d my
father's life happened there, yet there we two first talked, and there
you--"

"Don't!" she said, facing him. "Don't!"

"Ah, let me speak! I want to tell you that I shall carry the memory of
that afternoon, and of your brave kindness, always, always! If I were
never to see you again in this life, I should always treasure it. If I
died of thirst in some Sahara, it would be the last thing I should
remember--your face would be the last thing I should see! If I--"

He paused, his veins beating hard under the savage self-repression, his
hand trembling against the stone, his voice a traitor, yielding to
something that rose in his throat to choke the stumbling words.

In the silence there was the sound of a slow footfall on the gravel
walk, and at the same moment he saw a magical change. Shirley drew back.
The soft gentian blue of her eyes darkened. The lips that an instant
before had been tremulous, parted in a low delicious laugh. She swept
him a deep curtsey.

"I am beholden to you, sir," she said gaily, "for a most knightly
compliment. There's the major. Come and let us show him where we've
planted the ramblers."

CHAPTER XXXI

TOURNAMENT DAY

The noon sun of tournament day shone brilliantly over the village,
drowsy no longer, for many vehicles were hitched at the curb, or moved
leisurely along the leafy street: big, canvas-topped country wagons
drawn by shaggy-hoofed horses and set with chairs that had bumped and
jostled their holiday loads from outlying tobacco plantation and
stud-farm; sober, black-covered buggies, long, narrow, springless
buckboards, frivolous side-bar runabouts and antique shays resurrected
from the primeval depths of cobwebbed stables, relics of tarnished
grandeur and faded fortune. Here and there a motor crept, a bilious and
replete beetle among insects of wider wing. Knots of high-booted men
conversed on street corners, men hand-cuffed, it would seem, to their
whips; children romped and ran hither and thither; and through all
sifted a varicolored stream of negroes, male and female, good-natured
and voluble. For tournament day was a county event, and the annual sport
of the quality had long outstripped even circus day in general
popularity.

At midday vehicles resolved themselves into luncheon-booths--hampers
stowed away beneath the seats, disclosing all manner of picnic
edibles--the court-house yard was an array of grass-spread table-cloths,
and an air of plenty reigned.