'Well, I will tell you, pappa. I asked Jack Huysen to do me a very particular favour; and he did not do it; and when I next see Jack Huysen, I think he will find it a very cold day.'
The words were mysterious; but the tone was enough.
And all the afternoon she sate in the stern of the coble and brooded, composing imaginary letters to the editor of the New York Herald, to the editor of the Nation, to the editor of the Chicago Tribune, to the editor of Puck, and a great many other journals, all of these phantom epistles beginning 'As an American girl I appeal to you,' and proceeding to beg of the editor to hold up to merciless scorn a certain feeble, shallow, and impertinent article (herewith enclosed) which had appeared in the Chicago Citizen. And on the way home, too, in the evening, she began to question her father as to his personal acquaintance with editors and journalists, which seemed to be of the slightest; and she at length admitted that she wanted some one to reply—and sharply—to an article that had been written about a friend of hers.
'You let that alone,' her father said. 'It's not very easy for any one to meddle in the politics of our country without coming out more or less tattooed; for they don't mind what they say about you; and you are very well to be out of it.'
'It isn't politics at all,' she said. 'And—and—the article is written about a friend of mine—and—I want to have the writer told what a fool he is.'
'But probably he would not believe it,' her father said quietly.
'He would see that some one else believed it.'
'I am not sure that that would hurt him much,' was the unsatisfactory answer.
When they drew near to Inver-Mudal she found herself quite afraid and ashamed at the thought of their possibly meeting Ronald. Had she not betrayed him? He had sought for no recognition; probably he was too proud or too manly and careless about what any one might write of him; it was she who had put him into that suppliant attitude, and brought upon him the insolent encouragement of a microcephalous fool. This was the return she had made him for all his kindness to her father and to herself. Why, he had told her to burn the verses! And to think that she should have been the means of submitting them to the scrutiny and patronage of this jackanapes—and that Mr. J. C. Huysen should as good as say 'Well, this is what we think of your prodigy'—all this was near bringing tears of rage to her eyes. For Miss Carry, it must be repeated, was 'a real good fellow,' and very loyal to her friends, and impatient of injustice done them; and perhaps, unconsciously to herself, she may have felt some of the consternation of the wild animal whose duty it is to protect her mate with her superior feminine watchfulness, and who, through neglect or carelessness, allows the destroyer to come in and slay. In any case, it certainly promised to be 'a very cold day' for Mr. Jack Huysen when these two should meet in Chicago.
That night, after dinner, father and daughter went out for a stroll; for by this time the moon was drawing to its full again; and all the world lay peaceful and silent in the wan clear light. They had not emerged from the trees in front of the inn on to the white pathway of the road when a sound in the distance caught Miss Carry's ears, and instantly she touched her father's arm and drew him back into the shadow. She wanted to hear what song this was that Ronald was singing on his homeward way.