The George Barr McCutcheon MEGAPACK ®. George Barr McCutcheon
gift that can be bestowed by seventy millions of people is the man who had brains and not title as a birthright.” He was a bit exasperated.
“There! I have displeased you again. You must pardon my antiquated ideas. We, as true and loyal subjects of a good sovereign, cannot forget that our rulers are born, not made. Perhaps we are afflicted at times with brainless monarchs and are to be pitied. You are generous in your selection of potentates, be generous, then, with me, a benighted royalist, who craves leniency of one who may some day be President of the United States.”
“Granted, without discussion. As possible, though not probable, President of the United States, I am magnanimous to an unfortunate who can never hope to be princess, no matter how well she might grace the gilded throne.”
She greeted this glowing remark with a smile so intoxicating that he felt himself the most favored of men. He saw that smile in his mind’s eye for months afterward, that maddening sparkle of joy, which flashed from her eyes to the very bottom of his heart, there to snuggle forever with Memory’s most priceless treasures. Their dinner was but one more phase of this fascinating dream. More than once he feared that he was about to awake to find bleak unhappiness where exquisite joy had reigned so gloriously. As it drew to an end a sense of depression came over him. An hour at most was all that he could have with her. Nine o’clock was drawing nigh with its regrets, its longings, its desolation. He determined to retain the pleasures of the present until, amid the clanging of bells and the roll of car wheels, the dismal future began. His intention to accompany them to the station was expressed as they were leaving the table. She had begun to say good-by to him when he interrupted, self-consciousness forcing the words hurriedly and disjointedly from his lips:
“You will let me go to the station with you. I shall—er—deem it a pleasure.”
She raised her eyebrows slightly, but thanked him and said she would consider it an honor. His face grew hot and his heart cold with the fancy that there was in her eyes a gleam which said: “I pity you, poor fellow.”
Notwithstanding his strange misgiving and the fact that his pride had sustained quite a perceptible shock, he drove with them to the station. They went to the sleeping car a few minutes before the time set for the train’s departure, and stood at the bottom of the steps, uttering the good-bys, the God-speeds and the sincere hope that they might meet again. Then came the sharp activity of the trainmen, the hurry of belated passengers. He glanced soberly at his watch.
“It is nine o’clock. Perhaps you would better get aboard,” he said, and proceeded to assist Aunt Yvonne up the steps. She turned and pressed his hand gently before passing into the car.
“Adieu, good friend. You have made it so very pleasant for us,” she said, earnestly.
The tall, soldierly old gentleman was waiting to assist his niece into the coach.
“Go first, Uncle Caspar,” the girl made Lorry happy by saying. “I can easily come up unaided.”
“Or I can assist her,” Lorry hastened to add, giving her a grateful look which she could not misunderstand. The uncle shook hands warmly with the young man and passed up the steps. She was following when Lorry cried,
“Will you not allow me?”
She laughingly turned to him from the steps and stretched forth her hand.
“And now it is good-by forever. I am so sorry that I have not seen more of you,” she said. He took her hand and held it tightly for a moment.
“I shall never forget the past few days,” he said, a thrill in his voice. “You have put something into my life that can never be taken away. You will forget me before you are out of Washington, but I—I shall always see you as you are now.”
She drew her hand away gently, but did not take her eyes from his upturned face.
“You are mistaken. Why should I forget you—ever? Are you not the ideal American whose name I bought? I shall always remember you as I saw you—at Denver.”
“Not as I have been since?” he cried.
“Have you changed since first I saw you?” she asked, quaintly.
“I have, indeed, for you saw me before I saw you. I am glad I have not changed for the worse in your eyes.”
“As I first knew you with my eyes I will say that they are trustworthy,” she said tantalizingly.
“I do not mean that I have changed externally.”
“In any other case my eyes would not serve,” she cried, with mock disappointment. “Still,” she added, sweepingly, “you are my ideal American. Good-by! The man has called ‘all aboard!’”
“Good-by!” he cried, swinging up on the narrow step beside her. Again he clasped her hand as she drew back in surprise. “You are going out of my land, but not out of my mind. If you wish your eyes to see the change in me, you have only to look at them in a mirror. They are the change—they themselves! Goodby! I hope that I may see you again.”
She hesitated an instant, her eyes wavering beneath his. The train was moving slowly now.
“I pray that we may meet,” she said, softly, at last,—so softly that he barely heard the words. Had she uttered no sound he could have been sure of her response, for it was in her telltale eyes. His blood leaped madly. “You will be hurt if you wait till the train is running at full speed,” she cried, suddenly returning to the abandoned merry mood. She pushed him gently in her excitement. “Don’t you see how rapidly we are moving? Please go!” There was a terror in her eyes that pleased him.
“Good-by, then,” he cried.
“Adieu, my American,” she cried quickly.
As he swung out, ready to drop to the ground, she said, her eyes sparkling with something that suggested mischief, her face more bewitching than ever under the flicker of the great arc lights:
“You must come to Edelweiss to see me. I shall expect you!” He thought there was a challenge in the tones. Or was it mockery?
“I will, by heaven, I will!” he exclaimed.
A startled expression flashed across her face, and her lips parted as if in protestation. As she leaned forward, holding stoutly to the hand-rail, there was no smile on her countenance.
A white hand fluttered before his eyes, and she was gone. He stood, hat in hand, watching the two red lights at the end of the train until they were lost in the night.
CHAPTER V
SENTIMENTAL EXCHANGE
If Lorry slept that night he was not aware of it. The next morning, after he had breakfasted with his mother, he tried in vain to recall a minute of the time between midnight and eight a.m. in which he did not think of the young woman who had flown away with his tranquillity. All night long he tossed and thought. He counted ten thousand black sheep jumping over a pasture fence, but, after the task was done and the sheep had scattered, he was as far from sleep as ever. Her face was everywhere. Her voice filled his ear with music never-ceasing, but it was not the lulling music that invites drowsiness. He heard the clock strike the hours from one to eight, when he arose, thoroughly disgusted with himself. Everything seemed to taste bitter or to look blue. That breakfast was a great strain on his natural politeness. He worshipped his mother, but in several instances that morning he caught himself just in time to prevent the utterance of some sharp rejoinder to her pleasant, motherly queries. Twice she was compelled to repeat questions, his mind being so far away that he heard nothing save words that another woman had uttered, say twenty-four hours before. His eyes were red, and there was a heavy droop to the lids; his tones were drawling and his voice strangely without warmth; his face was white and tired.
“You are not well, Grenfall,” his mother said, peering anxiously into his eyes. “The trip has done you up. Now, you must take a good, long rest and recover from your vacation.”
He smiled grimly.
“A man never