Part 9

He met her at the foot of the stairs, and took her hand in a tender pressure. Mrs. Bunker coughed slightly behind them, and Indiana ran quickly out on the balcony, leaving Lord Canning under the amused fire of Mrs. Bunker's bright eyes. She shook her finger at him, and would have followed Indiana, but Lord Canning did not wish to be taken so lightly.

"Mrs. Bunker," he said in a low, intense voice, grasping the balustrade, "one moment, if you please. It may not be considered anything in America when a man of my age is seen holding the hand of such a very young girl, but, I am not a believer in light sentiment--flirting, perhaps, would be the term. I love your granddaughter!"

"It's easy enough to see that," laughed Mrs. Bunker. It was always amusing to her when people took themselves so seriously. "You have my good wishes. I have always thought very highly of you."

She held out her hand, which he pressed gratefully in his. "Thank you, Mrs. Bunker. Have you any idea if--if she cares for me?"

"The little minx is too smart for me," answered Mrs. Bunker.

"She is so non-committal," said Lord Canning. "I know she esteems me and all that; at times, I have fancied that I even interest her. But as to--" he gazed gloomily into the fire. "Well, it will be necessary for me to clinch things very soon, time is passing with dangerous rapidity--but still passing. Mrs. Bunker, when I met you in Cannes over a year ago, I did not know what a great influence you were fated to throw on my life. If she loves me, I will never forget that it is through you--"

"Don't thank me--yet," said Mrs. Bunker, shrewdly. "Wait until you're married a year."

"Oh, I have no fears on that score," asserted Lord Canning, with a very self-confident air.

"You don't know Indiana. If you attempted to cross her, she'd tear your hair out!"

"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Lord Canning, laughing heartily. "Don't think you can frighten me by a little thing like that!"

"If I thought so," reflected Mrs. Bunker, "I wouldn't have told you, no matter how true it might be. Oh, nothing would stop you now, Lord Canning!"

"Nothing! I have lived a very matter-of-fact life--never very miserable, or the other extreme. I have had great satisfaction in my work. Now it's time I snatched a little happiness."

"Indeed it is," said Mrs. Bunker, in a soothing voice. Men, to her, were like big children--to be humored.

They had moved gradually toward the fire. "These logs," continued Lord Canning, "are a magnet towards which my eyes have been drawn every night since I came. If you knew what I see in them--such a sweet domestic picture, a vision of true happiness!"

"Well, don't depend too much on Indiana's domesticity," said Mrs. Bunker.

"We generally gauge a daughter by her mother, in England," stated Lord Canning.

"Well, it's different over here. The young generation are so precocious--so far ahead of the mothers."

"I do not call it an advance. The daughters would do well to copy their mothers in their allegiance to the home. I hope, if Indiana does me the honor to consent--"

"Well, you can have that out with her. She may be a model of domesticity, but you never know how a girl's going to develop. You can't be sure of everything"--she laughed mockingly--"that's the risk of marriage."

"I am staking everything on this one card--marriage," said Lord Canning.

"Why will you men play so high?" queried Mrs. Bunker, laughing again, as she swept out on the balcony.

"Why?" echoed Lord Canning, looking into the fire. His dark eyes smiled at what he saw there--the picture he had described in the glowing logs, had been his answer. "Yes, it is time I snatched a little happiness--how little, after all! The rest of my natural life seems short enough to love her in."

"We're going, Lord Canning," called Mrs. Bunker.

He hurried out, offering his arm to Indiana, as the procession followed Haller down to the boat-house. The lake by moonlight was a scene of such mysterious beauty that no one felt inclined to talk. Lord Canning was somewhat disposed to question the reality of his surroundings. He was drifting down a silvery sea of enchantment, Indiana's white-robed form at his side. Oblivious of criticism, he scarcely took his eyes from her young face, etherealized in the moonlight. Glen watched his loverlike attitude, with growing anger. To the various camps along the lake, the illuminated launch, passing with the faint strains of the mandolin, presented quite a fairy-like spectacle. Later, driving through the country, they were all talkative and lively, regaling the night with choruses, Glen playing and singing with a gayety he was far from feeling. Stillwater, who drove, complied, unhesitatingly, to a request for the old road. Lord Canning sat silent and spellbound the entire way, watching the stream winding before him--touched with tremulous waves of silver; the little islands dreaming in a moonlit haze.

William had been sent over to prepare, early in the afternoon. When the party arrived, the falls were illuminated by colored lanterns, decorating the rustic bridges, and hanging from the trees. They added a fantastic beauty to the natural wildness of the spot.

"I'm sure I am dreaming," said Lord Canning, as he stood alone with Indiana on one of the rustic bridges, listening to the roar of the waters and watching the many-colored lights trembling on the moonlit falls. "Studying late into the night, I fell asleep in my library at home. Jennings will come in soon and poke the fire, and I shall awake--in England!"

At twelve they sat down to a large supper-table. Kitty, Flash, and the two guides were in attendance. Lord Canning related some interesting adventures, and Stillwater taxed his memory for humorous experiences, which met with the hearty appreciation of his guests, who were very susceptible to the dry wit of the American. Glen complied whenever he was asked to sing, between the stories, but otherwise he was distinctly out of tune with the prevailing high spirits. He had been wrought up to the highest pitch of jealousy, by the absence of Lord Canning and Indiana from the rest, before supper. The entire evening appealed to him more as a nightmare than a festivity.

"Friends," began Stillwater, in response to a toast from Lord Canning, "I'm in the best of health and spirits. My family are all around me"--he rested his hand on his wife's head--"I hope to keep them so, for many a long day. We can't reckon on the future, but to-night I'm a happy man!" He kissed his wife, whose eyes had filled with a quick rush of tears.

Indiana jumped up and threw herself upon his breast, with a very sure premonition that she would soon leave him.

"Our host again!" proposed Lord Stafford.

His nephew drank the toast, feeling a sense of guilt that he was destined so shortly to ruffle the calm sea of Stillwater's domestic horizon.

"My distinguished guests have announced their intention of returning to England"--holding Indiana against his breast. "May they find their dear ones well and happy, and Godspeed to them!"

"Godspeed to them!" echoed Glen. "And a quick leave-taking!" he thought grimly.

Mrs. Bunker's happy philosophy was colored for the moment with a tinge of pessimism. "What a blind game it is," she whispered to Lord Canning. "He may be wishing 'Godspeed' to the baby I laid in his arms. Look at Indiana, she hasn't raised her head."

"Well, Indiana," said Stillwater, "aren't you going to drink 'Godspeed' to them?" He held the glass to her lips, raising her head from his breast. Their eyes were all upon her,--Lord Canning's tenderly anxious, his uncle's laughing, Mrs. Bunker's significant, and Glen's suspicious and jealous.

"Godspeed to them!" she repeated, gaily raising her glass.

When they finally arose from supper, Glen immediately disappeared. "I must get away from that awful white light," he thought, walking restlessly through the dark woods. "It's beating on my brain and driving me mad." His soul foreboded very truly that Indiana was lost to him. The soul is our Cassandra. It mourns and prophecies, while the heart is forever holding a carnival. A young girl decking herself with flowers for a fete. There is a shrouded form behind her in the mirror. It whispers, "Those flowers are blossoms of death. The fete for which you are robing, is a funeral." But, unhearing, unseeing, thinking of lovers and dancing, she decks herself in the mirror, a song on her lips.

Scarcely knowing where his feet were leading him, he found himself on the bridge directly over the falls. "She never notices me--I don't exist for her!" He looked down into the falls. "Living's only a fever after all--a mad fever of longing and jealousy. I'd gladly end it, down there--if it wasn't for the folks. Ambition! glory! I'd fling them all to the winds for the choice of pressing her little yellow head to my heart, just once, to still this horrible throbbing! If I had been brought home wounded and dying, she'd have sobbed beside me, and I'd have comforted her in my weak arms. Then she might have said, 'I love you, Glen dear!' just to make me happy--before the end. I would have fallen peacefully asleep then, blessing her. A happy death, to have died for my country, holding her to my breast, as my life bled away. Better than this--this fever called 'living'."

A hand was laid on his shoulder. "We're going home, my boy."

"Oh, I'm sorry"--he pressed his hand to his forehead--"I'm sorry that you were obliged to look for me."

Stillwater scrutinized Glen's set, white face. "The Englishmen are going. Things will come your way--soon."

"They'll never come my way," sighed Glen, "except, perhaps, when I've ceased to care."

"Nonsense!"

"It seems to me that nothing is worth what I've been suffering--not even Indiana."

"She isn't," assured Stillwater, unhesitatingly, delighted at this conclusion. "Turn over a new leaf. Show her you're indifferent. She'll think all the more of you."

Lord Stafford was patting the ponies, while Haller arranged the harness.

"If you'll be kind enough to jump in, Lord Stafford," cried Mrs. Bunker, "we may reach home in time for breakfast! Come now, Haller, you've been fumbling long enough with that harness!"

Haller grinned at Lord Stafford. "That woman's full of life," he remarked, "I admire her."

"The devil you do!" exclaimed Lord Stafford.

As they started they all sung "On the Banks of the Wabash."

The moon was fading when they embarked on 'The Indiana.'

"The lake presents an unearthly appearance in this silver twilight," remarked Lord Canning. "It is vanishing quickly. There's still a parting gleam touching the dark pines here and there--lingering like the last caress of a dying hand. Everything is becoming vague. The world is fading away from us. How fascinating--these last few moments before the dawn. Ah, it is breaking! That suggestion of dark shore--this pale light on the black lake. Why, we are on the River Styx. Haller doesn't look unlike Charon. I can see you dimly, Miss Stillwater--a little ghost in your white cloak. We are all ghosts." He lowered his voice. "I am positive that Mr. Masters sitting there, with his mandolin, could not present a more tragic figure if his eternal punishment were to play for the amusement of all the shades crossing to Hades!"

Indiana laughed. Glen bit his lips savagely. It sounded to him like the mocking laugh he had heard in his dreams, on the farm in the West, that miserable week when he had exiled himself.

The morning mists floated above them, growing denser. The clouds reflecting in the glassy lake, exposed only a fringe of red foliage. Gradually the mists were tinged with a faint opaline glow, deepening gradually. The sun rose as they neared Camp Indiana.

*CHAPTER XII.*

*Leading to the Altar.*

Glen did not renounce his original intention of climbing White Face mountains. He slept for two hours, breakfasted, and started for White Face trail at ten o'clock. There was no one stirring at the camp. When he returned it was four in the afternoon. He found Indiana lying in the hammock on the balcony, Lord Canning, seated beside her, reading poetry aloud.

Glen threw himself into a chair. "I'm pretty well used up!"

"I should think so," said Indiana, "climbing White Face after being up all night! I'll order some tea for you, and then you'd better go to bed."

She sprang from the hammock and disappeared, returning again in a moment.

"Thank you, Indiana. I'm glad I went. It was magnificent! The view as clear as possible, and snow on the summit!"

"I thought we might see you and Haller from the lake, but I couldn't get Lord Canning away from the camp to-day. He was so lazy."

Lord Canning smiled. He had his own reasons for staying home, having resolved not to let the day pass without speaking to his host of the subject of Indiana. So far there had been no opportunity. The family did not appear until lunch-time, and ever since, Stillwater had been closeted, writing business letters.

Though excessively fatigued, Glen felt immeasurably better for climbing White Face. The physical tax had cleared his brain. He had been exhilarated by the cold, rare air on the summit. He drank his tea with a pleasurable sense of lassitude, and, his eyes fixed on Indiana swinging in the hammock, replied rather absently to Lord Canning's questions regarding the ascent.

Lord Canning rose, closing his Tennyson. "I think I'll stroll down to the lake, Miss Stillwater, if you don't mind." He smiled at Glen, with a feeling of generosity.

Indiana looked after him thoughtfully as he strolled down through the trees.

"He's a thorough gentleman--so unobtrusive. He never asks prying questions--and he's never in the way."

"Too slow for me," replied Glen, watching her narrowly. "But I suppose you must have someone to flirt with."

Indiana swung slowly. "Perhaps--I'm in earnest--this time!"

Glen rose and grasped her wrist tightly. "Don't say that, Indy! While you're single I shall never give up hope. Now, what's in the way? I'm not your inferior in education. Do you know any handsomer fellow than I?"--with a grim affectation of humor. "If it's for money--I have all you'll ever want."

"I must marry a man of the world. I want to live in the world. We're both undeveloped--I'm not a woman yet, nor you a man."

"I don't consider I'm not a man," said Glen scornfully, "until I have conquered no end of women, and have their broken hearts for trophies, like an Indian with a string of scalps. I love one woman, and if she won't have me--well, I'll not give up until I see her tied pretty tightly to another man."

"I'm not worth it, Glen." She caught his arm, gazing earnestly up into his face, "I'm not worth all your devotion."

"I know you have faults enough, but, God help me, I love you all the better for them."

"Everybody loves my faults," said Indiana, impatiently. "That's the trouble with me. If I could only find some one who would hate them and try to cure them."

"I couldn't be harsh to you, Indy. If you killed me, I'd die blessing you. You nearly did for me once--"

"What!"

"Oh, it wasn't your fault--you were too young to know better."

Indiana sprang from the hammock. "Glen, what wasn't my fault?" she demanded, fiercely. "What did I do? You shall tell me!"

"All right. But don't get in a temper. I swore I'd never throw it up to you."

"Don't tease me, Glen," said Indiana, imploringly, "tell me--quickly."

Glen pushed his hair back from his right temple. "Do you see that?"

"Yes," uttered Indiana, in a frightened voice, "a deep, white scar."

"You did that." She recoiled, looking at it in horror. "You threw a pair of scissors at me--in one of your tantrums."

"Oh, no, no, no!"

"You were too young to remember, and they took you away so that the sight of the blood shouldn't frighten you."

"Oh, Glen!" cried Indiana, "how could I? And you're always so good--you never even hated me for it. Oh, Glen!" She took his head in her hands and kissed the scar impulsively. "Forgive me--forgive me!"

"Indiana, is there a chance for me?"

"No."

"You're not going to marry that Englishman?" he said, fiercely.

"He hasn't asked me."

"Would you?"

"I don't know, Glen. Promise me you won't say anything to him about that," pointing to the scar.

"I've never thought of it myself," said Glen, sadly, "since then. I'm sorry I told you if--"

"Thank you for telling me. I'm glad I know. It hurts me, though--right here." She put her hand to her heart.

"Indiana!"

"Now I'm blue, but I'll get over it. To think I could hurt you, or anybody, like that."

"Oh, Indy, don't think about it. This scar is healed--long ago. You've hurt me here, far worse than that." He took her hand and pressed it to his heart. "There's a wound here it'll take many a long day to heal."

"Oh, Glen! Oh, Glen!" she moaned, piteously, trying to wrest her hand away. But he held it tightly over his heart.

"I don't know what you want--I don't believe you know yourself--I don't believe you realize what you're doing--you're too young to know. You're throwing away a rare, pure love, Indiana, as though it were a soiled ribbon. I'm not a man of the world, but I know what that means in life--you don't. It's all that counts in the long run. I don't say another man couldn't love you, but no one will ever love you better--remember that, won't you? And that mine is not a love which has sprung up suddenly--it has taken deep roots in my life."

"It's horrible to think I could hurt anyone like that," repeated Indiana, mechanically, looking at the scar on his forehead.

"That's the least. Think of the wound here," he repeated. "You could heal it, Indiana." He opened his arms. He might have won her by his very insistence, if it were not that the idea of another--a different life from what she had known--had shed its glamour upon her, the glamour of the new and strange. She would not trust herself to look at his dark, quivering face, but turned away and mounted the stairs, slowly, to her room, seeing him very clearly as she went, standing with his arms extended.

Later, Mrs. Stillwater found Glen sitting alone on the balcony, looking vacantly on the lake. He did not notice her, until she went up to him, putting her arm about his neck.

"What's the matter, Glen?"

"Indy won't have me--"

"You've asked her, then?"

Glen nodded.

"I'm so sorry, so sorry." She smoothed his hair gently. "I've always hoped it would be--some day."

"I haven't given--up--hope--yet," he said, doggedly.

She kept smoothing his hair, until Lord Canning joined them. Then Glen rose abruptly and went up to his room.

"Our young hero seems depressed," said Lord Canning, quietly.

"It's about Indiana," replied Mrs. Stillwater, very much distressed.

"He's a fine fellow, but, if you'll pardon me for saying so, Mrs. Stillwater, he's not the right husband for your daughter."

"He understands her better than a stranger would. He'd get along with her, I'm sure."

"Is it so difficult to get along with her?" enquired Lord Canning.

"Oh, I didn't mean that," replied Mrs. Stillwater, quickly. "There's no one more lovable and easy, if she's studied."

"What do you think of me as a husband for your daughter?" said Lord Canning, quietly.

"Lord Canning, you're not in earnest?"

"Why not? I should like to take my place in the matrimonial competition, if you have no objection."

She looked at him, standing there with such apparent composure. "What objection could I have to a man like you? But, I'm not the one to be consulted. Whatever Indy decides, I must be satisfied with. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

"Mrs. Stillwater, the idea is evidently disagreeable to you?"

"Oh no, not at all. But Indiana's so young, and you live so far away--and she is so unfit to be alone--without us. But don't consider me--I have nothing whatever to say."

"I had a pressing correspondence to-day, Lord Canning," said Stillwater, emerging upon the balcony. His wife put her hand on his shoulder.

"Father! Father!"

"Well, mother, what is it?"

"Lord Canning wants to marry Indy?"

"Does he?" asked Stillwater, composedly. "Too bad--too bad."

His wife sighed heavily, and was on the point of leaving them, when Lord Canning took her hand, looking sympathetically into her eyes. "Why not stay and help me out?"

"Oh, I really must go--Indy's waiting for me. I never let anyone do anything for her. I always lay out her dresses, and brush her hair, and wait on her. She gets cross if I don't--and I love to do it."

"You don't approve of me, Mrs. Stillwater?"

"I do," she answered, tremulously. "I like you very much--you're such a nice, modest man for your position. Will you--" she hesitated, he still held her hand, looking inquiringly into her eyes, "will you wait a while and think it over before you ask Indy?"

"I have waited and thought it over well," replied Lord Canning, in a very decided tone. "I know this is very unusual, but, for the life of me, I couldn't ask a young woman to marry me until I was sure I would be acceptable to her parents."

"You are, you are," assured Mrs. Stillwater, quickly, "but it will be a great trial to lose her--that's what I was thinking of--only that." The tears rushed to her eyes. She turned and mounted the stairs, hastily.

"Mother is naturally upset when she thinks of Indy getting married," said Stillwater, who had been gravely listening.

"Naturally," agreed Lord Canning. "Suppose we walk down to the lake," he added, with an Englishman's dislike of being overheard.

"Marrying young runs in our family," remarked Stillwater, as they descended the steps. "My wife was sixteen, when she married, and grandma only fifteen. There's always somebody turning up, wanting to marry Indiana. But she's never been serious about anyone, I'm happy to say."

Lord Canning looked meditatively upon the ground, pushing, with the tip of his shoe, the thick layer of pine needles. Finally he looked up, smiling. "If I could make her serious about me, would you object?"

"Why should I?" asked Stillwater, dryly. "I don't have to live with you."

"Oh, no," replied Lord Canning, accepting the remark in a serious sense, "there's no possible necessity for it." Stillwater gave an involuntary chuckle, and, seating himself on a rustic bench built between two trees, offered his would-be son-in-law a cigar. "I ought to feel very much honored, Lord Canning, but I haven't reached that stage of imperialism, although my mother-in-law is a fiend on that subject. American women generally are. They're natural imperialists. They head a despotic monarchy at home." He laughed heartily, while his guest surveyed him gravely, lighting his cigar.

"Mr. Stillwater, I hope you do not consider my title against me?"

"Oh, not at all, not at all," smoking, in a very comfortable position. "It might help you with Indiana. It would be a new fad for her. You know we all have our fads. It's a good thing for us, too. Personally I like you. I like you very much. But--er--" he hesitated, studying the lake. There was plainly something on his mind which he considered should be said. Finally he rose, placing his hand kindly on Lord Canning's shoulder. "I want to give you a quiet piece of advice, and if you don't take it I want you to consider it as never having been said--will you?"

"I will, sir," said Lord Canning, gravely.

"Don't marry my daughter!"

"Why?"

"It'll never pan out. Your ways are not her ways; her thoughts and your thoughts are as far apart as--as if she spoke Chinese and you Pennsylvania Dutch."

"Mr. Stillwater, I am not easily frightened. The more difficulties I encounter, the more determined I am to win."