Presently she looked up to see a small coloured boy wandering up the avenue as if he had no particular destination in view and no great desire to arrive anywhere. She supposed he was the bearer of a message to the cook, but instead of going around the house he came towards her with a note in his hand. It was from Leland she saw at the first glance, and written in Spanish at the second.
She could read enough of it to understand that he was not coming that morning, but for the rest of it she had to turn to her lexicon for help in translating. After some time and with much difficulty she managed to make out the reason. He had gone to Louisville for the day quite unexpectedly with his brother—a matter of business. He was sorry not to be able to keep his engagement with her. Only dire necessity kept him away, and he would be with her in the evening. Until then adieu. She had to turn to her lexicon again for that next word, and having found it wondered how he had dared to put it in—that caressing little name, that word of endearment which he would not have presumed to use in English. It made the colour flame up in her face.
But he was not coming. She let the note fall to her lap with an exclamation of disappointment. Then wide eyed and surprised she sat up straight, suddenly aware how deep that disappointment was; suddenly realizing what she had never known till this moment, how large a place Leland Harcourt had grown to hold in her thoughts. Everywhere she turned she could see his face with that quick flashing smile she loved to bring to it. She could see that impetuous toss of the head, the eager gesture of his long slender hand, the easy grace of his manner that gave him his distinguished, patrician air.
"Why, I'm like Hildegarde!" she whispered wonderingly. "'His eyes are so blue they fill all my dreams!' Only Mistah Harcourt's are dark."
Now if Lloyd had never heard the story of the Three Weavers, never been a member of the Order of Hildegarde, never made the promise to her father about the silver yard-stick, her reverie in the hammock that morning might have led to a very different result. But because she had promised, and because she must keep tryst no matter how hard it was to do, she faced the matter squarely.
"He wouldn't have put that word in the note if he wasn't beginning to care for me," she admitted, "and it wouldn't make me have that queah little sawt of half-way glad feeling if I wasn't beginning to care for him."
The hammock swung faster. She was thinking of a day on the seashore years before, when she had been playing out on the rocks. And while she built her little castles the tide came creeping in, creeping so quietly that she did not know it was there until all the sand between her and safety was covered and a fisherman had to wade in and carry her out. Although she did not put the comparison into words, that was what she felt was happening now, and much as she liked him and loved to be with him and missed him when he did not come, she felt that his influence over her was creeping up like a tide that would surely drown her ability to keep her promise to her father.
"He does influence me," she admitted to herself. "I might as well be honest about it. Sometimes he can almost make me believe that black is white. How do I know but what I might grow to be like poah mistaken Hertha? He was only a page, but she called him prince in her thought until she really believed him one."
Then as yesterday's conversation came back to her she sprang from the hammock saying to herself, "And he isn't even a knight, or he wouldn't have made fun of my poah little attempt to make him listen to the King's call. I'll not think about him a minute longah. It would only be squandahing the golden thread that Clotho left me."
Running up the stairs she got her hat and started to follow Betty. But all the way up and all the way down and all the way that she went towards The Beeches that little word at the end of the letter—that sweet caressing bird-note of a name, sang itself over and over to her. He had called her that, and to-night he was coming.