The Wild Olive Part 14

By dint of vigil and meditation he drew the conclusion that his inner hesitancy sprang from the fact that he was not being honest with himself.

He was s.h.i.+rking knowledge that he ought to face. Up to the present he had done his duty in that respect, and done it pluckily. He had not balked at the statement that his role in the world was that of an impostor--though an impostor of the world's own creation. It had been part of the task forced upon him "to deceive men under their very noses," as he had expressed it to himself that night on Lake Champlain. Whatever vengeance, therefore, discovery might call upon him, he could suffer nothing in the loss of self-respect. He would be always supported by his inner approval.

Remorse would be as alien to him as to Prometheus on the rock.

In the present situation he was less sure of that, and there he put his finger on his weakness. Seeing shadows flitting in the background he dodged them, instead of calling them out into daylight. He was counting on happy chances in dealing with the unforeseen, when all his moves should be based on the precise information of a general.

Therefore, when, in the corner of the patio, the next opportunity arose for asking the question, "Who is Miriam?" he brought it out boldly.

"She's a darling." The unexpected reply was accompanied by a sudden lifting of the lashes for a rapturous look and one of the flas.h.i.+ng smiles.

"That's high praise--from you."

"She deserves it--from any one!"

"Why? What for? What has she done to win your enthusiasm when other people find it so hard?"

"It isn't so hard--only some people go the wrong way to work about it, do you see?"

She leaned back in her wicker chair, fanning herself slowly, and smiling at him with that air of mingled innocence and provocation which he found the most captivating of her charms.

"Do I?" he was tempted to ask.

"Do you? Now, let me think. Really, I never noticed. You'd have to begin all over again--if you ever did begin--before I could venture an opinion."

This was pretty, but it was not keeping to the point.

"Evidently Miriam knows how to do it, and when I see her I shall ask her."

"I wish you _could_ see her. You'd adore her. She'd be just your style."

"What makes you think that? Is she so beautiful? What is she like?"

"Oh, I couldn't tell you what she's like. You'd have to see her for yourself. No, I don't think I should call her beautiful, though some people do. She's awfully attractive anyhow."

"Attractive? In what way?"

"Oh, in a lot of ways. She isn't like anybody else. She's in a cla.s.s by herself. In fact, she has to be, poor thing."

"Why should she be poor thing, with so much to her credit in the way of a.s.sets?"

"Do you see?--that's something I can't tell you. There's a sort of mystery about her. I'm not sure that I understand it very well myself. I only know that dear mamma didn't feel that she could take her out, in New York, except among our very most intimate friends, where it didn't matter. And yet when Lady Bonchurch took her to Was.h.i.+ngton she got a lot of offers--I know that for a fact--and in England, too."

"I seem to be getting deeper in," Strange smiled, with the necessary air of speaking carelessly. "Who is Lady Bonchurch?"

"Don't you know? Why, I thought you knew everything. She was the wife of the British Amba.s.sador. They took a house at Greenport that year because they were afraid about Lord Bonchurch's lungs. It didn't do any good, though. He had to give up his post the next winter, and not long after that he died. I don't think air is much good for people's lungs, do you? I know it wasn't any help to dear mamma. We had all those tedious years at Greenport, and in the end--but that's how we came to know Lady Bonchurch, and she took a great fancy to Miriam. She said it was a shame a girl like that shouldn't have a chance, and so it was. Mamma thought she interfered and I suppose she did. Still, you can't blame her much, when she had no children of her own, can you?"

"I shouldn't want to blame her if she gave Miriam her chance."

"That's what I've always said. And if Miriam had only wanted to, she could have been--well, almost anybody. She had offers and offers in Was.h.i.+ngton, and in England there was a Sir Somebody-or-other who asked her two or three times over. He married an actress in the end--and dear mamma thought Miriam must be crazy not to have taken him while he was to be had. Dear mamma said it would have been such a good thing for me to have some one like Miriam--who was under obligations to us, do you see?--in a good social position abroad."

"But Miriam didn't see it in that way?"

"She didn't see it in any way. She's terribly exasperating in some respects, although she's such a dear. Poor mamma used to be very tried about her--and she so ill--and my stepfather going blind--and everything.

If Miriam had only been in a good social position abroad it would have been a place for me to go--instead of having no home--like this."

There was something so touching in her manner that he found it difficult not to offer her a home there and then; but the shadows were marching out into daylight, and he must watch the procession to the end.

"It seems to have been very inconsiderate of Miriam," he said. "But why do you suppose she acted so?"

"Dear mamma thought she was in love with some one--some one we didn't know anything about--but I never believed that. In the first place, she didn't know any one we didn't know anything about--not before she went to Was.h.i.+ngton with Lady Bonchurch. And besides, she couldn't be in love with any one without my knowing it, now could she?"

"I suppose not; unless she made up her mind she wouldn't tell you."

"Oh, I shouldn't want her to tell me. I should see it for myself. She wouldn't tell me, in any case--not till things had gone so far that--but I never noticed the least sign of it, do you see? and I've a pretty sharp eye for that sort of thing at all times. There was just one thing. Dear mamma used to say that for a while she used to do a good deal of moping in a little studio she had, up in the hills near our house--but you couldn't tell anything from that. I've gone and moped there myself when I've felt I wanted a good cry--and I wasn't in love with any one."

There was a long silence, during which he sat grave, motionless, reflecting. Now and then he placed his extinguished cigarette to his lips, with the mechanical motion of a man forgetful of time and place and circ.u.mstance.

"Well, what are you thinking about?" she inquired, when the pause had lasted long enough. He seemed to wake with a start.

"Oh--I--I don't know. I rather fancy I was thinking about--about this Miss--after all, you haven't given me any name but Miriam."

"Strange, her name is. The same as yours."

"Oh? You've never told me that."

"Aunt Queenie has, though. But you always seem to shuffle so when it's mentioned that I've let it alone. I don't blame you, either; for if there's one thing more tedious than another, it's having people for ever fussing about your name. There was a girl at our school whose name was Fidgett--Jessie Fidgett--a nice, quiet girl, as placid as a church--but I do a.s.sure you, it got to be so tiresome--well, you know how it would be--and so I decided I wouldn't say anything about Miriam's name to you, nor about yours to her. Goodness knows, there must be lots of Stranges in the world--just as much as Jarrotts."

"So that--after all--her name was Miriam Strange."

"It was, and is, and always will be--if she goes on like this," Miss Colfax rejoined, not noticing that he had spoken half-musingly to himself.

"She was a ward of my step-father's till she came of age," she added, in an explanatory tone. "She's a sort of Canadian--or half a Canadian--or something--I never could quite make out what. Anyhow, she's a dear. She's gone now with my stepfather to Wiesbaden, about his eyes--and you can't think what a relief to me it is. If she hadn't, I might have had to go myself--and at my age--with all I've got to think about--and my coming out--Well, you can see how it would be."

She lifted such sweet blue eyes upon him that he would have seen anything she wanted him to see, if he had not been determined to push his inquiries until there was nothing left for him to learn.

"Were you fond of him?--your stepfather?"

"Of course--in a way. But everything was so unfortunate I know dear mamma thought she was acting for the best when she married him; and if he hadn't begun to go blind almost immediately--But he was very kind to mamma, when she had to go to the Adirondacks for her health. That was very soon after she returned to New York from here--when papa died. But she was so lonely in the Adirondacks--and he was a judge--a Mr. Wayne--with a good position--and naturally she never dreamed he had anything the matter with his eyes--it isn't the sort of thing you'd ever think of asking about beforehand--and so it all happened that way, do you see?"

He did see. He could have wished not to see so clearly. He saw with a light that dazzled him. Any step would be hazardous now, except one in retreat; though he was careful to explain to himself that night that it was retreat for reconnoitre, and not for running away. The mere fact that the Wild Olive had taken on personality, with a place of some sort in the world, brought her near to him again; while the knowledge that he bore her name--possibly her father's name--seemed to make him the creation of her magic to an even greater degree than he had felt hitherto. He could perceive, too, that by living out the suggestions she had made to him in the cabin--the Argentine--Stephens and Jarrott--"the very good firm to work for"--he had never got beyond her influence, no more than the oak-tree gets beyond the acorn that has been its seed. The perception of these things would have been enough to puzzle a mind not easily at home in the complex, even if the reintroduction of Judge Wayne had not confused him further.

It was not astonis.h.i.+ng, therefore, that he was seized with a sudden longing to get away--a longing for s.p.a.ce and solitude, for the pampas and the rivers, and, above all, for work. In the free air his spirit would throw off its oppression of discomfort, while in a daily routine of occupation he often found that difficulties solved themselves.

"If you think that this business of Kent's can get along without me now,"

he said to Mr. Jarrott, in the private office, next morning, "perhaps I had better be getting back to Rosario."

Not a muscle moved in the old man's long, wooden face, but the gray-blue eyes threw Strange a curious look.

"Do you want to go?" he asked, after a slight pause.

Strange smiled, with an embarra.s.sment that did not escape observation.