Judith of Blue Lake Ranch Part 26

"You are rather--abrupt, aren't you?" said Judith coolly.

"Am I?" he asked gravely. "I don't know. It seems to me that I have been loitering, just loitering while----"

He didn't attempt to finish. He held Judith in his arms while for him the room was emptied of its gay throng, the music no longer pulsed; its beat was in the rhythm of their bodies, swaying as one.

The dance over, she was lost to him in the crowd of men who came eagerly to her. His eyes followed her wherever she went. A slow anger kindled in his heart that she should let other men talk with her, that she should suffer another man to take her in his arms.

A number of country dances followed. He stood by the door waiting a little before he went again to Judith. He saw Marcia across the room beckoning to him with her fan. There was nothing to do but to go to her. He frowned but went, still watching for Judith. Marcia wanted him to meet some of her friends. He shook hands with Hampton, was introduced to Rogers. Marcia explained that Mr. Lee was the gentleman who achieved perfect wonders in the education of his horses. She turned to introduce Farris, the artist. But Farris broke into Marcia's words with a sudden exclamation.

"Dave Lee!" he cried, as if he could not believe his eyes. "You!

Here!"

"h.e.l.lo, d.i.c.k," Lee answered quietly. "Yes, I'm here. I didn't know that you were the artist fellow Hampton had brought up with him."

Farris's hand went out swiftly to be gripped in Lee's. Marcia, mystified, looked from one to the other.

"You two know each other? Why, isn't that----"

She didn't know just what it was, so stopped, looking frankly as though she'd like to have one of them finish her sentence for her.

"But," muttered Farris, "I thought that you----"

"Never mind, d.i.c.k," said Lee quickly. And to Marcia's mystified expression: "You'll pardon us a moment, Miss Langworthy? I want to talk a little with Mr. Farris."

His hand on the artist's elbow, Bud Lee forced him gently away. The two disappeared into the little room off the library where Jose was placing a great bowl of punch on the table.

"_Que hay_, Bud," grinned Jose. "Your ol' nose smell the booze d.a.m.n'

queek, no?"

He set down his bowl and went out. Farris stared wonderingly at Lee.

"Bud, is it?" he grunted. "Breaker of horses; hired man at a dollar a day----?"

"Ninety dollars a month, d.i.c.k," Lee corrected g him, with a short laugh. "Give a fellow his true worth, old-timer."

Farris frowned.

"What devil's game is this!" he demanded sharply. "Isn't it enough that you should drop out of the world with never a word, but that you must show up now breaking horses and letting such chaps as Mrs.

Simpson's Black Spanish chum with you? Not a cursed word in five years, and I've lain awake nights wondering. When you went to smash----"

"When a Lee goes to smash," said Bud briefly, "he goes to smash.

That's all there is to it."

"But there was no sense, no use in your dropping out of sight that way----"

"There was," said Lee curtly, "or I shouldn't have done it. It wasn't just that I went broke; that was a result of my own incompetence in a bit of speculation and didn't worry me a great deal. But other things did. There were a couple of the fellows that I thought were friends of mine. I found out that they had knifed me; had helped pluck me to feather their own nests. It hurt, d.i.c.k; hurt like h.e.l.l. Losing the big ranch in the South was a jolt, I'll admit; seeing those fellows take it over and split it two ways between them, sort of knocked the props out from under me. I believed in them, you see. After that I just wanted to get away and sort of think things over."

"You went to Europe?"

"I did not. I don't know how that report got out, but if people chose to think I had gone to take a hand in the fighting over there, I saw no need to contradict a harmless rumor. I took a horse and beat it up into the coast mountains. I tell you, d.i.c.k, I wanted to think! And I found out before I was through thinking that I was sick of the old life, that I was sick of people, the sort of people you and I knew, that there was nothing in the world but horses that I cared the snap of my finger about, that the only life worth living--for me--was a life in the open. I drifted up this way. I've been living my own life in my own way for five years. I am happier at it than I used to be. That's all of the flat little story, d.i.c.k."

"You might have let me know, it seems to me," said Farris a bit stiffly.

"So I might," answered Lee thoughtfully. "I was going to in the first place. But you'll remember that you were off somewhere travelling when the bubble broke. When d.i.c.k Farris travels," and his grave smile came back to him, "let no mad letter think that it can track him down. Then I hit my stride in this sort of life; I grew away from the old news; the years pa.s.sed as years do after a man is twenty-five; and I just didn't write. But I didn't forget, d.i.c.kie, old man," he said warmly, and his hand rested on Farris's shoulder. "You can put it in that old black pipe of yours and smoke it, that I didn't forget. Some day I planned to hit town again, heeled you know, and remind you of auld lang syne."

"You are a fool, David Burrill Lee," said Farris with conviction.

"Look here: you can take a new start, pull yourself together, come back--where you belong."

But Lee shook his head.

"That's like the old d.i.c.k Farris I used to know," he said gently. "But this is where I belong, d.i.c.k. I don't want to start over, I don't want to come back to the sort of thing we knew. The only thing in the world I do want is right here. And I don't see that it would do any good for you to go stirring up any memories about the old Lee that was shot 'somewhere in France.'"

When Farris had to go and claim a dance, Lee watched him with eyes soft with affection. Then he, too, left the room and went back to the outer door, to his old spot, looking for Judith.

"The only thing I want is right here," he repeated softly.

He watched Farris join Marcia and Judith. He noted the eager excitement in Marcia's eyes, saw her turn impulsively to Farris. The artist shook his head and left them, ostensibly going in search of his partner. Marcia was speaking excitedly to Judith. Lee frowned.

Once more that night he held Judith in his arms. He meant to make amends for his brusque way with her before. But again the magic of her presence was like a glorious mist, shutting them in together, shutting all of the world out. They spoke little and the music had its will with them. Judith did not know that she sighed as the dance ended.

She seemed moving in a dream as Lee led her through the door. They were out in the courtyard, the stars s.h.i.+ning softly down on them. In the subdued light here he stood still, looking down into her pleasure-flushed face. Again the insistent tremor shot down his blood.

Here in this tender light she looked to him the masterpiece of G.o.d striving for the perfect in a woman's form. Her gown, gently stirred by the warm breeze, seemed a part of her, elusive, alive, feminine.

The milk-white of bare throat and shoulder and rounded arm, the rise and fall of her breast, the soft lure of her eyes, the tender smile upon her lips, drew him slowly closer, closer to her. She lifted her face a little, raising her eyes until they shone straight into his.

"Judith," he said very quietly, very gravely, making her wonder at the tone and the words to follow: "You have had your way with me to-night.

Do you understand all that means? And now--I am going to have my way with you!"

He caught her in his arms, crushed her to him, kissed her. Then he let her go and stood, stern-faced, watching her.

For a moment he thought that the hand at her side was rising to strike him full in the face. But he did not move.

Had such been Judith's intention, suddenly it changed.

"So," she cried softly, "this is the sort of fine gentleman into which a dress-suit has made Bud Lee, horse foreman! For so great an honor surely any woman would thank him!"

She made him a slow, graceful courtesy, and laughed at him. And so she left him, her laughter floating back, taunting him.

Lee watched her until she had gone from his sight. Then he turned and went down the knoll, into the night.

XIX

BUD LEE SEEKS CROOKED CHRIS QUINNION

Going down the knoll to the bunk-house, Bud Lee cursed himself at every stride. He cursed Carson when the cattle foreman, turning to follow him, addressed a merry remark to him concerning his "lady-killing clothes." The words reminded him of Judith's and he didn't cherish the remembrance. In the bunk-house Carson watched him curiously over his old pipe as Lee began ripping off his dress-suit.