"I am aware, sir, that this is a singular introduction, and on my part a painful one, as it has been the means of causing you an injury; but my mother and my brother will be glad to know you and to thank you better than I can do."
"Miss Vanderlyn," said Rowan, taking the card and glancing at the name just as earnestly as if he had never paid any attention whatever to the register at the office, "you do me too much honor. I have no card in my pocket. Would you be kind enough to give me another of yours?"
She at once handed him another card and a pencil, and he dashed down, in a bold, rapid, and mercantile hand, though he used the sinister member for the operation, the name and address which the little black trunk had before revealed to those who chose to read.
"Thank you, Mr. Rowan. Good-morning! Pray take care of your hand, or I shall never forgive myself!" she said, nodding to her new acquaintance, and turning towards the house. Rowan bowed low, said good-morning, and strolled away towards the ten-pin alley, apparently not more concerned by the hurt than if he had merely pricked his finger. He was one of those booked for the ride to the Flume, but he seemed to need severer exercise, and the moment after he might have been seen with his hand still wrapped in the bloody white handkerchief, bowling away at the pins with the other, and humming the Grand March in "Norma" as if he thought that a favorable strain of music to accompany the levelling of obstacles or enemies.
Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, hearing the threat directed at her promising boy, had mustered common-sense enough to hurry him away from the scene of action. Captain Coles and Miss Hayley had meanwhile come up, and "H. T.," turning once more before he reached the alley, reached the spot at the same moment. For the first time, in broad daylight, Margaret Hayley met the strange man face to face, and her cheek whitened—why, even she perhaps could not tell—at that expression or resemblance which she traced there. If there was any answering expression of agitation or surprise on the face of the man with the initials, she failed to read it, and her eyes in a moment sank from a survey which seemed so profitless. They were at that time very near each other, and Captain Coles and "H. T." not more than six feet apart. Their eyes met, and that indefinable something passed between them before another word was spoken, which includes antagonism, if not deadly hostility. There was no reason to believe that they had ever met before the preceding evening; there was no reason to believe that they could ever have an interest in conflict; and yet those two men were foes, and would remain so until one or the other should be thoroughly conquered.
"A go-ahead fellow, I should not be afraid to stake my life!" said one of the gentlemen who had just come up, alluding to the hero of the hour and seeming to address any one who might choose to answer.
"Ya-a-as!" slowly and doubtingly said Captain Hector Coles, caressing his beard and throwing almost insufferable arrogance into a manner which naturally had quite enough of it. "Ya-a-as, go-ahead enough, apparently, but not a bit of a gentleman. Rough as the bear he just knocked over, and looks as if he might have come from among something of the same breed!"
"No, not a gentleman, probably!" said "H. T.," with a sneer in his tone quite as little disguised as the other's arrogance. "But he is something a good deal better, in my opinion, and something a good deal rarer—a man, every inch of him!"
"At any rate," said another, who had not yet spoken, "I would give a hundred dollars to have blundered into an introduction to that splendid girl as he has done, even if it cost me a hand worse scratched than his."
"He has had worse scratches! Did you notice the scar on his cheek, coming away down here to the neck?" said one of the ladies who had witnessed the whole affair, addressing Margaret Hayley.