A Prairie Infanta Part 8

Jane was gazing at the girl. She knew well with what force the blow so long averted had fallen at last. In her own breast she seemed to feel the pain with which Lola had received her father's revelations.

"Lola," she cried, leaning forward, "don't feel so, my lamb! I'm sorry you had to know this. I tried hard to keep it from you. But it's all out now, and you must try to bear it. Your father don't realize--he hasn't meant to hurt you. He's fond of you, dearie. And he's going to take you to foreign lands, and you can see all the great pictures and statues, and have a chance to learn all the things you spoke of--designing and such. Don't look so, my child!"

Mr. Keene began to feel highly uncomfortable. Evidently, in his own phrase, he had "put his foot into it;" he had said too much. He had disclosed fallacies in himself of which Lola, it seemed, knew nothing.

And now Lola, who had received him with such flattering warmth, was turning her face away and looking strange and stern and stricken.

Nor did Miss Combs seem fairly to have grasped the liberality of his intentions. She, too, had a curious air of not being exalted in any way by so much good fortune. She appeared to be engaged solely in trying to reconcile Lola to a situation which Mr. Keene considered dazzling.

Altogether it was very disturbing, especially to a man who did not understand what he had done to bring about so unpleasant a turn. He was about to ask some explanation, when Lola said slowly, "And you, _tia_, you have done so much for me that you have nothing left? Is that so?"

"I don't need much, Lola. I'll be all right. Don't you worry."

"You won't mind living here alone and poor?"

"She won't be poor, Lola," interpolated Mr. Keene. "Haven't I said so?

And you can come and see her, you know. Everything will come out all right."

Lola turned a little toward him, and he was glad to see that her eyes were soft and gentle and that the stern look had disappeared. "Yes,"

she said, "it will come out all right for tia, because I shall be here to see that it does."

She caught her breath and added, "You couldn't think I should be willing to go away and leave her like this? Even if I hadn't heard how much more she has done for me than I dreamed? For I have been ignorant till now of many things; but I shouldn't have forgotten that she loved me and had reared me and cared for me when there was no one else. No, father, no! And now that you have let me find out what I owe her, do you think I sha'n't remember it always with every beat of my heart? Oh, yes--although I can never repay her for all she has suffered in keeping me from knowing things which would have hurt me too much when I was little and--and could not make allowances--as I can now. My home is here. My heart is here, father. You must let me stay!"

She had taken Jane's hand and was holding it closely--that happy hand which for very blessedness and amazement trembled more than her own.

And so holding it, she cried, "_Tia_, you want me to stay, don't you?

Say yes! Tell him I may stay! It is my home where you are. And oh, how different I will be!"

Jane, listening, could only press those slender, clinging fingers in speechless comfort, and look up silently into the imploring eyes of her child--eyes filled with tears and love. A moment of silence ensued.

Then, clearing his throat suddenly, Mr. Keene rose and walked to the window.

"Lola," he said presently, turning to face the two others, "I don't blame you one bit. Miss Jane's done a heap more for you than I had any notion. 'Tisn't only that she's done all you say, but she's raised you to be a girl I'm proud of--a right-minded, right-hearted girl. I never thought how it would look for you to be willing to rush off at the first word and leave behind you the person you owed most to in the world! But I'm free to say I wouldn't have liked it when I come to think of it. I wouldn't have felt proud of you like I do now. Knocking around the foot-hills has shaken me up pretty well, but I know what's right as well as any man. There's things in my life I'd like to forget; but they say it's never too late to mend. And I have hopes of myself when I see what a n.o.ble girl my daughter's turned out."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'TIA, YOU ARE A LADY OF FORTUNE!'"]

He put his handkerchief away and came and stood before them, adding, "I haven't had a chance to finish my other story. When Miss Jane gave me that grub-stake she didn't know, I reckon, that half of anything I might strike would belong to her--that in law, grub-stakes always means halves! But I never had any intention of not dealing fair and square.

So when I said she wasn't going to be poor, I meant it! For half 'the Little Lola' belongs to her. And if she's willing, I'll just run the mine for the next year or so, and after that we can talk about traveling."

Mr. Keene, during the past hour, had been made sensible of certain deficiencies in himself. No one had accused him or reproached him, yet he felt chagrined as he saw his own conduct forcibly contrasted with the conduct of a different sort. But now, as his daughter sent a beaming glance toward him, his spirits rose again, and he began once more to regard himself hopefully, as a man who, despite some failings, was honest in the main, and generous and well-meaning.

"Oh, how glad I am!" said Lola. "_Tia, tia_, do you hear? You are a lady of fortune and must have a velvet gown! And, oh, _tia_, a tall, silver comb in your hair!" She dropped a sudden kiss down upon the smooth, brown bands, and added in a deeper tone, "But nothing, nothing, can make you better or dearer!"

Jane smiled uncertainly as if she were in a dream. Could this unlooked-for, bewildering satisfaction be indeed real, and not a visionary thing which would presently fade? She looked about. There was actuality in the scene. The cottonwoods rustled crisply, Alejandro Vigil was calling to his dog, and the tinkle of his herd stole softly upon her ear. The great hills rose majestic as of old upon the glorious western sky; the plains stretched off in silvery, sea-like waves to the very verge of the world. And hard by many a familiar thing spoke of a past which she knew; pots of geraniums, muslin shades and open piano.

There, too, was Mr. Keene, sitting at ease in his chair; there was Lola, bending over her in smiling rea.s.surance. And finally, there was Tesuque himself regarding her from his shelf in an Olympian calm which no merely mortal emotion could touch or stir. Tesuque's little bowl was still empty, but in his adobe glance Jane suddenly grew aware how truly her own cup overflowed.

[THE END]