Ben Blair Part 46

Ben did not stir, although the brown of his sun-tanned face went white.

"I looked for that," he said simply.

Florence's brown eyes widened in wonder--and in something more--something she did not understand. Her heart was beating more wildly than before. She felt her self-control slipping from her grasp, like a rope through her hands.

"There seems nothing more to be said, then," she said, "except that I will not go."

Even yet Blair did not move.

"You will go. The carriage comes in ten minutes," he reiterated calmly.

The small figure stiffened, the dainty chin tilted in the air.

"I defy you to tell me how you can force me to go!"

It was the supreme moment, but Benjamin Blair showed no trace of excitement or of pa.s.sion. His folded arms remained pa.s.sive across his chest.

"Florence Baker, did I ever lie to you?"

The girl's lip trembled. She knew now what to expect.

"No," she said.

"You are quite sure?"

"Yes, I am quite sure."

"Did I ever say I would do anything that I did not do?"

The girl had an all but irrepressible desire to cry out, to cover her face like a child. A flash of anger at her inability to maintain her self-control swept over her.

"No," she admitted. "I never knew you to break your word."

"Very well, then," still no haste, no anger,--only the relentless calm which was infinitely more terrible than either. "I will tell you why of your own choice you will go with me. It is because you value the life of Clarence Sidwell; because, as surely as I have not lied to you or to any human being in the past, there is no power on earth that can otherwise keep me away from him an hour longer."

Realization came instantaneously to Florence Baker and blotted out self-consciousness. The nervous tension vanished as fog before the sun.

"You would not do it," she said, very steadily. "You could not do it!"

Ben Blair said not a word.

"You could not," repeated the girl swiftly; "could not, because you--love me!"

One of the man's hands loosened in an unconscious gesture.

"Don't repeat that, please, or trust in it," he answered. "You misled me once, but you can't mislead me again. It is because I love you that I will do what I said."

There was but one weapon in the a.r.s.enal adequate to meet the emergency.

With a sudden motion, the girl came close to him.

"Ben, Ben Blair," her arms flashed around the man's neck, the brown eyes--moist, sparkling--were turned to his face, "promise me you will not do it." The dainty throat swelled and receded with her short quick breaths. "Promise me! Please promise me!"

For a second the rancher did not stir; then, very gently, he freed himself and moved a step backward.

"Florence," he said slowly, "you do not know me even yet." He drew out his big old-fas.h.i.+oned silver watch, once Rankin's. "You still have four minutes to get ready--no more, no less."

Silence like that of a death-chamber fell over the bright little dining-room. From the outside came the sound of Mollie's step as she moved back and forth, back and forth, but dared not enter. A boy was clipping the lawn, and the m.u.f.fled purr of the mower, accompanied by the bit of popular ragtime he was whistling, stole into the room.

Suddenly a carriage drove up in front of the house, and leaping from his seat the driver stood waiting. The door of the vestibule opened, and Scotty himself stepped uncertainly within. At the library entrance he halted, but the odor of the black cigar he was smoking was wafted in.

Through it all, neither of the two in that room had stirred. It would have been impossible to tell what Ben Blair was thinking. His eyes never left the watch in his hand. During the first minute the girl had not looked at her companion. Unappeasable anger seemed personified in her.

For half of the next minute she still stood impa.s.sive; then she glanced up almost surrept.i.tiously. For the long third minute the eyes held where they had lifted, and slowly over the soft brown face, taking the place of the former expression, came a look that was not of anger or of hatred, not even of dislike, but of something the reverse, something all but unbelievable. Her dark eyes softened. A choking lump came into her throat; and still, in seeming paradox, she was of a sudden happier than at any time she could remember.

Before the last minute was up, before Ben Blair had replaced the watch, she was in the adjoining room saying good-bye to Mollie hurriedly; saying something more,--a thing that fairly took the mother's breath.

"Florence Baker!" she gasped, "you shall not do it! If you do, I will disown you! I will never forgive you--never! never!"

But, unheeding, the girl was already back, and looking into Ben's face.

Her eyes were very bright, and there was about her a suppressed excitement that the other did not clearly understand.

"I am ready," she said, "on one condition."

Blair's blue eyes looked a question. In any other mood he would have recognized Florence, but this strange person he hardly seemed to know.

"I am listening," he said.

The girl hesitated, the rosy color mounting to her cheeks. Decision of action was far easier than expression.

"I will go with you," she faltered, "but alone."

A suggestion of the flame on the other's face sprang to the man's also.

"I think, under the circ.u.mstances," he stammered, "it would be better to have your father go too."

The dainty brown figure stiffened.

"Very well, then--I will not go!"

The man stood for a moment immovable, with uns.h.i.+fting eyes, like a figure in clay; then, turning, without a word, he started to leave the room. He had almost reached the door, when he heard a voice behind him.

"Ben Blair," it said insistently, "Ben Blair!"

He paused, glanced back, and could scarcely believe his eyes. The girl was coming toward him; but it was a Florence he had not previously known. Her face was rosier than before, red to her very ears and to the waves of her hair. Her chin was held high, and beneath the thin brown skin of the throat the veins were athrob.

"Ben Blair," she repeated intensely, "Ben Blair, can't you understand what I meant? Must I put it into words?" The soft brown eyes were looking at him frankly. "Oh, you are blind, blind!"

For a second, like the lull before the thunderclap, the man did not move; then of a sudden he grasped the girl by the shoulders, and held her at arm's length.