Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/314

302 nel gets straightened around a little and finds out just what he does want to do. We'd be very foolish to stir things all up uselessly. What do you think?"

"It might be a good idea. But, Ken, are you very sure your father?"

"Certain sure. Let me tell you about father. He probably thinks the Colonel is either an obstructionist to progress or is trying to hold him up. In either case he'd fight; for father is a fighter. But it's only because he doesn't understand the Colonel. I can fix that, never fear—when the time comes."

His confidence was so absolute that she shared it.

"Are you going to let me see the Colonel now?" he asked after a moment, with a rueful smile.

"I don't see how you can; I must explain to him—you see, he thinks the same as I did."

"Oh!" cried Kenneth, distressed, "you must fix that—I can't bear that thought."

She arose slowly, holding out her fingers to his clasp.

"Come," she said, consideringly. "I'll see."

But the matter was taken out of their hands. As they turned around the low flung screen of leaves formed by the lowermost branch of Dolman's House they came face to face with the tall figure of the Colonel. His clean-cut old face looked white, and the lines of it had somehow grown finer, but no visible marks of grief blurred his countenance or dimmed the kindly clearness of his eyes. Indeed, into the latter came a faint twinkle as he surveyed them, for they had been walking hand in hand, and the surprise of the encounter had left them so. Slowly the Colonel's gaze travelled from one face to the other.

"I see it is all right," he said, "and, children, I'm very, very glad. It is as it should be."

"Oh, godpapa," breathed Daphne, with meaning, "everything is all right."

The Colonel fairly twinkled at her.

"No need to tell me that, Puss," he turned to Kenneth. "You have won," he said, simply, "the finest, truest woman in the world and you must be good to her. There is nothing else in life my boy, nothing!— I know," he added in a low voice.