Rudyard Kipling : The Complete Novels and Stories. Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

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СКАЧАТЬ he discussed them with her he pushed out experimentally in one direction and another, first for a chord of sympathy, then for her weak point. He wanted to know how she could be reached. That was the way to reach the president. He had perceived it as soon as he entered the car. He knew her history, and had even known her father, who had once kept the hotel where he stayed when he went to Omaha. He asked her about the old house, and the changes of proprietorship since he had been there. Who had it now? He hoped they had kept the head waiter. And the cook? It made his mouth water to think of that cook. She laughed with instant sociability. Her childhood had been passed about the hotel. She had played in the halls and corridors, drummed on the parlour piano, and consumed candy in the office. She knew that cook—knew him personally. He had given her custards to take to bed with her. Oh yes! He was still there.

      There was an infectious quality in Tarvin’s open and friendly manner, in his willingness to be amused, and in his lively willingness to contribute to the current stock of amusement, and there was something endearing in his hearty, manly way, his confident, joyous air, his manner of taking life strongly, and richly, and happily. He had an impartial kindness for the human species. He was own cousin to the race, and own brother to the members of it he knew, when they would let him be.

      He and Mrs. Mutrie were shortly on beautiful terms, and she made him come back with her to the bow-window at the end of the car, and point out the show sights of the Grand Canon of the Arkansas to her. Theirs was the rearmost carriage, and they looked back through the polished sweep of glass, in which the president’s car terminated, at the twisting streak of the receding track, and the awful walls of towering rock. between which it found its way. They stooped to the floor to catch sight of the massy heights that hung above them, and peered back at the soaring chaos of rock which, having opened to let them through, closed again immitigably as they left it behind. The train went racketing profanely through the tumbled beauty of this primeval world, miraculously keeping a foothold on the knife-edge of space, won for it at the bottom of the canon from the river on one side, and from the rock on the other. Mrs. Mutrie would sometimes lose her balance as the train swept them around the ceaseless curves, and only saved herself by snatching at Tarvin. It ended in his making her take his arm, and then they stood and rocked together with the motion of the train, Tarvin steadying their position with outstretched legs, while they gazed up at the monster spires and sovereign hills of stone, wavering and dizzying over their heads.

      Mrs. Mutrie gave frequent utterance to little exclamations of wonder and applause, which began by being the appropriate feminine response to great expressions of Nature, and ended in an awed murmur. Her light nature was controlled and subdued by the spectacle as it might have been silenced by the presence of death; she used her little arts and coquetries on Tarvin mechanically and half-heartedly until they were finally out of the canon, when she gave a gasp of relief, and taking petulant possession of him, made him return with her to the chairs they had left in the drawingroom. Sheriff was still pouring the story of the advantages of Topaz into the unattending ear of the president, whose eyes were on the windowpane. Mutrie received her pat on the back and her whispered confidence with the air of an embarrassed ogre. She flounced into her former seat, and commanded Tarvin to amuse her; and Tarvin willingly told her of a prospecting expedition he had once made into the country above the canon. He hadn’t found what he was looking for, which was silver, but he had found some rather uncommon amethysts.

      ‘Oh, you don’t mean it! You delightful man! Amethysts! Real live ones? I didn’t know they found amethysts in Colorado.’

      A singular light kindled in her eyes, a light of passion and longing. Tarvin fastened on the look instantly. Was that her weak point? If it was—He was full of learning about precious stones. Were they not part of the natural resources of the country about Topaz? He could talk precious stones with her until the cows came home. But would that bring the Three C.’s to Topaz? A wild notion of working complimentary bridal resolutions and an appropriation for a diamond tiara through the board of trade danced through his head, and was dismissed. No public offerings of that kind would help Topaz. This was a case for private diplomacy, for subtle and laborious delicacies, for quiet and friendly manipulation, for the tact of finger-tips—a touch here, a touch there, and then a grip—a case, in fine, for Nicholas Tarvin, and for no one else on top of earth. He saw himself bringing the Three C.’s splendidly, royally, unexpectedly into Topaz, and fixing it there by that same Tarvin’s unaided strength; he saw himself the founder of the future of the town he loved. He saw Rustler in the dust, and the owner of a certain twenty-acre plot a millionaire.

      His fancy dwelt affectionately for a moment on the twenty-acre plot; the money with which he had bought it had not come easily, and business in the last analysis was always business. But the plot, and his plan of selling a portion of it to the Three C.’s for a round-house, when the railroad came, and disposing of the rest as town lots by the front foot, were minor chords in the larger harmony. His dream was of Topaz. If promoters, in accord with the high plan of providence, usually came in on the ground floor when their plans went right, that was a fact strictly by the way.

      He noticed now, as he glanced at Mrs. Mutrie’s hands, that she wore unusual rings. They were not numerous, but the stones were superb. He ventured to admire the huge solitaire she wore on her left hand, and, as they fell into a talk about jewels, she drew it off to let him see it. She said the diamond had a history. Her father had, bought it from an actor, a tragedian who had met bad business at Omaha, after playing to empty houses at Denver, Topeka, Kansas City, and St. Jo. The money had paid the fares of the company home to New York, a fact which connected the stone with the only real good it had ever done its various owners. The tragedian had won it from a gambler who had killed his man in a quarrel over it; the man who had died for it had bought it at a low price from the absconding clerk of a diamond merchant.

      ‘It ought to have been smuggled out of the mines by the man who found it at Kimberley, or somewhere, and sold to an I.D.B.,’ she said, ‘to make the story complete. Don’t you think so, Mr. Tarvin?’

      She asked all her questions with an arch of the eyebrow, and an engaging smile which required the affirmative readily furnished by Tarvin. He would have assented to an hypothesis denying virtue to the discoveries of Galileo and Newton if Mrs. Mutrie had broached it just then. He sat tense and rigid, full of his notion, watching, waiting, like a dog on the scent.

      ‘I look into it sometimes to see if I can’t find a picture of the crimes it has seen,’ she said. ‘They’re so nice and shivery, don’t you think so, Mr. Tarvin, particularly the murder? But what I like best about it is the stone itself. It is a beauty, isn’t it? Pa used to say it was the handsomest he’d ever seen, and in a hotel you see lots of good diamonds, you know.’ She gazed a moment affectionately into the liquid depths of the brilliant. ‘Oh, there’s nothing like a beautiful stone—nothing!’ she breathed. Her eyes kindled. He heard for the first time in her voice the ring of absolute sincerity and unconsciousness. ‘I could look at a perfect jewel forever, and I don’t much care what it is, so it is perfect. Pa used to know how I loved stones, and he was always trading them with the people who came to the house. Drummers are great fellows for jewellery, you know, but they don’t always know a good stone from a bad one. Pa used to make some good trades,’ she said, pursing her pretty lips meditatively; ‘but he would never take anything but the best, and then he would trade that, if he could, for something better. He would always give two or three stones with the least flaw in them for one real good one. He knew they were the only ones I cared for. Oh, I do love them! They’re better than folks. They’re always there, and always just so beautiful!’

      ‘ I think I know a necklace you’d like, if you care for such things,’ said Tarvin quietly.

      ‘Do you?‘she beamed. ‘Oh, where?’

      ‘A long way from here.’

      ‘Oh—Tiffany’s!’ she exclaimed scornfully. ‘I know you!‘she added, with resumed art of intonation.

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