The Battle Ground Part 17

"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Lightfoot, that the boy has begun already?"

she demanded, in amazement.

"He doesn't say so," replied the Major, with a chuckle; "but I see what he means--I see what he means. Why, he told me he wished I could have seen her to-day in her red dress--and, bless my soul, I wish I could, ma'am."

"I don't see what good it would do you," returned his wife, coolly. "But did he have the face to tell you he was in love with the girl, Mr.

Lightfoot?"

"Have the face?" repeated the Major, testily. "Pray, why shouldn't he have the face, ma'am? Whom should he tell, I'd like to know, before he tells his grandfather?" and with a final "pooh, pooh!" he returned angrily to his library and to the _Richmond Whig_, a paper he breathlessly read and mightily abused.

Dan, meanwhile, upstairs in his room with Champe, was busily sorting his collection of neckwear.

"Look here, Champe, I'll give you all these red ties, if you want them," he generously concluded. "I believe, after all, I'll take to wearing white or black ones again."

"What?" asked Champe, in astonishment, turning on his heel. "Have the skies fallen, or does Beau Montjoy forsake the fas.h.i.+ons?"

"Confound the fas.h.i.+ons!" retorted Dan, impatiently. "I don't care a jot for the fas.h.i.+ons. You may have all these, if you choose," and he tossed the neckties upon the bed.

Champe picked up one and examined it with interest.

"O woman," he murmured as he did so, "your hand is small but mighty."

IV.

LOVE IN A MAZE

Despite Virginia's endeavour to efface herself for her guests, she shone unrivalled at the party, and Dan, who had held her hand for an ecstatic moment under the mistletoe, felt, as he rode home in the moonlight afterwards, that his head was fairly on fire with her beauty. She had been sweetly candid and flatteringly impartial. He could not honestly a.s.sert that she had danced with him oftener than with Morson, or a dozen others, but he had a pleasant feeling that even when she shook her head and said, "I cannot," her soft eyes added for her, "though I really wish to." There was something almost pitiable, he told himself in the complacency with which that self-satisfied a.s.s Morson would come and take her from him. As if he hadn't sense enough to discover that it was merely because she was his hostess that she went with him at all. But some men would never understand women, though they lived to be a thousand, and got rejected once a day.

Out in the moonlight, with the Governor's wine singing in his blood, he found that his emotions had a way of tripping lightly off his tongue. There were hot words with Diggs, who hinted that Virginia was not the beauty of the century, and threats of blows with Morson, who too boldly affirmed that she was. In the end Champe rode between them, and sent Prince Rupert on his way with a touch of the whip.

"For heaven's sake, keep your twaddle to yourselves!" he exclaimed impatiently, "or take my advice, and make for the nearest duck pond. You've both gone over your depth in the Governor's Madeira, and I advise you to keep quiet until you've had your heads in a basin of ice water. There, get out of my road, Morson. I can't sit here freezing all night."

"Do you dare to imply that I am drunk, sir?" demanded Morson, in a fury.

"Bear witness, gentlemen, that the insult was unprovoked."

"Oh, insult be d.a.m.ned!" retorted Champe. "If you shake your fist at me again, I'll pitch you head over heels into that snowdrift."

"Pitch whom, sir?" roared Morson, riding at the wall, when Diggs caught his bridle and roughly dragged him back.

"Come, now, don't make a beast of yourself," he implored.

"Who's a beast?" was promptly put by Morson; but leaving it unanswered, Diggs wheeled his horse about and started up the turnpike. "You've let Beau get out of sight," he said. "We'd better catch up with him," and he set off at a gallop.

Dan, who had ridden on at Champe's first words, did not even turn his head when the three came abreast with him. The moonlight was in his eyes, and the vision of Virginia floated before him at his saddle bow. He let the reins fall loosely on Prince Rupert's neck, and as the hoofs rang on the frozen road, thrust his hands for warmth into his coat. In another dress, with his dark hair blown backward in the wind, he might have been a cavalier fresh from the service of his lady or his king, or riding carelessly to his death for the sake of the drunken young Pretender.

But he was only following his dreams, and they hovered round Virginia, catching their rosy glamour from her dress. In the cold night air he saw her walking demurely through the lancers, her skirt held up above her satin shoes, her coral necklace glowing deeper pink against her slim white throat. Mistletoe and holly hung over her, and the light of the candles shone brighter where her radiant figure pa.s.sed. He caught the soft flash of her shy brown eyes, he heard her gentle voice speaking trivial things with profound tenderness. His hand still burned from the light pressure of her finger tips. Oh, his day had come, he told himself, and he was furiously in love at last.

As for going back to college, the very idea was absurd. At twenty years it was quite time for him to settle down and keep open house like other men.

Virginia, in rose pink, flitted up the crooked stair and across the white panels of the parlor, and with a leap, his heart went after her. He saw Great-aunt Emmeline lean down from her faded canvas as if to toss her apple at the young girl's feet. Ah, poor old beauty, hanging in a gilded frame, what was her century of dust to a bit of living flesh that had bright eyes and was coloured like a flower?

When he was safely married he would have his wife's portrait hung upon the opposite wall, only he rather thought he should have the dogs in and let her be Diana, with a spear instead of an apple in her hand. Two beauties in one family--that was something to be proud of even in Virginia.

It was at this romantic point that Champe shattered his visions by shooting a jest at him about the "love sick swain."

"Oh, be off, and let a fellow think, won't you?" he retorted angrily.

"Do you hear him call it thinking?" jeered Diggs, from the other side.

"He doesn't call it mooning, oh, no," scoffed Champe.

"Oh, there's nothing half so sweet in life," sang Morson, striking an att.i.tude that almost threw him off his horse.

"Shut up, Morson," commanded Diggs, "you ought to be thankful if you had enough sense left to moon with."

"Sense, who wants sense?" inquired Morson, on the point of tears. "I have heart, sir."

"Then keep it bottled up," rejoined Champe, coolly, as they turned into the drive at Cheric.o.ke.

In Dan's room they found Big Abel stretched before the fire asleep; and as the young men came in, he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Hi! young Marsters, hit's ter-morrow!" he exclaimed.

"To-morrow! I wish it were to-morrow," responded Dan, cheerfully. "The fire makes my head spin like a top. Here, come and pull off my coat, Big Abel, or I'll have to go to bed with my clothes on."

Big Abel pulled off the coat and brushed it carefully; then he held out his hand for Champe's.

"I hope dis yer coat ain' gwine lose hit's set 'fo' hit gits ter me," he muttered as he hung them up. "Seems like you don' teck no cyar yo' clothes, nohow, Ma.r.s.e Dan. I'se de wuss dress somebody dis yer side er de po' w'ite trash. Wat's de use er bein' de quality ef'n you ain' got de close?"

"Stop grumbling, you fool you," returned Dan, with his lordly air. "If it's my second best evening suit you're after, you may take it; but I tell you now, it's the last thing you're going to get out of me till summer."

Big Abel took down the second best suit of clothes and examined them with an interest they had never inspired before. "I d'clar you sutney does set hard," he remarked after a moment, and added, tentatively, "I dunno whar de shuts gwine come f'om."

"Not from me," replied Dan, airily; "and now get out of here, for I'm going to sleep."

But when he threw himself upon his bed it was to toss with feverish rose-coloured dreams until the daybreak.

His blood was still warm when he came down to breakfast; but he met his grandfather's genial jests with a boyish attempt at counter-buff.

"Oh, you needn't twit me, sir," he said with an embarra.s.sed laugh; "to wear the heart upon the sleeve is hereditary with us, you know."

"Keep clear of the daws, my son, and it does no harm," responded the Major.

"There's nothing so becoming to a gentleman as a fine heart well worn, eh, Molly?"

He carefully spread the b.u.t.ter upon his cakes, for his day of love-making was over, and his eye could hold its twinkle while he watched Dan fidget in his seat.

Mrs. Lightfoot promptly took up the challenge. "For my part I prefer one under a b.u.t.toned coat," she replied briskly; "but be careful, Mr.