The Continental Dragoon Part 25

But Peyton, looking out on the white world, saw no one. He did not change his att.i.tude when the door reopened and Elizabeth and her aunt came into the parlor, arm in arm.

"You're sure 'twas he, aunt Sally?" Elizabeth had been saying.

"Positive. He should be here now," Miss Sally had replied.

Elizabeth cast a look of secret elation on the unheeding rebel captain, whose forehead was still against the window-pane. She saw a possible means of his still further degradation.

Suddenly he took a quick step back from the window, impulsively renewed his grasp of his sword-hilt, and showed a face of resolute antagonism.

Elizabeth knew from this that he had seen Colden. She gave a smile of pleasant antic.i.p.ation.

But Miss Sally had relapsed into her usual timid self. She held tightly to Elizabeth's arm.

"Oh, dear!" she whispered. "Won't something happen when those two meet?"

"I hope so!" said Elizabeth, placidly.

"Why?" demanded Miss Sally, beginning to weaken at the knees.

"If Colden sends him to the ground, in our presence, that will crown the fellow's humiliation."

Five brisk knocks, in quick succession, were heard from the outside door of the east hall.

Peyton walked across the parlor, turned, and stood facing the east hall door, the greater part of the room's length being between him and it. His hand remained on his sword. He paid no heed to Elizabeth, she paid none to him.

"His knock!" she said, and called out through the east hall door: "'Tis Major Colden, Sam. Show him here at once." She then stepped back from the door, to a place whence she could see both it and Peyton. Her aunt clung to her arm all the while, and now whispered, "Oh, Elizabeth, I fear there will be trouble!"

"If there is, it won't fall on your silly head," whispered Elizabeth, in reply.

From the hall came the sound of the drawing of bolts. Peyton did not take his eyes from the door.

A noise of footfalls, accompanied by clank of spurs and weapons, and in came Colden, his hat in his left hand, snow on his hat and shoulders, his cloak open, his sword and pistols visible, his right hand ungloved to clasp Elizabeth's.

She received him with such a cordial smile as he had never before had from her.

"Elizabeth!" he cried,--beheld only her, hastened to her, took her proffered hand, bent his head and kissed the fingers, raised his eyes with a grateful, joyous smile,--and saw Peyton standing motionless at the other side of the room. The smile vanished; a look of amazement and hatred came.

"I wish you a very good evening, _Major_ Colden!"

Peyton said this in a voice as hard and ironical as might have come from a bra.s.s statue.

For the next few seconds the two men stood gazing at each other, the women gazing at the men. At last the Tory major found speech:

"Elizabeth,--what does it mean? Why is this man here,--again?"

"'Tis rather a long story, Jack, and you shall hear it all in time,"

said Elizabeth, determined he should never hear the true story.

Before she could continue, Colden suffered a start of alarm to possess him, and asked, quickly:

"Are any of his troops here?"

"No; he is quite alone," she answered.

Colden at once took on height, arrogance, and formidableness.

"Then why have not your servants made him a prisoner?" he asked.

"Why," said she, "you being mentioned to-night, in his presence, he made some kind of boast of not fearing you, and I, divining how soon you would be here, thought fit his freedom with your name should best be paid for at _your_ hands, major."

"Ay, major," put in Peyton, "and I have stayed to receive payment!"

Colden thought for a short while. Then he said, "A moment, Elizabeth.

Your pardon, Miss Williams," and drew Elizabeth aside, and spoke to her in a low tone: "We have only to temporize with him. Two of my men have attended me from my quarters. I had a better horse, and rode ahead, in my eagerness to see you. My two fellows will be here soon, and the business will be done."

But such doing of the business did not suit Elizabeth's purpose. "I wish to humiliate the man," she answered Colden, inaudibly to the others; "to take down his upstart pride! 'Twould be no shame to him, to be made prisoner by numbers."

"What, then?" asked Colden, dubiously.

"Bring down the c.o.xcomb, before us women, in an even match!"

To prevent objections, she then abruptly went from Colden, and resumed her place at her aunt's side.

Colden stood frowning, not half pleased at her hint. It occurred to him, as it did not to her, that the mere allegiance and favoring wishes of herself were not sufficient possessions to ensure victory in such a match as she meant. Elizabeth, accustomed to success, did not conceive it possible that the chosen agent of her own designs could fail. But the chosen agent had, in this case, wider powers of conception.

All this time, Captain Peyton had stood as motionless as a figure in a painting. He now interrupted Colden's meditations with the gentle reminder:

"I am waiting for my payment, Major Colden."

Colden was not a man of much originality. So, in his instinctive endeavor to gain time, he bungled out the conventional reply, "You wish to seek a quarrel with me, sir?"

"Seek a quarrel?" retorted Peyton. "Is not the quarrel here? Has not Miss Philipse spoken of an offence to your name, for which I ought to receive payment from you? Gad, she'd not have to speak twice to make _me_ draw!"

Colden continued to be as conventional as a virtuous hero of a novel.

"I do not fight in the presence of ladies, sir," said he.

"Nor I," said Peyton. "Choose your own place, in the garden yonder.

With snow on the ground, there's light enough."

And Harry went quickly, almost to the door, near which he stopped to give Colden precedence.

"Nay," put in Elizabeth, "we ladies can bear the sight of a sword-cut or two. Wait for us," and she would have gone to send for wraps, but that Colden raised his hand in token of refusal, saying:

"Nay, Elizabeth. I will not consent."

"Come, sir," said Peyton. "'Tis no use to oppose a lady's whim. But if you make haste, we may have it over before they can arrive on the ground."

In handling his sword-hilt, Peyton had pulled the weapon a few inches out of the scabbard, and now, though he did not intend to draw while in the house, he unconsciously brought out the full length of what remained of the blade. For the time he had forgotten the sword was broken, and now he was reminded of it with some inward irritation.