第32章

Clay believed that Alice Langham's visit to the mines had opened his eyes fully to vast differences between them.He laughed and railed at himself for having dared to imagine that he was in a position to care for her.Confident as he was at times, and sure as he was of his ability in certain directions, he was uneasy and fearful when he matched himself against a man of gentle birth and gentle breeding, and one who, like King, was part of a world of which he knew little, and to which, in his ignorance concerning it, he attributed many advantages that it did not possess.He believed that he would always lack the mysterious something which these others held by right of inheritance.He was still young and full of the illusions of youth, and so gave false values to his own qualities, and values equally false to the qualities he lacked.For the next week he avoided Miss Langham, unless there were other people present, and whenever she showed him special favor, he hastily recalled to his mind her failure to sympathize in his work, and assured himself that if she could not interest herself in the engineer, he did not care to have her interested in the man.Other women had found him attractive in himself; they had cared for his strength of will and mind, and because he was good to look at.But he determined that this one must sympathize with his work in the world, no matter how unpicturesque it might seem to her.His work was the best of him, he assured himself, and he would stand or fall with it.

It was a week after the visit to the mines that President Alvarez gave a great ball in honor of the Langhams, to which all of the important people of Olancho, and the Foreign Ministers were invited.Miss Langham met Clay on the afternoon of the day set for the ball, as she was going down the hill to join Hope and her father at dinner on the yacht.

``Are you not coming, too?'' she asked.

``I wish I could,'' Clay answered.``King asked me, but a steamer-load of new machinery arrived to-day, and I have to see it through the Custom-House.''

Miss Langham gave an impatient little laugh, and shook her head.

``You might wait until we were gone before you bother with your machinery,'' she said.

``When you are gone I won't be in a state of mind to attend to machinery or anything else,'' Clay answered.

Miss Langham seemed so far encouraged by this speech that she seated herself in the boathouse at the end of the wharf.She pushed her mantilla back from her face and looked up at him, smiling brightly.

`` `The time has come, the walrus said,' '' she quoted, `` `to talk of many things.' ''

Clay laughed and dropped down beside her.``Well?'' he said.

``You have been rather unkind to me this last week,'' the girl began, with her eyes fixed steadily on his.``And that day at the mines when I counted on you so, you acted abominably.''

Clay's face showed so plainly his surprise at this charge, which he thought he only had the right to make, that Miss Langham stopped.

``I don't understand,'' said Clay, quietly.``How did I treat you abominably?''

He had taken her so seriously that Miss Langham dropped her lighter tone and spoke in one more kindly:

``I went out there to see your work at its best.I was only interested in going because it was your work, and because it was you who had done it all, and I expected that you would try to explain it to me and help me to understand, but you didn't.You treated me as though I had no interest in the matter at all, as though I was not capable of understanding it.You did not seem to care whether I was interested or not.In fact, you forgot me altogether.''

Clay exhibited no evidence of a reproving conscience.``I am sorry you had a stupid time,'' he said, gravely.

``I did not mean that, and you know I didn't mean that,'' the girl answered.``I wanted to hear about it from you, because you did it.I wasn't interested so much in what had been done, as Iwas in the man who had accomplished it.''

Clay shrugged his shoulders impatiently, and looked across at Miss Langham with a troubled smile.

``But that's just what I don't want,'' he said.``Can't you see?

These mines and other mines like them are all I have in the world.They are my only excuse for having lived in it so long.

I want to feel that I've done something outside of myself, and when you say that you like me personally, it's as little satisfaction to me as it must be to a woman to be congratulated on her beauty, or on her fine voice.That is nothing she has done herself.I should like you to value what I have done, not what I happen to be.''

Miss Langham turned her eyes to the harbor, and it was some short time before she answered.

``You are a very difficult person to please,'' she said, ``and most exacting.As a rule men are satisfied to be liked for any reason.I confess frankly, since you insist upon it, that Ido not rise to the point of appreciating your work as the others do.I suppose it is a fault,'' she continued, with an air that plainly said that she considered it, on the contrary, something of a virtue.``And if I knew more about it technically, I might see more in it to admire.But I am looking farther on for better things from you.The friends who help us the most are not always those who consider us perfect, are they?'' she asked, with a kindly smile.She raised her eyes to the great ore-pier that stretched out across the water, the one ugly blot in the scene of natural beauty about them.``I think that is all very well,''