The Knave of Diamonds Part 22

"Yes, have to," he repeated coolly. "You are mine."

"I'm not, Bertie!" she declared indignantly. "How--how dare you hold me against my will? And you're upsetting the apples too. Bertie, you--you're a horrid cad!"

"Yes, I know," said Bertie, an odd note of soothing in his voice. "That's what you English people always do when you're beaten. You hurl insults, and go on fighting. But it's nothing but a waste of energy, and only makes the whipping the more thorough."

"You hateful American!" gasped Dot. "As if--as if--we could be beaten!"

She had struggled vainly for some seconds and was breathless. She turned suddenly in his arms and placed her hands against his shoulders, forcing him from her. Bertie instantly changed his position, seized her wrists, drew them outward, drew them upward, drew them behind his neck.

"And yet you love me," he said. "You love yourself better, but--you love me."

His face was bent to hers, he looked closely into her eyes. And--perhaps it was something in his look that moved her--perhaps it was only the realisation of her own utter impotence--Dot suddenly hid her face upon his shoulder and began to cry.

His arms were about her in an instant. He held her against his heart.

"My dear, my dear, have I been a brute to you? I only wanted to make you understand. Say, Dot, don't cry, dear, don't cry!"

"I--I'm not!" sobbed Dot.

"Of course not," he agreed. "Anyone can see that. But still--darling--don't!"

Dot recovered herself with surprising rapidity. "Bertie, you--you're a great big donkey!" She confronted him with wet, accusing eyes. "What you said just now wasn't true, and if--if you're a gentleman you'll apologise."

"I'll let you kick me all the way downstairs if you like," said Bertie contritely. "I didn't mean to hurt you, honest. I didn't mean to make you--"

"You didn't!" broke in Dot. "But you didn't tell the truth. That's why I'm angry with you. You--told--a lie."

"I?" said Bertie.

He had taken his arms quite away from her now. He seemed in fact a little afraid of touching her. But Dot showed no disposition to beat a retreat.

They faced each other in the old apple cupboard, as if it were the most appropriate place in the world for a conflict.

"Yes, you!" said Dot.

"What did I say?" asked Bertie, hastily casting back his thoughts.

She looked at him with eyes that seemed to grow more contemptuously bright every instant. "You said," she spoke with immense deliberation, "that I loved myself best."

"Well?" said Bertie.

"Well," she said, and took up her basket as one on the point of departure, "it wasn't true. There!"

"Dot!" His hand was on the basket too. He stopped her without touching her. "Dot!" he said again.

Dot's eyes began to soften, a dimple showed suddenly near the corner of her mouth. "You shouldn't tell lies, Bertie," she said.

And that was the last remark she made for several seconds, unless the smothered protests that rose against Bertie's lips could be described as such. They were certainly not emphatic enough to make any impression, and Bertie treated them with the indifference they deserved.

Driving home, he managed to steer with one hand while he thrust the other upon his brother's knee.

"Luke, old chap, I've gone dead against your wishes," he jerked out.

"And--for the first time in my life--I'm not sorry. She'll have me."

"I thought she would," said Lucas. He grasped the boy's hand closely.

"There are times when a man--if he is a man--must act for himself, eh, Bertie?"

Bertie laughed a little. "I don't believe it was against your wishes after all."

"Well, p'r'aps not." There was a very kindly smile in the sunken eyes. "I guess you're a little older than I thought you were, and anyway, she won't marry you for the dollars."

"She certainly won't," said Bertie warmly. "But she's horribly afraid of people saying so, since Nap--"

"Ah! Never mind Nap!"

"Well, it's made a difference," Bertie protested. "We are not going to marry for three years. And no one is to know we are engaged except you and her father."

"She doesn't mind me then?"

There was just a tinge of humour in the words, and Bertie looked at him sharply.

"What are you grinning at? No, of course she doesn't mind you. But what's the joke?"

"Look where you're going, dear fellow. It would be a real pity to break your neck at this stage."

Bertie turned his attention to his driving and was silent for a little.

Suddenly, "I have it!" he exclaimed. "You artful old fox! I believe you had first word after all. I wondered that she gave in so easily. What did you say to her?"

"That," said Lucas gently, "is a matter entirely between myself and one other."

Bertie broke into his gay boyish laugh and sounded the hooter for sheer lightness of heart.

"Oh, king, live for ever--and then some! You're just the finest fellow in the world!"

"Open to question, I am afraid," said the millionaire with his quiet smile. "And as to living for ever--well, I guess it's a cute idea in the main, but under present conditions it's a notion that makes me tired."

"Who said anything about present conditions?" demanded Bertie, almost angrily; and then in an altered voice: "Old man, I didn't mean that, and you know it. I only meant that you will always be wanted wherever you are. G.o.d doesn't turn out a good thing like you every day."

"Oh, shucks!" said Lucas Errol softly.

CHAPTER XV

THE CHAMPION

When Mrs. Errol remarked in her deep voice, that yet compa.s.sed the incomparable Yankee tw.a.n.g, that she guessed she wasn't afraid of any man that breathed, none of those who heard the bold a.s.sertion ventured to contradict her.