Tiny Luttrell Part 31

"Seeing that it's six weeks since I left it, and that I have been traveling night and day since I landed, you are rather hard on the old country."

So she answered him, her fingers in the tea caddy, and her eyes with them. The lamplight shone upon her freckles as Swift studied her anxiously. Perhaps, as she hinted, she was only tired.

"I say, I can't have you making tea for me!" Swift exclaimed nervously.

"You are worn out, and I am accustomed to doing all this sort of thing for myself."

"Then you will have the kindness to unaccustom yourself! I am mistress here until papa is fit to be moved."

And not a day longer. He knew it by the way she avoided his eyes. Yet he was forced to make conversation.

"Why do you warm the teapot?"

"It is the proper thing to do."

"I never knew that!"

"I dare say it isn't the only thing you never knew. I shouldn't wonder if you swallowed your coffee with cold milk?"

"Of course we do--when we have coffee."

"Ah, it is good for you to have a housekeeper for a time," said Christina cruelly, she did not know why.

"It's my firm belief," remarked Swift, "that you have learnt these dodges in England, and that you did _not_ detest the whole thing!"

The words had a far-away familiar sound to Christina, and they were spoken in the pointed accents with which one quotes.

"Did I say I should detest the whole thing?" asked Christina, marking the tablecloth with a fork.

"You did; they were your very words."

"Come, I don't believe that."

"I can't help it; those were your words. They were your very last words to me."

"And you actually remember them?"

She looked at him, smiling; but his face put out her smile, and the wave of compa.s.sion which now swept over hers confirmed the knowledge that had come to him with her first frightened glance.

The storekeeper, who came in before more was said, was the unconscious witness of a well-acted interlude of which he was also the cause. He approved of Miss Luttrell at the tea tray, and was to some extent recompensed for the hard day's work he had not done. He left her with Swift on the back veranda, and they might have been grateful to him, for not only had his advent been a boon to them both at a very awkward moment, but, in going, he supplied them with a topic.

"What has happened to my little Englishman?" Christina asked at once. "I hoped to find him here still."

"I wish you had. He was a fine fellow, and this one is not."

"Then you didn't mean to get rid of my little friend?"

"No. It's a very pretty story," Swift said slowly, as he watched her in the starlight. "His father died, and he went home and came in for something; and now that little chap is actually married to the girl he used to talk about!"

Tiny was silent for some moments. Then she laughed.

"So much for my advice! His case is the exception that proves my rule."

"I happen to remember your advice. So you still think the same?"

"Most certainly I do."

He laughed sardonically. "You might just as well tell me outright that you are engaged to be married."

The girl recoiled.

"How do you know?" she cried. "Who has told you?"

"You have--now. Your eyes told me twenty minutes ago."

"But it isn't true! n.o.body knows anything about it! It isn't a real engagement yet!"

"I have no doubt it will be real enough for me," answered Swift very bitterly; and he moved away from her, though her little hands were stretched out to keep him.

"Don't leave me!" she cried piteously. "I want to tell you. I will tell you now, if you will only let me."

He faced about, with one foot on the veranda and the other in the sand.

"Tell me," he said, "if it is that old affair come right; that is all I care to know."

"It is; but it hasn't come right yet--perhaps it never will. If only you would let me tell you everything!"

"Thank you; I dare say I can imagine how matters stand. I think I told you it would all come right. I am very glad it has."

"Jack!"

But Jack was gone. In the starlight she watched him disappear among the pines. He walked so slowly that she fancied him whistling, and would have given very much for some such sign of outward indifference to show that he cared; but no sound came to her save the chirrup of the crickets, which never ceased in the night time at Wallandoon. And that made her listen for the champing of the solitary animal in the horse yard, until she heard it, too, and stood still to listen to both noises of the night. She remembered how once or twice in England she had seemed to hear these two sounds, and how she had longed to be back again in the old veranda. Now she was back. This was the old, old veranda. And those two old sounds were beating into her brain in very reality--without pause or pity.

"Why, Tiny," said Herbert later, "this is the second time to-day! I believe you _can_ sleep on end like a blooming native-companion. You're to come and talk to the governor; he would like you to sit with him before we carry him into his room."

"Would he?" Tiny cried out, and a moment later she was kneeling by the deck chair and sobbing wildly on her father's breast.

"Just because I told her she'd dish herself," remarked Herbert, looking on with irritation, "she's been and gone and done it. That's still her line!"

CHAPTER XXII.

SUMMUM BONUM.

For a month Christina declined to leave her father's side, much against his will, but the girl's will was stronger. She was as though tethered to the long deck chair until the lame man became able to leave it on two sticks. Then she flew to the other extreme.

North of the Lachlan the recent rains had been less heavy than in Lower Riverina. On Wallandoon less than two inches had fallen, and by February it was found necessary to resume work at the eight-mile whim. But the whim driver had gone off with his check when the rain gave him a holiday, and he had never returned. There was a momentary difficulty in finding a man to replace him, and it was then that Miss Tiny startled the station by herself volunteering for the post. At first Mr. Luttrell would not hear of the plan, but the manager's opinion was not asked, and he carefully refrained from giving it, while Herbert (who was about to be intrusted with a mob of wethers for the Melbourne market) took his sister's side. He pointed out with truth that any fool could drive a whim under ordinary circ.u.mstances, and that, as Tiny would hardly pet.i.tion to sleep at the whim, the long ride morning and evening would do her no harm. Mr. Luttrell gave in then. He had tried in vain to drive the young girl from his side. She had watched over him with increasing solicitude, with an almost unnatural tenderness. She had shown him a warmer heart than heretofore he had known her to possess, and an amount of love and affection which he felt to be more than a father's share. He did not know what was the matter, but he made guesses. It had been his lifelong practice not to "interfere" with his children; hence the earliest misdeeds of his daughter Tiny; hence, also, the academic career of his son Herbert. Mr. Luttrell put no questions to the girl, and none concerning her to her brother, which was nice of him, seeing that her ways had made him privately inquisitive; but he took Herbert's advice and let Christina drive the eight-mile whim.