Part 39 (1/2)

Anxious as she was, and fast as her heart fluttered, she took time to arrange her hair in the way that she liked it best. It seemed warrant to her that he must find her handsomer for that. People argue that way, men in their gravity as well as women in their frivolity, each believing that his own apprais.e.m.e.nt of himself is the incontestable test, none rightly understanding how ridiculous pet foibles frequently make us all.

But there was nothing ridiculous in the coil of serene brown hair drawn low against a white neck, nor in the ripples of it at the temples, nor in the stately seriousness of the face that it shadowed and adorned. Frances Landcraft was right, among thousands who were wrong in her generation, in her opinion of what made her fairer in the eyes of men.

Her hand was on the door when a soft little step, like a wind in gra.s.s, came quickly along the hall, and a light hand struck a signal on the panel. Frances knew that it was Mrs. Mathews before she flung the door open and disclosed her. She was dressed to take the road again, and Frances drew back when she saw that, her blood falling away from her heart. She believed that he stood in need of her gentle ministrations no longer, and that she had come to tell her that he was dead.

Mrs. Mathews read her thought in her face, and shook her head with an a.s.suring smile. She entered the room, still silent, and closed the door.

”No, he is far from dead,” she said.

”Then why--why are you leaving?”

”The little lady of the ranch has stepped into my place--but you need not be afraid for yours.” Mrs. Mathews smiled again as she said that.

”He asked for you with his first word, and he knows just how matters stand.”

The color swept back over Frances' face, and ran down to hide in her bosom, like a secret which the world was not to see. Her heart leaped to hear that Maggie had been wrong in her application of the rule that applies to men in general when death is blowing its breath in their faces.

”But that little Nola isn't competent to take care of him--she'll kill him if she's left there with him alone!”

”With kindness, then,” said Mrs. Mathews, not smiling now, but shaking her head in deprecation. ”A surgeon is here, sent back by Major King, he told me, and he has taken charge of Mr. Macdonald, along with Miss Chadron and her mother. I have been dismissed, and you have been barred from the room where he lies. There's a soldier guarding the door to keep you away from his side.”

”That's Nola's work,” Frances nodded, her indignation hot in her cheek, ”she thinks she can batter her way into his heart if she can make him believe that I am neglecting him, that I have gone away.”

”Rest easy, my dear, sweet child,” counseled Mrs. Mathews, her hand on Frances' shoulder. ”Mr. Macdonald will get well, and there is only one door to his heart, and somebody that I know is standing in that.”

”But he--he doesn't understand; he'll think I've deserted him!”

Frances spoke with trembling lips, tears darkling in her eyes.

”He knows how things stand; I had time to tell him that before they ousted me. I'd have taken time to tell him, even if I'd had to--pinch somebody's ear.”

The soft-voiced little creature laughed when she said that. Frances felt her breath go deeper into her lungs with the relief of this a.s.surance, and the threatening tears came falling over her fresh young cheeks. But they were tears of thankfulness, not of suspense or pain.

Frances did not trouble the soldier at the door to exercise his unwelcome and distasteful authority over her. But she saw that he was there, indeed, as she went out to give Mrs. Mathews farewell at the door.

Nola came pattering to her as she turned back in the house again to find Maggie, for her young appet.i.te was clamoring. Nola's eyes were round, her face set in an expression of shocked protest.

”Isn't this an outrage, this high-handed business of Major King's?”

She ran up all flushed and out of breath, as if she had been wrestling with her indignation and it had almost obtained the upper hand.

”What fresh tyranny is he guilty of?” Frances inquired, putting last night's hot words and hotter feelings behind her.

”Ordering a soldier to guard the door of Mr. Macdonald's room, with iron-clad instructions to keep you away from him! He sent his orders back by Doctor s.h.i.+rley--isn't it a petty piece of business?”

”Mrs. Mathews told me. At least you could have allowed her to stay.”

”I?” Nola's eyes seemed to grow. She gazed and stared, injury, disbelief, pain, in her mobile expression. ”Why, Frances, I didn't have a thing to do with it, not a thing! Mother and I protested against this military invasion of our house, but protests were useless. The country is under martial law, Doctor s.h.i.+rley says.”

”How did Major King know that Mr. Macdonald had been brought here? He rode away without giving any instructions for his disposal or care. I believe he wanted him to die there where he fell.”