It was the first time she had called him David, and the foolish joy at the little incident drove him to take her again to his arms. But with a steady purpose he refused to tell her. He had his reason and to give the reason would thwart his purpose. He meant to go to Lebarge and attend to the routine work there in connection with a new claim. That matter settled, and another, he would return swiftly to MacLeod's Settlement. He would seek Ygerne and they two would slip away together. He would take her with him so that her eyes might be the first to see with him the golden gash in the breast of earth. He would tell her: "It is yours, Ygerne."
So he just said lightly:
"Wait a little, Ygerne. Wait until I come back from Lebarge. I'll be gone a week at most. And then … and then, Ygerne …"
He had been holding her a little away from him so that he could look into her eyes, his soul drinking deep of the wine of them. Now he broke off sharply, a swift frown driving for the instant the radiance of his joy from his face. He had forgotten that he and Ygerne Bellaire were not in truth the only two created beings upon the bosom of earth. And now, from around a bend in the river came a low voice singing, Garcia coming into view, Garcia's eternal song upon his lips:
"The perfume of roses, of little red roses;
(Thou art a rose, oh, so sweet, corazón!)"
Garcia's eyes, a little glint of slumbrous fire in their midnight depths, were upon the man and the girl. He paused a moment, stared, bowed deeply with the old dramatic sweep of his hat. A hot spurt of rage flared across Drennen's brain; this was no accidental meeting. Garcia had seen them leave the Settlement and had followed. Then the burning wrath changed quickly to hard, cold, watchful anger. Through a mere whim of the little gods of chance he had seen another face in the thicket or young elms not twenty paces from Ygerne's log, a face with hard, malevolent eyes, peaked at the bottom with a coppery Vandyck beard. If Ramon Garcia had seen, certainly Sefton had both seen and heard.
When Drennen's long strides had carried him to the thicket there was only the down trodden grass to show him where Sefton had stood for perhaps ten minutes. When he had come back to Ygerne Ramon Garcia had ended his stare, had turned with his shoulders lifting, and twirling his mustaches had gone back toward the Settlement.
"Ygerne," cried Drennen harshly, "why do you travel with men like that Sefton and Lemarc?"
Her voice was cool, her eyes were cool, as she answered him.
"Marc Lemarc is my cousin. Captain Sefton is his friend. Is that reason enough?"