Our saga closes far from the sea and the sad tales it has to tell.
Here were fresh odours of moss and fern in place of the salt ones of
brine and sedge. The murmur of the wind in the tall pines is sweeter
far than wave-talk ... but there were other murmurs of which we must
take account.
At the foot of a tall pine were Hermione and Applebo. Behind them
the late autumn woods and at their feet a small expanse of crystal
water, smooth as a mirror except where broke by the rush of some avid
trout. A glorious jewel of a lake was this, rimmed about with
emeralds and rubies, set in gold and reflecting an azure as pure as
it is possible for an Adirondack sky to hold.
On the far shore nestled a little camp in a clump of beeches and a
thin column of blue wood-smoke rose straight into the still, spicy
air. From the shadowed bank to the right came the flash of a
canoe-paddle and a splash of crimson colour.
If Hermione and her lover were Nereid and Triton when we saw them
down there by the sea, here, then, they were of the forest. A Diana
in hunter's green was the girl; a little green felt hat with a
partridge feather, green flannel blouse, short skirt, gaitered as to
her shapely limbs, bright of cheek and eye, and the red ribbon in her
glossy hair.
Applebo, for his part, smacked more of the Engadine than of the North
Woods, being, as was usual with him, slightly overdressed. He had
arrived at the camp but two hours before, driving a badly treated
motor-car, of which the Finn was the inefficient mechanician. Nor
did it appear to the occupants of the camp, watching them arrive,
that there existed between the fabric and its crew that perfect
sympathy to be found when they were aboard the _Daffodil_. The name
of this voiturette was the "Cowslip," but as Wood, standing with his
arm around Paula, whispered in her coral ear, a better name would
have been the "Side-slip."
"Just what did papa say," enquired Hermione, "when you told him that
you wanted to marry me?"
"He said: 'The...' Well, you can imagine what he said ... hand me
the pepper; these trout are just _au point_!"
"What did you say?"
"I did not say anything. I should have known better than to have
tackled him when he was cooking. But, as he seems to do nothing but
cook, that would mean to hang about indefinitely, and I've got to
start back in two hours."
"Well ... what did he say, finally?" demanded Hermione, with
impatience..
Applebo gave her his laziest and most maddening look. Hermione
reached for her stick, and he proceeded more briskly.
"He said, after the trout were finished, 'Huh ... h'm ... so you want
to marry Cécile, do you?"
"'No, sir,' said I; 'Hermione.'
"'Why,' said he, 'Hermione! What are you talkin' about? Why, you
cradle-robber, Hermione's only a kid!"
Hermione snorted.
"I told him," continued Applebo, with maddening languor, "that I
quite agreed with him; that you were a simple, untutored child, quite
too young to know your own mind, impulsive, undisciplined..."
_Thwack!_
"Ow...!"
"What else?" demanded Hermione, ominously.
"I explained to him that, while in the majority of cases it was a
very undesirable thing for a girl to be married as young as nineteen,
yet in our case there might be certain advantages...."
"Such as..."
"Well..." Applebo regarded her warily, edging a little away. "I
pointed out the fact that, if a man ever expected to live in peace
with a lady of such violent disposition as his youngest daughter's,
it was of inestimable advantage to catch her young and then train
her...."
_Thwack!!_
"Ouch! Do you think that is a nice way to treat your fiancé?"
"What did papa say to that?"
"He heartily agreed with me. After that he gave his consent and we
had a drink on it. He had several. Then he happened to think of a
partridge that he'd left in the oven, and bolted off. I had a
feeling that, if anything had gone wrong with the partridge, he might
blame me and withdraw his favour, so I escaped and came here to tell
you the glad news. And you whack me with a stick..."
_Thwack!!!_
But the lady who tames lions must not forget that, after all, they
are far stronger than she, and the next second Hermione found herself
in an embrace which left her not so much as the power to wriggle,
while her breathing was momentarily suspended by certain processes
which, while damaging to the respiration, are never fatal, owing to
their stimulating effect upon the heart.
And this no doubt was precisely what she wanted!
THE END