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The Big-Town Round-Up, a fiction by William MacLeod Raine |
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Chapter 19. A Lady Wears A Ring |
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_ CHAPTER XIX. A LADY WEARS A RING Clarendon Bromfield got the shock of his life that evening. Beatrice proposed to him. It was at the Roberson dinner-dance, in the Palm Room, within sight but not within hearing of a dozen other guests. She camouflaged what she was doing with occasional smiles and ripples of laughter intended to deceive the others present, but her heart was pounding sixty miles an hour. Bromfield was not easily disconcerted. He prided himself on his aplomb. It was hard to get behind his cynical, decorous smile, the mask of a suave and worldly-wise Pharisee of the twentieth century. But for once he was amazed. The orchestra was playing a lively fox trot and he thought that perhaps he had not caught her meaning. "I beg your pardon." Miss Whitford laced her fingers round her knee and repeated. It was as though rose leaves had brushed the ivory of her cheeks and left a lovely stain there. Her eyes were hard and brilliant as diamonds. "I was wondering when you are going to ask me again to marry you." Since she had given a good deal of feminine diplomacy to the task of keeping him at a reasonable distance, Bromfield was naturally surprised. "That's certainly a leading question," he parried, "What are you up to, Bee? Are you spoofing me?" "I'm proposing to you," she explained, with a flirt of her hand and an engaging smile toward a man and a girl who had just come into the Palm Room. "I don't suppose I do it very well because I haven't had your experience. But I'm doing the best I can." The New Yorker was a supple diplomatist. If Beatrice had chosen this place and hour to become engaged to him, he had no objection in the world. The endearments that usually marked such an event could wait. But he was not quite sure of his ground. His lids narrowed a trifle. "Do you mean that you've changed your mind?" "Have you?" she asked quickly with a sidelong slant of eyes at him. "Do I act as though I had?" "You don't help a fellow out much, Clary," she complained with a laugh not born of mirth. "I'll never propose to you again." "I'm still very much at your service, Bee." "Does that mean you still think you want me?" "I don't think. I know it." "Quite sure?" "Quite sure." "Then you're on," she told him with a little nod. "Thank you, kind sir." Bromfield drew a deep breath. "By Jove, you're a good little sport, Bee. I think I'll get up and give three ringing cheers." "I'd like to see you do that," she mocked. "Of course you know I'm the happiest man in the world," he said with well-ordered composure. "You're not exactly what I'd call a rapturous lover, Clary. But I'm not either for that matter, so I dare say we'll hit it off very well." "I'm a good deal harder hit than I've ever let on, dear girl. And I'm going to make you very happy. That's a promise." Nevertheless he watched her warily behind a manner of graceful eagerness. There had been a suggestion almost of bitterness in her voice. A suspicious little thought was filtering through the back of his mind. "What the deuce has got into the girl? Has she been quarreling with that bounder from Arizona?" "I'm glad of that. I'll try to make you a good wife, even if--" She let the sentence die out unfinished. Beneath her fan their hands met for a moment. "May I tell everybody how happy I am?" "If you like," she agreed. "A short engagement," he ventured. "Yes," she nodded. "And take me away for a while. I'm tired of New York, I think." "I'll take you to a place where the paths are primrose-strewn and where nightingales sing," he promised rashly. She smiled incredulously, a wise old little smile that had no right on her young face. The report of the engagement spread at once. Bromfield took care of that. It ran like wildfire upstairs and down in the Whitford establishment. Naturally Johnnie, who was neither one of the servants nor a member of the family, was the last to hear of it. One day the word was carried to him, and a few hours later he read the confirmation of it on the hand of his young mistress. The Runt had the clairvoyance of love. He knew that Clay was not now happy, though the cattleman gave no visible sign of it except a certain quiet withdrawal into himself. He ate as well as usual. His talk was cheerful. He joked the puncher and made Kitty feel at home by teasing her. In the evenings he shooed out the pair of them to a moving-picture show and once or twice went along. But he had a habit of falling into reflection, his deep-set eyes fixed on some object he could not see. Johnnie worried about him. The evening of the day the Runt heard of the engagement he told his friend about it while Kitty was in the kitchen. "Miss Beatrice she's wearing a new ring," he said by way of breaking the news gently. Clay turned his head slowly and looked at Johnnie. He waited without speaking. "I heerd it to-day from one of the help. Then I seen it on her finger," the little man went on reluctantly. "Bromfield?" asked Clay. "Yep. That's the story." "The ring was on the left hand?" "Yep." Clay made no comment. His friend knew enough to say no more to him. Presently the cattleman went out. It was in the small hours of the morning when he returned. He had been tramping the streets to get the fever out of his blood. But Johnnie discussed with Kitty at length this new development, just as he had discussed with her the fact that Clay no longer went to see the Whitfords. Kitty made a shrewd guess at the cause of division. She had already long since drawn from the cowpuncher the story of how Miss Beatrice had rejected his proposal that she take an interest in her. "They must 'a' quarreled--likely about me being here. I'm sorry you told her." "I don't reckon that's it." Johnnie scratched his head to facilitate the process of thinking. He wanted to remain loyal to all of his three friends. "Miss Beatrice she's got too good judgment for that." "I ought to go away. I'm only bringing Mr. Lindsay trouble. If he just could hear from his friends in Arizona about that place he's trying to get me, I'd go right off." He looked at her wistfully. The bow-legged range-rider was in no hurry to have her go. She was the first girl who had ever looked twice at him, the first one he had ever taken out or talked nonsense with or been ordered about by in the possessive fashion used by the modern young woman. Hence he was head over heels in love. Kitty had begun to bloom again. Her cheeks were taking on their old rounded contour and occasionally dimples of delight flashed into them. She was a young person who lived in the present. Already the marks of her six-weeks misery among the submerged derelicts of the city was beginning to be wiped from her mind like the memory of a bad dream from which she had awakened. Love was a craving of her happy, sensuous nature. She wanted to live in the sun, among smiles and laughter. She was like a kitten in her desire to be petted, made much of, and admired. Almost anybody who liked her could win a place in her affection. Johnnie's case was not so hopeless as he imagined it. _ |
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