Part 42 (1/2)
So Power was introduced to ”Miss Marten,” and the girl gave him one of those shy yet delightfully candid glances which he remembered so well in her mother's eyes.
”Didn't I meet you recently in the corridor of a hotel at Bournemouth?”
she asked.
”Yes,” he said.
”Then you will be surprised to hear that you rather startled me. I thought you were about to fall, and was on the point of catching your arm when you walked away. Then I saw you had a slight limp, and it was that which had probably caused my stupid notion. Wouldn't you have been tremendously astonished if a giddy young person had clutched you suddenly and implored you not to drop at her feet?”
”Yet I can well imagine any man, especially a younger sprig than myself, being moved to some such act of homage.”
She laughed--Nancy again!
”There seems to be no end of men in England who can pay neat compliments to a woman,” she said. ”But you're not an Englishman, Mr. Power. Aren't you a fellow-countryman of mine?”
”Yes.”
”How jolly! People never guess it, but I'm an American; though I can never be President, even if we women get a vote, because I was born in London. But my parents hail from the Silver State.”
”Where more gold is produced than in any other state of the Union.”
”Then you know Colorado?”
”Yes. Better than that, I knew your mother many years ago, before her marriage.”
”You knew my mother--in Colorado--on the ranch! Well!” She turned rapidly to her hostess. ”Thank you ever so much for inviting me here today. I'll work like a slave for your bazaar. Here is the man I've been aching to meet ever since I was able to talk. Please don't think me rude if I monopolize him all the afternoon. I'm going to take him off to that nice shady seat under the copper beech, and question him until he cries for mercy.... Yes, please. Tea, with sugar and milk, and lots of bread and b.u.t.ter, piled high with Devons.h.i.+re cream and jam--all the good things! Why, you're a veritable fairy princess. Mr. Power met my mother when she was a girl!... Come along, Mr. Power! No wonder I was inclined to grab you in that corridor. Oh, had I but guessed! I'll never, never distrust intuition again.”
”To begin with,” said Power, as he walked with her across the springy turf with a laden tray in his hands, ”in what way did intuition prompt you?”
”I don't mind telling you at once. I feel I can talk to you as though we had known each other always. I said you rather startled me; but that was just a polite way of saying what I didn't exactly mean. You were examining a picture, and you turned unexpectedly and looked at me. There was an expression in your eyes that gave me a sort of shock, one of those emotional thrills which cannot be described in words. You might have been gazing at the ghost of someone very dear to you. Ah, forgive me if my tongue runs away with me, but I'm really excited. Of course, I understand now. You took me for my mother. And I am like her, am I not?”
”So like that your first impression was right. I did nearly fall. The least push would have toppled me over. It was only the iron law of convention that enabled me to pa.s.s on as though nothing unusual had happened.”
”Then my mother and you were great friends?”
”Yes.”
”You met her long before she was married?”
”Yes.”
”Don't say yes, and leave it at that. Tell me things--everything you think I would like to know.”
”I may tell you this, without the slightest unfairness to--to your father. I loved your mother; but I was poor in those days, and dared not ask her to marry me. Then I was sent away to a distant mine--and--we drifted apart. When next I saw her she was a wife. Now, suppose we forget that bit of ancient history--because I hope to become friendly with your father--for your sake.”
The girl's eyes were glistening, and she had lost some of her exquisite color.
She understood, or thought she understood; though she little dreamed what fierce longings, what vain regrets, were surging through the man's inmost core. Her quick intelligence noted certain slight hesitancies in his speech, which the ever-present feminine sense of romance attributed to tender recollections of the bygone days. With ready sympathy, she led him to talk of the ranch, of Bison, even of her grandfather, whom she remembered but vaguely.
Power kept a close guard on his words, and easily focused her interest on topics which could not prove hurtful, even if she repeated the conversation to Marten in its entirety. Once only did their chat veer round to a dangerous quarter.