Kitty seemed first to spy me, and greeted me with an enthusiastic waving of her gloves, parasol, veil and handkerchief, all held confusedly, after her fashion, in one hand. "P-r-r-r-t!" she trilled, school-girl-like, to attract my attention meanwhile. "Howdy, you man! If it isn't John Cowles I'm a sinner. Matt, look at him, isn't he old, and sour, and solemn?"
Stevenson jumped out and came up to me, smiling, as I passed down the steps. I assisted his vivacious helpmeet to alight. I knew that all this tangle would presently force itself one way or the other. So I only smiled, and urged her and her husband rapidly as I might up the steps and in at the door, where I knew they would immediately be surprised and fully occupied. Then again I approached Grace Sheraton where she still sat, somewhat discomfited at not being included in these plans, yet not unwilling to have a word with me alone.
"You sent me no word," began she, hurriedly. "I was not expecting you to-day; but you have been gone more than two weeks longer than you said you would be." The reproach of her voice was not lost to me.
Stevenson had run on into the tavern after his first greeting to me, and presently I heard his voice raised in surprise, and Kitty's excited chatter. I heard Colonel Meriwether's voice answering. I heard another voice.
"Who is in there?" asked Grace Sheraton of me, curiously. I looked her slowly and fully in the face.
"It is Colonel Meriwether," I answered. "He has come on unexpectedly from the West. His daughter is there also, I think. I have not yet seen her."
"That woman!" breathed Grace Sheraton, sinking back upon her seat. Her eye glittered as she turned to me. "Oh, I see it all now—you have been with them—you have met her again! My God! I could kill you both—I could—I say I could!"
"Listen," I whispered to her, putting a hand on her wrist firmly. "You are out of your head. Pull up at once. I have not seen or heard from either of them. I did not know they were coming, I tell you."
"Oh, I say, Cowles," sang out Stevenson, at that moment running out, flushed and laughing. "What do you think, here's my Colonel come and caught me at my leave of absence! He's going across the mountains, over to his home in Albemarle. We're all to be at Henry together. But I suppose you met them—"
"No, not yet," I said. "I've just got in myself."