Openings in the Old Trail

“That’s him,” she continued, with eyes still fixed on the parasol and without changing her monotonous tone—“off and on ever since. Most of the time at the Free-Will Baptist Church—at morning service, prayer-meetings, and such. And at home—outside—er—in the road.”

“Is it this gentleman—Mr. Adoniram K. Hotchkiss—who—er—promised marriage?” stammered the Colonel.

“Yes.”

The Colonel shifted uneasily in his chair. “Most extraordinary! for—you see—my dear young lady—this becomes—a—er—most delicate affair.”

“That’s what maw said,” returned the young woman simply, yet with the faintest smile playing around her demure lips and downcast cheek.

“I mean,” said the Colonel, with a pained yet courteous smile, “that this—er—gentleman—is in fact—er—one of my clients.”

“That’s what maw said too, and of course your knowing him will make it all the easier for you.”

A slight flush crossed the Colonel’s cheek as he returned quickly and a little stiffly, “On the contrary—er—it may make it impossible for me to—er—act in this matter.”

The girl lifted her eyes. The Colonel held his breath as the long lashes were raised to his level. Even to an ordinary observer that sudden revelation of her eyes seemed to transform her face with subtle witchery. They were large, brown, and soft, yet filled with an extraordinary penetration and prescience. They were the eyes of an experienced woman of thirty fixed in the face of a child. What else the Colonel saw there Heaven only knows! He felt his inmost secrets plucked from him—his whole soul laid bare—his vanity, belligerency, gallantry—even his mediaeval chivalry, penetrated, and yet illuminated, in that single glance. And when the eyelids fell again, he felt that a greater part of himself had been swallowed up in them.

“I beg your pardon,” he said hurriedly. “I mean—this matter may be arranged—er—amicably. My interest with—and as you wisely say—my—er—knowledge of my client—er—Mr. Hotchkiss—may effect—a compromise.”

“And DAMAGES,” said the young girl, readdressing her parasol, as if she had never looked up.

The Colonel winced. “And—er—undoubtedly COMPENSATION—if you do not press a fulfillment of the promise. Unless,” he said, with an attempted return to his former easy gallantry, which, however, the recollection of her eyes made difficult, “it is a question of—er—the affections.”

“Which?” asked his fair client softly.

“If you still love him?” explained the Colonel, actually blushing.

Zaidee again looked up; again taking the Colonel’s breath away with eyes that expressed not only the fullest perception of what he had SAID, but of what he thought and had not said, and with an added subtle suggestion of what he might have thought. “That’s tellin’,” she said, dropping her long lashes again.

The Colonel laughed vacantly. Then feeling himself growing imbecile, he forced an equally weak gravity. “Pardon me—I understand there are no letters; may I know the way in which he formulated his declaration and promises?”

“Hymn-books.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the mystified lawyer.

“Hymn-books—marked words in them with pencil—and passed ‘em on to me,” repeated Zaidee. “Like ‘love,’ ‘dear,’ ‘precious,’ ‘sweet,’ and ‘blessed,’” she added, accenting each word with a push of her parasol on the carpet. “Sometimes a whole line outer Tate and Brady—and Solomon’s Song, you know, and sich.”

“I believe,” said the Colonel loftily, “that the—er—phrases of sacred psalmody lend themselves to the language of the affections. But in regard to the distinct promise of marriage—was there—er—no OTHER expression?”

“Marriage Service in the prayer-book—lines and words outer that—all marked,” Zaidee replied.

The Colonel nodded naturally and approvingly. “Very good. Were others cognizant of this? Were there any witnesses?”

“Of course not,” said the girl. “Only me and him. It was generally at church-time—or prayer-meeting. Once, in passing the plate, he slipped one o’ them peppermint lozenges with the letters stamped on it ‘I love you’ for me to take.”

The Colonel coughed slightly. “And you have the lozenge?”

“I ate it.”

“Ah,” said the Colonel. After a pause he added delicately, “But were these attentions—er—confined to—er—sacred precincts? Did he meet you elsewhere?”

“Useter pass our house on the road,” returned the girl, dropping into her monotonous recital, “and useter signal.”

“Ah, signal?” repeated the Colonel approvingly.

“Yes! He’d say ‘Keerow,’ and I’d say ‘Keeree.’ Suthing like a bird, you know.”

Indeed, as she lifted her voice in imitation of the call, the Colonel thought it certainly very sweet and birdlike. At least as SHE gave it. With his remembrance of the grim deacon he had doubts as to the melodiousness of HIS utterance. He gravely made her repeat it.

“And after that signal?” he added suggestively.

“He’d pass on.”

The Colonel again coughed slightly, and tapped his desk with his penholder.

“Were there any endearments—er—caresses—er—such as taking your hand—er—clasping your waist?” he suggested, with a gallant yet respectful sweep of his white hand and bowing of his head; “er—slight pressure of your fingers in the changes of a dance—I mean,” he corrected himself, with an apologetic cough—“in the passing of the plate?”

“No; he was not what you’d call ‘fond,’” returned the girl.

“Ah! Adoniram K. Hotchkiss was not ‘fond’ in the ordinary acceptance of the word,” noted the Colonel, with professional gravity.

She lifted her disturbing eyes, and again absorbed his in her own. She also said “Yes,” although her eyes in their mysterious prescience of all he was thinking disclaimed the necessity of any answer at all. He smiled vacantly. There was a long pause. On which she slowly disengaged her parasol from the carpet pattern, and stood up.

“I reckon that’s about all,” she said.

“Er—yes—but one moment,” began the Colonel vaguely. He would have liked to keep her longer, but with her strange premonition of him he felt powerless to detain her, or explain his reason for doing so. He instinctively knew she had told him all; his professional judgment told him that a more hopeless case had never come to his knowledge. Yet he was not daunted, only embarrassed. “No matter,” he said. “Of course I shall have to consult with you again.”

Her eyes again answered that she expected he would, and she added simply, “When?”

“In the course of a day or two;” he replied quickly. “I will send you word.”

She turned to go. In his eagerness to open the door for her, he upset his chair, and with some confusion, that was actually youthful, he almost impeded her movements in the hall, and knocked his broad-brimmed Panama hat from his bowing hand in a final gallant sweep. Yet as her small, trim, youthful figure, with its simple Leghorn straw hat confined by a blue bow under her round chin, passed away before him, she looked more like a child than ever.

The Colonel spent that afternoon in making diplomatic inquiries. He found his youthful client was the daughter of a widow who had a small ranch on the cross-roads, near the new Free-Will Baptist Church—the evident theatre of this pastoral. They led a secluded life, the girl being little known in the town, and her beauty and fascination apparently not yet being a recognized fact. The Colonel felt a pleasurable relief at this, and a general satisfaction he could not account for. His few inquiries concerning Mr. Hotchkiss only confirmed his own impressions of the alleged lover,—a serious-minded, practically abstracted man, abstentive of youthful society, and the last man apparently capable of levity of the affections or serious flirtation. The Colonel was mystified, but determined of purpose, whatever that purpose might have been.

The next day he was at his office at the same hour. He was alone—as usual—the Colonel’s office being really his private lodgings, disposed in connecting rooms, a single apartment reserved for consultation. He had no clerk, his papers and briefs being taken by his faithful body-servant and ex-slave “Jim” to another firm who did his office work since the death of Major Stryker, the Colonel’s only law partner, who fell in a duel some years previous. With a fine constancy the Colonel still retained his partner’s name on his doorplate, and, it was alleged by the superstitious, kept a certain invincibility also through the ‘manes’ of that lamented and somewhat feared man.

The Colonel consulted his watch, whose heavy gold case still showed the marks of a providential interference with a bullet destined for its owner, and replaced it with some difficulty and shortness of breath in his fob. At the same moment he heard a step in the passage, and the door opened to Adoniram K. Hotchkiss. The Colonel was impressed; he had a duelist’s respect for punctuality.

The man entered with a nod and the expectant inquiring look of a busy man. As his feet crossed that sacred threshold the Colonel became all courtesy; he placed a chair for his visitor, and took his hat from his half reluctant hand. He then opened a cupboard and brought out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

“A—er—slight refreshment, Mr. Hotchkiss,” he suggested politely.

“I never drink,” replied Hotchkiss, with the severe attitude of a total abstainer.

“Ah—er—not the finest Bourbon whiskey, selected by a Kentucky friend? No? Pardon me! A cigar, then—the mildest Havana.”

“I do not use tobacco nor alcohol in any form,” repeated Hotchkiss ascetically. “I have no foolish weaknesses.”