CHAPTER XVIII
A SACRIFICE AND ITS PUNISHMENT
Salazar was not on hand at breakfast, having contracted a sickness inthe head during a dispute at the ball. Paula brought in the dishes. Shefixed her solemn, round eyes on Mrs. MacFarlane and Johnson could read aquestioning in their limpid steadiness. Once she spoke sharply. He gavea curt answer and appeared perturbed.
"What does she want?" asked Hughie's widow.
"Nothing, ma'am. It ain't anything."
"She looks angry," Mrs. MacFarlane persisted.
"No-oo. She says the toast is burned. That's all."
"Nonsense. The toast's delicious," said the widow.
They went on with the meal. Hanging above the sideboard was a portraitof Hughie. It was a wretched thing in crayon, framed in wide gilt ofsumptuous design, but the drawing had been a gift to MacFarlane from afriend in the cow business, and accordingly he had allotted it a placeof honor. The widow saw this at breakfast for the first time. Hughie'sface wore a simper, but the likeness must have recalled him in tendermoods, for two large tears gathered on her cheeks and slid slowlydownward.
Paula, entering with fried eggs, noted the direction of her gaze andsaw, also, the tears splash on the widow's plate. Mrs. MacFarlane wasextracting a handkerchief from her sleeve and she smiled wanly at thegirl to intimate that the matter of the toast really did not weigh inthe least. It was kindly meant, but Paula failed altogether tounderstand. She dropped the platter and began to jabber. It is of noimportance what she said. At her first words Johnson jumped up, but shepushed him back into his seat and cried names at Hughie's widow it waslucky that good lady knew not the meaning of. She crooked her fingersunder Mrs. MacFarlane's nose, and when the widow tried, in herastonishment and indignation, to rise from the table, Paula seized aplate. Lafe pinned her arms. There was a tremendous to-do for a fewminutes, with Paula shrilling and tugging.
After the first shock, the widow regarded the girl's struggles withoutapprehension. Lafe contrived to drag Paula from the room. In thekitchen, her access of rage evaporated swiftly, and she sobbed, her faceburied in her arms against the wall. Johnson returned, panting.
"Now," Mrs. MacFarlane said steadily, "I want to know what this means."
This was natural enough, and Lafe had been thinking faster than he hadever thought in his life. He began an elaborate dissertation onstandards along the Border--how different they were to those back east.It was in his mind to persuade the widow that men were apt to departfrom the charted paths when removed from the compelling force of anestablished moral sentiment. That would give him a chance to lead up toHughie's backsliding by easy stages.
Such was his plan. It might have worked smoothly with any other woman,or done by a man of readier wit. But as he looked into Mrs. MacFarlane'sface, the affair assumed a different aspect to Lafe. He could not teardown the image of Hughie she had builded and kneeled to during elevenyears. There came a tremor in his voice and his speech trailed off intoweak incoherencies. He paused, braced himself and started again.
"That's better," said Mrs. MacFarlane, very white, and deadly quiet."That sounds more manly."
Once squared away to his task, Johnson did it well. He showed an amazingaptitude for lying. Looking the outraged widow straight in the eye, helied--lied gloriously--so that, as she heard him, Mrs. MacFarlanegradually shrank back. She appeared to expand and grow taller in hercontempt--to Lafe she seemed to fill the room--but when he deftly addeda picturesque touch about Paula deluding herself with the suspicion thatMrs. MacFarlane and himself were much too friendly--he told her thiswith a savage zest--the widow exclaimed, "The very idea! Oh, thecreature!"
"And you were Hughie's friend?" she remarked when he had ended. Ofcourse, that was the monstrous side of this affair.
"Well, you see, ma'am, him and me--"
"And Hetty Ferrier!"
Now, Lafe had forgotten Hetty in all this. Had Mrs. MacFarlane been awiser woman, she might have read a different story from his eyes in thatinstant.
"It's my duty to tell her, Mr. Johnson," Mrs. MacFarlane went on,sustained by that sense of moral obligation which overtakes us all indealing with our friends' private affairs.
"It ain't right, ma'am," said Lafe. "It ain't proper that a girl shouldhear such things."
"Ho, indeed!" the widow sniffed. "It isn't, hey? We'll see about that. Isuppose Hetty's a baby? And let a sweet girl like her marry a man likeyou?"
"You aim to tell her, Miz MacFarlane?"
"I certainly shall."
"Wait. Hold on a minute," he begged.
"There's nothing you can say, Mr. Johnson. I won't listen. Good-by. Itwon't be necessary for you to drive me back. I will get Salazar. No, Idon't want to hear anything more. I won't listen. I've heard too muchalready. That will do, please. Let me by."
She swept past him as though marching on a citadel, and Johnsonwithdrew, limp and wretched. Indeed, he looked and felt, at the moment,the thing Mrs. MacFarlane thought he was. There obtains a notion that aninnocent man's innocence will shine from his face like the sun breakingthrough clouds. It is a comfortable thought. The facts, however, arethat he is very likely to show much bewilderment under suddenaccusation, whereas the hardy scoundrel will summon up the mostblighting wrath when brought face to face with his misdoings.
Hughie's widow retired to her room, where, with a photograph of Hughieon the table in front of her, she had a long cry. Then she sat down andwrote to Hetty Ferrier, lest she be swerved from her high purpose bysubsequent happenings, or neglect it through bad memory. Salazarreceived orders to hitch the team to take her back to town, and themajordomo promised that Paula would be sent back to her mother, wholived on the far side of Tepitate. Her conscience serene, Mrs.MacFarlane gave the majordomo some money for the girl, which themajordomo pocketed against a holiday in the city. As he intended tomarry Paula some day, it may be that he regarded this as dowry andconsequently his own. Then the widow drove back to the Hotel Carmen, anda week later boarded the train for the homeward journey.