“No, thanks. I’ll walk.”
On the ride uptown Coleman Van Duyn glowered moodily out at the winter sunlight. He had heard enough of this story they were telling about Phil Gallatin and the mysterious girl in the woods. He alone knew that the main facts were true, because he had had incontestible evidence that the mysterious girl was Jane Loring. All the circumstances as related exactly tallied with his own information received from the two guides who had brought her into Loring’s camp. And in spite of his knowledge of Jane’s character, the coarse embroidery that gossip was adding to the tale had left a distinctly disagreeable impression. Jane Loring had spent the better part of a week alone with Phil Gallatin in the heart of the Canadian wilderness. Van Duyn did not like Gallatin. They had known each other for years, and an appearance of fellowship existed between them, but in all tastes save one they had nothing in common. He and Gallatin had locked horns once before on a trifling matter, and the fact that the girl Van Duyn intended to marry had been thrown upon the mercies of a man of Gallatin’s stamp was gall and wormwood to him. But when he thought of Jane he cursed the gossips in his heart for a lot of meddlers and scandal-mongers. If he knew anything of human nature—and like most heavy deliberate men, he believed his judgment to be infallible, Jane was the blue-eyed angel Mr. Worthington had so aptly described, “fresh from the rosy aura of a cherubim.” But there were many things to be explained. One of the guides that had found her had dropped a hint that it was no guide’s camp that she had visited in the woods, as she had told them at camp. And why, if she had been well cared for there, had she fled? What relations existed between Jane Loring and Phil Gallatin that made it necessary for her to hide the fact of his existence? What had Gallatin done that she should wish to escape him? Van Duyn’s turgid blood seethed darkly in his veins. Gallatin had acknowledged the main facts of the story. Why hadn’t he told it all, as any other man would have done without making all this mystery about it? Or why hadn’t he denied it entirely instead of leaving a loophole for the gossip? Why hadn’t he lied, as any other man would have done, like a gentleman? Only he, Van Duyn, had an inkling of the facts, and yet his lips were sealed. He had had to sit calmly and listen while the story was told in his presence at the club, while his fingers were aching to throttle the man who was repeating it. Phil Gallatin! D—— him!
It was, therefore, in no very pleasant frame of mind that Van Duyn got down at Miss Loring’s door. The horses were already at the carriage drive and Miss Loring came down at once. Mr. Van Duyn helped her into the saddle, and in a few moments they were in the Park walking their horses carefully until they reached the nearest bridle path, when they swung into a canter. Miss Loring had noted the preoccupation of her companion, and after one or two efforts at cheerful commonplace, had subsided, only too glad to enjoy in silence the glory of the afternoon sunlight. But presently when the horses were winded, she pulled her own animal into a walk and Van Duyn quickly imitated her example.
“Oh, I’m so glad I came, Coley,” she said genuinely, with mounting color and sparkling eyes.
“Are you?” he panted, Jane’s optimism at last defeating his megrims. “Bully, isn’t it? Ever hunted?”
“Yes, one season at Pau.”
“Jolly set, hunting set. Jolliest in New York.”
“Yes, I know some of them—Mr. Kane, Mr. Spencer, Miss Jaffray, the Rawsons and the Penningtons. They wouldn’t do this, though; they turn up their noses at Park riding. Aren’t you hunting this year?”
“No,” he grunted. “Life’s too short.” He might also have added that he wasn’t up to the work, but he didn’t. Jane noticed the drop in his voice and examined him curiously.
“You don’t seem very happy to-day, Coley.”