“No, it isn’t!” he asseverated, not without embarrassment. “You can see for yourself that she’s different.”
“Very well!” she retorted maliciously. “Perhaps if you’d done such a noble thing as nursing Haig back to life you’d be different too.”
“I’d see him in––”
“Shame!” she cried. “You wouldn’t do anything of the kind. Your bark’s worse than your bite, sir. And besides, while I think of it, you really must stop saying ‘hell’ and ‘damn’ so much. The habit’s growing on you.”
Having no ready answer to that speech, he merely looked at her, perhaps a little guiltily, then bent down and kissed her, and hurried out of the house. He was, in truth, though he never would have had the courage to acknowledge it, even to Claire, ashamed of himself, and anxious too. His inflammable temper had rather out-flamed itself in its last-recorded performance, and he had begun to suspect that it had been responsible for some, though by no means all, of his troubles. The killing of Haig’s bull, he now realized, was a foolish and indefensible act, which could be traced easily to him because of the bull that was gored; and he must prepare to account to Haig for it. And so, knowing that he would again be in the wrong, as in the affair at the post-office, he was torn between accentuated bitterness 188 toward Haig and growing discontent with himself. He would never be afraid of Haig, but he was becoming steadily more afraid of Marion. Whether it was that he had really developed intuition, which told him of Marion’s spiritual growth, or that he was in constant dread lest she make some new demand upon him in regard to Haig, he lived in much awe of her. She had once spoken, on a memorable occasion, of making peace between Haig and himself. It would be just like her, wouldn’t it, to try to bring them together? Well, let her try it! He would be the last man in Paradise Park. And so on, until he was once more almost satisfied with himself.
The faithful Smythe, meanwhile, brought Marion almost daily news of Philip. That he was rapidly recovering she heard with a ringing joy, which had its alloy of fear; for she knew that the day he felt himself to be in full possession of his powers he would attempt again to conquer Sunnysides. So from day to day her apprehension mounted until it became well-nigh insupportable. And her own helplessness maddened her. What could she do? Nothing! Nothing but wait, and pray God to protect him. Every night she prayed for him, and every morning, on her knees; and every hour the prayer was in her heart. She rode sometimes as far as the farther edge of the woods that crowned the ridge, and looked long at the little valley, and at the smoke rising in a thin spiral from the ranch house that she could not see. At the right of it would be the cottage, and at the left the barn, and the corral where Sunnysides bided his time. And then, having looked until she could endure no more, she would ride slowly 189 home, to await the next coming of Smythe with news.
Once she went to the glade of the columbines. She did not feel any longer the antipathy she once felt to the spot that had, in one devastating moment, revealed to her the fatuity of her dreams. Now she was in search of the old hopes that she had once revelled in, while she gathered armloads of columbines, and imagined they were for Philip.
Dismounting eagerly at the foot of the little hill, she plunged through the brush, and halted at the margin of the glade, stricken with the keenest disappointment. The columbines were gone; only a brave, pale blossom here and there lingered pathetically in a waste of dried and drooping stems. She stood staring at them a moment; then, with a cry, she threw herself down among them, and gave herself up to grief, letting the tears come in what flood they would, while her hand clutched one poor survivor of the summer glory.
Gone, then, like the summer, were all those dreams. And very soon must come the end of all. Barely two weeks remained to her in the Park,––barely two weeks in which the miracle that she awaited could be wrought. What miracle could move him when her love had failed? And yet––Once, in her desperation, she suggested to Claire and Seth that she should remain all winter in the Park; but they rose up together against any such scheme. It was absurd, they agreed. They would be delighted to have her with them as many summers as she might wish; and they were already counting on her return to them next June. But the Park in winter was no place for a woman, unless she had been long inured to such hardships as were involved in that hibernation. 190 Claire had remained two winters there, it was true, but Seth had vowed that she should never miss the last stage again. Marion’s proposal only clinched the matter the more firmly; and it was eventually agreed that Claire should go with Marion to New York, where they would live very quietly, taking what pleasures their means would permit, until spring should bring them back to the mountains. And so, barring a miracle, she was at the end of her hopes.
Meanwhile, she had heard from Robert. He was nearly wild, he wrote. The big deal was going slowly––not badly, but with maddening delays. He was tempted to “chuck the whole business,” though it meant thousands, perhaps half a million. Yet how could he do that? He was working for her; and if he left Denver the deal would certainly fall through. But there was yet time; any day the stubborn partner might yield; and so on. Poor Robert! thought Marion. She imagined what Philip would have done if he had wanted her as Robert did. Would any deal, any prospect of millions, have kept him away from her? So she reasoned, forgetting entirely the other side of the case. Haig, if she could have asked him, would have told her: yes, that’s all very well, but the man would have to get those thousands or other thousands afterwards, just the same; a woman wants to have her cake and eat it too; and so much the worse for the man if he cannot dance attendance on her and make money for her at the same time!