Part 9 (2/2)

”I am aware that there is narrowness, injustice even, on the drovers'

side,” the colonel admitted, softening a little, it seemed. ”But for all that, even if you were an equal, and an honest man, the road to Miss Landcraft's heart is closed to a.s.sault, no matter how wild and sudden. She is plighted to another man.”

”Sir--”

”It is true; she will be married in the Christmas holidays. Go your way now, Macdonald, and dismiss this romantic dream. You build too high on the slight favor of a thoughtless girl. A dance or two is nothing, sir; a whispered word is less. If you were the broad man of the world that you would have me believe, you have known this.

Instead, you come das.h.i.+ng in here like a savage and claim the right to woo her. Preposterous! She is beyond your world, sir. Go back to your wild riding, Macdonald, and try to live an honest man.”

Macdonald stood with his head bent, brows gathered in stubborn expression of resistance. Colonel Landcraft could read in his face that there was no surrender, no acknowledgment of defeat, in that wild rider's heart. The old warrior felt a warming of admiration for him, as one brave man feels for another, no matter what differences lie between them. Now Macdonald lifted his face, and there was that deep movement of laughter in his eyes that Frances had found so marvelous on the day of their first meeting.

”Perhaps her heart is untouched, sir, in spite of the barricade that has been raised between it and the world,” he said.

The colonel studied him shrewdly a little while before replying.

”Macdonald, you're a strange man, a stubborn man, and a strong one.

There is work for a man like you in this life; why are you wasting it here?”

”If I live six months longer the world beyond these mountains will know,” was all that Macdonald said, taking up the papers which he had submitted to the colonel, and placing them again in his pocket.

Colonel Landcraft shook his head doubtfully.

”Running off other men's cattle never will do it, Macdonald.”

The door of the colonel's room which gave into the hall of the main entrance opened without the formality of announcement. Frances drew back in quick confusion, speaking her apology from behind the door.

”I ask your pardon, father. I heard voices here and wondered who it could be--I didn't know you had come home.”

”Your appearance is opportune, Miss Landcraft,” her father told her, with no trace of ill-humor. ”Come in. Here is this wild Alan Macdonald come bursting in upon us from his hills.”

The colonel indicated him with a wave of the hand, and Macdonald bowed, his heart shrinking when he saw how coldly she returned his greeting from her place at the door.

”He has come riding,” the colonel continued, ”with a demand on me to be allowed to woo you, and carry you off to his cave among the rocks.

Show him the door, and add your testimony to my a.s.surance--which seems inadequate to satisfy the impetuous gentleman--that his case is hopeless.”

The colonel waved them away with that, and turned again, with his jerky suddenness, to his telegrams and letters. The colonel had not meant for Macdonald to pa.s.s out of the door through which he had entered. That was the military portal; the other one, opening into the hall from which Frances came, was the world's door for entering that house. And it was in that direction Colonel Landcraft had waved them when he ordered Frances to take the visitor away.

”This way, Mr. Macdonald, please,” said she, politely cold, unfeelingly formal. For all the warmth that he could discover in her voice and eyes, or in her white face, so unaccountably severe and hard, there might never have been a garden with white gravel path, or a hot hasty kiss given in it--and received.

In the hall the gloom of evening was deepened into darkness that made her face indistinct, like the glimmering whiteness of the hydrangea blooms in that past romantic night. She marched straight to the street door and opened it, and he had no strength in his words to lift even a small one up to stay her. He believed that he had taken the man's course and the way of honor in the matter. That it had not been indorsed by her was evident, he believed.

”There was nothing for me to conceal,” said he, as the door opened upon the gray twilight and glooming trees along the street; ”I came in a man's way, as I thought--”

”You came in a man's way, Mr. Macdonald, to ask the privilege of attempting to win a woman's hand, when you lack the man's strength or the man's courage to defend even the glove that covers it,” she said.

Her voice was low; it was accusingly scornful.

Macdonald started. ”Then it has come back to you?”

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