Drift from Two Shores | Page 8

his eye!" all fell unconsciously upon his ear.
"One word more, Mr. North," said the elder gentleman, a little
portentously, to conceal an evident embarrassment. "It may be that your
conduct might suggest to minds more practical than your own the
existence of some aberration of the intellect--some temporary
mania--that might force your best friends into a quasi-legal attitude
of--"
"Declaring me insane," interrupted James North, with the slight
impatience of a man more anxious to end a prolix interview than to
combat an argument. "I think differently. As my aunt's lawyer, you
know that within the last year I have deeded most of my property to her
and her family. I cannot believe that so shrewd an adviser as Mr.
Edmund Carter would ever permit proceedings that would invalidate
that conveyance."
Maria burst into a laugh of such wicked gratification that James North,
for the first time, raised his eyes with something of interest to her face.
She colored under them, but returned his glance with another like a
bayonet flash. The party slowly moved toward the door, James North
following.
"Then this is your final answer?" asked Mrs. North, stopping
imperiously on the threshold.
"I beg your pardon?" queried North, half abstractedly.

"Your final answer?"
"Oh, certainly."
Mrs. North flounced away a dozen rods in rage. This was unfortunate
for North. It gave them the final attack in detail. Dick began: "Come
along! You know you can advertise for her with a personal down there
and the old woman wouldn't object as long as you were careful and put
in an appearance now and then!"
As Dick limped away, Mr. Carter thought, in confidence, that the
whole matter--even to suit Mr. North's sensitive nature--might be
settled there. "SHE evidently expects you to return. My opinion is that
she never left San Francisco. You can't tell anything about these
women."
With this last sentence on his indifferent ear, James North seemed to be
left free. Maria had rejoined her mother; but as they crossed the ford,
and an intervening sand-hill hid the others from sight, that piquant
young lady suddenly appeared on the hill and stood before him.
"And you're not coming back?" she said directly.
"No."
"Never?"
"I cannot say."
"Tell me! what is there about some women to make men love them
so?"
"Love," replied North, quietly.
"No, it cannot be--it is not THAT!"
North looked over the hill and round the hill, and looked bored.
"Oh, I'm going now. But one moment, Jem! I didn't want to come. They
dragged me here. Good-by."
She raised a burning face and eyes to his. He leaned forward and
imprinted the perfunctory cousinly kiss of the period upon her cheek.
"Not that way," she said angrily, clutching his wrists with her long, thin
fingers; "you shan't kiss me in that way, James North."
With the faintest, ghost-like passing of a twinkle in the corners of his
sad eyes, he touched his lips to hers. With the contact, she caught him
round the neck, pressed her burning lips and face to his forehead, his
cheeks, the very curves of his chin and throat, and--with a laugh was
gone.
II

Had the kinsfolk of James North any hope that their visit might revive
some lingering desire he still combated to enter once more the world
they represented, that hope would have soon died. Whatever effect this
episode had upon the solitary,--and he had become so self-indulgent of
his sorrow, and so careless of all that came between him and it, as to
meet opposition with profound indifference,--the only appreciable
result was a greater attraction for the solitude that protected him, and he
grew even to love the bleak shore and barren sands that had proved so
inhospitable to others. There was a new meaning to the roar of the
surges, an honest, loyal sturdiness in the unchanging persistency of the
uncouth and blustering trade-winds, and a mute fidelity in the shining
sands, treacherous to all but him. With such bandogs to lie in wait for
trespassers, should he not be grateful?
If no bitterness was awakened by the repeated avowal of the
unfaithfulness of the woman he loved, it was because he had always
made the observation and experience of others give way to the
dominance of his own insight. No array of contradictory facts ever
shook his belief or unbelief; like all egotists, he accepted them as truths
controlled by a larger truth of which he alone was cognizant. His
simplicity, which was but another form of his egotism, was so complete
as to baffle ordinary malicious cunning, and so he was spared the
experience and knowledge that come to a lower nature, and help debase
it.
Exercise and the stimulus of the few wants that sent him hunting or
fishing kept