Part 48 (2/2)
Clark's face changed its expression. He suddenly recalled to mind Alice's rapturous public greeting of Beverley on the day of the surrender. He was a cavalier, and it did not agree with his sense of high propriety for girls to kiss their lovers out in the open air before a gazing army. True enough, he himself had been hoodwinked by Alice's beauty and boldness in the matter of Long-Hair. He confessed this to himself mentally, which may have strengthened his present disapproval of her personal inquiry about Beverley. At all events he thought she ought not to be coming into the stockade on such an errand.
”Lieutenant Beverley is absent acting under my orders he said, with perfect respectfulness, yet in a tone suggesting military finality. He meant to set an indefinite yet effective rebuke in his words.
”Absent?” she echoed. ”Gone? You sent him away to be killed! You had no right--you--”
”Miss Roussillon,” said Clark, becoming almost stern, ”you had better go home and stay there; young girls oughtn't to run around hunting men in places like this.”
His blunt severity of speech was accompanied by a slight frown and a gesture of impatience.
Alice's face blazed red to the roots of her sunny hair; the color ebbed, giving place to a pallor like death. She began to tremble, and her lips quivered pitifully, but she braced herself and tried to force back the choking sensation in her throat.
”You must not misconstrue my words,” Clark quickly added; ”I simply mean that men will not rightly understand you. They will form impressions very harmful to you. Even Lieutenant Beverley might not see you in the right light.”
”What--what do you mean?” she gasped, shrinking from him, a burning spot reappearing under the dimpled skin of each cheek.
”Pray, Miss, do not get excited. There is nothing to make you cry.” He saw tears s.h.i.+ning in her eyes. ”Beverley is not in the slightest danger. All will be well, and he'll come back in a few days. The expedition will be but a pleasure trip. Now you go home. Lieutenant Beverley is amply able to take care of himself. And let me tell you, if you expect a good man to have great confidence in you, stay home and let him hunt you up instead of you hunting him. A man likes that better.”
It would be impossible to describe Alice's feelings, as they just then rose like a whirling storm in her heart. She was humiliated, she was indignant, she was abashed; she wanted to break forth with a tempest of denial, self-vindication, resentment; she wanted to cry with her face hidden in her hands. What she did was to stand helplessly gazing at Clark, with two or three bright tears on either cheek, her hands clenched, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng. She was going to say some wild thing; but she did not; her voice lodged fast in her throat. She moved her lips, unable to make a sound.
Two of Clark's officers relieved the situation by coming up to get orders about some matter of town government, and Alice scarcely knew how she made her way home. Every vein in her body was humming like a bee when she entered the house and flung herself into a chair.
She heard Madame Roussillon and Father Beret chatting in the kitchen, whence came a fragrance of broiling buffalo steak besprinkled with garlic. It was Father Beret's favorite dish, wherefore his tongue ran freely--almost as freely as that of his hostess, and when he heard Alice come in, he called gayly to her through the kitchen door:
”Come here, ma fille, and lend us old folks your appet.i.te; nous avons une tranche a la Bordelaise!”
”I am not hungry,” she managed to say, ”you can eat it without me.”
The old man's quick ears caught the quaver of trouble in her voice, much as she tried to hide it. A moment later he was standing beside her with his hand on her head.
”What is the matter now, little one?” he tenderly demanded. ”Tell your old Father.”
She began to cry, laying her face in her crossed arms, the tears gus.h.i.+ng, her whole frame aquiver, and heaving great sobs. She seemed to shrink like a trodden flower. It touched Father Beret deeply.
He suspected that Beverley's departure might be the cause of her trouble; but when presently she told him what had taken place in the fort, he shook his head gravely and frowned.
”Colonel Clark was right, my daughter,” he said after a short silence, ”and it is time for you to ponder well upon the significance of his words. You can't always be a wilful, headstrong little girl, running everywhere and doing just as you please. You have grown to be a woman in stature--you must be one in fact. You know I told you at first to be careful how you acted with--”
”Father, dear old Father!” she cried, springing from her seat and throwing her arms around his neck. ”Have I appeared forward and unwomanly? Tell me, Father, tell me! I did not mean to do anything--”
”Quietly, my child, don't give way to excitement.” He gently put her from him and crossed himself--a habit of his when suddenly perplexed--then added:
”You have done no evil; but there are proprieties which a young woman must not overstep. You are impulsive, too impulsive; and it will not do to let a young man see that you--that you--”
”Father, I understand,” she interrupted, and her face grew very pale.
Madame Roussillon came to the door, flushed with stooping over the fire, and announced that the steak was ready.
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