"Yes--certainly. Of course!" said Mr. Carr, fully convinced of his utter failure, but, like most weak creatures, consoling himself with the reflection that he had not shown his hand or committed himself. "Yes; but it would perhaps be just as well for the present to let things go on as they were. We'll talk of it again--I'm in a hurry now," and, edging himself through the door, he slipped away.
"What do you think is father's last idea?" said Christie, with, I fear, a slight lack of reverence in her tone, as her sister reentered the room. "He thinks George Kearney is paying you too much attention."
"No!" said Jessie, replying to her sister's half-interrogative, half-amused glance with a frank, unconscious smile.
"Yes, and he says that Fairfax--I think it's Fairfax--is equally fascinated with ME."
Jessie's brow slightly contracted as she looked curiously at her sister.
"Of all things," she said, "I wonder if any one has put that idea into his dear old head. He couldn't have thought it himself."
"I don't know," said Christie musingly; "but perhaps it's just as well if we kept a little more to ourselves for a while."
"Did father say so?" said Jessie quickly.
"No, but that is evidently what he meant."
"Ye-es," said Jessie slowly, "unless--"
"Unless what?" said Christie sharply. "Jessie, you don't for a moment mean to say that you could possibly conceive of anything else?"
"I mean to say," said Jessie, stealing her arm around her sister's waist demurely, "that you are perfectly right. We'll keep away from these fascinating Devil's Forders, and particularly the youngest Kearney. I believe there has been some ill-natured gossip. I remember that the other day, when we passed the shanty of that Pike County family on the slope, there were three women at the door, and one of them said something that made poor little Kearney turn white and pink alternately, and dance with suppressed rage. I suppose the old lady--M'Corkle, that's her name--would like to have a share of our cavaliers for her Euphemy and Mamie. I dare say it's only right; I would lend them the cherub occasionally, and you might let them have Mr. Munroe twice a week."
She laughed, but her eyes sought her sister's with a certain watchfulness of expression.
Christie shrugged her shoulders, with a suggestion of disgust.
"Don't joke. We ought to have thought of all this before."
"But when we first knew them, in the dear old cabin, there wasn't any other woman and nobody to gossip, and that's what made it so nice. I don't think so very much of civilization, do you?" said the young lady pertly.
Christie did not reply. Perhaps she was thinking the same thing.
It certainly had been very pleasant to enjoy the spontaneous and chivalrous homage of these men, with no further suggestion of recompense or responsibility than the permission to be worshipped; but beyond that she racked her brain in vain to recall any look or act that proclaimed the lover. These men, whom she had found so relapsed into barbarism that they had forgotten the most ordinary forms of civilization; these men, even in whose extravagant admiration there was a certain loss of self-respect, that as a woman she would never forgive; these men, who seemed to belong to another race--impossible! Yet it was so.
"What construction must they have put upon her father's acceptance of their presents--of their company--of her freedom in their presence? No! they must have understood from the beginning that she and her sister had never looked upon them except as transient hosts and chance acquaintances. Any other idea was preposterous.
And yet--"
It was the recurrence of this "yet" that alarmed her. For she remembered now that but for their slavish devotion they might claim to be her equal. According to her father's account, they had come from homes as good as their own; they were certainly more than her equal in fortune; and her father had come to them as an employee, until they had taken him into partnership. If there had only been sentiment of any kind connected with any of them! But they were all alike, brave, unselfish, humorous--and often ridiculous. If anything, Dick Mattingly was funniest by nature, and made her laugh more. Maryland Joe, his brother, told better stories (sometimes of Dick), though not so good a mimic as the other Kearney, who had a fairly sympathetic voice in singing. They were all good-looking enough; perhaps they set store on that--men are so vain.
And as for her own rejected suitor, Fairfax Munroe, except for a kind of grave and proper motherliness about his protecting manner, he absolutely was the most indistinctive of them all. He had once brought her some rare tea from the Chinese camp, and had taught her how to make it; he had cautioned her against sitting under the trees at nightfall; he had once taken off his coat to wrap around her. Really, if this were the only evidence of devotion that could be shown, she was safe!
"Well," said Jessie, "it amuses you, I see."
Christie checked the smile that had been dimpling the cheek nearest Jessie, and turned upon her the face of an elder sister.
"Tell me, have YOU noticed this extraordinary attention of Mr. Munroe to me?"
"Candidly?" asked Jessie, seating herself comfortably on the table sideways, and endeavoring, to pull her skirt over her little feet.
"Honest Injun?"
"Don't be idiotic, and, above all, don't be slangy! Of course, candidly."
"Well, no. I can't say that I have."
"Then," said Christie, "why in the name of all that's preposterous, do they persist in pairing me off with the least interesting man of the lot?"
Jessie leaped from the table.
"Come now," she said, with a little nervous laugh, "he's not so bad as all that. You don't know him. But what does it matter now, as long as we're not going to see them any more?"
"They're coming here for the ride to-day," said Christie resignedly. "Father thought it better not to break it off at once."
"Father thought so!" echoed Jessie, stopping with her hand on the door.
"Yes; why do you ask?"
But Jessie had already left the room, and was singing in the hall.