Dorian

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

The sud­den re­turn of Car­lia Duke to her home cre­at­ed as much talk as her dis­ap­pear­ance had done. Do­ri­an was be­sieged with en­quir­ers whom he smil­ing­ly told that he had just come across her tak­ing a lit­tle va­ca­tion up in the hills. What, in the hills in the depths of win­ter? Why, yes; none but those who have tried it know the com­fort and the re­al rest one may ob­tain shut out by the snow from the world, in the soli­tude of the hills. He told as lit­tle as pos­si­ble of the de­tails of his search, even to Car­lia's par­ents. Any un­pleas­ant dis­clo­sures would have to come from her to them, he rea­soned. Not be­ing able to get Do­ri­an talk­ing about the case, the good peo­ple of Green­street soon ex­haust­ed their own knowl­edge of the mat­ter, so in a short time, the gos­sip re­sumed its ev­ery-​day trend.

Hard­ly a day passed with­out Do­ri­an spend­ing some time with Car­lia. She would not go to Sun­day School or to Mu­tu­al, and it was some time be­fore he could con­vince her that it was a mat­ter of wis­dom as well as of right that she should at­tend some of the pub­lic ward meet­ings. Fre­quent­ly, he took his book to the Duke home and read aloud to Car­lia. This she en­joyed very much. Some­times the book was a first class nov­el, but of­ten­er it was a sci­en­tif­ic text or a re­li­gions trea­tise. Car­lia lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly to his dis­cus­sion of deep prob­lems, and he was agree­ably sur­prised to learn that she could read­ily fol­low him in the dis­cus­sion of these themes; so that the long win­ter evenings spent with her ei­ther at her home or at his own be­came a source of great in­spi­ra­tion to the young man who had not lost sight or the mis­sion as­signed to him by the beloved Un­cle Zed. Do­ri­an talked freely to Car­lia on how he might best ful­fill the high des­tiny which seemed to lay be­fore him; and Car­lia en­tered en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly in­to his plans.

“Fine, fine,” she would say. “Car­ry it out. You can do it.”

“With your help, Car­lia.”

“I'll glad­ly help you all I can; but that is so lit­tle; what can I do?”

“Trust me, have faith in me; and when the time comes, mar­ry me.”

This was usu­al­ly the end of the con­ver­sa­tion for Car­lia; she be­came silent un­less he changed the sub­ject.

Do­ri­an, nat­ural­ly un­demon­stra­tive, was now more care­ful than ev­er in his love mak­ing. The in­ti­ma­cy be­tween them nev­er quite re­turned to the ear­li­er state. Com­plete for­get­ful­ness of what had been, was, of course, im­pos­si­ble, ei­ther for Car­lia or for Do­ri­an; but he tried man­ful­ly not to let the “specter” come too of­ten be­tween him and the girl he loved. He fre­quent­ly told her that he loved her, but it was done by sim­ple word or act. Do­ri­an's greater knowl­edge gave him the ad­van­tage over her. He was bound by this greater knowl­edge to be the stronger, the wis­er, the one who could keep all sit­ua­tions well in hand.

One evening, when Car­lia was un­usu­al­ly sweet and tempt­ing, he asked if he might kiss her good­night. She set her face as if it were hard to de­ny him, but she fi­nal­ly said:

“No; you must not.”

“Why not, Car­lia?”

“We're not en­gaged yet.”

“Car­lia!”

“We are not. I have nev­er promised to mar­ry you, have I?” She smiled.

“No; I guess not; but that's un­der­stood.”

“Don't be so sure.”

“There are some things def­inite­ly fixed with­out the spo­ken word.”

“Good night, Do­ri­an.” She was smil­ing still.

“Good night, Car­lia.” Their hands met and clasped, aton­ing the best they could for the for­bid­den kiss.

One evening when the feel­ing of spring was in the air, Do­ri­an was go­ing to call on Car­lia, when he heard the ap­proach of an au­to­mo­bile. As it turned in­to the bystreet, lead­ing to the Duke home, Do­ri­an saw the driv­er to be Mr. Jack La­mont. Do­ri­an kept in the road, and set his face hard. As the ma­chine had to stop to pre­vent run­ning over him, Do­ri­an turned, walked de­lib­er­ate­ly to the side of the car, and look­ing steadi­ly in­to Mr. La­mont's face, said:

“I'm go­ing to Mr. Duke's al­so. If I find you there, I'll thrash you with­in an inch of your life. Drive on.”

For a mo­ment, the two glared at each oth­er, then the au­to­mo­bile went on--on past the Duke house to­ward town. When Do­ri­an ar­rived at his des­ti­na­tion, Car­lia greet­ed him with:

“Do­ri­an, what's the mat­ter?”

“Noth­ing,” he laughed.

“You're as pale as a ghost.”

“Am I? Well, I haven't seen any ghosts--Say, moth­er wants you to come to sup­per. She has some­thing you spe­cial­ly like. Can you?”

“Sure, she can,” an­swered her moth­er, for she was glad to have Car­lia out away from the work which she was de­ter­mined to stick to clos­er than ev­er. Car­lia was pleased to go, and kept up a mer­ry chat­ter un­til she saw that Do­ri­an was ex­cep­tion­al­ly sober-​mind­ed. She asked him what was the mat­ter with him, but he evad­ed. His thoughts were on the man whom he had pre­vent­ed from call­ing at her home that evening. What was his er­rand? What was in the scoundrel's mind? Do­ri­an strug­gled to put away from him the dark thoughts which had arisen be­cause of his re­cent en­counter with Mr. La­mont. All the evening at home and dur­ing their walk back he was un­usu­al­ly silent, and Car­lia could on­ly look at him with ques­tion­ing anx­iety.

Spring, once start­ed, came on with a rush. The melt­ing snow filled the riv­er with a mud­dy flood; the grass greened the slopes; the burst­ing wil­lows per­fumed the air; the swamp awak­ened to the warm touch of the sun. Do­ri­an's busy sea­son al­so be­gan.

As soon as the roads were pas­si­ble, Do­ri­an drove up to his dry-​farm. On one of these first trips he fell in with a com­pa­ny of his neigh­bor­ing dry-​farm­ers, and they trav­eled to­geth­er. While they were stop­ping for noon at a small ho­tel in the canyon, a rain storm came up, which de­layed them. They were not im­pa­tient, how­ev­er, as the mois­ture was wel­come; so the farm­ers rest­ed eas­ily, let­ting their hors­es eat a lit­tle longer than usu­al.

The con­ver­sa­tion was such which should be ex­pect­ed of Bish­op's coun­selors, pres­ident of El­ders' quo­rums, and class lead­ers in the Mu­tu­al, which these men were. On this oc­ca­sion some of the al­ways-​present moral prob­lems were dis­cussed. Do­ri­an was so qui­et that even­tu­al­ly some one called on him for an opin­ion.

“I don't think I can add any­thing to the dis­cus­sion,” replied Do­ri­an. “On­ly this, how­ev­er: One day in Sun­day school Un­cle Zed paint­ed the ter­rors of sin to us boys in such colours that I shall nev­er for­get it. The re­sult in my case is that I have a dread­ful fear of moral wrong do­ing. I am lit­er­al­ly scared, I--”

Do­ri­an turned his eyes to the dark­ened door­way. Mr. Jack La­mont stood there with a cyn­ical ex­pres­sion on his face. His hat was tilt­ed back on his head, and a half-​smoked cigarette sagged from his lips. The ge­nial warmth of the room seemed chilled by the new­com­er's pres­ence.

“G'day, gen­tle­men,” said Mr. La­mont. “Mr. Trent, here, is afraid, I un­der­stand.”

The men arose. Out­side the clouds were break­ing. Do­ri­an stepped for­ward, quite close to Jack La­mont.

“Yes, I am afraid,” said Do­ri­an, his face white with pas­sion, “but not of what you think, not of what you would be afraid, you dirty, low, scoundrel!”

La­mont raised a rid­ing whip he had in his hand, but the men in­ter­fered, and they all moved out­side in­to the yard. Do­ri­an, still tense with anger, per­mit­ted him­self to be tak­en to the teams where they be­gan hitch­ing up. Do­ri­an soon had him­self un­der con­trol, yet he was not sat­is­fied with the mat­ter end­ing thus. Qui­et­ly slip­ping back to where Mr. La­mont stood look­ing at the men prepar­ing to drive on, he said, “I want a word with you.”

The oth­er tried to evade.

“Don't try to get away un­til I'm through with you. I want to tell you again what a con­temptible cur you are. No one but a damned scoundrel would take ad­van­tage of a girl as you did, and then leave her to bear her shame alone.”

“Do you mean Car­lia--”

“Don't ut­ter her name from your foul lips.”

“For if you do, I might say, what have I got to do with that? You were her lover, were you not? you were out with her in the fields many times un­til mid­night, you--”

The ac­cus­ing mouth closed there, closed by the mighty im­pact of Do­ri­an's fist. The blood spurt­ed from a gashed lip, and Mr. La­mont tried to de­fend him­self. Again Do­ri­an's sting­ing blow fell up­on the oth­er's face. La­mont was lighter than Do­ri­an, but he had some skill as a box­er which he tried to bring in­to ser­vice; but Do­ri­an, mad in his de­sire to pun­ish, with un­skilled strength fought off all at­tacks. They grap­pled, strug­gled, and fell, to arise again and give blow for blow. It was all done so sud­den­ly, and the fight­ing was so fierce, that Do­ri­an's fel­low trav­el­ers did not get to the scene be­fore Jack La­mont lay prone on the ground from Do­ri­an's fin­ish­ing knock­out blow.

“Damn him!” said Do­ri­an, as he shook him­self back in­to a some­what nor­mal con­di­tion and spat red on the ground. “He's got just a lit­tle of what's been com­ing to him for a long time. Let him alone. He's not se­ri­ous­ly hurt. Let's go.”