BREAKERS AHEAD
The summer-home of Max Feilding, Esq., of Walnut Hill, and of the
beautiful and accomplished widow of the dead Frenchman was located on a
levelled sand-dune in full view of the sea. Indeed, from beneath its
low-hooded porticos and piazzas nothing else could be seen except,
perhaps, the wide sky--gray, mottled, or intensely blue, as the weather
permitted--the stretch of white sand shaded from dry to wet and edged
with tufts of yellow grass; the circling gulls and the tall finger of
Barnegat Light pointing skyward. Nothing, really, but some scattering
buildings in silhouette against the glare of the blinding light--one
the old House of Refuge, a mile away to the north, and nearer by, the
new Life Saving Station (now complete) in charge of Captain Nat Holt
and his crew of trusty surfmen.
This view Lucy always enjoyed. She would sit for hours under her
awnings and watch the lazy boats crawling in and out of the inlet, or
the motionless steamers--motionless at that distance--slowly unwinding
their threads of smoke. The Station particularly interested her.
Somehow she felt a certain satisfaction in knowing that Archie was at
work and that he had at last found his level among his own people--not
that she wished him any harm; she only wanted him out of her way.
The hostelry itself was one of those low-roofed, shingle-sided and
shingle-covered buildings common in the earlier days along the Jersey
coast, and now supplanted by more modern and more costly structures. It
had grown from a farm-house and out-buildings to its present state with
the help of an architect and a jig-saw; the former utilizing what
remained of the house and its barns, and the latter transforming plain
pine into open work patterns with which to decorate its gable ends and
facade. When the flags were raised, the hanging baskets suspended in
each loop of the porches, and the merciless, omnipresent and
ever-insistent sand was swept from its wide piazzas and sun-warped
steps it gave out an air of gayety so plausible and enticing that many
otherwise sane and intelligent people at once closed their comfortable
homes and entered their names in its register.
The amusements of these habitues--if they could be called habitues,
this being their first summer--were as varied as their tastes. There
was a band which played mornings and afternoons in an unpainted pine
pagoda planted on a plot of slowly dying grass and decorated with more
hanging baskets and Chinese lanterns; there was bathing at eleven and
four; and there was croquet on the square of cement fenced about by
poles and clothes-lines at all hours. Besides all this there were
driving parties to the villages nearby; dancing parties at night with
the band in the large room playing away for dear life, with all the
guests except the very young and very old tucked away in twos in the
dark corners of the piazzas out of reach of the lights and the
inquisitive--in short, all the diversions known to such retreats, so
necessary for warding off ennui and thus inducing the inmates to stay
the full length of their commitments.
In its selection Max was guided by two considerations: it was near
Yardley--this would materially aid in Lucy's being able to join
him--and it was not fashionable and, therefore, not likely to be
overrun with either his own or Lucy's friends. The amusements did not
interest him; nor did they interest Lucy. Both had seen too much and
enjoyed too much on the other side of the water, at Nice, at Monte
Carlo, and Biarritz, to give the amusements a thought. What they wanted
was to be let alone; this would furnish all the excitement either of
them needed. This exclusiveness was greatly helped by the red and
yellow drag, with all its contiguous and connecting impedimenta, a
turnout which never ceased to occupy everybody's attention whenever the
small tiger stood by the heads of the satin-coated grays awaiting the
good pleasure of his master and his lady. Its possession not only
marked a social eminence too lofty for any ordinary habitue to climb to
unless helped up by the proffered hand of the owner, but it prevented
anyone of these would-be climbers from inviting either its owner or his
companion to join in other outings no matter how enjoyable. Such
amusements as they could offer were too simple and old-fashioned for
two distinguished persons who held the world in their slings and who
were whirling it around their heads with all their might. The result
was that their time was their own.
They filled it at their pleasure.
When the tide was out and the sand hard, they drove on the beach,
stopping at the new station, chatting with Captain Holt or Archie; or
they strolled north, always avoiding the House of Refuge--that locality
had too many unpleasant associations for Lucy, or they sat on the
dunes, moving back out of the wet as the tide reached them, tossing
pebbles in the hollows, or gathering tiny shells, which Lucy laid out
in rows of letters as she had done when a child. In the afternoon they
drove by way of Yardley to see how Ellen was getting on, or idled about
Warehold, making little purchases at the shops and chatting with the
village people, all of whom would come out to greet them. After dinner
they would generally betake themselves to Max's portico, opening out of
his rooms, or to Lucy's--they were at opposite ends of the long
corridor--where the two had their coffee while Max smoked.
The opinions freely expressed regarding their social and moral status,
and individual and combined relations, differed greatly in the several
localities in which they were wont to appear. In Warehold village they
were looked upon as two most charming and delightful people, rich,
handsome, and of proper age and lineage, who were exactly adapted to
each other and who would prove it before the year was out, with Pastor
Dellenbaugh officiating, assisted by some dignitary from Philadelphia.
At the hostelry many of the habitues had come to a far different
conclusion. Marriage was not in either of their heads, they maintained;
their intimacy was a purely platonic one, born of a friendship dating
back to childhood--they were cousins really--Max being the dearest and
most unselfish creature in the world, he having given up all his
pleasures elsewhere to devote himself to a most sweet and gracious lady
whose grief was still severe and who would really be quite alone in the
world were it not for her little daughter, now temporarily absent.
This summary of facts, none of which could be questioned, was
supplemented and enriched by another conclusive instalment from Mrs.
Walton Coates, of Chestnut Plains, who had met Lucy at Aix the year
before, and who therefore possessed certain rights not vouchsafed to
the other habitues of Beach Haven--an acquaintance which Lucy, for
various reasons, took pains to encourage--Mrs. C.'s social position
being beyond question, and her house and other appointments more than
valuable whenever Lucy should visit Philadelphia: besides, Mrs.
Coates's own and Lucy's apartments joined, and the connecting door of
the two sitting-rooms was often left open, a fact which established a
still closer intimacy. This instalment, given in a positive and rather
lofty way, made plain the fact that in her enforced exile the
distinguished lady not only deserved the thanks of every habitue of the
hotel, but of the whole country around, for selecting the new
establishment in which to pass the summer, instead of one of the more
fashionable resorts elsewhere.
This outburst of the society leader, uttered in the hearing of a
crowded piazza, had occurred after a conversation she had had with Lucy
concerning little Ellen.
"Tell me about your little daughter," Mrs. Coates had said. "You did
not leave her abroad, did you?"
"Oh, no, my dear Mrs. Coates! I am really here on my darling's
account," Lucy answered with a sigh. "My old home is only a short
distance from here. But the air does not agree with me there, and so I
came here to get a breath of the real sea. Ellen is with her aunt, my
dear sister Jane. I wanted to bring her, but really I hadn't the heart
to take her from them; they are so devoted to her. Max loves her
dearly. He drives me over there almost every day. I really do not know
how I could have borne all the sorrows I have had this year without
dear Max. He is like a brother to me, and SO thoughtful. You know we
have known each other since we were children. They tell such dreadful
stories, too, about him, but I have never seen that side of him, he's a
perfect saint to me."
From that time on Mrs. Coates was her loyal mouthpiece and devoted
friend. Being separated from one's child was one of the things she
could not brook; Lucy was an angel to stand it as she did. As for
Max--no other woman had ever so influenced him for good, nor did she
believe any other woman could.
At the end of the second week a small fly no larger than a pin's head
began to develop in the sunshine of their amber. It became visible to
the naked eye when Max suddenly resolved to leave his drag, his tiger,
his high-stepping grays, and his fair companion, and slip over to
Philadelphia--for a day or two, he explained. His lawyer needed him, he
said, and then again he wanted to see his sister Sue, who had run down
to Walnut Hill for the day. (Sue, it might as well be stated, had not
yet put in an appearance at Beach Haven, nor had she given any notice
of her near arrival; a fact which had not disturbed Lucy in the least
until she attempted to explain to Jane.)
"I've got to pull up, little woman, and get out for a few days," Max
had begun. "Morton's all snarled up, he writes me, over a mortgage, and
I must straighten it out. I'll leave Bones [the tiger] and everything
just as it is. Don't mind, do you?"
"Mind! Of course I do!" retorted Lucy. "When did you get this
marvellous idea into that wonderful brain of yours, Max? I intended to
go to Warehold myself to-morrow." She spoke with her usual good-humor,
but with a slight trace of surprise and disappointment in her tone.
"When I opened my mail this morning; but my going won't make any
difference about Warehold. Bones and the groom will take care of you."
Lucy leaned back in her chair and looked over the rail of the porch.
She had noticed lately a certain restraint in Max's manner which was
new to her. Whether he was beginning to get bored, or whether it was
only one of his moods, she could not decide--even with her acute
knowledge of similar symptoms. That some change, however, had come over
him she had not the slightest doubt. She never had any trouble in
lassoing her admirers. That came with a glance of her eye or a lift of
her pretty shoulders: nor for that matter in keeping possession of them
as long as her mood lasted.
"Whom do you want to see in Philadelphia, Max?" she asked, smiling
roguishly at him. She held him always by presenting her happiest and
most joyous side, whether she felt it or not.
"Sue and Morton--and you, you dear girl, if you'll come along."
"No; I'm not coming along. I'm too comfortable where I am. Is this
woman somebody you haven't told me of, Max?" she persisted, looking at
him from under half-closed lids.
"Your somebodies are always thin air, little girl; you know everything
I have ever done in my whole life," Max answered gravely. She had for
the last two weeks.
Lucy threw up her hands and laughed so loud and cheerily that an
habitue taking his morning constitutional on the boardwalk below turned
his head in their direction. The two were at breakfast under the
awnings of Lucy's portico, Bones standing out of range.
"You don't believe it?"
"Not one word of it, you fraud; nor do you. You've forgotten one-half
of all you've done and the other half you wouldn't dare tell any woman.
Come, give me her name. Anybody Sue knows?"
"Nobody that anybody knows, Honest John." Then he added as an
after-thought, "Are you sorry?" As he spoke he rose from his seat and
stood behind her chair looking down over her figure. She had her back
to him. He thought he had never seen her look so lovely. She was
wearing a light-blue morning-gown, her arms bare to the elbows, and a
wide Leghorn hat--the morning costume of all others he liked her best
in.
"No--don't think I am," she answered lightly. "Fact is I was getting
pretty tired of you. How long will you be gone?"
"Oh, I think till the end of the week--not longer." He reached over the
chair and was about to play with the tiny curls that lay under the coil
of her hair, when he checked himself and straightened up. One of those
sudden restraints which had so puzzled Lucy had seized him. She could
not see his face, but she knew from the tones of his voice that the
enthusiasm of the moment had cooled.
Lucy shifted her chair, lifted her head, and looked up into his eyes.
She was always entrancing from this point of view: the upturned
eyelashes, round of the cheeks, and the line of the throat and swelling
shoulders were like no other woman's he knew.
"I don't want you to go, Max," she said in the same coaxing tone of
voice that Ellen might have used in begging for sugar-plums. "Just let
the mortgage and old Morton and everybody else go. Stay here with me."
Max straightened up and threw out his chest and a determined look came
into his eyes. If he had had any doubts as to his departure Lucy's
pleading voice had now removed them.
"No, can't do it," he answered in mock positiveness. "Can't 'pon my
soul. Business is business. Got to see Morton right away; ought to have
seen him before." Then he added in a more serious tone, "Don't get
worried if I stay a day or two longer."
"Well, then, go, you great bear, you," and she rose to her feet and
shook out her skirts. "I wouldn't let you stay, no matter what you
said." She was not angry--she was only feeling about trying to put her
finger on the particular button that controlled Max's movements.
"Worried? Not a bit of it. Stay as long as you please."
There WAS a button, could she have found it. It was marked "Caution,"
and when pressed communicated to the heir of Walnut Hill the
intelligence that he was getting too fond of the pretty widow and that
his only safety lay in temporary flight. It was a favorite trick of
his. In the charting of his course he had often found two other rocks
beside Scylla and Charybdis in his way; one was boredom and the other
was love. When a woman began to bore him, or he found himself liking
her beyond the limit of his philosophy, he invariably found relief in
change of scene. Sometimes it was a sick aunt or a persistent lawyer or
an engagement nearly forgotten and which must be kept at all hazards.
He never, however, left his inamorata in either tears or anger.
"Now, don't be cross, dear," he cried, patting her shoulder with his
fingers. "You know I don't want to leave you. I shall be perfectly
wretched while I'm gone, but there's no help for it. Morton's such a
fussy old fellow--always wanting to do a lot of things that can,
perhaps, wait just as well as not. Hauled me down from Walnut Hill half
a dozen times once, and after all the fellow wouldn't sell. But this
time it's important and I must go. Bones," and he lifted his finger to
the boy, "tell John I want the light wagon. I'll take the 11.12 to
Philadelphia."
The tiger advanced ten steps and stood at attention, his finger at his
eyebrow. Lucy turned her face toward the boy. "No, Bones, you'll do
nothing of the kind. You tell John to harness the grays to the drag.
I'll go to the station with Mr. Feilding."
Max shrugged his shoulders. He liked Lucy for a good many things--one
was her independence, another was her determination to have her own
way. Then, again, she was never so pretty as when she was a trifle
angry; her color came and went so deliciously and her eyes snapped so
charmingly. Lucy saw the shrug and caught the satisfied look in his
face. She didn't want to offend him and yet she didn't intend that he
should go without a parting word from her--tender or otherwise, as
circumstances might require. She knew she had not found the button, and
in her doubt determined for the present to abandon the search.
"No, Bones, I've changed my mind," she called to the boy, who was now
half way down the piazza. "I don't think I will go. I'll stop here,
Max, and do just what you want me to do," she added in a softened
voice. "Come along," and she slipped her hand in his and the two walked
toward the door of his apartments.
When the light wagon and satin-skinned sorrel, with John on the seat
and Bones in full view, stopped at the sanded porch, Mrs. Coates and
Lucy formed part of the admiring group gathered about the turn-out. All
of Mr. Feilding's equipages brought a crowd of onlookers, no matter how
often they appeared--he had five with him at Beach Haven, including the
four-in-hand which he seldom used--but the grays and the light wagon,
by common consent, were considered the most "stylish" of them all, not
excepting the drag.
After Max had gathered the reins in his hands, had balanced the whip,
had settled himself comfortably and with a wave of his hand to Lucy had
driven off, Mrs. Coates slipped her arm through my lady's and the two
slowly sauntered to their rooms.
"Charming man, is he not?" Mrs. Coates ventured. "Such a pity he is not
married! You know I often wonder whom such men will marry. Some pretty
school-girl, perhaps, or prim woman of forty."
Lucy laughed.
"No," she answered, "you are wrong. The bread-and-butter miss would
never suit Max, and he's past the eye-glass and side-curl age. The next
phase, if he ever reaches it, will be somebody who will make him
do--not as he pleases, but as SHE pleases. A man like Max never cares
for a woman any length of time who humors his whims."
"Well, he certainly was most attentive to that pretty Miss Billeton.
You remember her father was lost overboard four years ago from his
yacht. Mr. Coates told me he met her only a day or so ago; she had come
down to look after the new ball-room they are adding to the old house.
You know her, don't you?"
"No--never heard of her. How old is she?" rejoined Lucy in a careless
tone.
"I should say twenty, maybe twenty-two--you can't always tell about
these girls; very pretty and very rich. I am quite sure I saw Mr.
Feilding driving with her just before he moved his horses down here,
and she looked prettier than ever. But then he has a new flame every
month, I hear."
"Where were they driving?" There was a slight tone of curiosity in
Lucy's voice. None of Max's love-affairs ever affected her, of course,
except as they made for his happiness; all undue interest, therefore,
was out of place, especially before Mrs. Coates.
"I don't remember. Along the River Road, perhaps--he generally drives
there when he has a pretty woman with him."
Lucy bit her lip. Some other friend, then, had been promised the drag
with the red body and yellow wheels! This was why he couldn't come to
Yardley when she wrote for him. She had found the button. It rang up
another woman.
The door between the connecting sitting-rooms was not opened that day,
nor that night, for that matter. Lucy pleaded a headache and wished to
be alone. She really wanted to look the field over and see where her
line of battle was weak. Not that she really cared--unless the girl
should upset her plans; not as Jane would have cared had Doctor John
been guilty of such infidelity. The eclipse was what hurt her. She had
held the centre of the stage with the lime-light full upon her all her
life, and she intended to retain it against Miss Billeton or Miss
Anybody else. She decided to let Max know at once, and in plain terms,
giving him to understand that she didn't intend to be made a fool of,
reminding him at the same time that there were plenty of others who
cared for her, or who would care for her if she should but raise her
little finger. She WOULD raise it, too, even if she packed her trunks
and started for Paris--and took him with her.
These thoughts rushed through her mind as she sat by the window and
looked out over the sea. The tide was making flood, and the
fishing-boats anchored in the inlet were pointing seaward. She could
see, too, the bathers below and the children digging in the sand. Now
and then a boat would head for the inlet, drop its sail, and swing
round motionless with the others. Then a speck would break away from
the anchored craft and with the movement of a water-spider land the
fishermen ashore.
None of these things interested her. She could not have told whether
the sun shone or whether the sky was fair or dull. Neither was she
lonely, nor did she miss Max. She was simply
angry--disgusted--disappointed at the situation; at herself, at the
woman who had come between them, at the threatened failure of her
plans. One moment she was building up a house of cards in which she
held all the trumps, and the next instant she had tumbled it to the
ground. One thing she was determined upon--not to take second place.
She would have all of him or none of him.
At the end of the third day Max returned. He had not seen Morton, nor
any of his clerks, nor anybody connected with his office. Neither had
he sent him any message or written him any letter. Morton might have
been dead and buried a century so far as Max or his affairs were
concerned. Nor had he laid his eyes on the beautiful Miss Billeton; nor
visited her house; nor written her any letters; nor inquired for her.
What he did do was to run out to Walnut Hill, have a word with his
manager, and slip back to town again and bury himself in his club. Most
of the time he read the magazines, some pages two or three times over.
Once he thought he would look up one or two of his women friends at
their homes--those who might still be in town--and then gave it up as
not being worth the trouble. At the end of the third day he started for
Barnegat. The air was bad in the city, he said to himself, and
everybody he met was uninteresting. He would go back, hitch up the
grays, and he and Lucy have a spin down the beach. Sea air always did
agree with him, and he was a fool to leave it.
Lucy met him at the station in answer to his telegram sent over from
Warehold. She was dressed in her very best: a double-breasted jacket
and straw turban, a gossamer veil wound about it. Her cheeks were like
two red peonies and her eyes bright as diamonds. She was perched up in
the driver's seat of the drag, and handled the reins and whip with the
skill of a turfman. This time Bones, the tiger, did not spring into his
perch as they whirled from the station in the direction of the beach.
His company was not wanted.
They talked of Max's trip, of the mortgage, and of Morton; of how hot
it was in town and how cool it was on her portico; of Mrs. Coates and
of pater-familias Coates, who held a mortgage on Beach Haven; of the
dance the night before--Max leading in the conversation and she
answering either in mono-syllables or not at all, until Max hazarded
the statement that he had been bored to death waiting for Morton, who
never put in an appearance, and that the only human being, male or
female, he had seen in town outside the members of the club, was Sue.
They had arrived off the Life-Saving Station now, and Archie had called
the captain to the door, and both stood looking at them, the boy waving
his hand and the captain following them with his eyes. Had either of
them caught the captain's remark they, perhaps, would have drawn rein
and asked for an explanation:
"Gay lookin' hose-carriage, ain't it? Looks as if they was runnin' to a
fire!"
But they didn't hear it; would not, probably have heard it, had the
captain shouted it in their ears. Lucy was intent on opening up a
subject which had lain dormant in her mind since the morning of Max's
departure, and the gentleman himself was trying to cipher out what new
"kink," as he expressed it to himself, had "got it into her head."
When they had passed the old House of Refuge Lucy drew rein and stopped
the drag where the widening circle of the incoming tide could bathe the
horses' feet. She was still uncertain as to how she would lead up to
the subject-matter without betraying her own jealousy or, more
important still, without losing her temper. This she rarely displayed,
no matter how goading the provocation. Nobody had any use for an
ill-tempered woman, not in her atmosphere; and no fly that she had ever
known had been caught by vinegar when seeking honey. There might be
vinegar-pots to be found in her larder, but they were kept behind
closed doors and sampled only when she was alone. As she sat looking
out to sea, Max's brain still at work on the problem of her unusual
mood, a schooner shifted her mainsail in the light breeze and set her
course for the inlet.
"That's the regular weekly packet," Max ventured. "She's making for
Farguson's ship-yard. She runs between Amboy and Barnegat--Captain
Ambrose Farguson sails her." At times like these any topic was good
enough to begin on.
"How do you know?" Lucy asked, looking at the incoming schooner from
under her half-closed lids. The voice came like the thin piping of a
flute preceding the orchestral crash, merely sounded so as to let
everybody know it was present.
"One of my carriages was shipped by her. I paid Captain Farguson the
freight just before I went away."
"What's her name?"--slight tremolo--only a note or two.
"The Polly Walters," droned Max, talking at random, mind neither on the
sloop nor her captain.
"Named after his wife?" The flute-like notes came more crisply.
"Yes, so he told me." Max had now ceased to give any attention to his
answers. He had about made up his mind that something serious was the
matter and that he would ask her and find out.
"Ought to be called the Max Feilding, from the way she tacks about.
She's changed her course three times since I've been watching her."
Max shot a glance athwart his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the
pretty lips thinned and straightened and the half-closed eyes and
wrinkled forehead. He was evidently the disturbing cause, but in what
way he could not for the life of him see. That she was angry to the
tips of her fingers was beyond question; the first time he had seen her
thus in all their acquaintance.
"Yes-that would fit her exactly," he answered with a smile and with a
certain soothing tone in his voice. "Every tack her captain makes
brings him the nearer to the woman he loves."
"Rather poetic, Max, but slightly farcical. Every tack you make lands
you in a different port--with a woman waiting in every one of them."
The first notes of the overture had now been struck.
"No one was waiting in Philadelphia for me except Sue, and I only met
her by accident," he said good-naturedly, and in a tone that showed he
would not quarrel, no matter what the provocation; "she came in to see
her doctor. Didn't stay an hour."
"Did you take her driving?" This came in a thin, piccolo tone-barely
enough room for it to escape through her lips. All the big drums and
heavy brass were now being moved up.
"No; had nothing to take her out in. Why do you ask? What has happened,
little--"
"Take anybody else?" she interrupted.
"No."
He spoke quite frankly and simply. At any other time she would have
believed him. She had always done so in matters of this kind, partly
because she didn't much care and partly because she made it a point
never to doubt the word of a man, either by suspicion or inference, who
was attentive to her. This time she did care, and she intended to tell
him so. All she dreaded was that the big horns and the tom-toms would
get away from her leadership and the hoped-for, correctly played
symphony end in an uproar.
"Max," she said, turning her head and lifting her finger at him with
the movement of a conductor's baton, "how can you lie to me like that?
You never went near your lawyer; you went to see Miss Billeton, and
you've spent every minute with her since you left me. Don't tell me you
didn't. I know everything you've done, and--" Bass drums, bass viols,
bassoons--everything--was loose now.
She had given up her child to be with him! Everything, in fact--all her
people at Yardley; her dear old nurse. She had lied to Jane about
chaperoning Sue--all to come down and keep him from being lonely. What
she wanted was a certain confidence in return. It made not the
slightest difference to her how many women he loved, or how many women
loved him; she didn't love him, and she never would; but unless she was
treated differently from a child and like the woman that she was, she
was going straight back to Yardley, and then back to Paris, etc., etc.
She knew, as she rushed on in a flood of abuse such as only a woman can
let loose when she is thoroughly jealous and entirely angry, that she
was destroying the work of months of plotting, and that he would be
lost to her forever, but she was powerless to check the torrent of her
invective. Only when her breath gave out did she stop.
Max had sat still through it all, his eyes expressing first
astonishment and then a certain snap of admiration, as he saw the color
rising and falling in her cheeks. It was not the only time in his
experience that he had had to face similar outbursts. It was the first
time, however, that he had not felt like striking back. Other women's
outbreaks had bored him and generally had ended his interest in
them--this one was more charming than ever. He liked, too, her American
pluck and savage independence. Jealous she certainly was, but there was
no whine about it; nor was there any flop at the close--floppy women he
detested--had always done so. Lucy struck straight out from her
shoulder and feared nothing.
As she raged on, the grays beating the water with their well-polished
hoofs, he continued to sit perfectly still, never moving a muscle of
his face nor changing his patient, tolerant expression. The best plan,
he knew, was to let all the steam out of the boiler and then gradually
rake the fires.
"My dear little woman,"' he began, "to tell you the truth, I never laid
eyes on Morton; didn't want to, in fact. All that was an excuse to get
away. I thought you wanted a rest, and I went away to let you have it.
Miss Billeton I haven't seen for three months, and couldn't if I would,
for she is engaged to her cousin and is now in Paris buying her wedding
clothes. I don't know who has been humbugging you, but they've done it
very badly. There is not one word of truth in what you've said from
beginning to end."
There is a certain ring in a truthful statement that overcomes all
doubts. Lucy felt this before Max had finished. She felt, too, with a
sudden thrill, that she still held him. Then there came the
instantaneous desire to wipe out all traces of the outburst and keep
his good-will.
"And you swear it?" she asked, her belief already asserting itself in
her tones, her voice falling to its old seductive pitch.
"On my honor as a man," he answered simply.
For a time she remained silent, her mind working behind her mask of
eyes and lips, the setting sun slanting across the beach and lighting
up her face and hair, the grays splashing the suds with their impatient
feet. Max kept his gaze upon her. He saw that the outbreak was over and
that she was a little ashamed of her tirade. He saw, too, man of the
world as he was, that she was casting about in her mind for some way in
which she could regain for herself her old position without too much
humiliation.
"Don't say another word, little woman," he said in his kindest tone.
"You didn't mean a word of it; you haven't been well lately, and I
oughtn't to have left you. Tighten up your reins; we'll drive on if you
don't mind."
That night after the moon had set and the lights had been turned out
along the boardwalk and the upper and lower porticos and all Beach
Haven had turned in for the night, and Lucy had gone to her apartments,
and Mr. and Mrs. Coates and the rest of them, single and double, were
asleep, Max, who had been pacing up and down his dressing-room, stopped
suddenly before his mirror, and lifting the shade from the lamp, made a
critical examination of his face.
"Forty, and I look it!" he said, pinching his chin with his thumb and
forefinger, and turning his cheek so that the light would fall on the
few gray hairs about his temples. "That beggar Miggs said so yesterday
at the club. By gad, how pretty she was, and how her eyes snapped! I
didn't think it was in her!"