CHAPTER V
Overhead she was singing. The voice was clear and sweet and happy. He did not know the melody; some minor refrain of broken rhythm which seemed always to die away short of fulfillment. A haunting thing of mystery and glamour, such mystery and glamour as had irradiated his long and wonderful night. He heard the door open and then her light footsteps on the stair outside. Hot-eyed and disheveled, he rose, staggering a little at first as he hurried to greet her.
She stood poised on the lower step.
“Good-morning,” he said.
She made no return to his accost other than a slow smile. “I thought you were a dream,” she murmured.
“No. I’m real enough. Are you better? Your head?”
She put a hand to the bandage. “It’s sore. Otherwise I’m quite fit. I’ve slept like the dead.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he replied mechanically. He was drinking her in, all the grace and loveliness and wonder of her, himself quite unconscious of the intensity of his gaze.
She accepted the mute tribute untroubled; but there was a suggestion of puzzlement in the frown which began to pucker her forehead.
“You’re really the station-agent?” she asked with a slight emphasis upon the adverb.
“Yes. Why not?”
“Nothing. No reason. Won’t you tell me what happened?”
“Come inside.” He held open the door against the wind.
“No. It’s musty.” She wrinkled a dainty nose. “Can’t we talk here? I love the feel of the air and the wet. And the world! I’m glad I wasn’t killed.”
“So am I,” he said soberly.
“When my brain wouldn’t work quite right yesterday, I thought that some one had hit me. That isn’t so, is it?”
“No. Your train was wrecked. You were injured. In the confusion you must have run away.”
“Yes. I remember being frightened. Terribly frightened. I’d never been that way before. Outside of that one idea of fear, everything was mixed up. I ran until I couldn’t run any more and dropped down.”
“And then?”
“I got up and ran again. Have you ever been afraid?”
“Plenty of times.”
“I hadn’t realized before that there was anything in the world to be afraid of. But the thought of that blow, coming so suddenly from nowhere, and the fear that I might be struck again—it drove me.” She flung out her hands in a little desperate gesture that twitched at Banneker’s breath.
“You must have been out all night in the rain.”’
“No. I found a sort of cabin in the woods. It was deserted.”
“Dutch Cal’s place. It’s only a few rods back in.”
“I saw a light from there and that suggested to my muddled brain that I might get something to eat.”
“So you came over here.”
“Yes. But the fear came on me again and I didn’t dare knock. I suppose I prowled.”
“Gardner thought he heard ghosts. But ghosts don’t steal molasses pie.”
She looked at him solemnly. “Must one steal to get anything to eat here?”
“I’m sorry,” he cried. “I’ll get you breakfast right away. What will you have? There isn’t much.”
“Anything there is. But if I’m to board with you, you must let me pay my way.”
“The company is responsible for that.”
Her brooding eyes were still fixed upon him. “You actually are the agent,” she mused. “That’s quaint.”
“I don’t see anything quaint about it. Now, if you’ll make yourself comfortable I’ll go over to the shack and rustle something for breakfast.”
“No; I’d rather go with you. Perhaps I can help.”
Such help as the guest afforded was negligible. When, from sundry of the Sears-Roebuck cans and bottles, a condensed and preserved sort of meal had been derived, she set to it with a good grace.
“There’s more of a kick in tea than in a cocktail, I believe, when you really need it,” she remarked gratefully. “You spoke of a Mr. Gardner. Who is he?”
“A reporter who spent night before last here.”
She dropped her cracker, oleomargarine-side down. “A reporter?”
“He came down to write up the wreck. It’s a bad one. Nine dead, so far.”
“Is he still here?”
“No. Gone back to Angelica City.”
Retrieving her cracker, the guest finished her meal, heartily but thoughtfully. She insisted on lending a hand to the washing-up process, and complimented Banneker on his neatness.
“You haven’t told me your name yet,” he reminded her when the last shining tin was hung up.
“No; I haven’t. What will you do with it when you get it?”
“Report it to the company for their lists.”
“Suppose I don’t want it reported to the company?’
“Why on earth shouldn’t you?”
“I may have my reasons. Would it be put in the papers?”
“Very likely.”
“I don’t want it in the papers,” said the girl with decision.
“Don’t you want it known that you’re all right? Your people—”
“I’ll wire my people. Or you can wire them for me. Can’t you?”
“Of course. But the company has a right to know what has happened to its passengers.”
“Not to me! What has the company done for me but wreck me and give me an awful bang on the head and lose my baggage and—Oh, I nearly forgot. I took my traveling-bag when I ran. It’s in the hut. I wonder if you would get it for me?”
“Of course. I’ll go now.”
“That’s good of you. And for your own self, but not your old company, I’ll tell you my name. I’m—”
“Wait a moment. Whatever you tell me I’ll have to report.”
“You can’t,” she returned imperiously. “It’s in confidence.”
“I won’t accept it so.”
“You’re a most extraordinary sta—a most extraordinary sort of man. Then I’ll give you this much for yourself, and if your company collects pet names, you can pass it on. My friends call me Io.”
“Yes. I know. You’re I.O.W.”
“How do you know that? And how much more do you know?”
“No more. A man on the train reported your initials from your baggage.”
“I’ll feel ever so much better when I have that bag. Is there a hotel near here?”
“A sort of one at Manzanita. It isn’t very clean. But there’ll be a train through to-night and I’ll get you space on that. I’d better get a doctor for you first, hadn’t I?”
“No, indeed! All I need is some fresh things.”
Banneker set off at a brisk pace. He found the extravagant little traveling-case safely closed and locked, and delivered it outside his own door which was also closed and, he suspected, locked.
“I’m thinking,” said the soft voice of the girl within. “Don’t let me interrupt your work.”
Beneath, at his routine, Banneker also set himself to think; confused, bewildered, impossibly conjectural thoughts not unmingled with semi-official anxiety. Harboring a woman on company property, even though she were, in some sense, a charge of the company, might be open to misconceptions. He wished that the mysterious Io would declare herself.
At noon she did. She declared herself ready for luncheon. There was about her a matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation as natural, even inevitable, which entranced Banneker when it did not appall him. After the meal was over, the girl seated herself on a low bench which Banneker had built with his own hands and the Right-and-Ready Tool Kit (9 T 603), her knee between her clasped hands and an elfish expression on her face.
“Don’t you think,” she suggested, “that we’d get on quicker if you washed the dishes and I sat here and talked to you?”
“Very likely.”
“It isn’t so easy to begin, you know,” she remarked, nursing her knee thoughtfully. “Am I—Do you find me very much in the way?’”
“No.”
“Don’t suppress your wild enthusiasm on my account,” she besought him. “I haven’t interfered with your duties so far, have I?”
“No,” answered Banneker wondering what was coming next.
“You see”—her tone became ruminative and confidential—“if I give you my name and you report it, there’ll be all kinds of a mix-up. They’ll come after me and take me away.”
Banneker dropped a tin on the floor and stood, staring.
“Isn’t that what you want?”
“It’s evident enough that it’s what you want,” she returned, aggrieved.
“No. Not at all,” he disclaimed. “Only—well, out here—alone—I don’t understand.”
“Can’t you understand that if one had happened to drop out of the world by chance, it might be desirable to stay out for a while?”
“For you? No; I can’t understand that.”
“What about yourself?” she challenged with a swift, amused gleam. “You are certainly staying out of the world here.”
“This is my world.”
Her eyes and voice dropped. “Truly?” she murmured. Then, as he made no reply, “It isn’t much of a world for a man.”
To this his response touched the heights of the unexpected. He stretched out his arm toward the near window through which could be seen the white splendor of Mount Carstairs, dim in the wreathing murk.
“Lo! For there, amidst the flowers and grasses, Only the mightier movement sounds and passes, Only winds and rivers, Life and death,” he quoted.
Her eyes glowed with sheer, incredulous astonishment. “How came you by that Stevenson?” she demanded. “Are you poet as well as recluse?”
“I met him once.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Some other time. We’ve other things to talk of now.”
“Some other time? Then I’m to stay!”
“In Manzanita?”
“Manzanita? No. Here.”
“In this station? Alone? But why—”
“Because I’m Io Welland and I want to, and I always get what I want,” she retorted calmly and superbly.
“Welland,” he repeated. “Miss I.O. Welland. And the address is New York, isn’t it?”
Her hands grew tense across her knee, and deep in her shadowed eyes there was a flash. But her voice suggested not only appeal, but almost a hint of caress as she said:
“Are you going to betray a guest? I’ve always heard that Western hospitality—”
“You’re not my guest. You’re the company’s.”
“And you won’t take me for yours?”
“Be reasonable, Miss Welland.”
“I suppose it’s a question of the conventionalities,” she mocked.
“I don’t know or care anything about the conventionalities—”
“Nor I,” she interrupted. “Out here.”
“—but my guess would be that they apply only to people who live in the same world. We don’t, you and I.”
“That’s rather shrewd of you,” she observed.
“It isn’t an easy matter to talk about to a young girl, you know.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” she returned with composure. “Just take it for granted that I know about all there is to be known and am not afraid of it. I’m not afraid of anything, I think, except of—of having to go back just now.” She rose and went to him, looking down into his eyes. “A woman knows whom she can trust in—in certain things. That’s her gift, a gift no man has or quite understands. Dazed as I was last night, I knew I could trust you. I still know it. So we may dismiss that.”
“That is true,” said Banneker, “so far as it goes.”
“What farther is there? If it’s a matter of the inconvenience—”
“No. You know it isn’t that.”
“Then let me stay in this funny little shack just for a few days,” she pleaded. “If you don’t, I’ll get on to-night’s train and go on and—and do something I’ll be sorry for all the rest of my life. And it’ll be your fault! I was going to do it when the accident prevented. Do you believe in Providence?”
“Not as a butt-in,” he answered promptly. “I don’t believe that Providence would pitch a rock into a train and kill a lot of people, just to prevent a girl from making a foo—a bad break.”
“Nor I,” she smiled. “I suppose there’s some kind of a General Manager over this queer world; but I believe He plays the game fair and square and doesn’t break the rules He has made Himself. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t want to play at all!... Oh, my telegram! I must wire my aunt in New York. I’ll tell her that I’ve stopped off to visit friends, if you don’t object to that description as being too compromising,” she added mischievously. She accepted a pad which he handed her and sat at the table, pondering. “Mr. Banneker,” she said after a moment.
“Well?”
“If the telegram goes from here, will it be headed by the name of the station?”
“Yes.”
“So that inquiry might be made here for me?”
“It might, certainly.”
“But I don’t want it to be. Couldn’t you leave off the station?”
“Not very well.”
“Just for me?” she wheedled. “For your guest that you’ve been so insistent on keeping,” she added slyly.
“The message wouldn’t be accepted.”
“Oh, dear! Then I won’t send it.”
“If you don’t notify your family, I must report you to the company.”
“What an irritating sense of duty you have! It must be dreadful to be afflicted that way. Can’t you suggest something?” she flashed. “Won’t you do a thing to help me stay? I believe you don’t want me, after all.”
“If the up-train gets through this evening, I’ll give your wire to the engineer and he’ll transmit it from any office you say.”
Childlike with pleasure she clapped her hands. “Of course! Give him this, will you?” From a bag at her wrist she extracted a five-dollar bill. “By the way, if I’m to be a guest I must be a paying guest, of course.”
“You can pay for a cot that I’ll get in town,” he agreed, “and your share of the food.”
“But the use of the house, and—and all the trouble I’m making you,” she said doubtfully. “I ought to pay for that.”
“Do you think so?” He looked at her with a peculiar expression which, however, was not beyond the power of her intuition to interpret.
“No; I don’t,” she declared.
Banneker answered her smile with his own, as he resumed his dish-wiping. Io wrote out her telegram with care. Her next observation startled the agent.
“Are you, by any chance, married?”
“No; I’m not. What makes you ask that?”
“There’s been a woman in here before.”
Confusedly his thoughts flew back to Carlotta. But the Mexican girl had never been in the shack. He was quite absurdly and inexplicably glad now that she had not.
“A woman?” he said. “Why do you think so?”
“Something in the arrangement of the place. That hanging, yonder. And that little vase—it’s good, by the way. The way that Navajo is placed on the door. One feels it.”
“It’s true. A friend of mine came here one day and turned everything topsy-turvy.”
“I’m not asking questions just for curiosity. But is that the reason you didn’t want me to stay?”
He laughed, thinking of Miss Van Arsdale. “Heavens, no! Wait till you meet her. She’s a very wonderful person; but—”
“Meet her? Does she live near here, then?”
“A few miles away.”
“Suppose she should come and find me here?”
“It’s what I’ve been wishing.”
“Is it! Well, it isn’t what I wish at all.”
“In fact,” continued the imperturbable Banneker, “I rather planned to ride over to her place this afternoon.”
“Why, if you please?”
“To tell her about you and ask her advice.”
Io’s face darkened rebelliously. “Do you think it necessary to tattle to a woman who is a total stranger to me?”
“I think it would be wise to get her view,” he replied, unmoved.
“Well, I think it would be horrid. I think if you do any such thing, you are—Mr. Banneker! You’re not listening to me.”
“Some one is coming through the woods trail,” said he.
“Perhaps it’s your local friend.”
“That’s my guess.”
“Please understand this, Mr. Banneker,” she said with an obstinate outthrust of her little chin. “I don’t know who your friend is and I don’t care. If you make it necessary, I can go to the hotel in town; but while I stay here I won’t have my affairs or even my presence discussed with any one else.”
“You’re too late,” said Banneker.
Out from a hardly discernible opening in the brush shouldered a big roan. Tossing up his head, he stretched out in the long, easy lope of the desert-bred, his rider sitting him loosely and with slack bridle.
“That’s Miss Van Arsdale,” said Banneker.
CHAPTER VI
Seated in her saddle the newcomer hailed Banneker.
“What news, Ban? Is the wreck cleared up?”
“Yes. But the track is out twenty miles east. Every arroyo and barranca is bank-high and over.”
He had crossed the platform to her. Now she raised her deep-set, quiet eyes and rested them on the girl. That the station should harbor a visitor at that hour was not surprising. But the beauty of the stranger caught Miss Van Arsdale’s regard, and her bearing held it.
“A passenger, Ban?” she asked, lowering her voice.
“Yes, Miss Camilla.”
“Left over from the wreck?”
He nodded. “You came in the nick of time. I don’t quite know what to do with her.”
“Why didn’t she go on the relief train?”
“She didn’t show up until last night.”
“Where did she stay the night?”
“Here.”
“In your office?”
“In my room. I worked in the office.”
“You should have brought her to me.”
“She was hurt. Queer in the head. I’m not sure that she isn’t so yet.”
Miss Van Arsdale swung her tall form easily out of the saddle. The girl came forward at once, not waiting for Banneker’s introduction, with a formal gravity.
“How do you do? I am Irene Welland.”
The older woman took the extended hand. There was courtesy rather than kindliness in her voice as she asked, “Are you much hurt?”
“I’m quite over it, thank you. All but the bandage. Mr. Banneker was just speaking of you when you rode up, Miss Van Arsdale.”
The other smiled wanly. “It is a little startling to hear one’s name like that, in a voice from another world. When do you go on?”
“Ah, that’s a point under discussion. Mr. Banneker would, I believe, summon a special train if he could, in his anxiety to get rid of me.”
“Not at all,” disclaimed the agent.
But Miss Van Arsdale interrupted, addressing the girl:
“You must be anxious, yourself, to get back to civilization.”
“Why?” returned the girl lightly. “This seems a beautiful locality.”
“Were you traveling alone?”
The girl flushed a little, but her eyes met the question without wavering. “Quite alone.”
“To the coast?”
“To join friends there.”
“If they can patch up the washed-out track,” put in Banneker, “Number Seven ought to get through to-night.”
“And Mr. Banneker in his official capacity was almost ready to put me aboard by force, when I succeeded in gaining a reprieve. Now he calls you to his rescue.”
“What do you want to do?” inquired Miss Van Arsdale with lifted brows.
“Stay here for a few days, in that funny little house.” She indicated the portable shack.
“That is Mr. Banneker’s own place.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“I don’t think it would do, Miss Welland. It is Miss Welland, isn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed. Why wouldn’t it do, Miss Van Arsdale?”
“Ask yourself.”
“I am quite capable of taking care of myself,” returned the girl calmly. “As for Mr. Banneker, I assume that he is equally competent. And,” she added with a smiling effrontery, “he’s quite as much compromised already as he could possibly be by my staying.”
Banneker flushed angrily. “There’s no question of my being compromised,” he began shortly.
“You’re wrong, Ban; there is,” Miss Van Arsdale’s quiet voice cut him short again. “And still more of Miss Welland’s. What sort of escapade this may be,” she added, turning to the girl, “I have no idea. But you cannot stay here alone.”
“Can’t I?” retorted the other mutinously. “I think that rests with Mr. Banneker to say. Will you turn me out, Mr. Banneker? After our agreement?”
“No,” said Banneker.
“You can hardly kidnap me, even with all the conventionalities on your side,” Miss Welland pointed out to Miss Van Arsdale.
That lady made no answer to the taunt. She was looking at the station-agent with a humorously expectant regard. He did not disappoint her.
“If I get an extra cot for the shack, Miss Van Arsdale,” he asked, “could you get your things and come over here to stay?”
“Certainly.”
“I won’t be treated like a child!” cried the derelict in exactly the tone of one, and a very naughty one. “I won’t! I won’t!” She stamped.
Banneker laughed.
“You’re a coward,” said Io.
Miss Van Arsdale laughed.
“I’ll go to the hotel in the town and stay there.”
“Think twice before you do that,” advised the woman.
“Why?” asked Io, struck by the tone.
“Crawly things,” replied Miss Van Arsdale sententiously.
“Big, hungry ones,” added Banneker.
He could almost feel the little rippling shudders passing across the girl’s delicate skin. “Oh, I think you’re loathly!” she cried. “Both of you.”
Tears of vexation made lucent the shadowed depths of her eyes. “I’ve never been treated so in my life!” she declared, overcome by the self-pity of a struggling soul trammeled by the world’s injustice.
“Why not be sensible and stay with me to-night while you think it all over?” suggested Miss Van Arsdale.
“Thank you,” returned the other with an unexpected and baffling change to the amenable and formal “You are very kind. I’d be delighted to.”
“Pack up your things, then, and I’ll bring an extra horse from the town. I’ll be back in an hour.”
The girl went up to Banneker’s room, and got her few belongings together. Descending she found the agent busy among his papers. He put them aside and came out to her.
“Your telegram ought to get off from Williams sometime to-morrow,” he said.
“That will be time enough,” she answered.
“Will there be any answer?”
“How can there be? I haven’t given any address.”
“I could wire Williams later.”
“No. I don’t want to be bothered. I want to be let alone. I’m tired.”
He cast a glance about the lowering horizon. “More rain coming,” he said. “I wish you could have seen the desert in the sunshine.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Will you?” he cried eagerly. “It may be quite a while.”
“Perhaps Miss Van Arsdale will keep me, as you wouldn’t.”
He shook his head. “You know that it isn’t because I don’t want you to stay. But she is right. It just wouldn’t do.... Here she comes now.”
Io took a step nearer to him. “I’ve been looking at your books.”
He returned her gaze unembarrassed. “Odds and ends,” he said. “You wouldn’t find much to interest you.”
“On the contrary. Everything interested me. You’re a mystery—and I hate mysteries.”
“That’s rather hard.”
“Until they’re solved. Perhaps I shall stay until I solve you.”
“Stay longer. It wouldn’t take any time at all. There’s no mystery to solve.” He spoke with an air of such perfect candor as compelled her belief in his sincerity.
“Perhaps you’ll solve it for me. Here’s Miss Van Arsdale. Good-bye, and thank you. You’ll come and see me? Or shall I come and see you?”
“Both,” smiled Banneker. “That’s fairest.”
The pair rode away leaving the station feeling empty and unsustained. At least Banneker credited it with that feeling. He tried to get back to work, but found his routine dispiriting. He walked out into the desert, musing and aimless.
Silence fell between the two women as they rode. Once Miss Welland stopped to adjust her traveling-bag which had shifted a little in the straps.
“Is riding cross-saddle uncomfortable for you?” asked Miss Van Arsdale.
“Not in the least. I often do it at home.”
Suddenly her mount, a thick-set, soft-going pony shied, almost unseating her. A gun had banged close by. Immediately there was a second report. Miss Van Arsdale dismounted, replacing a short-barreled shot-gun in its saddle-holster, stepped from the trail, and presently returned carrying a brace of plump, slate-gray birds.
“Wild dove,” she said, stroking them. “You’ll find them a welcome addition to a meager bill of fare.”
“I should be quite content with whatever you usually have.”
“Doubted,” replied the other. “I live rather a frugal life. It saves trouble.”
“And I’m afraid I’m going to make you trouble. But you brought it upon yourself.”
“By interfering. Exactly. How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“Good Heavens! You have the aplomb of fifty.”
“Experience,” smiled the girl, flattered.
“And the recklessness of fifteen.”
“I abide by the rules of the game. And when I find myself—well, out of bounds, I make my own rules.”
Miss Van Arsdale shook her firmly poised head. “It won’t do. The rules are the same everywhere, for honorable people.”
“Honorable!” There was a flash of resentful pride as the girl turned in the saddle to face her companion.
“I have no intention of preaching at you or of questioning you,” continued the calm, assured voice. “If you are looking for sanctuary”—the fine lips smiled slightly—“though I’m sure I can’t see why you should need it, this is the place. But there are rules of sanctuary, also.”
“I suppose,” surmised the girl, “you want to know why I don’t go back into the world at once.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll tell you.”
“As you wish.”
“I came West to be married.”
“To Delavan Eyre?”
Again the dun pony jumped, this time because a sudden involuntary contraction of his rider’s muscles had startled him. “What do you know of Delavan Eyre, Miss Van Arsdale?”
“I occasionally see a New York newspaper.”
“Then you know who I am, too?”
“Yes. You are the pet of the society column paragraphers; the famous Io’ Welland.” She spoke with a curious intonation.
“Ah, you read the society news?”
“With a qualmish stomach. I see the names of those whom I used to know advertising themselves in the papers as if they had a shaving-soap or a chewing-gum to sell.”
“Part of the game,” returned the girl airily. “The newcomers, the climbers, would give their souls to get the place in print that we get without an effort.”
“Doesn’t it seem to you a bit vulgar?” asked the other.
“Perhaps. But it’s the way the game is played nowadays.”
“With counters which you have let the parvenues establish for you. In my day we tried to keep out of the papers.”
“Clever of you,” approved the girl. “The more you try to keep out, the more eager the papers are to print your picture. They’re crazy over exclusiveness,” she laughed.
“Speculation, pro and con, as to who is going to marry whom, and who is about to divorce whom, and whether Miss Welland’s engagement to Mr. Eyre is authentic, ‘as announced exclusively in this column’—more exclusiveness—; or whether—”
“It wasn’t Del Eyre that I came out here to marry.”
“No?”
“No. It’s Carter Holmesley. Of course you know about him.”
“By advertisement, also; the society-column kind.”
“Really, you know, he couldn’t keep out of the papers. He hates it with all his British soul. But being what he is, a prospective duke, an international poloist, and all that sort of thing, the reporters naturally swarm to him. Columns and columns; more pictures than a popular danseuse. And all without his lifting his hand.”
“Une mariage de reclame,” observed Miss Van Arsdale. “Is it that that constitutes his charm for you?”
Miss Van Arsdale’s smile was still instinct with mockery, but there had crept into it a quality of indulgence.
“No,” answered the girl. Her face became thoughtful and serious. “It’s something else. He—he carried me off my feet from the moment I met him. He was drunk, too, that first time. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him cold sober. But it’s a joyous kind of intoxication; vine-leaves and Bacchus and that sort of thing ‘weave a circle ‘round him thrice’—you know. It is honey-dew and the milk of Paradise to him.” She laughed nervously. “And charm! It’s in the very air about him. He can make me follow his lead like a little curly poodle when I’m with him.”
“Were you engaged to Delavan Eyre when you met him?”
“Oh, engaged!” returned the girl fretfully. “There was never more than a sort of understanding. A mariage de convenance on both sides, if it ever came off. I am fond of Del, too. But he was South, and the other came like a whirlwind, and I’m—I’m queer about some things,” she went on half shamefacedly. “I suppose I’m awfully susceptible to physical impressions. Are all girls that way? Or is that gross and—and underbred?”
“It’s part of us, I expect; but we’re not all so honest with ourselves. So you decided to throw over Mr. Eyre and marry your Briton.”
“Well—yes. The new British Ambassador, who arrives from Japan next week, is Carty’s uncle, and we were going to make him stage-manage the wedding, you see. A sort of officially certified elopement.”
“More advertisement!” said Miss Van Arsdale coldly. “Really, Miss Welland, if marriage seems to you nothing more than an opportunity to create a newspaper sensation I cannot congratulate you on your prospects.”
This time her tone stung. Io Welland’s eyes became sullen. But her voice was almost caressingly amiable as she said:
“Tastes differ. It is, I believe, possible to create a sensation in New York society without any newspaper publicity, and without at all meaning or wishing to. At least, it was, fifteen years ago; so I’m told.”
Camilla Van Arsdale’s face was white and lifeless and still, as she turned it toward the girl.
“You must have been a very precocious five-year-old,” she said steadily.
“All the Olneys are precocious. My mother was an Olney, a first cousin of Mrs. Willis Enderby, you know.”
“Yes; I remember now.”
The malicious smile on the girl’s delicate lips faded. “I wish I, hadn’t said that,” she cried impulsively. “I hate Cousin Mabel. I always have hated her. She’s a cat. And I think the way she, acted in—in the—the—well, about Judge Enderby and—“.
“Please!” Miss Van Arsdale’s tone was peremptory. “Here is my place.” She indicated a clearing with a little nest of a camp in it.
“Shall I go back?” asked Io remorsefully.
“No.”
Miss Van Arsdale dismounted and, after a moment’s hesitancy, the other followed her example. The hostess threw open the door and a beautiful, white-ruffed collie rushed to her with barks of joy. She held out a hand to her new guest.
“Be welcome,” she said with a certain stately gravity, “for as long as you will stay.”
“It might be some time,” answered Io shyly. “You’re tempting me.”
“When is your wedding?”
“Wedding! Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m not going to marry Carter Holmesley either.”
“You are not going—”
“No. The bump on my head must have settled my brain. As soon as I came to I saw how crazy it would be. That is why I don’t want to go on West.”
“I see. For fear of his overbearing you.”
“Yes. Though I don’t think he could now. I think I’m over it. Poor old Del! He’s had a narrow escape from losing me. I hope he never hears of it. Placid though he is, that might stir him up.”
“Then you’ll go back to him?”
The girl sighed. “I suppose so. How can I tell? I’m only twenty, and it seems to me that somebody has been trying to marry me ever since I stopped petting my dolls. I’m tired of men, men, men! That’s why I want to live alone and quiet for a while in the station-agent’s shack.”
“Then you don’t consider Mr. Banneker as belonging to the tribe of men?”
“He’s an official. I could always see his uniform, at need.” She fell into thought. “It’s a curious thing,” she mused.
Miss Van Arsdale said nothing.
“This queer young cub of a station-agent of yours is strangely like Carter Holmesley, not as much in looks as in—well—atmosphere. Only, he’s ever so much better-looking.”
“Won’t you have some tea? You must be tired,” said Miss Van Arsdale politely.