III
“Mercy!” suddenly cried Mrs. Terhune. “Can it be? Johnson, please stop the car!”
This Johnson did, and Mrs. Terhune pointed to a field to the right of the road, across which a white figure was sauntering.
“Robert,” she said to her nephew, “I’m sure that’s Mildred. I should know that figure and that walk anywhere. Oh, dear, she’s going through the fence! I can’t lose her. Do run after her and bring her back—that’s a dear boy!”
So off went young Dacier across the sunny field, bareheaded, and, his aunt thought, marvelously fleet and graceful.
The figure in white had gone through a gap in the fence, and had turned up a shady little road, but Dacier took a short cut, leaped over the fence, and stood be[Pg 106]fore her, flushed and very hot. He had forgotten the jilted spinster’s surname, if he had ever heard it; but he felt quite certain that this was not she—not this serene and lovely young creature.
“Excuse me,” said he, “but I thought you were Mildred.”
She was startled.
“That is my name,” she said; “but—”
“But I’m afraid you’re not the right one—not Mrs. Terhune’s Mildred.”
“Oh, Mrs. Terhune!” cried the girl, very much distressed. “Did she send you?”
“Yes,” he replied, rather absent-mindedly, because he was trying to reconcile his imaginary portrait of the jilted spinster with the reality before him. He was impressed, deeply impressed, by this dignified and serious girl, because he was not very dignified or serious himself, but careless and light-hearted and sometimes a little impertinent. “Then,” he added politely, “if you are the right one, won’t you come and speak to Mrs. Terhune? She’s waiting in the car. She’s very anxious to see you.”
Mildred turned. Mrs. Terhune had now got out of the car, and was standing beside it. At that distance she seemed a small and shapeless creature, with veil and scarf fluttering, and her hand waving in earnest welcome.
“Oh, the dear thing!” said Mildred.
Her tone was so odd that Dacier looked quickly at her, and saw her gray eyes filled with tears. Why tears at the sight of Aunt Kate?
“I’m sorry,” she went on. “I can’t see her just now. If you’ll please tell her”—Mildred turned away her face—“please tell her I’ll write. Please tell her I’m just as fond of her. Thank you! Good-by!”
After a few steps she stopped again, because Dacier was still beside her.
“Thank you!” she repeated significantly, with meaning.
“You’re welcome,” he said courteously. “Very pretty country about here, isn’t it?”
“You mustn’t keep Mrs. Terhune waiting,” was her reply.
“Well, you see, I hate to go back and disappoint her. She wanted so much to see you. She’s always talking about you.”
He positively jumped at the look he got from Mildred.
“Is she?” the girl asked, with a cold, unpleasant smile.
“Yes,” he said. “She—”
“Then please tell her that Will—Mr. Mallet—is coming back very soon. I’ll let her know, of course, when the wedding is definitely arranged. Just now I’m very busy with my preparations.”
Dacier was not lacking in wit. He didn’t believe a word of this, but he was so sorry for the girl, he so much admired her fine pride, that he answered in the most convincing way. He remembered everything he had ever heard about Mallet, and he spoke of him seriously, with interest. He asked about the florist project, and talked to Mildred as to a girl authentically and eternally engaged. It was the nature of the fellow to make himself agreeable. He did it without effort, and almost without motive—although he was by no means unsusceptible to Mildred’s grave beauty.
She was disarmed. She scarcely noticed that he went on walking beside her to the very gate of her little garden, so absorbed was she in her talk about Will. Dacier still didn’t believe her, but he was not at all amused. He thought it very pitiful that she should bring out this phantom lover, should lean upon this straw man, when she herself was so strong, so splendidly alive.
“Mercy!” she suddenly exclaimed. “What will Mrs. Terhune think? Please hurry back to her! And you’ll tell her—about Will, won’t you?”
He did hurry back, leaping over the fence again and running across the field.
“But where’s Mildred?” asked his aunt, terribly disappointed.
“She was too busy to come,” he said, with a smile. “She’s too busy waiting for Mallet.”
“Oh, dear, how very foolish! She’s a splendid girl, but she is so obstinate. I can’t bear to lose her again!”
“Don’t worry,” said her nephew cheerfully. “We’ll arrange all that, Aunt Kate. I’m rather obstinate myself.”