Evening star., 1911-08-27
Chapter XVI. Old Dangers

CAMILLA had known for sometime that she could
- not forget. She sought excitements eagerly be-
cause they softened the sting of memory, and the
childish delights of the afternoon with the Havilands,
while they made the grim shadow less tangible, could
not drive away When the idle chatter of small talk
was missing, Jeff oomed large At the Cove she went
to her Instead of dressing at once, she
threw herself the bed and followed the pretty tracery
of the wall paper beside her. but her eyes conued only
mental pictures of the days in Mesa City before Cor
land Bent had come, the long rides with Jeff up the
mountain trail when she first began to learn what
of man he and what manner of things he must
day accomplish She seemed to realize now that
even in those early days Jeff Wray had stood type
of the kind of manhood that since the beginning of time
had made history for the world.
With all his faults his vulgar self appreciation, and
his distorted ethics there was nothing petty mean
about him. He generous, had always been, gener
to fault, and there many poor gambler
drunkard in those days, who had called his
blessed. He hadn't had much to give; but when he
made stake there were many who shared 1t with him.
Since they had been married his benefactons had been
numberless. He never forgot his old friends and
memberng old deeds of kindness to himself had sought
them out-a broken sheepherder back on the range,
barber in Pueblo who was paralyzed, cowboy in Ar-
with heart disease freight brakeman of the D. &
couldn't find work that they could do She remembered
what people in the West still sad that Jeff had never
had friend who wasn't still his friend.
She had often reved herself because her judgment of
all governed by the external marks of gentity
that had been dear her heart the kind of genty
that Cortland Bent had brought into Mesa City. Gen
ing appreciation in her mind of something bigger life
than forms of polite intercourse Jack Perot, who
was painting her portrait; Billy Haviland, who sent
the park; Cortland Bent-al these men had good man.
ners their birthrght. What it they lacked? Cu
ture had carved them all with finer implements on the
same formula but what they had gained in delicacy
they had lost in force. Jeff might have been done by
Rodin, the Others by Carriere- Beeuze
1t made her furious that in spite OF herself she still
thought of Jeff She got up and went to the mirror
There little telltae wrinkles about her eyes, soft
shadows under her cheekbones, which had not been
there when she came to New York 1t was worry that
was telling on her. She had never yet been able to bring
herself to the point of believing that all be-
tween Jeff and herself Had she really believed that he
willing live his future without her, she could not
have consented for long this to play the empty
part he had assigned her. 1t was his money she was
spending her own; his money that provided all the
luxuries about her,-the rich apartment in New York.
the motorcar carte blanche at Sherry extravagances
she obliged to acknowledge that for the present
he did not share True she was following implicitly his
directions in keeping his memory in the social set
to which he aspired and she had done her part we
but the burden of her Indebtedness him not de-
creased by this obedience and she felt that she could
for long accept the conditions he had imposed Such
life soon be ntolerablentolerable to them BOTH
1t intolerabe now! She could not bear the
thought of his brutality the cruelty of his silence, the
pitess money that he threw at her every week
would throw bone to dog. He was carrying matters
with high hand, counting on her love OF luxury and
the delights of grated social ambition to hold her in
obedience. He had planned well; but the end of it all
was near. 1t her pride that revolted,-that jeff
could have thought her capable of the unutterable
things he thought of the ptfu tatters of her pride
that slowly being dragged from her by the tongue
of gossip. Mrs. Rumsen had warned her. and Mrs.
Cheyne made free of her name with Cort's. The
world conspirng to throw her into Cortlands arms
She would admit that the fault her ownt was
Jefs 1t had always been Jeff's! She had given him
every chance to redeem her. but he had tossed her
aside-for another. Now she had reached point when
she didn't care whether he redeemed her not. She
felt herself drifting -drifting-she didn't know where
and didn't to where.
orJ
Cortland expression of it. He had always been
patient, when she had treated him unkindly A