The Mulberry Bush by Helen Topping Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

dismissal of whatever did not interest him at the moment.
    Every demanding and tiresome thing was to Mike another mulberry bush. “Here we go—round and round—and I never did like mulberries!”
    â€œIf, he did love her”—she let torment clutch at her heart poignantly for a little—“but—oh, he didn’t—he couldn’t—he couldn’t change, he couldn’t love me—and remember her!”
    But what if this black-haired girl had loved Mike—loved him as she herself loved him now? A quick pity for this forsaken girl moved her briefly. Agony—to have loved Mike, to love him still perhaps—and then see him go flying away, indifferent, forgetting, ignoring. But Mike was too gentle, too tender, too fine. Mike wouldn’t hurt a woman—or, could he?
    Teresa’s bitter words came back, though Virginia tried to close the ears of her mind against them.
    â€œI’ve known that young lunatic longer than you have. He wants what he wants—for himself. He never thinks of anyone but Mike Paull.”
    It wasn’t true. Teresa was a cynical and shrewish woman about love, having put it out of her life long ago, being too ruthless in her pursuit of success to stop to consider it. Teresa believed in no men at all any more, and in very few women. She had no means of understanding Mike. If Mike was the light and reckless wind, Teresa was frowning stone, chilly and good only for grinding and crushing, or for building barrier walls. Nothing Teresa could do or say was going to influence her, Virginia, for an instant.
    â€œThis is silly,” she brought herself up sternly, “Teresa said I was adolescent. I must be, to let myself get jittery over a silly piece in the paper about something long past and of no consequence at all.”
    She made herself smile and recover her poise as she handed back the paper. The stewardess was passing hot cups of coffee and hot toast, soaked with melted butter.
    â€œWe’ll be on our way shortly, now,” she said.
    â€œHow would you like to get out and stretch your legs?” asked the brown man, when they had finished the coffee. “It was raining when we landed but it seems to have stopped now.”
    â€œOh, was it raining? I hadn’t noticed.”
    â€œUpset you a little—this landing,” he remarked. “I noticed that you were slightly agitated. It might have been pretty nasty if we had been up fifteen thousand feet when that motor went bad. Might not have been funny at all. On your way west?”
    â€œDenver. And other places. I’m with a travel bureau,” she said.
    â€œI’m Bruce Gamble—” he held out his hand, showed his very nice teeth in a quick, friendly smile. “I’m going to Denver, too. No glamour about my job, however, I sell dynamite.”
    â€œGood gracious—I hope you don’t carry samples?”
    â€œNo. I’m with the Du Ponts. We’re manufacturing some new explosives; especially efficient in mining. Just now there’s a little flare-up in the gold-mining business up here in the Rockies, so I’m going up to oversee some experiments and incidentally try to drum up some business.” He helped her down the steps, and she saw how isolated their situation was. A small emergency field, one tiny, white building with a red roof, red markers around the field, a tall, spindly tower of steel with lights strung upon it, and nothing else at all.
    The silver plane looked small and lonely in the midst of so much space, and on either side, flat plains swept off toward the horizon. The pilot and co-pilot leaned against a wing, smoking cigarettes with the impatient chagrin of young men whose pride is laid low. They explained the breakdown of a pump to Bruce Gamble, rather brusquely at first, then expanding and growing technical when they saw that he understood their language.
    â€œFly, do you?”
    â€œYes, I