Listers Great Adventure | Page 5

"Oh!" she said, "now I begin to see! Mother kept me by her all the
evening; but mother's not very clever and Mortimer's too fastidious to
meddle, unless he gets a dignified part. Of course, the plot was yours!"
Cartwright nodded. Sometimes he used tact, but he was sometimes
brutally frank.
"You had better try to console yourself with the Wheeler boys; they're
straight young fellows. Shillito is gone. He went by the car this
morning and it's unlikely he'll come back."
"You sent him off?" said Barbara, and her eyes sparkled. "Well, I'm not
a child and you're not my father really. Why did you meddle?"
"For one thing, he's not your sort. Then I'm a meddlesome old fellow
and rather fond of you. To see you entangled by a man like Shillito
would hurt. Let him go. If you want to try your powers, you'll find a
number of honest young fellows on whom you can experiment. The
boys one meets in this country are a pretty good sample."
"There's a rude vein in you," Barbara declared. "One sees it sometimes,
although you're sometimes kind. Anyhow, I won't be bullied and
controlled; I'm not a shareholder in the Cartwright line. I don't know if
it's important, but why don't you like Mr. Shillito?"

Cartwright's eyes twinkled. In a sense, he could justify his getting rid of
Shillito, but he knew Barbara and doubted if she could be persuaded.
Still she was not a fool, and he would give her something to think
about.
"It's possible my views are not important," he agreed. "All the same,
when I told the man he had better go he saw the force of my arguments.
He went, and I think his going is significant. Since I'd sooner not
quarrel, I'll leave you to weigh this."
He went off, but Barbara stopped and brooded. She was angry and
humiliated, but perhaps the worst was she had a vague notion
Cartwright might be justified. It was very strange Shillito had gone. All
the same, she did not mean to submit. Her mother's placid
conventionality had long irritated her; one got tired of galling rules and
criticism. She was not going to be molded into a calculating prude like
Grace, or a prig like Mortimer. They did not know the ridiculous
good-form they cultivated was out of date. In fact, she had had enough
and meant to rebel.
Then she began to think about Shillito. His carelessness was strangely
intriguing; he stood for adventure and all the romance she had known.
Besides, he was a handsome fellow; she liked his reckless twinkle and
his coolness where coolness was needed. For all that, she would not
acknowledge him her lover; Barbara did not know if she really wanted
a lover yet. She imagined Cartwright had got near the mark when he
said she wanted to try her power. Cartwright was keen, although
Barbara sensed something in him that was fierce and primitive.
Perhaps nobody else could have bullied Shillito; Mortimer certainly
could not, but Barbara refused to speculate about the means Cartwright
had used.
Shillito ought not to have gone without seeing her; this was where it
hurt. She was entitled to be angry--and then she started, for a page boy
came quietly out of the shade.
"A note, miss," he said with a grin. "I was to give it you when nobody

was around."
Barbara's heart beat, but she gave the boy a quarter and opened the
envelope. The note was short and not romantic. Shillito stated he had
grounds for imagining it might not reach her, but if it did, he begged
she would give him her address when she left the hotel. He told her
where to write, and added if she could find a way to get his letters he
had much to say.
His coolness annoyed Barbara, but he had excited her curiosity and she
was intrigued. Moreover, Cartwright had tried to meddle and she
wanted to feel she was cleverer than he. Then Shillito was entitled to
defend himself, and to find the way he talked about would not be
difficult. Barbara knitted her brows and began to think.
At lunch Mrs. Cartwright told her they were going to join the Vernons
in the woods and she acquiesced. Two or three days afterwards they
started, and at the station she gave Cartwright her hand with a smiling
glance, but Cartwright knew his step-daughter and was not altogether
satisfied. Barbara did not sulk; when one tried to baffle her she fought.
The Vernons' camp was like others Winnipeg people pitch in the lonely
woods that roll west from Fort William to the plains. It is a rugged
country pierced by angry rivers and dotted by lakes, but a gasolene
launch brought up supplies,