第33章

she said; ``but I certainly expect you to do more than that.Ihave met many remarkable men in all parts of the world, and Iknow what a strong man is, and you have one of the strongest personalities I have known.But you can't mean that you are content to stop with this.You should be something bigger and more wide-reaching and more lasting.Indeed, it hurts me to see you wasting your time here over my father's interests.You should exert that same energy on a broader map.You could make yourself anything you chose.At home you would be your party's leader in politics, or you could be a great general, or a great financier.I say this because I know there are better things in you, and because I want you to make the most of your talents.I am anxious to see you put your powers to something worth while.''

Miss Langham's voice carried with it such a tone of sincerity that she almost succeeded in deceiving herself.And yet she would have hardly cared to explain just why she had reproached the man before her after this fashion.For she knew that when she spoke as she had done, she was beating about to find some reason that would justify her in not caring for him, as she knew she could care--as she would not allow herself to care.The man at her side had won her interest from the first, and later had occupied her thoughts so entirely, that it troubled her peace of mind.Yet she would not let her feeling for him wax and grow stronger, but kept it down.And she was trying now to persuade herself that she did this because there was something lacking in him and not in her.

She was almost angry with him for being so much to her and for not being more acceptable in little things, like the other men she knew.So she found this fault with him in order that she might justify her own lack of feeling.

But Clay, who only heard the words and could not go back of them to find the motive, could not know this.He sat perfectly still when she had finished and looked steadily out across the harbor.His eyes fell on the ugly ore-pier, and he winced and uttered a short grim laugh.

``That's true, what you say,'' he began, ``I haven't done much.

You are quite right.Only--'' he looked up at her curiously and smiled--``only you should not have been the one to tell me of it.''

Miss Langham had been so far carried away by her own point of view that she had not considered Clay, and now that she saw what mischief she had done, she gave a quick gasp of regret, and leaned forward as though to add some explanation to what she had said.But Clay stopped her.``I mean by that,'' he said, ``that the great part of the inspiration I have had to do what little Ihave done came from you.You were a sort of promise of something better to me.You were more of a type than an individual woman, but your picture, the one I carry in my watch, meant all that part of life that I have never known, the sweetness and the nobleness and grace of civilization,--something I hoped I would some day have time to enjoy.So you see,'' he added, with an uncertain laugh, ``it's less pleasant to hear that I have failed to make the most of myself from you than from almost any one else.''

``But, Mr.Clay,'' protested the girl, anxiously, ``I think you have done wonderfully well.I only said that I wanted you to do more.You are so young and you have--''

Clay did not hear her.He was leaning forward looking moodily out across the water, with his folded arms clasped across his knees.

``I have not made the most of myself,'' he repeated; ``that is what you said.'' He spoke the words as though she had delivered a sentence.``You don't think well of what I have done, of what I am.''

He drew in his breath and shook his head with a hopeless laugh, and leaned back against the railing of the boat-house with the weariness in his attitude of a man who has given up after a long struggle.

``No,'' he said with a bitter flippancy in his voice, ``I don't amount to much.But, my God!'' he laughed, and turning his head away, ``when you think what I was! This doesn't seem much to you, and it doesn't seem much to me now that I have your point of view on it, but when I remember!'' Clay stopped again and pressed his lips together and shook his head.His half-closed eyes, that seemed to be looking back into his past, lighted as they fell on King's white yacht, and he raised his arm and pointed to it with a wave of the hand.``When I was sixteen I was a sailor before the mast,'' he said, ``the sort of sailor that King's crew out there wouldn't recognize in the same profession.I was of so little account that I've been knocked the length of the main deck at the end of the mate's fist, and left to lie bleeding in the scuppers for dead.I hadn't a thing to my name then but the clothes I wore, and I've had to go aloft in a hurricane and cling to a swinging rope with my bare toes and pull at a wet sheet until my finger-nails broke and started in their sockets; and I've been a cowboy, with no companions for six months of the year but eight thousand head of cattle and men as dumb and untamed as the steers themselves.I've sat in my saddle night after night, with nothing overhead but the stars, and no sound but the noise of the steers breathing in their sleep.The women I knew were Indian squaws, and the girls of the sailors'

dance-houses and the gambling-hells of Sioux City and Abilene, and Callao and Port Said.That was what I was and those were my companions.``Why!'' he laughed, rising and striding across the boat-house with his hands locked behind him, ``I've fought on the mud floor of a Mexican shack, with a naked knife in my hand, for my last dollar.I was as low and as desperate as that.And now--'' Clay lifted his head and smiled.``Now,'' he said, in a lower voice and addressing Miss Langham with a return of his usual grave politeness, ``I am able to sit beside you and talk to you.I have risen to that.I am quite content.''

He paused and looked at Miss Langham uncertainly for a few moments as though in doubt as to whether she would understand him if he continued.