XII
NORTHERN LIGHTS
Scarlett looked from Evelyn to Travers and back again, in bewilderment, dismay. "Miss Durant," he at last found voice to say, "surely there is some mistake! Surely there's no love lost between ye and this—gentleman!"
"My private affairs, my feelings, seem to cause a great deal of unnecessary comment," remarked Evelyn, hiding her emotion under a mask of irony. "May I beg you to refrain from criticism, and to give us the requisite authority?"
Scarlett looked at her fixedly, and seeing her control weaken, her color change, and her eyes fill and falter beneath his penetrating gaze, shook his head. "That I must absolutely decline to do!"
"And why, pray?" she commanded herself to ask.
"Oh, the reason is plain!" Raish sneeringly interposed. "Every one knows the Sergeant's own matrimonial aspirations. Every one has heard of the cheap device by which on the very day of her arrival he tried to worm himself into the favor of my fiancée. If he did but know it, her father's chief reason for insisting on the immediate celebration of our marriage is to protect her from the persecutions of adventurers!"
"I beg," cried Evelyn, checking Scarlett's furious retort, "that there may be no such personalities! Mr. Travers, pray understand that I do not, in the least, assent to your characterization of the Sergeant, who, up to this moment, has treated me and my friends with the utmost delicate consideration and chivalry!"
"Forgive me, dearest"—Raish took her hand. "I spoke too warmly! Yet who could blame me? Come, come, my good Sergeant, put your name to that paper without further ado, unless you wish to suffer under the imputation of sacrificing official honor to personal revenge."
Not deigning to heed the taunt, Scarlett turned to the minister. "I can't sign, because down in yonder valley is a lass in a red cloak who has a prior claim upon this man."