Kirby lay stretched out on the sand, watching the driftwood fire he had
built. The flame mounted steadily, this quiet night, sending out over
the dark water a trembling path of ruddy light. Now and then a little
rain of sparks fell, to die at once in the thick sand; and overhead a
young moon swam, clear silver, in a sky without clouds.
He might have been alone on a desert island. Before him lay the calm
summer sea, and all about him stretched the flat and empty beach. He
liked this blank solitude--indeed, he needed it.
The tiny thread of smoke from his cigarette rose beside the column of
smoke from the fire, like a sturdily independent spirit. His thoughts,
too, were aloof, detached from the insistent current of other people’s
thoughts.
He had received a substantial rise in salary that morning.
“Now you ought to think about getting married,” his sister had said, not
for the first time.
He was thinking about it, but in a way that would have dismayed her. She
was always introducing him to “nice girls,” and growing a little annoyed
with him because of his indifference.
“I don’t see what fault you can find with _her_!” she would say, as if
one of the “nice girls” was as good as another; and, in her heart, that
was what she did think. She wanted only to see Kirby married and in a
home of his own.
He kept his own counsel, for it was no use trying to tell his sister.
Let her go on trying to snare him, to capture him, to bind him tight to
the life that he so utterly rejected! He had seen it happen to other
fellows he knew. He had watched them fall in love, get married, and set
up homes of their own, and had seen them grow harassed, preoccupied,
sometimes bitter. There was his brother-in-law, for instance,
complaining about the bills, talking of giving up his club, guilty and
apologetic if he came in late. It was supposed to be comic, all this
sort of thing, but Kirby did not see it so.
“If there’s nothing better than that--” he thought.
When he was younger he had been sure that there was something better. In
books, in operas, in plays, he had caught the echo of a sublime thing,
and he had believed that it was every man’s birthright--a love
passionate and honest and beyond measure generous. He had meant to wait
for it; but, as he grew older, his faith died.
He did not see any such thing in actual life. He saw, instead, love that
began beautifully and honestly, but ended in a suburban home and a
thousand ignoble worries; and he would have none of that. If there was
nothing better, then he would do without. He was doing well in business,
and he would keep on doing better and better, and that would have to be
enough.
He threw away his cigarette, clasped his hands under his head, and lay
looking at the stars. Here on this beach, as a boy, he had played
intensely serious games of Indians and pirates, always with a fire like
this. Even now he could recapture something of the old thrill of wonder
and expectancy, the feeling he had had that marvelous things were surely
going to happen.
Well, they never had. Here he was, twenty-six, and assistant manager of
the accounting department of a machine belting company; a quiet,
competent young fellow with an air of businesslike reserve that
disguised the moods of his exacting and sensitive spirit. He went to the
office every day, he worked, he came home, he met those “nice girls.” He
talked to them and danced with them, and sometimes made love to them a
little, out of politeness; and that was all there was.
And it wasn’t enough. Out here, in the summer night, his restlessness
grew intolerable. He wanted so much more--something stirring and lovely,
something that would give to his work and his life a fine significance.
So much more!
“I’d better go back now,” he thought, and tried to pretend that this was
a concession to his sister. But it was not; it was because he had grown
too lonely. He got up, and was about to kick out the fire, to scatter it
and stamp it out, when, far down the beach, he saw a little white figure
coming toward him.
He stood still, curiously intent. He had grown to think that this was
his own private territory, for hardly any one else came here, especially
after dark; yet here was this little thing coming on resolutely.
It was a girl in a white dress--he could see that now. Her step made no
sound upon the sand. There was no breeze to flutter her skirts. She was
like a wraith, silent and dim.
Then, to his surprise, she turned directly toward him. There was a rise
in the beach here, up from the edge of the sea, and she mounted it
briskly.
“Excuse me,” she said, in a serious little voice. “I just wanted to see
the time.”
Stretching out her arm toward the fire, she looked at her wrist watch.
“You’ll have to come nearer,” Kirby told her. “I’m sorry, but mine’s
stopped.”
But she stood where she was.
“I saw your fire,” she said. “I’ve been watching it as I came along. I
do love fires on a beach!”
“Yes?” returned Kirby vaguely.
Her confident and friendly manner disconcerted him. He had never
encountered a girl like this. There was something unreal about her,
walking out of the dark, up to his fire, and beginning at once to talk
to him, as if she knew and trusted him.
“Won’t you sit down for a little while?” he asked, a little doubtfully.
“Thank you,” she answered promptly, and, coming nearer, sat down on the
sand, facing the sea.
“She ought to know better,” thought Kirby. “She can’t know what sort of
fellow I might be.”
He stood behind her, looking down at her. The firelight behind her threw
her slight figure, sitting with her hands clasped about her knees, into
sharp relief, but her face he could not see at all.
“Do you know,” she said earnestly, “that pirates used to come here?”
“Pirates?” he echoed.
“Yes!” she said. “I read about it in a book from the library; and last
summer I _think_ I found a pirate’s earring. Auntie said it was a
curtain ring, but perhaps it wasn’t.”
An odd thrill ran through Kirby. Pirates! Easy to imagine them, on just
such a night as this, landing in the cove below the rocks--swarthy, evil
men, creeping up inch by inch, with knives between their teeth. They
would leap upon him suddenly; there would be a desperate fight in the
glare of the fire. Then the pirate chief would carry away the girl, and
Kirby, the hero, would somehow escape from his bonds and swim after
them, and save her.
She would know exactly how to behave in such circumstances, he felt
sure. He felt sure, too, that if he were to suggest that they should
“make believe” there were pirates here, she would immediately and
seriously agree. She was like a little girl, like some playmate from his
lost youth. In some queer way of her own she evoked for him the glamour
of childhood--she and her pirate’s earring!
He sat down beside her, and they began to talk. It no longer seemed to
him a foolish and imprudent thing that she should have come to him like
this. She had the unthinking independence that children have. She would
go where she chose, and, if she was startled or distrustful, she would
run away.
It made him happy that she should be here, this friendly little thing
with her pretty voice.
“The fire’s getting low!” she cried.
Springing up, she gathered an armful of wood to put on it. So did he,
and they stood side by side, throwing in the sticks with nice care. The
flames leaped up, and he saw her face--a small, pointed face framed in
dark hair, which floated in silky threads, and lit up by big, shining
dark eyes. It was like a face in a dream, so lovely that it almost took
his breath away.
She sat down again, her head a little turned away from the blaze, and he
could no longer see her face; but he remembered it. It was there before
him in the dark, in all its vivid loveliness. He could not think of her
as a playmate now. The magic evocation of childhood was gone; he was a
man, and she was a young and beautiful woman. His content, his
happiness, had vanished. He was troubled, almost dismayed.
“I’ve never seen any one like her!” he thought. “I didn’t know there
_was_ any one like her; and for her to come to me like this!”
After all, wasn’t it what he had been waiting for, just this glimpse of
a lovely face, this clear and steady little voice in the dark, this
utterly unexpected encounter in the firelight on the lonely beach?
She was still talking to him, with a sort of eagerness, but he scarcely
listened now. It seemed to him that her voice had changed. Indeed, he
could not hear or see her now. The fire was dying down, and she was no
more than a little silhouette against the starlit sky; but in her place
there was another--some one very beautiful and almost august, like the
young Diana come to earth. The innocence and candor of her were sublime;
she was fearless, of course, just as she was beautiful.
Kirby did not realize how long he had been silent, when she stopped
speaking. Her voice still echoed in his ears, blended with the whisper
of the sea. He sat beside her, lost in a reverie.
“This is how it ought to be,” he thought. “This is just right--to have
her come to me like this, and for her to _be_ like this!”
He was roused by her getting up.
“I’ll have to be going,” she said.
“No!” said Kirby, rising, too. “Please don’t!”
“But it’s late.”
She turned toward him, and he had another glimpse of her face and her
shining, solemn dark eyes.
“Please don’t!” he repeated.
“But, you see, I’ve got to,” she explained. “I promised I’d be home by
nine o’clock.”
“I’ll walk home with you.”
“But--” she began. “I--I’d like you to, only--I think you’d better not,
please.” Then, as he was silent, she added, in distress: “I’m
sorry--really I am,” and held out her hand.
He took it. He might have known, by the clasp of that warm and sturdy
little hand, that this was no goddess Diana whose feet were on the
hilltops; but he would not know it. His heart beat fast, and his fingers
tightened on hers.
“You’ll let me see you again?” he said.
“Oh, yes!” she replied. “Yes, of course! Some other evening--but I’ve
got to go now. Good night!”
She tried to draw her hand away, but he held it fast.
“Look here!” he said. “You can’t go like this! I don’t even know your
name.”
“It’s Emmy--Emmy Richards,” she told him.
“Mine’s Alan Kirby. You’ll let me come to see you?”
“Well, you see,” she said, “I can’t very well. I’m just visiting here.”
“Then meet me somewhere.”
She stood before him with her head bent. The fire was almost out, and it
seemed to him that the world had grown dark and very still and a little
desolate. It was as if something had gone--some warm and living
presence. In his heart he was vaguely aware of what had happened. It was
the dear, jolly little playmate who had gone, taking with her the
innocent glamour of this hour, driven away by the note of ardor in his
voice.
He was sorry and uneasy, but he would not stop.
“Won’t you give me a chance?” he asked. “Let me see you again!”
“I will,” she promised. “I’ll come here again--some other evening--like
this!”
He understood very well what she meant. She wanted to recapture the
vanished charm, to come again in the same happy and careless way, to
talk by the fire again; but he would not have it so.
“Look here!” he said. “Will you let me take you out to dinner
to-morrow?”
She did not answer, but stood there with her head averted; and a fear
seized him that was like anger.
“I don’t want to bother you,” he said curtly. “If you don’t want to see
me again--”
“Well, I--I do!” she cried unsteadily. “Only--”
He would go on.
“Then come to dinner with me to-morrow!”
“Oh, let’s not!” she cried. “I never go out to dinner--with people.”
He smiled to himself at that, yet it hurt him. Poor little playmate, so
reluctant to leave her world of make-believe!
“Just with me?” he urged, coming close to her.
“Well, all right!” she said suddenly, with a sort of desperation. “All
right, then--I will!”
“Where shall I meet you?”
“I don’t know.”
“The Pennsylvania Station--Long Island waiting room--at six?”
She drew her hand away.
“All right!” she said again. “Good night!”
“Good night!” he answered.