She was frankly amused at his bewilderment.
"Well," she said with a smile, "you don't seem very pleased to see me."
"I—it's rather sudden. I wasn't exactly certain it was you." He took her hand mechanically. "What on earth are you doing out here?"
"I've come to see you—traveled two thousand miles to tell you I'm sorry."
Jeff brought forth a chair.
"Sorry? What for? Oh, yes, we quarreled, didn't we? I remember. It was my fault. But I don't understand yet. Are you on your way to the coast?"
"What coast? Oh, no," coolly; "I rather thought I'd reached my destination, but perhaps I'm mistaken."
Jeff was still regarding her curiously, as if he couldn't be quite sure he was not dreaming. He pulled out his swivel chair and sat in it, facing her.
"Now tell me what this means," he insisted rather sternly.
"I've told you. I want to convey the impression of begging your pardon. Don't I do it? I've tried so hard. Ugh! Such unspeakable sleeping-cars last night! Such a silly little train this morning from the place with the unpronounceable name. I had no idea that friendship could be such a martyrdom!" She sighed. "I think I really deserve something after this."
He found that he was smiling in spite of himself. "You do, I'm sure," he said after a pause. "But I don't bear you any grudge. I expected too much of you, I guess. I've forgotten that long ago. I'm glad to see you."
"Really?" she drawled. "You convey just the opposite idea. You ought to be glad, you know. I've never been so tired in my life. That train! Oh, Jeff, whatever possessed you to live in such an outlandish place?"
"This is where I belong. If Mesa City is outlandish, then I'm outlandish, too."
"Love me, love my dog," she laughed. "I'd have to love you a lot. Perhaps it will improve on acquaintance." She crossed her feet and settled more comfortably in her chair, while Jeff watched her shrewdly.
"You can't mean you want to stay here?" he asked.
"I don't know. That depends on you. I've told you the sentimental side of my journey. Actually I'm a practical young female, with a prudent eye for an investment." And when her companion smiled, "Are you laughing because you think I'm not practical—or because you think I'm not prudent?"
"I'd hardly call you either. In fact, I don't know what to think. You don't seem to belong, somehow."
"Why not? Once you said I spoke out like Mesa City."
"But you don't look like Mesa City."
"Horrors!" preening her hair, "I hope not."
Jeff leaned back in his chair with folded arms and examined her—his eyes narrowing critically. She had given two explanations of her presence, neither of which in itself seemed sufficient. The real explanation, he was forced to admit, lay in the presence itself. She bore his scrutiny calmly, examining him with frank interest.
"What is it you don't understand?" she asked him, answering the question in his eyes with another. "Me? Oh, you'll have to give it up. There isn't any answer. I'm something between a sibyl and a sphinx. You thought you'd guessed me in New York, but you hadn't, you see. I'm neither what you thought I was, nor what you thought I ought to be. I'm the spirit of Self-Will. I do as I choose. I thought I'd like to see you, and so I came—Voilà."
"I don't know what you can expect here. The accommodations at the hotel——"
"Oh, I can stand anything now—after your trains——"
"You'll be bored to death."
"I'm always bored to death. But, then, this place may have the charm of boring me in an entirely new way. After all," she sighed, "I might as well be bored here as at home."
Wray got up without speaking and walked to the window which overlooked the plains. He stood here a moment, his hands behind his back, the look of perplexity deepening on his face. Somehow Rita Cheyne didn't seem accessory to the rather grim background of his thoughts. For days he had been acting the leading part in what now promised to be a tragedy. Rita belonged to satirical comedy or, at the best, to the polite melodrama. Something of this she suddenly read in his attitude, wondering why she had not discerned it before. She got up and went over to him.
"What is it, Jeff? You're changed somehow out here. You seem older, bigger, browner, more thoughtful."
"This is where I work, Rita," he said with a slow smile. "In New York we Westerners only play. I am older—yes, more thoughtful, too. I've had a good deal to worry me——"
"Yes, I know. I think Cortland Bent has been behaving very badly."
Jeff made a quick gesture of protest.
"I didn't mean that," he said abruptly. "My worries are business worries."
"Oh! I intruded."
"Yes, you did. But I'm glad of it now. I'm going to Hell about as fast as a man can, but I might as well do it comfortably."
"What do you mean?" she asked in alarm.
"Your relatives, the Bents. They've got me in a corner."
"Yes, I heard. What will be the end of it?"
Jeff ran a finger around his throat with a significant gesture.
"Won't you tell me about it?"
"It wouldn't interest you. It's a long story. They have more money than I have. That's the amount of it."
"I thought you were so wealthy."
"I am. But I can't go up against the whole of Wall Street. They've cost me a lot. If I won this fight I'd be the richest man west of the Missouri River. It isn't over yet." He paced the room violently, beginning to rant, as he still did when to talked of himself. "No, by G—d! not yet. They've got to come to me in the end. They can't get my mine." He went over to his desk and took out a piece of ore. "See that, Rita; that came out of 'Lone Tree' only yesterday. They may get a control of the Denver and Saguache and even of the Development Company, but they can't get the 'Lone Tree.' I reckon I won't starve."
"But how can they get the Development Company?"
"The banks have called my loans—oh, you can't understand. If I don't meet them, the stock will be sold. Bent's crowd will buy it."
"Of course I don't know much about these things, but I was wondering—how much stock is there?"
"Two million and a half. I've borrowed eight hundred thousand dollars."
She looked down, turning the ferrule of her umbrella on the toe of her boot.
"Suppose some one else bought it?"
"I hadn't thought of that. Who?"
"Me."
Jeff started forward in his chair, his eyes blazing—then he took a step or two away from her.
"You?"
She nodded pertly. He turned and looked at her over his shoulder. Then, with a warm impulse, he seized both of her hands in his and held them tightly in his own.
"That's white of you, Rita. You're the real thing. I'll swear you are—the Real Thing—you've got sand, too, a lot of it, and I like you for it. It's worth while getting in a hole to find out who your friends are. I won't forget this soon."
She disengaged her hands.
"Thanks," she said calmly. "Do you agree?"
"Agree? To what?"
"To let me buy that stock?"
He straightened and turned to his desk, uncertainly fingering some papers there. He was silent so long that she repeated the question.
"No," he said at last.
"Why do you say that?"
"I don't want you to."
"I don't understand. In New York you were willing to have me in with you. Why do you object now? Any security your banks will take ought to be good enough for me. Any security my cousin Cornelius Bent wants to buy ought to be worth having."
"It is—to him."
"Then why not to me?—it's all in the family."
He looked at her blankly a moment and then laughed and shook his head.
"No—there's too much risk."
"I expected to risk something."
He sat down in his chair before her and put his hands over hers.
"See here, Rita. You'll have to let me think this thing out and take my own time. I never put my friends into anything I don't believe in myself. If you're looking for an investment here I'll find you something. I know a dozen good things."
"You can't prevent my getting that stock if I want it," she broke in.
"The Amalgamated can."
"I'll go to the General and tell him I insist on having it. He's a little afraid of me."
He laughed. "He ought to be. I am, too." Jeff rose and took up his hat and Rita Cheyne's traveling bag. "There's one thing sure: I'm not going to talk about this any more—not now. You're tired. I've got to get you fixed up somehow. You know I started building a place up in the cañon, but it's not finished yet. Mrs. Brennan is away. There's nothing for it but a hotel, I guess."
"Oh, I don't care. I'm not going to be discouraged. I warn you I always have my own way—in the end—in all things."
He chose to disregard the significance of the remark and showed her out. On their way up the street the spirit moved him to apologize again.
"There's a bathroom at the Kinney House. I'd better take you there. It's pretty well kept. Camilla stayed there once. I wish she was here."
"You do?" quizzically.
"Why—yes."
"Then why don't you have her here?" she asked suddenly.
A shade passed over Jeff's face. "We went East for the winter," he said slowly. "I had to come back here. My wife likes it in New York. It—it wasn't advisable for her to come."
"Thanks, I knew that before," she said slowly. Further conversation was interrupted by their arrival at the Kinney House, a frame structure at the upper end of Main Street, where it stood in lonely dignity, quite dwarfing its nearest neighbors, which clambered part of the way up the slope and then paused—as though in sudden diffidence before the majesty of its three-storied preëminence. It wore at this time a coat of yellow paint of a somewhat bilious hue, but its cornices, moldings, and the rather coquettish ornaments about the "Ladies Entrance" were painted white. The letters C-A-F-E (without the accent), painted ostentatiously upon a window, gave a touch of modernity, and the words "Ladies' Parlor" advised the wearied traveler that here was to be found a haven for the females of refined and retiring dispositions. The sound of a piano was heard from that chaste apartment as Mrs. Cheyne registered her long angular signature beneath that of "Pat O'Connell, Santa Fe"; and the strains of "The Maiden's Prayer" came forth, followed presently by the "Carnival of Venice." Mrs. Cheyne smiled her tolerance.
"Do you want a room by the day, week or month, ma'am?" asked the clerk.
"I'm a little uncertain," she said; "I may be here only for a day or two or I may be here"—and she glanced at Jeff—"for a month—or even longer."
"Mrs. Cheyne is looking into some mining properties," said Jeff with an amused air. But when his companion followed the clerk up the stairway, jangling a key with a huge brass tag, Jeff departed thoughtfully. So far as he could see, Mrs. Cheyne had come to Mesa City with the express intention of playing the devil. The magnificence of her financial offer, while it dazzled, had not blinded him. But he was truly bewildered by her audacity, disarmed by the recklessness of her amiability. She always got what she wanted in the end, she said. What was it she wanted? Himself? He couldn't help thinking so, but it made him feel like a fool. In the East she had led him or as she led other men on, for the mere joy of the game, and he had followed her cautiously, aware of his own insufficiency but delighting in the opportunities her society afforded him to even his accounts with Camilla. Both had called their relation friendship for want of a better word, but Jeff knew that friendship had another flavor. The night when he had last visited her he had played his cards and had called that bluff. But to-day he realized that she had seen his raise and had now removed the limit from the game. From now on it was to be for table stakes, with Rita Cheyne dealing the cards.
And what did her amazing financial proposition mean? Could it be genuine? He knew that she was very wealthy—wealthy in the New York way—but it was not in his experience that sentiment and finance had anything in common. If her offers were genuine, her confidence in his financial integrity and in him was extraordinary. If they were not, her confidence in herself was likewise extraordinary.
Jeff smiled to himself a little uneasily. What would Mesa City be saying about the unexplained arrival of a captivating female from New York who sought him out at his office and whose claims upon his society (unless he fled) could not be denied. There was no chance for him to flee, even if he wished, the condition of his business requiring his presence here for at least a few days, and the trunk check in his hand reminded him that he had promised Rita Cheyne her trunk immediately, so that she might ride with him that very afternoon. What was to be done? Her ingenuity had always surprised him, and her resources were of infinite variety. To tell the truth, he was afraid of her, and was willing for the first time to acknowledge it frankly to himself. She interested him—had always interested him—but it seemed to be more the interest of curiosity than that of any real affiliation. To be with Rita Cheyne was like going to a three-ring circus, where one is apt to lose sight of the refined performance on the stage just in front in bewilderment over the acrobatic feats of the lady in spangles at one side. What was her real reason for coming West to Mesa City? He gave it up and turned in at the office, gave the trunk check to a clerk, and in a moment had taken up his business at the point where Mrs. Cheyne had interrupted him.
Eight hundred thousand dollars! If the Amalgamated took up that stock, General Bent's crowd would have control of the Development Company and the Denver and Saguache Railroad Company. If Rita Cheyne's offers were genuine—if he chose to use her money to redeem that stock—he could place himself on some kind of financial footing, could entrench himself for a long battle over the railroad connections, which he might eventually win. There was a chance. He did not dare to call in Mulrennan to talk the matter over. Pete had been catching at straws for a week, and Jeff knew what his advice would be. His superstitious mind would look on Mrs. Cheyne's visit as a direct interposition of Providence, as a message and an injunction. Jeff began to think himself mad not to have accepted her proposition at once. It dangled before him temptingly—but he let it hang there like ripe fruit upon the vine, hesitating to reach forth and seize. He could not believe it was real. It was "too aisy," as Pete would have said. Was he losing his nerve? Was it that the last victories of his enemies had sapped some of his old assurance, or had he suddenly developed a conscience? He put his head in his hands and tried to think. If he won his fight he could double Rita Cheyne's money in a year. If he lost—and he had to think of that more and more each day—the stock might not be worth the paper it was written on. Rita knew all this, but she still believed in him—more even than he believed in himself. Women were funny. He couldn't understand, unless she had some motive which had not been revealed to him. There would be a string of some sort to that extraordinary proposition.
He got up at last and sent a message to the Home Ranch, ordering two horses to be sent to his office at three o'clock.