登陆注册
5169000000083

第83章

Our meeting-place--do you remember how I found you down there by the old pole trail, staring as though you had seen a ghost?--and that beautiful, beautiful music! It must always be our most sacred memory.Promise me you will save it until the very, very last."Thorpe said nothing because he could not rally his faculties.The sentimental association connected with the grove had actually never occurred to him.His keepsakes were impressions which he carefully guarded in his memory.To the natural masculine indifference toward material bits of sentiment he had added the instinct of the strictly portable early developed in the rover.He had never even possessed a photograph of his sister.Now this sudden discovery that such things might be part of the woof of another person's spiritual garment came to him ready-grown to the proportions of a problem.

In selecting the districts for the season's cut, he had included in his estimates this very grove.Since then he had seen no reason for changing his decision.The operations would not commence until winter.By that time the lovers would no longer care to use it as at present.Now rapidly he passed in review a dozen expedients by which his plan might be modified to permit of the grove's exclusion.

His practical mind discovered flaws in every one.Other bodies of timber promising a return of ten thousand dollars were not to be found near the river, and time now lacked for the cutting of roads to more distant forties.

"Hilda," he broke in abruptly at last, "the men you hear are clearing a road to this very timber.""What do you mean?" she asked.

"This timber is marked for cutting this very winter."She had not a suspicion of the true state of affairs."Isn't it lucky I spoke of it!" she exclaimed."How could you have forgotten to countermand the order! You must see to it to-day; now!"She sprang up impulsively and stood waiting for him.He arose more slowly.Even before he spoke her eyes dilated with the shock from her quick intuitions.

"Hilda, I cannot," he said.

She stood very still for some seconds.

"Why not?" she asked quietly.

"Because I have not time to cut a road through to another bunch of pine.It is this or nothing.""Why not nothing, then?"

"I want the money this will bring."

His choice of a verb was unfortunate.The employment of that one little word opened the girl's mind to a flood of old suspicions which the frank charm of the northland had thrust outside.Hilda Farrand was an heiress and a beautiful girl.She had been constantly reminded of the one fact by the attempts of men to use flattery of the other as a key to her heart and her fortune.From early girlhood she had been sought by the brilliant impecunious of two continents.

The continued experience had varnished her self-esteem with a glaze of cynicism sufficiently consistent to protect it against any but the strongest attack.She believed in no man's protestations.She distrusted every man's motives as far as herself was concerned.This attitude of mind was not unbecoming in her for the simple reason that it destroyed none of her graciousness as regards other human relations besides that of love.That men should seek her in matrimony from a selfish motive was as much to be expected as that flies should seek the sugar bowl.She accepted the fact as one of nature's laws, annoying enough but inevitable; a thing to guard against, but not one of sufficient moment to grieve over.

With Thorpe, however, her suspicions had been lulled.There is something virile and genuine about the woods and the men who inhabit them that strongly predisposes the mind to accept as proved in their entirety all the other virtues.Hilda had fallen into this state of mind.She endowed each of the men whom she encountered with all the robust qualities she had no difficulty in recognizing as part of nature's charm in the wilderness.Now at a word her eyes were opened to what she had done.She saw that she had assumed unquestioningly that her lover possessed the qualities of his environment.

Not for a moment did she doubt the reality of her love.She had conceived one of those deep, uplifting passions possible only to a young girl.But her cynical experience warned her that the reality of that passion's object was not proven by any test besides the fallible one of her own poetizing imagination.The reality of the ideal she had constructed might be a vanishable quantity even though the love of it was not.So to the interview that ensued she brought, not the partiality of a loving heart, nor even the impartiality of one sitting in judgment, but rather the perverted prejudice of one who actually fears the truth.

"Will you tell me for what you want the money?" she asked.

The young man caught the note of distrust.At once, instinctively, his own confidence vanished.He drew within himself, again beyond the power of justifying himself with the needed word.

"The firm needs it in the business," said he.

Her next question countered instantaneously.

"Does the firm need the money more than you do me?"They stared at each other in the silence of the situation that had so suddenly developed.It had come into being without their volition, as a dust cloud springs up on a plain.

"You do not mean that, Hilda," said Thorpe quietly."It hardly comes to that.""Indeed it does," she replied, every nerve of her fine organization strung to excitement."I should be more to you than any firm.""Sometimes it is necessary to look after the bread and butter,"Thorpe reminded her gently, although he knew that was not the real reason at all.

同类推荐
  • 解脱道论

    解脱道论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 金刚寿命陀罗尼经

    金刚寿命陀罗尼经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 大毗卢遮那略要速疾门五支念诵法

    大毗卢遮那略要速疾门五支念诵法

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 送史司马赴崔相公幕

    送史司马赴崔相公幕

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 沙州记

    沙州记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 赠别前蔚州契苾使君

    赠别前蔚州契苾使君

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 录异记

    录异记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 家事律师

    家事律师

    少女时期的慕晓遭受爱慕者霍久刺激而性情大变。随后,初恋方尊又出国了,感觉被遗弃的慕晓选择结束自己的生命,自尽不成的她却意外的忘记了一切。长大后的慕晓成了一名家事律师,身边也有了爱慕自己的助理,但这时方尊却突然回国,随后霍久也意外借入慕晓代理的案件中,命运之轮启动,三个人又被重新聚集在一起,尘封的少年的记忆被慢慢唤起,真真假假,勇敢怯懦,还是放手坚持?谁能给出正确的答案?
  • 杨灼灼成长记

    杨灼灼成长记

    我爱你的时候是真的,不爱你的时候也是真的,从来没有过背叛,也没有过虚情假意。
  • 青春偶像剧:霸道阔少追爱记

    青春偶像剧:霸道阔少追爱记

    花想容没想到,他就是宋小飞。花想容更没想到,原来宋小飞,是长得这么好,英俊得如传说中的罗马王子,帅气得如日本漫画书走出来的男主角。但这宋小飞,居然是这么的蛮横,这么的无理。
  • 海底两万里

    海底两万里

    1866年,有人以为在海上见到了一条独角鲸,法国生物学家阿罗纳克斯最后发现那是一艘名为“鹦鹉螺”号的潜艇,并且带着仆人康塞尔和一个捕鲸手内德·兰,跟随尼摩船长乘坐这艘潜艇在海底做了两万里的环球旅行。十个月后,这三个人终于在极其险恶的情况下逃出了“鹦鹉螺”号潜艇。
  • 青玉案之东风夜放花千树

    青玉案之东风夜放花千树

    她,出生在柳家,可因他,从古代穿越到现代。可他们的情结还未结开。这难道是宿命的安排?
  • 故事中的科学(人生解密)

    故事中的科学(人生解密)

    科学无处不在,在我们的周围,各类各样的事物中,都隐含着科学。一株花、一棵树、一滴水……一花一世界,一叶一菩提。无论是仰望星空、俯视大地,还是近观我们周遭咫尺器物,处处都可以发现科学原理蕴于其中。从生活中任何的小事物中都能发现科学的闪光。而现在,让我们在故事中去寻找科学。
  • 之巫

    之巫

    《幸亏是古代》姊妹篇:《之巫》我永远没有办法,把你当成陌路人。——————黎漠.塔纳安利
  • 舞动分卫

    舞动分卫

    在NBA的历史上,最豪华的的球队是洛杉矶湖人和波士顿凯尔特人,当然芝加哥公牛队也因为乔帮主的所向披靡也在NBA历史上留下了最浓厚的一笔。 陈风,风一样的少年,凭借在2011年国际赛场上的惊人表现,被波波维奇收入帐下,不过身体略显消瘦,体力不充足的他一直都没有获得太好的机会,浑浑噩噩过了半个赛季之后,风一样的少年因为一个从天而降的篮球系统一切都变得不一样了。