Chapter XXXII: “you Have Grown Into My Heart.”

Maisie moped so long in her room that Mrs. Warren presently came in with an anxious face.

“Oh, my dear, what red eyes! You have been crying.”

“I could not help it. She has come--Josephine!”

“I had just come to tell you so. I heard it from Burton Kingwood. He has just called. It seems as if he is a great friend of Mrs. Barrington, and they came together from Paris.”

“How I hate her!” Maisie cried, with sudden passion.

“And no wonder, child! But it is very sad, and my heart aches for you. Mr. Kingwood asked leave to call on you soon. Of course, he is in love with you just the same, in spite of his flirtations. Oh, Maisie, I wish you could fancy him, and forget Barrington.”

The girl sighed hopelessly. She knew how vain was the wish. This was a love that would end but with life, she told herself.

Mrs. Warren changed the subject by saying:

“Well, thank Heaven, dear is very much better now, and we can soon get away from here, where, ‘out of sight is out of mind,’ I hope. By the way, I heard the doctor saying that the sick man at the other hotel--the lieutenant, they call him--had a bad turn last night, and nearly died. It seems as if he is suffering from a wound in the lung, received in the battle of El Caney.”

“So then he is an American? Poor fellow, I am very sorry for him!” cried Maisie, with hearty sympathy, and her thoughts dwelt a moment on another who had been wounded at El Caney--whose death had made her a not inconsolable widow.

“Poor Delmar!” she thought gently, in pity for his hard fate, yet wondering to herself why it was that she could have loved him at all, when his elder brother was by--grave, noble Byrd Barrington, who was now her ideal of manly perfection.

“Girls are very silly,” she thought, shrugging her shoulders with the wisdom of one who had now attained nineteen years. “In girlhood they go through a course of novel and poetry reading, à la Byron, that leaves on them the impression that all of heaven lies in a pair of dashing black eyes and a silky mustache. The illusion is very real while it lasts, and I own I had the fever in its worst type. It was a bitter pill indeed, that cured me, but the dose acted quickly, and I came to my senses for good. Josephine would have been more than welcome to him had he lived!”

But the thought that Byrd Barrington had been won by the wily fortune-hunter nearly drove her mad, and now, indeed, she felt anxious to get away from the sight of the happiness she could but envy.

“He will be with her all the time now. I shall not have the boat-ride we planned for to-day!” she thought, with jealous pain.

But she was mistaken in her fears.

He came promptly at the hour appointed, saying:

“I hope I am not late. I have been taking a short nap, after being up all night with a very sick man.”

“The wounded lieutenant?” said Maisie, and he nodded yes, and went on:

“I did not want to lose one golden moment away from you, for Mrs. Warren has told me you are going away as soon as her husband is well enough to travel.”

His grave blue eyes sought hers with a look that made her heart leap wildly, while her face tingled with blushes, and she said to herself, reproachfully:

“Oh, Maisie, what a wicked, shameless girl you are! I could not have believed this of you! Are you the girl that always despised flirting? And now you are letting a married man make love to you, and never telling him to go about his business, as you should have done days and days ago! And more dreadful still, you are loving him back with all your heart! You are so wicked that I wonder God does not let this boat overturn and drown you both!”

But the boat did not overturn, nor did she tell him he must not look at her with that passionate love-light in his eyes, nor speak to her in that love-freighted voice, that made her heart throb so fiercely against her white bodice. She kept resolving to tell him so, but her lips refused to speak the words that would part them forever.

He trimmed the sail, and the little craft flew blithely across the blue waters beneath the golden sunshine of the day, whose every hour was golden that they spent together. They were silent for a while, each busy with perturbing thoughts--Maisie wondering how Josephine would take it if she knew, and Barrington making up his mind to put his fate to the test:

“To win or lose it all!”

His heart was full to overflowing, and he said to himself that surely God had sent him this beautiful girl in Maisie’s form and likeness to console him for her loss.

And in spite of her shyness and occasional coldness, his eyes had read her love on her changing cheeks, and he knew she was not indifferent, that her warm heart answered to his own.

It seemed to him that the time was ripe for the declaration of his love. He was past thirty, and he did not want to wait much longer for his happiness. Besides, she would be going away soon, and he could not leave his brother to follow her about to speed his wooing.

It was now or never, he said to himself, with a wild heart-throb, and leaned toward her suddenly, so close that his warm breath floated over her cheeks.

“Oh, Violet, I must speak. I cannot keep silence any longer!” he cried ardently. “In the few weeks that I have known you, you have grown into my heart, and filled my life with joy. Will you marry me?”