These were perfect days for the girl-wife. Under these genial suns, with such companionship, such daily food, she rushed towards maturity like some half-wild colt brought suddenly from the sere range into abundant and peaceful pasture, the physical side of her being rounded out, glowing with the fires of youth, at the same time that the poor old Captain sank slowly but surely into inactivity and feebleness. She did not perceive his decline, for he talked bravely of his future, and called her attention to his increasing weight, which was indeed a sign of his growing inertness.

And so the months pa.s.sed with no one of the little group but Alice suffering, for Mart had attained a kind of resignation to his condition.

He still talked of going up to the camp, but the doctor and Bertha persuaded him to wait, and so he endured as patiently as he could, and if he suffered, gave little direct sign of it.

Alice, fully alive now to the gossip of the town (thanks to Mrs. Crego), found herself helpless in the matter. She believed the young people to be--as they were--innocent of all disloyalty, and she could not a.s.sume the role of the jealous woman. She was frightened at thought of the suffering before them all, and it was in this fear that she said to Ben one day: "Boy, you're giving up a deal of time to the Haneys."

He answered, promptly. "They pay me for it."

"I know they do. But, dearest, you ought to take more time to study--to prepare yourself for other clients--when they come."

He laughed. "They're not likely to come right away, and, besides, I do get in an hour or two every day."

"But you ought to study _six_ hours every day. Aren't the traditions of Lincoln and Daniel Webster all to that effect: work all day with the ax, and study in the light of pine knots all night?"

He took her words as lightly as they were spoken. "Something like that.

But I'm no Daniel Webster; I'm not sure I want to go in for criminal law at all."

She spoke, sharply. "You mustn't think of getting your fees too easy, Ben. I don't think any good lawyer wins without work. Do you?"

"I didn't mean that," he hastened to say. "You do me an injustice. I really read more than you think, and my memory is tenacious, you know.

Besides, I can't refuse to give the Haneys the most of my time; for they are my only clients, and the Captain is most generous."

"The mornings ought to be enough," she hazarded.

"I know what you mean. I do go out with them afternoons a good deal, but I consider that a part of my duty. They are so helpless socially. You've always felt that yourself."

"I feel it now, Bennie boy, but we mustn't neglect all friends for them.

Other people don't know that you do this as a matter of business, and of course you can't tell any one; for if the Haneys heard of it they would be cut to the heart. Do they put it on a business basis?"

"They never mention it. Bertha isn't given to talking subtleties, as you know, and the Captain takes it all as it comes these days."

It hurt her to hear him speak of Mrs. Haney in that off-hand, habitual way, and she foretold further misconception on the part of Mrs. Crego in case he should forget--as he was likely to do--and allude to "Bertha" in her presence. But how could she tell him not to do that? She merely said: "I like Mrs. Haney, and I feel sorry for her--I mean I'm sorry she can't have a place in the town to which she is really ent.i.tled. She is improving very rapidly."

"Isn't she!" he cried out. "That little thing is reading right through the town library--a book every other day, she tells me."

"Novels, I fear."

"No; that's the remarkable thing. She's reading history and biography.

Isn't it too bad she couldn't have had Bryn Mawr or Va.s.sar? I've advised her to have in some one of the university people to coach her. I've suggested Miss Franklin. I wish you'd uphold me in it."

He had never told Alice of the talk in the garden that day, nor of the look in Bertha's eyes which decided him to a.s.sume the position of mentor as well as legal adviser, and he did not now intimate more than a casual supervision of her reading. As a matter of fact, he was directing her daily life as absolutely as a husband--more absolutely, in fact; for she obeyed his slightest wish or most minute suggestion. He withheld these facts from Alice, not from any perceived disloyalty to her, but from his feeling that his advice to Bertha was paid for and professional, and therefore not to be spread wide before any one. He did not conceal anything; he merely outlined without filling in the bare suggestion.

He not merely gave his fair client lists of books, he talked with her upon them, and so far as he was able spoke seriously and conscientiously about them. She seized upon his suggestion, and got Miss Franklin, one of the teachers of the schools, to come in now and again of an evening to help her, and, being fond of music, she bought a piano and began to take lessons. All of which (Lee Congdon would have said) threatened to render her commonplace and uninteresting; but Alice Heath felt quite differently about that.

"No; the more that girl gets, the more she'll have, Lee. As Ben says, she's the kind that if she were a boy would turn out a big self-made man. That's a little twisted as to grammar, but you see what I mean. s.e.x is one of the ultimate mysteries, isn't it? Now, why didn't I inherit my father's ability?"

"You did, only you never use it. But this girl hasn't your father to draw from."

"No; but her father was an educated man--a civil engineer, she tells me, who came out here for one of the big railroads. He was something of an inventor, too. That's the reason he died poor--they nearly all do."

"But the mother?"

"Well, she's weak and tiresome now, but she's by no means common. She's broken by hard work, but she's naturally refined. No, the girl isn't so bad; it's the frightful girlhood she endured in that little hotel. I think it's wonderful that she could a.s.sociate with the people she did--barbers and railway hands, and all that--and be what she is to-day.

If she had married a man like young Bennett, for example, she would have gone far."

"She can't go far with Haney chained to her wrist," said the blunt Mrs.

Congdon.

"But think what will happen when she is his widow!"

"And his legatee!"

"Precisely."

"She'll cut a wide swath. She's going to be handsome."

They had reached a danger-point, for Lee was on the verge of saying something about Ben's infatuation; but she didn't, and Alice knew why she didn't, for she asked, rather abruptly: "Won't you come over Thursday night? I'm going to take the Haneys to dinner at the hotel."

She flushed under Lee's gaze. "It's really Bennie's party, and I'm going to make it as pretty as I can."

"Alice, I don't understand you. Why do you do this?"

"Because I must. She and the Captain are going East on a visit, and Ben wants to give them a 'jolly send-off,' as he calls it. Besides, I like the girl."

Lee mused in silence for a few moments. "I guess you're right. Of course I'll come. Who else will?"

"Several of Ben's new friends and the Cregos--"

"Not the missus?"

"Yes; she comes because she's consumed with curiosity. Oh, it really promises to be smart!"

Congdon came in just in time to hear these words, "Who promises to be smart--Mrs. Haney?"

The women laughed. "Another person going about with a mind full of Mrs.

Haney."

"Well, why not? I just pa.s.sed her on the street in her new dog-cart, and she was ripping good to look at. Say, that girl is too swift for this town. You people better keep close to her if you want to know what's doing in gowns and cloaks. Did you ever see such development in your life? Say, girls, I always believed in clothes. But, my eyes! I didn't think cotton and wool and leather could make such a change. Who is putting her on?"

"The cart is a new development," said Alice. "I hope it wasn't yellow?"

"Well, it was."

"The Captain was in it?"

"Not on your life. The Captain was at home in the easy-chair by the fire."

The women looked at each other. Then Lee said: "The beginning of the end. Poor old Captain."

Congdon was loyalty itself. "Now don't you jump at conclusions. Yes, she pulled up, and I went out to see her. She gave me her hand in the old way, and said; 'Isn't this a joke. The Captain ordered it from Chicago.