“You little witch,” said the man, abruptly and wonderingly; “how did you find that out?”
“Ah! you are as red as fire,” said Nina, triumphantly; “she asked you to marry her.”
He suppressed an ejaculation, and stared helplessly at her.
“Women are cleverer than men,” breathed the girl. “You thought I knew nothing about that affair. My dear sir, if I were interested in a man,—as I hope to be in you some day,” she interpolated, modestly,—“I would find out what he was thinking about.”
“You young ferret,—you have been reading letters.”
“Not a letter; I have put together things, though,—a word, a look, a hint, a photograph with shaky writing on the back. Regular heartstrokes,—my dear ’Steban, I really believe you have been quite in demand. Seasick and grateful lady passengers, et cætera;” and she burst into a peal of laughter.
The man looked sheepish, and concentrated his attention on his tobacco pouch.
“I won’t tease you any more,” she said, subduing her merriment. “Tell me something else I want to know. You haven’t wanted to marry me all these years. You couldn’t have fixed a matrimonial eye on me when I was an imp of a baby. Come now, confess the hour that your thoughts first went to me with the idea of appropriation.”
He became dreamy and reminiscent. One summer evening six years ago, when the shades of night were beginning to fall thickly and heavily over Rubicon Meadows, he was approaching the old-fashioned house on foot. He could see himself now, swinging along the road, his object a hasty visit to assure himself of the well-being of the child committed to his care. He had known children abused by guardians, and he had made up his mind that the one in his charge should never be for any length of time without his personal supervision. And the people with whom she lived should never know when he was coming. That was another resolution to which he should hold firmly. On this particular evening a troop of children ran across his path as he neared the house. They were playing and also quarrelling, and the soft summer air was alive with the sound of their dispute. Tired and cross, and about to be sent to their beds, snappish young tempers had uprisen, and some one was being struck. He could hear the brisk sound ahead; then, to his surprise, his little girl ran toward him. The small warrior was usually able to take her own part, but this time she was set upon and punished by the others.
She had seen him coming and had run to him rather than to her mother; and at this moment he could see the dishevelled hair, the twisted face, the torn cotton frock. He could feel the pressure of those childish arms about his neck, and the tremor of her lip against his ear, as she sobbed out a wrathful story of those mean, hateful children who had trooped over from the village for a last delightful game of cross-tag, and then had set upon her and beaten her.