MOONLIGHT
Mrs. Wilbur looked back into the hall from the piazza before she stepped
into the motor. Diana was already dancing with Philip Barrison. She
watched their smooth movements for a minute, then turned to Mrs. Lowell
who had just emerged with her boy.
"This--this gathering, this settlement here, seems rather like a family
party, doesn't it?" she said, with a sort of troubled curiosity.
"Yes; nearly all of these people have known each other for many
summers."
"I feel a little strange to go and leave Diana."
"I don't think you need," replied Mrs. Lowell.
"I suppose," said Mrs. Wilbur, "if the steed were going to be stolen, it
would have happened before this. The stable door has been open for
weeks."
"Quite so," said Mrs. Lowell, laughing. "It is so light, Bert and I are
going to walk up to the Inn."
"I am going to send the car back for Diana in one hour," declared Mrs.
Wilbur. Her daughter's theories were all very well, but this was a
distractingly beautiful night and the echoes of that marvelous voice
were even yet thrilling her own nerves. Léonie was sitting at the front
of the car with Bill Lindsay, and Mrs. Wilbur mounted into the back seat
with Miss Burridge.
"I suppose Miss Veronica will return with my daughter," she said.
"I only hope so," returned Miss Burridge resignedly. "Mr. Kelly has
promised to see to her."
"I don't feel like dancing," said Diana, as her partner guided her
through the narrow spaces.
"No one would suspect it," he replied. "I was just thinking that this
night was to be superlative in all directions."
"But how can one endure this silly music when '_Manon! Manon!_' is
echoing through the heart!"
Philip did not reply, nor did he release her until the gay strumming at
the piano ceased. Then they went out on the piazza. The laughing,
chattering young people were streaming out into the air, and occupying
every available seat. The field surrounding the hall was light as day.
"Let us go down to the rocks," said Philip.
"I mustn't because my mother is going to send the car back for me in one
hour. You've no idea how firmly my mother can say 'one hour' and mean
it."
"There should be no rules on a night like this," Philip regarded his
companion, pale in the moonlight as her pale, filmy garments. "I feel
like quoting a choice spirit of my childhood days. He was trying to get
me to go on a tear of some kind with him, and I told him my mother would
worry. He said, 'Oh, come on. Scoldings don't hurt, whippings don't last
long, and she da'sn't kill you.'"
Diana smiled. "Now that she is here, she likes to tuck me in," she said.
"I would she had waited until after the moon. Well, let us go to the
near rocks. I will keep watch of the time."
They went down the populous steps.
"Oh, Mr. Barrison!" exclaimed a woman upon whom he nearly trod. "What
ecstasy you have given us!"
It was Miss Emerson. She was cooling off from a dance with Mr. Pratt,
and was in high feather, because neither he nor Mr. Evans knew another
woman present, save Veronica, and her acquaintance, though not wide,
seemed intensive.
"Yes, that was corking," said Mr. Evans. "We sure do thank you. Say,
folks, I'm tired. I'm going to trot along."
"Back to the Inn?" asked Philip with interest.
"Yes. Anything I can do for you?"
"If you will be so kind. Mrs. Wilbur has just gone. Will you be kind
enough to tell her not to worry if her daughter is a little later than
she expected? Tell her you left her in good hands and we are going to
walk up after a while."
"Certainly. Be glad to," replied Evans.
"Oh," breathed Diana, softly, as they moved on into the glory of the
night, "I'm quite sure you should not have done that."
"Do you want to be shut up in a tin Lizzie to-night?"
"No, nor anywhere."
Philip led her to the shore and found a corner among the rocks from
which they could watch the beaten silver of the billows rushing
tumultuously landward, breaking in foam about their eyrie, and slipping
back in myriad bridal veils.
"There is always one night in the summer, and this is the night," said
Philip. "Think of viewing the moon in company with the goddess herself!
If you only wouldn't mind leaning against my arm. I'm sorry to have that
rock cutting into your dandy gown."
"Thank you, but it doesn't. I have a very good place here."
"Comfortable enough to tell me that you liked the music?"
Diana looked around at him slowly, and he laughed softly.
"Yes, I know you did. I know if I ever could sing, I sang to-night.
There was something new in it. It taught me something, something I've
been waiting for. They've always told me, my teachers, that the one
thing I needed was to fall in love. It must have happened--happened,
somehow, when I wasn't looking." Philip crossed his arms behind his
head, leaned back and looked at the high sailing moon. "Thank you, great
goddess Diana, I am at your feet. You have dropped upon me a spark of
the divine fire. I build you an altar. The flame shall never go out."
The girl beside him bit her lip and silence fell between them. The
bright billows swept in and crashed apart.
"I suppose that is what love means to an artist," she said at last.
"The nourishing of his art. That is all."
"That is all it can mean to me," he answered; "but isn't it enough? An
object to worship with all a man's strength, receiving the return of
inspiration?"
She looked at him as he lay there reclining against the rock, his
upturned face not seeking hers. This evening had shown her in miniature
the truth of all she had felt and, because her heart was beating fast,
she clung more strongly than ever to the spectacled gentleman with the
scanty hair.
"Say something, divine one," he said suddenly, turning to her.
"Don't confuse me with the moon, Mr. Barrison," she warned him.
"But at least can't you congratulate me?"
"Yes, I can, on many things; but--don't fall in love with any ideal less
impersonal than a planet."
"I don't intend to, but why these words of wisdom?"
"Because any--any mere mortal girl married to you would be miserable."
"Oh, come, now!" Philip sat up, and frowned at her with a quizzical
smile. "So you think I ought to try kindness first, do you? Why?"
Diana turned her fair moonlit face directly to him. "Because you cannot
ever belong to yourself, even. Much less to her."
"I don't quite get that."
"I can't speak for all girls, but for myself, if I ever have a husband,
I want--I want to creep off into a corner with him."
"A corner like this rock?"
"This is big enough."
"How would that suit the great Charles Wilbur?"
"It would not suit him. I know that. The homely little stoop-shouldered
man, with the lovely soul, whom I mean to marry, will not altogether
please my father."
Philip's eyes grew big in the moonlight. "Have you picked him out?"
"Yes, as an ideal. Other women will leave me in possession of him."
"Ah," Philip nodded, "I begin to see." They were both silent again. At
last Philip spoke again. "I deny that that girl you are warning me away
from would have such a rocky time. What do you suppose I should care for
the babble, no matter how kind it was, how sweet even, of other women?
I should see only her."
"You think so," said Diana. "I know you think so. And at first it would
probably be so, but a singer's appetite for flattery grows. Of course it
does. I'm not blaming you. It's just your career."
Silence again, until Philip spoke. "Very well, I shall hunt you out in
your corner with your faithful gnome, and I shall beg: (he sang) 'Drink
to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine.'"
Philip sang the song entirely through, slowly and deliberately, and
Diana closed her eyes, and the laces on her sleeve trembled. The glory
of the night, the glory of the voice were all one. She shrank into her
corner and held desperately to her ideal.
When he had finished, Philip looked at her. Her head rested back upon
the rock, her eyes were closed. The mysterious light lent her face a
strange radiance.
"Diana," he said, and there was a thrill in his voice, "you are well
named. Goddess of the moon you certainly are, and this night is an epoch
in my life. I love, and in spite of your skepticism I shall be true."
She opened her eyes and looked at him, and he drew a long, quick
breath. "I can't let you stay here any longer. Your wrap isn't enough.
Now we will sprint up to the Inn. Do you feel like it?"
"Oh, is it over?" she said softly.
"Yes, or else it has just begun. I am not sure which," he answered, and
rising he gave her his hand and helped her to her feet. "The moon is no
farther away from me than you," he said in the moment while he held her
hand. "I am not going to forget it."
"Then it is I!" she thought, with a bound of the heart that turned her
faint.
They scarcely spoke on the long, heavenly walk up the island. The sea
was starry as the sky with the lights of fishing boats, and
phosphorescence gleamed where the water was in shadow.
When he took her hand for good-night on the piazza of the Inn, she said:
"I haven't thanked you for this wonderful evening. You know I
do--Philomel."
He smiled down at her. "That reminds me of our first meeting here.
'Philomel with melody,' you said. I remember what I had been singing,
too. It is still true." He kissed her hand, jumped over the piazza rail,
narrowly missing the sweet peas, and strode away. The girl stood in the
shadow watching the tall, white figure and listening to the waves of
song that floated back through the moonlight.
"Thou'rt like unto a flower
So sweet, so pure, so fair--"
"What shall I do!" murmured the poor, bewildered moon-goddess on the
piazza. "What shall I _do_!"