“Bell Brandon was the birdling of the mountains—”
The line ended in a ripple of laughter. The man before me half raised in his seat. Then sweeter and lower:
“And I loved the little beauty, Bell Brandon—
And she sleeps ’neath the old arbor tree.”
The underbrush parted and Haidee came toward us, leaning slightly on one crutch. In her hand she carried a great bunch of pink spirea. Each cheek was delicately brushed with color, her star-eyes were agleam, her lips curved with laughter.
And then, all suddenly, the dimples and laughter and life fled from her beautiful face, her eyes turned dull and anguished. She was looking at the big man, and he was looking at her. His pasty face was gray as ashes. His little eyes contracted to pin-points.
Haidee’s dry lips writhed apart. One word dropped from them:
“You!”
She crouched forward, peered at him intently through the soft green shadows of the cedars, her eyes growing bigger as if wild with a sudden hope that they might have played her a trick. And then gradually the intentness left them, they hardened, and her whole face stiffened, and grew white and grim.
The big man had risen. He took a step forward now. There was something bullying in his attitude, something implacable in his altered face. His light eyes had a sinister gleam, but his savoir-faire did not desert him. He spoke to me, but his eyes never left the marble face of the woman who confronted him.