The girl was standing on the broad veranda, a bright smile on her face, when they came up.
“There she is, suh,” said King Jimmy, taking off his torn old hat, pressing his hand to his heart, over which hung that ensign of royalty, and bowing low with courtly grace. “This is Miss Bellwood, suh.”
Bart Hodge did not speak. His face was very pale, but there was a glowing light in his dark eyes. She held out her hands to him, and they trembled a little.
“Bart,” she said, “I am so glad to see you!”
With a bound he went up the steps to the veranda, he clasped those small hands in a grasp that was almost crushing, he looked deep into her open blue eyes, as if he would read her very soul.
“Are you glad—are you really glad?” he breathed, his strong body beginning to shake a little in spite of his efforts to hold himself in control.
“I am really and truly glad, Bart,” she honestly answered, and who could doubt the sincerity of Elsie Bellwood when she spoke like that!
He longed to clasp her in his arms, to hold her to his throbbing heart as he had in that terrible yet joyous moment on the burning steamer when he poured into her ears the tale of his long-smothered love. He longed to hold her thus and press a kiss on those sweet lips—to smother that beautiful mouth in kisses.
But Bart Hodge, who had once been unable to govern himself and his desires, had learned the value and art of self-control from his dearest friend, Frank Merriwell, so that he now was able to hold himself in check.
But the eyes of King Jimmy were keen, and the tact of King Jimmy was great, for he deliberately turned his back upon them and seemed intensely and wondrously interested in the beauties of the well-cultivated lawn and the efforts of the gardener who was laboring on a distant flower-bed. But to himself the king whispered: