "He is willing to marry for money yet he dares sneer at me about love," she thought angrily, even as she looked up and deliberately studied him. She laughed a gay little, mocking laugh.

"Believe in love? Of course I believe in love; don't you? But what an absurd question to ask. As though you would champion the tender passion." She saw his eyes darken and his jaw set before she turned to his father. She was contrite, a little frightened. What had possessed her to antagonize him like that? A poor way to begin a partnership which she had hoped would develop into a real friendship.

"Jerry, take Steve into the living-room and give us some music. Mr. Courtlandt and I will smoke here," commanded Glamorgan, as his servant, who fairly exuded efficiency, passed cigars and cigarettes.

"Perhaps—perhaps he would prefer to stay here and smoke," the girl suggested hurriedly, for the first time losing her poise. She caught a glint of challenge in Stephen's eyes and rose. Her color was high, her breath a bit uneven as she smiled at him with bewildering charm. "After all, why should I make suggestions? You are quite old enough to decide what you want to do yourself, aren't you?"

"Yes. Quite old enough and quite ready to decide for myself," he answered as he stood aside for her to precede him into the living-room. "Do you play or sing?" he asked as he followed her to the piano. The instrument looked as though it were loved and used. It was her turn to be a trifle scornful.

"I play and sing. Does it seem incredible that I should?" She seated herself and dropped her hands in her lap. "Shall I play for you?"

"Please." He leaned his arms on the piano and looked down at her, but she realized that his thoughts were not following his eyes. "I am not in the least musical, but we had a chap in our company overseas who could make the most shell-shocked instrument give out what seemed to us in the midst of that thundering inferno, heavenly music. Sometimes now a wave of longing for the sound of a piano sweeps over me, played by someone who loves music as that boy loved it. Do you know—Schumann's 'Papillions'? That was one of his favorites."

For answer she played the first bar of the exquisite thing. Once she glanced up. The eyes of the man leaning on the piano, not blue now, but dark with memories, were an ocean removed from her. It was a minute after the last note was struck before they came back to her face. He drew a long breath.

"Thank you," he said simply, but his tone was better than a paean of praise. Then the softness left his eyes. There was aggressiveness and a hint of irony in his voice as he said stiffly:

"My—my father has given me to understand that you will do me the honor to marry me."

A passion of anger shook the girl. She valiantly forced back the tears which threatened, rose and faced him defiantly. Her slender fingers smoothed out the long plumes of her fan. There should be no subterfuge now, she determined, no cause for recrimination later.

"Your father, doubtless, has told you also that my father is willing to buy your name and social position for me with a portion of his fortune. A sort of fifty-fifty arrangement, isn't it?" she added flippantly, with the faintest flicker of her bronze-tipped lashes. Courtlandt shrugged.

"If you wish to put it so crudely."

She took a step back and clenched her hands behind her. Her beautiful eyes were brilliant with scorn, her heart pounded. It seemed as though it must visibly shake her slender body as she answered:

"Why not? If we speak the truth now it may save complications later. You know that my father wants me to marry you and—and why. I frankly confess that I sympathize with his ambitions. I want the best of life in my associations. Your father is in difficulties of one sort—my father is in difficulties of another sort—if a lack of family background can be called a difficulty—and it appears that with our help they can accommodate one another. I'd do anything for Dad—he has done so much for me." She set her teeth sharply in her under lip to steady it.

"Then—then you are not afraid to marry without love?" His eyes were inscrutable.

"Without love? For the man I marry? No, not as long as I have no love for any other. I might love a man when I married him, and then—love comes unbidden, oftentimes unwanted and pouf!—it goes the way it came, and no one can stop it. You know that yourself."

"Not if it is real love, the love of a man for the one woman," he defended.

"Is there such a thing? I wonder?" skeptically.

If he felt a temptation to retaliate he resisted it.

"Then I may conclude that you accept me?" he prompted with frigid courtesy.

"Yes, that is——" a nervous sob caught at her voice. "If—if you will agree to my conditions. Dad has promised me an income of a hundred thousand a year. I will keep half of it in my possession, the other half you are to have to use as you please."

Courtlandt's eyes were black with anger, his knuckles white. He was rough, direct, relentless as he answered:

"You are indeed determined to make this a business affair. But understand now that I won't touch one cent of your cursed money. Whatever arrangement your father wants to make with you and my father is his affair and yours, but you are to leave me out of it absolutely. That's my condition. Do you get it?"

"Yes, I get it." She colored richly, angrily, then paled. Even her lips went white. "There is one thing more. I—we—this marriage is really a bargain—money for social position. Let it be only that. Need there be anything else? You must understand me—you must," in passionate appeal. She laid her hand on his arm. He looked down at her with disconcerting steadiness. His face was stern.

"Yes, I understand. You mean a marriage stripped to its skeleton of legal terms. No mutual responsibilities, no mutual sacrifices, no—no love. That is for you to decide. The Courtlandt debt is far too great for me not to accept any terms you may dictate. It shall be as you wish, I—promise."

Her brown eyes were brilliant with unshed tears as she held out an impulsive hand.

"Thank you. You make the arrangements seem bleak and sordid, but you have given me back my self-respect. Now I feel that it is an honorable bargain between us two. You are to be perfectly free to come and go as you like, and I shall be free, too—but there is one thing I promise you, I—I shall never harm the name I take."

He looked down at the hand he held for an instant then released it.

"I knew that when you came into the room to-night. Will you marry me soon?"

"Whenever you like. Will you—say good-night to your father for me? I——" With a valiant effort to steady her lips, she smiled faintly, opened the door of her room and closed it quickly behind her.

Peter Courtlandt was the first to break the silence as father and son motored home. He made an effort to speak lightly.

"Well, my boy, your close-up was wrong. Geraldine Glamorgan has neither prominent teeth, nor little eyes, nor a kittenish manner; in fact, I don't know when I have seen so beautiful a girl so singularly free from the barnacles of vanity and self-consciousness."

"Kittenish!" his son repeated curtly. "She's far from kittenish. She's an iceberg, and what's more she has the business instinct developed to the nth degree. Believe me, she's a born trader."

CHAPTER III

Geraldine Courtlandt slowed down her car to enter the river road. The sun was setting in a blaze of crimson glory, a few belated birds winged swiftly into the west. Lights on the opposite shore flickered for a moment as they flashed into being, then shone with steady brilliancy. Lights appeared on the few boats swinging at anchor in the quiet water. Lights in house windows beaconed a steady welcome to home-comers. What individuality there was in lights the girl thought. Those across the river seemed entirely municipal and commercial, those on the boats carried a silent warning, those in the windows seemed warmly human.

The turmoil in Jerry's heart subsided. She had driven miles that afternoon through the cold, exhilarating rush of December air, trying to forget Steve's tone when he had refused her offer to drive him to town that morning. Had she been married only a month? It seemed as though centuries had passed since she and Steve had stood before the altar with their few witnesses and exchanged marriage vows. She shivered. If she had realized how irrevocable they were, their solemn admonition, would she have had the courage to marry to please her father, she wondered.

"And forsaking all others keep thee only unto him as long as ye both shall live?" The question had echoed in every sound at the wedding breakfast in her father's apartment; she had read it deep in Peggy's eyes as they had met hers from across the room; it had kept time to the revolution of the wheels as she and Steve had motored out to the Manor in the late afternoon. Her lips twisted in a bitter little smile as she remembered Sir Peter's tactful suppression of surprise when they had told him that there would be no wedding journey. She and Steve had decided that under the circumstances such a function would be nothing short of farcical, besides he would not ask for leave from the office. Sir Peter had quite suddenly decided to go on a hunting trip.

The girl's brows wrinkled in a troubled frown. She knew now that she had done a grave injustice to Steve, to herself, when she had consented to her father's proposition. Well, the deed was done, her only course was to turn her mistake into a stepping-stone toward ultimate good. That was the one way to treat mistakes remedially, she had learned in her twenty-three years. Repining proved nothing.

"Every engaged couple ought to have the marriage service read aloud to them at least once a week. That would give them pause," she murmured with fervent conviction. She ground on her brake just in time to avoid running down a "Road closed. Detour" sign. The black letters on the white board danced weirdly before her eyes for a moment. She must cure herself of the reprehensible habit of driving with her mind miles away. She turned into the side road and drove slowly. Detours were notoriously rough even if they sometimes offered adventure, she thought whimsically.

The upper windows of the Manor reflected the setting sun through swaying, bare branches. They shone like molten mirrors as Jerry turned into the tree-lined avenue which led to the house. At the foot of the garden slope she caught the shimmer of the river. Already she loved the place. The great house had "home" writ large all over it. It bulged, it loomed, it rambled in unexpected places as though it had grown with the family. And yet, in spite of the additions, it remained a choice example of early architecture. It was as though a beneficent fairy, versed in the arts, had presided over the alterations.

As the girl entered the great hall, where logs blazed in the mammoth fireplace, she had the sense of being enfolded in warm, tender arms. If Steve would not be so frigidly courteous she could be quite happy, she thought resentfully. At breakfast each morning during these interminable weeks he had politely asked her preference for the evening. Should they motor to town for the theatre, dance, what should they do? And she, dreading to bore him more than he was already bored, and hating to face the curious eyes of his world which had been set agog at their marriage, had replied to each suggestion:

"I prefer to remain in this lovely country, but please go yourself. I really shouldn't be in the least lonely."

He had refused to take advantage of her suggestion. Every night they dined together with great formality, she in the loveliest frocks of her hastily assembled trousseau, he in correct and immaculate dinner clothes. The only time there seemed the least sympathy between them was when she was at the piano, in the library, and Steve smoked in the big chair in front of the fire. He kept so absolutely still, usually with his eyes on his mother's portrait. Was he dreaming dreams, she wondered. Had there been a girl without money whom he loved? Did he know what "the love of a man for the one woman" meant? She should never forget the tone in which he had asked that question. She was standing in the hall, her coat off, when she thought of that. She shook herself mentally and dragged her thoughts back to the present. She spoke to her trim maid who came to take her coat:

"Tell Judson to serve tea in the library, Hilda. I—I'm cold."

She was half-way to the fireplace in the long room before she discovered that the wing-chair in front of it was occupied, occupied by a queer, elfish type of man who regarded her with a poorly suppressed snort of disdain as she paused in surprise. The skin stretched over his high cheek-bones till it shone like mellowing, yellowing ivory. His colorless eyes glittered as with fever, his forehead reared to where his coarse white hair brandished a sort of kewpie-curl. A black cape, of wool so soft that it looked like velvet, lay across his thin, stooped shoulders. From under its folds his hands protruded, clasped on the top of a stout ebony stick. They were gnarled and distorted with rheumatism. His voice, true to type, was high and slightly cracked as he spoke to the girl after an instant of peeved scrutiny.

"So—you're the new Mrs. Courtlandt, the lady of the Manor, are you? You're the girl who has been traded in to save the family fortune?"

The angry color flamed to Jerry's hair but she stood her ground. She even managed to bestow a patronizing frown upon him.

"Now I know who you are. No one but 'Old Nick' would be so rude. You see your reputation has preceded you." She sank into the chair opposite him and with elbow on its arm, chin on her hand, regarded him curiously. She made a brilliant bit of color in the dark-toned room. The light from the fire fell on her rose-color sports suit, brought out the sheen of the velvet tam of the same shade, drooped picturesquely over one ear, flickered fantastically on her white throat, set the diamonds in the pin which fastened the dainty frills of her blouse agleam with rainbows and played mad pranks with the circlet of jewels on the third finger of her left hand.

How ill and fragile he looked, the girl thought, pathetically fragile. She had a passion of sympathy for the old. She would ignore his rudeness. She leaned forward and smiled at him with gay friendliness.

"Now that I have guessed who you are it's your turn. Tell me how you got here. Did a magician wave his wand, and presto, an enchanted carpet, or did you arrive via air-route? I am sorry that there was no one at the Manor to welcome you. I was detained by one of those silly detours. Sir Peter has been away but returns to-night, and Steve—did Steve know that you were coming? Did—did he write you about—about me?" the last word was added in an undignified whisper.

"Steve! Do they ever let Steve tell me anything?"

"Now I've done it, he's off!" Jerry thought with an hysterical desire to laugh, he was so like an old war-horse scenting battle.

"No. The first I knew of you was when Peter Courtlandt wrote that a marriage had been arranged between the daughter of Glamorgan, the oil-king, and Steve. Arranged! Stuff and nonsense! What poor fool arranged it, I'd like to know? Hasn't Peter Courtlandt seen enough of life to know that when a man who has nothing marries a girl with a large fortune he's ruined? If he has any strength of character it turns to gall, if he's a weak party, he gets weaker—it's hell—for a proud man. Why didn't they give me a chance to save the family fortune? I'd have done it if Steve had asked me, but I turned his father down—I wouldn't give a penny to save him. Why—why that boy ought to have married someone who'd count, not a once-removed coal-picker."

Furious as she was at his insult, Jerry kept her temper. It was so pathetically evident that he was old and disappointed and alarmingly ill. However, there was a hint of Glamorgan's determination in her eyes as she answered coolly:

"You may say what you like about me, but I can't let you disparage my father. He is the biggest thing in my life. After all, why should you roar at me? Steve and I are not the first victims sacrificed on the altar of pride of family and possessions, are we? Sentiment is quite out of fashion. What passes for it is but a wan survival of the age of romance and chivalry. Marriage in that strata of society to which I have been lately elevated is like the Paul Jones at a dance, when the whistle blows change partners—in the same set, if one should happen to go out of it, pandemonium, quickly followed by oblivion."

If he was conscious of the sting of sarcasm in her words he ignored it. His voice was barbed with thorns of irritation as he affirmed:

"Then it is as I suspected; you're not in love with Steve. So love is out of fashion, is it? To be scornful of love is the prerogative of youth; when we get old we treasure it. Well, I warn you now, young woman, that my nephew shan't live the loveless life I've lived. I was born rich. Had I been poor and married, had my wife been my working partner dependent upon me for money, helping me climb, I shouldn't be the wreck of a man I am now."

"What a pre-nineteenth amendment sentiment," the girl dared mischievously. He glowered at her from under his bushy brows.

"You can't switch me off my subject with your flippancy. I repeat, Steve shall have love. I'll get it for him—I'll——" He rose and brandished his stick at the girl. He fell back and leaned his head weakly against the chair. Jerry leaned over him and smoothed back his hair tenderly. He looked up at her with fever-bright eyes and gasped breathlessly:

"I haven't gone—yet. I shan't go till—I've thought of some way to—to yank Steve out of this—this damnable Sam Jones ring you talk about. Give me some tea. Quick! Give it to me—strong. My fool doctor won't let me have anything else. What's Steve doing? Living on your income?" he asked as Judson, after fussing among the tea-things, at a low word from the girl, left the room.

Jerry's cheeks flushed, tiny sparks lighted her eyes as she countered crisply:

"Don't you know your nephew better than to ask that question? He is in a lawyer's office working for the munificent sum of fifteen per." Fairfax choked over his tea.

"D'you mean to tell me that a son-in-law of Glamorgan the oil-king is an office boy? Between you all you've made a mess of it, haven't you? What does your father say to that?"

"He's—he's furious," Jerry answered, as she studied the infinitesimal grounds in her teacup. She gave the tea-cart a little push which removed it from between them. She rose, hesitated, then slipped to her knees before the old man. She looked up at him speculatively for a moment before she commenced to trace an intricate pattern on his stout stick with a pink-tipped finger. Her voice was low and a trifle unsteady as she pleaded:

"Uncle Nick, be friends with me, will you?" A non-committal grunt was her only answer. "Steve won't talk to me. He won't listen to reason. Having made his big sacrifice for the family fortunes by marrying me he is holding his head so high that he'll step into a horrible shell-hole if he doesn't watch out. Dad is furious that he won't live and spend money as befits a Courtlandt, that is, as he thinks a Courtlandt should live and spend, and with that fine illogic, so characteristic of the male of the species, takes it out on me. Steve is so—so maddening. He won't use the automobiles unless he is taking me somewhere, although they were all, with the exception of my town car and roadster, in the garage when I came here. He just commutes and commutes in those miserable trains. Commuting corrupts good manners; he's a—a bear. He and I are beginning all wrong, Uncle Nick." She met the stern old eyes above her before she dropped her head to the arm of his chair. "Steve hates the sight of me and I——"

Fairfax laid his stick across her shoulders with a suddenness and strength, which, made her jump.

"What did you expect? Didn't I tell you that when a poor man marries a fortune his pride turns to gall? Can a red-blooded man really love a girl who would marry for position? You're fast getting to hate him, I suppose?" he demanded in a tone which brought her to her feet and iced her voice and eyes.

"You wouldn't expect me to be crazy about him, would you? He is cold and disagreeable and is evidently laboring under the delusion that the world was created to revolve around Stephen Courtlandt." A contemptuous snort fired her with the determination to hurt someone or something. "You may take it from me that if I had the chance to choose again between disappointing Dad or marrying your precious nephew I'd—I'd disappoint Dad." She was breathless but triumphant as she flung the last words at him. He glared at her.

"So-o, you're a quitter, are you?"

Jerry's face was white, her eyes smoldering coals of wrath. Her voice was low with repressed fury as she flung back his taunt.

"I'm not a quitter. By why couldn't Dad have selected some other aristocrat for a son-in-law? From what I have observed there are plenty of them who need money. Believe me, I'm tired of living in this cold storage atmosphere. I was willing to play fair, willing to keep my part of the contract——" Her voice failed her as she met his grilling eyes.

"Are you fulfilling your——"

"What, Uncle Nick, tea-broken?" interrupted a voice from the door. The old man struggled to his feet as his nephew came toward him. A smile of tenderness dimmed the glitter of his eyes. Jerry's heart looped the loop. How long had Steve been at the door? Had he heard that last rebellious declaration of hers? How would he greet his uncle? She hoped that he would be tender, for no matter how disagreeable Nicholas Fairfax was, he was old and evidently dangerously ill. She was quite unconscious of her breath of relief as the younger man laid an affectionate arm about the elder's shoulders.

"This sure is a surprise and then some, Uncle Nick. Why didn't you let us know you were coming?"

"I knew if I wrote, your father'd invent an excuse to put me off, so I roped Doc Rand and came along. I have no time to waste. I wanted to see the kind of girl they'd sold you to——"

"Then you have seen a fine one who did me the honor to marry me, haven't you?" There was a set to young Courtlandt's jaw which boded ill for the person who differed with him. "Why not come up to your room and rest before dinner? Sir Peter returns to-night and you'll want—here he is now," as the hum of voices in the hall drifted to the library.

Jerry sprang forward with a radiant smile of welcome as Peter Courtlandt entered the room. He seized her two hands in his and kissed her tenderly.

"It's a good many years since I had a welcome home like this," he admitted with a break in his voice. "How are you, Steve? Nick, I just ran into Doc Rand in the hall. He told me that you were here." He held out his hand to his brother-in-law who responded grudgingly.

"I suppose he told you a lot of other stuff, too. Well, I'll fool him."

Jerry gave the hand that still held one of hers a surreptitious squeeze.

"It's good to have you back, Sir Peter. The house has seemed terribly big and empty without you."

"Empty!" echoed Fairfax with his sardonic chuckle. "Fancy a bride of a month complaining of emptiness in a house without her father-in-law."

"How does it happen that you have torn yourself away from the ranch, Nick?" interrupted Peter Courtlandt before Steve, who had grown white about the nostrils, could speak. "The last time you came on you said you would never leave it again."

Fairfax swallowed the bait which never failed to lure him. His western possessions were his pride, and he welcomed an opportunity to talk of them much as a fond parent does of his child.

"Didn't want to leave. Felt it my duty to come and see what you had done to Steve," he growled. "Greyson, of the X Y Z, is looking after things for me."

"Greyson of the X Y Z! Is your ranch near his?" Jerry demanded. A faint color stole to her face, her eyes were alight with interest.

"It is. What do you know about it?" Fairfax's eyes were interrogation points of suspicion.

"Not much. I met Mr. Greyson last winter, and I——"

"Met Greyson, did you? Humph! So that's what's the matter with him. I suppose the daughter of an oil-king looked down upon——"

"Have you had a profitable year?" interrupted Peter Courtlandt, adroitly getting between his son and the old man. "They tell me that this has been a banner season for wheat."

"They told you right. If the cattle winter safe I shall achieve the ambition of my life, to own the biggest and finest herd of Shorthorns in the country. I'll show 'em a thing or two about that breed of cattle. I tell you, Peter——"

"Mrs. Denbigh," announced Judson at the door.

Jerry caught the look of consternation which Peter Courtlandt threw at his son. She saw also the sudden tightening of Steve's lips. What did it mean? She had met Felice Denbigh once and had been repulsed by her super-golden hair and super-perfect complexion. Was she an old sweetheart of Steve's? She took a step toward the smartly gowned woman who spoke as she crossed the threshold.

"Mrs. Courtlandt, you will forgive me for this intrusion on your honeymoon, won't you? But—but Steve left his gloves in my sedan this morning when we drove to town, and I came to return them."

Jerry's mind took a dizzy turn or two then settled down to clear thinking. She had a curious sense that with the explanation Felice Denbigh had fired the opening gun of a campaign. So there had been a reason why Steve had refused to allow her to drive him to town. She flashed a glance at him even while she murmured welcoming platitudes to her guest. He had his hand on his uncle's arm.

"You remember Felice Peyton, don't you, Uncle Nick?"

"What's that? Felice Peyton, the girl you were forever running after when you were in college? Well, Miss Peyton, you lost him, didn't you?" asked the terrible old man.

"But—but dear Mr. Fairfax, I'm not Miss Peyton now—I married Phil Denbigh when Steve deserted me and went to war. I——"

"Philip Denbigh!" The old man rose, straightened himself like an avenging Nemesis. "Poor devil! So he drew another blank besides that good-for-nothing philandering mother of his. A mother who wept and begged until she kept the boy from enlisting, and by some hokuspokus got him into Class C.—No, I won't stop," as Courtlandt senior laid a peremptory hand on his arm. "There are a lot of men who are cringing through life to-day because their women did not love them enough to cheer them on to fight in the Great Fight."

Felice Denbigh was white with anger, her eyes tiny green flames. Jerry flung herself into the breach:

"Won't you stay and dine with us informally, Mrs. Denbigh? Poor S-Steve must have been bored to death, surfeited with my society this last month."

"Thank you, no." Felice's self-possession was superb. "I shall pay my respects to the new Mrs. Courtlandt later when she is formally at home. Good-night, Mr. Fairfax. What a pleasure it must be for the family to have your genial presence at the Manor. You don't know how happy it makes me to find that someone remembers Steve's devotion to me. He seems to have forgotten it. Good-night, Sir Peter. Stevie, will you come and start that cranky car of mine?" Then, as he reached her side, Jerry heard her ask softly, "Shall we meet at the same place to-morrow morning?"

Nicholas Fairfax must have heard it also, for the girl heard him mutter:

"Snake!"

CHAPTER IV

As she served coffee in the library after dinner Jerry pondered over those low-spoken words. The firelight set the sequins on her pale blue gown glittering like jewels; it accentuated the satiny sheen of her hair, betrayed the troubled expression in her lovely eyes. Nicholas Fairfax was in his room. He had collapsed when he went up to dress for dinner. Doctor Rand, whom he had brought with him, stood back to the fire stirring his coffee. There was a suggestion of fat and wheeze about the little man. His weather-stained face had the wrinkled effect of a quite elderly, quite plump russet apple. His white hair bushed à la Golliwog. His frock coat was of finest, pre-war broadcloth. The flamboyant effect of his black necktie made the girl think of the bow on the neck of a pet kitten. He tested his coffee before he observed dryly:

"If a man with an under-developed heart-beat and an over-developed blood-pressure will go chasing half-way across the continent to see a pretty girl," he bowed with somewhat ponderous gallantry in Jerry's direction, "what can you expect but collapse? He's crazy about you, Steve, and somewhere he got the fool notion that you were unhappy. That's what started him East. I tried to hold him back. I knew the price he'd pay."

Stephen Courtlandt came suddenly from the window where he had been looking out upon the snow-dusted world. He approached the fire. His eyes looked strained.

"Then you think he won't rally from this attack, Doc?" he asked anxiously.

"It's better for you to know the truth, Steve. He knows. He's wired for Greyson of the X Y Z and——"

"Oh-h!"

The startled exclamation had escaped Jerry's lips before she realized that she had made a sound. A delicate pink stole to her hair as she met Steve's steady eyes. Doctor Rand was apparently quite unconscious of the interruption.

"And sent for your family lawyer. Your father is with him now. I'll go and relieve him. Your cookie sure makes good coffee, Mrs. Jerry. Bring her out to the Double O and invite us old bachelors for eats once in a while. You'd be doing a charity bigger than some you spend your time on here, I can tell you."

"Mrs. Courtlandt would starve for people in that wilderness, Doc," announced Stephen with parrot-like glibness.

"Would she now? Sure, she doesn't look like a child who'd be so dependent on chatter. Well, the Double O isn't in the Dude ranch region, neither is it exactly a wilderness. It's a seething cauldron of society in comparison to some of the places. You knew that Old Nick and Greyson had given the Bear Creek ranch to a returned service man, didn't you, Steve?" then as Courtlandt nodded, "He brought a wife out last spring. She doesn't have a woman to speak to but she reminds me of a meadow-lark, little and quiet but with a voice that sings."

"Do she and her husband live there all alone?" Jerry asked in wonder.

"Yes—that is—there's a range-rider but—but that's another story." Had she not thought it quite out of character Jerry would have sworn that Doc Rand was embarrassed. "We—here I am talking when my patient needs me. It's all your fault, Mrs. Jerry. You shouldn't have vamped me so outrageously. Steve, I want a prescription filled."

"I'll send Carter for it, Doc. Give it to me." He left the room with the slip of paper in his hand. Rand looked after him, then thoughtfully at the girl where she sat in the flickering light of the fire. He set his cup on the tray and patted her hand gently.

"Don't mind Old Nick, child. He's sick and jealous and—and mad about Steve—it will all come right. Things have a marvelous unbelievable way of coming right. That's what I kept telling Fairfax but he wouldn't listen."

"Why—why should he hate me so?"

"He doesn't hate you, he's—he's just afraid for Steve, that's all. He adored his sister—he used to say that when he found a woman like her, he'd marry——" he looked up at the portrait over the mantel. Jerry's glance followed his. The eyes, so like Steve's, were thoughtful, there was a suspicion of laughter in the curve of the lips, the flesh tints were marvelously lovely, a string of rare pearls gleamed softly on the creamy neck. The artist had worked lovingly and had produced a portrait that was humanly, warmly alive, a spirit that dominated the quiet room.

"Steve,—Steve and Sir Peter love her like that too, do they not?"

Rand thrust his hands under his coat tails and flapped them in time with his heel and toe teeter.

"Love her! It is more than love. Betty Fairfax, the name clung even after marriage, makes me believe in immortality. The best of her is living in Steve and it will be handed on to his children. Her spirit is just as much alive for her husband and son as it was the day she left them. That's why Steve has kept straight through temptations which would have lured most chaps of his age. No one can ever tell me, and get across with it, that a mother's influence doesn't live forever. That boy is one of a thousand, isn't he, Mrs. Jerry?"

"Oh—perhaps, as thousands go." She looked up from under her long lashes at his discomfited face. Laughter gleamed through the tears which his tribute to the mother had brought. "You shouldn't pry into the secrets of a maiden's heart," she teased with exaggerated demureness. Rand responded to her mood.

"That's better. A child like you should laugh, not be as serious as you've been ever since I've seen you. Don't let Nick's condition depress you. He may live for weeks and when he does go, it will be a release. He wants it—if—if he can go knowing that Steve's happiness is assured."

"Is anyone's happiness assured?" asked the girl gravely.

"No"—he regarded her with his twinkling gray eyes—"but I'll bet my broncho if anyone's is—it's Steve's. Good-night."

He was gone before Jerry could reply. Her heart felt curiously warmed by his words. He—he evidently liked her if Steve didn't. She went to the piano. Her fingers touched the keys experimentally for a moment, then she quite unconsciously struck the opening bar of "Papillions." The music danced and rose with dainty spontaneity. She drifted into Bach's "Praeludium." Separated chords or flowing melody, she played with a sympathy and sureness which showed the touch of an artist. She knew when Steve came into the room and crossed to the window. As the last note died away she turned. He stood with his hands clenched behind his back. What was interesting him outside, she wondered. She wanted to speak to him but she never yet had addressed him by his first name. It seemed absurd, it was absurd, but she had avoided using it to his face. To continue the avoidance presented difficulties now that his back was turned. She usually waited until he looked at her, which she had to acknowledge was seldom. She ran through the opening bars of "Papillions" again but his back remained obdurately turned to the room.

"I—you——" she halted awkwardly, "I would like to talk to you," she admitted hesitatingly. Courtlandt wheeled and approached the piano.

"Good Lord, don't you know my name that you have to juggle 'I—you——' when you want to attract my attention?" he demanded belligerently. There was a defiant gleam in the eyes which met his.

"It does sound silly, doesn't it—Stevie?" with exaggerated demureness and an exact imitation of Felice Denbigh's voice. "But—but I know yours better than you know mine—I think——" then as he opened his lips to speak she hurried on, "I wanted to ask if you were in love with Felice Denbigh? No—no—don't mistake me," as his blue eyes darkened to purple-black, and his lips tightened, "I'm not jealous—really I'm not—I only wanted you to know that if you are, I'm sorry, terribly sorry. It's a tragedy to love one person and have to marry another."

"How do you know? Are you in love with Greyson?" with rough directness.

His sudden turn of the tables took the girl's breath. She colored betrayingly. She knew that she must be the picture of guilt as she stood there, her color coming and going, her heart beating like a silly tom-tom. There was even a slight unsteadiness in her voice as she evaded:

"I haven't seen Bruce Greyson since last winter," then maddened at her own lack of poise she looked up with frank defiance. "It's a pity that he doesn't live here. He could motor me to town."

He flushed darkly.

"My motoring to town with Mrs. Denbigh this morning was purely accidental."

"But—but—you will never go with me."

"Trolley incomes should avoid limousine ladies."

"Limousine ladies!" Jerry gripped her temper and controlled her voice. "Pardon! My mistake," she drawled maddeningly. "Is—is Mrs. Denbigh divorced?"

"Not yet. What Old Nick said about Phil's mother was true. She did ruin his life. It would have been better for him and for her had he been shot to pieces, than to have him as he is now with this gnawing shame at his heart."

"She—she was not much like your mother, was she?"

"Like Mother?" Jerry thought she had never heard anything so beautiful as that word "Mother" as Courtlandt uttered it. He smiled up at the portrait—"Mother was—well——" he cleared the huskiness from his voice and went on, "As I was saying about Denbigh, remorse got too much for him and a year ago he disappeared, dropped completely out of sight."

"Why didn't Felice go with him?"

"Do you know, I fancy that Phil didn't want her."

"Nevertheless she had married him. One doesn't take the vow 'and forsaking all others' to break it, does one?" gravely.

"I deduce from that that you do not believe in divorce?"

"Divorce! While I acknowledge that there may be situations where it is unavoidable, I hate the word. Always to me it takes on the semblance of Medusa's head in my school mythology, its snaky, hissing locks striking, stabbing, stinging, scarring indelibly. I believe in keeping covenants."

"It's hard sometimes."

"It is, but life isn't intended to be all joy-ride. I've found that out."

"You mean——"

"Nothing which need make you glower at me like that," defiantly. "Do you know, I fancy," with an exact imitation of his earlier voice and manner, "that the future first families of America's 'Who's Who' will be those who can count back at least four generations of ancestors who have, in spite of disappointment and disillusion, poverty or riches, sickness or health, kept their marriage covenants. A curious idea, isn't it? It just came to me. 'A little thing but mine own,'" her tone changed from earnestness to flippancy on the last words. She syncopated a few bars of "Papillions" as though to emphasize her indifference.

Courtlandt thrust his hands hard into the pockets of his dinner coat. The atmosphere tingled with electricity. The girl wondered if he were throttling a desire to shake her. She hoped so. He met her eyes steadily for a moment before he turned to leave the room. Jerry took a hasty step after him.

"Wait, please—if—if——" as he kept on she added desperately, "Steve, please." He stopped and turned. "If—if you should see Dad—do not mention the fact that Bruce—that Mr. Greyson's ranch is near your uncle's."

"Why not?" relentlessly.

"Because in an attack of homesickness last winter I became engaged to him."

CHAPTER V

In the music-room of the Manor the rugs had been rolled back, the voice of the phonograph released from captivity and the Courtlandts' guests were dancing, at least some of them were. Sir Peter had beguiled Glamorgan to the library for a smoke. The oil-king had cast a gloom over the dinner. Was it because he was disturbed about Nicholas Fairfax, Jerry wondered. To the amazement of all, he and the ranchman had become great friends. It would be like her father to be irritable if he were moved. Perhaps it had been the arrival of Greyson which had infuriated him. Last winter he had quickly made her see the folly of her engagement to the owner of the X Y Z, and now she was grateful to him. She had known at the time that she did not love Bruce Greyson, but that she was in love with love. In a way her life had been a lonely one, and when he had pleaded with her to marry him, she had agreed to a tentative engagement. Now she was glad that she had kept him at a distance, even in those two weeks.

She looked up at Greyson as he sat beside her in one of the deep embrasures of a window. A distinguished looking man, he gave the impression of having lived in great spaces, of having achieved worth-while things, of being absolutely poised and self-assured. His dark hair was tending toward neutral at the temples, his keen blue eyes had fine lines radiating from them, which denoted long-distance gazing. The weather-beaten texture of his skin was emphasized by the immaculate white of the shirt and collar of his up-to-the-minute dinner clothes.

Peggy Glamorgan, as she danced with her brother-in-law, was doing direful things to the heart of young Don Curtis, whose family estate adjoined the Manor. She was a charming, younger model of her sister, except that where Jerry's eyes were brown, Peggy's were a somewhat elfish hazel. She was making the most of a week-end freedom from school discipline. Steve Courtlandt's glance wandered to the two in the deep window. Peggy looked up at him with tormenting concern.

"That's the second time you've lost step, Steve. I protest. I hate being trodden on." Her laughing eyes and mischievously curved lips robbed the words of their sting.

"I'm sorry! Give me one more trial, Peg-o'-my-heart, and I'll do better," promised Steve. He had taken an immense liking to the girl, she was so genuine, so unaffected, so brimming over with the zest of living.

"Nothing doing, brother. Go get Jerry. It's a part of her job to put up with your poor dancing, isn't it? A part of the love, honor and obey stuff? Catch me saying 'I will' to that. Jerry's different. She'd walk over the proverbial ploughshares if she thought duty called." She looked across the room to where her sister sat and added softly, "It's a queer trick of fortune that Bruce Greyson should be your uncle's confidential man and should come to this house."

"Why accent this?" demanded Steve Courtlandt bluntly.

Peggy flushed guiltily beneath his stern eyes.

"That's only my exclamatory style. I meant that it was strange that Jerry should meet him here after—after—I—I wonder if that was what made her cry last night?"

"Did Jerry cry last night?"

"She cross-my-throat-and-hope-to-die swore she didn't, this morning, but her lids were suspiciously pink. Didn't you notice it? Thank you, I should love it," she responded to young Curtis who had been impatiently hovering in the offing. "There really isn't much fun dancing with old married men," she confided in a tone intended to reach Steve. She made an impudent little face at her brother-in-law over her partner's shoulder. He smiled and blew her a kiss as she danced away but her words hurt, hurt because he knew that she was right. He felt years older than he had that epoch-making October night when his father had revealed to him the state of the family finances, and had presented the means whereby it could be remedied. Had he chosen wisely, he wondered; wouldn't it have been better to let the property go than to have married a girl who had so quickly acquired an aversion for him?

He looked across at the two engrossed faces in the window. He'd break that up. Jerry should remember where she was and not give occasion for silly gossip. Already Felice Denbigh, who had motored out from town for dinner, had called his attention to Greyson's apparent devotion. With eyes combative, Steve strolled to where Jerry sat.

"Will you dance with me, Mrs. Courtlandt?" he asked with aggressive formality. In the midst of a sentence, she looked up in startled surprise. Greyson rose.

"I have committed the unpardonable blunder of monopolizing my hostess, Steve," he apologized, "but the temptation to live over a perfect friendship was too great to be resisted. I will beg a dance from your sister, Mrs. Courtlandt."

Jerry's eyes followed him as he crossed the room. They made Steve think of deep, troubled pools when she looked up at him. Was it because Peg had put the idea into his head or did they look as though they had known recent tears? Was she finding her marriage a bar to happiness already? His face was a trifle white, a trifle grim as he reminded:

"Do we dance?"

Without answering she rose, and he put his arm about her. Except for taking her hand it was the first time he had touched her. How slender she was, how soft, how graceful. He could feel her heart pound heavily against his breast. One might think that she was frightened, but with him—that was absurd. Her dancing like her walk was perfection of motion. He was careful of his steps as they danced down the long room. Jerry should have no occasion to echo Peg's reprimand. She stopped.

"Tired?" he asked solicitously, his senses still throbbing from the appeal of music and dance. She shook her head.

"Tired! I don't know what it is to be tired. Some of our guests are not dancing. Mrs. Denbigh is quite alone and looking horribly bored. Peg seems to have appropriated more than her share of men; she is surrounded. Don't you think that as host you should dance with Felice?"

"Presently. I have something to say to you first." He changed his position so that he stood between her and the others in the room.

"Why did you cry?"