Judith of the Godless Valley/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
JUDITH AT THE RODEO
"If you break the heart of a thoroughbred, she doesn't even make a good cart horse."
LATE in the afternoon, when Douglas awoke, Judith was sitting beside the bed, chin in palm. Peter was not to be seen. Douglas stared at the young girl until her gaze lifted from the floor and she smiled at him.
"Judith," he said, "it's been a long time, hasn't it?"
Judith nodded. "I've been sitting here thinking how much you've changed. You were just a boy, last summer. Now you look like a man, lying there."
"You've changed yourself. Jude, you're going to be very beautiful."
Judith chuckled. "You and Scott agree on one point, then!"
"Jude! Honestly, I don't see how you can stand that crook!"
"He's a woman's man," said Judith shortly.
"I can't see it!"
"Don't let's quarrel the first thing, Douglas. How is Little Marion?"
"Same as usual. Did you know that she is engaged to Jimmy Day?"
"I knew she ought to be," said Judith bluntly. "They sure make a good-looking pair! When will they be married?"
"When Jimmy has got a good start with his herd. Judith, Charleton isn't a bit like I thought he was."
"He's an ornery mean devil, if you ask me," said Judith succinctly. "He's the worst influence that ever came into your life."
"Did Peter say that?"
"No; I said it. You are too good to waste on Charleton. What has finally waked you up about him?"
"He's always talked to me against marriage and women and children and everything like that. Said awful hard things about 'em, Jude. He really got me to the point this winter where I felt as if marriage was wrong. But do you know, when the boy was born, yesterday morning, he just went plumb loco. He cried and was sentimental like these young fathers you read about in books."
Judith's great eyes widened incredulously. "He was!" She turned this over in her mind for some time, then shook her head. "I give it up. I can't understand men at all. I thought I had Charleton's number. I always did agree with him about marriage."
Douglas drew a quick breath. If men were difficult to understand, how much more so were women, particularly of Judith's type! One never got to the end of them.
"How do you mean that, Judith?" he asked.
"I mean I'd rather be dead than married. Just look at the couples we know, Doug! Just look at 'em!"
"I'm looking at 'em! What's the trouble?" demanded Doug.
"They don't love each other any more. That's all!" Judith tossed her head knowingly.
"Pshaw! How do you know?"
"Because I've watched them for years and studied about it. There is nothing in marriage, Doug. No, sir!"
"Pshaw! And you were sitting and quoting love poetry to Peter last night!"
"Yes, I was! Certainly! I'm not idiot enough to say here's no such thing as love. But I do know that a few years of marriage kills it. Yes, sir!"
Douglas eyed her wistfully. She was so vivid. Yes, vivid, that was the word. Her eyes glowed as if her brain glowed too, and her lips were so full of meanings, too changing and too subtle for him to read. If only they could work out this strange enigma of life together!
"They can't hold out against the years," Judith repeated dreamily. "It's as if love was too delicate for every-day use. They get over caring."
"I wonder why?" said Douglas.
"I think people get sick of each other, Doug! Why, I think a lot more of you, since you've been away for a few months. And I get tired of my own mother, bless her dear old heart, and I love her to death. But she's my mother and I can't stop loving her. But I certainly couldn't stand a man around the house, year after year. No marriage for me! No, sir!"
"But what will you do about love?" asked Douglas.
Judith's burning eyes grew soft. "Cherish it," she answered in a low voice. "Keep it forever. Never murder it by marriage. It's the most wonderful thing that comes into human life."
Douglas smiled sadly. "You talk as if you were a thousand years old, Judith, on the one hand and like a baby on the other. What will you do, marry without love? Somehow the children have got to be cared for by responsible parties."
"Responsible parties!" Jude was derisive. "Do you call Dad a responsible party?"
"He's fed and clothed us."
"What does that amount to?" said Judith largely. "An orphan asylum would do that. The kind of parents kids need are the ones that will answer your questions, I mean the real questions. The ones we don't dare to ask."
"About life and sex and all those things!" Doug nodded understandingly. There was silence, then Doug shook his head. "I don't know how things would go along without marriage. Just you wait until you fall in love and see how you feel. You'll want to marry just like all the rest of us."
"Never! I'm with Inez on that!"
"Inez!"
"Yes, Inez! She's got more sense about living than all the women in this valley put together. And she knows life."
Douglas sighed. "What are some of Inez' ideas about marriage?"
"Well, she just says it won't do! She says that the children have got to be taken care of but that it isn't fair to put the curse of marriage on parents. And she says her way isn't the answer, either, but that anyhow it's honest, which is a darn sight more than a lot of marriages in Lost Chief."
Judith paused to take breath and Douglas asked, "Say, now listen, Jude, was Inez ever in love?"
"She says she's in love right now but she won't say who he is."
"I don't believe she knows what love is! Her ideas aren't worth anything. I've lost faith in these folks that tell you they know life. They're exactly like the rest of us under their skins. I'm getting to believe that we all get happiness in the same way and over mighty few things. Loving and having children, that's about all."
"Inez says it's nothing of the kind; that the only way to be happy is to know what is beautiful when you see it."
"I suppose that's smart," said Douglas crossly, "but I haven't any idea what it means."
"I know what it means; but you never will until you can ride across Fire Mesa with your heart aching because it's so beautiful."
"I don't see where in the world you get the idea that I don't see the beauty in things!" protested Douglas. "I can't gush like a girl and quote poetry, but this sure is a lovely country to me. And I want my children's children to have this valley and hold it till the very bones of their bodies are made out of the dust of Lost Chief. That's how I feel about these old hills. More than that, I can see how a marriage here in Lost Chief might be a life-long dream of beauty."
Judith looked at Douglas with astonishment not unmixed with admiration. But she returned sturdily to her own line of defense.
"Doug, do you see any beautiful marriage around here?"
Douglas stared at her tragically, then answered with a groan: "No, I don't! But," with new firmness, "that's not saying I don't firmly believe I couldn't make marriage a lovely thing."
"Why, do you think you are cleverer than anybody else?"
"Not clever, but—but—" Douglas paused, powerless to tell Judith of that something within him that suddenly told him that his fate was to bring to Lost Chief the thing of the soul it never had had. How or what this was to be, he did not know.
After a time, he said softly, "Judith, were you ever in love?"
Judith returned his look with a curiously impersonal glance. "I'm not sure," she answered slowly. "Not what Inez calls love, that's sure."
"Isn't there any other woman in Lost Chief that could give you ideas except Inez?" asked Douglas impatiently.
"What woman would you suggest?" Judith waggled one foot airily and tossed her head.
"Charleton's wife. She has brain and she's interesting."
"She's too old. I mean she looks at everything from an old-fashioned viewpoint. I wouldn't care what her age was if she could just see things the way they look to a person sixteen or seventeen years old. Now, Inez is awfully modern."
"Modern!" snorted Douglas. "Where'd you read that? It sure is a new word for Inez' kind!"
Judith flushed angrily but was denied a retort, for Peter suddenly appeared in the door.
"What in the world do you children mean by this kind of talk?" he shouted. "I couldn't help hearing while I was sorting mail. What do you mean by thinking such thoughts, Judith? Have you the nerve to admit that you are patterning your ideas on a woman like Inez?"
"I don't care what she is," replied Judith obstinately. "She's the only woman in Lost Chief who can talk about anything but babies and cattle raising. And more than that, and anyhow, I like her."
Peter took a turn or two up and down the room. "I don't object so much to your liking her," he said, "as I do to your absorbing her cynical ideas."
"Pshaw, Peter! I don't notice you're displaying a wife and a happy home for us to copy after!" sniffed Judith. "What I want you old people to do is to show me by example how practical and true all these fine old precepts are that you are so free about laying down for us kids. Where's your happy marriage, Peter?"
Peter's lips twisted painfully. "My happy marriage is in Limbo, Judith, with the rest of my dreams. As for being old—why, Jude, I'm still in my forties."
"Forty!" gasped Judith.
"Yes, forty; and if I hadn't been a fool I'd still be facing the most useful part of my life. Heaven knows, children, I'm not offering myself or any one else in Lost Chief as an example to you."
"What do you offer?" asked Jude with an impish smile.
Again Peter paced the room before coming to pause by Douglas' pillow.
"You both heard what I said this morning about the lack of a church in Lost Chief. That's what you children need for a pattern. Disagree with his creed as you might, the right kind of a preacher in here could answer your questions as they should be answered. If the church doesn't form ideals for young people like you, loose women and loose men will."
"That might be true, Peter," said Douglas; "but I don't see why you should expect us to believe the stuff you can't believe yourself."
Peter winced, then said gruffly, "I don't know as I do. All I know is that when I was a boy I went to church on Sunday morning with my mother and that there was an old vicar who would have set me straight on the things you are talking about, if I'd have let him."
"Couldn't you believe what he said?" asked Douglas.
"I never went to him. I preferred my own rotten ideas. I—" He drew himself up with a sudden expression of disgust. "Faugh! How like a fool I'm talking!" He stalked out, this time closing the door of the room behind him.
"I wonder who Peter really is?" said Judith in a low voice.
Douglas shook his head. "Dad says he's seen better days. He sure has suffered a lot over something or other."
"I wish I knew all about life that he does!" exclaimed Judith.
"I don't wish either of us did," said Douglas. Then he put out his hand to touch Judith's knee with infinite tenderness. "Couldn't you manage to fall in love with me, Jude dear? I'd stay your lover all my life."
Judith put her hand over Douglas' and her fine eyes were all that was womanly and soft as she answered, "O my dear, you don't know what you are talking about. What you promise is impossible."
"But how do you know, Judith? I am an unchanging sort of a chap. You realize that, don't you?"
Judith shook her head. "You don't know what you are promising. You can't force love to stay, once it has begun to fade."
"Try me, Judith! Try me, dear!"
Judith looked at him, lips parted, eyes sad. "Douglas, I'm afraid!" she whispered.
And again the sense of loneliness flooded Doug's heart. There was a look of remoteness in Judith's expression, a look of honest fear that had no response for the fine assured emotion that had held him captive for so many years.
The two were still staring at each other when Peter returned.
Doug's wound healed quickly and with no complications. He remained with Peter for a week or so, then returned to his home. Scott Parsons began preparations at once for carrying out Doug's sentence and for a time the post-office and the west trail to Inez' place saw him most infrequently. The excitement over the shooting having abated, Lost Chief began preparations for the great event of the year, the Fourth of July rodeo.
All the world knows the story of a rodeo, knows the beauty and the daring of both riders and horses, knows the picturesque patois of the sand corral. But all the world does not know of Judith's performance at this particular rodeo.
Mary, lax and helpless enough on most matters concerning her daughter's conduct, held out on one point. Judith could not enter the Fourth of July rodeo until she was at least sixteen. But now, at sixteen, Judith asked permission of no one. She entered the exhibition with Buster and Sioux and Whoop-la, the bronco Scott had given her.
The rodeo was held on the plains to the east of the post-office. The Browns owned the great corral, strongly fenced, and with a smooth sandy floor bordered by a grandstand weathered and unpainted but still sturdy enough to withstand the swaying and stamping of the crowd. Neither the Browns nor any other of the Lost Chief families made money out of the exhibition. It was a community affair in which was felt an intense pride. All Lost Chief attended, of course, and people came in automobiles and in sheep wagons and in the saddle from the ranches for a radius of a hundred miles.
Burning heat and cloudless heavens, the high west wind and the nameless exhilaration and urge of the Rockies at seven thousand feet, this was the day of the rodeo. The exhibition began at ten in the morning and lasted all day, with an hour at noon for dinner.
There was the usual roping and throwing of steers and the usual riding of bucking broncos by men and women young and old. Douglas rode and rode well, but he had his peer in Jimmy Day and in Charleton. Judith rapidly eliminated all the women contestants and then began to vie with the men in the riding of buckers. By four o'clock as one of the four best riders, bar none, she was ready to enter the last competition on the program. This was listed as an original exhibition to be given by each of the four best riders. Douglas, Jimmy, and Charleton were the other contestants. Judith entered first.
She trotted into the sand corral on Buster, leading the blindfolded Sioux and followed at a short distance by Peter Knight, who was master of ceremonies for the day. A little murmur went through the grandstand. Judith's curls were bundled up under a sombrero. She wore a man's silk shirt with a soft collar. It was of the color of the sky. Her khaki divided skirt came just below the knee, meeting a pair of high-heeled riding-boots. Her gauntleted gloves were deep fringed. She rode slowly, silhouetted against the distant yellow of the plains. Sioux, a russet red, silken flanks gleaming in the sun, moved his head uneasily, but followed like a dog on leash.
Having crossed to the north end of the corral, Judith waited for Peter to come up on Yankee. Douglas, circling outside the fence uneasily, heard him say:
"You are a plumb fool, Judith. Anybody that plays round on foot with a bull isn't a cowman. It's a life and death matter with a brute like Sioux, and you know it."
"You slip his blindfold off when I dismount," she said, and she trotted back to the south end of the enclosure. Here she dismounted, slipped the reins over Buster's head and turned to face the bull. Peter jerked the blindfold from the bull's eyes. The great creature lifted his head and Peter backed away. Judith spread her arms wide and whistled. Sioux snorted, pawed the ground, and started on a thundering gallop toward his mistress.
There was a startled murmur from the grandstand. Buster snorted and turned. Without moving, Judith gave a shrill whistle. Buster wheeled and came back to his first position, where he stood trembling. On came Sioux, his hoofs rocking the echoes, and with every apparent intention of goring his mistress. But ten feet from Judith he pulled up with a jerk and with stiffened fore legs slid to her side, and rubbed his great head against her shoulder. Judith threw her arm about his neck and hugged him, white teeth flashed at the grandstand, which rose to its feet and shouted.
Judith raised her hand for quiet, then leaped to Buster's saddle without touching the stirrups. She put the uneasy horse to a slow trot and gave a peculiar soft whistle to Sioux. Obediently he fell in behind the horse, and Judith gave her audience a unique exhibition of "follow your leader." Buster trotted, galloped, and backed. Sioux imitated him without protest, until Judith brought up before the grandstand with both animals kneeling on their fore legs, noses to the sand. Then Sioux jumped excitedly to his feet as again applause broke out. Judith took his lead rope now and led him to the middle of the corral where she blindfolded him and backed to Peter. Peter strode across the corral carrying a saddle.
"Once more, Judith," he said, "I ask you not to do this."
"Saddle him quick, Peter. Then get on Buster and ride him off when I'm up."
Peter adjusted the saddle as best he could to the bull's great girth while Judith rubbed the brute's forehead, talking to him softly. Sioux stood with head lowered, his red nostrils dilating and contracting rapidly. But he did not move. When Peter nodded, Judith jerked the blindfold free and leaped into the saddle. Sioux brought his mighty fore legs together and leaped into the air. Peter hesitated a fraction of a minute before putting his foot into Buster's stirrup, and the bull's leap brought him against the flank of the uneasy horse. Buster reared and Peter fell, his left foot in the stirrup. The horse started at a gallop, dragging Peter toward the east gate.
Sioux, glimpsing from his wild, bloodshot eyes the prostrated figure of a man, gave a great bellow and charged. Judith brought her quirt down on the bull's flanks, at the same time whistling shrilly. But Sioux was now out on his own. He overtook Buster halfway down the corral and thrust a wicked horn at the wildly kicking Peter. Judith leaped from the saddle and, running before Sioux, seized his horns and threw herself across his face. The bull paused.
At this moment came the full blast of Sister's hunting cry from the west gate. She crossed the corral like a hunted coyote and buried her fangs in Sioux's shoulder just as Douglas on the Moose caught Buster's bridle. Sioux cast Judith off as if she were a rag and gave his full attention to Sister. Judith picked herself up, rushed to the still plunging Buster and jerked Peter's foot from the stirrup. She ran to the blindfold lying in the sand a short distance away, then whistling shrilly above Sioux's bellowing and Sister's yelping, she again caught one of the bull's horns in her slender brown hand. Sioux had rubbed Sister free against the fence and was now charging the dog as she snarled just under his dewlap.
Again and yet again he flung Judith against his shoulders, but she did not fall nor lose her grip. Suddenly, so quickly that the grandstand could not follow the motion, she had wrapped the blindfold over the burning eyes. As the bull stopped confused and trembling she hobbled his fore-legs to his head with the bridle-chain. Then she seized Sister's collar and stood panting, her hair tumbled about her neck. The grandstand shouted its delight.
Peter had risen and was wiping the sand from his face.
"Call Sister, Peter!" cried Judith, "She'll bite me in a minute."
Peter mounted Yankee, whistled to Sister, and with a rueful grin and shake of his head for the audience, he trotted from the corral. Judith loosened the bridle-chain and jumped once more into Sioux's saddle.
"Pull off his blindfold, Doug!" she cried.
"Nothing doing," returned Douglas succinctly. "You get off that bull, Jude, before I take you off."
"I'm going to ride him up to the grandstand," said Judith between set teeth.
She whistled to Sioux and he lunged forward. Doug twisted his lariat. It coiled round one of the bull's hind legs. Doug brought his horse to its haunches.
"You get off that bull, Judith," he said. "You've put up the real show of the day. Be satisfied before you are killed. Sioux is almost crazy."
Frank Day, who was one of the judges, now trotted up. "Doug is right, Jude."
"There's not a bit of danger," cried Jude, "if you men would do what you're told to do! Peter had to stop and look instead of hurrying as I told him."
Her eyes were full of tears. She dismounted slowly and after freeing Sioux from Doug's lariat, she led the uneasy bull before the grandstand and made her bow. Jimmy Day brought her a horse and, mounting, she trotted out of the corral followed by the now half-crazed Sioux.
The three men contestants laughingly refused to put on their exhibitions. There was no hope, they agreed, of competing successfully against Sioux and Judith; so Judith received the prize, a twenty-dollar gold piece.
The day ended with this award. It was some time before Douglas and Judith freed themselves from the crowd. John and Mary, still laughing over Peter's discomfiture, led the postmaster off that Mary might treat his really badly skinned face at the ranch. The ranchers who had come from distant valleys began to scatter toward the Pass. When at last Judith and Douglas, with their string of horses and the still unchastened Sioux, started up the trail toward the post-office, they were held up by a stranger in a smart, high-powered automobile.
"Listen, Miss Spencer," he called, "how about your riding in the rodeo at Mountain City, this fall?"
Doug and Judith both gasped. The rodeo at Mountain City was the ultimate and almost hopeless dream of every young rider.
"How do you know they'd let me in?" asked Judith.
"I'm chairman of the program committee this year," answered the stranger. "If you are interested, I'll write you details when I get back home. I've got to run for it now."
"Interested!" exclaimed Judith. "I guess you know just what it means to be competing in the Mountain City rodeo!"
The stranger nodded. "Then you'll hear from me." He turned his panting car away from the plunging horses and was a receding dot up the trail to the Pass before Judith and Douglas found their tongues.
"Well, you deserve it, Judith," cried Douglas. "You beat anything I've seen. It's not only what you do but the way you do it. You've got to have a good outfit. I'll help you buy it."
"Do you really think I'm good enough for Mountain City?" exclaimed Judith.
"Good enough for the world!" declared Douglas.
Judith laughed and gave her attention to the unhappy Sioux.
Peter was at supper with John and Mary when they reached home. His whole face was covered with boric powder. Judith and Douglas shouted with laughter. Peter buttered another biscuit.
"I never was vain of my looks," he said plaintively. "It was mean of you, Judith, to ruin what I had."
"I was never so surprised in my life, honestly, as when you fell, Peter," cried Judith.
"O yes; you were more surprised an hour ago," contradicted Douglas. He turned to his father. "Judith's been asked to ride at the Mountain City rodeo. The chairman of their program committee stopped us and asked her."
"Bully for the girl!" cried John. "I'm not surprised, myself. Some show, Jude!"
"The Mountain City rodeo is a tough proposition for a young girl to tackle," said Peter.
"O, I'll go with her," John spoke quickly, "and let Mary and Doug run the place for a week. We'll be back in time for the round-up."
"If Judith goes, I go," said Mary with unwonted firmness.
"What do you think I am?" demanded John. "A millionaire or a Mormon?"
Douglas, a little white around the lips, glanced at Judith, who was calmly devouring the lavish piece of steak which she had served herself. Peter was rolling a cigarette.
"If Jude goes," John went on, "she goes with her Dad. And believe me, I am going to buy her the doggondest best outfit I can glom my hands on."
Peter caught Douglas' eye and almost imperceptibly shook his head.
"I'm going too," repeated Mary.
"You are not!" John's voice thickened. "You and Douglas run the place. If there's a rancher in the State deserves a vacation more than I do, I wish you'd name him."
"Give me a match, John," said Peter; "and if there's no objection, let's get out of this hot kitchen."
John tossed a match-box to the postmaster and led the way out to the corral. Peter and Douglas lined up on the fence beside him. Judith remained in the kitchen with her mother.
"Well, it was the best rodeo we ever had," said Peter.
"Jude was the whole show." John's handsome face showed vividly for a moment as he lighted his pipe. "I suppose there are other folks that ride as well, but she does it with an air!"
"It's her love of it gets across to people who are watching her," mused Peter. "And she rides with a sort of ease that belongs to Jude and no one else, to say nothing of her power over animals. There is a lot to Jude. Too bad she lives in Lost Chief. She hasn't a chance in the world."
"Just how do you mean that?" demanded John.
"Exactly as I said it. She hasn't a chance in the world."
"Chance in the world for what?" John's voice was irritated. "Talk so a fool like me can understand you, Peter."
"I guess you understand me, John. Hello, Judith! I should think you'd be tired enough to go to bed."
"Who? Me?" Judith perched beside Peter. "I should say not! I'd like to go to a dance."
"I sure-gawd will try to give you your fill of dancing for once in Mountain City." The anger had disappeared from John's voice.
"Judith's not going unless her mother goes!" said Douglas coolly.
Judith sniffed. "Her master's voice, again! You'd better horn out of this, Douglas."
"I haven't any intention of keeping out," retorted Douglas.
"You'd better," warned Judith. "If you think I'm going to turn down a chance for a real outfit, without hearing the argument, you're mistaken."
"I told you I'd help you," insisted Douglas.
"You! What could you buy!" jibed the girl.
"I was thinking, Jude," said John, "why don't you let me get you one of those regular riding suits like Eastern women wear, pants and one of those long coats."
"Everybody would laugh at me." Judith's voice was doubtful but deeply interested. "What do you think, Peter?"
"Women's clothes are out of my line," replied Peter.
"Aw, don't bribe her, Dad," protested Douglas.
"Bribe her!" snorted John. "For what?"
Peter gave a sardonic laugh that would have done credit to Charleton. "I'm going home, John, before I get hauled in on a family row. Doug, I'm pretty stiff. Will you help me saddle Yankee?"
Douglas rose reluctantly and followed Peter into the shed where Yankee was munching hay.
"Keep your fool mouth shut, Doug," whispered the postmaster. "You've got from now to September first to sidetrack this thing."
"If Jude passes her word to him, she'll go. And you know as well as I do, Peter, that most anybody would sell their soul to ride in that rodeo with a fine outfit."
"Certainly, I know it. But you keep out of it for a while."
"Peter, I can't! When Dad gets to working on Judith, I see red. Listen! Just listen!"
Stillness and starlight and John's voice rich and sweet as Peter never had heard it.
"You're beautiful, Judith! A beautiful woman! Let me dress you as you ought to be dressed, give you the right kind of a horse, and the whole of the rodeo will be yours. I tell you, girl, all you've got to do is to ask me for what you want."
"Do other folks call me beautiful, Dad?" Judith's voice was breathless.
"Why do you call me Dad? I'm not your father, thank God!"
Douglas strode out of the shed and up to the fence, followed by Peter on Yankee.
"I don't want to quarrel with you, Dad—" he began, furiously.
"Then don't start something you can't see the finish of," interrupted Judith. "Let me run my own affairs, Doug."
"That's sound advice." John's voice was cool. "I don't want to quarrel with you either. But I'm still master of my own ranch and, by God, I'll knock you down if you interfere in this."
Peter leaned over and put his hand on Douglas' shoulder.
"Don't be a fool, Doug! Go off and think before you talk."
For a moment there was silence. Douglas stood tense under Peter's kindly hand, his face turned toward the beautiful shadow of Falkner's Peak. The heavens, deep purple and glorious with stars, were very near. Suddenly Douglas turned on his heel and clanked into the house, where he threw himself down on his bed.
The old, futile bitterness was on him again, and he was quite as bitter at Judith as at his father. Of what could the girl be thinking? What did girls think about men like John, or any other men for that matter? If only there were some woman to whom he might go for advice. Grandma Brown? No; he had talked to her once and she had failed him. Charleton's wife had failed with her own daughter. There remained Inez Rodman, who knew Judith better than any one else knew her. Inez! Doug's mind dwelt long on this name. But he felt sure that the woman of the Yellow Canyon had forgotten what she had thought and felt at sixteen. And, after all, he did not want again to see life through Inez' eyes. Long after the rest of the family slept, Douglas pursued his weary and futile self-examination, coming to a blind wall at the end.
The next day John mentioned casually that he and Judith had settled on taking the trip to Mountain City together. Douglas made no comment. Not that he had any intention of allowing Judith to make the trip under such circumstances, but he knew that for the present he could only bide his time.