She flashed her great eyes at him in superb anger.
"Love to me—he would not dare!" breathlessly. "I'm nothing to him, nothing to you—never shall be! Please remember that! Once I reach my aunt, neither of you need ever expect to see me again. I—I—" a strangling sob; she broke down and wept out her anger in a perfumed square of black-bordered cambric.
"Oh, pray, don't cry!" cried he, in distress. "I did not mean to make you angry, Miss West;" and then Leonora hastily dried her eyes and looked up at him.
"I'm not angry—really," she said. "Only—only, I want you to understand that you need not be angry with Captain Lancaster on my account. There's no use in your liking me and having a quarrel over me—no use at all."
"No one has quarreled," he answered, in a tone of chagrin and bitter disappointment.
"Not yet, of course," she replied shaking her head gravely. "But you know you spoke to him very aggravatingly just now."
"I merely used a quotation from Shakespeare," he retorted.
The bright eyes looked him through and through with their clear gaze.
"Yes, but there was a double meaning in it. I am sure he understood all that you meant to convey. I should think that when you meet him again he will knock you down for it."
"You are charmingly frank, but you are right. I do not doubt but that he will—if he can," he replied, bitterly.
Leonora measured the medium-sized figure critically with her eyes.
"I should think there could be no doubt on the subject," she observed. "He is twice as big as you are."
"Why do women all admire big, awkward giants?" asked he, warmly.
"We do not," sharply.
"Oh, Miss West, there's no use denying it. There are a dozen men in the Guards better looking than Lancaster, yet not one so much run after by the women; all because he is a brawny-fisted Hercules," crossly.
"Captain Lancaster is your friend, isn't he?" with a curling lip.
"He was before I saw you. He is not my friend if he is my rival," said De Vere, with frankness equal to her own.
The round cheeks grew crimson again.
"Put me out of the question. I am nothing to either of you—never can be," she said. "You have been friends, haven't you?"
"Yes," curtly.
"For a long time?" persisted she.
"Ever since I went into the Guards—that is five years ago," he replied. "The fellows used to call us Damon and Pythias."
"Then don't—don't let me make a quarrel between you!" exclaimed Leonora, pleadingly.
"It is already made, isn't it?" with a half regret in his voice.
"No; only begun—and you mustn't let it go any further."
"No? But what is a fellow to do, I should like to know?"
"You must go and apologize to your friend for your hasty, ill-timed words," she said.
"I'll be hanged if I show the white feather like that!" he cried, violently.
"There is no white feather at all. You made a mistake and spoke unjust words to your friend. Now, when you discover your error, you should be man enough to retract your remarks," she answered, indignantly.
"I can't see why you take up for Lancaster so vehemently," he commented, straying from the main point.
"I'm not taking up for him," warmly. "I only don't want you to make a fool of yourself about me!"
"Ah!"—shortly.
"Yes, that is what I mean, exactly; I don't want my aunt to think I've set you two at odds. She will be prejudiced against me in the beginning. Come, now," dropping her vexed tone and falling into a coaxing one, "go and make it up with your injured Pythias."
He regarded her in silence a moment.
"Should you like me any better if I did?" he inquired, after this thoughtful pause.
"Of course I should," she answered, in an animated tone.
"And it would really please you for me to tell Lancaster I was mistaken and am sorry?"
"Yes, I should like that, certainly."
He tried to look into the sparkling eyes, but they had wandered away from him. She was watching the flight of a sea-bird whose glancing wings were almost lost in the illimitable blue of the sky.
"If I do this thing it will be wholly for your sake," he said, meaningly.
"For my sake, then," she answered, carelessly; and then he rose and left her.
Lancaster had been in his state-room reading two hours, perhaps, when De Vere knocked at his door. He tossed back his fair hair carelessly, and without rising from his reclining posture, bade the applicant come in.
"Ah, it is you, De Vere?" he said, icily.
"Yes, it is I, Lancaster. What have you been doing? Writing a challenge to me?" laughing. "Well, you may burn it now; I have come to retract my words."
"To retract?" the frown on Lancaster's moody brow began to clear away.
"Yes, I was mistaken, I thought you were my rival in secret, but Miss West has explained all to me. I spoke unjustly. Can you accord me your pardon? I'm downright sorry, old fellow—no mistake."
Lancaster gave him his hand.
"Think before you speak next time," he said, dryly.
"I will. But I was terribly cut up at first, seeing you and her together—like that. How sweet she is! She did not want us to quarrel over her. She confessed everything. It was comical, her hearing everything that night—was it not? But there was no harm done."
"No," Lancaster said, constrainedly.
"I'm glad we are friends again; but I was so stiff I could never have owned myself in the wrong, only that I promised to do it for her sake," added De Vere; and then he went away, and left his friend to resume the interrupted perusal of his novel.
But Lancaster tossed the folio angrily down upon the floor.
"For her sake," he replied. "She is a little coquette, after all, and I thought for an hour that—Pshaw, I am a fool! So she has fooled him to the top of his bent, too! Why did I speak to her at all? Little nettle! I might have known how she would sting! Well, well, I wish the 'small commission' were duly handed over to the housekeeper at Lancaster Park. A good riddance, I should say! So she thought that poor men were the nicest and handsomest, always? Faugh! Lucky for me that De Vere came upon the scene just then! In another minute I should have told her that I thought just the same about poor girls! So she confessed all to De Vere, and bade him apologize for her sake. Ah, ah, little flirt!" he repeated, bitterly.
CHAPTER XVI
Things went on smoothly as usual at Lancaster Park after Mrs. West had given her consent to my lady's clever plan. They put Richard West's child out of their heads for awhile and began their preparations for the guests who were expected to arrive the last of May, to welcome the returning master of Lancaster Park. Mrs. West found time in the hubbub to fit up a tidy little room next her own for the little American niece who was coming to her from so far away. Then she, too, dismissed the matter from her mind, save now and then when in solitary moments she would wonder to herself what Dick West's child would be like, and if she would be old enough to put to school.
"It is lucky that I have a good store of savings," thought the lonely woman to herself. "I will find a good boarding-school for little Leonora, if she is old enough to go, and the child shall be educated for a teacher, that she may have the means of supporting herself genteelly when she grows up. It will take a good deal of money, but I will not begrudge it to poor Dick's child. He was a good-hearted, sunny-tempered lad. I only hope his child may be like him."
So she went on thinking of the child as of a very small girl indeed. Her brother-in-law's letter, with its hurried mention of "my little girl," "my little Leo," had entirely misled her. The poor dying man had had no intention of deceiving his sister-in-law. To him his darling daughter, although grown to woman's stature, was always "my little girl," and it never occurred to him, when on his dying bed he penned that hurried letter, to explain to Mrs. West that his orphan child was a beautiful young girl of eighteen, already fairly educated, and with a spirit quite brave enough to face the world alone, if need be.