Read Ebook: A Fool for Love by Lynde Francis

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Ebook has 885 lines and 32054 words, and 18 pages

"Which was a thing that nobody wanted to do," said Adams, between inhalations.

"Oh, well," returned Adams, "I suppose we took an appeal and asked to have the injunction set aside?"

"We did, promptly; and that is the present status of the fight. The appeal decision has not yet been handed down; and in the meantime we go on building railroad, incurring all the penalties for contempt of court with every shovelful of earth moved. Do you still think you will be in danger of ossifying?"

Adams let the question rest while he asked one of his own.

"How do you come to be mixed up in it, Jack? A week ago some one told me you were going to South America to build a railroad in the Andes. What switched you?"

Winton shook his head. "Fate, I guess; that and a wire from President Callowell of the Utah offering me this. Chief of Construction Evarts, in charge of the work in Quartz Creek Canyon, said what you said a few minutes ago--that he had not hired out for a soldier. He resigned, and I'm taking his berth."

Adams rose and buttoned his coat.

"No," said Winton, more shortly than the invitation warranted; and the other went his way alone.

"'Scuse me, sah; private cyah, sah."

It was the porter's challenge in the vestibule of the Rosemary. Adams found a card.

"Take that to Miss Carteret--Miss Virginia Carteret," he directed, and waited till the man came back with his welcome.

The extension table in the open rear third of the private car was closed to its smallest dimensions, and the movable furnishings were disposed about the compartment to make it a comfortable lounging room.

Mrs. Carteret was propped among the cushions of a divan with a book. Her daughter occupied the undivided half of a tete-a-tete chair with a blond athlete in a clerical coat and a reversed collar. Miss Virginia was sitting alone at a window, but she rose and came to greet the visitor.

"How good of you to take pity on us!" she said, giving him her hand. Then she put him at one with the others: "Aunt Martha you have met; also Cousin Bessie. Let me present you to Mr. Calvert: Cousin Billy, this is Mr. Adams, who is responsible in a way for many of my Boston-learned gaucheries."

Aunt Martha closed the book on her finger. "My dear Virginia!" she protested in mild deprecation; and Adams laughed and shook hands with the Reverend William Calvert and made Virginia's peace all in the same breath.

"Don't apologize for Miss Virginia, Mrs. Carteret. We were very good friends in Boston, chiefly, I think, because I never objected when she wanted to--er--to take a rise out of me." Then to Virginia: "I hope I don't intrude?"

"Not in the least. Didn't I just say you were good to come? Uncle Somerville tells us we are passing through the famous Golden Belt,--whatever that may be,--and recommends an easy-chair and a window. But I haven't seen anything but stubble-fields--dismally wet stubble-fields at that. Won't you sit down and help me watch them go by?"

Adams placed a chair for her and found one for himself.

"'Uncle Somerville'--am I to have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Somerville Darrah?"

Miss Virginia's laugh was non-committal.

"Oh, these industry colonels!" said Adams. "Don't their toilings make you ache in sheer sympathy sometimes?"

"No, indeed," was the prompt rejoinder; "I envy them. It must be fine to have large things to do, and to be able to do them."

"Degenerate scion of a noble race!" jested Adams. "What ancient Carteret of them all would have compromised with the necessities by becoming a captain of industry?"

"Think so? I don't agree with you--as to the fighting, I mean. I like to take things easy. A good club, a choice of decent theaters, the society of a few charming young women like--"

She broke him with a mocking laugh.

"You were born a good many centuries too late, Mr. Adams; you would have fitted so beautifully, into decadent Rome."

"No--thanks. Twentieth-century America, with the commercial frenzy taken out of it, is good enough for me. I was telling Winton a little while ago--"

"Your friend of the Kansas City station platform?" she interrupted. "Mightn't you introduce us a little less informally?"

"Beg pardon, I'm sure--yours and Jack's: Mr. John Winton, of New York and the world at large, familiarly known to his intimates--and they are precious few--as 'Jack W.' As I was about to say--"

But she seemed to find a malicious satisfaction in breaking in upon him.

"'Mr. John Winton': it's a pretty name as names go, but it isn't as strong as he is. He is an 'industry colonel,' isn't he? He looks it."

The Bostonian avenged himself at Winton's expense for the unwelcome interruption.

Miss Carteret's short upper lip curled in undisguised scorn.

"I like men who do things," she asserted with pointed emphasis; whereupon the talk drifted eastward to Boston, and Winton was ignored until Virginia, having exhausted the reminiscent vein, said, "You are going on through to Denver?"

"To Denver and beyond," was the reply. "Winton has a notion of hibernating in the mountains--fancy it; in the dead of winter!--and he has persuaded me to go along. He sketches a little, you know."

"Oh, so he is an artist?" said Virginia, with interest newly aroused.

"No," said Adams gloomily, "he isn't an artist--isn't much of anything, I'm sorry to say. Worse than all, he doesn't know his grandfather's middle name. Told me so himself."

"That is inexcusable--in a dilettante," said Miss Virginia mockingly. "Don't you think so?"

"It is inexcusable in anyone," said the Technologian, rising to take his leave. Then, as a parting word: "Does the Rosemary set its own table? or do you dine in the dining-car?"

"In the dining-car, if we have one. Uncle Somerville lets us dodge the Rosemary's cook whenever we can," was the answer; and with this bit of information Adams went his way to the Denver sleeper.

Finding Winton in his section, poring over a blue-print map and making notes thereon after the manner of a man hard at work, Adams turned back to the smoking-compartment.

Now for Mr. Morton P. Adams the salt of life was a joke, harmless or otherwise, as the tree might fall. So, during the long afternoon which he wore out in solitude, there grew up in him a keen desire to see what would befall if these two whom he had so grotesquely misrepresented each to the other should come together in the pathway of acquaintanceship.

But how to bring them together was a problem which refused to be solved until chance pointed the way. Since the Limited had lost another hour during the day there was a rush for the dining-car as soon as the announcement of its taking-on had gone through the train. Adams and Winton were of this rush, and so were the members of Mr. Somerville Darrah's party. In the seating the party was separated, as room at the crowded tables could be found; and Miss Virginia's fate gave her the unoccupied seat at one of the duet tables, opposite a young man with steadfast gray eyes and a firm jaw.

Winton was equal to the emergency, or thought he was. Adams was still within call and he beckoned him, meaning to propose an exchange of seats. But the Bostonian misunderstood wilfully.

"Most happy, I'm sure," he said, coming instantly to the rescue. "Miss Carteret, my friend signals his dilemma. May I present him?"

Virginia smiled and gave the required permission in a word. But for Winton self-possession fled shrieking.

"Ah--er--I hope you know Mr. Adams well enough to make allowances for his--for his--" He broke down helplessly and she had to come to his assistance.

"For his imagination?" she suggested. "I do, indeed; we are quite old friends."

Here was "well enough," but Winton was a man and could not let it alone.

"I should be very sorry to have you think for a moment that I would--er--so far forget myself," he went on fatuously. "What I had in mind was an exchange of seats with him. I thought it would be pleasanter for you; that is, I mean, pleasanter for--" He stopped short, seeing nothing but a more hopeless involvement ahead; also because he saw signals of distress or of mirth flying in the brown eyes.

"Oh, please!" she protested in mock humility. "Do leave my vanity just the tiniest little cranny to creep out of, Mr. Winton. I'll promise to be good and not bore you too desperately."

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