THE TRAIL OF CONFLICT by EMILIE BAKER LORING (classic fiction .txt) 📕

"I haven't gone--yet. I shan't go till--I've thought of some way to--to yank Steve out of this--this damnable Sam Jones ring you talk about. Give me some tea. Quick! Give it to me--strong. My fool doctor won't let me have anything else. What's Steve doing? Living on your income?" he asked as Judson, after fussing among the tea-things, at a low word from the girl, left the room.

Jerry's cheeks flushed, tiny sparks lighted her eyes as she countered crisply:

"Don't you know your nephew better than to ask that question? He is in a lawyer's office working for the munificent sum of fifteen per." Fairfax choked over his tea.

"D'you mean to tell me that a son-in-law of Glamorgan the oil-king is an office boy? Between you all you've made a mess of it, haven't you? What does your father say to that?"

"He's--he's furious," Jerry answered, as she studied the infinitesimal grounds in her teacup. She gave the tea-cart a little push which removed it from between them. She rose, hesitated, then slipped to her knees before the old man. She looked up at him speculatively for a moment before she commenced to trace an intricate pattern on his stout stick with a pink-tipped finger. Her voice was low and a trifle unsteady as she pleaded:

"Uncle Nick, be friends with me, will you?" A non-committal grunt was her only answer. "Steve won't talk to me. He won't listen to reason. Having made his big sacrifice for the family fortunes by marrying me he is holding his head so high that he'll step into a horrible shell-hole if he doesn't watch out. Dad is furious that he won't live and spend money as befits a Courtlandt, that is, as he thinks a Courtlandt should live and spend, and with that fine illogic, so characteristic of the male of the species, takes it out on me. Steve is so--so maddening. He won't use the automobiles unless he is taking me somewhere, although they were all, with the exception of my town car and roadster, in the garage when I came here. He just commutes and commutes in those miserable trains. Commuting corrupts good manners; he's a--a bear. He and I are beginning all wrong, Uncle Nick." She met the stern old eyes above her before she dropped her head to the arm of his chair. "Steve hates the sight of me and I----"

Fairfax laid his stick across her shoulders with a suddenness and strength, which, made her jump.

"What did you expect? Didn't I tell you that when a poor man marries a fortune his pride turns to gall? Can a red-blooded man really love a girl who would marry for position? You're fast getting to hate him, I suppose?" he demanded in a tone which brought her to her feet and iced her voice and eyes.

"You wouldn't expect me to be crazy about him, would you? He is cold and disagreeable and is evidently laboring under the delusion that the world was created to revolve around Stephen Courtlandt." A contemptuous snort fired her with the determination to hurt someone or something. "You may take it from me that if I had the chance to choose again between disappointing Dad or marrying your precious nephew I'd--I'd disappoint Dad." She was breathless but triumphant as she flung the last words at him. He glared at her.

"So-o, you're a quitter, are you?"

Jerry's face was white, her eyes smoldering coals of wrath. Her voice was low with repressed fury as she flung back his taunt.

"I'm not a quitter. By why couldn't Dad have selected some other aristocrat for a son-in-law? From what I have observed there are plenty of them who need money. Believe me, I'm tired of living in this cold storage atmosphere. I was willing to play fair, willing to keep my part of the contract----" Her voice failed her as she met his grilling eyes.

"Are you fulfilling your----"

"What, Uncle Nick, tea-broken?" interrupted a voice from the door. The old man struggled to his feet as his nephew came toward him. A smile of tenderness dimmed the glitter of his eyes. Jerry's heart looped the loop. How long had Steve been at the door? Had he heard that last rebellious declaration of hers? How would he greet his uncle? She hoped that he would be tender, for no matter how disagreeable Nicholas Fairfax was, he was old and evidently dangerously ill. She was quite unconscious of her breath of relief as the younger man laid an affectionate arm about the elder's shoulders.

"This sure is a surprise and then some, Uncle Nick. Why didn't you let us know you were coming?"

"I knew if I wrote, your father'd invent an excuse to put me off, so I roped Doc Rand and came along. I have no time to waste. I wanted to see the kind of girl they'd sold you to----"

"Then you have seen a fine one who did me the honor to marry me, haven't you?" There was a set to young Courtlandt's jaw which boded ill for the person who differed with him. "Why not come up to your room and rest before dinner? Sir Peter returns to-night and you'll want--here he is now," as the hum of voices in the hall drifted to the library.

Jerry sprang forward with a radiant smile of welcome as Peter Courtlandt entered the room. He seized her two hands in his and kissed her tenderly.

"It's a good many years since I had a welcome home like this," he admitted with a break in his voice. "How are you, Steve? Nick, I just ran into Doc Rand in the hall. He told me that you were here." He held out his hand to his brother-in-law who responded grudgingly.

"I suppose he told you a lot of other stuff, too. Well, I'll fool him."

Jerry gave the hand that still held one of hers a surreptitious squeeze.

"It's good to have you back, Sir Peter. The house has seemed terribly big and empty without you."

"Empty!" echoed Fairfax with his sardonic chuckle. "Fancy a bride of a month complaining of emptiness in a house without her father-in-law."

"How does it happen that you have torn yourself away from the ranch, Nick?" interrupted Peter Courtlandt before Steve, who had grown white about the nostrils, could speak. "The last time you came on you said you would never leave it again."

Fairfax swallowed the bait which never failed to lure him. His western possessions were his pride, and he welcomed an opportunity to talk of them much as a fond parent does of his child.

"Didn't want to leave. Felt it my duty to come and see what you had done to Steve," he growled. "Greyson, of the X Y Z, is looking after things for me."

"Greyson of the X Y Z! Is your ranch near his?" Jerry demanded. A faint color stole to her face, her eyes were alight with interest.

"It is. What do you know about it?" Fairfax's eyes were interrogation points of suspicion.

"Not much. I met Mr. Greyson last winter, and I----"

"Met Greyson, did you? Humph! So that's what's the matter with him. I suppose the daughter of an oil-king looked down upon----"

"Have you had a profitable year?" interrupted Peter Courtlandt, adroitly getting between his son and the old man. "They tell me that this has been a banner season for wheat."

"They told you right. If the cattle winter safe I shall achieve the ambition of my life, to own the biggest and finest herd of Shorthorns in the country. I'll show 'em a thing or two about that breed of cattle. I tell you, Peter----"

"Mrs. Denbigh," announced Judson at the door.

Jerry caught the look of consternation which Peter Courtlandt threw at his son. She saw also the sudden tightening of Steve's lips. What did it mean? She had met Felice Denbigh once and had been repulsed by her super-golden hair and super-perfect complexion. Was she an old sweetheart of Steve's? She took a step toward the smartly gowned woman who spoke as she crossed the threshold.

"Mrs. Courtlandt, you will forgive me for this intrusion on your honeymoon, won't you? But--but Steve left his gloves in my sedan this morning when we drove to town, and I came to return them."

Jerry's mind took a dizzy turn or two then settled down to clear thinking. She had a curious sense that with the explanation Felice Denbigh had fired the opening gun of a campaign. So there had been a reason why Steve had refused to allow her to drive him to town. She flashed a glance at him even while she murmured welcoming platitudes to her guest. He had his hand on his uncle's arm.

"You remember Felice Peyton, don't you, Uncle Nick?"

"What's that? Felice Peyton, the girl you were forever running after when you were in college? Well, Miss Peyton, you lost him, didn't you?" asked the terrible old man.

"But--but dear Mr. Fairfax, I'm not Miss Peyton now--I married Phil Denbigh when Steve deserted me and went to war. I----"

"Philip Denbigh!" The old man rose, straightened himself like an avenging Nemesis. "Poor devil! So he drew another blank besides that good-for-nothing philandering mother of his. A mother who wept and begged until she kept the boy from enlisting, and by some hokuspokus got him into Class C.--No, I won't stop," as Courtlandt senior laid a peremptory hand on his arm. "There are a lot of men who are cringing through life to-day because their women did not love them enough to cheer them on to fight in the Great Fight."

Felice Denbigh was white with anger, her eyes tiny green flames. Jerry flung herself into the breach:

"Won't you stay and dine with us informally, Mrs. Denbigh? Poor S-Steve must have been bored to death, surfeited with my society this last month."

"Thank you, no." Felice's self-possession was superb. "I shall pay my respects to the new Mrs. Courtlandt later when she is formally at home. Good-night, Mr. Fairfax. What a pleasure it must be for the family to have your genial presence at the Manor. You don't know how happy it makes me to find that someone remembers Steve's devotion to me. He seems to have forgotten it. Good-night, Sir Peter. Stevie, will you come and start that cranky car of mine?" Then, as he reached her side, Jerry heard her ask softly, "Shall we meet at the same place to-morrow morning?"

Nicholas Fairfax must have heard it also, for the girl heard him mutter:

"Snake!"

As she served coffee in the library after dinner Jerry pondered over those low-spoken words. The firelight set the sequins on her pale blue gown glittering like jewels; it accentuated the satiny sheen of her hair, betrayed the troubled expression in her lovely eyes. Nicholas Fairfax was in his room. He had collapsed when he went up to dress for dinner. Doctor Rand, whom he had brought with him, stood back to the fire stirring his coffee. There was a suggestion of fat and wheeze about the little