"Come in, if you will. Can't come out!"
"I can't without leaving my convoy," was the return shout, but as Willett glanced down into the lovely face so near his shoulder, he found it paling just a bit, and troubled, not rejoiceful. "What is it, sweet? Don't you—care to see him?"
"I think—I don't know—but—he might not."
It was too late. She would have led her lover away, for, young as she was, Lilian Archer had a woman's intuition, if not many a woman's wit. All on a sudden, unheard because of moccasined feet and the doctor's Indian matting, Harris stood in the doorway. He did not seem to look at Willett. His eyes at once sought her, and seemed closing to a slit as they encountered even the tempered light of declining day—the curious habit common to so many who have long scouted in the glare of desert suns. He hesitated not a moment. At sight of her he came quietly to the edge of the veranda and down the shallow steps, his face pale, as was to be expected, a grave smile upon his lips and even playing about the corners of those keen, blue-gray, unflinching eyes. He waited for no announcement or salutation from his brother officer—Mrs. Stannard and the doctor had told him the news two days before, and there had been ample time in which to digest it. Down in the depths of his heart he believed that Willett had planned this "coup" for his especial mortification, and down to the tip of his toes he longed to kick him for it, whereas in Willett's exuberant self-gratulation, the one thought at the moment was really a "Rejoice with me." That other men should envy was, of course, to be expected. What worth were any triumph without the joy of being envied!
All his life he had been used to it. All his life, in childish sports, in boyish contest, on campus, rostrum, field or floor, among the lads at school, his fellows at the Point, his comrades in the service, wherever physical beauty, grace, skill and strength could prevail he had ever been easily winner, and when it came to women, what maid or matron had withstood his charm of manner? What man had ever yet prevailed against it? That others should long and strive for that which had come to him, unsought, unwooed, was something he could neither obviate nor deny. That was Nature's gift to him at birth. It was even magnanimous that, knowing this power, he should so often spare. Maids indeed might sigh at his indifference, but their solace lay in the eager offerings of other and less gifted men. Suffice it for him that at his beck the best of them would quit the shelter of other arms and come fluttering to his own. But now, of course, all this power of fascination must be sternly tempered, even suppressed. Henceforth he must be guarded. The winning of this pure young heart, the possession of this sweet and winsome nature, the lavish homage of this fresh and fervent love should steel his hitherto vagrant fancy against all would-be-willing victims. The time had come when other women must be bidden, if need be, to droop and die. Henceforth he had naught to offer them but the contemplation of his content and her unquestioned queendom.
And so he could forgive it in Harris that he should come forth with no welcoming look for him, the conqueror, and only a yearning gaze for her. He could have felt quick resentment had Harris manifested nothing but rejoicing, even in expressing it. He had hated Harris when, deposed from his high rank as first captain of the Corps of Cadets, he had seen that far less showy soldier, his classmate, step easily into command and hold it with better discipline and ever-increasing respect from the entire battalion. The day of their departure from the Point had been to Willett an unforgotten, unforgiven lesson. It was the custom of the times—an unwritten, if unmilitary law—that on graduation day the class should appear at the mess hall at the dinner hour, and either singly or in little groups of two or three leave the building while the corps still sat at meat. It was even permitted that some should utter a word or two of farewell. Man after man Willett's fellows had taken their departure, and been accorded by the gray battalion a godspeed more or less thunderous as the individual was honored, popular, or merely a negative quantity. Willett had planned to be the last to leave, expectant of ovation that should out-thunder all others, but the officer in charge apparently would not see that regulations were being ignored, that cadets were on their feet about the head of certain tables, actually clinging to would-be going fellows, in unbecoming and unaccustomed "cits," while he was forcibly restrained by none. So, finally, waving his natty straw to table after table, he passed on to the broad-arched entrance, the clamor of voice and the battering of the old time iron stool beginning in kindly and cordial fashion—they would not send a dog away, those big-hearted fellows, without some show of friendliness—yet in all that array he numbered not one real friend, for self-seeking had ever been his creed and there was no man of their sturdy brotherhood that did not know it. Beneath the arch he turned and gazed once more over the familiar scene, his eyes dry and glittering, his throat dry and husky. Yearlings and some upper classmen were making lively play with stamp and stool, but the din was more perfunctory than powerful—nowhere near what had happened the moment before when two well-beloved fellows, with bowed heads and moistened eyes, had fairly rushed from the hall lest men should see that at last there had come realization that this was the parting of the ways, that the daily habit of four long years was shed forever, that to most of their number the greeting of the gray battalion would be given never again. But he had his wits about him, even then. He saw that now at last, with but four minutes left before the companies must rise and quit the hall, Harris was coming—the new-made first captain, adjutant and quartermaster escorting—the commandants of table all over the hall springing to their feet, and the wild rumble of hollow iron beginning the crescendo of swift-coming, stupendous thunder, and Willett stood and swung his hat, and classmates half-way down the slope turned back to see, and understood without seeing, that there was something back of it besides Willett. And then a tornado burst forth, as Harris, pale to the lips, halted at the door. His escort sprang aside, and to a man the battalion leaped to its feet and let go with voice and foot and hand, and the din was deafening. One moment he stood there, trembling with emotion, incapable of response, then whirled and darted down the steps, leaving Willett to acknowledge the tremendous ovation that speedily died away—almost to silence—ere he, too, turned and followed. "Good-by, fellows! God bless you!" shouted Willett, as though in final triumph. He had had the last word; had "taken the call," and the dramatic success of the day was his, or might have been, but for a most unprecedented incident.
"Hush! hush! Shut up!" were the stern, sudden words with which the elders repressed the juniors who, impulsively, would have broken forth again. "Wait! Wait, you fellows!" was the cry, for on a sudden half a dozen stalwart gray coats had sprung from the door, regardless of the corporal on duty, disdainful of demerit, had hurled themselves on wet-eyed Harris, had heaved him up on their shoulders, with pinioned, arm-locked, helpless legs, and frantic, impotently battling fists, and borne him struggling up the steps and once more within the massive portals, and then pandemonium broke loose, for this was no divided honor—there was none to share it now. They bore him, vainly protesting, into the midst of the now risen battalion. They bore him forth into the June sunshine without. They surged about him under the trees and along the roadway, his halted classmates gazing back from the brow of the bluff, a swarm of spectators looking on, a stupefied group surging out from the officers' mess, conceiving that fire alone could account for the tumult. Then, over the uproar, could be heard the orders of the new captain. "Form your companies!" the shouts of the sergeants: "Fall in, men, fall in!" And then the demand: "March us back, Hefty! Take command once more!" "Start 'em back, Harris, for God's sake! I can never straighten 'em out," cried his half-laughing, half-sobbing successor, his first sergeant of the year gone by. He stood there prisoner, held by the staff and special duty men. He could not get away. Even the saturnine officer in charge stood a smiling observer, and, catching the young graduate's eye, waved approval and encouragement, and so there was no help for it. With a voice half-broken through emotion, he gave the old familiar commands that, three times a day for nearly ten long months previous, had sent them striding back through the gap between the old "Academic" and the gray gables of the Mess, and so on to the broad area of barracks beyond. Then, breaking away, he sprang over the eastward edge of the road, joined the waiting group of classmates at the crest of the hill, and with one long look at the disappearing gray and white column, turned his face to the winding road and the landing below, where the whistling ferryboat lay impatient of their coming—whither Willett had already gone.
Was Willett thinking of that bygone scene this breathless evening in the heart of the desert valley, and the shadow of the westward mountain, as his once successful soldier rival came silently forward to grace his triumph in the field of love? Harris at least was not. His bearing was quite undramatic, simple, dignified. His greeting was almost too simple. "I can't give you my right hand, Miss Archer," said he, smiling gravely, "and I won't give a left-handed felicitation. It's my first opportunity," he continued, as he stood quietly before her, looking straight into her blushing face, "and I'm sorry it has to be in such shabby fashion." Then just as quietly and squarely he spoke to Willett, the gray-blue eyes looking keenly into the brown. "You are mightily to be congratulated, Willett," said he, "and we'll shake hands on it as soon as I have a hand to shake with."
"I knew you would, old fellow!" said Willett, putting forth the unoccupied hand and laying it upon the other's shoulder, a well-remembered way of his when he wished to be effusive. "I'm coming round presently to have a talk—but couldn't help coaxing you out now."
"How—is your shoulder, Mr. Harris?" began our Lilian, all observant of physical ills. On these, at least, she could pour the balm of her sympathy.