A hard little smile played on the lips accented with Parisian rouge. The blue eyes were following the two men who were directing the bombardment; the childish expression was gone; her look accused life of having trifled with her. But they would see—
“Don’t look so unhappy, dearest,” whispered the man at her side. “I’m going to make you happy, dear!” She flushed a brilliant, finished smile at him. Yes, she was proud of him. His success buoyed her faith in her destiny. Everybody knew Godfrey; his voice had subdued whole continents. He satisfied her sense of romance, or would, later, when she was away from here, a dull pain pricking at her deliberate planning. She was tired, tired of scheming, planning; unfair it seemed to her that some women have all that she had had to struggle for tossed into their careless laps. She was proud. She could not be a nobody, crushed by humiliations and adversity. She had not brought any of his trouble on Tom Hardin. It was he, he and Rickard who had ruined her life. Not quite ruined! She was stepping out before it was too late. Godfrey found her young, young and distracting. His life had been hungry, too; the wife, up there in Canada somewhere, had never understood him. Godfrey was ambitious, ambitious as she was. She would be his wife; she would see the cities of the world with him, the welcomed wife of Godfrey; she would share the plaudits his wonderful voice won.
His eyes were on her now, she knew, questioning, not quite sure of her. She had worried him yesterday because she would not pledge herself to marry him if he sued for his divorce. Her intuition told her that something was uncertain, his affection for her, or that other woman’s tie, if he hinged his divorce on her promise. “I’m not sure of you! Will you give me your word? When I am free, you, too, will be free, waiting for me?”
She had shivered away from his question. Terrible that life put that obstacle, that dreadful process in her way. Always life blocked her. His doubt gave her doubts of him. Would he be faithful, a silver-voiced Godfrey; absent, other, younger women hanging on his voice? It did not hurt to keep a man guessing. She had told him to ask her that after the courts had set him free. She could not have him sure of her. Men tire when they are sure; Rickard had been too sure of her.
An exclamation from him recalled her. She found that he was no longer staring at her; his eyes were fixed on the trembling structure over which a “battle-ship,” laden with rock, was creeping.
“Jove!” he cried. “Those men are heroes.”
Everything irritated her to-day. She felt out of sorts, though she was going to be happy! She was going to grasp, and keep what was within reach of her hand. But this river, this dirty sordid work, was getting on her nerves. Even Godfrey now was staring at the trestles as though they were circus rings! Rickard crossed her vision, on the run, his face grotesque with soot and perspiration. She saw him stoop to speak to the group of women; he stood for a minute by Innes. The grime shielded his expression, but she had seen the girl’s face! Her own eyes darkened with anger. But she was going to be happy. Her teeth clicked over that slogan. No one should stand in the way, Hardin, or that other. Rickard would see that she had never cared for him—hateful that it must be long before she could show him. She wanted him to know it right away, before those two flung their secret in her face, before Innes secretly triumphed over her.
Rickard, she could see, was turning in her direction. She sent another brilliant, dazzling smile at Godfrey, who remembered to smile back at her. She wanted to have Rickard see them together, absorbed in each other. It would pique his vanity, perhaps, to see how little she cared. He would see that he had been only one of many to her. She sent a tender little whisper after the smile.
But Godfrey had been growing restless. It began to irk him, to tease his superb muscle to be the only man without work—“sitting on the bank like Cor’nel down yonder!” He answered Gerty, turning away to her annoyance to hail Rickard.
“Going all right?”