“You don’t know him yet,” said Still, plaintively, “Does she, Colonel?”
“No—he’s a bad man,” said Leech, unctuously.
“He is that,” said Still. He dropped his voice. “You look out for him, Major. He’s after you. If I was you I’d carry a pistol pretty handy.” Major Welch gave a gesture of impatience.
Ruth’s eyes flashed a sudden gleam, and her face flamed again. She rose, walked to the window, and pressed deep in between the curtains. Still addressed himself to Major Welch.
“The Colonel says ’tain’t goin’ to be any trouble to beat the suit; that he can git it dismissed on demurrer—if that’s the word? You know I ain’t any book-learnin’—I’m nothin’ but a plain farmer. And he says the judge is sure to—”
“Yes—that’s it,” said Leech, quickly, with a glance of warning at him. “I don’t cross a bridge till I get to it; I’ve got several in this case, but, as Mr. Bagby says, I believe in making every defence.”
“That may be so; but I’m going to fight this case on its merits,” declared Major Welch, firmly. “I don’t propose, when a question of fraud is raised, to shelter myself behind any technicalities. I mean to make it as clear as day that I had no connection with any fraud. I spoke to Mr. Bagby when the rumor of a suit was first started, and told him so.” Though he spoke quietly his voice had a ring in it and his face a light on it which made both Mrs. Welch and Ruth proud of him, and Ruth squeezed her mother’s arm, in her joy. How different he looked from those other men!
Meantime the change in Steve Allen was perceptible to many who had no idea of the true reason it was so.
Jacquelin set it down to the wrong cause. Miss Thomasia, like Jacquelin, laid Steve’s despondency at Blair’s door, and the good lady cast about in her mind how she might draw Blair into a discussion of the subject and give her some affectionate advice. But as often as she touched on the subject of love, even in the most distant way, bringing in Jacquelin as a sort of introduction, Blair shied off from it, so that Miss Thomasia found it more difficult to accomplish than she had anticipated.
Steve, however, was working on his own lines. His present situation was intolerable to him. The fact that his name had not appeared on Jacquelin’s bill stuck in his memory like a thorn. He was lying on the grass under a tree in the court-green one afternoon reading a book, not a law-book either, when the sound of horses’ feet caught his ear. He looked up lazily as it came nearer, and soon in view appeared two riders, a girl and a young man. They cantered easily along the little street, their laughter coming across to Steve where he lay, his book neglected on the ground beside him. Steve stretched, and picking up his book dived once more into the “Idylls of the King.” But the spell was broken. A line from Dante flashed through his mind. Launcelot and Guinevere; Tristram and Isolt; Geraint and Enid, interested him no more. The reality had passed before him. Resting his head against the tree, he tried to go to sleep; but the minute denizens about in the grass bothered him, the droning of bees in the locust boughs above failed to lull him.