must be something wrong for Jake to be offering it at the price he did.
He led it here, and you just ought to have seen the brute dance and
make ugly eyes when first Albert and then I tried to get astride of it.
Jake swears the only reason he'll sell cheap is because his wife has
taken a dislike to the horse, and what she says, goes with him. He's
ready to bet anything the animal's as mild as a lamb, only a bit
frisky, and certainly it's as handsome a beast as I ever laid eyes on.
But he'll have to get rid of it at the fair."
"I'll come," said Jim, getting up.
I jumped up too.
"Oh, please don't have anything to do with such a vicious creature," I
begged. "You might be killed."
Jim laughed. "The horse isn't sired that could kill me, I reckon. I
know them too well. Why, little girl, I was brought up among horses.
You can trust me not to run too big risks, now I've got something to
make life worth living."
Stan has often told me that men hate girls to fuss over them, so I bit
my lip and didn't tease any more, but I was far from happy. I didn't
like the look in his eyes.
"May Sally and I go and see the horse with you?" I meekly asked.
"I'll ride him up to the house, if I find he's worth your seeing," Jim
said. "But you mustn't worry if we don't come this way for awhile. I
may have to work with him a bit before he's ready to show himself off
to ladies."
With that he got his hat and went out with Mr. Trowbridge, who was
waiting with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Oh, dear, I feel as if something horrid was going to happen!" I said
to Sally, when they had gone.
"Pooh!" said she. "I should be sorry for the animal who tried to play
tricks with that young man. You'll find you haven't known him, till you
see him on a horse."
"I daresay I'm silly," I admitted. "But I have a presentiment of
_something_. Let's go and sit out on the verandah and watch. We can't
see the barn, but if they come out in the farm road we shall catch
sight of them."
"All right," said Sally. "The sun's hot on the verandah; but that's a
detail."
Already Jim and Mr. Trowbridge had disappeared, but as we were choosing
the coolest place for our chairs, we saw a dusty, nondescript old
vehicle rattling up the maple avenue, and just about to turn into the
narrow road which leads round the side of the house. The hood was up to
protect the passengers from the sun, so at first we could see only the
driver, and gather an indistinct impression that there were two figures
in the back seat.
"Visitors," said I. "I didn't know Mrs. Trowbridge was expecting----"
Then I broke off with a little gasp.
"Oh, Sally, it's----"
"The Duke and Katherine!" she gurgled.
All my blood raced up to my head, as if I were going to have a
sunstroke.
"No wonder I had a presentiment," I groaned, forgetting my fright about
the horse, for a moment. "Do stand by me."
"I will," said Sally.
Mrs. Trowbridge and the girls were busy in the kitchen, making peach
jam; so when the wretched old chaise drew up close to the verandah,
Sally and I were alone to receive it.
If my sense of humour hadn't been trampled upon by various emotions
which were all jumping about at the same time, I should have had hard
work not to laugh when Stan and Mrs. Ess Kay scrambled out from under
the lumbering old hood, which was like a great coal scuttle turned over
their heads. Their hair was grey with dust, their faces purple with
heat, and evidently they were both in towering tempers.
Stan looked at me the way he did once when I was small and spoiled his
favourite cricket bat by digging up worms with it;--as if he could have
shaken me well and boxed my ears, and would if I weren't a girl. As for
Mrs. Ess Kay, she smiled; but her smile meant worse things than Stan's
frown.
"Hullo, dear boy," I chirped, nervously. "How do you do, Mrs.
Stuyvesant-Knox?"
Sally murmured something, too, and Stan had the grace to claw off his
hat, showing how damp his poor hair was on his crimson forehead, but he
didn't even pretend to smile.
"A nice dance you've led us," said he. "By Jove, I wouldn't have
thought it of you, Betty."
"Maybe you don't understand yet," said I. "Wait till I've explained,
and I'm sure you won't be cross, because you always were a dear."
"It's no good wheedling," he grumbled. "I'm not going to wait for
anything. We've come to take you home, and the quicker you pack up and
get ready the better."
"What do you mean by home?" I enquired.
"To Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's house in New York, where she says she'll be
good enough to put us up till the next decent ship sails for England."
"I'm not going back to Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's," said I. "She knows why
it's impossible."
"Rot," said Stan. "She's jolly kind to have you, after the way you've
acted. Anybody'd think you were eight, instead of eighteen. You deserve
to be put on bread and water for making me come three thousand miles to
fetch you home."
"I didn't ask you to come," said I, "and you needn't have bothered. Is
Vic engaged yet?"
"Yes, she is; the day before I started. What's that got to do with it?"
"A good deal, according to her," I replied. "I'm engaged, too."
"The dickens you are!" exclaimed Stan, getting redder than ever, while
Mrs. Ess Kay gave a little start and glared at Sally.
My blood was up now, and I didn't care what I said. The sooner Stan
knew everything just as it was, the better.
"Yes, the dickens I am," I echoed, defiantly, "and I don't intend to be
treated like a naughty child, by anyone. I've done nothing wrong, or
underhand. We've only been engaged since yesterday, though we both fell
in love at first sight on shipboard, and we've written to mother and
you, this very morning."
"Engaged to a man you met on shipboard!" repeated Stan, looking
flabbergasted, and turning from me to Mrs. Ess Kay.
"Tom Doremus!" she gasped. "Yet no, that's impossible. He's in Newport.
But there was no one else. I was particularly careful."
"I am engaged to marry Mr. James Brett," I said. "He is----"
"There was no such man on the ship," she broke in, sharply.
Then, suddenly, she almost jumped.
"Goodness _gracious!_" she exclaimed. "Oh, Duke, this is too _awful_. I
remember there was a person in the _steerage_. But this is madness. It
can't be----"
"He did cross in the steerage," I said. "What of it? He is the best,
and handsomest man I ever saw, and there's no finer gentleman than he;
you can ask Sally if there is, for she knows him."
"And thoroughly approves of him," Sally finished, taking my hand.
"Duke, I assure you Betty is to be congratulated. I understand that the
Duchess was not averse to her marrying an American, and the one she has
chosen is of the very best type."
"I beg your pardon, Miss Woodburn, but hang the type," said Stan, who
never did get on with Sally. "It's absolutely impossible that my sister
should marry such a person, and you ought to have known better than to
encourage her. This is a hundred times worse than I thought when I
flung up the best shoot of the season to come and fetch you, Betty. You
and I were always by way of being pals, but I agree with the Mater now;
you've behaved disgracefully, and as for the man, whoever he is----"
"Here he comes to speak for himself," cut in Sally, squeezing my hand
hard.
There was a sound in the distance; voices shouting, but not the voice I
loved. We all looked, and a black horse with a man on his back sprang
into sight, like a rocket gone wrong. It was Jim, looking more
beautiful than any picture of a man ever painted, his face transported
with the joy of battle and triumph, and that fiend in horse shape under
him doing all he knew to kill.
It was a terrible and yet a splendid thing to see, that struggle. I
hadn't known how I adored Jim, and how I admired him, till I saw him
with that smile on his face, sitting the black devil as if he were one
with him in spite of the brute's murderous plunges.
The two shot past the house like a streak of lightning, then wheeled
back again, the horse clearing a ditch and a five-barred fence from one
meadow into another; but he didn't jump in spite of Jim; rather was it
in spite of himself. Then there was a series of mad buck jumpings,
leaps into the air, and downward plunges. The beast sat on his
haunches, and then reared up with a great bound, to waltz on his hind
legs and paw the air, snorting. But still Jim smiled and kept his seat
without the least apparent effort.
[Illustration: "_Jim smiled and kept his seat without the least
apparent effort_"]
"Jove! that fellow can ride," muttered Stan, taken out of himself by
his man's admiration for a man.
"It's Jim Brett, _my_ Jim Brett," I cried. "What do you think of him
now?"
But it didn't occur to Stan to answer. I don't suppose he even heard;
he was far too deeply absorbed in the passing drama; and in a minute
more Jim and the black horse were out of sight again.
But I was not at all afraid for him now. I was only proud, and sure--as
sure as I was of life--that he would conquer.
Nobody spoke. Mr. Trowbridge, and Mr. Jacobsen, the disagreeable
cowbell man who owned the horse, ran by as fast as they could go, too
excited to glance at the house, and Albert and Elisha followed. Mrs.
Trowbridge and the girls had come out from the kitchen and were hanging
over the nearest fence. Patty was whimpering a little, so I guessed all
in a flash that she had cared for Jim. (But she is so sweet she will
get over it now he is mine; and already I've made her realise
thoroughly what a fine fellow the great Whit is.)
We stood still in our places and watched. I could hear my heart beat,
and it had not time to calm down before Jim came riding back on the
black horse--a changed black horse, all winning airs and graces, to
cover shamed penitence now.
The creature pirouetted up the side road, and Jim stopped him at the
verandah, patting the throbbing black neck. "Well? I believe I'll buy
him myself," he said smiling to me; and then he saw Mrs. Ess Kay and my
brother.
"By Jove, Harborough!" said Stan. "It _is_ you, isn't it? Surely it
isn't your double?"
"Harborough it is," said Jim, while I listened, dumb with wonder. "How
are you, Duke? I was rather expecting you might turn up; but I cabled
to you last night to Boodles', and wrote you this morning on the chance
you hadn't started."
"Well, I'm blowed," remarked Stan, most inelegantly. "Are you Brett, or
is Brett you, or is he somebody else?"
"My name is James Brett Harborough; perhaps you didn't know, or had
forgotten," said Jim; and then, jumping off the horse and throwing the
lines to Mr. Jacobsen, who had just trotted anxiously up, he came to
me.
"Will you forgive me?" he asked.
"I don't know yet what it's all about," I said, dully.
"Miss Woodburn knows; and Mohunsleigh knew. You see, he and I were old
pals, so I told him I was in love with his cousin, and was going to try
hard to win her, in my own way. You remember Mohunsleigh's friend
Harborough. You said the other day you were sorry for him, and--you
wished him joy of his love affair."
"Oh, is _that_ the reason you pretended to be only Jim Brett?"
"I _am_ Jim Brett. But now you understand, will you forgive me?"
"I don't understand yet, except that you must have been afraid I might
care more for your money than for you, if I knew. Oh, how _could_ you
think such a thing of me? But about the steerage----"
"That was beforehand. It had nothing to do with you, though everything
that was to come, came from it. I was abroad for a couple of years, and
a friend I knocked up against in Paris last June bet me a thousand
dollars that in spite of all my queer experiences, I wouldn't have the
pluck to rough it in the steerage of a big ocean liner. I took the bet,
and won it. If it hadn't been for seeing you, I should have gone West
almost at once after landing in New York, but I _had_ seen you, so I
stayed. Luckily for me, I'd met Miss Woodburn often in San Francisco
and once here. She recognised me in my steerage get-up and was the only
one who did; but her tact kept her from spoiling sport. She guessed
there must be a game on, and said not a word to anyone. She wouldn't,
even if I hadn't managed to send her a note, which I did. I had a
conversation with her on board, too, the day before getting in, and--we
talked about you. Even then I felt sure you couldn't be the sort of
girl to care about money, but----"
"It was partly my fault, Betty," Sally broke in when he paused. "To be
quite, quite frank, I knew that the Duchess had fallen in with some
ideas of Katherine's, and I couldn't tell how far your bringing up
mightn't have influenced your nature, so I encouraged Mr. Harborough to
test you by keeping up the story that he was a poor young fellow named
Jim Brett. It handicapped him, and kept him away from you; but you were
interested in him to start with, and I did my best to keep up the
romance. I thought he wouldn't lose by it in the end, and he hasn't.
There was the morning in the Park; I managed that; and I got Katherine
to send him an invitation to her big party. He was playing a waiting
game, because he wanted you to care in spite of every drawback, or else
he wouldn't want you to care at all; and then, before he was ready for
any _coup_, Fate stepped in and did the rest."
"In the best way it could have been done, I think," said Jim. "Now,
little girl, do you understand, and have you forgiven me?"
"I'd like to think you could have trusted me from the very first,
without playing at all," I answered. "Still--it _is_ romantic, isn't
it? And besides, even if I were very angry, I--I'm afraid I'd forgive
you _anything_ after seeing you ride that horse."
"I'm hanged if I couldn't, too," said Stan. And laughing, the two shook
hands.
"And I suppose I shall have to, as well," purred Mrs. Ess Kay, quite
kittenish, "if only _somebody_ would introduce Mr. Harborough to me."
(As if anyone cared whether she forgave him or not!)
"What about the Duchess?" asked Sally.
"Oh, when I tell her that Betty's engaged to marry a chap I've met and
liked in town--a thorough sportsman, too, it will be all right," said
Stan.
I was glad he didn't refer to Jim's money, even though that _is_ the
thing which will appeal most to Mother. As for me, I am almost sorry he
isn't poor, if there's room in my heart to be sorry about anything. But
I don't believe there is. It's such a beautiful world, and I shall have
two homes in it now; one on each side the water.