Part 4 (1/2)
”If you go this year, it must be with the Abitibi _brigade_. You have until then.”
”Thank you, father.” said the girl, sweetly.
The shadows stole their surroundings one by one, until only the bright silver of the tea-service, and the glitter of polished wood, and the square of the open door remained. Galen Albret became an inert dark ma.s.s. Virginia's gray was lost in that of the twilight.
Time pa.s.sed. The clock ticked on. Faintly sounds penetrated from the kitchen, and still more faintly from out of doors. Then the rectangle of the door-way was darkened by a man peering uncertainly. The man wore his hat, from which slanted a slender heron's plume; his shoulders were square; his thighs slim and graceful.
Against the light, one caught the outline of the sash's ta.s.sel and the fringe of his leggings.
”Are you there, Galen Albret?” he challenged.
The spell of twilight mystery broke. It seemed as if suddenly the air had become surcharged with the vitality of opposition.
”What then?” countered the Factor's heavy, deliberate tones.
”True, I see you now,” rejoined the visitor carelessly, as he flung himself across the arm of a chair and swung one foot. ”I do not doubt you are convinced by this time of my intention.”
”My recollection does not tell me what messenger I sent to ask this interview.”
”Correct,” laughed the young man a little hardly. ”You _didn't_ ask it. I attended to that myself. What you want doesn't concern me in the least. What do you suppose I care what, or what not, any of this crew wants? I'm master of my own ideas, anyway, thank G.o.d.
If you don't like what I do, you can always stop me.” In the tone of his voice was a distinct challenge. Galen Albret, it seemed, chose to pa.s.s it by.
”True,” he replied sombrely, after a barely perceptible pause to mark his tacit displeasure. ”It is your hour. Say on.”
”I should like to know the date at which I take _la Longue Traverse_.”
”You persist in that nonsense?”
”Call my departure whatever you want to--I have the name for it.
When do I leave?”
”I have not decided.”
”And in the meantime?”
”Do as you please.”
”Ah, thanks for this generosity,” cried the young man, in a tone of declamatory sarcasm so artificial as fairly to scent the elocutionary. ”To do as I please--here--now there's a blessed privilege! I may walk around where I want to, talk to such as have a good word for me, punish those who have not! But do I err in concluding that the state of your game law is such that it would be useless to reclaim my rifle from the engaging Placide?”
”You have a fine instinct,” approved the Factor.
”It is one of my valued possessions,” rejoined the young man, insolently. He struck a match, and by its light selected a cigarette.
”I do not myself use tobacco in this room,” suggested the older speaker.
”I am curious to learn the limits of your forbearance,” replied the younger, proceeding to smoke.
He threw back his head and regarded his opponent with an open challenge, daring him to become angry. The match went out.
Virginia, who had listened in growing anger and astonishment, unable longer to refrain from defending the dignity of her usually autocratic father, although he seemed little disposed to defend himself, now intervened from her dark corner on the divan.