The Little Lady of the Big House / Маленькая хозяйка большого дома. Книга для чтения на английском языке

But drive as he would, transact business as he would, at high pressure with Carlson and Wing Fo Wong, continually, in the middle ground of his consciousness, persisted the thought that Paula had gone out of her way[442] and done the most unusual in driving Graham the long eight miles from Eldorado to the ranch.

“Phew!” he started to mutter a thought aloud, then suspended utterance and thought as he jumped the racer from forty-five to seventy miles an hour, swept past to the left of a horse and buggy going in the same direction, and slanted back to the right side of the road with margin to spare but seemingly under the nose of a run-about coming from the opposite direction. He reduced his speed to fifty and took up his thought:

“Phew! Imagine little Paul’s thoughts if I dared that drive with some charming girl!”

He laughed at the fancy as he pictured it, for, most early in their marriage, he had gauged Paula’s capacity for quiet jealousy. Never had she made a scene, or dropped a direct remark, or raised a question; but from the first, quietly but unmistakably, she had conveyed the impression of hurt that was hers if he at all unduly attended upon any woman[443].

He grinned with remembrance of Mrs. Dehameny, the pretty little brunette widow – Paula’s friend, not his – who had visited in the long ago in the Big House. Paula had announced that she was not riding that afternoon and, at lunch, had heard him and Mrs. Dehameny arrange to ride into the redwood canyons beyond the grove of the philosophers. And who but Paula, not long after their start, should overtake them and make the party three! He had smiled to himself at the time, and felt immensely tickled with Paula, for neither Mrs. Dehameny nor the ride with her had meant anything to him.

So it was, from the beginning, that he had restricted his attentions to other women. Ever since he had been far more circumspect than Paula. He had even encouraged her, given her a free hand always[444], had been proud that his wife did attract fine fellows, had been glad that she was glad to be amused or entertained by them. And with reason, he mused. He had been so safe, so sure of her – more so, he acknowledged, than had she any right to be of him. And the dozen years had vindicated his attitude, so that he was as sure of her as he was of the diurnal rotation of the earth. And now, was the form his fancy took, the rotation of the earth was a shaky proposition and old Oom Paul’s flat world might be worth considering.

He lifted the gauntlet from his left wrist to snatch a glimpse at his watch. In five minutes Graham would be getting off the train at Eldorado. Dick, himself homeward bound west from Sacramento, was eating up the miles[445]. In a quarter of an hour the train that he identified as having brought Graham, went by. Not until he was well past Eldorado did he overtake Duddy and Fuddy and the trap. Graham sat beside Paula, who was driving. Dick slowed down as he passed, waved a hello to Graham, and, as he jumped into speed again, called cheerily:

“Sorry I’ve got to give you my dust. I’ll beat you a game of billiards before dinner, Evan, if you ever get in.”

Chapter XXVI

“This can’t go on. We must do something – at once.” They were in the music room, Paula at the piano, her face turned up to Graham who stood close to her, almost over her.

“You must decide,” Graham continued.

Neither face showed happiness in the great thing that had come upon them, now that they considered what they must do.

“But I don’t want you to go,” Paula urged. “I don’t know what I want. You must bear with me.[446] I am not considering myself. I am past considering myself. But I must consider Dick. I must consider you. I… I am so unused to such a situation,” she concluded with a wan smile.

“But it must be settled, dear love. Dick is not blind.”

“What has there been for him to see?” she demanded. “Nothing, except that one kiss in the canyon, and he couldn’t have seen that. Do you think of anything else – I challenge you, sir.”

“Would that there were[447],” he met the lighter touch in her mood, then immediately relapsed. “I am mad over you, mad for you. And there I stop. I do not know if you are equally mad. I do not know if you are mad at all.”

As he spoke, he dropped his hand to hers on the keys, and she gently withdrew it.

“Don’t you see?” he complained. “Yet you wanted me to come back?”

“I wanted you to come back,” she acknowledged, with her straight look into his eyes. “I wanted you to come back,” she repeated, more softly, as if musing.

“And I’m all at sea,” he exclaimed impatiently. “You do love me?”

“I do love you, Evan – you know that. But…” She paused and seemed to be weighing the matter judicially.

“But what?” he commanded. “Go on.”

“But I love Dick, too. Isn’t it ridiculous?”