"Long live--your king!"
"My king?"
"I'm his subject if you are; I'll shout for no other king."
"Now, whatever is he talking about?" thought Lorraine, and the suspicion of a cloud gathered in her clear eyes again, but was dissipated at once when he said: "I have answered the Herald's telegram."
"What did you say?" she asked, quickly.
"I accepted--"
"What!"
There was resentment in her voice. She felt that he had done something which was tacitly understood to be against her wishes. True, what difference did it make to her? None; she would lose a delightful companion. Suddenly, something of the significance of such a loss came to her. It was not a revelation, scarcely an illumination, but she understood that if he went she should be lonely--yes, even unhappy. Then, too, unconsciously, she had assumed a mental attitude of interest in his movements--of partial proprietorship in his thoughts. She felt vaguely that she had been overlooked in the decision he had made; that even if she had not been consulted, at least he might have told her what he intended to do. Lorraine was at a loss to understand herself. But she was easily understood. For two weeks her attitude had been that of every innocent, lovable girl when in the presence of the man whom she frankly cares for; and that attitude was one of mental proprietorship. Now, suddenly finding that his sympathies and ideas moved independently of her sympathies--that her mental influence, which existed until now unconsciously, was in reality no influence at all, she awoke to the fact that she perhaps counted for nothing with him. Therefore resentment appeared in the faintest of straight lines between her eyes.
"Do you care?" he asked, carelessly.
"I? Why, no."
If she had smiled at him and said "Yes," he would have despaired; but she frowned a trifle and said "No," and Jack's heart began to beat.
"I cabled them two words: 'Accept--provisionally,'" he said.
"Oh, what did you mean?"
"Provisionally meant--with your consent."
"My--my consent?"
"Yes--if it is your pleasure."
Pleasure! Her sweet eyes answered what her lips withheld. Her little heart beat high. So then she did influence this cool young man, with his brown eyes faintly smiling, and his indolent limbs crossed on the moss at her feet. At the same moment her instinct told her to tighten her hold. This was so perfectly feminine, so instinctively human, that she had done it before she herself was aware of it. "I shall think it over," she said, looking at him, gravely; "I may permit you to accept."
So was accomplished the admitted subjugation of Jack Marche--a stroke of diplomacy on his part; and he passed under the yoke in such a manner that even the blindest of maids could see that he was not vaulting over it instead.