CHAPTER XX
THE ROMANCE OF MINSTRELSY
"I am glad to see that you are better," said Diane pleasantly.
The minstrel, who had bathed his hands and face in the river until theywere darkly ruddy, bowed with singular grace and ease. That he wasgrave and courtly of manner and strikingly handsome to boot, Diane hadalready noticed with a flash of wonder.
"I owe you much," said he simply. "My life perhaps--"
"I am sure," protested Diane, "that you greatly overrate my smallservice."
"Day by day," exclaimed the minstrel sombrely, "I travel the summerroads in quest of health."
Not a little interested, Diane raised frankly sympathetic eyes to hisin diffident question.
"The music?" said the minstrel with his slow, grave smile. "Is therenot more romance and adventure in the life of a wandering minstrel thanin that of an idle seeker after health? In the open one findshappiness, health, color and life!"
Diane felt a sudden tie of sympathy link her subtly to this mysteriousnomad of the summer road. Simply and naturally she spoke of her ownlove of the wild things that filled the sylvan world with life andcolor.
"You look much then at the wild flowers!" he exclaimed delightedly."There was a leaf back there on a mountain, the edge of white, a whiteblossom in the heart like a patch of snow--"
"Snow-on-the-mountain!" exclaimed Diane. "I've looked for it for days."
"It shall be my ambition to bring you some," said the minstrelgallantly. "I shall not forget."
Diane glanced furtively at the picturesque attire which her nomadicguest wore with a certain dashing grace, and marveled afresh. It wasof ragged corduroy with a brightly colored handkerchief about thethroat which foiled his vivid skin artistically. Indeed there was moreof sophistication in the careful blending of colors than even thenormal seeker after health might deem expedient for his purpose.
"It is to few--to none indeed save you that I have confided the secretof my minstrelsy," he said deferentially a little later. "Illness,love of adventure, a longing to brush elbows with the world, a hungerfor the woodland--in the eyes of unromantic men these things areweaknesses. You and I know differently, but nevertheless it is bestthat I seem but a poor vagrant grinding forth a hapless tune for thecoppers by the wayside."
The minstrel gazed idly at the hay-camp.
"One does not quite understand," he suggested raising handsome eyebrowsin subtle disapproval; "the negro, the hay--the curious camp?"
Diane recalled Philip's unfeeling attitude of the night before.
"A happy-go-lucky young man with a taste for hay," she said. "I knowlittle of him."
"One treasures one's confidence from the unsympathetic," ventured theminstrel. "Now the young man of the hay, I take it, is intenselypractical and let us say--unromantic. Lest he laugh and scoff--" heshrugged and glanced furtively at the girl's face. It was brightlyflushed and very lovely. The velvet dusk of Diane's eyes was sparklingwith the zest of woodland adventure. To repose a confidence in one sospirited and beautiful was fascinating sport--and safe.
Now the minstrel found as the morning waned that he was not so strongas he had fancied. Wherefore he lay humbly by the fire and talked ofhis fortunes by the roadside. Bits of philosophy, of sparkling jest,of vivid description, to these Diane listened with parted lips and eyesalive with wholesome interest as her guest contrived to veil himself ina silken web of romance and mystery.
It was sunset before the girl felt uncomfortably that he ought to go.A little later, on her way to the van, she found a volume of Herodotusin the original Greek which with a becoming air of guilt the minstrelowned that he had dropped.
"Ah, Herodotus!" he murmured, smiling. "After all, was he not thewandering, romantic father of all of us who are nomads!"
"I wonder," said a lazy voice among the trees, "I wonder now if oldHerodotus ever heard of a hay-camp."
Removing a wisp of hay from his shoe with a certain matter-of-factgrace characteristic of him, Mr. Poynter, who had been invisible allday, arrived in the camp of the enemy. Diane saw with a fretful flashof wonder that he was immaculate as usual. She saw too that theminstrel was annoyed and that he dropped the volume of Herodotus intohis pocket with a flush and a frown.
"I trust," said Philip politely, "that you are better?"
Save for a slight dizziness, the minstrel said, he was.
"And yet," urged Philip feelingly, "I'm sure you'll not take to theroad to-night, feeling wobbly. The inn back there in the village isimmensely attractive. And a bed is the place for a sick man."
"He will remain where he is," flashed Diane perversely, "until he feelsquite able to go on."
"Will you?" asked Philip pointedly.
The minstrel rose weakly and glanced at Diane with profound gratitude.
"After all," he said hurriedly, "he is doubtless right. Ill or not Imust go on."
"An excellent notion!" approved Philip cordially. "I'll go with you."
Now whether or not the hurry and excitement of rising in these somewhatfrictional circumstances brought on a recurrence of the nomad'ssingular disease, Diane did not know, but certainly he staggered andfell back, faint and moaning by the fire, thereby arousing an immediatecommotion.
Philip grimly took his pulse and met Diane's sympathetic glance withone of honest indignation.
"Diane," he said in a low voice, "he is tricking you into sympathymerely for the comfort of your camp. Twice now his fainting has beenattended by an absolutely normal pulse. Let Ras and Johnny carry himback to his rumpus machine and I'll drive him to the inn."
"You'll do nothing of the sort!" exclaimed the girl with flaming color."Why are you so suspicious?"
Philip sighed.
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