The Highgrader | Page 6

surprised. She had not expected a philosophy of this
nature from her chance barbarian. He had the hands of a working man,
brown and sinewy but untorn; yet there was the mark of distinction in
the lean head set so royally on splendid shoulders. His body, spare of
flesh and narrow of flank, had the lithe grace of a panther. She had seen
before that look of competence, of easy self-reliance. Some of the men
of her class had it--Ned Kilmeny, for instance. But Ned was an officer
in a fighting regiment which had seen much service. Where had this
tanned fisherman won the manner that inheres only in a leader of men?
"And how long does it take to belong to your West?" asked the young
woman, with the inflection of derision.
But her mockery was a fraud. In both voice and face was a vivid
eagerness not to be missed.

"Time hasn't a thing to do with it. Men live all their lives here and are
never Westerners. Others are of us in a day. I think you would qualify
early."
She knew that she ought to snub his excursion into the personal, but she
was by nature unconventional.
"How do you know?" she demanded quickly.
"That's just a guess of mine," he smiled.
A musical voice called from within the house. "Have you seen my
Graphic, Moya?"
A young woman stood in the doorway, a golden-white beauty with soft
smiling eyes that showed a little surprise at sight of the fisherman. A
faint murmur of apology for the interruption escaped her lips.
Kilmeny could not keep his eyes from her. What a superb young
creature she was, what perfection in the animal grace of the long lines
of the soft rounded body! Her movements had a light buoyancy that
was charming. And where under heaven could a man hope to see
anything lovelier than this pale face with its crown of burnished hair so
lustrous and abundant?
Miss Dwight turned to her friend. "I haven't seen the Graphic, Joyce,
dear."
"Isn't it in the billiard room? Thought I saw it there. I'll look," Verinder
volunteered.
"Good of you," Miss Joyce nodded, her eyes on the stranger who had
turned to leave.
Kilmeny was going because he knew that he might easily outwear his
welcome. He had punished Verinder, and that was enough. The miner
had met too many like him not to know that the man belonged to the
family of common or garden snob. No doubt he rolled in wealth made

by his father. The fellow had studied carefully the shibboleths of the
society with which he wished to be intimate and was probably
letter-perfect. None the less, he was a bounder, a rank outsider tolerated
only for his money. He might do for the husband of some penniless
society girl, but he would never in the world be accepted by her as a
friend or an equal. The thought of him stirred the gorge of the
fisherman. Very likely the man might capture for a wife the slim dark
girl with the quick eyes, or even her friend, Joyce, choicest flower in a
garden of maidens. Nowadays money would do anything socially.
"Cheekiest beggar I ever saw," fumed Verinder. "Don't see why you let
the fellow stay, Miss Dwight."
The girl's scornful eyes came round to meet his. She had never before
known how cordially she disliked him.
"Don't you?"
She rose and walked quickly into the house.
Verinder bit his mustache angrily. He had been cherishing a fiction that
he was in love with Miss Dwight and more than once he had smarted
beneath the lash of her contempt.
Joyce sank gracefully into the easiest chair and flashed a dazzling smile
at him. "Has Moya been very unkind, Mr. Verinder?"
He had joined the party a few days before at Chicago and this was the
first sign of interest Miss Seldon had shown in him. Verinder was
grateful.
"Dashed if I understand Miss Dwight at all. She blows hot and cold,"
he confided in a burst of frankness.
"That's just her way. We all have our moods, don't we? I mean we poor
women. Don't all the poets credit us with inconstancy?" The least ripple
of amusement at her sex swelled in her throat and died away.

"Oh, by Jove, if that's all! I say, do you have moods too, Miss Joyce?"
Her long thick lashes fluttered down to the cheeks. Was she
embarrassed at his question? He felt a sudden lift of the heart, an access
of newborn confidence. Dobyans Verinder had never dared to lift his
hopes as high as the famous beauty Joyce Seldon. Now for the first
time his vanity stirred. Somehow--quite unexpectedly to him--the bars
between them were down. Was it possible