Courtlandt

“ With tantalizing daring she looked up at Steve and asked with exaggerated humility, "Am I to be permitted to return to the Double O in the care of Bruce—of Mr. Greyson's man, Mr. Courtlandt?"
He flushed darkly, but without answering led the way to the big touring car. The Jap sat behind the wheel in bronze immobility. When Courtlandt had laid the rug over the knees of the two girls in the back seat he closed the door and gave Ito his order.
"Drive Mrs. Courtlandt and Miss Glamorgan to the Double O as quickly as you can with safety. ”

“ He adores Steve. So do the other Simms kids. Now what is Courtlandt doing? Burning something?" as a wisp of smoke fell to the ground.
"Why don't you go and find out?" in a tone which was own cousin to his.
"Nothing doing. You don't know Steve. I'm here; he knows it. He never misses a trick. If he wants me he'll shout. There, you see? He doesn't," as Courtlandt, after a glance at the ground where the smoke had fallen, galloped across the field toward the ranch road.
"You're fond of Steve, aren't you?" ”

“ A horse and rider topped the slope. It was Courtlandt on his favorite mount, Blue Devil, a horse all spirit, shining blue-black satin. He was a regal creature from his flowing mane to his silken fetlock. He nosed Patches who showed an undignified haste to snuggle up to him in return.
"Did you think you had lost me, Steve?" Jerry asked gayly as she noted the seriousness of his blue eyes and the crease in his forehead which his broad-brimmed Stetson was not drawn low enough to hide. How unnecessarily good looking he was in his riding clothes, she thought. ”

“ Courtlandt's fine brow puckered in a thoughtful crease as he waited in the living-room of the Double O for Jerry the next evening. Benson, on the arm of a chair, bent forward to get the light from the lamp on the book he had picked up. Through the open windows came the scent of pine and dewy fields, the murmur of the distant stream as it thundered and rippled its never-ending triumphal march to the sea, the occasional soft lowing of cattle. ”

“ She had hardly believed her eyes when on the evening after her arrival, she had seen Steve and Tommy Benson, his secretary, come into the living-room in dinner coats. Courtlandt had answered her unspoken question with the explanation that it had been Nicholas Fairfax's unvarying rule to shed ranch problems at night, and he had found that getting into the dress of the city helped. A man just naturally would curb an impulse to toddle down to the corral if he were in dinner clothes. ”

“ He turned away with a sharp:
"Get your wrap while I go for the car, and give Benson his orders. He'll have to keep a date for me."
The star-spangled night was clear and still as Courtlandt slowed down in front of the Bear Creek ranch-house. The girl beside him shivered as she looked at the lighted windows. He laid one hand on hers.
"Steady, little girl, steady. You won't be able to help if you lose your nerve."
"I know, Steve, I'll be all right as soon as I get busy. I have never seen——" She sprang from the car and ran up the path, her golden gown gleaming in the dim light. ”

“ Jerry Courtlandt sent her horse up the slope and came out on a bluff above the Double O. As the girl sat motionless looking off over the plain, an artist would have labeled the picture she made, "A Study in Browns," before he slipped it into his mental portfolio. Her mount, Patches, was a deep mahogany in color, her riding boots were but a shade lighter than his satin skin, her breeches and long coat were of khaki, her blouse was fawn color, her eyes were deeply, darkly bronze. ”

“ Courtlandt?" he demanded autocratically.
"Do you know what happens when a person gets unbearably dictatorial, Mr. Courtlandt? This!" She slapped her horse smartly on the hip. Patches threw up his head and broke from Steve's hold. The girl looked over her shoulder. Lips and eyes challenged in unison as she sang mischievously:
"'My road calls me, lures me
West, east, south and north;
Most roads lead me homewards,
But my road leads——'"
Patches stepped in a gopher hole, which, feat brought the song to an abrupt termination. ”

“ I only knew what Sandy had told me, that there was a woman at Bear Creek hungering for someone of her own sex to talk to."
"You are to be commended more for your conscience than your common sense," retorted Courtlandt dryly. "Don't do it again." They reached the ranch-house steps as he spoke. He slipped to the ground and before Jerry could protest had lifted her from the saddle. She felt the muscles of his arms twitch in the second he held her. Before she could speak he had gathered up the bridles of the horses and started for the corral. ”

“ Do you want to become another Courtlandt Allerton and go rocking down the avenue—a grimacing, tailor-made sepulcher?—the pompous obsequies of a dead intellect?—a funeral on two wavering legs, carrying the corpse of all that should be deathless in a man? ”

“ The train barely crawled as Courtlandt swung from the step of the coach to the ground. His eyes were strained; there was a white line about his lips as he pulled himself up into the gangway between tender and engine. The storm had rolled east-ward. Above the distant mountains a broad and yellow moon played at hide-and-seek with fleecy remnants of cloud. Stars appeared dimly, reconnoitered for a moment, then shone with steady brilliancy. Nelson, seated on a tool-box in the cab, rolled a cigarette with slightly unsteady fingers. The engineer had his head out of the window ”

“ Her shudder was genuine. "The sound did direful things to Patches' nerves. He bolted down the hill. I bolted after him. I stumbled over something which must have been the keystone of the slope, or its twin, for the hillside gave way and landed me in an ignominious heap of dirt and gravel back of that shack. A rolling body gathers some scratches," she paraphrased flippantly as she felt again of her bruised face.
"I'll say you're some little talker, Mrs. Courtlandt, when—when you're frightened. You've never favored me with a word before," observed Ranlett insolently. ”

“ She raced up the court steps to elude her clamorous thoughts. At the door of the living-room she stopped as though galvanized. She brushed her hand impatiently across her eyes. Coming into the shadowy room from the gleaming world outside certainly did queer things to one's vision. That—that couldn't be Steve with a woman's arm about his neck! There was an inarticulate sound in her throat as she took a step forward. Courtlandt heard it. With a muttered imprecation he loosened the clinging arm. His face was white, his eyes inscrutable as they met Jerry's.
"Felice, here is Mrs. Courtlandt. ”

“ Peter Courtlandt was the first to break the silence as father and son motored home. He made an effort to speak lightly.
"Well, my boy, your close-up was wrong. Geraldine Glamorgan has neither prominent teeth, nor little eyes, nor a kittenish manner; in fact, I don't know when I have seen so beautiful a girl so singularly free from the barnacles of vanity and self-consciousness."
"Kittenish!" his son repeated curtly. "She's far from kittenish. She's an iceberg, and what's more she has the business instinct developed to the nth degree. Believe me, she's a born trader." ”

“ He brought the car to a stop in front of the shack. Beechy, his face white, his hair redder and more rampant than ever, called eagerly from the open window at which he sat bolstered up in a chair.
"Wait for me at the house. I shan't be long."
Jerry nodded dumbly, and drove on. Courtlandt's words had set her heart beating a furious call to arms. What had he meant? Who was mad about a woman? He or Greyson? Whose bare pink foot? Involuntarily she tucked one suede shoe under her, her cheeks flushed warmly. ”

“ The girl strained her eyes after him before she turned.
"There is something queer about that man, Steve; he is a man of mystery," she confided as though Courtlandt's materialization out of the dark was quite what she expected.
"What did he want?"
"He wanted me. Don't look so incredulous. I may be an acquired taste like olives but—some people like me." She abandoned her teasing tone and hurried on, "That man is the range-rider at Bear Creek ranch. Mrs. Carey has been taken suddenly ill, there,—there is a baby coming, you know, Steve. He wanted me to go to her. Her husband is away. ”

“ Courtlandt was furious, but his fury was directed at himself as much as at the trustworthy young man getting down from the limousine. His eagerness had led him to mistake 63 stupidity for cleverness. He had gone about the affair with all the clumsiness of a boy who was making his first appearance at the stage entrance. It was mightily disconcerting, too, to have found an honest man when he was in desperate need of a dishonest one. ”

“ The exclamation brought Steve Courtlandt to his feet. The color surged to his dark hair then ebbed slowly back again. His lips whitened.
"Look here, Sir Peter, you don't know what you're saying! You've forgotten that we are living in the twentieth century. Marry Glamorgan's daughter! I've never seen her. I didn't know the old piker had a daughter. What does he know about me? I've never spoken to him more than twice and then when I couldn't help it. I don't like him, he's——"
"Sit down, Steve. Stop raging up and down the room. ”

“ His voice was grave as he probed:
"After last night and—and this morning, Jerry, do you still—still want to go on with it?"
"Go on with it? Do you—you mean our comedy of marriage? Why not? 'Rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.' You see I have contracted Tommy's pernicious habit of borrowing from the classics when I wish to express myself with force and distinction. Let me go!"
Courtlandt's grip on her shoulders tightened. His face was white. There was a rigidity about his jaws which should have warned her.
"Flippancy won't save you. ”

“ Courtlandt’s hand went instinctively to his collar, not to ascertain if it were properly adjusted, but rather to relieve the sudden pressure. He was enraged at his weakness. He wanted to turn away, but he could not.
A woman issued forth, muffled in silks and light furs. She was followed by another, quite possibly her maid. One may observe very well at times from the corner of the eye; that is, objects at which one is not looking come within the range of vision. The woman paused, her foot upon the step of the modest 11 limousine. ”

“ As—soon as you've caught the gang—send those up. They'll keep Ranlett and—and the others in the Hollow till—you get there. They mean that—that——" Courtlandt had to put his ear close to Denbigh's lips to hear the last words. He laid him down and reached into his shirt for the rockets. Nelson appeared.
"Leave him, Steve, I need you. I've sent a gang out to move the boulder. We'll let the bad men think they've fooled us. Half the passengers on this train are regulars in mufti. Little ol' Uncle Sam isn't taking chances when he ships silver bricks to the coast. Here they come! Look!" ”

“ Besides, Jerry may be back before me and she would be anxious if you were not here."
"All right, Tommy. Come, Ming Soy."
Benson could get no satisfaction from the man in charge of the corral. He questioned him as he watched him shift the saddle from Soapy to a powerful black. Slowman only knew that Mrs. Courtlandt came for Patches at about two o'clock. She was humming and laughing softly to herself as she led him off, quite as though she had heard some good news—or—or was up to some mischief; women were like that, when they had something up their sleeves, he'd noticed. ”

“ When Courtland's eyes opened again, he was in bed in his own room at Redlands, with the vivid morning sun occasionally lighting up the wall whenever the closely drawn curtains were lightly blown aside by the freshening breeze. The whole events of the night might have been a dream but for the insupportable languor which numbed his senses, and the torpor of his arm, that, swollen and discolored, lay outside the coverlet on a pillow before him. ”

“ In all Courtland's self-control, habits of coolness, and discipline, it is to be feared there was still something of the old Berserker temper. His face was white, his eyes blazed in the darkness; only his voice kept that level distinctness which made it for a moment more terrible than even the baying of the tracking hounds to the negro's ear. “Cato,” he said, “attempt to run now, and, by God! I'll save the dogs the trouble of grappling your living carcass! Come here! Up that tree with you!” pointing to a swamp magnolia. ”

“ Developes all it has of good and true;
How must she feel the chill!
"How fond she was of flowers!" exclaimed Lady Marchmont, turning sadly away from a stand of choice plants, which Mrs. Courtenaye had sent her, two days before her death; "there was a likeness between them—so frail, so fair, and doomed so soon to perish. She was too good to last; and I feel as if I had lost an angel from my side. I was always better when I had been with her." ”

“ It was not a restful night for Randal Courteney, and in the early morning he was out again, striding over the sunlit sands towards his own particular bathing-cove beyond the breakwater.
The tide was coming in, and the dashing water filled all the world with its music. A brisk wind was blowing, and the waves were high.
It was the sort of sea that Courteney revelled in, and he trusted that, at that early hour, he would be free from all intrusion. So accustomed to privacy was he that he had come to regard the place almost as his own. ”