CHAPTER XIV
BEATRICE MAKES BISCUITS
STEELE built the fire and singing in full throated content went for another armful of wood. Beatrice appropriated the freshest looking of certain doubtful dishcloths improvised from flour sacks and so was aproned. Steele, returning with marked promptness, stood at the wide doorway, his arms heaped high with fuel, his eyes taking stock of her after his frank fashion. Her sleeves were up on arms round and rosy, her hair was already beginning to achieve new charm by defying various pins, she had a frying pan in one hand and the last morsel of honeyed bread in the other. To disguise the real effect this vision of Beatrice, domesticated, had upon him Steele summoned a shake of the head and a frown.
"You've sort of spoiled the boyish effect," he said as he threw down his load of wood. "But Lord, a man mustn't expect everything in a cook, must he?"
"The water will be boiling in another minute," said Beatrice, quite matter of fact. "Will you have tea or coffee? And the beans, I see you have some boiled already. I have found the onions; if you'll show me where a tin of tomatoes is I'll give you your frijoles à la Mexico in half an hour. Lots of red pepper?"
"Everything seasoned to the queen's taste," laughed Steele, "and it'll suit me."
To a healthy young man with a man's sized appetite, there is no more delightful sight in the world than a pretty girl, flushed and bright eyed over dinner getting in his own kitchen … a statement with a canabalistic ring to it, admittedly, yet none the less a serious truth. Bill Steele stood for a little staring in at her from the outside whither he had withdrawn to give her room for her operations, and Beatrice fighting womanfully for her outward calm in an environment which set her heart in a flutter seemed all unconscious of his near presence. She pried off tops of cans, peeking into them curiously; she sliced onions with no visible shudder, though with an upturned nose now and then; she strove unavailingly to keep the tears out of her smarting eyes and hid them from him by turning her back; and all the time she studiously tried to remember all of those words of wisdom which had dropped from the lips of her own cook.
"That you don't find a more extensive larder," apologized Steele quietly, "is due to the fact that Summit City doesn't know on which side its bread is buttered."
"That sounds interesting." Beatrice stooped to open the little oven door and thrust her hand into it, testing the temperature as she had watched the cook do. "If not quite convincing." She closed the oven, turned to the table and attacked the limited amount of flour with both hands.
"Biscuits!" cried Steele. "You know how to make biscuits?"
Beatrice wasn't quite sure. It had seemed utterly simple when her cook had done it. Now, if Steele would just go away and leave her alone …
"Summit City," continued Steele, leaning against the doorway, his hands in his pockets, his eyes following every movement she made, "is, as one might expect, provincial. Short sighted, you know. It refuses to let me trade there, thereby not only losing many good round iron dollars from my coffers, but taking the chance of getting its little self down in my black books."
Beatrice smiled and began the mixing process. Undoubtedly there were to be biscuits. Hot biscuits and butter and fresh honey.
"Hm," said Steele. "Yes. Where were we? Oh, Summit City. What I was going to suggest was this: Summit City had better wake up, rescind its orders to starve me out and lend a hand. There are a lot of things I want to buy there. For I've come to stay, you know."
"Are there?" asked Beatrice innocently. She had already gotten much sifted flour in her hair, her fingers were very pink looking fingers in a stiffening, adhering white mess, there was a pasty patch on her cheek. "Have you?"
"Since it's against my principles to talk business at meal time," continued Steele carelessly; "and since I've got the notion you won't tarry long with me afterwards, I might as well set you right while you work, huh?"
Beatrice, hunting high and low for a shallow pan to accommodate her first biscuits … they were to be what is technically known as dropped biscuits, very ugly, misshapen affairs in their beginnings even under other circumstances … finally decided that she would have to do with one big, handle-less frying pan and as an auxiliary … for the biscuit dough seemed to be growing steadily in volume … the top of a lard can.
"You ought to go in for clay modelling," grinned Steele as he watched the results she was achieving. "Have you absolutely made up your mind to do everything in your power to drive me out of the country?"
"Referring to Summit City's indifference or the biscuits?" asked Beatrice.
He chuckled.
"Referring to the orders given in Summit City to block my game in any way possible."
"I have entirely … absolutely, you said, didn't you? … made up my mind," said Beatrice pleasantly.
Steele slapped his thigh resoundingly.
"It's a pure and unadulterated joy to deal with you!" he announced with gusto. "But for your own good you just use your prerogative and change your mind."
"There; they're ready for the oven." Beatrice put the pans aside, regarding her own handiwork with frank admiration while she rubbed the dough free of her fingers.
"You see, I'm warning you … not threatening," he continued lightly, "because I love … the looks of your cooking. Don't shy like that! When I make love to you … Why, girl, I wouldn't marry you if you were the last woman on the big round earth!"
"It isn't round," said Beatrice brightly. "It's an oblate spheroid. Besides, nobody asked you to. And besides that, aren't you forgetting something?"
"What?" asked Steele.
"Your little superstition about hands across the water …"
He laughed. This was some new, undreamed of Beatrice Corliss today, who pleased him vastly, who set him wondering, whom after his abrupt fashion he determined to cultivate.
"If Summit City insists upon having war," he continued, "war it will be! I'll slap its pretty pink face for it, make it sorry it was ever thought of and in the end make it eat out of my hand."
Beatrice's turn for laughter and she gave it in unstinted freedom.
"The ultimatum has gone forth," she said gaily.
"You lift the embargo. …"
"But I won't. I promise you I won't."
"That settles it then. All right. Miss Haughty Queen. You'll be sorry some day …"
"Which sounds almost like a song I used to know. How does it go …"
"I don't want to play in your yard,"
sang Steele.
"I don't love you any more;
You'll be sorry when you see me
Sliding down our cellar door …"
"You didn't tell me if it is to be tea or coffee?"
"Coffee, please. Well, we'll consider one matter disposed of. Another suggests itself: I need money. A lot of it. I need it right-away-quick. I've got to borrow some to get started, borrow it or beg it or steal it. Which will it be? Will you lend me fifty thousand for a starter?"
Beatrice glanced at him sharply to see if he were joking and looked away with her question unanswered. He was smiling, to be sure, his eyes were fairly dancing at her. And yet she had the suspicion that this man of monumental assurance actually meant what he said.
"Yep," he amplified. "Got to have it. Desperate for it in fact. Desperate is the word. Will pay interest on it of course, six percent and my land here as security. How about it? Yes or no?"
"No," smiled Beatrice.
"When a woman says no ..."
"If it is about a thing like this she means it."
"I'll get the money anyway. Somehow, if I have to hold up the stage. You might as well have the interest."
"No, thank you. Let me see: biscuits, bacon, beans, bread, butter and a little honey, coffee ... is that enough, do you think, Mr. Steele?"
"I think you are a God-blessed brick!" cried Steele in his heart. So to her, looking doubtful, he hesitatingly and begrudgingly admitted that it would do.
A little later he watched her put the biscuits into the oven. He was wondering what she would be like the next time their trails crossed. For the once Beatrice had the better of him; she was merely wondering, though with an interest scarcely less intense than his, what the biscuits would be like when she took them out.