The Hunted Woman Part 30

"I--I am a little late, am I not, Joanne?" he asked.

"You are, sir. If you have taken all this time dressing you are worse than a woman. I have been waiting fifteen minutes!"

"Old Donald came to see me," he apologized. "Joanne----"

"You mustn't, John!" she expostulated in a whisper. "My face is afire now!

You mustn't kiss me again--until after supper----"

"Only once," he pleaded.

"If you will promise--just once----"

A moment later she gasped:

"Five times! John Aldous, I will never believe you again as long as I live!"

They went down to the Blacktons, and Peggy and Paul, who were busy over some growing geraniums in the dining-room window, faced about with a forced and incongruous appearance of total oblivion to everything that had happened. It lasted less than ten seconds. Joanne's lips quivered. Aldous saw the two little dimples at the corners of her mouth fighting to keep themselves out of sight--and then he looked at Peggy. Blackton could stand it no longer, and grinned broadly.

"For goodness sake go to it, Peggy!" he laughed. "If you don't you'll explode!"

The next moment Peggy and Joanne were in each other's arms, and the two men were shaking hands.

"We know just how you feel," Blackton tried to explain. "We felt just like you do, only we had to face twenty people instead of two. And you're not hungry. I'll wager that. I'll bet you don't feel like swallowing a mouthful. It had that peculiar effect on us, didn't it, Peggy?"

"And I--I almost choked myself," gurgled Peggy as they took their places at the table. "There really did seem to be something thick in my throat, Joanne, dear. I coughed and coughed and coughed before all those people until I wanted to die right there! And I'm wondering----"

"If I'm going to choke, too?" smiled Joanne. "Indeed not, Peggy. I'm as hungry as a bear!"

And now she did look glorious and self-possessed to Aldous as she sat opposite him at that small round table, which was just fitted for four. He told her so when the meal was finished, and they were following the Blacktons into the front room. Blackton had evidently been carefully drilled along the line of a certain scheme which Peggy had formed, for in spite of a negative nod from her, which signified that he was to wait a while, he pulled out his watch, and said:

"It isn't at all surprising if you people have forgotten that to-morrow is Sunday. Peggy and I always do some Sat.u.r.day-night shopping, and if you don't mind, we'll leave you to care for the house while we go to town. We won't be gone more than an hour."

A few minutes later, when the door had closed behind them, Aldous led Joanne to a divan, and sat down beside her.

"I couldn't have arranged it better myself, dear," he exclaimed. "I have been wondering how I could have you alone for a few minutes, and tell you what is on my mind before I see MacDonald again to-night. I'm afraid you will be displeased with me, Joanne. I hardly know how to begin. But--I've got to."

A moment's uneasiness came into her eyes as she saw how seriously he was speaking.

"You don't mean, John--there's more about Quade--and Culver Rann?"

"No, no--nothing like that," he laughed, as though amused at the absurdity of her question. "Old Donald tells me they have skipped the country, Joanne. It's not that. It's you I'm thinking of, and what you may think of me a minute from now. Joanne, I've given my word to old Donald. He has lived in my promise. I've got to keep that promise--I must go into the North with him."

She had drawn one of his hands into her lap and was fondling it with her own soft palm and fingers.

"Of course, you must, John. I love old Donald."

"And I must go--soon," he added.

"It is only fair to him that you should," she agreed.

"He--he is determined we shall go in the morning," he finished, keeping his eyes from her.

For a moment Joanne did not answer. Her fingers interweaved with his, her warm little palm stroked the rough back of his hand. Then she said, very softly:

"And why do you think that will displease me, John, dear? I will be ready!"

"You!"

Her eyes were on him, full, and dark, and glowing, and in them were both love and laughter.

"You dear silly John!" she laughed. "Why don't you come right out and tell me to stay at home, instead of--of--'beating 'round the bush'--as Peggy Blackton says? Only you don't know what a terrible little person you've got, John. You really don't. So you needn't say any more. We'll start in the morning--and I am going with you!"

In a flash John Aldous saw his whole scheme shaking on its foundation.

"It's impossible--utterly impossible!" he gasped.

"And why utterly?" she asked, bending her head so that her soft hair touched his face and lips. "John, have you already forgotten what we said in that terrible cavern--what we told ourselves we would have done if we had lived? We were going adventuring, weren't we? And we are not dead--but alive. And this will be a glorious trip! Why, John, don't you see, don't you understand? It will be our honeymoon trip!"

"It will be a long, rough journey," he argued. "It will be hard--hard for a woman."

With a little laugh, Joanne sprang up and stood before him in a glow of light, tall, and slim, and splendid, and there was a sparkle of beautiful defiance and a little of triumph in her eyes as she looked down on him.

"And it will be dangerous, too? You are going to tell me that?"

"Yes, it will be dangerous."

She came to him and rumpled up his hair, and turned his face up so that she could look into his eyes.

"Is it worse than fever, and famine, and deep swamps, and crawling jungles?" she asked. "Are we going to encounter worse things than beasts, and poisonous serpents, and murderous savages--even hunger and thirst, John? For many years we dared those together--my father and I. Are these great, big, beautiful mountains more treacherous than those Ceylon jungles from which you ran away--even you, John? Are they more terrible to live in than the Great African Desert? Are your bears worse than tigers, your wolves more terrible than lions? And if, through years and years, I faced those things with my father, do you suppose that I want to be left behind now, and by my husband?"

So sweet and wonderful was the sound of that name as it came softly from her lips, that in his joy he forgot the part he was playing, and drew her close down in his arms, and in that moment all that remained of the scheme he had built for keeping her behind crumbled in ruin about him.

Yet in a last effort he persisted.

"Old Donald wants to travel fast--very fast, Joanne. I owe a great deal to him. Even you I owe to him--for he saved us from the 'coyote.'"

"I am going, John."

"If we went alone we would be able to return very soon."

"I am going."

"And some of the mountains--it is impossible for a woman to climb them!"

"Then I will let you carry me up them, John. You are so strong----"

He groaned hopelessly.

"Joanne, won't you stay with the Blacktons, to please me?"