The moonlight struck the man’s face as he came forward. “It’s only Charlie Ashton,” she said, freeing herself at once, her head raised to its defiant poise; “as he doesn’t know that I am here, it is his turn to be surprised!”
Charlie Ashton, the useful and ornamental, did not bear a reputation for overweening brilliancy; but the moment his eyes rested upon the pair before him, divided though they now were by a box bush, he divined what had happened.
“So this was the plot, and the reason you thought the hill would disagree with the auto, and left us to drown all this time down on that soaking river road so that you could meet Lucyfer alone,” he cried, seizing Brownell by the hand and nearly wringing it off, while he aimed a kiss at his cousin’s cheek, in token of his approval, which by a toss of the head landed on her chin.
“On my word, Charlie, there was no plot, it was pure accident. I never dreamed of my luck!”
“Most certainly not!” interrupted Lucy; “otherwise he would have been safe and sound in Gordon two hours ago, instead of being engaged to me. He really came here to tell Brooke about the keys, but circumstances which he could not control (as he did the overland trip) obliged him to see me first in a place hardly as airy, though quite as secluded, as a special Pullman vestibule!”
Ashton, scenting a mystery, but being too wary to press his cousin for the clew, gave Brownell’s hand a final wring, saying, without being in the least aware of his play upon words, “She’s a match for you, old man, stubborn as you are—yes, and more than a match, and you have my profound sympathy; but do have pity on us to-night and pilot us into Gordon, for we are damp and hungry and sleepy, and this old plug is all I could get at the stable. To-morrow you shall have the confounded car for the rest of the week to return here in, choose your passenger, and go and break down in the wildest cross-road of this confounded hill country. I’ll even give you leave to ruin a tire, or if the worst comes to the worst, wrench the steering gear, though I hope that won’t be necessary. Cheer up, Lucyfer, it isn’t nine o’clock yet, and he can have a good sleep and be back in twelve hours. I’ll go in and see the ladies a moment while you do the finals!”
“I shall write to father to-night,” Lucy said abruptly, as the door closed upon Ashton, and Pam, who had been waiting to get out, began bounding about her friend, giving yelps of joy. “What do you suppose he will say?”
Brownell began to speak, then paused, setting his teeth, and raising Lucy’s chin gently, looked steadily in her face—“He will say one of two things, according to his mood. Either that, resenting a stepmother, you have thrown yourself away upon the first fellow who chanced by; or that you have met the man who is to be, what he could not, ‘all in all’—that you have found your mate!”
And Lucy, pale with feeling, a different pallor from that the moonlight gives, returned his gaze fearlessly, proudly, and from the lips that met his bitterness vanished, while truth remained. He was indeed her mate, her match, the first of many suitors, rich and poor alike, who had wooed her, man to woman, without thought or apology of money.