The Hidden Children Part 72

She seemed so frail and white and young, lying there, her fair hair unpowdered and tumbled about her face--so childlike and helpless--that a strange and inexplicable apprehension filled me; and, scarce thinking what I did, I went over to her and knelt down beside her, putting one arm around her shoulders.

Her expression, which had been smiling and vaguely audacious, changed subtly. She lay looking up at me very wistfully for a moment, then lifted her hands a little way. I laid them to my lips, looking over them down into her altered eyes.

"Always," she said under her breath, "always you have been kind and true, Euan, even when I have used you with scant courtesy."

"You have never used me ill."

"No--only to plague you as a girl torments what she truly loves....

Lois and I have spoken much of you together----" She turned her head.

"Where are you, sweeting?"

Lois came from behind the blanket and knelt down so close to me that the fragrance of her freshened the air; and once again, as it happened at the first day's meeting in Westchester, the same thrill invaded me.

And I thought of the wild rose that starlight night, and how fitly was it her symbol and her flower.

Lana looked at us both, unsmiling; then drew her hands from mine and crook'd her arms behind her neck, cradling her head on them, looking at us both all the while. Presently her lids drooped on her white cheeks.

When we rose on tiptoe, I thought she was asleep, but Lois was not certain; and as we crept out onto the rifle-platform and seated ourselves in a sheltered corner under the parapet, she said uneasily:

"Lanette is a strange maid, Euan. At first I knew she disliked me.

Then, of a sudden, one day she came to me and clung like a child afraid. And we loved from that minute.... It is strange."

"Is she ill?"

"In mind, I think."

"Why?"

"I do not know, Euan."

"Is it love, think you--her disorder?"

"I do not know, I tell you. Once I thought it was--that. But knew not how to be certain."

"Does Boyd still court her?"

"No--I do not know," she said with a troubled look.

"Is it that affair which makes her unhappy?"

"I thought so once. They were ever together. Then she avoided him--or seemed to. It was Betty Bleecker who interfered between them. For Mrs.

Bleecker was very wrathful, Euan, and Lana's indiscretions madded her.... There was a scene.... So Boyd came no more, save when other officers came, which was every day. Somehow I have never been certain that he and Lana did not meet in secret when none suspected."

"Have you proof?" I asked, cold with rage.

She shook her head, and her gaze grew vague and remote. After a while she seemed to put away her apprehensions, and, smiling, she turned to me, challenging me with her clear, sunny eyes:

"Come, Euan, you shall do me reason, now that my curly pate is innocent of powder, no French red to tint my lips and hide my freckles, and but a linsey-woolsey gown instead of chintz and silk to cover me! So tell me honestly, does not the enchantment break that for a little while seemed to hold you near me?"

"Do you forget," said I, "that I first saw my enchantress in rags and tattered shoon?"

"Oh!" she said, tossing her pretty head. "Extremes attract all men. But now in this sober and common guise of every day, I am neither Cinderella nor yet the Princess--merely a frowsy, rustic, freckled maid with a mouth somewhat too large for beauty, and the clipped and curly poll of a careless boy. And I desire to know, once for all, how I now suit you, Euan."

"You are perfection--once for all."

"I? What obstinate foolishness you utter! In all seriousness--"

"You are--more beautiful than ever--in all seriousness!"

"What folly!" She began to laugh nervously, then shrugged her shoulders, adding: "This young man is plainly partizan and deaf to reason."

"Being in love."

"You! In love! What nonsense!"

"Do you doubt it?"

"Oh!" she said carelessly. "You are in love with love--as all men are--and not particularly in love with me. Men, my dear Euan, are gamblers. When first you saw me in tatters, you laid a wager with yourself that I'd please you in silks. A gay hazard! A sporting wager!

And straight you dressed me up to suit you; and being a man, and therefore conceited, you could scarcely admit that you had lost your wager to your better senses. Could you? But now you shall admit that in this frowsy, woollen gown the magic of both Cinderella and the Princess vanishes with yesterday's enchantment, and, instead of Chloe, pink and simpering, only a st.u.r.dy comrade stands revealed who now, as guerdon for the future, strikes hands with you--like this! Koue!" And with the clear and joyous cry on her lips she struck my palm violently with hers, nor winced under my quick-closing grip.

"Is all now clear and plain between us, Euan?" she inquired. And it seemed to me that her eagerness and fervour rang false.

"You can not love me, then?" I asked in a low voice.

"I? What has love to do with us--here in the woods--and I without knowledge and experience----"

"You do not love me, then?"

"I can not."

"Why?"

She made no answer, but bit her lip.

"You need not reply," said I. "Yet--that night I left Otsego--and when I pa.s.sed you in the dark--I thought----"

"My heart was full that night! What comrade could feel less and still possess a human heart?" she said almost sullenly.

"Your letter--and mine--encouraged me to believe----"

"I know," she said, with the curt and almost breathless impatience of haste, "but have I ever denied our bond of intimacy, Euan? Closer bond have I with no man. But it must be a comrade's bond between us.... I meant to make that plain to you--and doubtless, my heart being full--and I but a girl--conveyed to you--by what I said--and did----"

"Lois! Is it not in you to love me as a woman loves a man?"

"I told you that when the time arrived I would doubtless be what you wish me to be----"

"You can love me, then?"

"How do I know? You perplex and vex me. Who else would I love but you?

Who else is there in the world--except my mother?"