The Battle Ground Part 25

"Not all the way," replied Betty, slowly.

"Who was with you? Champe?"

"No, not Champe--Dan," said Betty, stooping to unfasten her boots.

Virginia was pinning a red verbena in her hair, and she turned to catch a side view of her face.

"Do you know I really believe Dan likes you best," she carelessly remarked.

"I asked him the other afternoon what colour hair he preferred, and he snapped out, 'red' as suddenly as that. Wasn't it funny?"

For a moment Betty did not speak; then she came over and stood beside her sister.

"Would you mind if he liked me better than you, dear?" she asked, doubtfully. "Would you mind the least little bit?"

Virginia laughed merrily and stooped to kiss her.

"I shouldn't mind if every man in the world liked you better," she answered gayly. "If they only had as much sense as I've got, they would, foolish things."

"I never knew but one who did," returned Betty, "and that was the Major."

"But Champe, too."

"Well, perhaps,--but Champe's afraid of you. He calls you Penelope, you know, because of the 'wooers.' We counted six horses at the portico yesterday, and he made a bet with me that all of them belonged to the 'wooers'--and they really did, too."

"Oh, but wooing isn't winning," laughed Virginia, going toward the door.

"You'd better hurry, Betty, supper's ready. I wouldn't touch my hair, if I were you, it looks just lovely." Her white skirts fluttered across the dimly lighted hall, and in a moment Betty heard her soft step on the stair.

Two days later Betty told Dan good-by with smiling lips. He rode over in the early morning, when she was in the garden gathering loose rose leaves to scatter among her clothes. There had been a sharp frost the night before, and now as it melted in the slanting sun rays, Miss Lydia's summer flowers hung blighted upon their stalks. Only the gay October roses were still in their full splendour.

"What an early Betty," said Dan, coming up to her as she stood in the wet gra.s.s beside one of the quaint rose squares. "You are all dewy like a flower."

"Oh, I had breakfast an hour ago," she answered, giving him her moist hand to which a few petals were clinging.

"Ye G.o.ds! have I missed an hour? Why, I expected to sit waiting on the door-step until you had had your sleep out."

"Don't you know if you gather rose leaves with the dew on them, their sweetness lasts twice as long?" asked Betty.

"So you got up to gather ye rosebuds, after all, and not to wish me G.o.d speed?" he said despondently.

"Well, I should have been up anyway," replied Betty, frankly. "This is the loveliest part of the day, you know. The world looks so fresh with the first frost over it--only the poor silly summer flowers take cold and die."

"If you weren't a rose, you'd take cold yourself," remarked Dan, pointing, with his riding-whip, to the hem of her dimity skirt. "Don't stand in the gra.s.s like that, you make me s.h.i.+ver."

"Oh, the sun will dry me," she laughed, stepping from the path to the bare earth of the rose bed. "Why, when you get well into the suns.h.i.+ne it feels like summer." She talked on merrily, and he, paying small heed to what she said, kept his ardent look upon her face. His joy was in her bright presence, in the beauty of her smile, in the kind eyes that shone upon him.

Speech meant so little when he could put out his arm and touch her if he dared.

"I am going away in an hour, Betty," he said, at last.

"But you will be back again at Christmas."

"At Christmas! Heavens alive! You speak as if it were to-morrow."

"Oh, but time goes very quickly, you know."

Dan shook his head impatiently. "I dare say it does with you," he returned, irritably, "but it wouldn't if you were as much in love as I am."

"Why, you ought to be used to it by now," urged Betty, mercilessly. "You were in love last year, I remember."

"Betty, don't punish me for what I couldn't help. You know I love you."

"Oh, no," said Betty, nervously plucking rose leaves. "You have been too often in love before, my good Dan."

"But I was never in love with you before," retorted Dan, decisively.

She shook her head, smiling. "And you are not in love with me now," she replied, gravely. "You have found out that my hair is pretty, or that I can mix a pudding; but I do not often let down my hair, and I seldom cook, so you'll get over it, my friend, never fear."

He flushed angrily. "And if I do not get over it?" he demanded.

"If you do not get over it?" repeated Betty, trembling. She turned away from him, strewing a handful of rose leaves upon the gra.s.s. "Then I shall think that you value neither my hair nor my housekeeping," she added, lightly.

"If I swear that I love you, will you believe me, Betty?"

"Don't tempt my faith, Dan, it's too small."

"Whether you believe it or not, I do love you," he went on. "I may have been a fool now and then before I found it out, but you don't think that was falling in love, do you? I confess that I liked a pair of fine eyes or rosy cheeks, but I could laugh about it even while I thought it was love I felt. I can't laugh about being in love with you, Betty."

"I thank you, sir," replied Betty, saucily.

"When I saw you kneeling by the fire in free Levi's cabin, I knew that I loved you," he said, hotly.

"But I can't always kneel to you, Dan," she interposed.

He put her words impatiently aside, "and what's more I knew then that I had loved you all my life without knowing it," he pursued. "You may taunt me with fickleness, but I'm not fickle--I was merely a fool. It took me a long time to find out what I wanted, but I've found out at last, and, so help me G.o.d, I'll have it yet. I never went without a thing I wanted in my life."

"Then it will be good for you," responded Betty. "Shall I put some rose leaves into your pocket?" She spoke indifferently, but all the while she heard her heart singing for joy.

In the rage of his boyish pa.s.sion, he cut brutally at the flowers growing at his feet.

"If you keep this up, you'll send me to the devil!" he exclaimed.

She caught his hand and took the whip from his fingers. "Ah, don't hurt the poor flowers," she begged, "they aren't to blame."

"Who is to blame, Betty?"

She looked up wistfully into his angry face. "You are no better than a child, Dan," she said, almost sadly, "and you haven't the least idea what you are storming so about. It's time you were a man, but you aren't, you're just--"

"Oh, I know, I'm just a pampered poodle dog," he finished, bitterly.