t his younger associate was with
Greenleaf as bodyguard. The music of harp and violins broke out and
dancers swept round the brass gun and up and down the floors.

XL

THE LICENSE, THE DAGGER

Hilary had bent an arm around Anna when Flora called his name. Irby
handed him the order. A glance made it clear. Its reader cast a wide
look over the heads of the dancers and lifting the missive high beckoned
with it to Mandeville. Then he looked for some one else: "Charlie!"

"Out on the veranda," said a passing dancer.

"Send him here!" The commander's eye came back to Irby: "Old man, how
long have you had this?"

"About an hour."

"Oh, my stars, Adolphe, you should have told me!"

It was a fair sight, though maddening to Flora yonder by the glass case,
to see the two cousins standing eye to eye, Hilary's brow dark with
splendid concern while without a glance at Anna he passed her the
despatch and she read it.

"Steve," he said, as the Mandeville pair pressed up, "look at that!
boots-and-saddles! now! to-night! for you and Adolphe and me! Yes,
Charlie, and you; go, get your things and put Jerry on the train with
mine."

The boy's partner was Victorine. Before she could gasp he had kissed
her. Amid a laugh that stopped half the dance he waved one farewell to
sister, grandmother and all and sprang away. "Dance on, fellows," called
Hilary, "this means only that I'm going with you." The lads cheered and
the dance revived.

Their captain turned: "Miss Flora, I promised your brother he should go
whenever--"

"But me al-_so_ you promised!" she interrupted, and a fair sight also,
grievous to Irby, startling to Anna, were this pair, standing eye to
eye.

"Yes," replied Kincaid, "and I'll keep my word. In any extremity you
shall come to him."

"As likewise my wive to me!" said the swelling Mandeville, openly
caressing the tearful Constance. "Wive to 'usband," he declaimed,
"sizter to brother--" But his audience was lost. Hilary was speaking
softly to Anna. She was very pale. The throng drew away. You could see
that he was asking if she only could in no extremity come to him. His
words were inaudible, but any one who had ever loved could read them.
And now evidently he proposed something. There was ardor in his
eye--ardor and enterprise. She murmured a response. He snatched out his
watch.

"_Just_ time," he was heard to say, "time enough by soldier's measure!"
His speech grew plainer: "The law's right for me