Part 16 (1/2)
”He can't get you,” he entreated and managed a still closer embrace.
”Is he still there?” came in a m.u.f.fled voice from against his neck where Caroline had again buried her head at a slight crackling from the dark branches overhead.
”I think he is, bless him!” answered Andrew, and this time the kiss managed a landing on the warm lips under the eyes raised to his.
And then ensued several breathless moments while the world reeled around and the vital elemental force that is sometimes cruel, sometimes kind, turned the wheel of their universe.
”I'm not frightened any more,” Caroline at last managed to say as she prepared to withdraw, not too decisively, from her strong-armed refuge.
”He's still there,” warned Andrew Sevier with a happy laugh, and Caroline yielded again for a second, then drew his arms aside.
”Thank you--I'm not afraid any more--of anything,” she said, laughing into his eyes, ”and I really think we had better try to get back to camp and supper, for I don't hear the dogs any longer. We don't want to be lost like the 'babes in the woods' and left to die out here, do we?”
”Are you sure we haven't gone and stumbled into heaven, anyway?” demanded Andrew.
He then proceeded to roll the collar of her sweater higher about her ears and to pull the long sleeves down over her hands. He even bent to stretch the garment an inch or two nearer the tops of her boots.
”Are you cold?” he demanded anxiously, for a stiff wind had risen and blew upon them with icy breath.
”Not a single bit,” she answered, submitting herself to his anxious ministrations with her most engaging six-going-on-seven manner. Then she caught one of his fumbling hands in hers and pressed it to her cheek for a moment.
”Now,” she said, ”we can never be lonely any more, can we? I'm going to race you down the hill, across the meadow and over three fences to supper!” And before he could stay her she had flitted through the bushes and was running on before him, slim and fleet.
He caught her in time to swing her over the first fence and capture an elusive caress. The second barrier she vaulted and eluded him entirely, but from the top of the last she bent and gave him his kiss as he lifted her down. In another moment they had joined the circle around the crackling fire, where they were greeted with the wildest hilarity and overwhelmed with food and banter.
”Did you people ever hear of the man who bought a fifty-dollar c.o.o.n dog, took him out to hunt the first night, almost cried because he thought he had lost him down a sink hole, hunted all night for him, came home in the daylight and found pup asleep under the kitchen stove?” demanded David as he filled two long gla.s.ses with a simmering decoction, from which arose the aroma of baked apples, spices, and some of the major's eighty-six corn heart. ”Caroline is my point to my little story. Have you two been sitting in Mrs. Matilda's car or mine, or did you roost for a time on the fence over there in the dark?”
”Please, David, please hush and give me a bird and a biscuit--I'm hungry,” answered Caroline as she sank on a cus.h.i.+on beside Mrs. Buchanan.
”According to the ink slingers of all times you ought not to be; but Andy has already got outside of two sandwiches, so I suppose you are due one small bird. That cake is grand, beautiful. I've put it away to eat all by myself to-morrow. Andrew Sevier doesn't need any. He wouldn't know cake from corn-pone--he's moonstruck.”
Just at this point a well-aimed pine-cone glanced off David's collar and he settled down to the business in hand, which was the disposal of a bursting and perfectly hot potato, handed fresh from the coals by the attentive Jeff.
And it was more than an hour later that the tired hunters wended their way back to the city. Polly was so sleepy that she could hardly sit her horse and was in a subdued and utterly fascinating mood, with which she did an irreparable amount of damage to the stranger within her gates as she rode along the moonlit pike, and for which she had later to make answer. The woman's champion dozed in the tonneau and only David had the spirit to sing as they whirled along.
Hadn't Phoebe stirred the sugar into his cup of coffee and then in an absolutely absent-minded manner tasted it before she had come around the fire to hand it to him? It had been a standing argument between them for years as to a man's right to this small attention, which they both teased Mrs. Matilda for bestowing upon the major. It was an insignificant, inconsequent little ceremony in itself but it fired a train in David's mind, made for healing the wound in his heart and brought its consequences. Another reconstruction campaign began to shape its policy in the mind of David Kildare which had to do with the molding of the destiny of the high-headed young woman of his affections, rather than with the amelioration of conditions in his native city. So, high and clear he sang the call of the mocking-bird with its ecstasies and its minors.
But late as it was, after he had landed his guests at their doors, he had a long talk over the phone with the clerk of his headquarters and sent a half-dozen telegrams before he turned into his room. When he switched on his lights he saw that Andrew stood by the window looking out into the night. His face was so drawn and white as he turned that David started and reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder.
”Dave,” he said, ”I'm a blackguard and a coward--don't touch me!”
”What is it, Andrew?” asked David as he laid his arm across the tense shoulders.
”I thought I was strong and dared to stay--now I know I'm a coward and couldn't go. I'll have to sneak away and leave her--hurt!” His voice was low and toned with an unspeakable scorn of himself.
”Andy,” asked David, as he swung him around to face him, ”was Caroline Darrah too much for you--and the moon?”
”There's nothing to say about it, David, nothing! I have only made it hard for her: and killed myself for myself forever. She's a child and she'll forget. You'll see to her, won't you?”