That week was a bad one for Harold Willett. The general, taking Bright
with him as usual, had whirled away in his stout spring wagon to
supervise the re-establishment of the Indians lately in rebellion. The
agent at the Verde reservation had developed symptoms of stampede that
were later diagnosed and treated as insanity. It must be owned that he
had lived through troublous times and had had experiences to try the
nerve of a man of iron, which he was not. The general, after settling
matters to his satisfaction at the reservation, purposed a descent on
Colonel Pelham and Camp Sandy, for consultation with him and a
conference with the troop and company commanders returned to their
soldier honors, after their strenuous scout through the mountains. He
left Wickham to represent him at headquarters and continue his
investigation, and he left Willett to--recuperate, for already he had
repented him of the impulse that led to the brilliant officer's
appointment on his personal staff. Willett had been a valuable and
distinguished soldier in that northern field, and only by these things
had the general known him. That Willett was a many-sided man, that he
could be an eager and ambitious officer when once afield, and a mere
butterfly about the garrison, had not occurred to this simple-minded
chief. The combination of terrier and lapdog is rare in the army.
However, Willett was not yet fit for field service, and the Gray Fox
meant that he should have fair play and a chance to redeem himself.
"We couldn't send him away just now even if he were fit to ride," said
Wickham confidentially to his brother aide-de-camp. "Dooley's trial
begins presently, and he wants Willett as to character. But Archer and
his household should be here by Friday. Then he'll have to behave."
Willett, of course, knew that Archer had been sent for, was coming up
and would probably bring Mrs. Archer and Lilian. According to his
estimate, too, the family should be here some time Friday. Meantime he
had a fortress to reduce whose garrison had already flung out signals
of distress. "Evelyn Darrah may have been a flirt at 'Frisco," said
Mrs. Crook, "and she's had more experience than most girls of her
years, but she's not heartless, and that good-looking scamp knows it."
"Have you talked with Mrs. Darrah?" asked a fair friend at a venture.
"Talked with Kate Darrah! Of course I've talked with her! and told her
just what people are saying and thinking, but Kate Darrah was just such
a flirt when she was a girl. Kate Darrah many a time pulled the wool
over her mother's eyes, and now hers is being pulled the same way. Evvy
leads her mother by the nose."
"Colonel Darrah, then," was the suggestion.
"Dicky Darrah!" laughed Mrs. Crook, in merry disdain. "Dicky Darrah
never dares oppose Evvy--let alone his wife. Kate Darrah says it just
serves Hal Willett right. It's no fault of hers that he's daft about
Evvy, who's simply bent on giving him a lesson he richly deserves. When
the Archers come she'll drop it--and him."
But the Archers came sooner than any one about Prescott deemed likely
at all. Somebody said, and more than one somebody thought, that Mrs.
Archer had had more than a hint as to what was going on. But never did
Mrs. Archer look or admit it. The mail riders had resumed their trips.
The paymaster had made his visit to McDowell and had safely traversed
the Mazatzal and distributed his shekels at Almy. Almost every day
there had been comings and goings, and though no letters bearing
Willett's superscription went to Almy except by regular mail, even
these, it seems, the pressure of his duties made brief and unlike what
Lilian had looked for, so that the radiance had gone from her sweet
face almost as quickly as it came. Even the girl who bravely insists
that the beloved one is beyond doubt, and above suspicion, and all that
is perfect, as Lilian strove to insist--even she will feel in her heart
of hearts that there has been neglect, and neglect crushes.
Archer saw and said nothing but "Get ready as quick as we can." They
were looked for Friday noon. They were ushered into the general's
hospitable quarters late Thursday evening, relayed on from the Agua
Fria, after a good noonday rest in camp, and even in bidding them
welcome, welcome over again, Mrs. Crook pointed to the brightly lighted
assembly room down the winding roadway. "They're having a holiday dance
to-night," said she to Lilian. "We'll toddle down after tea and take
them all by surprise."
For three days Willett had hardly been seen at the office, where indeed
there was little for him to do, except perhaps read the letters that
had begun to come again from various quarters. He had merely slept at
home; he had simply lived at the Darrahs. He was hardly seen by any
associates except dancing attendance upon this tall, imperious beauty,
who, for her part, seemed now to accept his devotions as a matter of
course, and to be regardless of public opinion. Begun in pique, or
vanity, or devilment, whatever it may have been at the start, her
indifference at first, her coquetry, her wiles, her defiance of his
powers had spurred, fascinated and finally maddened him. Then, when she
would have drawn back, his apparent, his acted or his actual
desperation terrified her, and, all too late, her own battered heart
cried out for relief. In spite of herself she found her resolution
gone, her indifference rebuked, her strength wasted, sapped. She was
yielding to him when she meant to scorn. She was clinging to him when
she meant to spurn. And now the last night, the last of
their--flirtation had come, and as she fluttered away on his arm to
take their place in the dance, the cynosure of all eyes, Evelyn Darrah
_knew_ that she was facing her fate, that before the midnight hour she
must answer. He would so have it. Recklessly enough she had begun. What
meant such affairs to her but a laugh? Yet, only the night before, as
they stood murmuring in the shade at her father's doorway, and he was
begging for some little word, touch, token--something to bid him hope
in the hell of his despair, imploring her to see his engagement as he
saw it--a something entered into in his enfeebled condition because he
saw, everybody saw, that fair young girl's self-betrayal, and he had
mistaken gratitude, pity, tenderness for love, until he, Harold
Willett, had met _her_, Evelyn Darrah, and at last learned what it was
to love, passionately, overwhelmingly--to love, to worship, to need, to
crave, and then on a sudden she had felt herself seized in his clasp,
and before she could, if she would, tear herself adrift, his lips,
burning with eagerness, had sought and found hers--upraised. Then she
had broken from his embrace, but not till then. _This_ morning she had
pleaded headache and kept to her room. _This_ afternoon she had had to
meet him, and could not repel, reproach, rebuke as she had at last
meant to do. Others were ever about them then. There must be no scene,
and he was quite capable of making one. And now this night he had come
for her, yes, and for her answer. He was ready, he said, to resign from
the staff at once, return to his regiment, break with the Archers,
explaining that it was all--all a mistake, and then with her promise to
be his wife, what spur would there not be to his ambition? He--but it
all made her feverish--frantic! There was but one refuge--to dance,
dance until her whirling brain and throbbing heart were exhausted in
the wild exhilaration, to dance incessantly, with man after man who
sought her, though few had opportunity owing to his persistence. And
she had been dancing incessantly, as we danced in those days--galop,
deux temps, redowa, waltz, the long, undulating, luxurious, sensuous
sweep of the "glide," and men and women stood and watched them, time
and again, when Willett claimed her--and he hardly had look or word for
others--so wondrous was that harmony of motion, that grace and beauty
of feature and of form. Then at last came exhaustion.
There were some little clumps of cedars on the slope just south of the
assembly hall, as it stood there on the low ground midway between the
head-quarters houses on the ridge to the south, and the even less
commodious cottages of the puny garrison. There was a boardwalk of
creaking pine, leading across the shallow ravine, for it sometimes
rained up here in the mountains, though it never seemed to in the deep,
arid valleys to the east. Then there was a gravel path stretching away
toward the garrison houses north and north-east, and one, still
narrower and crookeder, winding up among the pines and cedars and
disappearing over the top of the knoll, where the broad veranda of the
general's mansion overlooked the entire scene. Sometimes when the
evenings were warm and the dancers flushed, and sometimes even when
there was no such excuse, young couples were wont to saunter out in the
starlight for air and sentiment and "spooning." Already Willett knew
the labyrinth, and welcomed the excuse to lead her forth, his arm
almost supporting her. It was about eleven. The elders were absorbing
mild refreshments at the moment. The musicians were glad of a rest, a
sandwich and a cup of coffee, and a puff at a pipe before again
resuming their melodious, if monotonous, labor. The windows of the
assembly room were so near the ground that it was easy for these who
did not attend the dances to supervise from without, and it often
happened that a fringe of respectfully admiring spectators would
surround the building until the late roll-call summoned the soldier
circle away.
And yet this Thursday night there were two or three little parties
peering in at the southward windows, some of whom came down from the
general's quarters very late. To Mrs. Crook's laughing suggestion that
they should "toddle down after tea" Mrs. Archer had entered gentle
protest. It was too late. They were not dressed. She feared Lilian was
too tired. What mother would not oppose her precious daughter's making
her appearance at a dance in travelling garb, after a day of driving?
To her mother's protest Lilian had at first made no rejoinder. The
flush of the first few minutes of welcomed arrival soon left her
winsome face, and the resultant pallor emphasized her mother's
edict--that she was too tired. But it was not long before they noted,
all of them--father, mother and hostess--that her thoughts were only
there at the dance, that her ears were attentive only to the strains of
music that, once in a while, came wafting upward from the hall, and
when a little later, refreshed by tea and a bountiful supper, they
again returned to the parlor and the sound of the dance, Mrs. Crook
caught the longing in Lilian's eyes.
"Oh, come," she said, "let's just run down a few minutes and peep in;
Lilian wants to see, and I'll send word in, sidewise, that will bring
somebody out with a jump."
They seized their wraps and started, Archer gallantly tendering his arm
to the commander's wife, but she would none of it. "Nonsense! I've got
to pilot _you_! That walk is steep and crooked and pitch dark when you
get among the cedars. I want to chat with Mrs. Archer," and the old
soldier thanked her in his heart. More than ever before he wished to
have that arm about his own little girl this night. Was it possible she
too felt the premonition that had come to him? Had her mother, after
all, told her of the little hints they had received? Something had
come. He could swear it. Something to make her strangely silent, but
eager, fluttering, nervous--something that prompted her as they neared
the building, and the little hand clinging to her father's arm shook
with strange excitement, to bend forward close to their friend and
hostess, and just as the latter was about to hail some young officer on
the steps, Lilian interposed. "Oh--please," was all she said, but her
fingers had caught the fluttering fold of the mantle, and Mrs. Crook
turned at once. "You'd rather not?" she asked, with quick, sympathetic
understanding. "I won't then. Plenty of time. Let's watch the dance
first."
And so saying she had marshalled them close to the southward windows,
Lilian and her father at the near-most, she and Mrs. Archer going on to
the next.
It was Keler Beler's "Am Schoenen Rhein" they were playing at the
moment, with its sweet, weird, luring, mournful, warning Lorelei
_motif_ dominating in the waltz measure, and, with parted lips and
clinging to her father's side, Lilian stood close to the window and
looked and listened, saying not one word. There were but three couples
dancing at the moment. There might as well have been but one for,
within the hall and without, the eyes of all seemed fastened on that.
Some strange caprice had prompted Evelyn Darrah to wear black that
night--a grenadine, with cobweb lace and glinting spangles and sweeping
train, the bodice cut low and displaying her shapely arms and neck and
shoulders, enhancing the grace of her tall and slender form. Her dark
hair was coiled in masses, yet here and there a curl or tendril fell
upon the soft, polished skin, or floated about cheek and temple. Her
eyelids, heavily lashed, veiled her downcast eyes. Her coral lips were
slightly parted. Her almost queenly head was bowed as though to incline
that little ear to catch the words he was eagerly pouring into it. Not
a vestige of a smile was on either face, each was dark, sombre,
beautiful, absorbed. His handsome head was bowed until the curling
mustache swept her rounded, flushing cheek. In exquisite rhythm and
harmony the two tall, graceful forms swayed in unison with the
exquisite love music, every step, every motion perfectly attuned. It
seemed as though no guiding were necessary. Slowly gliding, turning,
reversing, he in his faultless uniform, she in her sweeping, diaphanous
sable, seemed, without effort or the faintest exertion, fairly floating
upon air. No wonder they sat or stood and gazed--these elders along the
bordering benches--these others among the dancers--these few, wordless,
at the windows. Then, with the Lorelei melody lingering to the last,
the sweet, sad music died away and the waltz was ended. People began to
move toward the doorway. "They're going for their bite and sup," said
Mrs. Crook. "See, there go the bandsmen. Shall--_we_?"
"I think not, if you don't mind," said Mrs. Archer with anxious glance
at the other window, where Lilian still stood, looking straight at the
doorway through which that couple had led and so many now were
following. She had neither spoken nor moved, nor had he, her father.
His back was toward them, but from the very pose of his head the wife
well knew his eyes were fixed upon the face of his beloved child, with
who can say what depth of sorrow, sympathy, yearning for her--with what
passion of wrath and resentment for him. "Come," said Mrs. Crook
briefly, for she, too, saw. Then Archer gently laid his hand upon the
slender fingers that seemed clinching his arm, and with sudden little
gasp or sob, and shiver, Lilian whirled upon him, her eyes big and dry
and glittering. "Oh! wasn't it--didn't they dance--beautifully?" she
cried, as he ground his teeth and turned to lead her away.
And just at that instant--just as such things _will_ happen, who should
come chirruping round the corner but the chaplain and his wife, with
Mrs. Chief Quartermaster and a guest from Camp Sandy, just in time to
stumble upon Mrs. Crook and Mrs. Archer vainly striving to dodge and
get home. It was too late. They were captured, surrounded, pounced
upon. "Oh, _when_ did you come?" "Oh, _how_ did you get here?" "Oh,
_where_ is Lilian?" etc., etc., and Archer, never hesitating, quick was
he in action ever, instantly turned about. "This way, sweetheart," he
murmured, in the fond father love that welled from his great heart. A
few strides carried them back into the darkness, around by the westward
end, where the clamor of voices and clatter of cups and plates at the
supper room drowned other sounds, and then in the darkness he led his
darling, voiceless still, across the little wooden bridge and up the
gentle slope among the cedars, hoping by a wide detour to dodge these
importunates and lead his child to her own room, and there mount guard
over her until the mother came. There is a sorrow that passeth
understanding, and is known not of all men--the mute, helpless,
impotent sorrow of the father who feels the heartache, and sees the
suffering of a beloved child, and cannot even trust himself to speak of
it.
And Fate was still against them. The God that meant to cure was
merciful and merciless as is the knife. Sinless as was this gentle
flower, even she must suffer and endure, for here were obstacles again,
even here across their path! They were upon them almost before they
knew it, yet upon them unseen, unheard, for, absorbed in each other,
this opposing couple knew nothing but their own affair, and well they
might, for a sob was the first sound to catch the soldier's ear, a
stifled cry, and then a deep, manly voice imploring, protesting, a
torrent of murmured words, fond, assuring, caressing, passionate, a
deluge of thrilling endearments, a mingling of sobs and kisses, for the
woman's overcharged nature had broken under the strain, and in the
refuge of his clasping arms was sobbing her heart out on this new
lover's breast. Archer, raging, would have brushed them by, but Lilian
held him. "Not that way; oh, not that way!" she whispered hoarsely. And
then he understood, and together they fled back the way they came.