Gordon Keith Part 23

She walked up and extended her hand to him with the most perfect friendliness, adding, with a laugh as natural as a child's:

"We'll have to be friends; Uncle Tim says you're a white man, and that's more than some he brings over the road these days are."

"Yes, I hope so. You are Mr. Gilsey's nieces I am glad to meet you"

The young woman burst out laughing.

"Lor', _no_. I ain't anybody's niece; but he's my uncle--I've adopted _him_. I'm Terpy--Terpsich.o.r.e, run Terpsich.o.r.e's Hall," she said by way of explanation, as if she thought he might not understand her allusion.

Keith's breath was almost taken away. Why, she was not at all like the picture he had formed of her. She was a neat, quiet-looking young woman, with a fine figure, slim and straight and supple, a melodious voice, and laughing gray eyes.

"You must come and see me. We're to have a blow-out to-night. Come around. I'll introduce you to the boys. I've got the finest ball-room in town--just finished--and three fiddles. We christen it to-night. Goin'

to be the biggest thing ever was in Gumbolt."

Keith awoke from his daze.

"Thank you, but I am afraid I'll have to ask you to excuse me," he said.

"Why?" she inquired simply.

"Because I can't come. I am not much of a dancer."

She looked at him first with surprise and then with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Are you a Methodist preacher?"

"No."

"Salvation?"

"No."

"I thought, maybe, you were like Tib Drummond, the Methodist, what's always a-preachin' ag'in' me." She turned to the storekeeper. "What do you think he says? He says he won't come and see me, and he ain't a preacher nor Salvation Army neither. But he will, won't he?"

"You bet," said the man, peeping up with a grin from behind a barrel.

"If he don't, he'll be about the only one in town who don't."

"No," said Keith, pleasantly, but firmly. "I can't go."

"Oh, yes, you will," she laughed. "I'll expect you. By-by"; and she walked out of the store with a jaunty air, humming a song about the "iligint, bauld McIntyres."

The "blow-out" came off, and was honored with a column in the next issue of the Whistle--a column of reeking eulogy. But Keith did not attend, though he heard the wheezing of fiddles and the shouting and stamping of Terpsich.o.r.e's guests deep into the night.

Keith was too much engrossed for the next few days in looking about him for work and getting himself as comfortably settled as possible to think of anything else.

If, however, he forgot the "only decent-looking woman in Gumbolt," she did not forget him. The invitation of a sovereign is equivalent to a command the world over; and Terpsich.o.r.e was as much the queen regnant of Gumbolt as Her Majesty, Victoria, was Queen of England, or of any other country in her wide realm. She was more; she was absolute. She could have had any one of a half-dozen men cut the throat of any other man in Gumbolt at her bidding.

The mistress of the "Dancing Academy" had not forgotten her boast. The inst.i.tution over which she presided was popular enough almost to justify her wager. There were few men of Keith's age in Gumbolt who did not attend its sessions and pay their tribute over the green tables that stretched along the big, low room.

In fact, Miss Terpsich.o.r.e was not of that cla.s.s that forget either friends or foes; whatever she was she was frankly and outspokenly. Mr.

Plume informed Keith that she was "down on him."

"She's got it in for you," he said. "Says she's goin' to drive you out of Gumbolt."

"Well, she will not," said Keith, with a flash in his eye.

"She is a good friend and a good foe," said the editor. "Better go and offer a pinch of incense to Diana. She is worth cultivating. You ought to see her dance."

Keith, however, had made his decision. A girl with eyes like dewy violets was his Diana, and to her his incense was offered.

A day or two later Keith was pa.s.sing down the main street, when he saw the young woman crossing over at the corner ahead of him, stepping from one stone to another quite daintily. She was holding up her skirt, and showed a very neat pair of feet in perfectly fitting boots. At the crossing she stopped. As Keith pa.s.sed her, he glanced at her, and caught her eye fastened on him. She did not look away at all, and Keith inclined his head in recognition of their former meeting.

"Good morning," she said.

"Good morning." Keith lifted his hat and was pa.s.sing on.

"Why haven't you been to see me?" she demanded.

Keith pretended not to hear.

"I thought I invited you to come and see me?"

Still, Keith did not answer, but he paused. His head was averted, and he was waiting until she ceased speaking to go on.

Suddenly, to his surprise, she bounded in front of him and squared her straight figure right before him.

"Did you hear what I said to you?" she demanded tempestuously.

"Yes."

"Then why don't you answer me?" Her gaze was fastened on his face. Her cheeks were flushed, her voice was imperative, and her eyes flashed.

"Because I didn't wish to do so," said Keith, calmly.

Suddenly she flamed out and poured at him a torrent of vigorous oaths.

He was so taken by surprise that he forgot to do anything but wonder, and his calmness evidently daunted her.

"Don't you know that when a lady invites you to come to see her, you have to do it?"

"I have heard that," said Keith, beginning to look amused.

"You have? Do you mean to say Tam not a lady?"

"Well, from your conversation, I might suppose you were a man," said Keith, half laughing.

"I will show you that I am man enough for you. Don't you know I am the boss of this town, and that when I tell you to do a thing you have to obey me?"

"No; I do not know that," said Keith. "You may be the boss of this town, but I don't have to obey you."