Part 48

XXXIV

Before leaving the patio, Bessie promised to meet Dick in the garden after the company dispersed for the night. After the Captain's departure, Dick returned to the patio and took his stand in the shadow of the nearest trees, where he awaited her.

Never had her mood appeared so distracted and evasive as that evening. She had avoided him as much as possible. He was quite at a loss to know how to take her, and wondered what would be the outcome of their interview which, he felt, might possibly be their last.

Notwithstanding this melancholy prospect, he still experienced the same spirit of buoyancy which possessed him during the day. He had caught her regarding him several times during the evening with what he thought to be a look of tenderness in her eyes, and this, perhaps, accounted in a measure for his present elation.

She, in turn, had wondered greatly at the change that had come over him. How could he possibly be so gay when everybody else was so miserable, and she thoroughly resented it.

During the interval that had elapsed after the breaking up of the company, she had participated in a stormy interview with her father and aunt; the latter endeavoring to point out to her the danger incurred by holding intercourse with obscure, low-born persons, as had just been demonstrated in the Captain's case.

She was surprised on returning to her room not to find Blanch there, but, on second thought, felt it was only natural after what had occurred that she should want to be alone, and thought she must be somewhere in the garden. She had seen Dick leave the patio and disappear in the shadow beyond, whither she directed her steps, passing out and around the front of the house, as she did not wish to incur the risk of being seen by her father or aunt.

Dick, who had tossed aside his hat on the grass and stood leaning against the trunk of a tree, was presently aroused from his meditations by the object of his thoughts, who stood close beside him.

"Well, I'm here," she said, by way of beginning, looking up into his face.

"I was looking for you in the other direction," he replied, throwing away his half-burnt cigar. "I ought to have known better. You are always doing the opposite of that which one expects."

A smile lit up her face for a moment, as she flashed her beautiful wide eyes upon him. She seemed a part of that beauteous night, elfish and delicate as a moonbeam or a flower, fragile as the song of a bird. He could not speak, but stood drinking her in with his eyes and soul, his face wearing a mixed expression of rapture and pain. She knew what he felt, and like him, she, too, struggled with herself for the mastery of her emotion.

"Do you know," she said at length, "this is the first time I have ever been guilty of a clandestine meeting with a man. If my father knew I was here, he would be beside himself."

"Then you did want to come!" he exclaimed.

"Of course. Otherwise, why should I be here?" she responded shyly, raising her eyes to his for an instant and then lowering them again.

"Bessie!" he cried, starting toward her.

"Hush!" she said, raising her hand in protest and checking him. Had he taken her in his arms then and there, she would have surrendered without a struggle, for she was in that soft, languid mood of a woman in love in spite of herself. But he dared not give way to his impulse. He loved her too much, and feared lest his impetuosity might ruin forever his chance of winning her.

"I know it was foolish of me to come, especially when there was no reason for it," she continued with assumed indifference, casting a sidelong glance at him out of the corners of her eyes. In spite of the pain she knew she inflicted, she could not resist flirting with him just a little even at such a moment. It filled her with such exquisite joy to feel anew the power she exercised over him and the unfathomable depth of his love which each fresh thrust at his heart revealed to her.

"I came here," she slowly resumed, "to ask what you think of Chiquita?"

"Think!" he burst forth savagely, aroused almost to a pitch of desperation by her irritating manner. "Do you take me for as big a fool as Don Felipe, or--" your father? he was about to add, but checked himself just in time. "When one has known Chiquita as long as I have, you don't think things about her, you know. Don Felipe," he went on, "reminds me of the naughty little boy who one day, while playing in a park, threw mud on a swan, imagining that he had besmirched the bird forever until it dived under the water and reappeared again as white as before. Why, even if I at this moment did not possess the absolute proof of her innocence, nobody could ever persuade me to believe that story. You don't know the Indian as I do, Miss Van Ashton. The high-caste Indian women are quite as incapable of such things as you are. It was a devilishly clever stroke on Don Felipe's part, I'll admit, but he has deceived himself as thoroughly as the rest of the world."

"What proof have you?" she asked with a surprised and mystified look, her woman's curiosity thoroughly aroused. Dick chuckled softly in reply.

"What are you laughing at?" she demanded, not a little nettled by his manner.

"I'm not laughing," he answered. "I'm merely trying to smother the rage you have aroused in me by dallying with me in this manner when you know perfectly well that I asked you to come here to tell you that I--"

"Stop!" she commanded authoritatively. "I wish to see that proof before anything further passes between us."

"Will you never become serious?" he asked, drawing an envelope from his pocket, the contents of which he had shown Captain Forest. "It's strange," he continued, "that this document should concern you as well as Don Felipe and Chiquita."

"What do you mean?" she asked in astonishment. Again he laughed softly by way of reply.

"It's funny you should get mixed up in their affairs!"

"I don't understand you," she interrupted, more mystified and irritated than ever. "Give me that letter, Mr. Yankton!" she demanded, holding out her hand.

"Then step out into the light, please, you lovely, tantalizing witch," he answered, drawing the papers from the envelope and handing them to her. "If I didn't love you to distraction, I wouldn't stand this sort of thing a minute longer. God!" he cried, glancing heavenward, "you'll be the death of me yet."