"
"What--what do you mean?" she gasped, shrinking from him, a
burning spot reappearing under the dimpled skin of each cheek.
"Pray, Miss, do not get excited. There is nothing to make you
cry." He saw tears shining in her eyes. "Beverley is not in the
slightest danger. All will be well, and he'll come back in a few
days. The expedition will be but a pleasure trip. Now you go home.
Lieutenant Beverley is amply able to take care of himself. And let
me tell you, if you expect a good man to have great confidence in
you, stay home and let him hunt you up instead of you hunting him.
A man likes that better."
It would be impossible to describe Alice's feelings, as they just
then rose like a whirling storm in her heart. She was humiliated,
she was indignant, she was abashed; she wanted to break forth with
a tempest of denial, self-vindication, resentment; she wanted to
cry with her face hidden in her hands. What she did was to stand
helplessly gazing at Clark, with two or three bright tears on
either cheek, her hands clenched, her eyes flashing. She was going
to say some wild thing; but she did not; her voice lodged fast in
her throat. She moved her lips, unable to make a sound.
Two of Clark's officers relieved the situation by coming up to get
orders about some matter of town government, and Alice scarcely
knew how she made her way home.
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