Judith of the Plains Part 28

Judith turned towards the valley. Her whole being throbbed with a pa.s.sionate response to the man who stood so humbly before her, but there were duties that came first. Her mind was full of Alida and her children, and her eyes still sought Peter's imploringly.

"You will be a good friend to them, Peter-to Jim's people? I cannot talk to you of anything else to-night. Your heart is big, Peter, but you cannot feel, perhaps-"

"Listen, Judith. Whatever friends.h.i.+p and protection I can give your family you may count upon from now till the end of time. I will be theirs as I am yours. I feel your grief, but I want to soothe it, too. And if you love me, and I feel, Judith, that you do, you must let them all see to-night, these people who know us both, that we stand together before all the world for better or worse. Think, Judith, and you will see that you owe it to yourself, to me, to all these men, who reverence you as the one woman, the one ideal in their lonely lives."

She could not speak. The moment was too full, the strain had been too great; but she smiled surrender, and Peter caught her tenderly in his arms and kissed her once-his Judith she was now, his heroine. Then, without another word, he drew her arm through his and led her back to the lights, where the dancers still held high carnival.

Judith's half-sister, Eudora, was making a pretty quarrel by perversely forgetting the order in which she had given her dances. The girl was so undeniably happy that Judith dreaded the grim news she must tell her.

Eudora blushed as she encountered Judith's eye. Her half-sister ever offered a check on Eudora's exuberant coquetry, with its precipitation of discussions that often ended in bullets. Leander stood on the outermost fringe of Eudora's potential partners. He would not have dared to maintain it openly, yet he was sure the pretty minx had promised that dance to him.

"Dance with Leander, dear, and don't let those men begin quarrelling. I've something to tell you, presently," said Judith.

Texas Tyler stood glowering at them from the doorway. He would not catch Judith's eye as she tried to speak to him. Kitty sat alone for the moment.

She had sent the young lieutenant to fetch her a cup of coffee, but as Peter approached with Judith she averted her eyes.

"Kitty, may I present to you my fiancee, Miss Rodney?"

Kitty rose superbly to the situation. She might, indeed, have made the match she was so overjoyed in the good-fortune of her old friend Peter.

She made no reference to the woodland meeting-she hoped for the happiness of seeing them in town. And she bade Peter tell the good news to Nannie Wetmore, they would be so glad. Nannie swallowed a grimace and proffered a cousinly hand. She had suspected some such news as this when she saw that things were not going well with Kitty and Peter.

"Better one dance with a good partner that can swing ye than several with a feeble partner that leaves ye to swing your own corners!"

Judith looked up, smiling. She recognized the characteristic utterance of her old friend Mrs. Yellett. The matriarch had sustained a breakdown, and arrived, in consequence, when the dance was half over, but she was philosophical, as always, in the face of misfortune, and loudly attested her pleasure in the renowned pedal feats of her partner, Costigan.

Behind came Mary Carmichael, looking brown and happy. From the att.i.tude of the group around Judith and Peter Mary divined what had happened, and came to add her congratulations. Even Mrs. Yellett forgot to choose an axiom as her medium of expression, and kissed Judith publicly, with affectionate unction. Henderson had effaced himself, and Leander, proud of his triumph and Judith's commendation, sat in a corner and smiled contentedly.

Ignorant of the drama to which they had played chorus, the dancers still riotously swung one another up and down the length of the room, and from the little brown fiddles came the gay music of Judith's betrothal.

*THE END*