第30章 LOSS,OR GAIN?(3)

There was no haze overhanging the earth now,and the Walnut Valley was a picture beyond a Master's dream.Victor Burleigh sat on the top of the flight of steps leading from the lower campus,looking lazily out with dreamy eyes on all that the earth had to give on this sweet April afternoon.

Presently Elinor Wream came around the north angle of the building,hesitated a little,then walked straight to the steps.

"Good afternoon,Victor,"she said.

Burleigh looked up,glad then of his months of discipline and self-control.A sight good for anybody on a day like this was this college girl with beautiful dark hair and laughing dark eyes,a satiny pink and white complexion,and a slender form,clad just now in dainty pink gingham with faint little edgings of white and pale green,all stylishly put together to reveal rounded arms,and white neck,and dimpled chin.

"Hello,Elinor,"Vic said,calmly,making room for her on the stone steps.

"Take a seat."

Elinor sat down beside him,throwing her hat on the ground.

"Whither away?"Vic asked.

"I'll tell you presently.I want to get over my stage fright first.""All right,look at this view.I'll give it to you if you like it."Vic had turned to the west again and was looking away toward the dreamy prairies beyond the valley.

Elinor recalled the September day when the bull snake lay sunning itself on this very stone.How shy and awkward he seemed then,with only a deep sweet voice to attract favorable attention.

And now,big,and graceful,and handsome,and reserved--any girl might be proud to have his regard.Of course,for herself,there was Vincent Burgess in the pleasant inevitable sometime.

She gave little thought to that.She was living in the present.

And in the wooing spirit of the April afternoon Elinor was glad to sit here beside Victor Burleigh.

"What time next month do we have the big baseball game?"she asked.

"The game that is to make Sunrise the champion college in Kansas,and you our college champion?"Vic's lips suddenly grew gray.

"Friday,the thirteenth--auspicious date!"he answered.

"But I may not play in it.I might fail.""Oh,we must win this game,anyhow,and you never do fail.

Don't forget the name your mother gave you.Do you remember when you told me that?""A couple of thousand years ago,wasn't it?"Vic asked,smiling down on her.

"If I don't play Sunrise needn't fail,even for Friday,the thirteenth.""But it will fail without you.You pulled us to victory a year ago at the Thanksgiving game,and last fall the Sunrise goal line wasn't crossed the whole season with `Burleigh!Burly!Burlee!'for a slogan.

We must win this year.Then it will be a complete championship:

football,basket-ball,and baseball.We won't do it though unless we have `Burleigh at the bat'."A shadow crossed his face and he looked away to where a tiny film of blue smoke was rising above the rough ledges beyond the river.

"I'm getting over my stage fright now,"Elinor said,the pink deepening on her fair cheek,"and I'll tell you what I want.""Command me!"he said,gallantly.

"Well,it's awful,and the girls are too mean to live.

But they are getting even with me,they say,for something Idid last fall."

"All right."Vic was waiting,graciously.

"A lot of us have broken some of the rules of the Sorority and it's decreed that I must go over the route we came home by on the night of the storm down in the Kickapoo Corral.They are having a `spread'down there at five o'clock and we are to get there in time for it,going by the west side of the river,and they'll bring us home.

They said I should ask you to go with me,and if you would n't go for me to ask Mr.Trench to go.They are too silly for anything.""Trench was executed for manslaughter at two forty-five today.

It's three o'clock now.Let's go."He lifted her to her feet and stooped to pick up her hat.

"Do you really mind going with me,Victor?"Elinor asked.

"Do I mind?I've been waiting two years for you to ask me to go."His voice was very deep and there was a soft light in his brown eyes.

Elinor's pulse beat felt a thrill.A sudden sense of the sweetness of the day and of a joy unlike any other joy of her life possessed her.

Down on the bridge they stopped to watch the sunlit waters of the Walnut rippling below them.

"Are we the same two who crept up on this bridge,wet,and muddy and tired,and scared one stormy October night eighteen months ago?"Elinor asked.

"I've had no reincarnation that I know of,"Vic replied.

"I have,"Elinor declared,and Vic thought of Burgess.

Up the narrow hidden glen they made their way,clambering about broken ledges,crossing and recrossing the little stream,hugging the dry footing under overhanging rock shelves,laughing at missteps and rejoicing in the springtime joy,until they came suddenly upon a grassy open space,cliff-walled and hidden,even from the rest of the glen.

At the farther end was the low doorway-like entrance to the cave.

The song-birds were twittering in the trees above them,the waters of the little stream gurgled at their feet,the woodsy odor of growing things was in the air,and all the little glen was restful and quiet.

"Isn't it beautiful and romantic--and everything nice?"Elinor cried."I don't mind this sentence to hard service.

It is worth it.Do you mind the loss of time,Victor?""I counted it gain to be here with you,even in the storm and terror.

How can this be loss?"he answered her.His voice was low and musical.

Elinor looked up quickly.And quickly as the thing had come to Victor Burleigh on the west bluff above the old Kickapoo Corral two Octobers ago,so to Elinor Wream came the vision of what the love of such a man would be to the woman who could win it.

"Do you really mean it,Victor?Was n't I a lump of lead?

A dead weight to your strength that night?You have never once spoken of it."She looked up with shining eyes and put out her hand.

What could he do but keep it in his own for a moment,firm-held,as something he would keep forever.

"I have never once forgotten it,"he murmured.