My Brave and Gallant Gentleman Part 42

"Just the same as I do. Well!--" she sighed, "I have explored all the beauties of Golden Crescent; I have fished--and caught nothing. I have hunted,--and shot nothing. I have read,--and learned nothing, or next to it, until I have nothing left to read. So now,--I have come over to you. I want to be friends."

"Are we not friends already?" I asked, sitting on the side of my hammock and filling my vision with the charming picture she presented.

She sighed and raised her eyebrows.

"Oh!--I don't know. You never let me know that you had forgiven me for my rudeness to you."

"There was nothing to forgive, Miss Grant."

"No! How kind of you to say so! And you are not angry with me any more?"

"Not a bit," I answered, wondering at the change which had come over this pretty but elusive young lady.

"Well, Mr. Bremner,--I see you reading very often. I came across to inquire if you could favour me with something in the book line to wile away an hour or so."

"With pleasure," I answered.

"Mr. Horsfal, my employer, has a well-stocked little library here and you are very welcome to read anything in it you may fancy. Will you come inside?"

She looked up shyly, then her curiosity got the mastery.

"Why, yes!" she cried, jumping up. "I shall be delighted."

I led the way into the front room, fixing the lamp and causing a flood of mellow light to suffuse the darkness in there. I went over and threw aside the curtains that hid the book-shelves.

"You have a lovely place here," she exclaimed, looking round in admiration. "I had no idea ... no idea----"

"--That a bachelor could make himself so comfortable," I put in.

"Exactly! Do you mind if I take a peek around?" she asked, laughing.

"Not a bit!"

She "peeked around" and satisfied her curiosity to the full.

"I am convinced," she said at last, "that in all this domestic artistry there is the touch of a feminine hand. Who was, or who is,--the lady?"

"I understand Mrs. Horsfal furnished and arranged this home. She lived here every summer before she died. That made it very easy for me. All I had to do was to keep everything in its place as she had left it."

Miss Grant was enraptured with the library. I thought she would never finish scanning the t.i.tles and the authors.

"This is a positive book-wormery," she exclaimed.

She chose a volume which revealed her very masculine taste in literature, although, after all, it did not astonish me greatly but merely confirmed what I already had known to be so;--that, while boys and men scorn to read girls' and women's books, yet girls and women seem to prefer the books that are written more especially for boys and men and the more those books revel and riot in sword play, impossible adventure and intrigue, the more they like them.

"Might I ask if you would be so good as to return my visit?" said my visitor at last. "You saved my life, you know, and you have some right to take a small friendly interest in me.

"If you could spare the time, I should be pleased to have you over for tea to-morrow evening and to spend a sociable hour with us afterwards;--that is, if you care for tea, sociability and--music."

I looked across at her,--so straight, so ladylike, so beautiful; almost as tall as I and so full of bubbling mischief and virile charm.

"I am a veritable drunkard with tea, and as for music--ask Jake, out there sitting on the cliffs in the darkness, if I like music. He knows. Ask me, as I lie in my hammock here, night after night, waiting for you to begin,--if Jake likes music, and the answer will satisfy you just how much both of us appreciate it.

"But, I am very sorry I shall be unable to avail myself of your kind invitation to come to-morrow evening."

My new friend could not disguise her surprise. I almost fancied I traced a flush of embarra.s.sment on her cheeks.

"No!" was all she said, and she said it ever so quietly.

"I have a pupil coming to-morrow evening for her first real lesson in English Grammar. She has waited long for it. The book I desired to start her in with has only arrived. She would be terribly disappointed if I were now to postpone that lesson."

"Your pupil is a lady?"

"Yes!--a sweet little girl called Rita Clark, who lives at the ranch at the other side of the Crescent. She comes here often. You must have noticed her."

"What!--that pretty, olive-skinned girl, with the dark hair and dark eyes?

"Yes! I have noticed her and I have never since ceased to envy her complexion and her woodland beauty. I would give all I have to look as she does.

"You are most fortunate in your choice of a pupil?"

"Yes! Rita is a good-hearted little girl," I lauded unthinkingly.

"I spoke to her once out on the Island," said Miss Grant, "but she seemed shy. She looked me over from head to heel, then ran off without a word.

"Well,--Mr. Bremner, days and evenings are much alike to some of us in Golden Crescent. Shall we say Wednesday evening?"

"I shall be more than pleased, Miss Grant," I exclaimed, betraying the boyish eagerness I felt, "if----?"

"If?" she inquired.

"If you will return the compliment by allowing me to take you out some evening in the boat to the end of Rita's Isle there, where the sea trout are,--or away out to the pa.s.sage by The Ghoul where the salmon are now running. I have seen you fishing very often and with the patience of Job, yet not once have I seen you bring home a fish. Now, Rita Clark can bring in twenty or thirty trout in less than an hour, any time she has a fancy to.

"I should like to break your bad luck, for I think the trouble can only be with the tackle you use."

Mary Grant's brown eyes danced with pleasure, and in the lamplight, I noticed for the first time, how very fair her skin was,--cream and pink roses,--tanned slightly where the sun had got at it, but without a blemish, without even a freckle, and this despite the fact that she seldom took any precautions against the depredations of Old Sol.

"I shall be glad indeed. You are very kind; for what you propose will be a treat of treats, especially if we catch some fish."

She held out her hand to me. Mine touched hers and a thrill ran and sang through my fingers, through my body to my brain; the thrill of a strange sensation I had never before experienced. I gazed at her without speaking.

She raised her eyes and mine held hers for the briefest of moments.

To me it seemed as if a world of doubt and uncertainty were being swept away and I were looking into eyes I had known through all the ages.

Then her golden lashes dropped and hid those wonderful eyes from me.

Impulsively, yet fully knowing what I did, I raised her hand and touched the back of her fingers with my lips.