The Missourian Part 79

The spell was broken. Her pounding heart had vent in a nervous laugh of raillery. She touched her horse with the riding crop in her gauntleted hand. Somehow she would not leave that dumb brute, the horse, in peace.

Driscoll's old Demijohn, however, was used to the game by now. He pointed his ears, and checkmated that last move by bringing his master once more to the lady's side.

"You used to," she went on, as though there had been no interruption, "nicely. You were of an interest then. In fact, I reck-_on_--I know no one that I had rather have quarreled with."

But still he would not, though that "reckon" from her lips was most alluring. She stole a mischievous glance at his face, but the fixed look there made her lift _her_ hand toward _him_. Perhaps, if he had seen and had spoken then--But he did see.

"Eh bien, since monsieur won't fight, won't, _won't_," she cried, "then it's more fun to----"

Evidently to seek livelier company. For she wheeled the mustang, swerved from a grasp at her bridle, and went galloping back to the coach. He twisted in his saddle, pushed his sombrero higher on his head, and dubiously watched her flying from him, a lithe, trim figure in snug Hungarian jacket, the burnished tendrils fluttering on the nape of her neck, the soft white veil trailing like a fleecy cloud from her black _amazona_ hat. He bent a perplexed gaze to the road. "It's 'way, 'way beyond me," he told himself. Then he grew aware of a sense of warmth on his forearm. Yes, he remembered. For an instant she had laid a hand on his sleeve, and he had thrilled to the ineffable token of nestling. He was never immune from her tantalizing contradictions. He felt this one yet.

Hoofs pounded behind, and Mr. Boone drew up alongside. "She came back, and made me get away from the coach," he announced. "Prob'bly she wanted to cry some; she looked it."

Yet another of her contradictions!

"Then why in the nation," Driscoll demanded, "do you keep hanging round that coach for? Look here Shanks, you make me plum' weary. The idea of you falling in----"

"No more'n you, you innocent gamboling lamb of an ol' blatherskite." But Daniel's steel blue eyes had softened to their gentlest. "Say Jack," he added, "she's going back to Paris."

"Don't I know it? Lord A'mighty!"

"Go on, never mind me," said Mr. Boone. "Groan out loud, if you want to.

For she sho'ly is, yes, back to Paris. Now Buh'the"--The Troubadour's _r's_ always liquefied dreamily with that name--"Buh'the has been telling me a few things, and I'm sure reporter enough to scout out the rest of the story, and it's just this--Jack, she's fair broken-hearted."

"Miss Burt?"

"No, no, the marchioness. She staked out a campaign over here, and it's panned out all wrong, and it wasn't her fault either. Poor girl, no wonder she might like to cry a little. She's lavished everything she had on it too, ancestral chateau, and all that."

"But," said Driscoll quickly "she'll not suffer. There's her t.i.tle----"

"t.i.tle?" exclaimed Daniel. "W'y, she's going to give that up too, not having any chateau any more, and she'll trip blithely down among the people again, where she says it's more comfortable anyhow. t.i.tle? Well, you've suhtinly noticed that she always did take that humorously. Her grandfather--Buh'the says--was right considerable of a jurist, used scissors and paste, and helped make a sc.r.a.p-book called the Napoleonic code, and Nap the First changed him into a picayunish duke. But wasn't the n.o.bility of intellect there already? Sho'ly! Miss Jacqueline, though, likes the father of her grandfather the best. He never was n.o.ble, technically I mean. His was the n.o.bility of heart, and he'd have scorned to be tagged. He just baked bread, and fed most half of Saint Antoine for nothing at times, while the Dauphin at Versailles was throwing cakes to the swans. Howsoever," Mr. Boone added hastily, as sop to his softness for princes, "I reckon that there Dauphin was n.o.ble too.

Both of 'em fed the hungry mouths that were nearest."

"But," demanded Driscoll, "doesn't her t.i.tle carry some sort of a--a compensation?"

"Not a red sou. The majorat--that's the male line--died out with her father, which means that the annuity died out too."

"W'y, Great Scot, she's----"

"She's tired and disheartened, that's what she is, and she's going back to Paris, and you--" Boone paused, and glared at his companion, "--and you mean to let her!"

Old Demijohn felt a spur kicked against his flank, and he lifted his fore feet and sped as the wind. It was fully an hour later when Meagre Shanks caught up with horse and rider again. Rather, he met them coming back. His conversation was guileless, at first.

"Do you know, Din," he began, "those two girls are only half educated?

Yes sir, gastronomically, they are positively illiterate, and it's a shame! W'y, they don't know hot biscuits and mola.s.ses. They don't know b.u.t.termilk. They don't know yams. Nor paw-paws, nor persimmons. They don't even know watermelon. Now isn't France a backward place?"

"Don't, Shanks!" Driscoll begged. "You'll have me heading for Missouri in a minute. You didn't, uh, mention peach cobbler?"

"_And_ peach cobbler, big as an acre covered with snow. And just think, it's roastin' ea'ah time up there now, _now_!" How Daniel's voice did mellow under a tender sentiment! "And to think," he went on, "of the marchioness living on in such ignorance! It's a thing that's just got to be remedied, Jack."

"Then suppose you take her to Missouri," growled his friend, "and let me alone."

"_I_ take _her_? Oh come now, Din, I see I've got to tell you something which is--" The Troubadour's accents grew low and fond, and the other man respected them, with something between a smile and a sigh for his own case. "Which is--well, n.o.body's noticed it, but the fact is that Buh'the, that Miss Buh'the----"

"Dan," interrupted Driscoll severely, "you're not going to tell me any secret. You mean that you weren't mistaken when you mistook her for a queen."

"That--that's it!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Daniel. "Of coh'se," he added soothingly, "the other one is a--a mighty nice girl, but----"

"Oh, _is_ she? But Miss Burt is _the_ one you want to take to Missouri? Well Dan, why don't you?"

"Because," was the doleful reply, "those two are just like orphan sisters together, and--well, she won't desert. She _is_ a queen, by G.o.d, sir! Miss Jacqueline might make her, but I haven't got the heart to ask it. Now, uh, if--if you would just bring along the other one?"

So, here was the goal of all of Daniel's manoeuvering!

Driscoll cast a leg over the pommel of his saddle, and faced Boone squarely. "Shanks," he demanded with tense vehemence, "do you suppose I need your woes for a prod? Don't you know how much--Lord A'mighty, how much!--I'd like to oblige you? But--she won't let me--even speak.

There's, there's something the matter."

Boone's lank jaw fell. "What, I wonder?"

"And don't I wonder too?" Driscoll muttered savagely. "But it's _something_."

From which moment until the end of the journey, and afterward, there were two men who pondered on what could be the trouble with Jacqueline.

But while one pondered gloomily and fiercely and with a semi-comic grin under the lash, the other let perplexity delve and ferret into the mystery. For Mr. Boone had grown aware that an enormous heap of happiness for four depended on himself alone.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE JOURNALISTIC SAGACITY OF A DANIEL

"Ah, my Beloved, fill the cup that clears To-day of past Regret and future Fears."

_--Omar._

At last Jacqueline stabbed a dot after the word "Finis," and so rounded out her chapter on "Failure." Beyond doubt that tiny punctuation point saved many lives. The besiegers were waxing impatient to a.s.sault, and within the City famine mobs ran the streets, crying, "Corn and wood!

Corn and wood!" Those who could fled to the Republican camp. The Austrians practically mutinied. Starving and dying thousands clamored for surrender. Yet the ugly, revolting pigmy who was lieutenant of the Empire held them back in the terror of his heartless cruelty.

Then the angel of mercy came. From her Marquez the tyrant learned that his speculation in treachery had collapsed. Louis Napoleon wanted no more of that stock. Besides, every French bayonet was needed in France.

The rabid Leopard heard, and that night meanly crept away to save his own loathsome pelt. Bombs had begun to fall into the City, when a Mexican general worthier of the name took upon himself the heroic shame of unconditional surrender. The Oaxacans outside marched in, led by their young chief, Porfirio Diaz, and they fed the people, and of "traitors" shot only a moderate few.

Renovation became the order of the days that followed. The President of the Republic was to be welcomed back to his capital. The stubborn old patriot's heart must be gladdened by every contrast to the dreary, rainy night years before when he fled into exile. Mexico would honor herself in honoring the Benemerito of America. So bunting was spread over every facade, along every cornice, green, white, and red, a festival lichen of magic growth. Flags cracked and snapped aloft, and lace curtains decked the outside of windows. Soldiers put on shoes and canvased their brown hands in white cotton gloves, and military bands rehea.r.s.ed tirelessly.

Din Driscoll sat on a bench in the shady Zocalo, and contemplated the Palacio Nacional and the Cathedral in process of changing sides from Empire to Republic. Innumerable lanterns being hung along their ma.s.sive outlines were for incense to a G.o.ddess restored. The Mexican eagle had prevailed over monarchial griffins, and held her serpent safely in the way of being throttled. The blunt homely visage of Don Benito Juarez, luxuriously framed, looked out from over the Palace entrance. It was a huge portrait, surrounded by the national standards. Among the emblems there was one other, the Stars and Stripes. The gaze of the ex-Confederate was fixed. It was fixed steadily on the Stars and Stripes. Now and then he felt a rising in his throat, which he had difficulty to swallow down again.

"Well, Jack?"

Boone stood over him. Driscoll's eyes were oddly troubled as they turned from that flag opposite.