“Here comes a tramp up the avenue again,” said Mrs. Montgomery, with
irritation. “That makes the second this week. I shall have to build a
lodge. Why can’t they go to the farmhouse? Tramps are very trying.”
“He doesn’t walk like a tramp,” said Lee, “although his clothes
certainly _are_--” Being a trifle shortsighted, she raised her
lorgnette. She rose suddenly, turning her back to Mrs. Montgomery,
and descended the steps of the verandah. Her knees and hands shook
violently, and the blood rushed to her head; but she was some three
minutes reaching the stranger, who had lifted his cap, then plunged his
hands in his pockets, and at the end of that time her nerves were in
the leash of her will.
“Well, if it isn’t like you, Cecil Maundrell, to come in those awful
clothes!” she cried gaily. “Mrs. Montgomery took you for a tramp.”
He laughed nervously as he swung her hand to and fro. “We were burnt
out last night, and they’re all I’ve got left. I’ll go on to San
Francisco in a day or two and get some.”
“I don’t believe Aunty will let you in the house, much less sit down at
the table.”
“Really? How curious! I didn’t know you were so conventional out here.
But I’ll go on at once, if you say so.”
“No, no. Only make an elaborate enough apology to Mrs. Montgomery,
and she will be as nice as possible. But we’re not only frightfully
conventional out here, but rather sensitive. A duke came down to a
dinner-party in Menlo once in his shooting-jacket, and we’ve never
gotten over it.”
“What a bounder. I’ll go out and eat with the farm hands. I like the
rough and ready American very much.”
“I don’t know any, so I can’t argue. You look perfectly splendid, and
I’m _so_ glad you’re tall. You really have changed very little, except
that you’ve lost your pretty complexion--although I prefer this. You
make other men look positively ill. Oh, Cecil, I _am_ glad to see you!”
Her face and voice were animated by the friendliest feeling. Cecil
stared hard at her, the smile dying out of his eyes. “You are very
beautiful,” he said abruptly.
“I hear a carriage. Some people are coming to call. Let us get out of
the way--not that I’m ashamed of you, but you don’t want to meet Mrs.
Montgomery before a lot of other people.”
“I don’t want to meet her at all--or anybody else but yourself. To tell
the truth, it never occurred to me that there would be any one else,
and I knew you wouldn’t mind these old shooting rags. I do look like a
tramp. I really never thought about it. I remember people rather stared
at me in the train. A flashy-looking fellow in the smoking-car asked
me if I was looking for work, and I told him No, I was looking for a
fight. He said nothing more until we reached a station, when he asked
me to get out and take a drink.”
“Did you? I can’t imagine your unbending that far.”
“Oh, I take everybody as a matter of course, knocking about. I accepted
the drink and stood him another. After that I went to sleep to get rid
of him. Of course he wanted to talk--that is to say, monologue.”
“Let us sit down here.”
They had left the avenue, and crossed a side garden. There were two
rustic chairs under a great oak. They took them, and faced each other.
“Did you kill your grizzly?”
“No; not one has been heard of in the neighbourhood of San Luis
Obispo for three years. I never was so disappointed in my life. Now,
I suppose, there is no hope; it is too much to ask of men who have
been burnt out to bother about grizzlies. My other friends--the ones
I’ve been with for the last two years--didn’t come further West than
Montana.”
Lee had on a white summer frock, girdled with a ribbon the colour of
her eyes. Her black hair was coiled loosely. She was fully aware that
she looked very lovely.
“You are the only man living that would look for a grizzly first and
for me after,” she said with a certain arching of her brows and pouting
of her lips ... “Cecil, you always could stare harder than any one I
ever knew.”
“I believe I’ve thought quite as much about you as the grizzly.”
“Thanks!”
“No; but I am serious.” He looked away. Lee fancied that his triple
coat of tan really paled. “I’ve never been so upset in my life,” he
continued lucidly.
“It never did take you long to come to the point. What a relief--there
are not to be a half-dozen weeks of flirtatious fencing. Do come out
with it.”
He laughed, but without any great amount of ease. “I’ll be perfectly
frank,” he said. “I saw your photograph in New York; I nearly went off
my head. I lay awake all night. It was the first time any woman had
bowled me over. My two or three fancies were hardly worth recalling.
You see, I put your beauty with all I knew of you mentally, and of our
delightful companionship when you were older than most girls of your
age--and the sweetest little thing!--and the combination made my brain
whirl. Before morning I wrote you that letter----”
“Well?”
Lee was twirling her lorgnette, her eyes lowered. Cecil had not removed
his eyes from the horizon. He spoke jerkily, with an evident effort.
“When I cooled down, I was sorry I had sent that letter,” he brought
out brutally, after an instant’s further hesitation. “You see, I had
never thought of you in that way at all, or I shouldn’t even have
started for California. I don’t believe in international marriages----”
“But, my dear Cecil,” exclaimed Lee, opening wide surprised eyes,
“we’re not going to marry! I settled all that long ago.”
Cecil was too perturbed and too masculine to mark the rapid change of
tactics. He turned his face about and stared at her. He was visibly
paler, and his eyes were almost black.
“You have not settled it as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “I knew it
was all up with me when you came toward me down that avenue. I’ve done
nothing but deliberate for five weeks; I’ve weighed every pro and con;
I’ve recalled every scene between my father and stepmother; I’ve argued
with myself on the folly of marrying anything under a fortune; and the
moment I saw you I knew that I had wasted five weeks, and that I should
marry you if you would have me.”
Lee’s eyes had returned to the study of her lap. Pride and passion
battled again. After a full moment’s silence, she looked up with so
sweet a smile that he leaned forward impulsively to take her hand. But
she drew it back.
“Cecil,” she said, “I forbid you to make love to me until you have made
me love you first. Of course I can’t say if I ever shall.” She looked
about vaguely, her lips still smiling. “But, at least, we start fair; I
don’t care a straw for any one else, and I’ve always liked you better
than anybody in the world. To-day is the twenty-sixth of April. You may
propose to me again on the twenty-sixth of May.”
He looked at her helplessly, his lips twitching. “You don’t care at
all?” he asked. His voice still thickened when he was agitated.
“How can I, Cecil--in that way--when I haven’t laid eyes on you for ten
years? You admit that I was only an abstraction to you before you saw
my picture. You could not expect more of me, and I never even had a
glimpse of a photograph. And women don’t take fire so easily as men.”
She prayed he would not catch her up in his arms and kiss her. “I have
not even been inspired to deliberation.” She gave a little laugh just
tipped with malice. “What would you think, I wonder, if I accepted you
on a moment’s notice.”
“You certainly wouldn’t have my excuse. What a guy I must be!” He stood
up with a sudden diffidence which made him look like a big awkward boy,
and Lee loved him the more.
“What time does the next train go to San Francisco?” he added. He had
taken out his watch.
“Twelve-ten.”
“I have just time to catch it. I’ll be back when I’ve got some decent
clothes. I suppose there are tailors in San Francisco--in Market
Street?”
“Go and see Randolph, Crocker Building. He will take you to his.”
“Thanks. Good-bye.”
He shook her hand, avoiding her eyes, and strode away. When he reached
the avenue, he plunged his hands into his pockets and began to run.
Lee found time to laugh at his picturesque lack of self-consciousness
before she turned and fled across the lane into the friendly solitude
of the Yorba woods.