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Page 45
"Derry, is it the right thing for young ladies to call on their
gentlemen friends over here?" she asked suddenly.
"Why--er--that depends, Mary Josephine. You mean--"
"Yes, I do, Derwent Conniston! She's pretty, and I don't blame you, but
I can't help feeling that I don't like it!"
His arm tightened about her until she gasped. The fragile softness of
her waist was a joy to him.
"Derry!" she remonstrated. "If you do that again, I'll break!"
"I couldn't help it," he pleaded. "I couldn't, dear. The way you said
it just made my arm close up tight. I'm glad you didn't like it. I can
love only one at a time, and I'm loving you, and I'm going on loving
you all my life."
"I wasn't jealous," she protested, blushing. "But she called twice on
the telephone and then came up. And she's pretty."
"I suppose you mean Miss Kirkstone?"
"Yes. She was frightfully anxious to see you, Derry."
"And what did you think of her, dear?"
She cast a swift look up into his face.
"Why, I like her. She's sweet and pretty, and I fell in love with her
hair. But something was troubling her this morning. I'm quite sure of
it, though she tried to keep it back."
"She was nervous, you mean, and pale, with sometimes a frightened look
in her eyes. Was that it?"
"You seem to know, Derry. I think it was all that."
He nodded. He saw his horizon aglow with the smile of fortune.
Everything was coming propitiously for him, even this unexpected visit
of Miriam Kirkstone. He did not trouble himself to speculate as to the
object of her visit, for he was grappling now with his own opportunity,
his chance to get away, to win out for himself in one last
master-stroke, and his mind was concentrated in that direction. The
time was ripe to tell these things to Mary Josephine. She must be
prepared.
On the flat table of the hill where Brady had built his bungalow were
scattered clumps of golden birch, and in the shelter of one of the
nearer clumps was a bench, to which Keith drew Mary Josephine.
Thereafter for many minutes he spoke his plans. Mary Josephine's cheeks
grew flushed. Her eyes shone with excitement and eagerness. She
thrilled to the story he told her of what they would do in those
wonderful mountains of gold and mystery, just they two alone. He made
her understand even more definitely that his safety and their mutual
happiness depended upon the secrecy of their final project, that in a
way they were conspirators and must act as such. They might start for
the west tonight or tomorrow, and she must get ready.
There he should have stopped. But with Mary Josephine's warm little
hand clinging to his and her beautiful eyes shining at him like liquid
stars, he felt within him an overwhelming faith and desire, and he went
on, making a clean breast of the situation that was giving them the
opportunity to get away. He felt no prick of conscience at thought of
Miriam Kirkstone's affairs. Her destiny must be, as he had told
McDowell, largely a matter of her own choosing. Besides, she had
McDowell to fight for her. And the big fat brother, too. So without
fear of its effect he told Mary Josephine of the mysterious liaison
between Miriam Kirkstone and Shan Tung, of McDowell's suspicions, of
his own beliefs, and how it was all working out for their own good.
Not until then did he begin to see the changing lights in her eyes. Not
until he had finished did he notice that most of that vivid flush of
joy had gone from her face and that she was looking at him in a
strained, tense way. He felt then the reaction. She was not looking at
the thing as he was looking at it. He had offered to her another
woman's tragedy as THEIR opportunity, and her own woman's heart had
responded in the way that has been woman's since the dawn of life. A
sense of shame which he fought and tried to crush took possession of
him. He was right. He must be right, for it was his life that was
hanging in the balance. Yet Mary Josephine could not know that.
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