CHAPTER II
MORENA'S WIFE
Betty Morena was sitting in a rustic chair before an open fire, smokinga cigarette. She was a short woman, so slenderly, even narrowly built,as to appear overgrown, and she was a mature woman so immaturely shapedand featured as to appear hardly more than a child. Her curly, russethair was parted at the side, her wide, long-lashed eyes were set farapart, her nose was really a finely modeled snub,--more, a boy's noseeven to a light sprinkling of freckles,--and her mouth was provokinglythe soft, red mouth of a sorrowful child. She lounged far down in herchair, her slight legs, clad in riding-breeches of perfect cut,stretched out straight, her limber arms along the arms of the chair,her chin sunk on her flat chest, and her big, clear eyes staring intothe fire. It was an odd figure of a wife for Jasper Morena, a Jew ofthirty-eight, producer and manager of plays.
When Betty Kane had run away with him, there had been lamentation andrage in the houses of Kane and of Morena. To the pride of an oldHebrew family, the marriage even of this wandering son with a Gentilewas fully as degrading as to the pride of the old Tory family was themarriage with a Jew. Her perverse Gaelic blood on fire with theinsults heaped upon her lover, Betty, seventeen years old, romantic,clever, would have walked over flint to give her hand to him. That wasten years ago. Now, when Jasper came into her room, she drew her quickbrows together, puffed at her cigarette, and blinked as though she waslooking at something distasteful and at the same time rather alarming.
"Have they stopped dancing, Jasper?" she asked in a voice that was atonce brusque and soft.
Jasper rubbed his hands delightedly. He was still merry, and came tostand near the fire, looking down at her with eyes entirely kind andadmiring.
"Have you ever noticed Jane, who cooks for the outfit, Betty?"
"Yes. She's horrible."
"She's extraordinary, and I mean to get hold of her for Luck's play.Did you read it?"
"Yes."
"The play is absolutely dependent on the leading part and I have foundit simply impossible to fill. Now, here's a woman of extraordinarygrace and beauty--"
Betty lifted skeptical eyebrows, twisted her limber mouth, but forboreto contradict.
"And with a magical voice--a woman who not only looks the part, but isit. You remember Luck's heroine?"
Betty flicked off the ash of her cigarette and looked away. "A savage,isn't she? The man has her tamed, takes her back to London, and theregives her cause for jealousy and she springs on him--yes, I remember.This woman, Jane, is absolutely without education and hasn't a notionof acting, I suppose."
Jasper rubbed his hands with increased delight. "Not a notion and shemurders the King's English. But she is Luck's savage and--in spite ofyour eyebrows, Betty--she is beautiful. I can school her. It will takemoney, no end of patience, but I can do it. It's one of the things Ican do. But, of course, there's the initial difficulty of persuadingher to try it."
"That oughtn't to be any difficulty at all. Of course she'll jump atthe chance."
"I'm not so sure. She was ready to throw me out of the kitchento-night. She is really a virago. Do you know what one of the men saidabout her?" Jasper laughed and imitated the gentle Western drawl."Jane's plumb movin' to me. She's about halfway between 'You go tohell' and 'You take me in your arms to rest.'"
Betty smiled. Her smile was vastly more mature than her appearance. Itwas clever and cynical and cold. The Oriental, looking down at her,lost his merriment.
"Do you feel better, dear?" he asked timidly. "Do you think you willbe able to go back next week?"
She stood up as he came nearer and walked over to the little tablethat played the part of dressing-table under a wavy mirror. "Oh, yes.I am quite well. I don't think the doctors have much sense. I'm sure Ihadn't anything like a nervous breakdown. I was just tired out."
Jasper drew back the hand whose touch she had eluded, and nervously,his long supple fingers a little unsteady, lighted a cigarette. Atthat moment he did not look like a spider, but like a lover who hasbeen hurt. Betty could see in the mirror a distorted image of hisdejected gracefulness, but, entirely unmoved, she put up her thin,brown hands and began to take the pins out of her hair.
"I like your Jane experiment," she said. "Let me know how you get onwith it and whether I can help. I shall have to turn in now. I'm deadbeat. Yarnall took me halfway up the mountain and back. Good-night."
Jasper looked at her, then pressed his lips into a straight line andwent to the door which led from her bedroom to his. He said "Good-night"in a low tone, glanced at her over his shoulder, and went out.
Betty waited an instant, then slowly unlaced her heavy, knee-highboots, took them off, and began to walk to and fro on stocking feet,hands clasped behind her back. With her curly hair all about her faceand shoulders, she looked like a wild, extravagantly naughtyschool-girl, a girl in a wicked temper, a rebel against authority. Infact, she was rejoicing that this horrible enforced visit to the Westwas all but over. One week more! She was almost at an end of herendurance. How she hated the beautiful white night outside, thosemountain peaks, the sound of that rapid river, the stillness ofsagebrush, the voice of the big pines! And she hated the log room, itssimplicity now all littered with incongruous luxuries; ivory toiletarticles on the board table; lacy, beribboned underwear thrown over therustic chair; silver-framed photographs; an exquisite, gold-mountedcrystal vase full of wild flowers on the pine shelf; satin bedroomslippers on the clay hearth; a gorgeous, fur-trimmed dressing-gown overthe foot of her narrow, iron cot; all the ridiculous necessities thatBetty's maid had put into her trunk. Yes, Betty hated it all because itwas what she had always thirsted for. What a malevolent trick of fatethat Jasper should have brought her to Wyoming, that the doctor hadinsisted upon at least a month of just this life. "Take her West," hehad said, and Betty, lying limp and white in her bed, her small headsunk into the pillow, had jerked from head to foot. "Take her West. Iknow a ranch in Wyoming--Yarnall's. She'll get outdoor exercise, tonicair, sound sleep, release from all these pestiferous details, like acloud of flies, that sting women's nerves to death. Don't pay anyattention to whether she likes it or not. Let her behave like a naughtychild, let her kick and scream and cry. Pick her up, Morena, and carryher off. Do you hear? Don't let her make you change your plans." Thedoctor had seen his patient's convulsive jerk. "Pack her up. Make yourreservations and go straight to 'Buck' Yarnall's ranch, Lazy-Y,--that'shis brand, I believe,--Middle Fork, Wyoming. I'll send him a wire. Heknows me. She needs all outdoors to run about in. She needs joggin'around all day through the sagebrush on a cow-pony in that sun; sheneeds the smell of a camp-fire--Gad! wish I could get back to itmyself."
Betty, having heard this out, began to laugh. She laughed till theygave her something to keep her quiet. But, except for that laughter,she had made no protest whatever; she did not "kick and scream andcry." In fact, though she looked like a child, she was not at allinclined to such exhibitions. This doctor had not seen her through herrecent ordeal. Two years before her breakdown, Jasper had beenterribly hurt in an automobile accident, and Betty had come to him atthe hospital, had waited, as white as a snow-image, for the result ofthe examination. They had told her emphatically that there was nohope. Jasper Morena could not live for more than a few days. She mustnot allow herself to hope. He might or might not regain consciousness.If he did, it would be for a few minutes before the end. Betty hadlistened with her white, rigid, child face, had thanked them, had gonehome. There in her exquisite, little sitting room above Central Park,she had sat at her desk and written a few lines on square, gray notepaper.
"Jasper is dying," she had written. "By the time you get this, he will be dead. If you can forgive me for having failed in courage last year, come back. What I have been to you before I will be again, only, this time we can love openly. Come back."
Then she had dropped her head on the desk and cried. Afterwards shehad addressed her letter to a certain Prosper Gael. The letter went toWyoming. When it reached its destination, it w
as taken over amountain-range by a patient Chinaman.
Three days later Jasper regained consciousness and began slowly toreturn to health. He had the tenacious vitality of his race, and, inhis own spirit, an iron will to live. He kept Betty beside his bed forhours, and held her cold hand in his long, sensitive one, and hestared at her under his lashes till she thought she must go mad. Butshe did not. She nursed him through an interminable convalescence. Shereceived Prosper, very early in this convalescence, by her husband'sbed, and Jasper had murmured gratitude for the emotion that threatenedto overwhelm his friend. It was not till some time--an extraordinarilylong time--after Morena's complete recovery that she had snapped likea broken icicle. And then, forsooth, they had sent her to Wyoming toget back her health!
Having paced away some of her restlessness, Betty stopped by the cabinwindow and pushed aside one of the short, calico curtains. She lookedout on the court. A tall woman had just pulled up a bucket of waterfrom the well and had emptied it into a pitcher. She finished, let thebucket drop with a whirr and a clash, and raised her head. For asecond she and Jasper Morena's wife looked at each other. Bettynodded, smiled, and drew the curtain close.