The Song of the Lark Willa Cather (free ebooks romance novels .TXT) 📖

a powerful explosive could have killed Mrs. Archie, and that it was only right the doctor should have a chance.

Archie’s past was literally destroyed when his wife died. The house burned to the ground, and all those material reminders which have such power over people disappeared in an hour. His mining interests now took him to Denver so often that it seemed better to make his headquarters there. He gave up his practice and left Moonstone for good. Six months afterward, while Dr. Archie was living at the Brown Palace Hotel, the San Felipe mine began to give up that silver hoard which old Captain Harris had always accused it of concealing, and San Felipe headed the list of mining quotations in every daily paper, East and West. In a few years Dr. Archie was a very rich man. His mine was such an important item in the mineral output of the State, and Archie had a hand in so many of the new industries of Colorado and New Mexico, that his political influence was considerable. He had thrown it all, two years ago, to the new reform party, and had brought about the election of a governor of whose conduct he was now heartily ashamed. His friends believed that Archie himself had ambitious political plans.

II

When Ottenburg and his host reached the house on Colfax Avenue, they went directly to the library, a long double room on the second floor which Archie had arranged exactly to his own taste. It was full of books and mounted specimens of wild game, with a big writing-table at either end, stiff, old-fashioned engravings, heavy hangings and deep upholstery.

When one of the Japanese boys brought the cocktails, Fred turned from the fine specimen of peccary he had been examining and said, “A man is an owl to live in such a place alone, Archie. Why don’t you marry? As for me, just because I can’t marry, I find the world full of charming, unattached women, any one of whom I could fit up a house for with alacrity.”

“You’re more knowing than I.” Archie spoke politely. “I’m not very wide awake about women. I’d be likely to pick out one of the uncomfortable ones⁠—and there are a few of them, you know.” He drank his cocktail and rubbed his hands together in a friendly way. “My friends here have charming wives, and they don’t give me a chance to get lonely. They are very kind to me, and I have a great many pleasant friendships.”

Fred put down his glass. “Yes, I’ve always noticed that women have confidence in you. You have the doctor’s way of getting next. And you enjoy that kind of thing?”

“The friendship of attractive women? Oh, dear, yes! I depend upon it a great deal.”

The butler announced dinner, and the two men went downstairs to the dining-room. Dr. Archie’s dinners were always good and well served, and his wines were excellent.

“I saw the Fuel and Iron people today,” Ottenburg said, looking up from his soup. “Their heart is in the right place. I can’t see why in the mischief you ever got mixed up with that reform gang, Archie. You’ve got nothing to reform out here. The situation has always been as simple as two and two in Colorado; mostly a matter of a friendly understanding.”

“Well,”⁠—Archie spoke tolerantly⁠—“some of the young fellows seemed to have red-hot convictions, and I thought it was better to let them try their ideas out.”

Ottenburg shrugged his shoulders. “A few dull young men who haven’t ability enough to play the old game the old way, so they want to put on a new game which doesn’t take so much brains and gives away more advertising that’s what your anti-saloon league and vice commission amounts to. They provide notoriety for the fellows who can’t distinguish themselves at running a business or practicing law or developing an industry. Here you have a mediocre lawyer with no brains and no practice, trying to get a look-in on something. He comes up with the novel proposition that the prostitute has a hard time of it, puts his picture in the paper, and the first thing you know, he’s a celebrity. He gets the rake-off and she’s just where she was before. How could you fall for a mousetrap like Pink Alden, Archie?”

Dr. Archie laughed as he began to carve. “Pink seems to get under your skin. He’s not worth talking about. He’s gone his limit. People won’t read about his blameless life any more. I knew those interviews he gave out would cook him. They were a last resort. I could have stopped him, but by that time I’d come to the conclusion that I’d let the reformers down. I’m not against a general shaking-up, but the trouble with Pinky’s crowd is they never get beyond a general writing-up. We gave them a chance to do something, and they just kept on writing about each other and what temptations they had overcome.”

While Archie and his friend were busy with Colorado politics, the impeccable Japanese attended swiftly and intelligently to his duties, and the dinner, as Ottenburg at last remarked, was worthy of more profitable conversation.

“So it is,” the doctor admitted. “Well, we’ll go upstairs for our coffee and cut this out. Bring up some cognac and arak, Tai,” he added as he rose from the table.

They stopped to examine a moose’s head on the stairway, and when they reached the library the pine logs in the fireplace had been lighted, and the coffee was bubbling before the hearth. Tai placed two chairs before the fire and brought a tray of cigarettes.

“Bring the cigars in my lower desk drawer, boy,” the doctor directed. “Too much light in here, isn’t there, Fred? Light the lamp there on my desk, Tai.” He turned off the electric glare and settled himself deep into the chair opposite Ottenburg’s.

“To go back to our conversation, doctor,” Fred began while he waited for the first steam to blow off his