The Silver Horde Part 36

"No; I've no kick coming. I think she's mighty clever."

"If I thought she had done that," said Emerson, slowly, "I wouldn't touch a penny of the money."

"I don't care where the money came from or how it got here," rumbled Balt.

"It's here; that's enough."

"I care, and I intend to find out."

"Oh, come now, don't spoil a good piece of work," cautioned Clyde, visibly perturbed at Boyd's expression. "You know you aren't the only one to consider in this matter; the rest of us are ent.i.tled to a look-in. For Heaven's sake, try to control this excess of virtue, and when you get into one of those Martin Luther moods, just reflect that I have laid ten thousand aching simoleons on the altar."

"Sure!" supplemented George; "and look at me and Cherry. Success means as much to her as it does to any of us, and if she pulled this off, you bet she knew what she was doing. Anyhow, you ain't got any right to break up the play."

But Boyd clung to his point with a stubbornness which he himself found it difficult to explain. The arguments of the others only annoyed him. The walk to Cherry's hotel afforded him time for reflection which, while it deepened his doubt, somewhat lessened his impatience, and when he was shown into her presence he did not begin in the impetuous manner he had designed. A certain hesitation and dread of the truth mastered him, and, moreover, the girl's appearance dismayed him. She seemed almost ill. She was listless and f.a.gged. Upon his announcement of the good news, she only smiled wearily, and said:

"I told you not to give up. The unexpected always happens."

"And was it unexpected--to you?" he asked, awkwardly.

"What happens is nearly always unexpected--when it's good."

"Not to the one who brings it about."

"What makes you think I had anything to do with it?"

"You were with Hilliard last night."

She nodded slightly, "We closed our negotiations for the copper-mine last night."

"How did you come out?"

"He takes it over, and does the development work," she answered.

"That means that you are independent; that you can leave the North Country and do all the things you want to do?" This time her smile was puzzling.

"You don't seem very glad!"

"No! Realization discounts antic.i.p.ation about ninety per cent but don't let's talk about me. I--I'm unstrung to-day."

"I'm sorry you aren't going back to Kalvik," he said, with genuine regret.

"But I am," she declared, quickly. "I'm going back with you and George if you will let me. I want to see the finish of our enterprise."

"See here, Cherry, I hope you didn't influence Hilliard in this affair?"

"Why probe the matter?"

"Because I haven't lost all my manhood," he answered, roughly. "Yesterday you a.s.sumed the blame for this trouble, and spoke of sacrifices--and-- well, I don't know much about women; but for all I know, you may have some ridiculous, quixotic strain in your make-up. I hope you didn't--"

"What?"

"Well, do anything you may be sorry for." At last he detected a gleam of spirit in her eyes.

"Suppose I did. What difference to you would that make?" He s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably under her scrutiny.

"Suppose that Mr. Hilliard had called on me for some great sacrifice before he gave up that money. Would you allow it to affect you?"

"Of course," he answered. Then, unable to sit still under her searching gaze, he arose with flushed face, to meet further discomfiture as she continued:

"Even if it meant your own ruin, the loss of the fortune you have raised among your friends--money that is entrusted to you--and--and the relinquishment of Miss Wayland? Honestly, now"--her voice had softened and dropped to a lower key--"would it make any difference?"

"Certainly!"

"How much difference?"

"I'm in a very embarra.s.sing position," he said, slowly. "You must realize that with others depending on me I'm not free to follow my own inclinations."

She uttered a little, mocking laugh. "Pardon me. It was not a fair question, and I shouldn't have asked it; but your hesitation was sufficient answer." Then, as he broke into a heated denial, she went on:

"Like most men, you think a woman has but one a.s.set upon which to trade.

However, if I felt responsible for your difficulties, that was my affair; and if I determined to help extricate you, that also concerned me alone."

He stepped forward as if to protest, but she silenced his speech with an imperious little stamp of her foot. "This spasm of righteousness on your part is only temporary--yes it is"--as he attempted to break in--"and now that you have voiced it and freed your mind, you can feel at rest. Have you not repeatedly a.s.serted that to win Miss Wayland you would use any means that offered? You are not really sincere in this sudden squeamishness, and I would like you better if you had seized your advantage at once, without stopping to consider whence or how it came.

That would have been primitive--elemental--and every woman loves an elemental lover."

He was no subtle casuist, and found himself without words to reply. The girl's sharp challenging of his motives had disconcerted him without helping him to a clearer understanding of his own mind, and in spite of the cheering turn his fortunes had taken it was in no very amiable mood that he left her at last, no whit the wiser for all his questioning. In the hotel lobby below he encountered the newspaper reporter who had fallen under Fraser's spell upon their first arrival from the North. The man greeted him eagerly.

"How d'y'do, Mr. Emerson. Can you give me any news about the fisheries?"

"No!"

"I thought there might be something new bearing on my story."

"Indeed! So you are the chap who wrote that article some time ago, eh?"

"Yes, sir. Good, wasn't it?"

"Doubtless, from the newspaper point of view. Where did you get it?"

"From Mr. Clyde."

"Clyde! You mean Fraser--Frobisher, I should say."

"No, sir. Alton Clyde! He was pretty talkative the night I saw him." The reporter laughed, meaningly.

"Drunk, do you mean?"

"Oh, not exactly drunk, but pretty wet. He knew what he was saying, however. Can't you give me something more?"

"Nothing." Boyd hurried to his hotel, a prey to mingled anger and contrition. So Fraser had told the truth, after all, and with a kind of sullen loyalty had chosen to remain under a cloud himself rather than inform on a friend. It was quite in keeping with the fellow's peculiar temperament. As it happened, Boyd found the two men together and lost no time in acquainting them with his discovery.

"I've come to apologize to you," he said to Fraser, who grinned broadly and was seized with a sudden abashment which stilled his tongue. Emerson turned to Clyde. "Why did you permit me to do this injustice?"