With that first meal in her new home,
the darkened hours and days and years smothered their haunting
voices. She had "left yesterday behind her," as the major's royal
wife had wished her to, and for the first time in all her checkered
and neglected life she laughed with the gladness of a bird at song,
flung her past behind her, and the grim unhappiness of her former
life left her forever.
* * * * *
It was a golden morning in July when the doctor stood grasping
George Mansion's slender hands, searching into his dusky, anxious
eyes, and saying with ringing cheeriness, "Chief, I congratulate
you. You've got the most beautiful son upstairs--the finest boy I
ever saw. Hail to the young chief, I say!"
The doctor was white. He did not know of the broken line of
lineage--that "the boy upstairs" could never wear his father's
title. A swift shadow fought for a second with glorious happiness.
The battlefield was George Mansion's face, his heart. His unfilled
duty to his parents assailed him like a monstrous enemy, then
happiness conquered, came forth a triumphant victor, and the young
father dashed noiselessly, fleetly up the staircase, and, despite
the protesting physician, in another moment his wife and son were
in his arms.
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