Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/318

316 "‘They'd been keeping their mouth shut with both hands as to date and time of leaving,' wrote young Forbes. 'But it leaked out somehow; and when we all got down to the steamer Andree was waltzing around like a crazy thing. She froze on to Dick—gave him a devil of a time. And there was Tempest standing on the wharf and waiting. I tell you it was pretty sick to see. I don't guess he ever meant more than a bit of fooling. That's Dick, you know. He has an eye for every pretty girl, and Andree is uncommonly pretty, though she has gone off a bit lately. But he got served for it. She was all out. Let him have it good and strong. He made the best of it, I guess. Just laughed, and kissed her in front of us all, and told her not to be a little fool. Then the boat backed off, and there was Andree running over her ankles into the water, and crying out, "Dick! Dick!" But he'll never come back to her. He knows a trick worth two of that. But he wiped Tempest's eye over the business, and I reckon Tempest has too much grit to forgive him easily. Those two are about as friendly as a couple of wolf-bred huskies these days.'

"I guess there'll be something doing before they part company," added Slicker. "Dick'll be sorry for his deviltry before he's done. Of course she was ruining Tempest, and this has straightened him up again. But I don't imagine Dick went into it just for that. He isn't built of the stuff they make martyrs out of."

Because all human nature is irrational Jennifer did not attempt to explain to herself why she felt more pity than anger over this. Dick might have treated her as he had treated Andree, and she could have forgiven him; not only because the elements of submission and self-renunciation are very strong in the nature of most women, but because, seeing all things through the glass of her own clear heart, she believed that the man must suffer the more keenly of the two. A little while she stood, with her dainty clothes strowed [sic] round her on floor and bed and in the open boxes. Simple they were, but one and all bore just that nameless, elusive charm which was Jennifer's own: that charm which made a man, standing on the deck of a little steamer that