COLONEL LANE GOES OFF GUARD
Philip Barrimore did not have to undergo the annoyance of sitting at
table with the man who had dared to want to marry this young man’s
mother--not, at any rate, on the occasion of Dan Webster’s arrival at
Hawk’s Nest.
Colonel Lane had sent round a letter to Mrs. Barrimore to apologize and
to explain.
“MY DEAR FRIEND,” it began, “the last of my old comrades--Colonel
Henderson--is dying at Dulwich, and he has expressed a wish to see
me. You will understand that I am going at once, and kindly forgive
me for breaking my engagement with you to-night under the sorrowful
circumstances. Poor Henderson has been on his back for years, and has
characteristically hidden himself, being poor. Indeed, I had thought
he must be dead! Now he has sent for me, and I shall remain with him,
if he desires it, to the end.
“Will you, dear friend, be so sweet as to take Phyllis into your home
till I return? She does not get on well with Mrs. Ransom--and--there
are other reasons. With you, I shall feel sure my child will be safe.”
The letter ended conventionally, but for all that to Mrs. Barrimore it
was a love-letter.
“He trusts me--he flies to me always as a refuge,” she told herself,
and her kind eyes were bright with tears.
It did not occur to this simple, loving woman that there might be
danger for Phyllis within the haven of her home.
Dan Webster with a shade over his eyes was one person; Dan Webster
without the shade was very much another person! His eyes were blue as
forget-me-nots--merry eyes, loving eyes, eyes which women raved about.
Dan himself was full of charm. He was possessed also of that rare
virtue--gratitude.
He had never forgotten how sweet Phyllis had been to him in his
blindness, and he had often longed to show her his gratitude in some
way that she would understand. He was unfeignedly glad when Mr. Burns,
who had met him at Hastings Station, told him that “little Phil” was
come to stay at Hawk’s Nest.
Dan had an idea that Colonel Lane was a little too much “down” on
Phyllis. He was too strict for so high-spirited yet innocent a girl.
“Phyllis is just a kiddie,” Dan had once remarked to Mrs. Barrimore,
“she means no harm.”
And Mrs. Barrimore had thoroughly agreed with the young painter’s view
of the case.
But as Colonel Lane had entrusted Phyllis to the care of his “dear
friend,” she felt that she was on her honor to prevent Phyllis from
flirting with Dan. Colonel Lane had known that Dan would be staying at
Hawk’s Nest, so he had shown great trust in Mrs. Barrimore when he had
asked her to take his daughter into her home.
So it happened that while Mr. Burns was escorting Dan from the station
(Dan had insisted on walking as he wanted to “stretch his legs”), Mrs.
Barrimore was reading a gentle lecture to her wilful young guest.
“You won’t flirt with Dan, will you, dear?” she began nervously. “Your
father would not like it, and now that he has trusted you by sending
you here--don’t you think--”
“What I think is that you are a dear darling!” exclaimed the girl
impulsively, kissing the tame lecturer, “and you want to please
father--oh! I know! and you are looking absolutely lovely!”
Mrs. Barrimore had blushed that beautiful pink at the girl’s words.
“How do you do it?” asked Phyllis with a critical gaze. “Now I don’t
blush. I wish I could! I get a savage red when dad scolds me, and that
is the nearest to blushing I can get at. But don’t worry! I will be
demure and well-behaved for your sweet sake. It will be hard, you know,
for I do so like a bit of fun. There isn’t a great deal of fun at home,
you know!” she added wistfully.
Annie Barrimore laughed brightly and naturally. “Come! Come!” she
ejaculated. “You do get a good deal of fun out of life!”
“You wouldn’t think so if you knew everything.”
“What is there to know, then?” inquired the elder woman. She remembered
painfully that Colonel Lane had suspected Phyllis of hiding something.
“There are things even older people can’t understand,” answered Phyllis
enigmatically.
There was a strained silence, followed happily by the voices of Uncle
Robert and Dan in the garden.
“One always hears Robert a mile off,” remarked Mrs. Barrimore. “Come,
we must welcome Dan.”
The two women found Philip in the entrance hall.
Philip was disposed to be very pleasant to-night. He embraced his
mother with more than usual affection, and greeted Phyllis with a
compliment on her frock, which greatly gratified that young woman, as
Philip so rarely said “nice things.”
“You will scarcely believe it,” said Philip as he hung up his hat,
“but I drove in in Thomas Alvin’s trap. He was passing the bungalow,
and I was in the garden. He spoke quite affably, and I chanced to say
I was going into Hastings when he offered me a seat in his trap, which
I accepted. I did not want to ride in--in fact, Soda has got something
wrong with her hock. I was going to cycle over, and I hate cycling.”
“How nice of Mr. Alvin!” said Mrs. Barrimore. “But where are your uncle
and Dan?”
“Just behind,” said Philip. “I left them talking to some parson at the
gate. I did not know him, and I came in for fear of an introduction. I
never hit it off with parsons somehow!”
During dinner Philip astonished everyone by speaking freely of the
Alvins: speaking as if he had never been so intimately, so tragically
near to them. Mrs. Barrimore admired what she thought his splendid
self-control. Dan was hurt at what he considered the man’s callousness.
Uncle Robert said to himself: “I was right. The wound is healed.”
Phyllis was too much interested in watching Dan to attend to Philip’s
remarks.
“I think,” said Philip, in his “laying-down-the-law” tone, “that Alvin
ought to leave the neighborhood now Miss Le Breton has recovered
her reason, and give her a chance. Here everyone knows of her former
condition.”
“I quite agree with you, dear Philip,” said his mother. (When did she
not agree with dear Philip?) “No one will call on them, because Miss Le
Breton is so beautiful, and they would be afraid for their sons. The
poor girl should scarcely marry.”
“She is beautiful,” rejoined Philip critically, “but not necessarily
a danger on that account. Men like to toy with a beautiful woman, but
those who are sensible think twice about marrying them. For my part,
I think if ever I chose to marry, it would not be a beautiful woman I
should make my wife.”
“How bravely he hides his wound!” thought Mrs. Barrimore.
“Old Alvin is not the brute I imagined,” went on Philip to the table
generally. “He talked to me as we drove along, almost entirely of Miss
Le Breton. He is profoundly anxious about her future. He seemed very
fond of her, I thought. After all, those two women have no claim on him
whatever. He can’t be a bad sort to voluntarily burden himself with
them.”
“I entirely disagree with you on that point, Philip,” broke out Uncle
Robert. “Both women had a natural claim on the money Thomas Alvin has
become possessed of. I am glad Alvin had the grace to see it.”
“The odd thing is,” went on Philip, ignoring somewhat impolitely his
uncle’s observation. “The odd thing is, that Miss Le Breton is fond of
this uncouth Colonial--I gathered that.”
“Poor girl!” put in Dan, “she has no sweetheart to be fond of, or has
lost him.”
“_Quand on n’a pas ce qu’on aime, il faut aimer ce qu’on a_,” said
Philip lightly.
Philip’s tone, rather than the words themselves, was somewhat of a
shock to his hearers. Everyone remembered the grave in the Canadian
prairie. Would Philip, too, philosophically having lost what he had
loved, console himself by loving what he had?
Philip had certainly changed a good deal from the boy who had rushed
off to the North-West broken-hearted, to visit a little mound of earth
near Qu’Appelle, and had come back announcing that he should for ever
remain a bachelor. He was not melancholy now, he was quite evidently in
excellent spirits. Even the sight of the girl at the White House, who
was, as he himself said, the living image of the lost Eweretta, failed
to fan the old flame.
He spoke of Miss Le Breton quite freely.
Turning to Dan he said: “You should get a sight of Miss Le Breton.
Perhaps Alvin could give you a commission to paint her. She is
wonderful.”
“What is she like?” inquired Dan.
Philip considered.
“Black hair, blue eyes--that often look dark,” he said, and paused.
“She has wonderful eyes, heavily-fringed,” he went on. “Her skin is
pale and clear.”
Suddenly he broke off, and applied himself to his dinner.
Perhaps the face he had called up affected him, after all.
Uncle Robert caught his sister’s eye. She was looking towards him with
a certain triumph.
She knew quite well that her brother had been thinking Philip callous,
and she was not sorry that a sudden betrayal of feeling on the boy’s
part had undeceived his uncle.
“I must begin your portrait to-morrow, Mr. Burns,” Dan said, to fill an
awkward silence.
“The sooner the better, my boy!” exclaimed Uncle Robert. “You ought
to get my picture in the New Gallery next year, as you did old Lord
What’s-his-name’s this year.”
Dan laughed. “I was lucky,” he said.
Phyllis was behaving with great discretion. She certainly looked at Dan
a good deal, but none of her glances had the usual coquetry, and Dan,
who had also looked at her, never liked her so much as during this hour.
He thought about her as a sort of under-current of contemplation while
he talked of other things. He remembered her little coquettish ways
of the past, and saw, or fancied he saw, them in a truer, clearer
light. She had been sweet to him and made much of him and flattered
him because he had been under a cloud. It had not been, as he had
then imagined, wilful flirting--wilful flirting which to him had
nevertheless been very pleasant at the time.
Now that he was himself, Phyllis had become the demure, modest, even
shy maiden, which to him was infinitely more attractive.
“How did I behave, darling?” Phyllis demanded of Mrs. Barrimore when
they were alone in the drawing-room waiting for the men to join them.
“Beautifully, dear!” said her mentor with enthusiasm.
During the walk to Gissing (Philip, to everyone’s amazement, had
elected to walk back to the bungalow!), he pondered over the demure
behavior of Phyllis, and was much exercised as to the motive of this
transformation.
“She never attempted to flirt once,” he mentally commented. “Perhaps
she is learning some common sense at last.”