"Never you mind, little girl," he said; "when you are Mrs. Plummer—an' that ain't far away, I hope—you'll be with me all the time. Besides, I'm goin' to join Jimmy Grayson when he comes out West, an' make the campaign there with him."
The color in Miss Morgan's face deepened, and she glanced, not at "King" Plummer or her uncle, but at Harley, and when her eyes met his the color in her cheeks deepened still further. Then she looked down at her plate and was silent and embarrassed.
Harley, as he heard these words of the "King," felt a strange thrill of disapproval. It was, as he told himself, because of the disparity in ages. It was true that a man of this type was the very kind to restrain Sylvia Morgan, but twenty and fifty should never wed, man and wife should be young together and should grow old together. It was no business of his, and there was no obligation upon him to look after the happiness of either of these people, but it was an arrangement that he did not like, violating as it did his sense of fitness.
"King" Plummer was to leave them an hour later, taking a train for St. Paul, and thence for Idaho. He bade them all a hearty good-bye, shaking hands warmly with Jimmy Grayson, to whom he wished a career of unbroken triumph, repeating these good wishes to Mrs. Grayson, and again kissing Sylvia Morgan on the forehead—the proper kiss, Harley thought, for fifty to bestow upon twenty, unless twenty should happen to be fifty's daughter.
"We won't be separated long, Sylvia, girl," he said, and she flushed a deep red and then turned pale. To Harley he said:
"And I'll try to show you the West, young man, when you come out there. This is no West; Milwaukee ain't West by a jugful. Just you wait till you get beyond the Missouri, then we'll show you the real West, and real life at the same time."
There was a certain condescension in the tone of "King" Plummer, but Harley did not mind it; so far as the experience of life in the rough was concerned, the "King" had a right to condescend.
"I shall hold you to your promise," he said.
Then "King" Plummer, waving good-byes with a wide-armed sweep, large and hearty like himself, departed.
"There goes a true man," said Mr. Grayson, and Harley spontaneously added confirmation. But Miss Morgan was silent. She waved back in response to the King of the Mountains, but her face was still pale, and she was silent for some time. Harley now knew that "King" Plummer was not her uncle nor her next of kin after Jimmy Grayson in any way, but he was unable to tell why this marriage-to-be had been arranged.