"Ah,do you not see why I wish to go with you?"he said,with sudden and unexpected passion."You are beautiful;you are good;it has pleased Heaven to make you rich also;but you are a child in experience,and know not your own heart.With your beauty,your goodness,and your wealth,you will attract all to you--as you do here--because you cannot help it.But you will be equally helpless,little one,if THEY should attract YOU,and you had no tie to fall back upon."It was an unfortunate speech.The words were Don Caesar's;but the thought she had heard before from her mother,although the deduction had been of a very different kind.Mamie followed the speaker with bright but visionary eyes.There must be some truth in all this.Her mother had said it;Mr.Slinn had laughingly admitted it.She HAD a brilliant future before her!Was she right in making it impossible by a rash and foolish tie?He himself had said she was inexperienced.She knew it;and yet,what was he doing now but taking advantage of that inexperience?If he really loved her,he would be willing to submit to the test.She did not ask a similar one from him;and was willing,if she came out of it free,to marry him just the same.There was something so noble in this thought that she felt for a moment carried away by an impulse of compassionate unselfishness,and smiled tenderly as she looked up in his face.
"Then you consent,Mamie?"he said,eagerly,passing his arm around her waist.
"Not now,Caesar,"she said,gently disengaging herself."I must think it over;we are both too young to act upon it rashly;it would be unfair to you,who are so quiet and have seen so few girls--I mean Americans--to tie yourself to the first one you have known.When I am gone you will go more into the world.There are Mr.Slinn's two sisters coming here--I shouldn't wonder if they were far cleverer and talked far better than I do--and think how Ishould feel if I knew that only a wretched pledge to me kept you from loving them!"She stopped,and cast down her eyes.
It was her first attempt at coquetry,for,in her usual charming selfishness,she was perfectly frank and open;and it might not have been her last,but she had gone too far at first,and was not prepared for a recoil of her own argument.
"If you admit that it is possible--that it is possible to you!"he said,quickly.
She saw her mistake."We may not have many opportunities to meet alone,"she answered,quietly;"and I am sure we would be happier when we meet not to accuse each other of impossibilities.Let us rather see how we can communicate together,if anything should prevent our meeting.Remember,it was only by chance that you were able to see me now.If ma has believed that she ought to have been consulted,our meeting together in this secret way will only make matters worse.She is even now wondering where I am,and may be suspicious.I must go back at once.At any moment some one may come here looking for me.""But I have so much to say,"he pleaded."Our time has been so short.""You can write.""But what will your mother think of that?"he said,in grave astonishment.
She colored again as she returned,quickly,"Of course,you must not write to the house.You can leave a letter somewhere for me--say,somewhere about here.Stop!"she added,with a sudden girlish gayety,"see,here's the very place.Look there!"She pointed to the decayed trunk of a blasted sycamore,a few feet from the trail.A cavity,breast high,half filled with skeleton leaves and pine-nuts,showed that it had formerly been a squirrel's hoard,but for some reason had been deserted.
"Look!it's a regular letter-box,"she continued,gayly,rising on tip-toe to peep into its recesses.Don Caesar looked at her admiringly;it seemed like a return to their first idyllic love-making in the old days,when she used to steal out of the cabbage rows in her brown linen apron and sun-bonnet to walk with him in the woods.He recalled the fact to her with the fatality of a lover already seeking to restore in past recollections something that was wanting in the present.She received it with the impatience of youth,to whom the present is all sufficient.
"I wonder how you could ever have cared for me in that holland apron,"she said,looking down upon her new dress.
"Shall I tell you why?"he said,fondly,passing his arm around her waist,and drawing her pretty head nearer his shoulder.
"No--not now!"she said,laughingly,but struggling to free herself."There's not time.Write it,and put it in the box.
There,"she added,hastily,"listen!--what's that?""It's only a squirrel,"he whispered reassuringly in her ear.
"No;it's somebody coming!I must go!Please!Caesar,dear!
There,then--"
She met his kiss half-way,released herself with a lithe movement of her wrist and shoulder,and the next moment seemed to slip into the woods,and was gone.
Don Caesar listened with a sigh as the last rustling ceased,cast a look at the decayed tree as if to fix it in his memory,and then slowly retraced his steps towards his tethered mustang.
He was right,however,in his surmise of the cause of that interruption.A pair of bright eyes had been watching them from the bough of an adjacent tree.It was a squirrel,who,having had serious and prior intentions of making use of the cavity they had discovered,had only withheld examination by an apparent courteous discretion towards the intruding pair.Now that they were gone he slipped down the tree and ran towards the decayed stump.
