And he plunged toward the entrance of the cavern.
The mountaineer turned and looked at Jardine with so insolent a triumph, so scornful a relish, as he stood disregarded and disconcerted, that the force of his inchoate anxieties and suspicions was redoubled. The trio disappeared, the lantern glimmering feebly in the light of the day, but casting a stronger glow in the black mouth of the cave, and suddenly shining like a star, seen through a crevice higher in the wall of rock.
Jardine seated himself upon a boulder near the two young ladies. He lifted his hat to bare his head to the breeze, for the sun had waxed hot, and he took out his white handkerchief and mopped his brow wearily. He did not lift his lashes, but absently regarded his riding-boots, now and again flicking them lightly with the whip in his hand. He knew that the eyes of both were fixed, beguilingly, upon him. He was angry with them, and he did not wish to be easily placated. But he did not evade their blandishments.
"Don't you know," said Ruth to Lucia, "that he is just hoping and praying that Mrs. Jardine (when he finds her) will be like neither of us."
"And don't you know," said Lucia, in an aside to Ruth, "that he will just dedicate himself to teaching Mrs. Jardine (when he finds her) not to be headstrong and hard-headed, as we are."
It were churlish to resist their fantastic amende, and he raised his eyes with a positive plea of anxiety in them.
"If you would only consider my views!" he urged. "If you would but trust to my larger experience! It sends me frantic for you to endanger your precious lives. I have done—I am willing to do everything for your pleasure that is safe for you. I don't consider my own taste. I love to be at your service. I care for nothing so much as your happiness. I think I have shown this, and I ask in return but one boon—that you do not run your precious selves into danger—that——"
But they desired to hear no more from him on this theme.
"I shall tell Mrs. Jardine (when he finds her) that she is not the first!" cried Ruth, dimpling; "that he made love to both of us!"
"The jealousy of Mrs. Jardine (when he finds her) will never know surcease, when she hears he calls both of us 'precious,'" echoed Lucia, with mock solemnity.