The Last Straw Part 9

"Not just that, d.i.c.k. There's a sweetness about it, yes. As for morals: we didn't discuss them at all....

"This man said that he supposed some people thought it was smart to drink. That hit me rather on the head. We were, the smartest people in New York, weren't we?"

"Rot!"

"Perhaps. It interested me, though, when I'd gotten over the first shock. He said another thing that interested me; he said that I was the first _good_ white woman he'd ever seen smoke."

He laughed harshly.

"At least he did you the honor to think you good."

"Yes,"--still deliberately,--"and it was a novel sensation. It was the first time any man had ever appealed to the commonplace thing in me that we call womanhood. He wasn't preaching. It was a practical matter with him....

"I don't think you'd understand this man, d.i.c.k. He takes little things quite seriously and yet he appears to be laughing at the whole scheme all the time."

He put his gla.s.s down slowly.

"Do you mean that one of these roughnecks has been making love to you?"

"Oh, by no means. I don't think he even likes me and I want him to!

Why, this morning he was going away, was not even going to work for me, and I had to beg him to stay.

"d.i.c.k, you don't understand! This man is so different from you, from me, from all of us. Rough, yes, but I don't think he'd try to buy a woman. And if he should I'm sure he'd be most frank about it; he wouldn't hide behind words."

She looked hard at him and though she smiled her words stung him, but before he could break in she went on:

"When I sat here having him talk to me last night I had that dreadful inferior feeling again, felt as though I weren't up to the standard of good women that these roughnecks hold. I can't explain it to you because you wouldn't let yourself understand. I was furious for a time, but he was right, according to his way of thinking.

"That way is going to be my way,"--with growing firmness. "I'm playing a new game and I must play it according to the rules. I did more than make up my mind to leave the drinks and cigarettes alone. I resolved that I'd try to be worthy in every way of the respect I want these men to have for me!"

"Because this Westerner doesn't approve of the way you have lived?"

"Yes. He knows the rules of the new game."

"Jane, I'm going to stop this foolishness!" He advanced to her and caught her hands in his. "I love you, I love you! I'm not going to see you losing your head this way!"

She struggled to withdraw her hands.

"No, I'm going to hold you, going to keep you. I'm--" He drew her to him roughly, but she slipped from the clasp of his arm and backed across the room, her hands still imprisoned in his.

"d.i.c.k!"

It was not her cry which caused him to halt. It was a step outside the door and, standing there, her hands in his, he met the level, amused gaze of Tom Beck.

Jane turned from him and he let her go without attempt to restrain her further.

"Ma'am, the horses are here. Your foreman said to tell you."

His face lost a measure of its lightness as he stood hat in hand, looking from the man whose face was lined with pa.s.sion to the girl, flushed and a bit breathless.

"Very well.... And thank you. I'll be out soon."

He stood a moment irresolute, as though he thought his presence might be needed there. Then turned and walked away.

"Your help seems rather unceremonious," Hilton remarked.

"Thanks for that! What if he had seen more? d.i.c.k, are you beside yourself? You call this love?"

"It proves that it's love," he replied tensely. "You set me wild with your vagaries, Jane! You--" He checked himself and, with an obvious effort, smiled. Then went on with voice and manner under control: "You see, I am much in love with you and losing you for only a little while puts me a bit off my head.

"I have wanted you for four years and I'm jealous of the months, even the weeks. I'm sure, but that doesn't help much."

"Sure? Of what?"

"Of you."

"And why?"

"Because I know you. You confessed your weaknesses just a moment ago.

You know as well as I that you're without foundation, without background in this experience. Why, Jane, if you'd been capable of fighting your own battles, you'd have forced the issue long before it was necessary, but you are not. You need help, you need the faith of other people.

"Why, women like you weren't made to stand alone!"

"Flattering!"

"Yes, it is. You were made to be loved, to be protected, to have the men take the knocks for you, you and all your kind. You were born to lean and to make the lives of men worth while by leaning on them, never to attempt to go your own way. You have always done just this and you have admitted it, here, this afternoon.

"Your wild wants, your absurd desires.... Everyone has them. That is a rule of life: wanting to do the thing you are not fitted to do. You can no more be a business woman than I can fly; you can no more cut yourself away from your old environment and slip into this than one of your cowpunchers could fit into my life.

"Don't you see that you're risking disaster? In your old life you had a belief in yourself; in this you think you have, but you have not, your eyes will be opened and when you see that you have failed ... then you will be a failure, and nothing is so hopeless as that realization.

"You are weak, and I thank G.o.d for that weakness. You know that it is either this, or me. You are trying this, trying to refuse me, but you will come back to me just as surely as we stand together in this room.

You may come back without a shred of faith in yourself, but I have faith in you, in the old Jane, the one I know and love, and I can bring that back. The future won't be bad; it will be wholly good."

His words were very gentle, his manner most kindly, but beneath it was a scarcely detectable hardness, a deliberate, cold determination, and perhaps it was this which struck a fear into the girl's heart.

Weak? Surely, she was weak! Always had been weak, never had proved strength by act or decision until now. And she did not know ... she did not know....

"You are sure that I will come back?" she managed to say naturally enough. "What if I should fail? Might I not try somewhere else?"

"You might, if you were another sort. But you won't. And you will fail, in spite of all you can do, Jane."

She sensed clearly the harsh strength beneath his smooth manner; his p.r.o.nouncement had not been as an opinion; as a verdict, rather, and ominous in its a.s.surance.

He picked up his hat and gloves.

"I know; I know. It is of no use to argue with you. You must learn this lesson by experience. It is going to be bitter, but I will do all I can to make what waits beyond take away that taste, Jane.

"I am not going away. I'm going to stay in this little town. After four years of waiting and following I can well do that. Your world is there, Jane, yours for the asking. There are the things you wanted; there is the love you want if you only will see it."