“I should send them to her even if she were already married to you.”
“You are insolent and presuming, sir. I object. I forbid it. It will be very unpleasant to her to refuse them.”
“I should suppose so,” cried Raymond, airily, “since she has already accepted them—this afternoon, in her father’s presence.”
Mervyn sat dumbfounded. He had not dreamed that she would continue to exercise such free agency as to act in a matter like this without a reference to his wish. And her father—while the distinctions of rank in the army did not hold good in outside society or even in the fraternal association of the mess-room, he could not easily upbraid the commandant of the fort, in years so much his senior, for a failure in his paternal duty, an oblivion of etiquette, of his obligations to his daughter’s fiancé and undue encouragement of a possible rival. But why had Captain Howard not given her a caution to refer the matter to his, Mervyn’s, preference,—why had he permitted the offer and the acceptance of the gift in his presence. To be sure the weapons were but curios, and of only nominal cost in this region, but to receive anything from Raymond! And then the pitfall into which Mervyn had so resolutely cast himself—how could Raymond do aught but send the gift which the lady had so willingly, so graciously accepted. Raymond’s eyes were glancing full of laughter at his sedate objection, his lordly prohibition. The things were already hers!
Not a syllable of speech suggested itself to Mervyn’s lips; not a plan of retraction, or withdrawal from the room. He felt an intense relief when Jerrold and Innis came plunging into the hall, full of satisfaction for the accomplishment of the proper bestowal of the corn in the makeshift granary, and their computations of the length of time the quantity secured might by economy be made to last.
“What beauties,” said Jerrold, noticing the weapons. “You got these in Tuckaleechee last year, didn’t you?”
“And I have presented them to Miss Howard,” said Raymond.
“Good! Just the right weight, I should judge. Does she shoot?”
Mervyn sat boiling with rage as he heard Raymond interrogated and answering, from the vantage ground of familiar friendship, these details, all unknown to him, concerning his fiancée.
“Won the silver arrow recently at an archery competition, she tells me.”