The Reckoning Part 11

"Have you seen him?" I asked sullenly.

"Mercy, yes! He came at noon while you and Sir Peter were gambling away your guineas at the Coq d'Or."

"He waited upon _you_?"

"He waited on Lady Coleville. I was there."

"Were you not surprised to see him in New York?"

"Not very"--she considered me with a far-away smile--"not very greatly nor very--agreeably surprised. I have told you his sentiments regarding me."

"I can not understand," I said, "what you see in him to fascinate you."

"Nor I," she replied so angrily that she startled me. "I thought to-day when I met him, Oh, dear! Now I'm to be harrowed with melancholy and pa.s.sion, when I was having such an agreeable time! But, Carus, even while I pouted I felt the subtle charm of that very sadness, the strange, compelling influence of those melancholy eyes." She sighed and plucked a late violet, drawing the stem slowly between her white teeth and staring at the ruined church.

After a while I said: "Do you regret that you are so soon to leave us?"

"Regret it?" She looked at me thoughtfully. "Carus," she said, "you are wonderfully attractive to me. I wish you had acquired that air of gentle melancholy--that poet's pallor which becomes a n.o.ble sadness--and I might love you, if you asked me."

"I'm sad enough at your going," I said lightly.

"Truly, are you sorry? And when I am gone will you forget la belle Canadienne? Ah, monsieur, l'amitie est une chose si rare, que, n'eut-elle dure qu'un jour, on doit en respecter jusqu'au souvenir."

"It is not I who shall forget to respect it, madam, jusqu'au souvenir."

"Nor I, mon ami. Had I not known that love is at best a painful pleasure I might have mistaken my happiness with you for something very like it."

"You babble of love," I blurted out, "and you know nothing of it! What foolish whim possesses you to think that fascination Walter Butler has for you is love?"

"What is it, then?" she asked, with a little shudder.

"How do I know? He has the devil's own tenacity, bold black eyes and a well-cut head, and a certain grace of limb and bearing nowise remarkable. But"--I waved my hand helplessly--"how can a sane man understand a woman's preference?--nay, Elsin, I do not even pretend to understand _you_. All I know is that our friendship began in an instant, opened to full sweetness like a flower overnight, and, like a flower, is nearly ended now--nearly ended."

"Not ended; I shall remember."

"Well, and if we both remember--to what purpose?"

"To what purpose is friendship, Carus, if not to remember when alone?"

I listened, head bent. Then, pursuing my own thoughts aloud: "It is not wise for a maid to plight her troth in secret, I care not for what reasons. I know something of men; it is a thing no honest man should ask of any woman. Why do you fear to tell Sir Frederick Haldimand?"

"Captain Butler begged me not to."

"Why?" I asked sharply.

"He is poor. You must surely know what the rebels have done--how their commissioners of sequestration seized land and house from the Tryon County loyalists. Captain Butler desires me to say nothing until, through his own efforts and by his sword, he has won back his own in the north. And I consented. Meanwhile," she added airily, "he has a glove of mine to kiss, I refusing him my hand to weep upon. And so we wait for one another, and pin our faith upon his sword."

"To wait for him--to plight your troth and wait for him until he and Sir John Johnson have come into their own again?"

"Yes, Carus."

"And then you mean to wed him?"

She was silent. The color ebbed in her cheeks.

I stood looking at her through the evening light. Behind her, gilded by the level rays of the sinking sun, a new headstone stood, and on it I read:

IN MEMORY OF

Michael Cresap, First Cap't Of the Rifle Battalions, And Son to Col. Thomas Cresap, Who Departed this Life, Oct. 18, A.D. 1775.

Cresap, the generous young captain, whose dusty column of Maryland riflemen I myself had seen when but a lad, pouring through Broadalbin Bush on the way to Boston siege! This was his grave; and a Tory maid in flowered petticoat and chip hat was seated on the mound a-prattling of rebels!

"When do you leave us?" I asked grimly.

"Captain Butler has gone to see Sir Henry to ask for a packet. We sail as soon as may be."

"Does _he_ go with you?" I demanded, startled.

"Why, yes--I and my two maids, and Captain Butler. Sir Frederick Haldimand knows."

"Yes, but he does not know that Captain Butler has presumed--has dared to press a clandestine suit with you!" I retorted angrily. "It does not please me that you go under such doubtful escort, Elsin."

"And pray, who are you to please, sir?" she asked in quick displeasure.

"You speak of presumption in others, Mr. Renault, and, unsolicited, you offer an affront to me and to a gentleman who is not here to answer."

"I wish he were," I said between my teeth.

Her fair face hardened.

"Wishes are very safe, sir," she said in a low voice.

At that, suddenly, such a blind anger flooded me that the setting sun swam in my eyes and the blood dinned in ears and brain as though to burst them. At such moments, which are rare with me, I fall silent; and so I stood, while the strange rage shook me, and pa.s.sed, leaving me cold and very quiet.

"I think we had best go," I said.

She held out her hand. I aided her to rise; and she kept my hand in hers, laying the other over it, and looked up into my eyes.

"Forgive me, Carus," she whispered. "No man can be more gallant and more sweet than you."

"Forgive me, Elsin. No maid so generous and just as you."

And that was all, for we crossed the street, and I mounted the stoop of our house with her, and bowed her in when the great door opened.

"Are you not coming in?" she asked, lingering in the doorway.

"No. I shall take the air."