"His tenderness, his unselfishness, his consideration for others--did you ever know anybody like him for these things?""Never," agreed Virginia, with the mental reservations that usuallyaccompanied her skeptical smile.She was getting at her fiance from a novel point of view.
"And so modest, with all his strength and courage.', "It's almost a fault in him," she murmured.
"The woman that marries him will be blessed among women.""I count it a great privilege," said Miss Balfour absently, but she pulled up with a hurried addendum: "To have known him.""Indeed, yes.If one met more men like him this would be a better world.""It would certainly be a different world."It was a relief to Aline to talk, to put into words the external skeleton facts of the surging current that had engulfed her existence since she had turned a corner upon this unexpected consciousness of life running strong and deep.Harley was not a confidant she could have chosen under the most favorable circumstances, and her instinct told her that in this matter he was particularly impossible.But to Virginia Balfour--Mrs.Mott had to leave early to preside over the Mesa Woman's Club, and her friend allowed herself to be persuaded to stay longer--she did not find it at all hard to talk.Indeed, she murmured into the sympathetic ear of this astute young searcher of hearts more than her words alone said, with the result that Virginia guessed what she herself had not yet quite found out, though her heart was hovering tremblingly on the brink of discovery.
But Virginia's sympathy for the trouble fate had in store for this helpless innocent consisted with an alert appreciation of its obvious relation to herself.What she meant to discover was the attitude toward the situation of one neither particularly innocent nor helpless.Was he, too, about to be "caught in the coil of a God's romances," or was he merely playing on the vibrating strings of an untaught heart?
It was in part to satisfy this craving for knowledge that she wrote Ridgway a note as soon as she reached home.It said:
MY DEAR RECREANT LAGGARD: If you are not too busy playing Sir Lancelot to fair dames in distress, or splintering lances with the doughty husbands of these same ladies, I pray you deign to allow your servant to feast her eyes upon her lord's face.Hopefully and gratefullyyours, VIRGINIA.
P.S.--Have you forgotten, sir, that I have not seen you since that terrible blizzard and your dreadful imprisonment in Fort Salvation?
P.P.S.--I have seen somebody else, though.She's a dear, and full of your praises.I hardly blame you.
V.
She thought that ought to bring him soon, and it did."I've been busy night and day," he apologizedwhen they met.
Virginia gave him a broadside demurely.
"I suppose your social duties do take up a good deal of your time." "My social duties? Oh, I see!" He laughed appreciation of her hit.
Evidently through her visit she knew a good deal more than he had expected.Since he had nothing to hide from her except his feelings, this did not displease him."My duties in that line have been confined to one formal call."She sympathized with him elaborately."Calls of that sort do bore men so.I'll not forget the first time you called on me.""Nor I," he came back gallantly.
"I marveled how you came through alive, but I learned then that a man can't be bored to death.""I came again nevertheless," he smiled."And again--and again." "I am still wondering why.""'Oh, wad some power the giffie gite us To see ourselves as others see us!"'
he quoted with a bow.
"Is that a compliment?" she asked dubiously.
"I have never heard it used so before.Anyhow, it is a little hackneyed for anybody so original as you.""It was the best I could do offhand."
She changed the subject abruptly."Has the new campaign of the war begun yet?""Well, we're maneuvering for position." "You've seen him.How does he impress you?""The same as he does others.A hard, ruthless fighter.Unless all signs fail, he is an implacable foe.""But you are not afraid?"
He smiled."Do I look frightened?"
"No, you remind me of something a burglar once told me--" "A what?""A burglar--a reformed burglar!" She gave him a saucy flash of her dark eyes."Do you think I don't know any lawbreakers except those I have met in this State? I came across this one in a mission where I used to think I was doing good.He said it was not the remuneration of the profession that had attracted him, but the excitement.It was dreadfully frowned down upon and underpaid.He could earn more at his old trade of a locksmith, but it seemed to him that every impediment to success was a challenge to him.Poor man, he relapsed again, and they put him in Sing Sing.I was so interested in him, too." "You've had some queer friends in your time," he laughed, but without a trace of disapproval.
"I have some queer ones yet," she thrust back.
"Let's not talk of them," he cried, in pretended alarm.
Her inextinguishable gaiety brought back the smile he liked."We'll talk of SOME ONE else--some one of interest to us both."|"I am always ready to talk of Miss Virginia Balfour," he said, misunderstanding promptly.
She smiled her disdain of his obtuseness in an elaborately long survey of him.
"Well?" he wanted to know.
"That's how you look--very well, indeed.I believe the storm was greatly exaggerated," she remarked.
