“He ought to be proud of the privilege,” returned the lady, with a toss of her head.
Peyton smiled grimly, but yielded; and when the stage-coach drew up the next afternoon at the Santa Inez Hotel, Susy was already waiting in her pony carriage before it. Although the susceptible driver, expressman, and passengers generally, charmed with this golden-haired vision, would have gladly protracted the meeting of the two young friends, the transfer of Mary Rogers from the coach to the carriage was effected with considerable hauteur and youthful dignity by Susy. Even Mary Rogers, two years Susy's senior, a serious brunette, whose good-humor did not, however, impair her capacity for sentiment, was impressed and even embarrassed by her demeanor; but only for a moment. When they had driven from the hotel and were fairly hidden again in the dust of the outlying plain, with the discreet Pedro hovering in the distance, Susy dropped the reins, and, grasping her companion's arm, gasped, in tones of dramatic intensity:—
“He's been heard from, and is coming HERE!”
“Who?”
A sickening sense that her old confidante had already lost touch with her—they had been separated for nearly two weeks—might have passed through Susy's mind.
“Who?” she repeated, with a vicious shake of Mary's arm, “why, Clarence Brant, of course.”
“No!” said Mary, vaguely.
Nevertheless, Susy went on rapidly, as if to neutralize the effect of her comrade's vacuity.
“You never could have imagined it! Never! Even I, when mother told me, I thought I should have fainted, and ALL would have been revealed!”
“But,” hesitated the still wondering confidante, “I thought that was all over long ago. You haven't seen him nor heard from him since that day you met accidentally at Santa Clara, two years ago, have you?”