Chapter 26. A Locked Gate

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_ CHAPTER XXVI. A LOCKED GATE

Colin Whitford had been telling Clay the story of how a young cowpuncher had snatched Beatrice from under the hoofs of a charging steer. His daughter and the Arizonan listened without comment.

"I've always thought I'd like to explain to that young man I didn't mean to insult him by offering money for saving Bee. But you see he didn't give me any chance. I never did learn his name," concluded the mining man.

"And of course we'd like him to know that we appreciate what he did for me," Beatrice added. She looked at Clay, and a pulse beat in her soft throat.

"I reckon he knows that," Lindsay suggested. "You must 'a' thought him mighty rude for to break away like you say he did."

"We couldn't understand it till afterwards. Mr. Bromfield had slipped him a fifty-dollar bill and naturally he resented it." Miss Whitford's face bubbled with reminiscent mirth. She looked a question at Clay. "What do you suppose that impudent young scalawag did with the fifty?"

"Got drunk on it most likely."

"He fed it to his horse. Clary was furious."

"He would be," said the cattleman dryly, in spite of the best intentions to be generous to his successful rival. "But I reckon I know why yore grand-stand friend in chaps pulled such a play. In Arizona you can't square such things with money. So far as I can make out the puncher didn't do anything to write home about, but he didn't want pay for it anyhow."

"Of course, Bromfield doesn't understand the West," said Whitford. "I wouldn't like that young puncher half so well if he'd taken the money."

"He didn't need to spoil a perfectly good fifty-dollar bill, though," admitted Clay.

"Yes, he did," denied Beatrice. "That was his protest against Clarendon's misjudgment of him. I've always thought it perfectly splendid in its insolence. Some day I'm going to tell him so."

"It happened in your corner of Arizona, Lindsay. If you ever find out who the chap was I wish you'd let us know," Whitford said.

"I'll remember."

"If you young people are going riding--"

"--We'd better get started. Quite right, Dad. We're off. Clarendon will probably call up. Tell him I'll be in about four-thirty."

She pinched her father's ear, kissed him on one ruddy cheek, then on the other, and joined Clay at the door.

They were friends again, had been for almost half an hour, even though they had not yet been alone together, but their friendship was to hold reservations now. The shadow of Clarendon Bromfield rode between them. They were a little stiff with each other, not so casual as they had been. A consciousness of sex had obtruded into the old boyish _camaraderie_.

After a brisk canter they drew their horses together for a walk.

Beatrice broke the ice of their commonplaces. She looked directly at him, her cheeks flushing. "I don't know how you're going to forgive me, Clay. I've been awf'ly small and priggish. I hate to think I'm ungenerous, but that's just what I've been."

"Let's forget it," he said gently.

"No, I don't want to forget--not till I've told you how humble I feel to-day. I might have trusted you. Why didn't I? It would have been easy for me to have taken your little friend in and made things right for her. That's what I ought to have done. But, instead of that--Oh, I hate myself for the way I acted."

Her troubled smile, grave and sweet, touched him closely. It was in his horoscope that the spell of this young Diana must be upon him.

He put his hand on hers as it rested on the pommel of the saddle and gave it a slight pressure. "You're a good scout, li'l' pardner."

But it was Beatrice's way to step up to punishment and take what was coming. As a little girl, while still almost a baby, she had once walked up to her mother, eyes flashing with spirit, and pronounced judgment on herself. "I've tum to be spanked. I broke Claire's doll an' I'm glad of it, mean old fing. So there!" Now she was not going to let the subject drop until she had freed her soul.

"No, Clay, I've been a poor sportsman. When my friend needed me I failed him. It hurts me, because--oh, you know. When the test came I wasn't there. One hates to be a quitter."

Her humility distressed him, though he loved the spirit of her apology.

"It's all right, Bee. Don't you worry. All friends misunderstand each other, but the real ones clear things up."

She had not yet told him the whole truth and she meant to make clean confession.

"I've been a miserable little fool." She stopped with a little catch of the breath, flamed red, and plunged on. Her level eyes never flinched from his. "I've got to out with it, Clay. You won't misunderstand, I know. I was jealous. I wanted to keep your friendship to myself--didn't want to share it with another girl. That's how mean I am."

A warm smile lit his face. "I've sure enough found my friend again this mo'nin'."

Her smile met his. Then, lest barriers fall too fast between them, she put her horse to a gallop.

As they moved into the Park a snorting automobile leaped past them with muffler open. The horse upon which Beatrice rode was a young one. It gave instant signals of alarm, went sunfishing on its hind legs, came down to all fours, and bolted.

Beatrice kept her head. She put her weight on the reins with all the grip of her small, strong hands. But the horse had the bit in its teeth. She felt herself helpless, flying wildly down the road at incredible speed. Bushes and trees, the reeling road, a limousine, a mounted policeman, all flew by her with blurred detail.

She became aware of the rapid thud of hoofs behind, of a figure beside her riding knee to knee, of a brown hand taking hold of the rein close to the bit. The speed slackened. The horses pounded to a halt.

The girl found herself trembling. She leaned back in a haze of dizziness against an arm which circled her shoulder and waist. Memory leaped across the years to that other time when she had rested in his arms, his heart beating against hers. In that moment of deep understanding of herself, Beatrice knew the truth beyond any doubt. A new heaven and a new earth were waiting for her, but she could not enter them. For she herself had closed the gate and locked it fast.

His low voice soothed and comforted her.

"I'm all right," she told him.

Clay withdrew his arm. "I'd report that fellow if I had his number," he said. "You stick to yore saddle fine. You're one straight-up rider."

"I'll ask Mr. Bromfield to give you fifty dollars' again," she laughed nervously.

That word _again_ stuck in his consciousness.

"You've known me all along," he charged.

"Of course I've known you--knew you when you stood on the steps after you had tied the janitor."

"I knew you, too."

"Why didn't you say so?"

"Did you expect me to make that grand-stand play on the _parada_ a claim on yore kindness? I didn't do a thing for you that day any man wouldn't have done. I happened to be the lucky fellow that got the chance. That's all. Come to that, it was up to you to do the recognizing if any was done. I had it worked out that you didn't know me, but once or twice from things you said I almost thought you did."

"I meant to tell you sometime, but--well, I wanted to see how long you could keep from telling me. Now you've done it again."

"I'd like to ride with you the rest of yore life," he said unexpectedly.

They trembled on the edge of self-revelation. It was the girl who rescued them from the expression of their emotions.

"I'll speak to Clary about it. Maybe he'll take you on as a groom," she said with surface lightness.

As soon as they reached home Beatrice led the way into the library. Bromfield was sitting there with her father. They were talking over plans for the annual election of officers of the Bird Cage Mining Company. Whitford was the largest stockholder and Bromfield owned the next biggest block. They controlled it between them.

"Dad, Rob Roy bolted and Mr. Lindsay stopped him before I was thrown."

Whitford rose, the color ebbing from his cheeks. "I've always told you that brute was dangerous. I'll offer him for sale to-day."

"And I've discovered that we know the man who saved me from the wild steer in Arizona. It was Mr. Lindsay."

"Lindsay!" Whitford turned to him. "Is that right?"

"It's correct."

Colin Whitford, much moved, put a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Son, you know what I'd like to tell you. I reckon I can't say it right."

"We'll consider it said, Mr. Whitford," answered Clay with his quick, boyish smile. "No use in spillin' a lot of dictionary words."

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"It was nothin' to brag about."

Bromfield came to time with a thin word of thanks. "We're all greatly in your debt, Mr. Lindsay."

As the days passed the malicious jealousy of the New York clubman deepened to a steady hatred. A fellow of ill-controlled temper, his thin-skinned vanity writhed at the condition which confronted him. He was engaged to a girl who preferred another and a better man, one against whom he had an unalterable grudge. He recognized in the Westerner an eager energy, a clean-cut resilience, and an abounding vitality he would have given a great deal to possess. His own early manhood had been frittered away in futile dissipations and he resented bitterly the contrast between himself and Lindsay that must continually be present in the mind of the girl who had promised to marry him. He had many adventitious things to offer her--such advantages as modern civilization has made desirable to hothouse women--but he could not give the clean, splendid youth she craved. It was the price he had paid for many sybaritic pleasures he had been too soft to deny himself.

With only a little more than two weeks of freedom before her, Beatrice made the most of her days. For the first time in her life she became a creature of moods. The dominant ones were rebellion, recklessness, and repentance. While Bromfield waited and fumed she rode and tramped with Clay. It was not fair to her affianced lover. She knew that. But there were times when she wanted to shriek as dressmakers and costumers fussed over her and wore out her jangled nerves with multitudinous details. The same hysteria welled up in her occasionally at the luncheons and dinners that were being given in honor of her approaching marriage.

It was not logical, of course. She was moving toward the destiny she had chosen for herself. But there was an instinct in her, savage and primitive, to hurt Bromfield because she herself was suffering. In the privacy of her room she passed hours of tearful regret for these bursts of fierce insurrection.

Ten days before the wedding Beatrice wounded his vanity flagrantly. Clarendon was giving an informal tea for her at his rooms. Half an hour before the time set, Beatrice got him on the wire and explained that her car was stalled with engine trouble two miles from Yonkers.

"I'm awf'ly sorry, Clary," she pleaded. "We ought not to have come so far. Please tell our friends I've been delayed, and--I won't do it again."

Bromfield hung up the receiver in a cold fury. He restrained himself for the moment, made the necessary explanations, and went through with the tea somehow. But as soon as his guests were gone he gave himself up to his anger. He began planning a revenge on the man who no doubt was laughing in his sleeve at him. He wanted the fellow exposed, discredited, and humiliated.

But how? Walking up and down his room like a caged panther, Bromfield remembered that Lindsay had other enemies in New York, powerful ones who would be eager to cooperate with him in bringing about the man's downfall. Was it possible for him to work with them under cover? If so, in what way?

Clarendon Bromfield was not a criminal, but a conventional member of society. It was not in his mind or in his character to plot the murder or mayhem of his rival. What he wanted was a public disgrace, one that would blare his name out to the newspapers as a law-breaker. He wanted to sicken Beatrice and her father of their strange infatuation for Lindsay.

A plan began to unfold itself to him. It was one which called for expert assistance. He looked up Jerry Durand, got him on the telephone, and made an appointment to meet him secretly. _

Read next: Chapter 27. "No Violence"

Read previous: Chapter 25. Johnnie Says He Is Much Obliged

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