CHAPTER III
THE COUSINS
Dinner was over at the Windsor, in Montreal, and Mrs. Keith was sittingwith Mrs. Ashborne in the square between the hotel and St. Catharine'sStreet. A cool air blew uphill from the river, and the patch of grasswith its fringe of small, dusty trees had a certain picturesqueness inthe twilight. Above it the wooded crest of the mountain rose darklyagainst the evening sky; lights glittered behind the network of thinbranches and fluttering leaves along the sidewalk, and the dome of thecathedral bulked huge and shadowy across the square. Downhill, towardSt. James's, rose towering buildings, with the rough-hewn front of theCanadian Pacific station prominent among them, and the air was filledwith the clanging of street-cars and the tolling of locomotive bells.Once or twice, however, when the throb of the traffic momentarilysubsided, music rose faint and sweet from the cathedral, and Mrs. Keithturned to listen. She had heard the uplifted voices before, throughher open window in the early morning when the city was silent and itsbusy toilers slept, and now it seemed to her appropriate that theycould not be wholly drowned by its hoarse commercial clamor.
The square served as a cool retreat for the inhabitants of crowdedtenements and those who had nowhere else to go, but Margaret Keith wasnot fastidious about her company. She was interested in the unkemptimmigrants who, waiting for a west-bound train, lay upon the grass,surrounded by their tired children; and she had sent Millicent down thestreet to buy fruit to distribute among the travelers. She liked towatch the French Canadian girls who slipped quietly up the broadcathedral steps. They were the daughters of the rank and file, buttheir movements were graceful and they were tastefully dressed. Thenthe blue-shirted, sinewy men, who strolled past, smoking, roused hercuriosity. They had not acquired their free, springy stride in thecities; these were adventurers who had met with strange experiences inthe frozen North and the lonely West. Some of them had hard faces anda predatory air, but that added to their interest. Margaret Keithliked to watch them all, and speculate about their mode of life; thatpleasure could still be enjoyed, though, as she sometimes told herselfwith humorous resignation, she could no longer take a very active partin things.
Presently, however, something that appealed to her in a more direct andpersonal way occurred, for a man came down the steps of the Windsor andcrossed the well-lighted street with a very pretty English girl. Hecarried himself well, and had the look of a soldier; his figure wasfinely proportioned; but his handsome face suggested sensibility ratherthan decision of character, and his eyes were dreamy. His companion,so far as Mrs. Keith could judge by her smiling glance as she laid herhand upon his arm when they left the sidewalk, was proud of him, andmuch in love with him.
"Whom are you looking at so hard?" Mrs. Ashborne inquired.
"Bertram Challoner and his bride," said Mrs. Keith. "They're comingtoward us yonder."
Then a curious thing happened, for a man who was crossing the streetseemed to see the Challoners and, turning suddenly, stepped back behinda passing cab. They had their backs to him when he went on, but helooked around, as if to make sure he had not been observed, before heentered the hotel.
"That was strange," said Mrs. Ashborne. "It looked as if the fellowdidn't want to meet our friends. Who can he be?"
"How can I tell?" Mrs. Keith answered. "I think I've seen himsomewhere, but that's all I know."
Looking around as Millicent joined them, she noticed the girl's puzzledexpression. Millicent had obviously seen the stranger's action, butMrs. Keith did not wish to pursue the subject then; and the next momentChalloner came up and greeted her heartily, while his wife spoke toMrs. Ashborne.
"We arrived only this afternoon, and must have missed you at dinner,"he said. "We may go West to-morrow, though we haven't decided yet.I've no doubt we shall see you again to-night or at breakfast."
After a few pleasant words the Challoners passed on, and Mrs. Keithlooked after them thoughtfully.
"Bertram has changed in the last few years," she said. "I heard thathe had malaria in India, and that perhaps accounts for it, but he showssigns of his mother's delicacy. She was not strong, and I alwaysthought he had her highly strung nervous temperament, though he musthave learned to control it in the army."
"He couldn't have got in unless the doctors were satisfied with him,"Mrs. Ashborne pointed out.
"That's true; but both mental and physical traits have a way of lyingdormant while we're young, and developing later. Bertram has shownhimself a capable officer; but, to my mind, he looked more like asoldier when he was at Sandhurst than he does now."
Mrs. Ashborne glanced toward Millicent, who was distributing a basketof peaches among a group of untidy immigrant children. One toddlingbaby clung to her skirt.
"What a charming picture! Miss Graham fits the part well. You can seethat she's sorry for the dirty little beggars. They don't look as ifthey'd had a happy time; and a liner's crowded steerage isn't aluxurious place."
Mrs. Keith smiled as Millicent came toward her with a few of the smallchildren clustered round her.
"I have some English letters to write," she said; "and I think we'll goin."
The Challoners did not leave for the West the next day. About an hourbefore sunset they leaned upon the rails of a wooden gallery built outfrom the rock on the summit of the green mountain that rises closebehind Montreal. It is a view-point that visitors frequent, and theygazed with appreciation at the wide landscape. Wooded slopes ledsteeply down to the stately college buildings of McGill and the rows ofpicturesque houses along Sherbrook Avenue; lower yet, the city, shiningin the clear evening light, spread across the plain, dominated by itscathedral dome and the towers of Notre Dame. Green squares with treesin them checkered the blocks of buildings; along its skirts, where ahaze of smoke hung about the wharves, the great river gleamed in abroad silver band. On the farther bank the plain ran on again, fadingfrom green to gray and purple, until it melted into the distance, andthe hills on the Vermont frontier cut, faintly blue, against the sky.
"How beautiful this world is!" Challoner exclaimed. "I have seengrander sights, and there are more picturesque cities thanMontreal--I'm looking forward to showing you the work of the Moguls inIndia--but happiness such as I've had of late casts a glamour overeverything. It wasn't always so with me; I've had my bad hours when Iwas blind to beauty."
Though Blanche Challoner was very young, and much in love, she ventureda smiling rebuke.
"You shouldn't wish to remember them; I'm afraid, Bertram, there's amelancholy strain in you, and I don't mean to let you indulge in it.Besides, how could you have had bad hours? You have been made much of,and given everything you could wish for, since you were a boy. Indeed,I sometimes wonder how you escaped from being spoiled."
"When I joined the army, I hated it; that sounds like high treason,doesn't it? However, I got used to things, and made art my hobbyinstead of my vocation. You won't mind if I confess that a view ofthis kind makes me long to paint?"
"Oh, no; I intend to encourage you. You mustn't waste your talent.When we stay among the Rockies we will spend the days in the mostbeautiful places we can find, and I shall take my pleasure in watchingyou at work. But didn't your fondness for sketching amuse the mess?"
"I used to be chaffed about it, but I repaid my tormentors bycaricaturing them. On the whole, they were very good-natured."
"I am sure they admired the drawings; they ought to have done so,anyway. You have talent. Indeed, I never quite understood why youbecame a soldier."
"I think it was from a want of moral courage; you have seen thatdetermination is not among my virtues. If you knew my father verywell, you would understand. Though he's fond of pictures, he looksupon artists and poets as a rather effeminate and irresponsible set,and I must admit that he has met one or two unfavorable specimens.Then, he couldn't imagine the possibility of a son of his not beinganxious to follow the family profession; and, knowing how my defectionwould grieve him, I let him have his way. There has a
lways been aChalloner fighting or ruling in India since John Company's time."
"They must have been fine men, by their portraits. There's one of aMajor Henry Challoner I fell in love with. He was with Outram, wasn'the? You have his look, though there's a puzzling difference. I thinkthose men were bluffer and blunter than you are. You're gentler andmore sensitive; in a way, finer drawn."
"My sensitiveness has not been a blessing," said Challoner soberly.
"But it makes you lovable," Blanche declared. "There must have been acertain ruthlessness about those old Challoners which you couldn'tshow. After all, their pictures suggest that their courage was of theunimaginative, physical kind."
A shadow crept into Challoner's face, but he banished it.
"I am happy in having a wife who won't see my faults." Then he addedhumorously: "After all, however, that's not good for one."
Blanche gave him a tender smile; but he did not see it, for he wasgazing at a man who came down the steps from the neighboring cablerailway. The newcomer was about thirty years old, of average height,and strongly made. His face was deeply sunburned and he had eyes of acurious dark blue, with a twinkle in them, and dark lashes, though hishair was fair. As he drew nearer, Blanche was struck by something thatsuggested the family likeness of the Challoners. He had their firmmouth and wide forehead, but by no means their somewhat austereexpression. He looked as if he went carelessly through life and couldreadily be amused. Then he saw Bertram, and, starting, made as if hewould pass the entrance to the gallery, and Blanche turned hersurprised glance upon her husband. Bertram's hand was tightly closedon the glasses he held, and his face was tense and flushed, but hestepped forward with a cry:
"Dick!"
The newcomer moved toward him, and Blanche knew that he was the man whohad brought dishonor upon her husband's family.
"This is a fortunate meeting," Bertram said, and his voice was cordial,though rather strained. "Blanche, here's my cousin, Dick Blake."
Blake showed no awkwardness. Indeed, on the whole, he looked amused;but his face grew graver as he fixed his eyes on Mrs. Challoner.
"Though I'm rather late, you'll let me wish you happiness," he said."I believe it will be yours. Bertram's a good fellow; I have much tothank him for."
There was a sincerity and a hint of affection in his tone, and Bertramlooked uncomfortable.
"But how did you come here?" Bertram asked, as if to turn theconversation from himself. "Where have you been since----"
He stopped abruptly, and Blake laughed.
"Since you surreptitiously said good-by to me at Peshawur? Well, afterthat I went to Penang, and from there to Queensland. Stayed a time ata pearl-fishing station among the Kanakas, and then went to England fora few months."
"But how did you manage?" Bertram inquired with some diffidence. "Itraises a point you wouldn't let me talk about at Peshawur, but I'veoften felt guilty because I didn't insist. Traveling about as you havedone is expensive."
"Not to me," Blake explained with a twinkle. "I've turned adventurer,and I have the Blake gift of getting along without money." He added inan explanatory aside to Blanche: "For two or three generations we keptopen house and a full stable in Ireland, on a revenue derived fromrents which were rarely paid, and if I hadn't been too young when adisaster gave the creditors their chance. I'd have given them asporting run."
"But what did you do when you left England?" Bertram broke in.
"Went to East Africa; after that, to this country, where I tried myhand at prairie farming. Found it decidedly monotonous and sold thehomestead at a profit. Then I did some prospecting, and now I'm hereon business."
"On business!" Bertram exclaimed. "You could never be trusted to getproper value for a shilling!"
"I've learned to do so lately, and that's not going far. If you're incommerce in this country, you must know how to put down fifty cents andtake up a dollar's worth. Anyhow, I'm here to meet an American whoseacquaintance I made farther West. He's a traveler in paints andvarnishes, and a very enterprising person, as well as an unusually goodsort. But I've told you enough about myself; I want your news."
Blanche thought it cost her husband an effort to fall in with hiscousin's casual mood. Blake, however, seemed quite at ease, and shewas growing interested in him. He reminded her of the Challonerportraits in the dark oak gallery at Sandymere, but she thought himlighter, more brilliant, and, in a sense, more human than those sternsoldiers. Then she remembered that his Irish blood explained something.
They talked a while about English friends and relatives; and then Blakeasked rather abruptly:
"And the Colonel?"
"Well," said Bertram, "I heard that you saw him, Dick."
"I did, for half an hour. I felt that it was my duty, though theinterview was hard on us both. He was fair, as he always was, andtried to hide his feelings. I couldn't blame him because he failed."
Bertram looked away, and Blake's face was troubled. There was a hintof emotion in his voice as he went on, turning to Blanche:
"Whatever he may think of me, I have a sincere respect for ColonelChalloner; and I owe him more than I can ever repay. He brought me upafter my father's death and started me, like a son, in an honorablecareer." His tone grew lighter. "It's one of my few virtues that Idon't forget my debts. But I've kept you some time. My Americanfriend hasn't turned up yet and I may be here a few days. Where areyou staying? I'll look you up before I leave."
"We go West to-morrow morning. Come down and have dinner with us atthe Windsor," Bertram said; and when Mrs. Challoner seconded therequest, they went up the steps to the platform from which the cabletrain started.