She nodded. "Fitzgerald's my favorite author." She started around the
table, hesitated, suddenly grew shy. "Would you like some lemonade?"
* * * * *
He'd noticed the dewed silver pitcher, but only now realized his
thirst. Yet when she handed him a glass, he held it untasted and said
awkwardly, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Jack Barry."
She stared at his outstretched right hand, slowly extended her own
toward it, shook it up and down exactly once, then quickly dropped it.
He chuckled and gulped some lemonade. "I'm a biology student. Been
working at Wood's Hole the first part of the summer. But now I'm here
to do research in marine ecology--that's sort of sea-life patterns--of
the in-shore islands. Under the direction of Professor Kesserich. You
know about him, of course?"
She shook her head.
"Probably the greatest living biologist," he was proud to inform
her. "Human physiology as well. Tremendous geneticist. In a class
with Carlson and Jacques Loeb. Martin Kesserich--he lives over there
at town. I'm staying with him. You ought to have heard of him." He
grinned. "Matter of fact, I'd never have met you if it hadn't been for
Mrs. Kesserich."
The girl looked puzzled.
Jack explained, "The old boy's been off to Europe on some conferences,
won't be back for a couple days more. But I was to get started anyhow.
When I went out this morning Mrs. Kesserich--she's a drab sort of
person--said to me, 'Don't try to sail to the farther islands.' So, of
course, I had to. By the way, you still haven't told me your name."
"Mary Alice Pope," she said, speaking slowly and with an odd wonder, as
if she were saying it for the first time.
"You're pretty shy, aren't you?"
"How would I know?"
The question stopped Jack. He couldn't think of anything to say to this
strangely attractive girl dressed almost like a "flapper."
"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to
talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his
mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are
very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help
them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You
can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or
a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"
"No, it's true."
"But why are they doing it to you?" he demanded, leaning forward. "Why
are they inflicting this loneliness on you, Mary?"
* * * * *
She seemed to have gained poise from his loss of it. "I don't know
why. I'm to find out soon. But actually I'm not lonely. May I tell
you a secret?" She touched his hand, this time with only the faintest
trembling. "Every night the loneliness gathers in around me--you're
right about that. But then every morning new life comes to me in a
little box."
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Sometimes there's a poem in the box, sometimes a book, or pictures,
or flowers, or a ring, but always a note. Next to the notes I like the
poems best. My favorite is the one by Matthew Arnold that ends,
'Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude--'"
"Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Who sends you these boxes?"
"I don't know."
"But how are the notes signed?"
"They're wonderful notes," she said. "So wise, so gay, so tender, you'd
imagine them being written by John Barrymore or Lindbergh."
"Yes, but how are they signed?"