The Captain's Toll-Gate Part 25

There was a certain constraint at the breakfast table. Mr. Fox had heard the serenades, although his consort had slept soundly through the turmoil; and, while carefully avoiding any reference to the incidents of the night, he was anxiously hoping that somebody would say something about them. Mrs. Easterfield saw that Mr. Du Brant was in a bad humor, and she hoped he was angry enough to announce his early departure. But he contented himself with being angry, and said nothing about going away.

Mr. Hemphill was serious, and looked often in the direction of Olive. As for d.i.c.k Lancaster, Miss Raleigh, whose eye was fixed upon him whenever it could be spared from the exigencies of her meal, decided that if there should be a fight he would be one of the fighters; his brow was dark and his glance was sharp; in fact, she was of the opinion that he glared. Claude Locker did not come to breakfast until nearly everybody had finished. His dreams had been so pleasant that he had overslept himself.

In the eyes of Mrs. Easterfield Olive's conduct was positively charming.

No one could have supposed that during the night she had heard anything louder than the ripple of the river. She talked more to Mr. Du Brant than to any one else, although she managed to draw most of the others into the conversation; and, with the a.s.sistance of the hostess, who gave her most good-humored help, the talk never flagged, although it did not become of the slightest interest to any one who engaged in it. They were all thinking about the conflict of serenades, and what might happen next.

Shortly after breakfast Miss Raleigh came to Mrs. Easterfield. "Mr. Du Brant is with her," she said quickly, "and they are walking away. Shall I interpolate?"

"No," said the other with a smile, "you can let them alone. Nothing will happen this morning, unless, indeed, he should come to ask for a carriage to take him to the station."

Mrs. Easterfield was busy in her garden when d.i.c.k Lancaster came to her.

"What a wonderfully determined expression you have!" said she. "You look as if you were going to jump on a street-car without stopping it!"

"You are right," said he, "I am determined, and I came to tell you so. I can't stand this sort of thing any longer. I feel like a child who is told he must eat at the second table, and who can not get his meals until every one else is finished."

"And I suppose," she said, "you feel there will be nothing left for you."

"That is it," he answered, "and I don't want to wait. My soul rebels! I can't stand it!"

"Therefore," she said, "you wish to appear before the meal is ready, and in that case you will get nothing." He looked at her inquiringly. "I mean," said she, "that if you propose to Miss Asher now you will be before your time, and she will decline your proposition without the slightest hesitation."

"I do not quite understand that," said d.i.c.k. "Would she decline all others?"

"I am afraid not."

"But why do you except me?" asked d.i.c.k. "Surely she is not engaged. I know you would tell me at once if that were so."

"It is not so," said Mrs. Easterfield.

"Then I shall take my chances. With all this serenading and love-making going on around me and around the woman I love with all my heart. I can not stand and wait until I am told my time has come. The intensity and the ardor of my feelings for her give me the right to speak to her.

Unless I know that some one else has stepped in before me and taken the place I crave, I have decided to speak to her just as soon as I can. But I thought it was due to you to come first and tell you."

"Mr. Lancaster," said Mrs. Easterfield, speaking very quietly, "if you decide to go to Miss Asher and ask her to marry you, I know you will do it, for I believe you are a man who keeps his word to himself, but I a.s.sure you that if you do it you will never marry her. So you really need not bother yourself about going to her; you can simply decide to do it, and that will be quite sufficient; and you can stay here and hold these long-stemmed dahlias for me as I cut them."

A troubled wistfulness showed itself upon the young man's face. "You speak so confidently," he said, "that I almost feel I ought to believe you. Why do you tell me that I am the only one of her suitors who would certainly be rejected if he offered himself?"

Mrs. Easterfield dropped the long-stemmed dahlias she had been holding; and, turning her eyes full upon Lancaster, she said, "Because you are the only one of them toward whom she has no predilections whatever. More than that, you are the only one toward whom she has a positive objection. You are the only one who is an intimate friend of her uncle, and who would be likely, by means of that intimate friends.h.i.+p, to bring her into connection with the woman she hates, as well as with a relative she despises on account of his intended marriage with that woman."

"All that should not count at all," cried d.i.c.k. "In such a matter as this I have nothing to do with Captain Asher! I stand for myself and speak for myself. What is his intended wife to me? Or what should she be to her?"

"Of course," said Mrs. Easterfield, "all that would not count at all if Olive Asher loved you. But you see she doesn't. I have had it from her own lips that her uncle's intended marriage is, and must always be, an effectual barrier between you and her."

"What" cried d.i.c.k. "Have you spoken to her of me? And in that way?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Easterfield, "I have. I did not intend to tell you, but you have forced me to do it. You see, she is a young woman of extraordinary good sense. She believes she ought to marry, and she is going to try to make the very best marriage that she possibly can. She has suitors who have very strong claims upon her consideration--I am not going to tell you those claims, but I know them. Now, you have no claim--special claim, I mean--but for all this, I believe, as I have told you before, that you are the man she ought to marry, and I have been doing everything I can to make her cease considering them, and to consider you. And this is the way she came to give me her reasons for not considering you at all. Now the state of the case is plain before you."

d.i.c.k bowed his head and fixed his eyes upon the dahlias on the ground.

"Don't tread on the poor things," she said, "and don't despair. All you have to do is to let me put a curbed bit on you, and for you to consent to wear it for a little while. See," said she, moving her hands in the air, as if they were engaged upon the bridle of a horse, "I fasten this chain rather closely, and buckle the ends of the reins in the lowest curb. Now, you must have a steady hand and a resolute will until the time comes when the curb is no longer needed."

"And do you believe that time will come?" he asked.

"It will come," she said, "when two things happen; when she has reason to love you, and has no reason to object to you; and, in my opinion, that happy combination may arrive if you act sensibly."

"But--" said d.i.c.k.

At this moment a quick step was heard on the garden-path and they both turned. It was Olive.

"Mr. Lancaster," she cried, "I want you; that is, if Mrs. Easterfield can spare you. We are making up a game of tennis. Mr. Du Brant and Mr.

Hemphill are there, but I can not find Mr. Locker."

Mrs. Easterfield could spare him, and d.i.c.k Lancaster, with the curbed chain pressing him very hard, walked away with Olive Asher.

_CHAPTER XXIII_

_The Captain and Maria._

When the captain drove into Glenford on the day when his mind had been so much disturbed by d.i.c.k Lancaster's questions regarding a marriage between him and Maria Port, he stopped at no place of business, he turned not to the right nor to the left, but went directly to the house of his old friend with whom he had spent the night before.

Mr. Simeon Port was sitting on his front porch, reading his newspaper.

He looked up, surprised to see the captain again so soon.

"Simeon," said the captain, "I want to see Maria. I have something to say to her."

The old man laid down his newspaper. "Serious?" said he.

"Yes, serious," was the answer, "and I want to see her now."

Mr. Port reflected for a moment. "Captain," said he, "do you believe you have thought about this as much as you ought to?"

"Yes, I have," replied the captain; "I've thought just as much as I ought to. Is she in the house?"

Mr. Port did not answer. "Captain John," said he presently, "Maria isn't young, that's plain enough, considerin' my age; but she never does seem to me as if she'd growed up. When she was a girl she had ways of her own, and she could make water bile quick, and now she can make it bile just as quick as ever she did, and perhaps quicker. She's not much on mindin' the helm, Captain John, and there're other things about her that wouldn't be attractive to husbands when they come to find them out. And if I was you I'd take my time."

"That's just what I intend to do," said the captain. "This is my time, and I am going to take it."

Miss Port, who was busy in the back part of the house, heard voices, and now came forward. She was wiping her hands upon her ap.r.o.n, and one of them she extended to the captain.

"I am glad to see you--John," she said, speaking in a very gentle voice, and hesitating a little at the last word.

The captain looked at her steadfastly, and then, without taking her hand, he said: "I want to speak to you by yourself. I'll go into the parlor."

She politely stepped back to let him pa.s.s her, and then her father turned quickly to her.