"I can't," she answered soberly. "With your father's approval, and with
Mr. Hamlen's assurances, I should surely be opposing Nature, shouldn't
I?"
Her question was put to Huntington, who understood it. He smiled
approvingly.
"Good for you, little woman," he whispered. "There are times when we
must bow to something stronger than ourselves; this is one of them."
"How about me?" Billy demanded.
"I think I may promise to secure consent," Huntington assured him.
"Come on, Phil," Billy seized his chum's arm. "Let's go out in the
garage and practise on those cars."
Marian disappeared within doors to quiet the apprehensions of her
mother-heart; Thatcher drew a chair beside Hamlen's to discuss the war,
which now assumed a personal interest; Huntington and Merry quietly
slipped down the steps, and wandered through the formal garden to their
favorite retreat.
"Why not watch the sunset from the water-garden?" Merry asked.
The sun set in proper and glorious fashion into the sea at the foot of
the avenue of maple trees, but the successful completion of its task did
not suggest to the lovers a return to the house. Still they sat on the
curiously-cut stone seat, and told each other that story which is older
than the stone, and which was first told long before Benten became the
Goddess of Love. Twilight deepened into dusk, and stirred within
Huntington's mind a quotation from a kindred soul who felt as he felt,
but who couched his thought in more fitting words than he himself could
choose:
"I wonder if you love to listen to the music of the night as I do, dear
heart,--with its space, its mystery, its uplift of spirit? It is written
in the key of the ideal and in the cadence of the divine."
"Oh, Monty!" she murmured contentedly, "I do; for it is written in the
key of happiness, and in the cadence of my beloved's voice!"
"You forgive me for being too old?"
"Not too old, my darling,--just born too soon!"