Gaites, if he did not wholly accept Ellett's philosophy of the female
nature, acted in the light it cast upon the present situation. From that
time till the end of his stay at Lower Merritt, which proved to be
coeval with the close of the Inn for the season, and with the retirement
of the orchestra from duty, he said nothing more of Miss Phyllis
Desmond's beautiful name. He went further, and altogether silenced
himself concerning his pursuit of her piano; he even sought occasions of
being silent concerning her piano in every way, or so it seemed to him,
in his anxious avoidance of the topic. In all this matter he was
governed a good deal by the advice of Mr. Ellett, to whom he had
confessed his pursuit of Miss Desmond's piano in all its particulars,
and who showed a highly humorous appreciation of the facts. He was a
sort of second (he preferred to say second-hand) cousin of Miss Desmond,
and, so far as he could make out, had been born engaged to her; and he
showed an intuition in the gingerly handling of her rather uncertain
temper which augured well for his future happiness. His future happiness
seemed to be otherwise taken care of, for though he was a young man of
no particular prospects, and no profession whatever, he had a generous
willingness to liberate his affianced to an artistic career; or, at
least, there was no talk of her giving up her scheme of teaching the
piano-forte because she was engaged to be married, he was exactly fitted
to become the husband of a wage-earning wife, and was so far from being
offensive in this quality that everybody (including Miss Desmond, rather
fitfully) liked him; and he was universally known as Charley Ellett.
After he had quite converted Gaites to his theory of silence concerning
his outlived romance, he liked to indulge himself, when he got Gaites
alone with the young ladies, in speculations as to the wanderings of
Miss Desmond's piano. He could always get a rise out of Miss Desmond by
referring to the impertinent person who had telegraphed her about it
from Kent Harbor, and he could put Gaites into a quiver of anxiety by
asking him whether he had heard Mrs. Maze speak of the piano when he was
at Kent Harbor, or whether he had happened to see anything of it at any
of the junctions on his way to Lower Merritt. To these questions Gaites
felt himself obliged to respond with lies point-blank, though there were
times when he was tempted to come out with the truth, Miss Axewright
seemed so amiably indifferent, or so sympathetically interested, when
Ellett was airing his conjectures or pushing his investigations.
Still Gaites clung to the refuge of his lies, and upon the whole it
served him well, or at least enabled him to temporize in safety, while
he was making the progress in Miss Axewright's affections which, if he
had not been her lover, he never would have imagined difficult. They
went every day, between the afternoon and evening concerts, to walk in
the Cloister, a colonnade of pines not far from the Inn, which differed
from some other cloisters in being so much devoted to love-making. She
was in love with him, as he was with her; but in her proud maiden soul
she did not dream of bringing him to the confession she longed for. This
came the afternoon of the last day they walked in the Cloister, when it
seemed as if they might go on walking there forever, and never emerge
from their fond, delicious, tremulous, trusting doubt of each other.
She cried upon his shoulder, with her arms round his neck, and owned
that she had loved him from the first moment she had seen him in front
of the S. B. & H. C. freight-depot in Boston; and Gaites tried to make
his passion antedate this moment. To do so, he had to fall back upon the
notion of pre-existence, but she gladly admitted his hypothesis.
The next morning brought another mood, a mood of sweet defiance, in
which she was still more enrapturing. By this time the engagement was
known to their two friends, and Miss Desmond came to the cars with
Charley Ellett to see her off. As Gaites was going to Boston on the same
train, they made it the occasion of seeing him off, too. Millicent
openly declared that they two were going together, that in fact she was
taking him home to show him to her family in South Newton and see
whether they liked him.
Ellett put this aspect of the affair aside. "Well, then," he said, "if
you're going to be in Boston together, I think you ought to see the S.
B. & H. C. traffic-manager, and find out all about what kept Phyl's
piano so long on the road. _I_ think they owe her an explanation, and
Gaites is a lawyer, and he's just the man to get it, with damages."
Gaites saw in Ellett's impudent, amusing face that he divined
Millicent's continued ignorance of his romance, and was bent on
mischief. But the girl paid no heed to his talk, and Gaites could not
help laughing. He liked the fellow; he even liked Miss Desmond, who was
so much softened by the occasion that she had all the thorny allure of a
ripened barberry in his fancy. They both hung about the seat, where he
stood ready to take his place beside Millicent, till the conductor
shouted, "All aboard!" Then they ran out, and waved to the lovers
through the window till the car started.
When they could be seen no longer, Millicent let Gaites arrange their
hand-baggage together on the seat in front of them. It was a warm day,
and she said she did believe she would take her hat off; and she gave it
to him, odorous of her pretty hair, to put in the rack overhead. After
he had done this, and sat down definitively, she shrank unconsciously
closer to him, knitting her fingers in those of his hand on the seat
between them.
"Now," she said, "tell me all about yourself."
"About myself?"
"Yes. About Phyllis Desmond's piano, and why you were so interested in
it."