第29章

That was two months ago. And so you have charge of this hotel! Ilike it so much. I mean the place itself. I fancy I could live here forever. It is so far away and restful. I am so sick of towns and cities, and people. And this little grove is so secluded. If one had merely a little cottage here, one might be so happy."What did she mean?--what did she expect?--what did she think of doing? She must be got rid of before Kelly's arrival, and yet he found himself wavering under her potent and yet scarcely exerted influence. The desperation of weakness is apt to be more brutal than the determination of strength. He remembered why he had come upstairs, and blurted out: "But you can't stay here. The rules are very stringent in regard to--to strangers like yourself. It will be known who you really are and what people say of you. Even your divorce will tell against you. It's all wrong, I know--but what can I do? I didn't make the rules. I am only a servant of the landlord, and must carry them out."She leaned back against the sofa and laughed silently. But she presently recovered herself, although with the same expression of fatigue. "Don't be alarmed, my poor Jim! If you mean your friend, Mr. Woodridge, I know him. It was he, himself, who suggested my coming here. And don't misunderstand him--nor me either. He's only a good friend of Sylvester's; they had some speculation together. He's coming here to see me after Louis arrives. He's waiting in San Francisco for his wife and daughter, who come on the same steamer. So you see you won't get into trouble on my account.

Don't look so scared, my dear boy."

"Does he know that you knew me?" said Reddy, with a white face.

"Perhaps. But then that was three months ago," returned the lady, smiling, "and you know how you have reformed since, and grown ever so much more steady and respectable.""Did he talk to you of me?" continued Reddy, still aghast.

"A little--complimentary of course. Don't look so frightened. Ididn't give you away."

Her laugh suddenly ceased, and her face changed into a more nervous activity as she rose and went toward the window. She had heard the sound of wheels outside--the coach had just arrived.

"There's Mr. Woodridge now," she said in a more animated voice.

"The steamer must be in. But I don't see Louis; do you?"She turned to where Reddy was standing, but he was gone.

The momentary animation of her face changed. She lifted her shoulders with a half gesture of scorn, but in the midst of it suddenly threw herself on the sofa, and buried her face in her hands.

A few moments elapsed with the bustle of arrival in the hall and passages. Then there was a hesitating step at her door. She quickly passed her handkerchief over her wet eyes and resumed her former look of weary acceptation. The door opened. But it was Mr.

Woodridge who entered. The rough shirt-sleeved ranchman had developed, during the last four months, into an equally blunt but soberly dressed proprietor. His keen energetic face, however, wore an expression of embarrassment and anxiety, with an added suggestion of a half humorous appreciation of it.

"I wouldn't have disturbed you, Mrs. Merrydew," he said, with a gentle bluntness, "if I hadn't wanted to ask your advice before Isaw Reddy. I'm keeping out of his way until I could see you. Ileft Nelly and her mother in 'Frisco. There's been some queer goings-on on the steamer coming home; Kelly has sprang a new game on her mother, and--and suthin' that looks as if there might be a new deal. However," here a sense that he was, perhaps, treating his statement too seriously, stopped him, and he smiled reassuringly, "that is as may be.""I don't know," he went on, "as I ever told you anything about my Kelly and Reddy,--partik'lerly about Kelly. She's a good girl, a square girl, but she's got some all-fired romantic ideas in her head. Mebbee it kem from her reading, mebbee it kem from her not knowing other girls, or seeing too much of a queer sort of men; but she got an interest in the bad ones, and thought it was her mission to reform them,--reform them by pure kindness, attentive little sisterly ways, and moral example. She first tried her hand on Reddy. When he first kem to us he was--well, he was a blazin'

ruin! She took him in hand, yanked him outer himself, put his foot on the bedrock, and made him what you see him now. Well--what happened; why, he got reg'larly soft on her; wanted to MARRY HER, and I agreed conditionally, of course, to keep him up to the mark.