Meanwhile, in Parlor A, next door, a lady in a pink kimono, who seemed unusually diminutive and childish in her low-heeled bedroom slippers, pottered about uneasily, walking from window to window, jerking at the shades to peer out of doors, and then pulling the shades noisily down again; opening the hall door, looking down the corridor, walking out a few steps and then coming rapidly back again, to light a cigarette which she almost immediately put out and threw into the stove; coughing, dropping things—and then standing tense and alert to listen, acting altogether in a surprising and unusual manner. But the sound of voices in the adjoining room persevered, now loud—now less loud, but always perfectly audible through the thin, paper-like partition. At last, as though in sudden desperation, without removing her clothes, or even her slippers, she crawled quickly into the bed and pulled the covers and pillow over her head, lying still as a mouse, but tense and alert in spite of herself and—in spite of herself—listening. She emerged again in a while, half smothered, like a diver coming to the surface, listening again, and then with an exclamation quickly got out of bed, her fingers at her ears, to open the hall door presently and flee down the corridor.
From her vantage point—in an empty room—she heard Jeff's rapid footsteps go past, and only when she heard them no longer did she go back to Parlor A. She closed the outer door and locked it, sat down in an armchair, leaning forward, her head in her hands, staring at a pink rose in the ornate carpet, deep in thought. In the room next door all was quiet again. Once she thought she heard the sound of a sob, but she could not be sure of it, and after a while the light which had shone through the wide crack under the door disappeared. For a long time she sat there, immovable except for the slight, quick tapping of one small foot upon the floor.
At last she rose with an air of resolution and touched the bell. To the clerk, who answered it in person, she asked for telegraph blanks and a messenger. He looked at his watch.
"The telegraph office is closed."
"Well, it will have to be opened. This is a matter which can't wait until morning. The operator must be found."
"We might get a message through." He looked at the bill she had put in his hand. "Yes, I'm sure we can."
"And you might send me up some tea and toast." She shut the door, went to her trunk, took out her writing pad, put it on the table, turned up the wick of the lamp, and began writing. She finished a letter and sealed it carefully. When the telegraph blanks came she wrote two rather lengthy messages. One of the telegrams was addressed to the cashier of the Tenth National Bank of Denver—the other telegram and the letter were addressed to Lawrence Berkely at the Brown Palace Hotel in the same city. When she had given the messenger his instructions, she sank in her chair again with a sigh, and, with a tea cup in one hand and a piece of buttered toast in the other, sat facing the door into Parlor B. Her face wore a curious expression, partly mischievous, partly solemn, but there was at times a momentary trace of trouble in it, too, and when the tea cup was set aside she stretched her arms wearily and then brought them down, lacing her fingers behind her neck, putting her head back and closing her eyes as though in utter, soul-racking weariness. Suddenly she rose, passing the back of one wrist abruptly across her brows, and prepared to go to bed.
* * * * *
Camilla awoke late and ordered breakfast in her room. It was not bodily fatigue which she felt now. That seemed to have passed. It was mental inertia, which, like muscular stiffness, follows the carrying of too heavy a burden. A part of her burden she still carried, and even the brightness of the Colorado sun, which dappled the tinsel wall paper beside her, failed to rekindle the embers of old delights. From one of her windows she could see the fine sweep of the Saguache range as it extended its great half-moon toward the northern end of the valley, where it joined the main ridge of the Continental Divide; from the other window the roofs of the town below her, Mulrennan's, the schoolhouse, and Jeff's "Watch Us Grow" sign, now dwarfed by the brick office building which had risen behind it. It seemed a hundred years since she had lived in Mesa City, and to her eyes, accustomed to elegant distances, the town seemed to have grown suddenly smaller, more ugly, garish, and squalid. And yet it was here that she had lived for five years—five long years of youth and hope and boundless ambition. In those days the place had oppressed her with its emptiness, and she had suffered for the lack of opportunity to live her life in accordance with the dreams of her school-days; but to-day, when she seemed to have neither hope nor further ambition, she knew that the early days were days of real happiness. What did it matter if it had been the bliss of ignorance, since she was now aware of the folly of wisdom? She could never be happy anywhere now—not even here. She lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes, but even then the vision of Rita Cheyne intruded—a vision of Jeff and Rita Cheyne riding together over the mountain trails.
She was indeed unpleasantly surprised when, a few moments later, there was a knock upon the door at the foot of her bed; and when she had put on a dressing gown the door opened suddenly, and there stood Rita Cheyne herself, smiling confidently and asking admittance.