Andrew the Glad

"Well, it doesn't matter," he said with a comforting smile as he came up

beside her on the rug. "They'll introduce us when they come. I'm Andrew

Sevier and the berries are yours, so what matter?"

"Oh," said Caroline Darrah in an awed voice, and as she spoke she raised

her head from the wood flowers and her eyes to his face, "oh, are you

really Andrew Sevier?"

"Yes, _really_," he answered with another smile and a slightly puzzled

expression in his own dark eyes.

"But I read everything I can find about you, and the papers say you are

ill in Panama. I've been so worried about you. I saw your play last week

in New York and I couldn't enjoy it for wondering how you were. I

wouldn't read your poem in this month's _Review_ because I was afraid you

were dead--and I didn't know it. I'm so relieved." With which astonishing

remark she drew a deep breath and laid her cheek against the field

bouquet.

"I am--that is I was smashed up in Panama until David came down and

brought me home. It was awfully good of you to--to know that I--that

I--" Andrew Sevier paused as mirth, wonder and gratitude spread in

confusion over his suntanned face.

"How did it happen? Was it very dreadful?" And again those distractingly

solicitous eyes, full of sympathetic anxiety, were raised to his. Andrew

shook himself mentally to see if it could possibly be a dream he was

having, and a little thrill shot through him at the reality of it all.

"Nothing interesting; end of a bridge collapsed and put a rib or two out

of commission," he managed to answer.

"I _knew_ it was something dreadful," said Caroline Darrah Brown as she

moved a step nearer him. "I was really unhappy about it and I wondered if

all the other people who read your poems and watch for them and--and love

them like I do, were worried, too. But I concluded that they would know

how to find out about you; only I didn't. I'm glad you are here safe and

that I know it."

The puzzled expression in Andrew Sevier's face deepened. Of course he had

become more or less accustomed to the interest which his work had caused

to be attached to his personality, and this was not the first time he had

had a stranger read the poet into the man on first sight. They had even

gone so far as to expect him to talk in blank verse he felt sure,

especially when his admirer had been a member of the opposite and fair

sex, but a thing like this had never happened to him before. It was, at

the least, disturbing to have a lovely woman rise out of the major's very

hearthstone and claim him as a familiar spirit with the exquisite

frankness of a child. It smacked of the wine of wizardry. He glanced at

her a moment and was on the point of making a tentative inquiry when the

major came into the room.