"Why not? Read it."
Slowly Welkie read it. He took it over to the light at the little table
and read it again. He dropped it on the table and gazed through the
screen at the lights of the fleet. After a time he said in a low tone:
"I must tell Sonnie-Boy," and, turning, went inside the house.
"Is it very private, Andie?" whispered Marie.
"No, no."
"Then I'm going to read it."
She read it. "Why, Andie!" she gasped, and, crowding to the light, she
also read it again. Her face was alight when she looked up at last.
"Andie, Andie, isn't it splendid! If Mr. Necker could only hear this:
"'It is a fine thing in these days of materialism that a man of your
genius can set aside the allurements of money and fame, and exile
yourself to a region where certain hardship and probable disease await
you; and this only that your country may be served.' And the rest of it!
O Greg!"
Welkie was back with his boy in his arms. He took the letter from his
sister. "Look here, Sonnie-Boy, what do you think? Here's a man says
your papa is the greatest man ever was in his line. Years from now
you'll look at that letter and perhaps you'll be proud of your papa.
Your papa's boasting now, Sonnie-Boy, but only you and your auntie and
godfather can hear him, and they'll never tell. So that's all right.
'Our papa was as good as anybody in his line'--a great man said so.
What do you say, little five-and-a-half, you'll be a good man, too, in
your line some day, won't you?"
"Can I be a fighter, papa, on a big gun-ship?"
"Well, if you're bound to go that way, I don't see who's to stop you,
Sonnie-Boy. But if you are, whether it's a sword to your belt or a
lanyard to your neck, here's hoping you'll never go over the side of
your ship without"--he picked the ensign up--"you leave your colors
flying over her. And now we'll go back to bed, Sonnie-Boy, and this time
we'll go to sleep." In the doorway he stopped. "What do you reckon
Necker would say to that letter, Andie?"
Balfe smiled. "He'd probably say, 'Welkie, you ought to publish that
letter--capitalize it,' and think you were four kinds of a fool if you
didn't."
"Well, I won't publish it or capitalize it. I'm going to frame it and
hang it at the foot of your bed, Sonnie-Boy, where you'll see it
mornings when you wake. Up we go, son."
Facing each other across the little work-table were Marie Welkie and
Andie Balfe. She had said: "You surely have been my brother's friend,
and, if you were not already so successful, I could wish a great reward
for you."
He laid one hand of his gently down on hers. "Wish the reward, then,
Marie. Do, dear, wish it, for I'm not successful. I played hard at my
game, because playing it made me forget other things. Almost anybody
playing a game long enough becomes half-expert at it. But successful?
No, no, dear. So far I seem to have travelled only unending roads
through bleak countries; and I'm dreading to go back to them alone."
Beyond the veranda screen the fireflies were flashing; farther out, the
little green and red side-lights of the steaming launches, like other
colored fireflies, were sliding by; to the mastheads of the battle-ships
the red and white signal-lights were winking and glowing. The night was
alive with colorful things. Closing her eyes, Marie could hear the
lapping of little waves over pebbles, the challenging hail of a sailor
on watch, the music of a far ship's band. She bent her head to hear it
better--the sweetly faint cadence of that far-away band.
"And when was it you began to think of me, Andie?"
"Since those first days, Marie, when your brother and I bunked together
in the old S.$1.$2.construction camp. He used to read me letters of
yours from home. You were only a little girl then, and it was years
before I saw you; but I knew what you looked like even before I stole
your photograph----"
"Stole?"
"I did. Greg dropped it one day. I found it and never gave it back.
There it is--after nine years."
She laughed when she saw it. "Why, I can't make out to see what I looked
like then, Andie!"
"I know what you looked like. I've kissed the face away, dear, but I
know. In nine years, Marie, I never shifted from one coat to another
without shifting your photograph, too. If anything had happened to me,
they would have found your photograph on me, with your address on the
back. 'Then,' I used to say to myself, 'she'll know. And Greg won't mind
my stealing it.'" He laid it face up between them on the table. "The
miles you've travelled with me, dear heart, and never knew! Back in the
days of the construction camp they used to find sketches of a girl's
head in my note-books, a beautiful head badly done--drawn from that
photograph. But after I met you----"
"And after you met me, Andie?"
"Then I needed no photograph, though look and look at it I surely did.
Steamers in western seas, battle-ships in eastern waters, balustrades of
palaces--wherever it might be I was whirling with this old earth
around, I've had your face to look at. And when I couldn't see for the
darkness--rolled up in my rubber poncho, in no more romantic a place
than the muck of a swamp, I've looked up through the swaying
branches--or in the lee of a windy hill, it might be, with no more to
hinder than the clear air, I've looked up and marked your face in the
swirling clouds: your nose, your chin, the lips so shyly smiling. And if
through the clouds a pair of stars would break, I'd mark them for your
shining eyes, Marie."
"Poetry again, Andie!" She was laughing, but also she was melting under
his eyes.
"If that's poetry, then I'm losing respect for it. It's a weak thing,
Marie, and----"
"Sh-h--if somebody should be walking on the beach!"
"Let them, sweetheart. It's a fine night for a walk. What harm is
truth?"
"But I don't want all the world to hear, Andie. For my poor heart was
aching, too, Andie, and now it wants it all to itself, Andie mine."
* * * * *
It was taps on the battle-fleet. Over the mellowing, detaining waters of
the bay the long-drawn bugles echoed. Good night, good ni-i-ght,
g-o-o-d-n-i-g-h-t--they said, and gently, softly, whisperingly died
away.
"He's asleep at last." Welkie was standing in the door. "And I don't
know but we'd all better be getting to sleep, too. For to-morrow
morning, you know, we--Wha-at!"
His friend was standing before him. "Shunt care for the morrow, Greg.
Greater things than have happened are happening around you. The dream of
years has come to pass. And we--we, Greg----"
He looked to her, and tremulous, vivid, she came, and with her at his
side he was himself again. "Marie is to take me for Sonnie-Boy's uncle,
and, Greg, we want your blessing."