"Oh, everybody knows that I belong to Nolan when the time comes," said Eveley, laughing.
Nolan, urgently warned by Eveley, met Marie with friendly ease and asked no questions. He took her hand cordially and said in his pleasant voice.
"Well, if you are Eveley"s sister, I have a half-way claim upon you myself, and you must count me in." And then he promptly began mashing potatoes for their dinner, and Marie did not mind him at all.
When Amos Hiltze came to the Cloud Cote she joined serenely with them, very easy and comfortable, always careful to go to her room before he left, that he might have a little while alone with Eveley. For she saw plainly that while he interested Eveley only in his enthusiasm for Americanization, for him Eveley had a deeper and sweeter charm.
One Sat.u.r.day afternoon when Nolan was busy, the two girls went out for a picnic on the beach, a well-filled basket in the car for their dinner. On a sudden impulse, Eveley turned to Marie and cried:
"Oh, little sister, how would you like to learn to drive? Then you can take me to the office and have the car yourself to play with while I am busy."
"Eveley," came the ecstatic gasp, "would you--let me?"
"Would I let you?" laughed Eveley. "Should you like it? Why, you have been wanting to, haven"t you? Why didn"t you ask me, Marie?"
"Oh, I couldn"t."
"Yes, you should have," said Eveley gravely. "I would have told you honestly if I did not wish it. I said you must feel free to ask me for anything, didn"t I. And don"t I always mean what I say--to you, at least?"
"Does your love for Americanization carry you so far?" asked Marie curiously.
Eveley was silent a moment. "I can not exactly count you Americanization,"
she said honestly. "I do not believe Americanizing you could add anything to your sweetness, anyhow. You are just fun, and--You may not believe it, Marie," she added rather shyly, for she was not a demonstrative girl, "but I--really I love you."
Quick tears leaped to Marie"s dark eyes, and she placed her head softly against Eveley"s shoulder, though she did not speak. Almost instantly Eveley brushed away the wave of sentiment and gave her quick bright laugh.
"Now listen, sweetness," she said. "It is like this. This is the clutch that controls the gears. When it wabbles like this it is in neutral and the car will not run. When you shove down with your left foot, and pull the clutch to the left and backward, it is in low gear, and the car will go forward when you let your foot back. You must do it very slowly, so there will be no pull nor jerk. Like this."
So the afternoon wore away, the two girls laughing gaily as Marie made her first bungling attempts to drive; but later, Marie was aglow with exultation and Eveley with deep pride, because the little foreigner showed real apt.i.tude for handling the car.
Then in a lovely quiet part of the beach a little beyond La Jolla, they had an early supper and drove home, Eveley at the wheel, singing love songs, Marie humming softly with her.
"This is almost like sweethearting, isn"t it?" asked Eveley turning to look into the dark eyes fixed adoringly upon her. "Next to Nolan you satisfy me more than anything else in the world. But don"t tell Nolan. He is jealous of you,--he thinks I like you better than I do him."
"You say you love me, Eveley. But do you? Is it the kind of love that can understand and sympathize and forgive--yes, and keep on loving even when--things are wrong?"
"Nothing could change my feeling for you, Marie," said Eveley positively.
"But if things were wrong?" came the insistent query.
"Well, I am no angel myself," answered Eveley, laughing again. "If you are a naughty girl, I shall say, "I will forgive you if you will forgive me," and there you are." She stopped again, to laugh. "But I can"t think of any wrong you could do, Marie. You just naturally do not a.s.sociate with wrong things."
"And you will always remember, won"t you, what you have said about love of one"s country? That it excuses and glorifies everything in the world?"
But Eveley was singing again.
Eveley had made an arrangement to call for Nolan at the office at eight, as they were going to Kitty"s for a late supper with her and Arnold Bender, so she kissed Marie good night when they reached home, and said:
"Will you be lonesome without your big sister, and boss?"
"I think I shall go down and watch the dark shadows in your beautiful canyon," said Marie, clinging to Eveley"s hand, and looking deeply into her eyes.
"Aren"t you afraid down there at night?" wondered Eveley. "I have lived on top of the canyon all my life, and we played hide-and-seek there when we were children, and I love it,--and yet when night comes, I do not even go so far as the rose pergola unless Nolan is there to hold my hand and shoo away the ghosts and things."
"That is our difference. You are afraid of the world and the night, I am afraid only of men and women. I have lived alone, and have had wide dark gardens to wander in. They have never harmed me. Only men have injured me, and my family. So I love to slip down into the soft fragrant darkness of the canyon and sit on the big stones or on the velvet gra.s.s, and see my future in the shadows."
"But do not stay long. The whole canyon is yours to dream in, if it makes you happy. But wear a heavy wrap and do not get chilled."
Then with a hasty kiss she ran down the steps to the car.
Eveley was tired that night. The first lesson in driving, the lazy supper on the beach, and the long ride, left her listless and indolent. So after their merry dinner, and a dance or two around the Victrola, she said she had a headache and wanted to go home.
They drove very slowly along the winding road, and were quietly content.
Nolan opened the doors of the garage and Eveley ran the car into place; then, as she was really tired, at the foot of the rustic stairs he said good night, while she crept slowly up the steps.
For the first time, there was no Marie to welcome her. The room, though lighted, looked dreary and forlorn without the pretty adopted girl.
"The little goosie," said Eveley, with a tender smile. "I suppose she is still dreaming down in that spooky canyon. Maybe she has fallen asleep. I shall have to go after her."
She took a small flash-light, and hurried down the rustic stairs and the well-known path beyond the rose pergola, where she hoped to find Marie.
But Marie was not there.
Eveley knew every foot of the canyon by heart; she went surely and without hesitation along the twisting, winding, rocky path, half-way down the narrow slope.
"Marie," she called softly, "Marie."
But there was no answer.
"Maybe she is behind the live oak in the Rambler"s Retreat," she thought, and climbed up the steep bank from the path, clinging to bits of shrubbery and foliage. But Marie was not there. And then as Eveley turned, she heard quick running steps in the pathway under the swinging bridge that spanned the canyon lower down.
Eveley sighed aloud in her relief,--then her breath caught in her throat,--a gasp of fear.
For sounding clear and distinct above the light steps came a pounding of heavier feet. Some one was following Marie up the path,--no, there were two for there was another pounding a little fainter, farther away. Now Eveley could hear the frightened intake of Marie"s breath as she ran. Two girls alone in the dark canyon.
Eveley clung desperately to the heavy shrubbery among which she was crouching. She was about three feet above the path on the steep bank.
Clinging for support with one hand, she reached noiselessly about for a stone, but there was nothing upon which she could lay her hand.
Below the path, the canyon dropped sharply for a long way, fifty or sixty feet perhaps, not a precipice, but with a decided drop that could only be descended with care. If Marie would only lie down and roll, she might be able to hide among the bushes at the bottom. But Marie did not think of that. Her one idea was to run faster and faster, in the hope of escaping her pursuers.
"Marie," whispered Eveley sharply as the girl came up the path near her, and Marie, hearing the faint sound, stopped suddenly in her tracks, swaying, more frightened than ever.
"Lie down, lie down," urged Eveley, but Marie did not hear, and before she could gather her wits to run on, a man leaped toward her, both arms outstretched.
"I got you," he panted.
Marie, following the terrified instinct of every hunted animal, swung her lithe body and ducked beneath his arm. And at that moment, Eveley, tightening her hold upon the branches of the bush, drew up her feet, braced herself against the bank for a moment, and then sprang heavily against the man with both feet and sent him reeling head-first down the canyon.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Marie," whispered Eveley sharply.]