PAGE 9
A Border Ruffian
by
They were sitting, as they talked, in a narrow space between a table and the wall, made narrower by the presence of an unused chair. Just as this memory was aroused, some one tried to push by them, and Livingstone, rising, lifted the obstructing chair away. To find a clear space in which to put it down, he lifted it across the table; and for a moment he stood erect, holding the chair out before him at arm’s-length.
When he seated himself and turned again to speak to Grace, he was startled to find that her face and shoulders, and even her arms–her arms and shoulders were delectable–were crimson; and in her eyes he found at last the look of recognition that he had hoped for earlier in the evening, but that now he had ceased to expect. Recognition of this emphatic sort he certainly had not expected at all.
“You–you see,” she said, “I al–always have thought that you were a robber and a murderer, and shocking things like that. And I didn’t really see you that day, except as you walked away, holding up that horrid little man, kicking–just as you held up the chair. Can you ever, ever forgive me for thinking such wicked things about you, and for being so ungrateful as not to know you at the very first?”
And Livingstone, then and later, succeeded in convincing her that he could.
VIII.
By an emphatic whisper Miss Grace Winthrop succeeded in impressing upon her aunt the necessity–at no matter what sacrifice of the social conventions–of being the last to go. In the matter of keeping Livingstone, she experienced no difficulty at all. And when the unnecessary eight had departed, she presented to her aunt and uncle her deliverer, and–in a delightfully hesitating way–told to Mr. and Mrs. Smith the story of her deliverance.
It was when this matter had been explained that Livingstone, who felt that his position now was absolutely secure, brought up the delicate question of his own identity.
“You can understand, I am sure, Mrs. Smith,” he said, “how very grateful I am to you for this evening; but, indeed, I don’t think that I am the person you meant to ask. And it has occurred to me, from something that you said about my having been in Europe for a good while, that Mr. Smith might have meant his invitation for Van Rensselaer Livingstone. He’s my cousin, you know; and he has spent the last ten years in Europe, and is there yet, I fancy. But I am Van Ruyter Livingstone, and if I can be said to have a home anywhere–except the old home in New York, of course–it is on my sheep range in New Mexico.
“But you won’t be cruel enough, Mrs. Smith, after letting me into Paradise–even if I did get in by mistake–to turn me out again; will you?”
And Mrs. Rittenhouse Smith, who was a clever woman, as well as a remarkably clear-sighted one, replied that even if she wanted to turn Mr. Van Ruyter Livingstone out of Paradise she believed that it was now too late.