That Girl Montana
questions of marriage? You will not go to school, and care nothing about
fitting yourself for the society where by right you should belong."
A whole winter had gone, and the springtime had come again; and over all
the Island of Manhattan, and on the heights back from the rivers, the
green of the leaves was creeping over the boughs from which winter had
swept all signs of life months ago.
In a very lovely little room, facing a park where the glitter of a tiny
lake could be seen, 'Tana lounged and stared at the waving branches and
the fettered water.
Not just the same 'Tana as when, a year ago, she had breasted the cold
waves of the Kootenai. No one, to look at her now, would connect the
taller, stylishly dressed figure, with that little half-savage who had
scowled at Overton in the lodge of Akkomi. Her hair was no longer short
and boyish in its arrangement. A silver comb held it in place, except
where the tiny curls crept down to cluster about her neck. A gown of soft
white wool was caught at her waist by a flat woven belt of silver, and an
embroidered shoe of silvery gleam peeped from under the white folds.
No, it was not the same 'Tana. And the little gray-haired lady, who
slipped ivory knitting needles in and out of silky flosses, watched her
with troubled concern as she asked:
"And what do you intend to make of your life, Montana?"
"You are out of patience with me, are you not, Miss Seldon?" asked the
girl. "Oh, yes, I know you are; and I don't blame you. Everything I have
ever wanted in my life is in reach of me here--everything a girl should
have; yet it doesn't mean so much to me as I thought it would."
"But if you would go to school, perhaps--"
"Perhaps I would learn to appreciate all this," and the girl glanced
around at the fine fittings of the room, and then back to the point of her
own slipper.
"But I do study hard at home. Doesn't Miss Ackerman give me credit for
learning very quickly? and doesn't that music teacher hop around and wave
his hands over my most excellent, ringing voice? They say I study well."
"Yes, yes; you do, too. But at a school, my dear, where you would have the
association of other girls, you would naturally grow more--more girlish
yourself, if I may say so; for you are old beyond your years in ways that
are peculiar. Your ideas of things are not the ideas of girlhood; and yet
you are very fond of girls."
"And how do you know that?" asked 'Tana.
"Why, my dear, you never go past one on the street that you don't give her
more notice than the very handsomest man you might see. And at the
matinees, if the play does not hold you very close, your eyes are always
directed to the young girls in the audience. Yes, you are fond of them,
yet you will not allow yourself to be intimate with any."
And the pretty, refined-looking lady smiled at her and nodded her head in
a knowing way, as though she had made an important discovery.
The girl on the couch lay silent for a while, then she rose and went over
to the window, gazing across to the park, where people were walking and
riding along the green knolls and levels. Young girls were there, too, and
she watched them a little while, with the old moody expression in her dark
eyes.
"Perhaps it is because I don't like to make friends under false
pretenses," she said, at last. "Your society is a very fine and very
curious thing, and there is a great deal of false pretense about it.
Individually, they would overlook the fact that I was accused of murder in
Idaho--the gold mine would help some of them to do that! But if it should
ever get in their papers here, they would collectively think it their duty
to each other not to recognize me."
"Oh, Montana, my dear child, why do you not forget that horrible life, and
leave your mind free to partake of the advantages now surrounding you?"
and Miss Seldon sighed with real distress, and dropped her ivory needles
despairingly. "It seems so strange that you care to remember that which
was surely a terrible life."
"Much more so than you can know," answered the girl, coming over to her
and drawing a velvet hassock to her side. "And, my dear, good, innocent
little lady, just so long as you all try to persuade me that I should go
out among young people of my own age, just so long must I be forced to
think of how different my life has been to theirs. Some day they, too,
might learn how different it has been, and resent my presence among them.
I prefer not to run that risk. I might get to like some of them, and
then it would hurt. Besides, the more I see of people since I came here,
the more I feel that every one should remain with their own class in
life."
"But, Montana, that is not an American sentiment at all!" said Miss
Seldon, with some surprise. "But even that idea should not exclude from
refined circles. By birth you are a lady."
The girl smiled bitterly. "You mean my mother was," she answered. "But she
did not give me a gentleman for a father; and I don't believe the parents
of any of those lovely girls we meet would like them to know the daughter
of such a man, if they knew it. Now, do you understand how I feel about
myself and this social question?"
"You are foolishly conscientious and morbid," exclaimed the older lady. "I
declare, Montana, I don't know what to do with you. People like you--you
are very clever, you have youth, wealth, and beauty--yes, the last, too!
yet you shut yourself up here like a young nun. Only the theaters and the
art galleries will you visit--never a person--not even Margaret."
"Not even Margaret," repeated the girl; "and that is the crowning sin in
your eyes, isn't it? Well, I don't blame you, for she is very lovely; and
how much she thinks of you!"
"Yes!" sighed the little lady. "Mrs. Haydon is a woman of very decided
character, but not at all given to loving demonstrations to children. Long
ago, when we lived closer, little Margie would come to me daily to be
kissed and petted. Max was only a boy then, and they were great
companions."
"Yes; and if he had been sensible, he would have fallen in love with her
and made her Mrs. Lyster, instead of knocking around Western mining
towns, and making queer friends," said the girl, smiling at the old lady's
astonished face. "She is just the sort of girl to suit him."
"My dear," she said, solemnly, "do you really care for him a particle?"
"Who--Max? Of course I do. He is the best fellow I know, and was so good
to me out there in the wilderness. There was no one out there to compare
me with, so I suppose I loomed up big when compared with the average
squaw. But everything is different here. I did not know how different. I
know now, however, and I won't let him go on making a mistake."
"Oh, Montana!" cried the little lady, pleadingly.
Just then a maid entered with two cards, at which she glanced with a
dismay that was comical.
"Margaret and Max! Why, is it not strange they should call at the same
time, and at a time when--"
"When I was pairing them off so nicely, without their knowledge," added
the girl. "Have them come up here, won't you? It is so much more cozy than
that very elegant parlor. And I always feel as if poor Max had been turned
out of his home since I came."
So they came to the little sitting room--pretty, dark-eyed Margaret, with
her faultless manners and her real fondness for Miss Seldon, whom she
kissed three times.
"For I have not seen you for three days," she explained, "and those two
are back numbers." Then she turned to 'Tana and eyed her admiringly as
they clasped hands.
"You look as though you had stepped from a picture of classic Greek," she
declared. "Where in that pretty curly head of yours do you find the ideas
for those artistic arrangements of form and color? You are an artist,
Montana, and you don't know it."
"I will begin to believe it if people keep telling me so."
"Who else has told you?" asked Lyster, and she laughed at him.
"Not you," she replied; "at least not since you teased me about the clay
Indians I made on the shores of the Kootenai. But some one else has told
me--Mr. Roden."
"Roden, the sculptor! But how does he know?"
She glanced from one face to the other, and sighed with a serio-comic
expression. "I might as well confess," she said, at last. "I am so glad
you are here, Miss Margaret, for I may need an advocate. I have been
working two hours a day in Mr. Roden's studio for over a month."
"Montana!" gasped Miss Seldon, "but--how--when?"
"Before you were awake in the morning," she said, and looked from one to
the other of their blank faces. "You look as if it were a shock, instead
of a surprise," she added. "I did not tell you at first, as it would seem
only a whim. But he has told me I have reason for the whim, and that I
should continue. So--I think I shall."
"But, my child--for you are a child, after all--don't you know it is a
very strange thing for a girl to go alone like that, and--and--Oh, dear!
Max, can't you tell her?"
But Max did not. There was a slight wrinkle between his brows, but she saw
it and smiled.
"You can't scold me, though, can you?" she asked. "That is right, for it
would be no use. I know you would say that in your set it would not be
proper for a girl to do such independent things. But you see, I do not
belong to any set. I have just been telling this dear little lady, who
is trying to look stern, some of the reasons why society life and I can
never agree. But I have found several reasons why Art life and I should
agree perfectly. I like the freedom of it--the study of it. And, even if I
never accomplish much, I shall at least have tried my best."
"But, Montana, it is not as though you had to learn such things," pleaded
Miss Seldon. "You have plenty of money."
"Oh, money--money! But I have found there are a few things in this world
money can not buy. Art study, little as I have attempted, has taught me
that."
Lyster came over and sat beside her by the window.
"'Tana," he said, and looked at her with kindly directness, "can the Art
study give you that which you crave, and which money can not buy?"
Her eyes fell to the floor. She could not but feel sorry to go against his
wishes; and yet--
"No, it can not, entirely," she said, at last. "But it is all the
substitute I know of, and, maybe, after a while, it will satisfy me."
Miss Seldon took Margaret from the room on some pretext, and Lyster rose
and walked across to the other window. He was evidently much troubled or
annoyed.
"Then you are not satisfied?" he asked. "The life that seemed possible to
you, when out there in camp, is impossible to you now."
"Oh, Max! don't be angry--don't. Everything was all wrong out there. You
were sorry for me out there; you thought me different from what I am. I
could never be the sort of girl you should marry--not like Margaret--"
"Margaret!" and his face paled a little, "why do you speak of her?"
"I know, if you do not, Max," she answered, and smiled at him. "I have
learned several things since I came here, and one of them is Mr. Haydon's
reason for encouraging our friendship so much. It was to end any
attachment between you and Margaret. Oh, I know, Max! If I had not looked
just a little bit like her, you would never have fancied you loved me--for
it was only a fancy."
"It was no fancy! I did love you. I was honest with you, and I have waited
patiently, while you have grown more and more distant until now--"
"Now we had better end it all, Max. I could not make you happy, for I am
not happy myself."
"Perhaps I--"
"No, you can not help me; and it is not your fault. You have been good to
me--very good; but I can't marry any one."
"No one?" he asked, looking at her doubtfully. "'Tana, sometimes I have