I knew that my face got very red, but I tried to answer casually enough:
"The splendid things were done by Tommy, Gates, Smilax, and the other fellows. You"ll like Tommy, and Monsieur knows--did I tell you he knows your mother?"
"Don"t," she whispered. "You make me feel like I"m being led into a new world, with new people, and new customs, and new things!" Now her eyes widened as if making a discovery, as she added: "My fa----, that is, Mr.
Graham, must actually have recognized Monsieur Dragot!"
"There"s no other deduction," I agreed. "Our case is proved almost beyond a doubt. Don"t call that fellow your father again, or even Mr.
Graham. Smilax and I have a name we"ll share with you."
"What?"
"Efaw Kotee."
Her laughter rippled through the wood, as she cried:
"How perfectly lovely! I know what it means!"
"Then you speak Seminole, Miss--Miss--but you say it isn"t Sylvia?"
An expression of happy mischief in her face made it adorable.
"No, it isn"t Sylvia. It"s Doloria--you see, my life has been sad!"
"One wouldn"t say so to look at you now. And I think Doloria"s a thousand times prettier than Sylvia! Doloria! Just Doloria--like that?"
For I wanted an excuse to keep on saying it.
"I--I suppose so," she hesitated. "Of course, it"s always had Graham after it, but--what did your Monsieur Dragot say my last name was?"
"He didn"t say."
"Then I haven"t any."
"Oh, well, you needn"t bother about that. Any time it gets lonesome you can hitch on Bronx--that is, I mean, only in case, you know."
I could have bitten out my tongue for this! I don"t know what fiends possessed me to be such an unmitigated a.s.s! It was as unfair as poison--an insult to the only precepts I have ever genuinely felt proud of: the code of playing fair. Before I could pretend to have been making a silly joke she brushed away my contrition by asking:
"Why Bronx? What does that mean?"
Glory be! I had forgotten that she could not know my name! But now I had to deny myself, cast my birthright to the winds, or else let her see that I was a miserable cad who could not be trusted as protector to a girl thrown upon his care.
And, on the other hand, it was decidedly repulsive to tell a lie--especially to her who seemed by her magnetic gaze to challenge the truth right out of a fellow. But conscience is, after all, only a name for our hidden prosecutor, judge and jury, and our sentences are light or heavy depending upon how many witnesses we can persuade to perjure themselves. No man lives who has not at some time used bribery in the mythical court room of his heart. Among women, of course, it is the accepted mode of legal procedure; and this gave me hope to believe that she might be somewhat forgiving when she found me out.
"Why Bronx?" she was asking again.
"Oh," I laughed, "it"s a usual name in my part of the country, that"s all--like Smith, and Jones."
I thought this would satisfy, but it gave her another thought, instead.
"Your name isn"t Jackachobee, of course?"
"As far as Jack, yes. Every one calls me Jack."
A little while before this my cigarette case had fallen, to the ground by us. She had picked it up, and was even now turning it idly between her fingers.
"I see it here," she said, looking more closely at the monogram. ""J.
B." What does the B stand for, Mr.--Mr. Jack?"
"Brown," I answered desperately, and could feel every ancestor of a long and honorable line of Bronxes turning over in their graves. For I detest Brown. It"s a good name, an exceptionally fine and distinguished name, the name not only of dear relatives but of very good friends. Yet it just so happened that at this particular moment I detested it--or was it the lie behind it? So to repair my self-esteem I blurted somewhat incoherently: "Bangs!"--having known a rather decent chap named Bangs.
"Is it spelled with a hyphen?" she glanced up rather quizzically.
"Brown-Bangs?"
Her mind seemed to have flown lightly beyond me, antic.i.p.ating the extent of my confusion, for the smile about her mouth, while enigmatic, suggested--enticingly suggested--mischief.
"Of course," I answered. "Brown-Bangs; Brown-Bangs!" And I wondered how many witnesses I should have to bribe now! I wished that in the first place I had said: "It would be unfair to tell you what isn"t so, and dangerous to tell you what is!" But she would have guessed the truth by that, to a certainty. Sinners always find comfort in good resolutions, so I resolved to be more circ.u.mspect in the future. A gentleman"s duty in my position was to be over circ.u.mspect; very much over circ.u.mspect, indeed!
Somewhat indifferently she laid the cigarette case back upon the ground, happening to put it near a little vine with lavender flowers, shaped like pon-pons; and in doing this it also happened that one of its tiny briars clung to her hand.
"Watch," she cried, gaily leaning forward. "Watch the leaves! We call this the "shame-face vine," because whenever it sticks any one every leaf on that particular stem is overcome with remorse!"
To my amazement the nine delicate leaves on the offending stem began to hang their heads and curl up, for all the world expressive of deep humility. It was another of the million or so lessons to be found in Nature for any one who sees with the right kind of eyes. Of course, I could have hung my head for that lie about the Browns, although curling up--at least, after the manner of the shame-face vine--would have required a contortionist.
"A well named little weed," I laughed. "But what wouldn"t be penitent after hurting such a pretty hand!"
"I was just wondering," she said, ignoring this ba.n.a.lity--for which in my heart I thanked her--"if there are weeds that show embarra.s.sment for people who tell fibs?"
Now there was no possible way for her to have learned my name!
"You don"t think there was any fibbing when I said you were a sure-"nough princess, do you?"
"Oh, please, let"s not talk of that again," she entreated. "I don"t want to be a princess just yet, because it"s still very satisfying to have been taken away from that awful place. I"m so humbly thankful to you,"
she almost whispered, "that just Cinderella without the slipper will suit me nicely."
Beloved of the G.o.ds! If she wasn"t at that moment princess, queen and all the royal families made into one!
"But I must tell you this much," I insisted gently, "and then we won"t speak of it again until you wish. Monsieur says your mother is only Regent until you come; that your destiny is marked out for you, that by every law of G.o.d and man you"ve got to go back and take up the Cross where you left it seventeen years ago,--that you"re booked to marry a Prince, I think. And he"s armed with an iron-bound authority to take you. He says you"ve no possible escape--though, of course, you won"t want any. I have to tell you this," I continued more hastily, for it was an extremely difficult thing to say, "because I"m only an ordinary kind of American chap, as bad as the worst and as good as the best, but your court in Azuria would have forty duck fits if it knew we were playing together in the woods without a chaperone. Suppose you make me your Chancellor, or something like that--chancellor of your Oasian possessions! Then I can report for orders and escort you about with all propriety, and we can talk and laugh occasionally without having some big soldier stick me in the back with his halberd."
She had been listening attentively, gravely, to everything I said until this last, when she burst into a scream of laughter, rocking herself to and fro in a transport of merriment.
"You"re the funniest thing I ever saw!--but so be it, Mr. Jack Brown-Bangs, et cetera, et cetera! I make you my Royal Chancellor, responsible for the welfare of our Oasis!"
"And for the protection of Your Serenity," I bowed, really feeling as if I"d been knighted.
"Thank you," she said gravely. "I couldn"t ask for a braver protector.
But, Chancellor," she looked at me with serious eyes, "why did you say I must take up my Cross? It sounded like such a direful prophecy."
My lips refused to speak. As a matter of fact, I had been thinking more about my own Cross; how I should have to carry it after she went away until my heart broke beneath its cruel weight.