Part 26 (2/2)
The news thrilled Stuart. He found an excuse to carry a message from Colonel Sumner to Colonel Cooke.
He expected nothing serious, of course. Every daughter of Virginia knew how to flirt. She would know that he understood this from the start. It would be nip and tuck between the Virginia boy and the Virginia girl.
He had always had such easy sailing in his flirtations he hoped Miss Flora would prove a worthy antagonist.
As a matter of course, Colonel Cooke asked the gallant young Virginian to stay as his guest.
”What'll Colonel Sumner say, sir?” Stuart laughed.
”Leave Sumner to me.”
”You'll guarantee immunity?”
”Guaranteed.”
”Thank you, Colonel Cooke, I'll stay.”
Stuart could hardly wait until the hour of lunch to meet the daughter.
He was impatient to ask where she was. The Colonel guessed his anxiety and hastened to relieve it, or increase it.
”You haven't met my daughter, Lieutenant?” he asked casually.
”I haven't that honor, Colonel, but this gives me the happy opportunity.”
He said it with such boyish fun in his ringing voice that Cooke laughed in spite of his desire to maintain the strictest dignity. He half suspected that the young officer might meet his match in more ways than one.
”She'll be in at noon,” the Commander remarked. ”Off riding with one of the boys.”
”Of course,” Stuart sighed.
He began to scent a battle and his spirits rose. He went to his room, took his banjo out of its old leather strapped case and tuned it carefully. He made up his mind to give the young buck out riding with her the fight of his life while there.
He heard the ring of the girl's laughter as she bade her escort goodbye at the door. He started to go down at once and begin the struggle.
Something in the ring of her young voice stopped him. There was a joyous strength in it that was disconcerting. A girl who laughed like that had poise. She was an individual. He liked, too, the tones of her voice before he had seen her.
This struck him as odd. Never in his life before had he liked a girl before meeting her just for a tone quality in her voice. This one haunted him the whole time he was changing his uniform.
He decided to shave again. He had shaved the night before very late. He didn't like the suggestion of red stubble on his face. It might put him at a disadvantage.
He resented the name of Beauty Stuart and yet down in his man soul he knew that he was vain.
He began to wonder if she were blonde or brunette, short or tall, pet.i.te or full, blue eyes or brown? She must be pretty. Her father was a man of delicate and finely marked features--the type of Scotch-Irish gentlemen who had made the mountains of Virginia famous for pretty women and brainy men.
He heard her softly playing a piano and wondered how on earth they had ever moved a piano to this far outpost of civilization. The cost was enormous. But the motive of her father in making such a sacrifice to please her was more important. His love for her must be unusual. It piqued his interest and roused again his impulse for a battle royal with another elusive daughter of his native state.
He made up his mind not to wait for the call to lunch. He would walk boldly into the reception room and introduce himself. She knew he was there, of course.
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