VII
At ten o'clock that same evening Clay began to prepare himself for theball at the Government palace, and MacWilliams, who was not invited,watched him dress with critical approval that showed no sign of envy.
The better to do honor to the President, Clay had brought out severalforeign orders, and MacWilliams helped him to tie around his neck thecollar of the Red Eagle which the German Emperor had given him, and tofasten the ribbon and cross of the Star of Olancho across his breast,and a Spanish Order and the Legion of Honor to the lapel of his coat.MacWilliams surveyed the effect of the tiny enamelled crosses with hishead on one side, and with the same air of affectionate pride andconcern that a mother shows over her daughter's first ball-dress.
"Got any more?" he asked, anxiously.
"I have some war medals," Clay answered, smiling doubtfully. "But I'mnot in uniform."
"Oh, that's all right," declared MacWilliams. "Put 'em on, put 'em allon. Give the girls a treat. Everybody will think they were given forfeats of swimming, anyway; but they will show up well from the front.Now, then, you look like a drum-major or a conjuring chap."
"I do not," said Clay. "I look like a French Ambassador, and I hardlyunderstand how you find courage to speak to me at all."
He went up the hill in high spirits, and found the carriage at the doorand King, Mr. Langham, and Miss Langham sitting waiting for him. Theywere ready to depart, and Miss Langham had but just seated herself inthe carriage when they heard hurrying across the tiled floor a quick,light step and the rustle of silk, and turning they saw Hope standingin the doorway, radiant and smiling. She wore a white frock thatreached to the ground, and that left her arms and shoulders bare. Herhair was dressed high upon her head, and she was pulling vigorously ata pair of long, tan-colored gloves. The transformation was socomplete, and the girl looked so much older and so stately andbeautiful, that the two young men stared at her in silent admirationand astonishment.
"Why, Hope!" exclaimed her sister. "What does this mean?"
Hope stopped in some alarm, and clasped her hair with both hands.
"What is it?" she asked; "is anything wrong?"
"Why, my dear child," said her sister, "you're not thinking of goingwith us, are you?"
"Not going?" echoed the younger sister, in dismay. "Why, Alice, whynot? I was asked."
"But, Hope-- Father," said the elder sister, stepping out of thecarriage and turning to Mr. Langham, "you didn't intend that Hopeshould go, did you? She's not out yet."
"Oh, nonsense," said Hope, defiantly. But she drew in her breathquickly and blushed, as she saw the two young men moving away out ofhearing of this family crisis. She felt that she was being made tolook like a spoiled child. "It doesn't count down here," she said,"and I want to go. I thought you knew I was going all the time. Mariemade this frock for me on purpose."
"I don't think Hope is old enough," the elder sister said, addressingher father, "and if she goes to dances here, there's no reason why sheshould not go to those at home."
"But I don't want to go to dances at home," interrupted Hope.
Mr. Langham looked exceedingly uncomfortable, and turned appealingly tohis elder daughter. "What do you think, Alice?" he said, doubtfully.
"I'm sorry," Miss Langham replied, "but I know it would not be at allproper. I hate to seem horrid about it, Hope, but indeed you are tooyoung, and the men here are not the men a young girl ought to meet."
"You meet them, Alice," said Hope, but pulling off her gloves in tokenof defeat.
"But, my dear child, I'm fifty years older than you are."
"Perhaps Alice knows best, Hope," Mr. Langham said. "I'm sorry if youare disappointed."
Hope held her head a little higher, and turned toward the door.
"I don't mind if you don't wish it, father," she said. "Good-night."She moved away, but apparently thought better of it, and came back andstood smiling and nodding to them as they seated themselves in thecarriage. Mr. Langham leaned forward and said, in a troubled voice,"We will tell you all about it in the morning. I'm very sorry. Youwon't be lonely, will you? I'll stay with you if you wish."
"Nonsense!" laughed Hope. "Why, it's given to you, father; don'tbother about me. I'll read something or other and go to bed."
"Good-night, Cinderella," King called out to her.
"Good-night, Prince Charming," Hope answered.
Both Clay and King felt that the girl would not mind missing the ballso much as she would the fact of having been treated like a child intheir presence, so they refrained from any expression of sympathy orregret, but raised their hats and bowed a little more impressively thanusual as the carriage drove away.
The picture Hope made, as she stood deserted and forlorn on the stepsof the empty house in her new finery, struck Clay as unnecessarilypathetic. He felt a strong sense of resentment against her sister andher father, and thanked heaven devoutly that he was out of their class,and when Miss Langham continued to express her sorrow that she had beenforced to act as she had done, he remained silent. It seemed to Claysuch a simple thing to give children pleasure, and to remember thattheir woes were always out of all proportion to the cause. Children,dumb animals, and blind people were always grouped together in his mindas objects demanding the most tender and constant consideration. Sothe pleasure of the evening was spoiled for him while he remembered thehurt and disappointed look in Hope's face, and when Miss Langham askedhim why he was so preoccupied, he told her bluntly that he thought shehad been very unkind to Hope, and that her objections were absurd.
Miss Langham held herself a little more stiffly. "Perhaps you do notquite understand, Mr. Clay," she said. "Some of us have to conform tocertain rules that the people with whom we best like to associate havelaid down for themselves. If we choose to be conventional, it isprobably because we find it makes life easier for the greater number.You cannot think it was a pleasant task for me. But I have given upthings of much more importance than a dance for the sake ofappearances, and Hope herself will see to-morrow that I acted for thebest."
Clay said he trusted so, but doubted it, and by way of re-establishinghimself in Miss Langham's good favor, asked her if she could give himthe next dance. But Miss Langham was not to be propitiated.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but I believe I am engaged until supper-time.Come and ask me then, and I'll have one saved for you. But there issomething you can do," she added. "I left my fan in the carriage--doyou think you could manage to get it for me without much trouble?"
"The carriage did not wait. I believe it was sent back," said Clay,"but I can borrow a horse from one of Stuart's men, and ride back andget it for you, if you like."
"How absurd!" laughed Miss Langham, but she looked pleased,notwithstanding.
"Oh, not at all," Clay answered. He was smiling down at her in someamusement, and was apparently much entertained at his idea. "Will youconsider it an act of devotion?" he asked.
There was so little of devotion, and so much more of mischief in hiseyes, that Miss Langham guessed he was only laughing at her, and shookher head.
"You won't go," she said, turning away. She followed him with hereyes, however, as he crossed the room, his head and shoulders toweringabove the native men and women. She had never seen him so resplendent,and she noted, with an eye that considered trifles, the orders, and hiswell-fitting white gloves, and his manner of bowing in the Continentalfashion, holding his opera-hat on his thigh, as though his hand restedon a sword. She noticed that the little Olanchoans stopped and lookedafter him, as he pushed his way among them, and she could see that themen were telling the women who he was. Sir Julian Pindar, the oldBritish Minister, stopped him, and she watched them as they laughedtogether over the English war medals on the American's breast, whichSir Julian touched with his finger. He called the French Minister andhis pretty wife to look, too, and they all laughed and talked togetherin great spirits, and Miss Langham wondered if Clay was speaking inFrench to them.
; Miss Langham did not enjoy the ball; she felt injured and aggrieved,and she assured herself that she had been hardly used.
She had only done her duty, and yet all the sympathy had gone to hersister, who had placed her in a trying position. She thought it wasmost inconsiderate.
Hope walked slowly across the veranda when the others had gone, andwatched the carriage as long as it remained in sight. Then she threwherself into a big arm-chair, and looked down upon her pretty frock andher new dancing-slippers. She, too, felt badly used.
The moonlight fell all about her, as it had on the first night of theirarrival, a month before, but now it seemed cold and cheerless, and gavean added sense of loneliness to the silent house. She did not goinside to read, as she had promised to do, but sat for the next hourlooking out across the harbor. She could not blame Alice. Sheconsidered that Alice always moved by rules and precedents, like aqueen in a game of chess, and she wondered why. It made life so tameand uninteresting, and yet people invariably admired Alice, and someone had spoken of her as the noblest example of the modern gentlewoman.She was sure she could not grow up to be any thing like that. She wasquite confident that she was going to disappoint her family. Shewondered if people would like her better if she were discreet likeAlice, and less like her brother Ted. If Mr. Clay, for instance, wouldlike her better? She wondered if he disapproved of her riding on theengine with MacWilliams, and of her tearing through the mines on herpony, and spearing with a lance of sugar-cane at the mongrel curs thatran to snap at his flanks. She remembered his look of astonishedamusement the day he had caught her in this impromptu pig-sticking, andshe felt herself growing red at the recollection. She was sure hethought her a tomboy. Probably he never thought of her at all.
Hope leaned back in the chair and looked up at the stars above themountains and tried to think of any of her heroes and princes infiction who had gone through such interesting experiences as had Mr.Clay. Some of them had done so, but they were creatures in a book andthis hero was alive, and she knew him, and had probably made himdespise her as a silly little girl who was scolded and sent off to bedlike a disobedient child. Hope felt a choking in her throat andsomething like a tear creep to her eyes: but she was surprised to findthat the fact did not make her ashamed of herself. She owned that shewas wounded and disappointed, and to make it harder she could not helppicturing Alice and Clay laughing and talking together in some corneraway from the ball-room, while she, who understood him so well, and whocould not find the words to tell him how much she valued what he wasand what he had done, was forgotten and sitting here alone, likeCinderella, by the empty fireplace.
The picture was so pathetic as Hope drew it, that for a moment she feltalmost a touch of self-pity, but the next she laughed scornfully at herown foolishness, and rising with an impatient shrug, walked away in thedirection of her room.
But before she had crossed the veranda she was stopped by the sound ofa horse's hoofs galloping over the hard sun-baked road that led fromthe city, and before she had stepped forward out of the shadow in whichshe stood the horse had reached the steps and his rider had pulled himback on his haunches and swung himself off before the forefeet hadtouched the ground.
Hope had guessed that it was Clay by his riding, and she feared fromhis haste that some one of her people were ill. So she ran anxiouslyforward and asked if anything were wrong.
Clay started at her sudden appearance, and gave a short boyish laugh ofpleasure.
"I'm so glad you're still up," he said. "No, nothing is wrong." Hestopped in some embarrassment. He had been moved to return by the factthat the little girl he knew was in trouble, and now that he wassuddenly confronted by this older and statelier young person, hisaction seemed particularly silly, and he was at a loss to explain it inany way that would not give offence.
"No, nothing is wrong," he repeated. "I came after something."
Clay had borrowed one of the cloaks the troopers wore at night from thesame man who had lent him the horse, and as he stood bareheaded beforeher, with the cloak hanging from his shoulders to the floor and thestar and ribbon across his breast, Hope felt very grateful to him forbeing able to look like a Prince or a hero in a book, and to yet remainher Mr. Clay at the same time.
"I came to get your sister's fan," Clay explained. "She forgot it."
The young girl looked at him for a moment in surprise and thenstraightened herself slightly. She did not know whether she was themore indignant with Alice for sending such a man on so foolish anerrand, or with Clay for submitting to such a service.
"Oh, is that it?" she said at last. "I will go and find you one." Shegave him a dignified little bow and moved away toward the door, withevery appearance of disapproval.
"Oh, I don't know," she heard Clay say, doubtfully; "I don't have to gojust yet, do I? May I not stay here a little while?"
Hope stood and looked at him in some perplexity.
"Why, yes," she answered, wonderingly. "But don't you want to go back?You came in a great hurry. And won't Alice want her fan?"
"Oh, she has it by this time. I told Stuart to find it. She left itin the carriage, and the carriage is waiting at the end of the plaza."
"Then why did you come?" asked Hope, with rising suspicion.
"Oh, I don't know," said Clay, helplessly. "I thought I'd just like aride in the moonlight. I hate balls and dances anyway, don't you? Ithink you were very wise not to go."
Hope placed her hands on the back of the big arm-chair and lookedsteadily at him as he stood where she could see his face in themoonlight. "You came back," she said, "because they thought I wascrying, and they sent you to see. Is that it? Did Alice send you?"she demanded.
Clay gave a gasp of consternation.
"You know that no one sent me," he said. "I thought they treated youabominably, and I wanted to come and say so. That's all. And I wantedto tell you that I missed you very much, and that your not coming hadspoiled the evening for me, and I came also because I preferred to talkto you than to stay where I was. No one knows that I came to see you.I said I was going to get the fan, and I told Stuart to find it afterI'd left. I just wanted to see you, that's all. But I will go backagain at once."
While he had been speaking Hope had lowered her eyes from his face andhad turned and looked out across the harbor. There was a strange,happy tumult in her breast, and she was breathing so rapidly that shewas afraid he would notice it. She also felt an absurd inclination tocry, and that frightened her. So she laughed and turned and looked upinto his face again. Clay saw the same look in her eyes that he hadseen there the day when she had congratulated him on his work at themines. He had seen it before in the eyes of other women and ittroubled him. Hope seated herself in the big chair, and Clay tossedhis cloak on the floor at her feet and sat down with his shouldersagainst one of the pillars. He glanced up at her and found that thelook that had troubled him was gone, and that her eyes were now smilingwith excitement and pleasure.
"And did you bring me something from the ball in your pocket to comfortme," she asked, mockingly.
"Yes, I did," Clay answered, unabashed. "I brought you some bonbons."
"You didn't, really!" Hope cried, with a shriek of delight. "How absurdof you! The sort you pull?"
"The sort you pull," Clay repeated, gravely. "And also a dance-card,which is a relic of barbarism still existing in this Southern capital.It has the arms of Olancho on it in gold, and I thought you might liketo keep it as a souvenir." He pulled the card from his coat-pocket andsaid, "May I have this dance?"
"You may," Hope answered. "But you wouldn't mind if we sat it out,would you?"
"I should prefer it," Clay said, as he scrawled his name across thecard. "It is so crowded inside, and the company is rather mixed."They both laughed lightly at their own foolishness, and Hope smileddown upon him affectionately and proudly. "You may smoke, if youchoose; and would you like something cool to drink?" she asked,anxiously. "After your ride, you know," she sugge
sted, with hospitableintent. Clay said that he was very comfortable without a drink, butlighted a cigar and watched her covertly through the smoke, as she satsmiling happily and quite unconsciously upon the moonlit world aroundthem. She caught Clay's eye fixed on her, and laughed lightly.
"What is it?" he said.
"Oh, I was just thinking," Hope replied, "that it was much better tohave a dance come to you, than to go to the dance."
"Does one man and a dance-card and three bonbons constitute your ideaof a ball?"
"Doesn't it? You see, I am not out yet, I don't know."
"I should think it might depend a good deal upon the man," Claysuggested.
"That sounds as though you were hinting," said Hope, doubtfully. "Nowwhat would I say to that if I were out?"
"I don't know, but don't say it," Clay answered. "It would probably besomething very unflattering or very forward, and in either case Ishould take you back to your chaperon and leave you there."
Hope had not been listening. Her eyes were fixed on a level with histie, and Clay raised his hand to it in some trepidation. "Mr. Clay,"she began abruptly and leaning eagerly forward, "would you think mevery rude if I asked you what you did to get all those crosses? I knowthey mean something, and I do so want to know what. Please tell me."
"Oh, those!" said Clay. "The reason I put them on to-night is becausewearing them is supposed to be a sort of compliment to your host. Igot in the habit abroad--"
"I didn't ask you that," said Hope, severely. "I asked you what youdid to get them. Now begin with the Legion of Honor on the left, andgo right on until you come to the end, and please don't skip anything.Leave in all the bloodthirsty parts, and please don't be modest."
"Like Othello," suggested Clay.
"Yes," said Hope; "I will be Desdemona."
"Well, Desdemona, it was like this," said Clay, laughing. "I got thatmedal and that star for serving in the Nile campaign, under Wolseley.After I left Egypt, I went up the coast to Algiers, where I tookservice under the French in a most disreputable organization known asthe Foreign Legion--"
"Don't tell me," exclaimed Hope, in delight, "that you have been aChasseur d'Afrique! Not like the man in 'Under Two Flags'?"
"No, not at all like that man," said Clay, emphatically. "I was just aplain, common, or garden, sappeur, and I showed the othergood-for-nothings how to dig trenches. Well, I contaminated theForeign Legion for eight months, and then I went to Peru, where I--"
"You're skipping," said Hope. "How did you get the Legion of Honor?"
"Oh, that?" said Clay. "That was a gallery play I made once when wewere chasing some Arabs. They took the French flag away from ourcolor-bearer, and I got it back again and waved it frantically aroundmy head until I was quite certain the Colonel had seen me doing it, andthen I stopped as soon as I knew that I was sure of promotion."
"Oh, how can you?" cried Hope. "You didn't do anything of the sort.You probably saved the entire regiment."
"Well, perhaps I did," Clay returned. "Though I don't remember it, andnobody mentioned it at the time."
"Go on about the others," said Hope. "And do try to be truthful."
"Well, I got this one from Spain, because I was President of anInternational Congress of Engineers at Madrid. That was the ostensiblereason, but the real reason was because I taught the SpanishCommissioners to play poker instead of baccarat. The German Emperorgave me this for designing a fort, and the Sultan of Zanzibar gave methis, and no one but the Sultan knows why, and he won't tell. Isuppose he's ashamed. He gives them away instead of cigars. He wasout of cigars the day I called."
"What a lot of places you have seen," sighed Hope. "I have been inCairo and Algiers, too, but I always had to walk about with agoverness, and she wouldn't go to the mosques because she said theywere full of fleas. We always go to Homburg and Paris in the summer,and to big hotels in London. I love to travel, but I don't love totravel that way, would you?"
"I travel because I have no home," said Clay. "I'm different from thechap that came home because all the other places were shut. I go toother places because there is no home open."
"What do you mean?" said Hope, shaking her head. "Why have you nohome?"
"There was a ranch in Colorado that I used to call home," said Clay,"but they've cut it up into town lots. I own a plot in the cemeteryoutside of the town, where my mother is buried, and I visit thatwhenever I am in the States, and that is the only piece of earthanywhere in the world that I have to go back to."
Hope leaned forward with her hands clasped in front of her and her eyeswide open.
"And your father?" she said, softly; "is he--is he there, too--"
Clay looked at the lighted end of his cigar as he turned it between hisfingers.
"My father, Miss Hope," he said, "was a filibuster, and went out on the'Virginius' to help free Cuba, and was shot, against a stone wall. Wenever knew where he was buried."
"Oh, forgive me; I beg your pardon," said Hope. There was suchdistress in her voice that Clay looked at her quickly and saw the tearsin her eyes. She reached out her hand timidly, and touched for aninstant his own rough, sunburned fist, as it lay clenched on his knee."I am so sorry," she said, "so sorry." For the first time in manyyears the tears came to Clay's eyes and blurred the moonlight and thescene before him, and he sat unmanned and silent before the simpletouch of a young girl's sympathy.
An hour later, when his pony struck the gravel from beneath his hoofson the race back to the city, and Clay turned to wave his hand to Hopein the doorway, she seemed, as she stood with the moonlight fallingabout her white figure, like a spirit beckoning the way to a newparadise.