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In justice to others, however, I must ask you to come to my room this evening, prepared to stand by me in whatever I may require of you." "I thank you, Mrs. Weatherbee," Elsie said with deep earnestness. "I'll be only too glad to stand by you. I'm going upstairs now to get my wraps and I sha'n't be here to dinner to-night.
But that image with the bundle was the one unfinished problem in the project he had come to solve. He entered the court and saw on his right an open door and, across the wide room, Beatriz Weatherbee. She was seated at a quaint secretary on which were several bundles of papers, and the familiar box that had contained David's letters and watch.
I've smothered it, kept it down for years; but it's nothing to be ashamed of any longer. I'd have been glad to exchange places with Weatherbee. I'd have counted it a privilege to work, even as he did, for her; I could have suffered privation, the worst kind, wrung success out of failure, for the hope of her."
It was as though he was back to one night, the last on a long trail, when they were about to part company. He had been urging him to come out with him to the States, but Weatherbee had as steadily refused. "Not yet," he persisted. "Not until I have something to show." And again: "No, Hollis, don't ask me to throw away all these years. I have the experience now, and I've got to make good."
"Yes, ma'am, I understand that; but what interests me most in that pocket is that it belonged to David Weatherbee. He mapped out a project of his own long before anybody dreamed of Hesperides Vale. He told me all about it; showed me the plans. That piece of ground got to be the garden spot of the whole earth to him; and I can't stand back and see it parcelled out to strangers." He paused.
It was then no longer a question of life-saving, but of identification. The Swiss chalet, which had ceased to be the mecca of pleasure-seekers, had become a morgue. But Lucky Banks, who went with him, had received a message from Mrs. Weatherbee, and in the interval that Tisdale was busy with long-distance and disposing of Joey, the prospector went up to her room.
So, this was the woman who had wrecked David Weatherbee; who had cast her spell over level-headed Foster; and already, in the less than three days he had known her, had made a complete idiot of him. Suppose Foster should hear about that drive through the mountains that had cost him over seven hundred dollars; suppose Foster should know about that episode in the basin on Weatherbee's own ground.
"Come," he said, "you mustn't lose heart; to-morrow, when you are rested, it will look easier. And the question of ready money need not trouble you. Mrs. Weatherbee has reached the point where she has got to hedge on the future. Make her an offer of five thousand dollars in yearly payments, say, of fifteen hundred. She'll take it. Then, if you agree, I will arrange a loan with a Seattle bank.
But, of course, I have seen a woman does " she went on hurriedly, withdrawing her hand. "There was a time, I confess, when I did consider your way out. But I dared not take it; even then, I dared not." "You dared not?" Frederic laughed again. "Never thought you were afraid of me. Never saw you afraid of anything. But I see. Miserable experience with Weatherbee made you little cautious.
After a moment, the mining man said: "I guess the millinery investment won't break us; but there's no question about Weatherbee's being a live town, and Lucile can sell goods." "I presume next," said Mrs. Feversham with veiled irony, "we shall be hearing of you as the first mayor of Weatherbee." Banks shook his head gravely. "They shouldered that on to Henderson Bailey."
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