The door from the entry opened. Dallas came slowly out.
"Go on," urged Felicia, "'Rose of the South?'"
But Lounsbury was looking at Dallas. "Rose of the South," he repeated, a queer tremor running around his mouth; "as far south as--as Texas."
Lounsbury hurried to put the well hand behind his ear. "Felicia," he said, "didn't I hear your mother call?"
Felicia rocked herself from foot to foot. "Oh, you go _on_," she said overbearingly, "or you might fall out of the hammock."
But the spell was broken. Her sisters had pounced upon Dallas. The boys, getting a whiff from regions down the hall, had made off. She followed, with backward demands for "the rest of it" later on, and carried the last of the five with her.
Lounsbury sat up and put out his hand. The fun was gone from his eyes.
"Dallas, you've had your talk," he said quietly, but with a hint of anxiety. "I know it's all right; it's _got_ to be."
She came part way to him, and stood where morning-glory vines climbed a lattice. "Marylyn's just been telling me," she answered. She raised her head, very intent upon the flagstaff. The light through the vines touched the outline of her face--a firm outline, cut by a flying wisp of hair.
She glanced down at him, smiling through tears. "All the time, they liked each other," she said happily. "He calls her Marylyn, and she calls him Robert."
He got up and went to her. "When I saw him there in the road by that cottonwood bunch, lugging her along so careful, looking so scared--and the way he held her on Buckskin!" He caught her hand.
"There's one thing that hurts," she answered. "That it kept you out there watching, and I didn't even go to you--but I--I----"
"You were doing the white thing by that little sister. That makes it all the sweeter."
"She was afraid I'd scold," still through tears.
"I would. I felt different about soldiers--then."
He took a deep breath. "They're handy to have around," he said.
"She's afraid Mr. Fraser'll find out what she said about you."
"He won't. He might get a notion she didn't know her own mind yet! He might--well, as Kippis says, ''E's bloomin' 'ot-'eaded,' the little beggar!"
"She don't know I told you. It'd bother her if----"
"That's between you and me, Dallas." He drew her near.