IN WHICH DARTS ARE COUNTED AS STUBBLE
IN the course of a somewhat diversified experience Brant had been
constrained to fight his way through a few measurably perilous
passages, and in such crises those who liked him least were fain to
concede his courage. None the less, when the day of liberation darkened
to its evening he went leaden-footed to the interview with Dorothy’s
mother.
Now Hobart, in the goodness of his heart, had caused it to be whispered
about that Brant would probably make his farewell call that evening,
and for this reason it was Dorothy, and no hireling, who answered the
bell.
Whatever may be said of Brant (and his most loyal apologist is fain
to admit that his shortcomings were many and variegated), he was
no laggard in love; and when he made sure of the identity of his
unexpected welcomer, Dorothy had no cause to doubt the warmth of his
passion. Nevertheless, she blushed and struggled a little--as what
modest young woman, however affectionate, would not in a well-lighted
reception hall which was a thoroughfare for the entire household? And
so, mutely protesting, she drew him quickly into the library.
“Only a moment with you, my love,” he said tenderly; “just long enough
to hear you say it again. Are you quite sure you love me?”
She hid her face on his arm--she was not tall enough to reach his
shoulder. “I--I’d be ashamed to tell you how long I have been sure of
it,” she confessed with sweet _naïveté_.
Whereat he kissed the parting of her hair.
“Thank you for that word, my darling. It would hold a worse man than I
ever dared to be true to his purpose. Now there is but one thing more:
we must have your mother’s consent and approval. Will you go and send
her to me?”
But Dorothy hesitated, as well she might.
“If you are sure you must speak to her now,” she ventured to say. “But,
oh, I am afraid----”
At that he drew her closer, and for some ecstatic moment the hard thing
that remained became as naught. “The day of fear and trembling is past,
little one, and whatever befalls, whatever your mother may say, we
shall still belong to each other. And I will wait and serve for you,
my love, as Jacob served for Rachel, if need be. Now kiss me good-bye,
dear, and go--before the love of you unmans me.”
She lifted tear-brimmed eyes to his and said: “Oh, no; it must not be
good-bye.”
“Only for a little while, sweetheart. I’ll join you with the others
when I have done what I must do.”
“With the others? But how shall I know what she has said?”
He smiled and once more kissed the parting of her hair. “You’ll know
without the telling, my beloved. And if you are the first to welcome
me, I’ll know you know. Now go, and let me have it over with.”
She went obediently at that, and when she was gone, Brant began to walk
the floor and to call up all his reserves of fortitude and courage,
being well assured that he would presently need them.
While he was yet planning the assault, and before the flanking
regiments were properly wheeled into line, the door opened behind him
and he turned to confront not Mrs. Langford, as he had anticipated, but
her son. The “unlicked cub” came in, swaggering a little as was his
wont; but when he had closed the door and so shut himself in with his
redoubtable preserver, he had an attack of embarrassment which quickly
put to flight the offhand greeting he had meant to offer. Whereupon,
instead of carrying it off with the easy nonchalance of a man of the
world, he stammered like any schoolboy and Brant had to come to the
rescue.
“How are you, Will? I am glad to see you,” he said, truthfully enough.
The unchastised one felt that some acknowledgment of his immense
obligation to Brant ought properly to precede any mere desultory talk,
but to save his life he could not twist his tongue to anything like
the adequate speech. So he spoke of Brant’s plans rather than of the
obligation.
“Heard you were off to the San Juan; Harry told us, you know. Jolly
good layout, too, isn’t it? By gad, don’t you know I envy you?--no,
that isn’t what I meant to say. Fact is, Mr. Brant, you see I’ve been
hanging ’round the door so long waiting for Dorothy to come out that
it’s got me rattled. What I wanted to ask was if you wouldn’t take
me along. I reckon I don’t know enough about engineering to hurt me
any--nothing much but what I learned at school--and folks say I’m too
dead tough to breathe, but I’d like to learn, and--well, I don’t know,
but I reckon I’ll never be any account till I get to work, and if
anybody can brace me up, it’s you, and----”
Brant was generous enough to break in and so supply the period the boy
was so helplessly pursuing; and he did it the more readily since he
felt the sudden and urgent prompting of a new and imperative duty.
“If you will agree to carry chain and drive stakes to begin with, you
may count it a settled thing so far as I am concerned,” he said. “But
how about your father and mother? Will they let you go?”
“The governor’s all right; I’ve just had a talk with him, and he is so
glad to get rid of me that he is scared to death for fear you won’t
take me. And the mother will be all right, too; she’ll do anything I
want her to, same as she always does, you know. I’ll go and tell her
now, before----”
But just then the door opened again, and Mrs. Langford needed not to
be sought. She came in with the air of one who does an unavoidable
thing reluctantly, but her stateliness abated visibly at sight of her
son. The “cub” promptly forestalled anything in the way of preliminary
formalities.
“Just this minute talking about you, mother,” he burst out, in happy
ignorance of constraints or embarrassments, social or other. “Come and
shake hands with Mr. Brant and congratulate him on getting out of the
horrible scrape I got him into. But that isn’t what we were talking
about, you know; he starts for the San Juan to-morrow morning--going
down to take charge of the Chipeta work--and he has promised to take me
with him.”
“Subject, of course, to your approval and Judge Langford’s,” amended
Brant, with a bow in Mrs. Langford’s direction.
“Oh, of course; but I told you that would be all right. What’s the
matter with you, mother? Can’t you manage to thank Mr. Brant? It’s
jolly good of him, y’know.”
“I--why, William, dear, this is dreadfully sudden! I didn’t know you
were even thinking of such a thing!” The good lady had formulated
quite a number of cool little speeches wherewith to dampen any small
spark of ardour which the unwelcome visitor might attempt to blow
alive, but here was a contingency for which no forethought could have
made provision. So she hesitated, and before the needed access of
severity came to forbid it she was doing very nearly as her son had
commanded.
“We are glad--very glad, I am sure, Mr. Brant,” she faltered, not
knowing just how fittingly to congratulate a man upon having got out
of jail--out of the very noose of the hangman. “This is really an
unexpected pleasure--no, not quite that, either, for I got your note.
But about this--this expedition; I am afraid-- Hasn’t William been
taking too much for granted?”
“Not on my part,” rejoined Brant civilly. “I assure you I shall be glad
enough to have him with me, if he may go with your consent.”
“But it is so very sudden,” the mother protested, still unable to
orient herself. “I had thought--that is, I had been led to believe that
you came upon quite a different errand, Mr. Brant.”
“Oh, of course; he came to see Dorothy,” said William with brotherly
brutality. “But that’s all right. They’ll have time enough to say any
quantity of good-byes while you’re helping me to pack. Come on upstairs
with me, please; I can’t begin to find half of my things if you don’t
help me.”
Mrs. Langford gave up in mute despair; and Brant was beginning to
fear that his errand would have to go undone; but at that moment the
“cub” rescued the vanishing opportunity by rushing off to begin his
preparations. Thus the mother and her visitor were left alone together,
and Brant seized his courage with both hands:
“Mrs. Langford, one moment, if you please. You know why I came here
to-night, and what I meant to ask. My happiness, which you may justly
ignore, and that of your daughter, which is of far greater moment,
depend upon your answer. Will you give it me now? or must I wait till I
have earned a better right to it?”
He spoke hurriedly as the occasion compelled, and she heard him through
without interrupting. When he paused she took his arm a little stiffly
and led him toward the door.
“You will find the family in the drawing-room, Mr. Brant; and I hope
you will excuse me if I go upstairs to help William. And, as I may not
come down before you go, I will bid you good-bye now. I hope you will
do well, and--and that you will succeed in whatever you undertake.”
They had reached the hall, and she turned and held out her hand. Brant
took it and bowed low over it.
“Then I am to understand----”
“This: that I am willing to be neutral, and to wait.”
“It is all I ask,” he said gratefully, quelling a sudden and mighty
insurrection of joy that threatened to unseat his self-control.
“It is all I can promise, now. Be lenient with me, Mr. Brant, as I
shall try to be with you. You know my views, and you also know whether
they are unsupported by reason and justice. I will say frankly that I
came down a few moments ago to urge you to spare me; to tell you that I
could not reconcile myself to this thing that you and my daughter have
set your hearts upon. But while I delayed, you forestalled me with my
son. He is my hostage, and I surrender him to you because I can not
help myself; but when you return I shall require him at your hands.
Deal gently with him, I beg of you--for his sister’s sake, if not for
mine.”
She turned to go upstairs, and he stood aside to let her pass. “God
do so to me, and more, if I do not regard him as the son of my own
mother,” he said solemnly, and the promise touched her.
“I believe you--and trust you,” she added, pausing on the step above
him. “Now go and join the others in the drawing-room. They will all be
glad to welcome you.”
And they were; but Dorothy the most of all. For in his eyes she read
the promise of the future, and ran to be the first to greet him.
And though the others pressed upon him with kindly words and hearty
hand-grips, he saw but one--the woman for whose love he lived, and
would have died.
THE END
“A FRESH AND CHARMING NOVEL.”
=The Last Lady of Mulberry.=
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=_THE AWAKENING OF MARY FENWICK._=
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=_NOT ALL IN VAIN._=
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=_A MARRIAGE CEREMONY._=
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and sprightliness that have made their author rank as a peer of
delineators.”--_Baltimore American._
=_A LITTLE MINX._=
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its author has yet accomplished.”--_Baltimore American._
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novels.”--_London Literary World._
“I commend it to all my readers who like a strong, cheerful,
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=_FALSE COIN OR TRUE?_ $1.25.=
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“A well-written novel, with well-depicted characters and well-chosen
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=_THE ONE WHO LOOKED ON._ $1.25.=
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“One of the most remarkable and powerful of the year’s contributions,
worthy to stand with Ian Maclaren’s.”--_British Weekly._
“One of the rare books which can be read with great pleasure and
recommended without reservation. It is fresh, pure, sweet, and
pathetic, with a pathos which is perfectly wholesome.”--_St. Paul
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=_INTO THE HIGHWAYS AND HEDGES._ $1.50.=
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“‘Into the Highways and Hedges’ is a book not of promise only, but of
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life and character.”--_London Daily News._
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=_WAYSIDE COURTSHIPS._=
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“One of the most delightful books of short stories which have come to
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“The historian of the plains has done nothing better than this group
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=_JASON EDWARDS. An Average Man._=
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=_A MEMBER OF THE THIRD HOUSE. A Story of Political Warfare._=
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=_A SPOIL OF OFFICE. A Story of the Modern West._=
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=_A LITTLE NORSK; or, Ol’ Pap’s Flaxen._ 16mo. Boards, 50 cents.=
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By MAARTEN MAARTENS.
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=Some Women I have Known.= (_Nearly ready._)
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=Her Memory.= With Photogravure Portrait.
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story christened ‘God’s Fool.’ He established himself at once in our
affections as a unique creature who had something to say and knew how
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=The Greater Glory.= A Story of High Life.
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Francisco Chronicle._
=God’s Fool.=
“Throughout there is an epigrammatic force which would make
palatable a less interesting story of human lives or one less deftly
told.”--_London Saturday Review._
=Joost Avelingh.=
“Aside from the masterly handling of the principal characters and
general interest in the story, the series of pictures of Dutch life
give the book a charm peculiarly its own.”--_New York Herald._
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.