“Hush,” said the girl in a tragic whisper, with a warning gesture towards the blandly unconscious Mary.
“But,” returned Clarence wonderingly, “she's your—our friend, you know.”
“I DON'T know,” said Susy, in a still deeper tone, “that is—oh, don't ask me! But when you're always surrounded by spies, when you can't say your soul is your own, you doubt everybody!” There was such a pretty distress in her violet eyes and curving eyebrows, that Clarence, albeit vague as to its origin and particulars, nevertheless possessed himself of the little hand that was gesticulating dangerously near his own, and pressed it sympathetically. Perhaps preoccupied with her emotions, she did not immediately withdraw it, as she went on rapidly: “And if you were cooped up here, day after day, behind these bars,” pointing to the grille, “you'd know what I suffer.”
“But”—began Clarence.
“Hush!” said Susy, with a stamp of her little foot.
Clarence, who had only wished to point out that the whole lower end of the garden wall was in ruins and the grille really was no prevention, “hushed.”
“And listen! Don't pay me much attention to-day, but talk to HER,” indicating the still discreet and distant Mary, “before father and mother. Not a word to her of this confidence, Clarence. To-morrow ride out alone on your beautiful horse, and come back by way of the woods, beyond our turning, at four o'clock. There's a trail to the right of the big madrono tree. Take that. Be careful and keep a good lookout, for she mustn't see you.”
“Who mustn't see me?” said the puzzled Clarence.
“Why, Mary, of course, you silly boy!” returned the girl impatiently. “She'll be looking for ME. Go now, Clarence! Stop! Look at that lovely big maiden's-blush up there,” pointing to a pink-suffused specimen of rose grandiflora hanging on the wall. “Get it, Clarence,—that one,—I'll show you where,—there!” They had already plunged into the leafy bramble, and, standing on tiptoe, with her hand on his shoulder and head upturned, Susy's cheek had innocently approached Clarence's own. At this moment Clarence, possibly through some confusion of color, fragrance, or softness of contact, seemed to have availed himself of the opportunity, in a way which caused Susy to instantly rejoin Mary Rogers with affected dignity, leaving him to follow a few moments later with the captured flower.
Without trying to understand the reason of to-morrow's rendezvous, and perhaps not altogether convinced of the reality of Susy's troubles, he, however, did not find that difficulty in carrying out her other commands which he had expected. Mrs. Peyton was still gracious, and, with feminine tact, induced him to talk of himself, until she was presently in possession of his whole history, barring the episode of his meeting with Susy, since he had parted with them. He felt a strange satisfaction in familiarly pouring out his confidences to this superior woman, whom he had always held in awe. There was a new delight in her womanly interest in his trials and adventures, and a subtle pleasure even in her half-motherly criticism and admonition of some passages. I am afraid he forgot Susy, who listened with the complacency of an exhibitor; Mary, whose black eyes dilated alternately with sympathy for the performer and deprecation of Mrs. Peyton's critical glances; and Peyton, who, however, seemed lost in thought, and preoccupied. Clarence was happy. The softly shaded lights in the broad, spacious, comfortably furnished drawing-room shone on the group before him. It was a picture of refined domesticity which the homeless Clarence had never known except as a vague, half-painful, boyish remembrance; it was a realization of welcome that far exceeded his wildest boyish vision of the preceding night. With that recollection came another,—a more uneasy one. He remembered how that vision had been interrupted by the strange voices in the road, and their vague but ominous import to his host. A feeling of self-reproach came over him. The threats had impressed him as only mere braggadocio,—he knew the characteristic exaggeration of the race,—but perhaps he ought to privately tell Peyton of the incident at once.