CHAPTER XVIII
RELIEF OR REGRET?
"TELL me what you have found out, Jim. I think I know why you have come all this way to London," Jacqueline Ralston said.
The man and girl were seated on a bench in Kew Gardens, the wonderful park a few miles out from London, two afternoons after the arrival of the Rainbow Ranch party. Ruth and the three other girls had gone to view Westminster Abbey. But Jack, pleading a need of fresh air, arranged for a few quiet hours with Jim.
The man rose and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, started striding up and down. His blue eyes were curiously gentle, but his mouth was stern. Indeed, he represented a strange combination of anger and nervousness. Finally, before speaking, he placed himself on the seat next Jack again, but this time so that he could look directly into her face.
Jack's eyes were down, her manner quiet and reserved. The man had no way of guessing how his news would affect her.
"See here, boss," he began after a moment, "you and I've been pretty much on the level with each other all the time, haven't we? We ain't tried to keep things back 'cause they hurt." He took the girl's gloved hand, patting it softly. "Sometimes, maybe, I've seemed harder with you, Jack, than with the others. But I always thought you'd understand. You kind of like to face the music, to know the worst and have things settled quick. Well—"
Possibly Jacqueline's face turned a shade paler; certainly her lips did. Nevertheless, they curved into a kind of a smile.
"Well, we aren't getting them settled very quickly today, are we, Jim?" she returned. "You are right, though, I do like to know the truth. What have you found out about Captain Madden."
"That he ain't no good," Jim replied, forgetting his grammar and all his carefully planned methods of breaking the unpleasant news to the girl. "Seems like the English know how to put it better than we do when they say a fellow is a cad. I tell you, Jack, this is honest. I've found out every thing I could from the time this man was a boy. He has never done an honest day's work in his life. Why, I even learned that he had written back to Wyoming to ask what the Rainbow Mine was worth. 'Course, I don't claim he don't care for you, child—most any man might be able to manage that. But to think of John Ralston's daughter and my old boss of the Rainbow Ranch marrying a man old enough to be her father, and such a man!" Jim had been trying his best to hold in, but now he swore softly under his breath. "Say, Jack, old girl, say you believe I'm telling you the truth. I hate to hurt you, the Lord only knows how much, but if you don't tell me you'll break it all off, I think I'll go plumb crazy." And Jim mopped the moisture from his brow, though it was a peculiarly cool day.
Jack was so painfully silent. Could a girl not quite twenty suffer much over an interrupted love affair? Jim did not know. He remembered his own grief when Ruth refused him. It had been awful! He carried the ache inside of him to this day. Glancing at the girl near him, he saw that the tears, which came so rarely, were now in her clear gray eyes.
"I believe you, Jim," she returned finally. "I believe you'd play fair with me and with Captain Madden even if you loathed the idea of my caring for him. Don't worry, old man. I promise this is the end. But, please, would you mind if I cried a while? No one is paying any attention to us and I think I'd like to very much."
Without waiting for permission, Jack's shoulders shook, and she covered her face with her hands. But a few seconds later Jim sighed so miserably that Jack slipped one of her hands inside his and held it close.
"I am not crying because my heart is broken, Jim dear," she explained; "I think I am crying because I am ashamed of myself. Sometimes I wonder how many lessons it will take before I learn not to be so self-willed. I have made things so hard for Ruth and for the other girls. Yet I believed what Captain Madden told me; I thought people were prejudiced against him just because he was poor. And I hate that. So when Ruth and Frank said such horrid things I told him I would marry him if you would give your consent. And, oh Jim, I have been so afraid lately—"
Jack began crying softly again.
"Been so afraid, poor little girl! If you only knew how I dreaded telling you this, I haven't had a good night's sleep in two weeks, and waiting for you to arrive in London nearly broke my nerve." Jim Colter probably had not shed any tears in almost twenty years, yet he looked perilously on the verge of them now.
Jack pulled at his coat sleeve uncertainly. "But Jim, dear, you don't know what I have been afraid of! I have been afraid you would discover that Captain Madden was all right and that I would then have to marry him. I had given him my word. It would not have been honest to go back on it. You see, when we were in Rome I did believe I cared for him. He was awfully kind and interesting and different from any one I had ever known. Then I suppose I was flattered in thinking a so much older, wiser man could care for a stupid girl like me. And Ruth and Frank were dreadfully dictatorial. But since we left Rome, I've been thinking—I feel I have not been doing anything else but think. And I realized that I did not really love Captain Madden. I felt as if I should die if he took me away from my family. Still I didn't know just what to do. I was so frightened, Jim, until I saw you there at Charing Cross."
Jim Colter took off his big western hat. The English sky of a June day can be a very lovely thing—soft fleecy clouds, floating over a surface of translucent blue. Jim looked up into it. "I thank Thee, Lord," he whispered reverently, and then, stooping over, kissed Jack.
The next moment he was up on his feet. And though he failed to electrify Kew Gardens by giving his celebrated cowboy yell, he waved his sombrero and the yell apparently took place inside him.
"Come on, Jack, let's do something quick to celebrate or I'm liable to bust with gladness!" he exclaimed. "This is a right pretty park we're in. I hear it's one of the most famous on the map, with every known tree growing inside it. Wouldn't you like me to buy it for you, or maybe you can think of some other little remembrance?"
Jack hung on to his arm and the man and girl started off on their sight-seeing expedition together, both feeling as though they were treading on air instead of the velvet softness of the English turf.
"I should like to go back and tell Ruth at once and apologize for being a nuisance," Jack confided, "but I don't want any one to guess I have been crying, and then Ruth will probably be mooning over tombstones in the Abbey until dinner time. I tell you what, Jim, we will have a wonderful dinner party tonight to celebrate and you can wear the new evening clothes you bought yesterday. Then, afterwards, you must take all of us to the theater. Now I have got you to myself, we might as well see Kew and have some tea. I am dreadfully hungry. You can bring Ruth some time by herself and I will promise to keep the girls away."
Jim did not answer. But, under the circumstances, it is perfectly certain that he could have refused Jack nothing in the world.
For the next two hours he could hardly keep his eyes off her. And he seemed especially happy when she devoured three English scones and drank two cups of strong tea.
"Ain't intendin' to pine away, are you, Jack?" he asked. And then, when the girl blushed, he laughed and held out his hand.
"Shake on it once more, boss," he demanded, "and you can count on this, sure thing. You ain't going to make but one man happier than you've made me this day. And that is when you say 'yes' to the right fellow."