Barbara Ladd Part 26

"What do you mean, Uncle Bob?"

"Forgive me, Barbe, if I speak plainly, these being times for plain speaking!" said Glenowen. "Truly, I can't understand a man who loves you being other than wax in your hands, you witch,--if you took the trouble to manage him. That may sound cynical, but I hope not. It's true. You owe Robert to our cause! We want him!"

Barbara looked down, her face scarlet and her lips quivering. Then she faced her uncle bravely.

"I begin to fear I want him for myself, as much as for the cause, Uncle Bob!" she confessed.

"It's not Cary Patten, then?" asked Glenowen.

Barbara smiled enigmatically. "Cary Patten is extremely charming!" she answered. "But do you know, Uncle Bob, if Robert is still in town?"

"I think," said Glenowen, "I can say with confidence that he will get away from the city to-morrow or next day,---for friends who love him, in our party, will let him know the danger of remaining! One must make such compromises sometimes, if one is a red-blooded human being and not a bloodless saint!"

"Uncle Bob, I'm afraid you will never be a Lucius Junius Brutus!" said Barbara.

"No, thank G.o.d!" cried Glenowen, with conviction.

"I'm so glad!" said Barbara, who was very human when she was not all woman. "Brutus was right, I think! But I've always hated him!"

Then she turned to her scrutoir and wrote a cool little note to Robert, asking him to come in and speak to her a moment the next morning.

At an hour almost unseemly Robert came, of course. And Barbara was gracious to him. As if there had been no estrangement, she talked frankly of Second Westings matters,--of Doctor John's service in the siege of Boston, of Doctor Jim's danger because of his opinions, of Mistress Mehitable's need of her presence at Westings House,--just as if they were Robert's concern as well as hers. The gladness came back to Robert's dark face, and for a moment he was forgetting the barrier between them.

"And what are you doing, Robert? Is it not becoming a little dangerous for you in New York now?" she asked, with gentle frankness.

"I am going away to-morrow, dearest lady," he answered, "lest your fiery Continentals tie me up!"

"And I go back to Second Westings next week! And you were going away without seeing me for good-bye?" asked Barbara, reproachfully. "Is this the Robert that used to say he loved me a little?"

Robert looked at her in silence. "I adore the very ground that your foot treads upon!" he said, presently, in a quiet voice.

"You love me just as much as you used to?" she inquired, almost wistfully.

"As much!" he exclaimed, with scorn. "More and more, every day I breathe. These months that you have treated me so cruelly have been h.e.l.l on earth. I don't see how I have lived through them."

"I, too, have not been very happy, Robert!" she acknowledged, softly.

"I believe I have needed you more than I thought. Do you know, I almost think I might learn to care a great deal--perhaps all that a woman can--if only, if _only_, dear Robert, there were not this dreadful barrier between us? Oh, if you knew how I long to have you in sympathy with the cause that all my heart is given to,--to talk it all over with you, to hope and plan and look forward with you, in comrades.h.i.+p and understanding! If you knew--but there, I see by your obstinate mouth it is no use. I might as well pour out my heart against a stone wall. _Nothing_ will soften you! _Nothing_ will convince you! Love me? _You_ love me? You have no heart at all in your breast! Nothing but a priggish theory!"

She burst into pa.s.sionate, disappointed tears, flung herself down on the sofa, and buried her face in the cus.h.i.+ons.

Robert was in an anguish. His mouth was drawn and white. Why should _he_ be called upon to face so hideous an alternative? Why must _he_ pay so appalling a price for loyalty, for fidelity, for honour? What was this bourgeois tyrant in England, that the price of loyalty to him should be the love of the woman who was dearer than heaven? Robert felt a fierce hatred of the man George of England, who was so unworthy of his kings.h.i.+p! He was mad to throw himself at Barbara's feet, and tell her all his life was hers to do as she would with, to offer his faith, loyalty, honour, a living sacrifice to her love, and bid her send him to fight under whatever flag she called hers! But--he held the madness in leash. The tough fibre of his will gave a little, but would not break. The drops stood out on his forehead. But all he said was:

"Beloved, beloved, I wors.h.i.+p you. You are all I can dream of womanhood. You are all of life, all of love, all of wonder and beauty that the world can show. There is nothing my soul can ever desire but you, you, you, wonderful one!" And he tried to take her hands from under her wet face.

Through her sobs, Barbara had listened eagerly for one word that might show a yielding. But there was no such word,--no sign that he even realised that she had been offering her love as the incalculable price that should purchase him to the service of his country. This infinitely precious price,--he spurned it, then! Angry mortification surged over her, mixed with a pain that clutched at her heart. The humiliation of it--and the loss! She sat up suddenly.

"Go, go, go!" she cried, pointing to the door. "I don't want to ever see you again. I hate you. I hate you. Go--at _once_!"

And then, as Robert made no move, and strove to plead once more, she sprang to her feet, darted from the room, and fled up-stairs. He heard her door close sharply,--like the cutting off of life, it seemed to him. And he went away, walking rather blindly, and fumbling for some moments at the hall door before he could find the latch. That same evening he left New York.

It was hours before Barbara was herself again, so Glenowen had to dine alone. Late in the afternoon, after having bathed her face back to presentability, she dressed to go out for a sharp walk. When her toilet was almost complete, word came up that Cary Patten was in the drawing-room.

Now it was at least six weeks since Cary had last attempted to make love to her, and in the meantime he had been altogether charming,--attentive, deferential, full of enthusiastic ambition, and vastly interesting in his large forecasts of what the thirteen colonies would do with independence when they got it. Barbara, therefore, had practically forgotten that he was ever in disgrace, and was unwilling to refuse him admittance, little though it suited her mood to see him.

She went down at once and received him cordially.

Cary was in a mood of triumphant excitement, dashed with romantic melancholy. He looked even straighter, taller, more broad-shouldered and high-mettled than usual. His goldy-brown short hair had a crisper curl, his candid blue eyes sparkled with joy and importance.

"Oh, I know! You needn't tell me!" cried Barbara, with hearty sympathy. "Only one thing in the world could make your face s.h.i.+ne as it does now, Cary! You are ordered to the front!"

"You've guessed it, sweet mistress!" he cried, in a voice whose boyish exultation would not be kept down. "My company is one of those chosen by the Committee of Safety to go north. We march _to-morrow_! In a few days we will be in the field--we shall be in the thick of it!"

"Oh, you are so fortunate, Cary!" responded Barbara. "Think what it must be to be just a woman, and have to stay at home gnawing one's heart, while others have the glorious joy of fighting for freedom!"

"Only one thing I need to make me happy as I go, sweet lady!" said he, his voice tender, pa.s.sionate, caressing. "It is bitter to leave you.

But I should go thrilling with happiness, to win fame that would make you proud, or to die willingly for my country,--if I might go wearing your favour, if I might go as--" but here he paused. Barbara's face was cold and discouraging.

There was a moment of strained silence. Barbara felt a harsh resentment at his persistence, and an added anger that it should be thrust upon her on this day when her heart was so bitter sore. "Yet,"

she was arguing with herself, "the poor boy does love me. And, unlike some others, he is going to fight on the right side, to shed his blood, perhaps, for the land of his birth. Why should I not be a little kind to him,--if he does not ask too much!" On a sudden generous and pitying, if misleading, impulse, she took a ribbon from her throat and gave it to him.

"There, boy," she said, gently, "take that, and don't ever say I was not good to you! May it be a charm to ward off the bullet and the steel!"

A glad light flashed into the lad's face. He went down on one knee and kissed the hem of her skirt, crying something inarticulately. Then he sprang up and seized her in his arms, and would have kissed her but that she wrenched herself free with some violence.

"How dare you!" she cried, stamping her foot.

Cary looked crestfallen and bewildered.

"But, Barbara," he protested, blundering in his confusion, "don't you love me? I thought--why--this dear ribbon--" and he held it out to her appealingly.

Barbara's anger faded on the instant. She saw that in desiring to be kind she had misled him. She held out her hand to him, and smiled, as she said:

"Oh, truly, I'm sorry if I seemed rude, Cary. Forgive me. But, you know, I _had_ to be rather hasty, or you would have kissed me. And I couldn't let you kiss me, Cary, even though you are going to the war!"

"Why not, dear heart?" persisted he. "Am I not going as your chosen cavalier? Have you not given me your favour?"

"Why, no--at least, not exactly that--" she stammered. "I thought you _knew_, Cary, that I don't love you one bit! I've told you so over and over again; and I've sent you away over and over again for bothering me about it when I had told you not to! But I do like you, ever so much.

And I shall think of you, away fighting bravely--as I know you will--for our sacred cause. And so, I gave you the ribbon--because--because--you said it would make you a little happier if you had something of the sort to take with you! Oh, please do try to understand, Cary!" And she twisted her hands in distress.

Cary Patten was too much of a boy not to show all the bitterness of his overthrow. He had been lifted up to the crest of triumph, and hurled down disastrously. He had believed, when Barbara gave him her token, that the victory, which his confident spirit had never doubted would be his at last, had come at this high moment of his career. He was not only desperately hurt, but sorely humbled. His mind worked rapidly, seeking explanations. One pa.s.sion after another chased itself over his transparent face; till at length Barbara saw his features grow harder and more mature than she had ever before seen them, and the poor little ribbon was crumpled ruthlessly in his grip.

"I understand!" he exclaimed, fiercely, a strident tone in his voice which was quite new to her. "It is that runaway Tory hound, that traitor Gault, that--" and here he choked. "If he has not already run away I shall settle the scoundrel to-night. I shall--"

"Silence, sir!" cut in Barbara. The tone, the look in her face, brought the mad boy to his senses like a drenching in cold water. He could have bitten off his tongue for the outburst.

"Mr. Gault _was_ my friend, and his name is ent.i.tled to respect in my presence!" she went on. "And he _is_ a _gentleman_! Of you I should have said the same thing--a few moments ago! Give me back my ribbon--what you have left of it, Mr. Patten!"

"Oh, no! no! Forgive me!" Cary was crying, in abject penitence, even while she spoke, at the same time thrusting the ribbon into his breast, as if he feared that Barbara would take it by force. "I was crazy mad, dear heart. I didn't know what I was saying. I take it all back. It was not so. I know he is a gentleman and a brave man, if he _is_ a traitor Tory. Surely you will forgive me, when you have broken my heart--Barbara."

While he was speaking Barbara had moved away to the other side of the table; but now, so dejected did he look, so humble, so repentant, and withal so wholesomely boyish, that her heart softened once more, and she came back.