Leonora, apparently absorbed in her book, watched her exasperated
admirer curiously under her long, shady lashes. She divined intuitively
that he was bitterly jealous of his handsome friend.
"Have I stirred up strife between them?" she asked herself, uneasily.
"That will never do. I must carry the olive branch to the distrustful
friend."
She glanced around, and seeing that Lancaster was not in sight, called
gently:
"Lieutenant De Vere!"
He hurried toward her, and stood in grim silence awaiting her pleasure.
"I--want to speak to you," she said.
There was a vacant chair near at hand. He brought it and sat down by
her side.
"I am at your service, Miss West," he said, stiffly.
He thought he had never seen anything half so enchanting as the face
she raised to his. The big black hat was a most becoming foil to her
fresh young beauty. There was a smile on the rosy lips--half arch, half
wistful. The full light of the sunny day shone on her, but her beauty
was so flawless that the severe test only enhanced its perfection. His
heart gave a fierce throb, half pain, half pleasure.
"You are vexed with me?" said Leonora, in a soft, inquiring voice.
"Oh, no, no," he replied, quickly.
"No?" she said. "But, then, you certainly are vexed with some one. If
it is not with me, then it must be with Captain Lancaster."
To this proposition, that was made with an air of conviction, he
remained gravely silent.
"Silence gives consent," said the girl, after waiting vainly for him to
speak, and then he bowed coldly.
"Then it is he," she said. "Ah, dear me! what has Captain Lancaster
done?"
"That is between him and me," said the soldier, with a sulky air.
The red lips dimpled. Leonora rather enjoyed the situation.
"You will not tell me?" she said.
"I beg your pardon--no," he answered, resolutely.
"Then I will tell you," she said: "you think he has treated you
unfairly, that he has taken advantage of you."
De Vere stared.
"How can you possibly know, Miss West?" he asked, pulling sulkily at
the ends of his dark mustache.
"I am very good at guessing," demurely.
"You did not guess this. He told you, I presume," bitterly.
"He--if you mean Captain Lancaster--told me nothing. I was telling him
something. Why should you be vexed at him because I went and stood
there and talked to him?" indignantly.
"I was not," rather feebly.
"Do you really deny it?" she asked him, incredulously.
"Well, since you put it so seriously, yes, I was vexed about it; but I
don't understand how you could know it," he answered, flushing a dark
red.
"I will tell you how I know," she said, coloring crimson also. "I heard
all that you and Captain Lancaster said about me that first night we
came aboard."
"Oh, by Jove! you didn't, though?" he exclaimed, radiant, and trying to
meet the glance of the beautiful eyes.
But with her shy avowal she had let the white lids drop bashfully over
them.
De Vere was not one bit disconcerted by what she had told him. He knew
that all she had heard that night had been to his advantage.
"And so all this while you knew that I thought--" he began, boldly.
"That you thought me rather pretty--yes," she replied, modestly.
"I knew also that I was a _mésalliance_ for you, and that Captain
Lancaster's future was 'cut and dried,'" bitterly.
He gazed at her in wonder.
"And you have kept it to yourself all this while, Miss West?"
"Yes, because I was ashamed to confess the truth. I did not want to be
thought an eavesdropper, for I did not really wish to hear. It was an
accident, but it has weighed on my mind ever since, and at last I made
up my mind to 'fess, as the children say."
He gazed at her with ever-increasing admiration.
"So," she went on, slowly, "this evening I told Captain Lancaster all
about it."
She blushed at the remembrance of some other things she had told
him--things she had not meant to tell, but which had slipped out, as it
were, in her compunction at her rudeness to him.
"And--that was all? Was he not making love to you, really?" cried
the lieutenant, still uneasy at the remembrance of that impulsive
hand-clasp that had so amazed him.
She flashed her great eyes at him in superb anger.
"Love to me--he would not dare!" breathlessly. "I'm nothing to him,
nothing to you--never shall be! Please remember that! Once I reach
my aunt, neither of you need ever expect to see me again. I--I--" a
strangling sob; she broke down and wept out her anger in a perfumed
square of black-bordered cambric.
"Oh, pray, don't cry!" cried he, in distress. "I did not mean to make
you angry, Miss West;" and then Leonora hastily dried her eyes and
looked up at him.
"I'm not angry--really," she said. "Only--only, I want you to
understand that you need not be angry with Captain Lancaster on my
account. There's no use in your liking me and having a quarrel over
me--no use at all."
"No one has quarreled," he answered, in a tone of chagrin and bitter
disappointment.
"Not yet, of course," she replied shaking her head gravely. "But you
know you spoke to him very aggravatingly just now."
"I merely used a quotation from Shakespeare," he retorted.
The bright eyes looked him through and through with their clear gaze.
"Yes, but there was a double meaning in it. I am sure he understood all
that you meant to convey. I should think that when you meet him again
he will knock you down for it."
"You are charmingly frank, but you are right. I do not doubt but that
he will--if he can," he replied, bitterly.
Leonora measured the medium-sized figure critically with her eyes.
"I should think there could be no doubt on the subject," she observed.
"He is twice as big as you are."
"Why do women all admire big, awkward giants?" asked he, warmly.
"We do not," sharply.
"Oh, Miss West, there's no use denying it. There are a dozen men in the
Guards better looking than Lancaster, yet not one so much run after by
the women; all because he is a brawny-fisted Hercules," crossly.
"Captain Lancaster is your friend, isn't he?" with a curling lip.
"He was before I saw you. He is not my friend if he is my rival," said
De Vere, with frankness equal to her own.
The round cheeks grew crimson again.
"Put me out of the question. I am nothing to either of you--never can
be," she said. "You have been friends, haven't you?"
"Yes," curtly.
"For a long time?" persisted she.
"Ever since I went into the Guards--that is five years ago," he
replied. "The fellows used to call us Damon and Pythias."
"Then don't--don't let me make a quarrel between you!" exclaimed
Leonora, pleadingly.
"It is already made, isn't it?" with a half regret in his voice.
"No; only begun--and you mustn't let it go any further."
"No? But what is a fellow to do, I should like to know?"
"You must go and apologize to your friend for your hasty, ill-timed
words," she said.
"I'll be hanged if I show the white feather like that!" he cried,
violently.
"There is no white feather at all. You made a mistake and spoke unjust
words to your friend. Now, when you discover your error, you should be
man enough to retract your remarks," she answered, indignantly.
"I can't see why you take up for Lancaster so vehemently," he
commented, straying from the main point.
"I'm not taking up for him," warmly. "I only don't want you to make a
fool of yourself about _me_!"
"Ah!"--shortly.
"Yes, that is what I mean, exactly; I don't want my aunt to think
I've set you two at odds. She will be prejudiced against me in the
beginning. Come, now," dropping her vexed tone and falling into a
coaxing one, "go and make it up with your injured Pythias."
He regarded her in silence a moment.
"Should you like me any better if I did?" he inquired, after this
thoughtful pause.
"Of course I should," she answered, in an animated tone.
"And it would really please you for me to tell Lancaster I was mistaken
and am sorry?"
"Yes, I should like that, certainly."
He tried to look into the sparkling eyes, but they had wandered away
from him. She was watching the flight of a sea-bird whose glancing
wings were almost lost in the illimitable blue of the sky.
"If I do this thing it will be wholly for your sake," he said,
meaningly.
"For my sake, then," she answered, carelessly; and then he rose and
left her.
* * * * *
Lancaster had been in his state-room reading two hours, perhaps, when
De Vere knocked at his door. He tossed back his fair hair carelessly,
and without rising from his reclining posture, bade the applicant come
in.
"Ah, it is you, De Vere?" he said, icily.
"Yes, it is I, Lancaster. What have you been doing? Writing a challenge
to me?" laughing. "Well, you may burn it now; I have come to retract my
words."
"To retract?" the frown on Lancaster's moody brow began to clear away.
"Yes, I was mistaken, I thought you were my rival in secret, but Miss
West has explained all to me. I spoke unjustly. Can you accord me your
pardon? I'm downright sorry, old fellow--no mistake."
Lancaster gave him his hand.
"Think before you speak next time," he said, dryly.
"I will. But I was terribly cut up at first, seeing you and her
together--like that. How sweet she is! She did not want us to quarrel
over her. She confessed everything. It was comical, her hearing
everything that night--was it not? But there was no harm done."
"No," Lancaster said, constrainedly.
"I'm glad we are friends again; but I was so stiff I could never have
owned myself in the wrong, only that I promised to do it for her sake,"
added De Vere; and then he went away, and left his friend to resume the
interrupted perusal of his novel.
But Lancaster tossed the folio angrily down upon the floor.
"For her sake," he replied. "She is a little coquette, after all, and I
thought for an hour that--Pshaw, I am a fool! So she has fooled him to
the top of his bent, too! Why did I speak to her at all? Little nettle!
I might have known how she would sting! Well, well, I wish the 'small
commission' were duly handed over to the housekeeper at Lancaster Park.
A good riddance, I should say! So she thought that poor men were the
nicest and handsomest, always? Faugh! Lucky for me that De Vere came
upon the scene just then! In another minute I should have told her that
I thought just the same about poor girls! So she confessed all to De
Vere, and bade him apologize for her sake. Ah, ah, little flirt!" he
repeated, bitterly.