“The old dog’s got it weighed up,” he said, as he tossed the match away. “What’s he going to do?”
Almost as he spoke, the question was answered. The sheep had half turned, but seemed to hesitate, and suddenly Ben sprang forward, quite over the sheep’s back; struggled for a second or two to keep his feet,—and fell down the face of the cliff.
Nancy clutched Inman’s arm and closed her eyes. When she opened them again the sheep was making its way up the hill to join the flock, and Swithin was clambering over the rocks to where Ben’s body lay in the water. To the sickness of Nancy’s soul there was added a physical nausea that caused her to lean heavily against Inman’s supporting arm.
“He gave his life for her, and died like a hero. What is there better than dying game?” Inman’s voice was calm and matter-of-fact. “He’d have come to a gun-shot, or a pennorth o’ poison sooner or later, so what’s the odds? The other dog—Robin, did you call him? a better name ’ud be Jagger—’ll take his place, I suppose.”
Still she was silent; but the arm that was about her waist did not tighten, and she could not complain that he took advantage of her faintness.
“It was horrible,” she said at length, as she made an attempt he did not resist to stand erect. “Life is full of horrible things.”
“Not a bit of it,” he said, and he threw the half-smoked cigarette into the stream as he spoke. “Life is full of very pleasant things if you know where to look. Ben’s dead and done for, and Swithin ’ud do better to get back to his work instead of standing blubbering and cursing over a carcass. Every dog has his day, and Ben ended his nobly, though I daresay the sheep ’ud have come off all right if he’d left her alone. It was Jagger’s fault—I beg pardon, I mean Robin’s. He had his fun out of her, and what does it matter to him if he drove her crazy so long as he saved his own skin? Did you see how he crept away? All the same I suppose he’ll get Ben’s job. It’s the way of the world!”
“Jagger’s no coward,” she answered listlessly. It was no concern of hers to defend the man who had gone out of her life, and the protest was the last spark from the ashes of a love that was nearly cold. Nothing that Inman could say would cause her to fire again.
“Coward!” he repeated, without emotion of any kind. “We don’t call babies cowards, whether they’re dog-babies or men-babies. Jagger’s a baby, playing at being a man. He’s in trouble o’ some sort now—I met him down the road with a face as long as a fiddle, running to his daddy to have his sore finger kissed.”
She had no reply ready and indeed was not disposed to reply. Her heart was like an arid desert where every fountain of emotion was dry. Life was like a desert, too, with no prospect save that of limitless dreariness. She had been dreaming of marriage; of a home of her own where she would be free from Baldwin’s petty tyrannies and Keturah’s complaints. She had fashioned a husband out of her own fancy, and he had fallen to pieces—crumbled like dust at the first test. What better was Jagger, in spite of all his protestations, than Inman or even Baldwin? He was all for himself, just as they were, though self-righteousness might deceive him. And he had humiliated her bitterly, which Inman had never done. Inman was masterful and showed his worst side——.