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His interest in Thea was serious, almost from the first,
and so sincere that he felt no distrust of himself. He be-
lieved that he knew a great deal more about her possibili-
ties than Bowers knew, and he liked to think that he had
given her a stronger hold on life. She had never seen her-
self or known herself as she did at Mrs. Nathanmeyer's
musical evenings. She had been a different girl ever since.
He had not anticipated that she would grow more fond of
him than his immediate usefulness warranted. He thought
he knew the ways of artists, and, as he said, she must have
been "at it from her cradle." He had imagined, perhaps,
but never really believed, that he would find her waiting
for him sometime as he found her waiting on the day
he reached the Biltmer ranch. Once he found her so--
well, he did not pretend to be anything more or less
than a reasonably well-intentioned young man. A lovesick
girl or a flirtatious woman he could have handled easily
enough. But a personality like that, unconsciously reveal-
ing itself for the first time under the exaltation of a per-
sonal feeling,--what could one do but watch it? As he
used to say to himself, in reckless moments back there in
the canyon, "You can't put out a sunrise." He had to
watch it, and then he had to share it.
Besides, was he really going to do her any harm? The
Lord knew he would marry her if he could! Marriage would
be an incident, not an end with her; he was sure of that.
If it were not he, it would be some one else; some one who
would be a weight about her neck, probably; who would
hold her back and beat her down and divert her from the
first plunge for which he felt she was gathering all her ener-
gies. He meant to help her, and he could not think of
another man who would. He went over his unmarried
friends, East and West, and he could not think of one who
would know what she was driving at--or care. The clever
ones were selfish, the kindly ones were stupid.
"Damn it, if she's going to fall in love with somebody, it
had better be me than any of the others--of the sort
she'd find. Get her tied up with some conceited ass who'd
try to make her over, train her like a puppy! Give one of
'em a big nature like that, and he'd be horrified. He
wouldn't show his face in the clubs until he'd gone after
her and combed her down to conform to some fool idea in
his own head--put there by some other woman, too, his
first sweetheart or his grandmother or a maiden aunt. At
least, I understand her. I know what she needs and where
she's bound, and I mean to see that she has a fighting
chance."
His own conduct looked crooked, he admitted; but he
asked himself whether, between men and women, all ways
were not more or less crooked. He believed those which are
called straight were the most dangerous of all. They
seemed to him, for the most part, to lie between windowless
stone walls, and their rectitude had been achieved at the
expense of light and air. In their unquestioned regularity
lurked every sort of human cruelty and meanness, and
every kind of humiliation and suffering. He would rather
have any woman he cared for wounded than crushed. He
would deceive her not once, he told himself fiercely, but a
hundred times, to keep her free.
When Fred went back to the observation car at one
o'clock, after the luncheon call, it was empty, and he found
Thea alone on the platform. She put out her hand, and
met his eyes.
"It's as I said. Things have closed behind me. I can't
go back, so I am going on--to Mexico?" She lifted her
face with an eager, questioning smile.
Fred met it with a sinking heart. Had he really hoped
she would give him another answer? He would have given
pretty much anything-- But there, that did no good. He
could give only what he had. Things were never complete
in this world; you had to snatch at them as they came or go
without. Nobody could look into her face and draw back,
nobody who had any courage. She had courage enough for
anything--look at her mouth and chin and eyes! Where
did it come from, that light? How could a face, a familiar
face, become so the picture of hope, be painted with the
very colors of youth's exaltation? She was right; she was
not one of those who draw back. Some people get on by
avoiding dangers, others by riding through them.
They stood by the railing looking back at the sand levels,
both feeling that the train was steaming ahead very fast.
Fred's mind was a confusion of images and ideas. Only
two things were clear to him: the force of her determination,
and the belief that, handicapped as he was, he could do
better by her than another man would do. He knew he
would always remember her, standing there with that ex-
pectant, forward-looking smile, enough to turn the future
into summer.
PART V
DR. ARCHIE'S VENTURE
I
DR. HOWARD ARCHIE had come down to Denver
for a meeting of the stockholders in the San Felipe
silver mine. It was not absolutely necessary for him to
come, but he had no very pressing cases at home. Winter
was closing down in Moonstone, and he dreaded the dull-
ness of it. On the 10th day of January, therefore, he was
registered at the Brown Palace Hotel. On the morning of
the 11th he came down to breakfast to find the streets
white and the air thick with snow. A wild northwester was
blowing down from the mountains, one of those beautiful
storms that wrap Denver in dry, furry snow, and make the
city a loadstone to thousands of men in the mountains and
on the plains. The brakemen out on their box-cars, the
miners up in their diggings, the lonely homesteaders in
the sand hills of Yucca and Kit Carson Counties, begin
to think of Denver, muffled in snow, full of food and drink
and good cheer, and to yearn for her with that admiration
which makes her, more than other American cities, an
object of sentiment.
Howard Archie was glad he had got in before the storm
came. He felt as cheerful as if he had received a legacy
that morning, and he greeted the clerk with even greater
friendliness than usual when he stopped at the desk for
his mail. In the dining-room he found several old friends
seated here and there before substantial breakfasts: cattle-
men and mining engineers from odd corners of the State,
all looking fresh and well pleased with themselves. He had
a word with one and another before he sat down at the little
table by a window, where the Austrian head waiter stood
attentively behind a chair. After his breakfast was put
before him, the doctor began to run over his letters. There
was one directed in Thea Kronborg's handwriting, for-
warded from Moonstone. He saw with astonishment, as
he put another lump of sugar into his cup, that this letter
bore a New York postmark. He had known that Thea was
in Mexico, traveling with some Chicago people, but New
York, to a Denver man, seems much farther away than
Mexico City. He put the letter behind his plate, upright
against the stem of his water goblet, and looked at it
thoughtfully while he drank his second cup of coffee. He
had been a little anxious about Thea; she had not written
to him for a long while.
As he never got good coffee at home, the doctor always
drank three cups for breakfast when he was in Denver.
Oscar knew just when to bring him a second pot, fresh and
smoking. "And more cream, Oscar, please. You know I
like lots of cream," the doctor murmured, as he opened
the square envelope, marked in the upper right-hand cor-
ner, "Everett House, Union Square." The text of the letter
was as follows:--
DEAR DOCTOR ARCHIE:--
I have not written to you for a long time, but it has not
been unintentional. I could not write you frankly, and so
I would not write at all. I can be frank with you now, but
not by letter. It is a great deal to ask, but I wonder if you
could come to New York to help me out? I have got into
difficulties, and I need your advice. I need your friendship.
I am afraid I must even ask you to lend me money, if you
can without serious inconvenience. I have to go to Ger-
many to study, and it can't be put off any longer. My voice
is ready. Needless to say, I don't want any word of this to
reach my family. They are the last people I would turn to,
though I love my mother dearly. If you can come, please
telegraph me at this hotel. Don't despair of me. I'll make
it up to you yet.
Your old friend,
THEA KRONBORG.
This in a bold, jagged handwriting with a Gothic turn to
the letters,--something between a highly sophisticated
hand and a very unsophisticated one,--not in the least
smooth or flowing.
The doctor bit off the end of a cigar nervously and read
the letter through again, fumbling distractedly in his pock-
ets for matches, while the waiter kept trying to call his
attention to the box he had just placed before him. At last
Oscar came out, as if the idea had just struck him, "Matches,
sir?"
"Yes, thank you." The doctor slipped a coin into his
palm and rose, crumpling Thea's letter in his hand and
thrusting the others into his pocket unopened. He went
back to the desk in the lobby and beckoned to the clerk, upon
whose kindness he threw himself apologetically.
"Harry, I've got to pull out unexpectedly. Call up the
Burlington, will you, and ask them to route me to New
York the quickest way, and to let us know. Ask for the
hour I'll get in. I have to wire."
"Certainly, Dr. Archie. Have it for you in a minute."
The young man's pallid, clean-scraped face was all sympa-
thetic interest as he reached for the telephone. Dr. Archie
put out his hand and stopped him.
"Wait a minute. Tell me, first, is Captain Harris down
yet?"
"No, sir. The Captain hasn't come down yet this
morning."
"I'll wait here for him. If I don't happen to catch him,
nail him and get me. Thank you, Harry."
The doctor spoke gratefully and turned away. He began
to pace the lobby, his hands behind him, watching the
bronze elevator doors like a hawk. At last Captain Harris
issued from one of them, tall and imposing, wearing a
Stetson and fierce mustaches, a fur coat on his arm, a soli-
taire glittering upon his little finger and another in his
black satin ascot. He was one of the grand old bluffers of
those good old days. As gullible as a schoolboy, he had
managed, with his sharp eye and knowing air and twisted
blond mustaches, to pass himself off for an astute...
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