But Miss Liz had arisen, and the others were pushing back their chairs, so Jane did not hear this other promise he would have made; for she was moving from the table with Doctor Stone, having pinned that gentleman as they first arose with no intention of letting him leave her. He had made one or two amateurish efforts to wait for Nancy, and now in a bewildered sort of way wondered why he continued with this other girl against his will. Doctor Stone's university course had not included psychodynamics in the female species. Thus it was that he walked from the dining-room to its carefully trimmed terrace with Jane, and thus it was that Nancy slowly followed with the Colonel, who had filled her arms with a gorgeous bouquet of peonies.
The honor guest's face was flushed, but it had been flushed throughout the dinner. Never had she sat down at so well appointed a table, and never had she openly been shown attention by one of the Colonel's social standing. She was excited and happy; she wanted to run and dance, as a flower-laden child might run and dance along a sun-kissed, wooded path!
CHAPTER XIX
THE MERITS OF HORSEFLESH
June hung suspended as ripe fruit. Rains had come. The country was blossoming with a promise of abundant crops. No longer were there breaths of sultry air in shady places. The heavy foliage, fattened by reinvigorated sap and fanned by refreshing breezes, rustled as though it were sprinkling ozone to the ground; and the Colonel complained of exhaustion from the sheer indulgence of joyous deep breathing.
These last two months had brought a settled condition to those at Arden. At first pleasantly aroused by the advent of Dale, they were again comfortably back in their accustomed grooves, while he, also, found a niche which fitted his cosmos with a fair degree of ease. He was at home with them now, and natural; and—when not absorbed with study—talked freely in a slow magnetic way that compelled listeners. The early reticence had given place to the full sway of an enthusiast, and everyone within his orbit felt the influence of a peculiarly strong attraction.
More and more was he surprising them. Merging from obscurity to the light of action, he had developed into a human dynamo, generating power at a high rate of speed and storing it in the dry cells of his brain. Brent accused him of consuming so much of the atmosphere that nothing remained; he said the air seemed lifeless after this absorbing student had passed. He was perilously near done for, he confided to the Colonel, if Dale's mental instrument corralled all the energetic thought waves of Arden, and Miss Liz captured the peace and independence. And the old gentleman had laughed like a boy, because the mountaineer was so generously surpassing Jane's most sanguine hope.
The happiest laugh of all was from Dale, himself—that low, inaudible movement of the throat wherewith he expressed his gayest moods. He had been turned out in the pasture of his heart's desire, and was gathering a harvest with feverish hands. Since the first Monday morning after his arrival, when he crept to the schoolhouse at break of day and waited in the opposite thicket with his long rifle to see if Tusk would come again, the mantle of civilization wrapped quickly about him.
In the succeeding days, the mysteries of spelling and other problems flew like chaff before his irresistible energy. He had struck a gait which created wonderment in all. Hours bounded in no way his efforts. Late afternoons, evenings, and nights, had been devoted to intense study of which he could not tire. Early mornings, before breakfast, had found him poring over a book, and the day's lessons were recited with unerring accuracy while he dressed.