CHAPTER XXI
Every night, after his dinner, P. D. would take what he termed a “cat-nap.” Not even chess interrupted these short dozes on the comfortable couch by the pleasantly-crackling logs heaped upon the big fireplace.
There would be an interval, then, when Cheerio and Hilda would find themselves practically alone in the living-room. Sometimes Cheerio would look across expectantly at Hilda, and she would turn away and stare with seeming absorption out of the window. Then he would bring forth his tobacco pouch, fill and light his pipe and dip down in the pocket of his old coat and bring up a book. Hilda’s absorption in the outside view would undergo a swift change. Against her will, she found herself watching him furtively. It fascinated her to see the way in which he would handle a book, his fingers seeming sensitively to caress the pages. He always closed the book reluctantly and would return it carefully to his pocket as if it were something precious. She had satisfied her curiosity as to the titles and the authors of the books he read. She had never heard the names before, and suffered a pang that he should be close to matters concerning which she was totally ignorant. She tried to comfort and reassure herself. Even if one had missed school and college, even if one had been side-tracked all of her life on an Alberta ranch, even if a girl’s solitary associates and friends, over all the days of her life, had been merely the rough types peculiar to the cattle country, he had said that a world might be discovered right within the pages of a book. There was hope, therefore, for the unhappy Hilda.
He had made that remark to no one in particular one night, as he gently closed the book in his hand, and reached for the tobacco pouch in his rough tweed pocket. Then he had filled his pipe, beamed upon the sleeping P. D., and with his brown head against the back of the Morris chair, Cheerio had lapsed into what seemed to be a brown study in which Hilda and all the rest of the world appeared to disappear from his ken.
Cheerio had a trick of disappearing, as it was, in this manner—disappearing, mentally. Always there would then arise something torturing in the breast of Hilda McPherson. She had a passionate curiosity to know where the mind of the dreaming man had leaped in thought. Across the water—Ah! there was no doubt of that! Back in that England of his! Figures rose about him. Hilda had an intuitive knowledge of the types of people who were his familiars on the other side. Always among them was the smiling woman, whose hair was gold and whose lazy eyes had a lure in them that to the downright and unsophisticated Hilda spelled the last word in fascination. “Nanna”! A foolish name for a lady, thought the girl throbbingly, and yet a love name. It was undoubtedly that.
If the motherless girl could but have found a confidante on whom to pour out all the torturing doubts and longings of these days, something of her pain would have been surely assuaged. Chaotic new emotions were warring within her breast. Her wild young nature found itself incapable of wrestling with the exquisite impulses that despite her best efforts she could not control. Hilda told herself that she hated. An alarming voice seemed to retort from the depths of her heart that that was but another name for Love. This—Love! She could not—would not—dared not believe it. And yet the simple motion of this man’s strong white hand, the slight quizzical uplift of his eyes had the power to cause her to hold her breath suspended and send the blood racing to her heart.
Hilda was not subtle enough to search her soul or that of another. She could not diagnose that which overwhelmed her. In a way she was like one overtaken, trapped in a spell from which there was no door through which she might escape. She had reason for believing him to be unworthy—a man who put to a crucial test, had failed miserably; one who had confessed to a flagrant and criminal weakness.
She had judged him relentlessly, for youth is cruel, and love and jealousy create a torment which is hard to bear.