CHAPTER XVIII
AN INTERRUPTED PROPOSAL
The love that grew in the hearts of Tom Beck and Jane Hunter was not the only suit which approached a climax in the hills. Another existed, quite different, unknown to them, unsuspected, even, but it was not a secret to one who rode from the HC ranch.
This was the Reverend Azariah Beal. He stayed on, though assuring Beck that the call might come any hour which would send him on his way. He was sent on many errands of importance, because Beck had come to believe that he could trust the clergyman as he could trust no other man and it was this riding which gave Beal his knowledge of that other love making.
Day after day he saw Dick Hilton in Devil's Hole. He saw him joined by another rider, by Bobby Cole, and knew that the Easterner spent many days at the ranch house down there in the deep valley.
Hilton treated the girl as she never had been treated before. He told her tales of cities and men and women that held her breathless and he wooed her with an artfulness which kept her unaware of love making. When with him, as when with her father, that ready defiance, her expectation of trouble, became reduced to a wistfulness, an eager inquiry which left her, not the self-sufficient bundle of passionate strength, but a simple mountain child.
He would ride beside her or sit at night by the fire in her father's cabin and talk for hours, giving of his experience well, for he was a glib talker. He asked nothing in return ... openly, but while he talked his eyes were on her eyes, prodding their depths, on her red mouth, hungering, on her wonderful throat, fired by desire. He bided his time, for his was a choice prize.
Now and then she talked to him of Jane Hunter and though her allusions were scornful and her face assumed that hostility, he knew that this only resulted from her envy, the curiosity which she would not let come into being. He played upon this, dropping hints of the reason for his coming west, lying insinuations of his relationships with the mistress of the big ranch, each hint a fertile seed planted in the rich soil of her imagination.
One afternoon they dismounted in a clump of willows where early in the season and in wet summers a spring bubbled under a rim rock. Now it was dry, almost dust-dry in places, and the girl sat on the grass while Hilton stretched at her feet, smoking idly.
He talked to her for long and when he paused she said, looking far away:
"I'd like to see somethin' else besides this. I'd like to have some of the chances other gals have. I'd give anything for a chance to be somebody!"
He threw away his cigarette.
"I'd give anything to give you a chance, Bobby," he said.
"Yes, but you can't!" she laughed hopelessly. "You're a gentleman and I.... Why, I'm just the daughter of a nester."
"And maybe that very combination of circumstances gives me my chance to give you yours.
"I should like very much to take you east, Bobby."
"Yes, but there's Alf. I couldn't leave him,"—shaking her head, still innocent of his intent.
Hilton was not unprepared.
"But if he had a comfortable ranch, with good buildings and plenty of stock, and could come to visit you at times?"
"But he ain't got any of them an' besides—
"You don't mean for me to stay!" she said suddenly, eyes incredulous.
"To stay, Bobby. To stay with me, forever and ever."
She started to laugh but checked herself and leaned suddenly toward him, her lips parted. He lifted himself to an elbow and reached out for her hand.
"Don't you understand, dear girl? Don't you see that I love you?"
She withdrew her hand from his clasp and looked away, brows drawn toward one another a trifle. He watched her craftily, timing his urging to her realization.
"Don't you see that I came west, guided by something bigger than my own reason, directed by something that regulates the loves of men to bring them to a good end?"
She looked back at him and shook her head slowly.
"I never thought I'd be loved. I never thought you cared for me that-a way."
"Bless you! That night when I went walking into your cabin and you met me with a rifle ready I knew I would love you and that you would love me. It's one of the things neither of us can explain, but I was sure of it, sure of it. Didn't you guess? Didn't you feel it deep down in your heart?"
"No, never. Nothin' good had ever happened to me. I didn't calculate anything good ever would happen. The only bein' I ever thought I'd love was Alf and I'd go through fire for him....
"But this ... it's different. It ain't like that. This is somethin' ... I don't know...."
She rose and pressed her hands to her breast as though some bursting emotion hurt her. Hilton stood before her, his breath a trifle quick, lips parted greedily. His particular hour, he felt, had struck!
"One of the reasons that has made me love you has been your devotion to your father. Another was your distrust. You never did trust me at first. I felt that you were keeping me off, holding yourself away from me, Bobby. I wanted to tell you all this long ago,"—which was the truth—"but I wanted you to be sure of yourself; I wanted you to recognize love and know that this thing between us is the lasting sort"—which was a lie.
"The lasting kind?" she queried. "You love me? For good? Honest?"
"Honest!" he promised, taking both her hands. "I love you with all the love a man can give a woman! I love you enough to devote my whole life to making you happy. I have money. We can go where we please, do what we please. You will have friends and respect. You can see cities and the ocean. You can live in grand hotels and eat wonderful food that someone else has cooked; you can hear music and go to theaters; you will have flowers and automobiles; you'll see California and Florida and Europe...."
"And because you love?" she demanded as he put his arms about her. "It's because you love me, ain't it? If I thought ... if I thought it was for anything else I'd kill you." Her tone was even enough, her voice the soft, full voice of a woman touched by love, but beneath its velvet was a matter-of-fact certainty that caused the faintest tremor to run through his limbs.
They looked into one another's eyes, felt each other's breath upon their cheeks, the one consumed by passion, the other swept upward into a new world, a new, incredible life, as a beautiful hope touched her heart. They did not see their horses standing with intent ears and, as they were up wind they did not hear the slight sounds of another approaching.
"Because I love you, Bobby! Will you come?"
"And I'll be your wife and you won't be ashamed of me ... ever?"
"Never!"—in a tone that was too firm for conviction.
"An' Alf'll come to see us whenever he wants to?"
"Whenever he wants to. Don't you believe me? Why question?"—hurriedly. "Say you love me, now, today, this hour,"—straining her to him. "Say it to me, Bobby; say that you love me as I love you!"
His eyes burned into hers and he closed his lips to press them on hers, to touch the woman of her into being, to accomplish the end he sought.
"Oh, Mister Hilton, I—"
Her voice had the quality of a sob and he waited for her to go on before he sealed his tricky pact with a kiss, but as she choked a crashing of the brush shocked him into a realization of the outside world and a resounding voice cried:
"One moment! Just one moment!"
The Reverend Azariah Beal advanced toward them through the willows.
Bobby whirled to face him and Hilton, with an oath, released her.
For a moment, portentous silence. The Reverend halted, plainly confused. Before Hilton's glare and the girl's breathless fury his eyes wavered. He opened his lips to speak and closed them helplessly. Then a queer glimmer crossed his face, half hope, half smile.
He reached into his pocket, brought forth a fountain pen, held it up and said:
"One moment of your time to bring to your attention this article, known from coast to coast, indispensable to any man, woman or child, which we are introducing for the purposes of further advertising at a trifling price, which—"
"Who the devil sent you here?" demanded Hilton, advancing.
The Reverend lowered his hand and blinked through his spectacles.
"I do not recall that I came from that black deity," he replied mildly. "My feet are directed from Above,"—gesturing. "I have been called upon—"
"Now you're called upon to get out. Understand? Get out!"
"Brother, is it possible that you are not interested in this article? Made of pure India rubber—"
"You heard me! Get out!" cried Hilton.
For a moment the Reverend stood, as though undecided.
"I am sorry," he said, "that I can not interest you. If not today, then another time, perhaps? A splendid gift for a lady, my friend, a—"
"Nobody here wants to listen to you. Be on your way!"
Sorrowfully the Reverend replaced the pen in his pocket, rattling it against the remainder of his stock. As he turned away he drew them all out and stood for some time beside his horse, counting them carefully, muttering to himself. He looked about his feet, retraced his steps to where he had stood in his attempt to make a sale, scanning the ground.
"Can it be," he asked absently, "that I have miscounted?"
He gave no heed to the two who watched him but it was a matter of ten minutes before he was finally satisfied that there had been no loss—or that nothing else would be lost that day—and rode away.
By that time Hilton's ill temper was implacable and in Bobby's face was a half frightened, bewildered look. She turned to the Easterner with a questioning little gesture but he did not respond.
"He spoiled it for a while, Bobby," he said. "Let's ride back."