Chapter 45
"Egad!" said Major Parr loudly. "I maintain that verses such as these are worth a veteran battalion to any army on earth! You are an aid, an honour, and an inspiration to your country, Miss de Contrecoeur, and I shall take care that His Excellency receives a copy of these same verses----"
"Oh, Major Parr!" she protested in dismay. "I should perish with shame if His Excellency were to be so beset by every sorry scribbler."
"A copy for His Excellency! Hurrah!" cried Captain Simpson. "Who volunteers?"
"I will make it," said I, with jealous authority.
"And I will aid you with quill, sand, and paper," said Lana. "Come with me, Euan."
Lois, who had at first smiled at me, now looked at us both, while the smile stiffened on her flushed face as Lana caught me by the hand and drew me toward the other room where the pine camp-table stood.
While I was writing in my clear and painstaking chirography, which I try not to take a too great pride in because of its fine shading and skillful flourishes, the guests of the afternoon were making their adieux and taking their departure, some afoot, others on horseback.
When I had finished my copy and had returned to the main room, nothing remained of the afternoon party save Boyd and Lana, whispering together by a window, and the black wench, Gusta, clearing away the debris of the afternoon.
Outside in the late suns.h.i.+ne, I could see Mrs. Bleecker and Mrs.
Lansing strolling to and fro, arm in arm, but I looked around in vain for Lois.
"She is doubtless gone a-boating with her elegant senior Ensign," said Lana sweetly, from the window. "If you run fast you may kill him yet, Euan."
"I was looking for n.o.body," said I stiffly, and marched out, ridding them of my company--which I think was what they both desired.
Now, among other and importunate young fops, the senior Ensign and his frippery and his marked attention to Lois, and his mincing but unfeigned devotion to her, had irritated me to the very verge of madness.
Twice, to my proper knowledge, this fellow had had her in an Oneida canoe, and with a guitar at that; and, d.a.m.n him, he sang with taste and discretion. Also, when not on duty, he was ever to be found lisping compliments into her ear, or, in cool possession of her arm, promenading her to flaunt her beauty--and his good fortune--before the entire fort. And I had had enough of it.
So when I learned that she was off again with him, such a rage and wretchedness possessed me that I knew not what to do. Common sense yelled in my ear that no man of that stripe could seriously impress her; but where is the understanding in a very young man so violently sick with love as was I? All men who approached her I instantly suspected and mentally d.a.m.ned--even honest old Simpson--aye, even
I could not seem to steer my footsteps clear of the river bank, nor deny myself the fierce and melancholy pleasure of gazing at their canoe from afar, so I finally walked in that direction, cursing my own weakness and meditating quarrels and fatal duels.
But when I arrived on the river bank, I could not discover her in any of the canoes that danced in the rosy ripples of the declining sun. So, mooning and miserable, I lagged along the bank toward my bush-hut; and presently, to my sudden surprise, discovered the very lady of whom I had been thinking so intently--not dogged as usual by that insufferable Ensign, but in earnest conversation with the Sagamore.
And, as I gazed at them outlined against the evening sky, I remembered what Betsy Hunt had said at Poundridge--how she had encountered them together on the hill which overlooked the Sound.
Long before I reached them or they had discovered me, the Sagamore turned and took his departure, with a dignified gesture of refusal; and Lois looked after him for a moment, her hand to her cheek, then turned and gazed straight into the smouldering West, where, stretching away under its million giant pines, the vast empire of the Long House lay, slowly darkening against the crimson sunset.
She did not notice me as I came toward her through the waving Indian gra.s.s, and even when I spoke her name she did not seem startled, but turned very deliberately, her eyes still reflecting the brooding thoughts that immersed her.
"What is it that you and this Mohican have still to say to each other?"
I asked apprehensively.
The vague expression of her features changed; she answered with heightened colour:
"The Sagamore is my friend as well as yours. Is it strange that I should speak with him when it pleases me to do so?"
There was an indirectness in her gaze, as well as in her reply, that troubled me, but I said amiably:
"What has become of your mincing escort? Is he gone to secure a canoe?"
"He is on duty and gone to the fort."
"Where he belongs," I growled, "and not eternally at your heels."
She raised her eyes and looked at me curiously.
"Are you jealous?" she demanded, beginning to smile; then, suddenly the smile vanished and she shot at me a darker look, and stood considering me with lips slightly compressed, hostile and beautiful.
"As for that fop of an Ensign----" I began--but she took the word from my mouth:
"A fiddle-stick! It is I who have cause to complain of you, not you of me! You throw dust in my eyes by accusing where you should stand otherwise accused. And you know it!"
"I? Accused of what?"
"If you don't know, then I need not humiliate myself to inform you. But I think you do know, for you looked guilty enough----"
"Guilty of what?"
"Of what? I don't know what you may be guilty of. But you sat on the stairs with your simpering inamorata--and your courts.h.i.+p quarrels and your tender reconciliations were plain enough to--to sicken anybody----"
"Lois! That is no proper way to speak of----"
"It is your own affair--and hers! I ask your pardon--but she flaunted her intimacy with you so openly and indiscreetly----"
"There is no common sense in what you say!" I exclaimed angrily. "If I----"
"Was she not ever drowning her very soul in your sheep's eyes? And even not scrupling to shamelessly caress you in the face of all----"
"Caress me!"
"Did she not stand for ten full minutes with her hand upon your shoulder, and a-sighing and simpering----"
"That was no caress! It was full innocent and----"
"Is she so innocent? Indeed! I had scarcely thought it of her," she said disdainfully.
"She is a true, good girl, innocent of any evil intention whatsoever----"
"I pray you, Euan, spare me your excited rhapsodies. If you prefer this most bewitching--minx----"
"She is no minx!" I retorted hotly; and Lois as hotly faced me, pink to her ears with exasperation.
"You do favour her! You do! You do! Say what you will, you are ever listening for the flutter of her petticoats on the stairs, ever at her French heels, ever at moony gaze with her--and a scant inch betwixt your noses! So that you come not again to me vowing what you have vowed to me--I care not how you and she conduct----"
"I do prefer you!" I cried, furious to be so misconstrued. "I love only one, and that one is you!"
"Oh, Euan, yours is a most broad and catholic heart; and any pretty penitent can find her refuge there; and any petticoat can flutter it!"
"Yours can. Even your fluttering rags did that!"