Beats the fragrant roses,
She's admired by all aroun'.
They call her Bloomin' Caroline,
Of Edinboro Town."
She played an interlude carelessly.
"Young Henry, being a Highland lad,
A-courting her he came,
And when her parents heard of it
They did not like the same.
so
She bundled up her costly robes,
The stairs came tripping down,
And away went Bloomin' Caroline
From Edinboro Town."
Dermott had risen and stood by the far window, looking into the night.
Unseen by him, she touched Frank on the sleeve.
"Do not do anything he asks you to do to-night," she whispered, with
great intensity, and in a minute more was back at the singing.
"They had not been in London
For scarcely half a year--"
and before the song ended the two men were joining the refrain, taken
out of themselves by her beauty and charm.
For nearly a week after this she saw neither of them again, but her
honest soul was fretted by the word she had given against a true
friend; so, when she saw Dermott riding along the river-bank, she called
to him from the rocks upon which she sat.
"Dermott McDermott," she cried, "come here!"
He rode through the ferns and undergrowth toward her, as she stood
looking up at him with fearless eyes.
"I've done something I want to tell you, something you won't like, for
it was going against you; and it makes me feel that I've not been quite
loyal to you, you that's always been so good to me, too." The quick
tears filled her eyes as she spoke.
He dismounted to be nearer her, and, putting out his hand, said:
"There's nothing you could do that's not forgiven. You hold my heart in
the hollow of your hand. What did ye do, child?"
"The other night when I saw you turning Mr. Ravenel the way you wanted
by your flattery and your hypnotic presence, I knew ye wished him to do
something for you. I knew when you told him how clever he was--_cleverer
than you were yourself_--that it must be something very great to make
you admit a thing like that. And when you were not near I warned him
against selling you that land. I said: 'Don't do anything Dermott
McDermott wants you to do to-night." Here she broke into a storm of
weeping. "You see, he's been so kind to me," she explained.
Dermott stood looking at her with pity and admiration as he put his hand
gently on her shoulder.
"Ye did just what was right, little lady; just the thing that any sweet,
grateful woman should have done. You understood what I was doing,
thought a friend might be cajoled wrongly, and warned him against it.
I'm proud of ye for it!" he cried, with enthusiasm. "Proud of you!" he
repeated. "And besides," he added, with a laugh, "it didn't make the
slightest difference. He did it anyhow! We signed the papers to-day!"
"The papers for what?" she demanded.
"For that useless bit of land on the other side of the fork," he
responded.
"Dermott," she said, "you play fair, don't you? You wouldn't take
advantage of any one?"
"Wouldn't I?" he said. "If it were to help you, I'd outwit the deil
himself, Lady Katrine."