If there was not love and caress in her tones, then I could not detect the counterfeit. I reiterate, if I should live a thousand years, I should know nothing of women, nothing. We men are but toys with them. As in life and in sex man is in nature's plan no master, no chooser, but merely an incident; so, indeed, I believe that he is thus always with a woman—only an incident. With women we are toys. They play with us. We never read them. They are the mystery of the world. When they would deceive us it is beyond all our art to read them. Never shall man, even the wisest, fathom the shallowest depths of a woman's heart. Their superiors? God! we are their slaves, and the stronger we are as men, the more are we enslaved.
Had it been left to my judgment to pronounce, I should have called her emotion now a genuine one. Mocking, cynical, contemptuous she might have been, and it would have suited my own mood. But what was it now on the face of Grace Sheraton, girl of a proud family, woman I once had kissed here at this very place until she blushed—kissed until she warmed—until she—
But now I know she changed once again, and I know that this time I read her look aright. It was pathos on her face, and terror. Her eye was that of the stricken antelope in dread of the pursuer.
"Jack," she whispered, "don't leave me! Jack, I shall need you!"
Before I could resolve any questions in my mind, I heard behind us the sound of approaching hoofs, and there rode up to the gate her brother, Harry Sheraton, who dismounted and hitched his horse near mine, saluting me as he pushed open the great gate. It was the first time I had seen him since my return.
"Am I intruding?" he asked. "I'm awfully glad to see you, Cowles—I heard below you were home. You've had a long journey."
"Yes," I answered, "longer than I had planned, by many weeks. And now I am glad to be back once more. No—" in answer to his turning toward his horse as though he would leave us. "You are looking well, Harry. Indeed, everything in old Virginia is good to see again."
"Wish I could be as polite with you. Have you been sick? And, I say, you did meet the savages, didn't you?"
I knew he meant the scar on the side of my neck, which still was rather evident, but I did not care to repeat the old story again. "Yes," I answered a bit shortly, "rather a near thing of it. I presume Captain Orme told you?" I turned to Miss Grace, who then admitted that she had heard something of the surgery which had thus left its mark. Harry seemed puzzled, so I saw it was news to him. Miss Grace relieved the situation somewhat by turning toward the house.
"I am sure you will want to talk with Jack," she said to him. "And listen, Harry, you must have him and Mrs. Cowles over here this very evening—we cannot think of her living alone at the old place. I shall send Cato down with, the carriage directly, and you may drive over after Mrs. Cowles." She held out her hand to me. "At dinner to-night, then?"