Lonesome Land by B. M. Bower (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

“Good morning,” she greeted them quietly. “I think we must be the laziest people in town; at any rate, we seem to be the latest risers.”

Kent stared at her frankly, so that she flushed a little under the scrutiny. Manley consciously avoided looking at her, and muttered something unintelligible while he pulled out a chair three places distant from her.

Val stole a sidelong, measuring look at her husband while she took a sip of coffee, and then her eyes turned upon Kent. More than ever, it seemed to him, they resembled the eyes of a lioness watching you quietly from the corner of her cage. You could look at them, but you could not look into them. Always they met your gaze with a baffling veil of inscrutability. But they were darker than the eyes of a lioness; they were human eyes; woman eyes—alluring eyes. She did not say a word, and, after a brief stare which might have meant almost anything, she turned to her plate of toast and broke away the burned edges of a slice and nibbled at the passable center as if she had no trouble beyond a rather unsatisfactory breakfast.

It was foolish, it was childish for three people who knew one another very well, to sit and pretend to eat, and to speak no word; so Kent thought, and tried to break the silence with some remark which would not sound constrained.

“It's going to storm,” he flung into the silence, like chucking a rock into a pond.

“Do you think so?” Val asked languidly, just grazing him with a glance, in that inattentive way she sometimes had. “Are you going out home—or to what's left of it—to-day, Manley?” She did not look at him at all, Kent observed.

“I don't know—I'll have to hire a team—I'll see what—”

“Mrs. Hawley thinks we ought to stay here for a few days—or that I ought—while you make arrangements for building a new stable, and all that.”

“If you want to stay,” Manley agreed rather eagerly, “why, of course, you can. There's nothing out there to—”

“Oh, it doesn't matter in the slightest degree where I stay. I only mentioned it because I promised her I would speak to you about it.” There was more than languor in her tone.

“They're going to start the fireworks pretty quick,” Kent mentally diagnosed the situation and rose hurriedly. “Well, I've got to hunt a horse, myself, and pull out for the Wishbone,” he explained gratuitously. “Ought to've gone last night. Good-bye.” He closed the door behind him and shrugged his shoulders. “Now they can fight it out,” he told himself. “Glad I ain't a married man!”

However, they did not fight it out then. Kent had no more than reached the office when Val rose, hoped that Manley would please excuse her, and left the room also. Manley heard her go up-stairs, found out from Arline what was the number of Val's room, and followed her. The door was locked, but when he rapped upon it Val opened it an inch and held it so.

“Val, let me in. I want to talk with you. I—God knows how sorry I am—”

“If He does, that ought to be sufficient,” she answered coldly. “I don't feel like talking now—especially upon the subject you would choose. You're a man, supposedly. You must know what it is your duty to do. Please let us not discuss it—now or ever.

“But, Val—”

“I don't want to talk about it, I tell you! I won't—I can't. You must do without the conventional confession and absolution. You must have some sort of conscience—let that receive your penitence.” She started to close the door, but he caught it with his hand.

“Val—do you hate me?”

She looked at him for a moment, as if she were trying to decide. “No,” she said at last, “I don't think I do; I'm quite sure that I do not. But I'm terribly hurt and disappointed.” She closed the door then and turned the key.

Manley stood for a moment rather blankly before it, then put his hands as deep in his pockets as they would go, and went slowly down the stairs. At that moment he did not feel particularly penitent. She would not listen to “the conventional confession!”

“That girl can be hard as nails!” he muttered, under his breath.

He went into the office, got a cigar, and lighted it moodily. He glanced at the bottles ranged upon the shelves behind the bar, drew in his breath for speech, let it go in a sigh, and walked out. He knew perfectly well what Val had meant. She had deliberately thrown him back upon his own strength. He had fallen by himself, he must pick himself up; and she would stand back and watch the struggle, and judge him according to his failure or his success. He had a dim sense that it was a dangerous experiment.

He looked for Kent, found him just as he was mounting at the stables, and let him go almost without a word. After all, no one could help him. He stood there smoking after Kent had gone, and when his cigar was finished he wandered back to the hotel. As was always the case after hard drinking, he had a splitting headache. He got a room as close to Val's as he could, shut himself into it, and gave himself up to his headache and to gloomy meditation. All day he lay upon the bed, and part of the time he slept. At supper time he rapped upon Val's door, got no answer, and went down alone, to find her in the dining room. There was an empty chair beside her, and he took it as his right. She talked a little—about the fire and the damage it had done. She said she was worried because she had forgotten to bring the cat, and what would it find to eat out there?

“Everything's burned perfectly black for miles and miles, you know,” she reminded him.

They left the room together, and he followed her upstairs and to her door. This time she did not shut him out, and he went in and sat down by the window, and looked out upon the meager little street. Never, in the years he had known her, had she been so far from him. He watched her covertly while she searched for something in her suit case.

“I'm afraid I didn't bring enough clothes to last more than a day or two,” she remarked. “I couldn't seem to think of anything that night. Arline did most of the packing for me. I'm afraid I misjudged that woman, Manley; there's a good deal to her, after all. But she is funny.”

“Val, I want to tell you I'm going to—to be different. I've been a beast, but I'm going to—” So much he had rushed out before she could freeze him to silence again.

“I hope so,” she cut in, as he hesitated, “That is something you must judge for yourself, and do by yourself. Do you think you will be able to get a team tomorrow?”

“Oh—to hell with a team!” Manley exploded.

Val dropped her hairbrush upon the floor. “Manley Fleetwood! Has it come