"What! Who gave you the privilege of interfering in my affairs, you silly ninny?"
"So that you display ordinary prudence, I have no desire to interfere,"
I retorted angrily.
"And if I do not! If I am imprudent! If I choose to be audacious, reckless, shameless! Is it your affair?"
"Suppose I make it mine?"
"You are both silly and insulting; do you know it?"
Flushed, breathing rapidly, we sat facing each other; and I could have shaken the little vixen, so furious was I at myself as well as at her.
"Very well," said I, "continue to play with h.e.l.l-fire if you like. I"m done with you and with him, too."
"And I with you," she said between her teeth. "And if you were not the honest-meaning marplot that you are, Mr. Boyd should teach you a lesson!"
"I"ll teach him one now," said I, springing to my feet and gone quite blind with rage so that I was obliged to stand still a moment before I could discover Boyd where he stood by the open door, trying to converse with Mrs. Lansing, but watching us both with unfeigned amazement.
"Euan!"
Lana"s voice arrested me, and I halted and turned, striving to remember decency and that I was conducting like a very boor. This was neither the time nor place to force a quarrel on any man.... And Lana was right. I had no earthly warrant to interfere if she gave me none; perhaps no spiritual warrant either.
Still shaken and confused by the sudden fury which had invaded me, and now sullenly mortified by my own violence and bad manners, I stood with one hand resting on the banisters, forcing myself to look at Lana and take the punishment that her scornful eyes were dealing me.
"Are you coming to your senses?" she asked coldly.
"Yes," I said. "I ask your pardon."
A moment more we gazed at each other, then suddenly her under lip trembled and her eyes filled.
"Forgive me," she stammered. "You are a better friend to me than--many.... I am not angry, Euan."
At that I could scarce control my own voice:
"Lanette--little Lana! Find it in your generous heart to offer me my pardon, for I have conducted like a yokel and a fool! But--but I really do love you."
"I know it, Euan. I did not know it was in me to use you so cruelly.
Let us be friends again. Will you?"
"Will you, Lana?"
"Willingly--oh, with all my heart! And--I am not very happy, Euan. Bear with me a little.... There is a letter come from Clarissa; perhaps it is that which edges my tongue and temper--the poor child is so sad and lonely, so wretchedly unhappy--and Sir John riding the West with all his h.e.l.lish crew! And she has no news of him--and asks it of me----"
She descended a step and stood on the stair beside me, looking up at me very sweetly, and resting her hand lightly on my shoulder--a caress so frank and unconcealed that it meant no more then its innocent significance implied. But at that moment, by chance, I encountered Lois"s eyes fixed on me in cold surprise. And, being a fool, and already unnerved, I turned red as a pippin, as though I were guilty, and looked elsewhere till the heat cooled from my cheeks.
"You dear boy," said Lana gently. "If there were more men like you and fewer like--Sir John, there"d be no Clarissas in the world." She hesitated, then smiled audaciously. "Perhaps no Lanas either.... There!
Go and court your sweetheart. For she gave me a look but now which boded ill for me or for any other maid or matron who dares lay finger on a single thrum of your rifle-shirt."
"You are wrong," said I. "She cares nothing for me in that manner."
"What? How do you know, you astounding boy?"
"I know it well enough."
Lana shot a swift and curious look straight across the room at Lois, who now did not seem to be aware of her.
"She is beautiful... and--not made of marble," said Lana softly to herself. "Good G.o.d, no! Scarcely made of marble.... And some man will awaken her one day.... And when he does he will unchain Aphrodite herself--or I guess wrong." She turned to me smiling. "That girl yonder has never loved."
"Why do you think so?"
"I know it; but I can not tell you why I know it. Women divine where men reason; and we are oftener right than you.... Are you truly in love with her?"
"I can not speak of such things to you," I muttered.
"Lord! Is it as serious as that already? Is it arrived at the holy and sacred stage?"
"Lana! For heaven"s sake----"
"I am not jeering; I am realising the solemn fact that you have progressed a certain distance in love and are arrived at a definite and well-known milestone.... And I am merely wondering how far she has progressed--or if she has as yet journeyed any particular distance at all--or any more than set out upon the road. For the look she shot at me convinces me that she has started--in fact, has reached that turn in the th.o.r.n.y path where she is less inclined to defend herself than her own possessions. You seem to be one of them."
Boyd, who had awaited the termination of our tete-a-tete with an impatience perfectly apparent to anybody who chanced to observe him, now seemed able to endure it no longer; and as he approached us I felt Lana"s hand on my arm tremble slightly; but the cool smile still curved her lips.
She received him with a shaft of light raillery, and he laughed and retorted in kind, and then we three sauntered over to the table where was the floating island in a huge stone bowl of Indian ware.
Around this, and the tea and punch, everybody was now gathering, and there was much talking and laughing and offering of refreshment to the ladies, and drinking of humourous or gallant toasts.
I remember that Boyd, being called upon, instantly contrived some impromptu verses amid general approbation--for his intelligence was as lithe and graceful as his body was agile. And our foppish Ensign, who was no dolt by a long shot either, made a most deft rondeau in flattery of the ladies, turning it so neatly and unexpectedly that we all drew our side-arms and, thrusting them aloft, cheered both him and the fair subjects of his nimble verses.
I would have been glad to shine in that lively and amusing compet.i.tion, but possessed no such desirable talents, and so when called upon contrived merely a commonplace toast which all applauded as in duty bound.
And I saw Lois looking at me with an odd, smiling expression, not one thing or another, yet scarcely cordial.
"And now," says Boyd, "each lady in turn should offer an impromptu toast in verse."
Whereupon they all protested that the thing was impossible. But he was already somewhat flushed with the punch and with his own success; and says he, with that occasional and over-flourishing bow of his:
"To divinity nothing is impossible; therefore, the ladies, ever divine, may venture all things."
"Which is why I venture to decline," remarked Lana. But he was set upon it, and would not be denied; and he began a most flowery little speech with the ladies as his inspiration:
"Poetry and grace in mind and body is theirs by nature," said he, "and they have but to open the rosy petals of their lips to enthrall us all with gems of----"
"Lord!" said Mrs. Bleecker, laughing, "I have never writ a verse in my life save on my sampler; and if I were to open the rosy petals of my lips, I should never have done a-giggling. But I"ll do it, Mr. Boyd, if you think it will enthrall you."
"As for me," quoth Angelina Lansing, "I require a workshop to manufacture my gems. It follows that they are no true gems at all, but shop-made paste. Ask Lana Helmer; she is far more adept in sugaring refusals."
All turned smilingly toward Lana, who shrugged her shoulders, saying carelessly: