The Silver Horde Part 19

"No," he replied, "I can't let you do that. Not yet, anyhow. Mr. Wayland is right, in a way. If he had not been so decent I would have married you anyhow, but I am indebted to him. He has shown me a lot more of your life than I knew before, and he has made his word good. I am going to ask you to wait, however; for quite a while, it may be. I am going to take a gambler's chance."

"What is it?"

"A gold strike has been made in Alaska--"

"Alaska!"

"Yes! The Klondike. You have read of it? I am told that the chances there are like those in the days of '49, and I am going."

So it was that he had made his choice, fixing his own time for returning, and so it was that Mildred Wayland had awaited him.

If to-day, after three years of deprivation, she seemed to him more beautiful than ever--the interval having served merely to enhance her charm and strengthen the yearning of his heart--she seemed in the same view still further removed from his sphere. More reserved, more dignified, in the reserve of developed womanhood, her cession was the more gracious and wonderful.

His story finished, Boyd went on to tell her vaguely of his future plans, and at the last he asked her, with something less than an accepted lover's confidence:

"Will you wait another year?"

She laughed lightly. "You dear boy, I am not up for auction. This is not the 'third and last call.' I am not sure I could induce anybody to take me, even if I desired."

"I read the rumor of your engagement in a back number of a San Francisco paper. Is your retinue as large as ever?"

She smiled indifferently. "It alters with the season, but I believe the general average is about the same. You know most of them." She mentioned a number of names, counting them off on her finger-tips. "Then, of course, there are the old standbys, Mr. Macklin, Tommy Turner, the Lawton boys--"

"And Alton Clyde!"

"To be sure; little Alton, like the brook, runs on forever. He still wors.h.i.+ps you, Boyd, by the way."

"And there are others?"

"A few."

"Who?"

"n.o.body you know."

"Any one in particular?" Boyd demanded, with a lover's insistence.

Miss Wayland's hesitation was so brief as almost to escape his notice.

"n.o.body who counts. Of course, father has his predilections and insists upon engineering my affairs in the same way he would float a railroad enterprise, but you can imagine how romantic the result is."

"Who is the favored party?" the young man asked, darkly. But she arose to push back the heavy draperies and gaze for a moment out into the deepening twilight. When she answered, it was in a tone of ordinary indifference.

"Really it isn't worth discussing. I shall not marry until I am ready, and the subject bores me." An instant later she turned to regard him with direct eyes.

"Do you remember when I offered to give it all up and go with you, Boyd?"

"I have never forgotten for an instant,"

"You refused to allow it."

"Certainly! I had seen too much of your life, and my pride figured a bit, also."

"Do you still feel the same way?" Her eyes searched his face rather anxiously.

"I do! It is even more impossible now than then. I am utterly out of touch with this environment. My work will take me back where you could not go-- into a land you would dislike, among a people you could not understand.

No; we did quite the sensible thing."

She sighed gratefully and settled upon the window-seat, her back to the light. "I am glad you feel that way. I--I--think I am growing more sensible too. I have begun to understand how practical father was, and how ridiculous I was. Perhaps I am not so impulsive--you see, I am years older now--perhaps I am more selfish. I don't know which it is and--I can't express my feelings, but I have had sufficient time since you went away to think and to look into my own soul. Really I have become quite introspective. Of course, my feeling for you is just the same as it was, dear, but I--I can't--" She waved a graceful hand to indicate her surroundings. "Well, this is my world, and I am a part of it. You understand, don't you? The thought of giving it up makes me really afraid.

I don't like rough things." She shook herself and gave voice to a delicious, bubbling little laugh. "I am frightfully spoiled." Emerson drew her to him tenderly.

"My darling, I understand perfectly, and I love you too well to take you away from it all; but you will wait for me, won't you?"

"Of course," she replied, quickly. "As long as you wish."

"But I am going to have you!" he cried, insistently. "You are going to be my wife," He repeated the words softly, reverently: "My wife."

She gazed up at him with a puzzled little frown. "What bothers me is that you understand me and my life so well, while I scarcely understand you or yours at all. That seems to tell me that I am unsuited to you in some way.

Why, when you told me that story of your hards.h.i.+ps and all that, I listened as if it were a play or a book, but really it didn't _mean_ anything to me or stir me as it should. I can't understand my own failure to understand. That awful country, those barbarous people, the suffering, the cold, the snow, the angry sea; I don't grasp what they mean. I was never cold, or hungry, or exhausted. I--well, it is fascinating to hear about, because you went through it, but _why_ you did it, how you _felt_"--she made a gesture as if at a loss for words. "Do you see what I am trying to convey?"

"Perfectly," he answered, releasing her with a little unadmitted sense of disappointment at his heart. "I suppose it is only natural."

"I do hope you succeed this time," she continued. "I am growing deadly tired of things. Not tired of waiting for you, but I am getting to be old; I am, indeed. Why, at times I actually have an inclination to do fancy- work--the unfailing symptom. Do you realize that I am _twenty-five years old!_"

"Age of decrepitude! And more glorious than any woman in the world!" he cried.

There was a click outside the library door, and the room, which unnoticed by them had become nearly dark, was suddenly flooded with light. The portieres parted, and Wayne Wayland stood in the opening.

"Ah, here you are, my boy! Hawkins told me you had returned."

He advanced to shake the young man's hand, his demeanor gracious and hearty. "Welcome home. You have been having quite a vacation, haven't you?

Let's see, it's two years, isn't it?"

"Three years!" Emerson replied.

"Impossible! Dear, dear, how time flies when one is busy."

"Boyd has been telling me of his adventures," said Mildred. "He is going to dine with us."

"Indeed." Mr. Wayland displayed no great degree of enthusiasm. "And have you returned, like Pizarro, laden with all the gold of the Incas? Or did Pizarro return? It seems to me that he settled somewhere on the Coast."

The old man laughed at his own conceit.

"I judge Pizarro was a better miner than I," Boyd smiled. "There were plenty of Esquimau princes whom I might have held for ransom, but if I had done so, all the rest of the tribe would have come to board with them."

"Have you come home to stay?"

"No, sir; I shall return in a few weeks."

Mr. Wayland's cordiality seemed to increase in some subtle manner.