30

The same afternoon, while Dick was out and away with Graham, Paula went to Dick’s quarters. Her photograph, the only picture on the porch, held her attention. It hung under his barometers and thermometers.

At last she came to his books—a row of pamphlets, bound magazine articles, and ambitious tomes. She read the titles: “Corn in California,” “Farm Organization,” “Farm Bookkeeping,” “Humus Destruction,” “Cover Crops for California.”

She caressed the backs of the books with her palm, and pressed her cheek against them and leaned with closed eyes. Oh, Dick, Dick!

The desk was so typically Dick. There was no litter. Carelessly she ran her eyes over the telegrams and read a reference that puzzled and interested her. Jeremy Braxton was dead—big, genial, kindly Jeremy Braxton. A mob of peons had killed him in the mountains. The date of the telegram was two days old. Dick had known it for two days and never worried her with it. And it meant more. It meant money. It meant that the affairs of the Harvest Group were going from bad to worse.

And Jeremy was dead. She shivered. It was life—death always at the end of the road. Doom lay ahead. Doom for whom? She did not attempt to guess.

31

It was the hour before dinner. Paula continued to think about the situation. Dick was not suffering so much after all. He was the cool-head, the philosopher. He will take her loss with the same equanimity as he had taken the death of Jeremy Braxton. It was difficult, she smiled to herself, to be married to a philosopher. Graham’s charm for her was his humanness. Dick was wonderful, with his gift of speech and lover’s phrases, with his love-chants that delighted her. But somehow it was different from what she felt for Graham and what Graham must’ve felt for her. And so she hardened toward Dick, and flamed toward Graham.

Dick was leaning against a pillar and watching the dancing couples outside. Paula danced with Evan. At one point, they passed so close that Dick could touch them. But, though the moon shone full on him, they did not see him. They saw only each other.

Graham and Paula paused, and he was for giving her his arm and leading her inside, but she clung to him in sudden impulse. He slightly resisted for a moment, but with one arm around his neck she drew his head willingly down to the kiss. It was a flash of quick passion. The next instant, they were passing in and Paula’s laugh was ringing merrily and naturally.

Dick clutched at the pillar and sat flat on the pavement. He panted for air. He felt chilled, and was aware that he was wet with sudden sweat. His hand was shaking.

It was not Graham who had kissed Paula. It was Paula who had kissed Graham. That was love, and passion. He had seen it. With a sharp effort of will he controlled himself and got to his feet.

He entered the house, and was unprepared for the reception he received.

“Have you seen a ghost?” “Are you sick?” “What’s the matter?” were the questions.

“What is the matter?” he countered.

“Your face—the look of it,” Ernestine said. “Something has happened. What is it?”

“Yes,” he lied. “Bad news. I have just got the news. Jeremy Braxton is dead. Murdered. In the mountains.”

“Old Jeremy, God love him for the fine man he was,” Terrence said.

“I’m all right,” Dick smiled. “It hit me hard for the moment. They got him, and two engineers with him. But this won’t stop the fun. I’ll be back soon.”

Terrence opened the concealed buffet at the far end of the room, while Dick turned on a wall light and studied his face in the small mirror inside the buffet door.

“It’s all right now, quite natural,” he announced.

Paula was disturbed. What had happened? Why had Dick lied? He had known of Jeremy’s death for two days.

He came back. The guests demanded a song. Dick began to sing:

“I am Dick Forrest. I am the last of the Forrests. I carry the peanuts on a knife, a silver knife. I carry the peanuts with grace and celerity and in quantity. The peanuts roll. The peanuts roll. I never let them fall. Not every one can carry peanuts. I am God-gifted. I am master of the art. It is a fine art. The peanuts roll, the peanuts roll, and I carry them on forever. Aaron is a philosopher. He cannot carry peanuts. Ernestine is a blonde. She cannot carry peanuts. Evan is a sportsman. He drops peanuts. Paula is my partner. She fumbles peanuts. Only I, I, by the grace of God and my own cleverness, carry peanuts.”

Ernestine took his arm.

“Dick,” she said, “you are in trouble. What can I do? You know you can depend on me. Tell me. You won’t talk with me?”

“Yes, I’ll tell you,” he answered. “Just one thing.”

She pressed his arm gratefully.

“Good night, dear, it’s late.”

He kissed her, went on his way.

32

He did not immediately go to his own quarters. Instead, he wandered through the silent rooms, across the patios, and along the dim-lit halls. He sat in an austere Roman seat of marble and made his plans.

Oh, he will do it nicely enough. A hunting accident that will fool the world. Grandfather Jonathan Forrest had died of a hunting accident. Well, if it wasn’t an accident, the old fellow did it well.

Dick turned off the lights, and delayed a moment for a last look at the marble figures that played in the fountain and among the roses.

He looked across the big patio to Paula’s porch. There was no light.

On the edge of the bed, he found himself with one shoe unlaced. What need was there for him to sleep? It was already four in the morning. He brought a copy of his will from the wall-safe to his desk and read it carefully.

At six-thirty the telephone rang. Business. When Dick had shaved, he looked at the shower, hesitated a moment, then his face set stubbornly. A sheer waste of time, was his thought. He was at his desk again, looking over the notes in his scribble pads for the morning’s work, when Paula entered. She did not call her “Good morning, merry gentleman”; but came quite close to him before she greeted him softly with:

“The Acorn-planter. Wake up, Red Cloud.”

He noted the violet-blue shadows under her eyes, as he arose.

“A white night?” he asked, as he placed a chair.

“A white night,” she answered wearily. “Not a second’s sleep, though I tried so hard.”

Both were reluctant of speech, and they tried to draw their eyes away from each other.

“You … you don’t look very well,” she said.

“Yes, my face,” he nodded. “I was looking at it while I shaved. That expression!”

“Something happened to you last night,” she said. “Everybody remarked your expression. What was it?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“You’ve noticed it?” he inquired casually.

She nodded.

“Dick, have you fallen in love?”

It was a way out. And hope was in her voice and in her face.

He smiled, shook his head slowly, and watched her disappointment.

“Well,” he said. “I have fallen in love.”

But she was not prepared for what came next. He abruptly drew his chair close, till his knees touched hers, and, leaning forward, quickly but gently took her hands.

“Don’t be afraid, my little bird-woman,” he quieted her. “I shall not kiss you. I want to tell you about that. But first I want to tell you how proud I am—proud of myself. I am proud that I am a lover. At my age, a lover! It is unbelievable, and it is wonderful. And such a lover! Such a curious, unusual, and remarkable lover. I am a monogamist. I love the woman, the one woman. After a dozen years of possession I love her quite madly, oh, so sweetly madly.”

Her hands made a slight, impulsive flutter to escape; but he held them more firmly.

“I know her every weakness, and, weakness and strength and all, I love her as madly as I loved her at the first, in those mad moments when I first held her in my arms.”

There was fear in her eyes.

“And please, please be not frightened, my timid, sweet, beautiful, proud, little bird-woman. See. I release you. Know that I love you most dearly.”

He drew his chair away from her, leaned back, and saw confidence in her eyes.

“This love for me is something new?” she asked. “I thought that for a long time I had been a habit to you,” she said.

“But I was loving you all the time.”

“Not madly.”

“No,” he acknowledged. “But with certainty. I was so sure of you, of myself. It was there all the time, a steady, long-married flame.”

“But about me?” she demanded.

“That is what we are coming to. I know your worry right now, and of a minute ago. You are so intrinsically honest, so intrinsically true, that the thought of sharing two men is abhorrent to you. I understand.”

“Then you have known from the first?” she asked quickly.

He nodded.

“Possibly,” he added, “I sensed it before even you knew it.”

“You have seen …” she attempted to ask.

“We will not demean ourselves with details, Paula. Besides, there was and there is nothing wrong about any of it. Also, it was not necessary for me to see anything. The signs are visible—the love-shades and love-notes, the unconscious caress of the eyes in a fleeting glance, the involuntary softening of voices. And I justify you in everything.”

“It … it was not ever … much,” she faltered.

“No wonder. But I am surprised. After our dozen years it was unexpected—”

“Dick,” she interrupted him, leaning toward him. “In our dozen years, did you love anybody?”

“I have told you that I justify you in everything,” he softened his reply.

“But you have not answered my question,” she insisted. “I mean unfaithfulness. In the past you have?”

“In the past,” he answered, “not much, and not for a long, long time.”

“Then I had a similar right,” she said.

He smiled.

“You mean that you demand I must be faithful?” asked Paula.

He nodded and said,

“So long as you live with me.”

“But where’s the equity?”

“There isn’t any equity,” he shook his head. “At this late day I have made the discovery of the ancient truth that women are different from men. I … I still thought of children with you, you see. But that’s all over. The question now is, what’s in your heart? And afterward we can decide what to do.”

“Oh, Dick,” she breathed, “I love you, I shall always love you. You are my Red Cloud.”

He waited.

“But you have not told me what is in your heart,” he said.

“I love you,” she repeated.

“And Evan?”

“That is different. I don’t know. I can’t decide …”

“Love? Or amorous adventure? It must be one or the other.”

She shook her head.

“Can’t you understand?” she asked. “That I don’t understand? You see, I am a woman. And now that all this has happened, I don’t know what to do. Women are hunting animals. You are both big game. It is a challenge to me. And I am a puzzle to myself. I want you. I want Evan. I want both of you.”

“Then it is love.”

“But I love you, Red Cloud.”

“And you say you love him. You can’t love both of us.”

“But I can. I do. I love both of you.—Oh, I am straight. I shall be straight. I must work this out. Please help me. That is why I came to you this morning.”

She looked at him as he answered, “It is one or the other, Evan or me. I cannot imagine any other solution.”

“That’s what he says. But I can’t decide. He wanted to come to you. I did not permit him. He wanted to leave, but I held him here, in order to have you together, to compare you two, to weigh you in my heart. And I want you both.”

“Unfortunately, as you see,” Dick began, “we stupid male men cannot accept polyandry.”

“Don’t be cruel, Dick,” she protested.

“Forgive me.”

“I have told him that he was the only man I had ever met who is as great as my husband, and that my husband is greater.”

“Let me try to solve it for you,” he said. “Everything is clear.”

“What do you mean?”

“This, Paula. I lose. Graham is the winner. You, and you alone, can solve it, Paula,” he said gravely.

“But if you help me … if you try … a little …” she persisted.

“But I am helpless. My hands are tied. You can’t share two. You have been in his arms. You have decided, though you may not know it. Your flesh has decided. You can bear his arms.”

She shook her head.

“And still I cannot decide,” she persisted.

“But you must. The present situation is intolerable. You must decide quickly. Evan must go. You realize that. Or you must go. You both cannot continue on here. I’ll go hunting tomorrow alone, and you’ll stay and talk it over with Evan. I will come back late. When I come back, Evan must be gone. With you or without you. Decide.”

Paula leaned toward him.

“Kiss me, Dick,” she said, and afterward: “I am unable to decide. But you are right. The time has come for me to solve the situation. We’ll all go hunting. I’ll talk with him as we ride, and I’ll send him away, no matter what I do.”

“You know,” Dick said. “I don’t care a hang for morality except when it is useful. And in this case it is exceedingly useful. There may be children.—Please, please,” he hushed her. “And in such case even old scandal is not exactly good for them. Divorce takes too long. I’ll give you the real freedom.”

“If I decide so,” she smiled wanly.

He nodded.

“But I may not decide that way. I don’t know it myself. Perhaps it’s all a dream, and soon I shall wake up.”

She turned away reluctantly, and paused.

“Dick,” she called. “You have told me your heart, but not what’s in your mind. Don’t do anything foolish. No hunting accident, remember.”

He shook his head, and twinkled his eyes in feigned amusement. Her intuition was wonderful.

“And leave all this?” he lied, with a gesture that embraced the ranch and all its projects.

“It would be preposterous,” she agreed with brightening face. “But, Dick, in this difficulty … please, please know that—” She paused for the phrase, then made a gesture that included the Big House and its treasures, and said, “All this does not influence me. Truly not.”

“Yes,” he assured her. “Of all unmercenary women—”

“Why, Dick,” she interrupted him, fired by a new thought, “if I loved Evan as madly as you think, I’d be glad to hear about a hunting accident. But you see, I don’t. Anyway, there’s a task for you to solve.”

She made another reluctant step away, then called back in a whisper:

“Red Cloud, I’m dreadfully sorry … And I’m so glad that you still love me.”

Dick studied his face in the glass. The expression that had startled his company the preceding evening was printed there. Oh, well, was his thought, one cannot chew his heart between his teeth without leaving some sign of it.

He strolled out on the sleeping porch and looked at Paula’s picture under the barometers. He turned it to the wall, and sat on the bed. Then he turned it back again.

“Poor little kid,” he murmured.

But as he continued to gaze, abruptly there leaped before his eyes the vision of her in the moonlight. She was clinging to Graham and drawing his lips down to hers.

Dick got up quickly, with a shake of head to shake the vision from his eyes.

He got the servant and told him to take Graham to the gun room to choose a rifle.

At eleven he did not know that Paula had come up the secret stairway from the library and was standing behind the shelves of books listening. She sighed, and turned back down the spiral to the library.

Dick did not know that Paula had come so near to him and gone away. His house was in order. Oh, he will do it well. And he will have a witness.

He clenched his hands with sudden hurt. The Little Lady was mad, she must be mad. What a pain to listen to her and Graham’s voices from the open windows of the music room as they sing together the “Gypsy Trail.”

They sang the mad, reckless song. And he continued to stand, he was listening, she was laughing merrily.

Dick sighed aloud:

“Well, I have made the land better. It is time to go to bed.”