The Firing Line Part 29

"Too late to shut you out. And you frightened me last night; I tried to tell you--for your own sake; I was terrified, and I told you what I have never before told a living soul--that dreadful, hopeless, nightmare thing--to drive you out of my--my regard--and me from yours."

His face whitened a little under its tan, but the flat jaw muscles tightened doggedly.

"I don't understand--yet," he said. "And when you tell me--for you will tell me sooner or later--it will not change me."

"It _must_!"

He shook his head.

She said in desperation: "You cannot care for me too much because you know that I am--not free."

"Cannot?" He laughed mirthlessly. "I _am_ caring for you--loving you--every second more and more."

"That is dishonourable," she faltered.

"Why?"

"You _know_!"

"Yes. But if it does not change me how can I help it?"

"You can help making me care for _you_!"

His heart was racing now; every vein ran fiery riot.

"Is there a chance of _that_, s.h.i.+ela?"

She did not answer, but the tragedy in her slowly lifted eyes appalled him. Then a rus.h.i.+ng confusion of happiness and pain almost stupefied him.

"You must not be afraid," he managed to say while the pulse hammered in his throat, and the tumult of his senses deadened his voice to a whisper.

"I am afraid."

They were near the wagon now; both dismounted under the pines while Bulow came forward to picket their horses. On their way together among the trees she looked up at him almost piteously: "You must go if you talk to me again like this. I could not endure very much of it."

"I don't know what I am going to do," he said in the same curiously deadened voice. "You must tell me more."

"I cannot. I am--uncertain of myself. I can't think clearly when we--when you speak to me--this way. Couldn't you go North before I--before my unhappiness becomes too real--too hard?--couldn't you go before it is too late--and leave me my peace of mind, my common sense!"

He looked around at her. "Yes," he said, "I will go if there is no decent chance for us; and if it is not too late."

"I have my common senses still left. It is not too late."

There was a silence. "I will go," he said very quietly.

"W-when?"

"The day we return."

"Can you leave your work?"

"Yes. Halloran knows."

"And--you _will_ go?"

"Yes, if you wish it."

Another silence. Then she shook her head, not looking at him.

"There is no use in going--now."

"Why?"

"Because--because I do not wish it." Her eyes fell lower; she drew a long, unsteady breath. "And because it is too late," she said. "You should have gone before I ever knew you--if I was to be spared my peace of mind."

Gray came galloping back through the woods, followed by his father and Eudo Stent. They were rather excited, having found signs of turkey along the mud of a distant branch; and, as they all gathered around a cold luncheon spread beside the wagon, a lively discussion began concerning the relative chances of "roosting" and "yelping."

Hamil talked as in a dream, scarcely conscious that he was speaking and laughing a great deal. A heavenly sort of intoxication possessed him; a paradise of divine unrealities seemed to surround him--s.h.i.+ela, the cl.u.s.tering pines, the strange white sunlight, the depthless splendour of the unshadowed blue above.

He heard vaguely the voices of the others, Cardross, senior, rallying Gray on his shooting, Gray replying in kind, the soft Southern voices of the guides at their own repast by the picket line, the stir and whisk and crunch of horses nuzzling their feed.

Specks moved in the dome of heaven--buzzards. Below, through the woods, myriads of robins were flying about, migrants from the North.

Gray displayed his b.u.t.terflies; nothing uncommon, except a black and green one seldom found north of Miami--but they all bent over the lovely fragile creatures, admiring the silver-spangled Dione b.u.t.terflies, the great velvety black Turnus; and s.h.i.+ela, with the point of a dry pine needle, traced for Hamil the grotesque dog's head on the fore wings of those lemon-tinted b.u.t.terflies which haunt the Florida flat-woods.

"He'd never win at a bench-show," observed her father, lighting his pipe--an out-of-door luxury he clung to. "s.h.i.+ela, you little minx, what makes you look so unusually pretty? Probably that wild-west rig of yours. Hamil, I hope you gave her a few points on gra.s.sing a bird. She's altogether too conceited. Do you know, once, while we were picking up singles, a razor-back boar charged us--or more probably the dogs, which were standing, poor devils. And upon my word I was so rattled that I did the worst thing possible--I tried to kick the dogs loose. Of course they went all to pieces, and I don't know how it might have fared with us if my little daughter had not calmly bowled over that boar at three paces from my s.h.i.+n-bones!"

"Dad exaggerates," observed the girl with heightened colour, then ventured a glance at Hamil which set his heart galloping; and her own responded to the tender pride and admiration in his eyes.

There was more discussion concerning "roosting" versus "yelping" with dire designs upon the huge wild turkey-c.o.c.k whose tracks Gray had discovered in the mud along the branch where their camp was to be pitched.

Seven hens and youthful gobblers accompanied this patriarch according to Eudo Stent's calculations, and Bulow thought that the Seminole might know the location of the roost; probably deep in some uninviting swamp.

But there was plenty of time to decide what to do when they reached camp; and half an hour later they started, wagon and all, wheels b.u.mping over the exposed tree roots which infinitely bored the well-behaved dogs, squatting forward, heads in a row, every nose twitching at the subtle forest odours that only a dog could detect.

Once they emitted short and quickly stifled yelps as a 'possum climbed leisurely into a small tree and turned to inspect the strange procession which was invading his wilderness. And s.h.i.+ela and Hamil, riding behind the wagon, laughed like children.

Once they pa.s.sed under a heronry--a rather odoriferous patch of dead cypress and pines, where the enormous nests bulged in the stark tree-tops; and once, as they rode out into a particularly park-like and velvety glade, five deer looked up, and then deliberately started to trot across.

"We need that venison!" exclaimed Gray, motioning for his gun which was in the wagon. s.h.i.+ela spurred forward, launching her mount into a gallop; Hamil's horse followed on a dead run, he tugging madly at the buck-shot sh.e.l.l in his web belt; and away they tore to head the deer. In vain! for the agile herd bounded past far out of sh.e.l.l-range and went cras.h.i.+ng on through the jungle of the branch; and s.h.i.+ela reined in and turned her flushed face to Hamil with a laugh of sheer delight.

"Glorious sight, wasn't it?" said Hamil. "I'm rather glad they got clear of us."

"So am I. There was no chance, but I always try."

"So shall I," he said--"whether there is a chance or not."

She looked up quickly, reading his meaning. Then she bent over the gun that she was breaking, extracted the sh.e.l.ls, looped them, and returned the weapon to its holster.