Breckenridge made her a little inclination, and while in a curious fashion
it increased Flora Schuyler's liking for him she recognized that he was no
longer the light-hearted and irresponsible young Englishman she had met a
few months ago. He, too, had borne the burden, and there was a gravity in
his eyes and a slight hardening of his lips that had its meaning.
"I never was more serious in my life, madam," he said. "I know that I
might have spoken--not more respectfully, but differently--but when I am
too solemn everybody laughs at me."
"Does it not strike you that you have only regarded the affair from one
point of view so far?"
Breckenridge nodded. "I understand. But one feels very diffident when he
knows the slight value of what he has to offer. I should always love you,
whether you say yes or no. For the rest, there is a little land in the old
country, and an income which I believe should be enough for two. It seems
more becoming to throw myself on your charity."
"And what would Larry do without you?" asked Miss Schuyler.
The quick enthusiasm in Breckenridge's face pleased her. "Larry's work is
splendidly done already," he said. "He asked nothing for himself--and got
no more; but now the State is offering every man the rights he fought for.
The proclamations are out, and any citizen who wants it can take up his
homestead grant. It will be something to remember that I carried his
shield; but Larry has no more need of an armour-bearer."
"I am older than you are."
"Ten years in wisdom, and fifty in goodness, but I scarcely fancy that
more than six months separate our birthdays. Now, I know I am not
expressing myself very nicely, but, you see, we can't all be eloquent, and
perhaps it should count for a little when I tell you that I never made an
attempt of the kind before. I am, however, most painfully anxious to
convince you."
Miss Schuyler recognized it, and liked him the more for the diffidence
which he wrapped in hasty speech. "Then," she said softly, "if in six
months from now----"
Breckenridge swayed in his saddle; but the girl's heel was quicker, and as
her horse plunged the hand he would have laid on her bridle fell to his
side.
"No!" she said. "If in six months you are still in the same mind, you can
come to Hastings-on-the-Hudson, and speak to me again. Then, you may find
me disposed to listen; but we will go on to Fremont in the meanwhile."
Breckenridge's response was unpremeditated, but the half-broken horse,
provoked by his sudden movement, rose with fore hoofs in the air, and then
whirled round in a circle. Its rider laughed exultantly, swaying lithely,
with the big hat still in one hand that disdained the bridle; but his face
grew grave when there was quietness again, and he turned towards the
girl.
"I shall be in the same mind," he said, "for ever and ever."
They rode on to Fremont, and the next day Breckenridge drove Miss
Schuyler, who was going back to New York, the first stage of her journey
to the depot. A month had passed when one evening Torrance rode that way.
The prairie, lying still and silent with a flush of saffron upon its
western rim, was tinged with softest green, but broad across the
foreground stretched the broken, chocolate-tinted clods of the ploughing,
and the man's face grew grimmer as he glanced at them. He turned and
watched the long lines of crawling cattle that stretched half-way across
the vast sweep of green; and Larry and his wife, who stood waiting him
outside the homestead, understood his feelings. Raw soil, rent by the
harrows and seamed by the seeder, and creeping bands of stock, were tokens
of the downfall of the old régime. Then Torrance, drawing bridle, sat
still in his saddle while Hetty and her husband stood by his stirrup.
"I promised your friend, Hetty, that I would see you before I went away,"
he said. "I left Cedar for the last time a few hours ago, and I am riding
in to the railroad now. The stock you see there are mine and Allonby's,
and the cars are waiting to take them to Omaha. I shall spend the years
that may be left me on the Pacific slope."
Hetty's lips quivered, and it was Larry who spoke.
"Was it necessary, sir?"
Torrance smiled grimly. "Yes. The State offered me a few paltry
concessions, and a little of what was all mine by right. It didn't seem a
fit thing to accept their charity. Well, you have beaten us, Larry."
Grant's face flushed a little. "Only that the rest will gain more than the
few will lose I could almost be sorry, sir."
Torrance swung himself down from the saddle and laid his hand on Hetty's
shoulder.
"You have chosen your husband among the men who pulled us down, and
nothing can be quite the same between you and me," he said. "But I am
getting an old man, and may never see you again."
Hetty looked up at him with a faint trace of pride in her misty eyes.
"There was nobody among our friends fit to stand beside him," she said.
"If you kiss me you will shake hands with Larry."
"I can do both," and Torrance held out his hand when he turned to Grant.
"Larry, I believe now you tried to do the square thing, and there might
have been less trouble between us but for Clavering. I hope you will bear
me no ill will, and while we can't quite wipe out the bitterness yet, by
and by we may be friends again."
"I hope so, sir," said Larry.
Torrance said nothing further, but, moving stiffly, swung himself into the
saddle and slowly rode away. Hetty watched him with a curious wistfulness
in her eyes until he wheeled his horse on the crest of the rise, and sat
still a moment looking back on them, a lonely, dusky object silhouetted
against the paling sky. Then he turned again, and sank into the shadowy
prairie. Hetty clung a little more tightly to her husband's arm, and for a
time they stood watching the crawling cattle and dim shapes of the
stockriders slowly fade, until the last pale flicker of saffron died out
and man and beast sank into the night. A little cold wind came sighing out
of the emptiness and emphasized its silence.