An hour ago, hearing distinctly the whir and splash of egg-beating, she had run over to the neighboring tent. The clinking of cake-tins had suddenly silenced. “Excuse me, won’t you?” Gerty’s voice had come from the lean-to, the little kitchen shed. “I’m lying down.”
“Lieing, yes!” grimaced the Hardin mouth to its reflection in the mirror. How many times that week had she been repulsed by a locked door, a sudden curtain of silence, or a “Run away for a while. I’m trying to catch a nap.” Easy now to see why Gerty had wanted to “hold the reins” that week!
She didn’t need to pierce those canvas walls to know that there had been feverish activity for this dinner. A new gown would appear to-night, made secretly. An exquisite meal, and no one must comment on its elaboration. Twice Tom and she had been asked to take their lunch at the hotel. “Because of a headache!” A headache!
Tom’s wife could not even shop openly! Bundles had always the air of mystery, never opened before Tom or herself. She must have yards of stuff laid away, kept for sudden emergencies.
“She can’t help it. It’s her disposition. She can’t help being secretive. Look at your face, Innes Hardin!” What was it to her, the pettiness of a woman whom an accident of life had swept upon the beach beside her? Gerty was not her kind, not the sort she would pick out for a friend. She was an oriental, one of the harem women, whose business it is in life to please one man, keep his home soft, his comforts ready, keep him convinced, moreover, that it is the desire of his life to support her. Herself dissatisfied, often rebellious, staying by him for self-interest, not for love—ah, that was her impeachment. “Not loving!”
Soberly, she covered her plain brassière with a white waist of cotton ducking. A red leather belt and crimson tie she added self-consciously. “Where is my bloodstone pin?”
Hadn’t she spent an hour at least matching that particular leather belt? But he was a man, in battle. The head-gate held up; it was too bad. Silent, Bodefeldt, Wooster, Grant, all of them fighting mad because of the deadlock at the Heading. All up in arms, at last, against Marshall, because of this cruel cut to their hero, Hardin. Her eyes glowed like yellow lamps, as she recalled their fervid partisanship.
“Only one man who can save the valley, and that’s Tom Hardin.” Wooster had said that; but they all believed it. The loyalty of the force made her ashamed of her soft woman fears. For there were times when she questioned her brother’s executive ability. He had a large loose way of handling things. He was too optimistic. But those men, those engineers must know. It was probably the man’s way of sweeping ahead, ignoring detail. The verdict of those field-tried men told her that the other, the careful planning way, was the office method. Rickard, as a dinner neighbor, she had found interesting; but for great undertakings, a man who would let a Gerty Holmes jilt him, ruin his life for him! The whole story sprang at last clear, from the dropped innuendos.
She adjusted a barrette in her smoothly brushed hair. Slowly, she walked over to the neighboring tent.
Gerty frowned at the white duck. “You might at least have worn your blue!”