Those Dale Girls Part 24

"It was not Daddy," she said quietly, "it was-other things." Then in a lighter tone, "Don't look so solemn, please, I want to be gay and forget last night."

"What would happen, Miss Dale, if I were to lecture you?" smiling at her.

"Try and see," teasingly. "Probably I shall laugh. I usually do when Julie scolds me and then she laughs too and that spoils the effect.

Well, begin. What is the greatest of my enormities? Have you made out a list?"

"Will you promise me something?" earnestly, leaning forward with a pleading expression on his handsome face.

"Perhaps. I am in a most docile mood at this moment."

"Then promise me you will do no more driving. You are not equal to it to-night, indeed you are not, and it takes all the strength out of you."

"How do you know I drove? Did Mr. Lennox tell you?" regarding him with raised eyebrows.

"No-but I knew."

"If you are one of those mysterious persons who always know everything, I am going to avoid you," she laughed, feeling herself flush under his earnest scrutiny.

"You have not promised," he persisted.

"Did I promise to promise?" with a swift provoking glance from under her long lashes.

"Miss Dale," pleading, "I never asked a favor of you before."

"Why should you?" wrinkling up her forehead and wishing he had not so persuasive a voice.

"I know-probably you think it is impertinent, but" coaxingly, "if you would just this once,-"

"Well, is this where you sneaked off to?" cried a voice beside them; "a pretty chase you've led me!" and Charley Bemis dropped into the nearest chair and held out a plate to Hester. "See here, Miss Dale, you wouldn't go to the mountain, so I've brought the mountain to you. The bride cut the cake long ago but I saved my piece to eat with you. Landor doesn't get a crumb."

Landor looked as if he would like to stuff the whole slice down the man's throat. The girl smiled and resigned herself to at least make a pretense of eating the thing she had tried so desperately to avoid.

"There is something in your half," suggested young Bemis significantly.

"Is there?" replied Hester, wishing his enthusiasm were less. "You find it for me."

He cut her piece and pulled out something wrapped in paraffine paper which proved to be a shining gold dollar.

"Oh! you've got it!" he cried. "Miss Dale's got the money," turning to announce it to the whole piazza, "she's going to be rich!"

"How nice of you to prophesy such good fortune," she replied picking up the coin and rising. "Won't you come and help me find Mrs. Lennox and tell her about it? I am sure Mr. Landor will excuse us?"

Kenneth, who had risen, bowed low and wondered how so adorably pretty a girl could be so stony-hearted. He was utterly confounded when, as she brushed by him she slipped something in his hand with a whispered "That's for luck," and vanished with Bemis in attendance. A quick indrawing of his fingers into the palm of his hand told Landor a little coin lay within his grasp. A half-smothered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n escaped him! Her luck she had pa.s.sed on to him! Did he dare attribute to it any significance? No outward sign betrayed his inward perturbation as he sauntered into the house to join the other guests.

Whether it was Kenneth's skillful management or a preconceived arrangement on Mrs. Lennox's part or just Fate, deponent saith not, but the fact remains that when the coach started off again that evening, Hester found herself ensconced on the back seat with Landor, the rest of the party chatting gayly in front of them, the guards well in the rear.

"Miss Dale," Landor said when they had ridden some moments in silence, "are you too tired to-night to let me talk to you a little, seriously?"

He had no desire to lose any time.

"Then you think I can be serious?"

"I know you can, only you never choose to be with me."

"I _am_ an awful tease," she admitted, touched by his wistful tone, "but I can be the most serious person in the world and I should like to have you to talk to me, only-you are not going to scold me any more, are you, Mr. Landor? I think I am really too tired for that." Her low musical voice seemed to drift to him plaintively through the darkness.

"I was going to be selfishly egotistical and talk about-about a friend of mine," hoping she had not detected how near he had come to blundering. "I wanted to ask your advice about him if you are quite sure you are not too tired to listen, Miss Dale."

"Of course I am not. I should like to hear about your friend, Mr.

Landor."

Was there ever a voice so sweet, he thought, or a girl so full of contradictions? One moment bewitchingly, aggravatingly whimsical, the next revealing unfathomable depths of a nature which to him seemed the purest and n.o.blest in the world. Aloud he said:

"My friend is torn by a divided duty. He wants to go to the war but-"

"You think there will be war? Can't he go?" she interrupted. "It seems to me every man must go who can."

"Yes, he can, but there are people whom he loves whom he hates to leave-more than that whom he wants to stay and protect. It is as if his whole future were at stake-not only his but theirs, and he can't seem to see his way clear."

"Are they old and dependent on him for support, these people?"

"No, but he wants them to become dependent on him and how can that be if he goes away?"

"If they love him," the girl said emphatically, "they will not stand in his way."

"But he does not know that they love him or that they will ever love him. He only knows that he loves them and-oh! Miss Dale," sweeping aside this strangely complicated case, "if you had a brother in times like these, what would you do?"

"Do?" she cried; "why, I'd help him off to the front without a moment's hesitation! Julie and I would be the proudest girls in the world if we had a brother to go to the war! If Daddy were well he would go-there never was a finer officer than Daddy. Oh! Mr. Landor, you know us so little that you've no idea how strongly we feel about these things.

We've tried in our own small way, Julie and I, to be soldiers ourselves and we think no sacrifice too great to make for one another and for our country." In her earnestness she had forgotten the man beside her, the friend and everything save the inspiration of those principles which were as the very air she breathed.

He made no reply, fearing to break the spell and startle her back into her old elusiveness. This revelation of her inner self was very precious to him.

Presently she said: "Perhaps I know a little how your friend feels, because I have always thought if ever I lived in war times I should go as a nurse, but now I could not consider such a thing."

"You? You are too young," he gasped, never dreaming of this possibility.

"No, I am not too young, but Julie could not carry on our business and take care of Daddy, too, all alone, and my duty is here."

"You are doing active service in a field much harder than anything they may see in Cuba," he said intently.

"Oh! no, don't say that; I do not deserve it; but you have talked to me so frankly about your friend that I wanted you to know I understand a little, though I do not believe I have been of any help. But this much I know, if I were one of those people whom he loves, however much I might need him and perhaps want him,"-was her voice faltering?-"I should urge him to go and love him the better for going and believe that his future and all connected with him would be the richer and the brighter for the personal sacrifice."

There was an exultant ring in her low voice that set the man's heart to throbbing with a pain strangely new and exquisite and so great was his emotion that for some time he did not trust himself to speak. When he did he said very gently:

"You _have_ helped my friend, Miss Dale, more than you have any idea and I thank you for him. Some day, perhaps, you will let him thank you himself. I-I shall always remember your kindness to-night" (poor fellow, it was not easy to pick his words calmly when he longed to pour his heart out to her). "I may not see you again for awhile; I-I am going away."

The coach drew up at her door and she was brought to a sudden realization of her surroundings by the laughing salutations of the party as they said goodnight. Kenneth had sprung to the ground and was waiting to a.s.sist her to alight. She was not conscious of the gentle, almost tender manner in which he lifted her down, but as he stood with bared head holding the door open, for her, she stopped a moment and put out her hands impulsively.

"Is this good-by?" she said, her beautiful eyes looking full into his.