“I did start to,” Driscoll informed her soberly, “but it got tiresome as all creation, and I reckon I’ve backslided just since”–a world of earnestness came into his lowered voice. –“well, just since we had that talk with poor Maximilian.”
The old canvas curtain fell for good then, and very abruptly.
A moment later, however, she was avenging her flushed cheeks on Mr. Daniel Boone, who rode at the other side, also sunburned, also effulgent with happiness.
“If it isn’t the animal disputans!” she exclaimed. “Look Berthe, and rejoice; our sighing Monsieur le Troubadour!”
Driscoll hovered near a moment, then reluctantly rode ahead of his battered dusty warriors. So he and the wilful maid from France began a second journey together, yet far, far apart. But only after many torturing hours did his first joy consent to perceive the distance between them.
Now and then, though rarely, and never when he hoped for such a thing, she would ride with him. And then he usually stirred up hostilities before he knew it, and notwithstanding all that was tender and humble which he meant to tell her. There was, however, cause enough for savagery. She made him the least of the troop, though he arranged each detail of speed and comfort, laid out tempting noon-day spreads, improvised cheer in the cheerless hostelries, and all with a forethought showing pathetically how his every thought was of her. But if she divined the inwardness of this, which of course she did, outwardly she contrived to be oblivious. She thanked him sincerely and simply, the while that he craved repayment, as the heart repays. He yearned for only a chance to speak his mind, and to force hers. But now craftily she would bring the others flocking round, to decide for her if they did not think monsieur absurdly mistaken in this or that! 499The same instant she would conjure up the most trivial of arguments, and be vastly shocked over the ridiculous contentions which she herself assigned to Driscoll.
She grew honestly fond of the other Missouri colonels, with their ranger uniforms, and brawn scarred by weather and battle, and they and the marchioness became great friends. She was a dainty flower among them, but they were prime comrades, and she, the mad-cap tomboy her life long, took to them in the impulse that here were her own kind. Driscoll was proud to see it, without need of being generous. She gathered Berthe, as a soberer sister, into the merry communion, and she rode with Clay of Carroll, with Carroll of Clay, with Reub Marmaduke, with Crittenden, with cherubic Old Brothers and Sisters, with Hanks the bugler, and she mocked Meagre Shanks, that disputatious animal, because he tried to monopolize Berthe and would not dispute at all. She asked them questions. She asked Harry Collins if his tribe were the same as that of ces Missouriens-là, and the Kansan confessed that the two tribes had been a bit hostile of late, but what with raiding, razing, and murdering, he guessed they’d laid the foundation for a mutual self-respect, as behooved valiant redskins. So she often got strange answers for her inquisitiveness, but she had grown wary among Westerners, and she usually paid them back. They were a happy party. But Driscoll wanted a more definite focusing of the joy. And at times, indeed, yielding to temptation herself, she permitted him to lose his heart deliciously over again. Shadows were lifted now, and she was just a lovable girl, just sweet Jacqueline. And he loved her with the boy’s young strength of adoration and diffident awe. Precisely in which state she made him suffer exquisitely. No one could be more contrary and capricious than the lovable girl of a moment before. Whereat storms brewed within him.
There was one of the rare times when the Missourian and 500the maid rode up and down the winding white ribbon of a Mexican highway, and for awhile both were quiet. This once they dared the risk–she did, rather–which lurks in the silence that requires no words. For him it brought the old time, and the rides of that time, when he wondered what was the matter with him, and she knew all along. And he thought how during the hard winter in the Michoacan mountains and swamps, he had caught himself almost crying aloud, that he wanted her, that he wanted her–wanted again the subtle comradeship of those silences which require no words. And here, at last, here she was, riding beside him!
He looked at her furtively. She was in profile. He looked again, to be sure that it was not memory, but the breathing girl herself. Yes, for a fact, it was the girl herself. And here was her own queenly head, here its regal poise, here the superb line of the neck to the shoulder. Reverence grew on admiration, for as he gazed he beheld her character revealed, of lines as stately, as womanly, and withal as flexible, too, before the cheery glow of each moment’s life. He stirred, and was vaguely restive, and perhaps a little frightened also, because of the deep mystery of something within himself which he could not understand. The classic outline of her features was softened now in the warmth of flesh. Her vivacity was off guard, in the forgetfulness of reverie. The pure white of the little tip of ear was tinged with pink. Her eyes were lowered to the saddle horn. They were melting. They were almost blue.
“Jack’leen!” He burst out fervently, before he thought, with an arm half lifted toward her.