They strolled leisurely along the board-walk, found the sand, walked in
the firm, dry line of the high-water mark for a mile to the east, and
sat down on a clump of sea-grass on the top of a sand dune.
“I like this!” she cried joyously.
“So do I,” he answered soberly, and lapsed into silence.
The sun was warm and genial. The wind had died, and the waves of the
rising tide were creeping up the long, sloping stretches of the sand
with a lazy, soothing rush. A winter gull poised above their heads and
soared seaward. The smoke of an ocean liner streaked the horizon as she
swept toward the channel off Sandy Hook.
Jim looked at the girl by his side and tried to speak. She caught the
strained expression in his strong face and lowered her eyes.
He began to trace letters in the sand.
She knew with unerring instinct that he had made his first desperate
effort to speak his love and failed. Would he give it up and wait for
weeks and possibly months--or would he storm the citadel in one mad rush
at the beginning?
He found his voice at last. He had recovered from the panic of his first
impulse.
“Well, how do you like my idea of a good day as far as you've gone?” he
asked lightly.
She met his gaze with perfect frankness. “The happiest day I ever spent
in my life,” she confessed.
“Honest?”
“Honest.”
“Oh, shucks--what's the use!” he cried, with sudden fierce resolution.
“You've got me, Kiddo, you've got me! I've been eatin' out of your hand
since the minute I laid my eyes on you in that big room. I'm all yours.
You can do anything you want with me. For God's sake, tell me that you
like me a little.”
The blood slowly mounted to her cheeks in red waves of tremulous
emotion.
“I like you very much,” she said in low tones.
He seized her hand and held it in a desperate grip.
“I love you, Kiddo,” he went on passionately. “You don't mind me calling
you Kiddo? You're so dainty and pretty and sweet, and that dimple keeps
coming in your cheek, it just seems like that's the word--you don't
mind?”
“No----”
“You don't know how I've been starvin' all my life for the love of a
pure girl like you. You're the first one I ever spoke to. I was scared
to death yesterday when I saw you. But I'd 'a' spoke to you if it killed
me in my tracks. I couldn't help it. It just looked like an angel had
dropped right down out of the gold clouds from that ceilin'. I was
afraid I'd lose you in the crowd and never see you again. It didn't seem
you were a stranger anyhow--I didn't seem strange to you, did I?”
Her lips quivered, and she was silent.
“Didn't you feel like you'd known me somewhere before?” he pleaded.
“Yes.”
“I just felt you did, and that's what give me courage. Oh, Kiddo, you've
got to love me a little--I've never been loved by a human soul in all my
life. The first thing I remember was hidin' under a stoop from a brute
who beat me every night. I ran away and slept in barrels and crawled
into coal shutes till I was big enough to earn a livin' sellin' papers.
For years I never knew what it meant to have enough to eat. I just
scratched and fought my way through the streets like a little hungry
wolf till I got in a blacksmith's shop down on South Street and learned
to handle tools. I was quick and smart, and the old man liked me and let
me sleep in the shop. I had enough to eat then and got strong as an ox.
I went to the night schools and learned to read and write. I don't know
anything, but I'm quick and you can teach me--you will, won't you?”
“I'll try,” was the low answer.
“You do like me, Kiddo? Say it again!”
She rose to her feet and looked out over the sea, her face scarlet.
“Yes, I do,” she said at last.
With a sudden resistless sweep he clasped her in his arms and kissed her
lips.
Her heart leaped in mad response to the first kiss a lover had ever
given. Her body quivered and relaxed in his embrace. It was sweet--it
was wonderful beyond words.
He kissed her again, and she clung to him, lifting her eyes to his at
last in a long, wondering gaze and then pressed her own lips to his.
“Oh, my God, Kiddo, you love me! It beats the world, don't it? Love at
first sight for both of us! I've heard about it, but I didn't think it
would ever happen to me like this--did you?”
She shook her head and bit her lips as the tears slowly dimmed her eyes.
“It takes my breath,” she murmured. “I can't realize what it all means.
It seems too wonderful to be true.”
“And you won't turn me down because I don't know who my father and
mother was?”
“No--my heart goes out to you in a great pity for your lonely, wretched
boyhood.”
“I couldn't help that--now could I?”
“Of course not. It's wonderful that you've made your way alone and won
the fight of life.”
He gripped her hands and held her at arms' length, devouring her with
his deep, slumbering eyes.
“Gee, but you're a brick, little girl! I thought you were an angel when
I first saw you. Now I know it. Just watch me work for you! I'll show
you a thing or two. You'll marry me right away, won't you?”
He bent close, his breath on her lips.
Her eyes drooped under his passionate gaze, and the tears slowly stole
down her cheeks. Her hour of life had struck! So suddenly, so utterly
unexpectedly, it rang a thunderbolt from the clear sky.
“You will, won't you?” he pleaded.
She smiled at him through her tears and slowly said:
“I can't say yes today.”
“Why--why?”
“You've swept me off my feet--I--I can't think.”
“I don't want you to think--I want you to marry me right now.”
“I must have a little time.”
His face fell in despair.
“Say, little girl, don't turn me down--you'll kill me.”
“I'm not turning you down,” she protested tenderly. “I only want time to
see that I'm not crazy. I have to pinch myself to see if I'm awake. It
all seems a dream”--she paused and lifted her radiant face to his--“a
beautiful dream--the most wonderful my soul has ever seen. I must be
sure it's real!”
He drew her into his arms, and her body again relaxed in surrender as
his lips touched hers.
“Isn't that the real thing?” he laughed.
She lay very still, her eyes closed, her face a scarlet flame. She was
frightened at the swift realization of its overwhelming reality. The
touch of his hand thrilled to the last fiber and nerve of her body. Her
own trembling fingers clung to him with desperate longing tenderness.
She roused herself with an effort and drew away.
“That's enough now. I must have a little common-sense. Let's go----”
He clung to her hand.
“You'll let me come to see you, tomorrow night?”
“Yes----”
“And the next night--and every night this week--what's the difference?
There's nobody to say no, is there?”
“No one.”
“You'll let me?”
“Tomorrow sure. Maybe you won't want to come the next night.”
“Maybe I won't! Just wait and see!”
He seized both hands again and held her at arms' length.
“Don't go yet--just let me look at you a minute more! The only girl I
ever had in my life--and she's the prettiest thing God ever made on this
earth. Ain't I the lucky boy?”
“We must go now,” she cried, blushing again under his burning eyes.
He dropped her hands suddenly and saluted military fashion.
“All right, teacher! I'm the little boy that does exactly what he's
told.”
They strolled leisurely along the shining sands in silence. Now and then
his slender hand caught hers and crushed it. The moment he touched her
a living flame flashed through her body--and through every moment of
contact her nerves throbbed and quivered as if a musician were sweeping
the strings of a harp. If this were not love, what could it be?
Her whole being, body and soul, responded to his. Her body moved
instinctively toward his, drawn by some hidden, resistless power. Her
hands went out to meet his; her lips leaped to his.
She must test it with time, of course. And yet she knew by a deep inner
sense that time could only fan the flame that had been kindled into
consuming fire that must melt every barrier between them.
She had asked him nothing of himself, his business or his future, and
knew nothing except what he had told her in the first impetuous rush of
his confession of love. No matter. The big thing today was the fact
of love and the new radiance with which it was beginning to light the
world. The effect was stunning. Their conversation had been the simplest
of commonplace questions and answers--and yet the day was the one
miracle of her life--her happiness something unthinkable until realized.
She had not asked time in order to know him better. She had only asked
time to see herself more clearly in the new experience. Not for a moment
did she raise the question of the worthiness of the man she loved. It
was inconceivable that she should love a man not worthy of her. The only
questions asked were soul-searching ones put to herself.
Through the sweet, cool drive homeward, a hundred times she asked
within:
“Is this love?”
And each time the answer came from the depths:
“Yes--yes--a thousand times yes. It's the voice of God. I feel it and I
know it.”
He throttled the racer down to the lowest speed and took the longest
road home.
Again and again he slipped his left hand from the wheel and pressed
hers.
“You won't let anybody knock me behind my back, now will you, little
girl?”
She pressed his hand in answer.
“I ain't got a single friend in all God's world to stand up for me but
just you.”
“You don't need anyone,” she whispered.
“You'll give me a chance to get back at 'em if any of your friends knock
me, won't you?”
“Why should they dislike you?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, I ain't exactly one o' the high-flyers now am I?”
“I'm glad you're not.”
“Sure enough?”
“Yes.”
“Then it's me for you, Kiddo, for this world and the next.”
The car swung suddenly to the curb and Mary lifted her eyes with a start
to find herself in front of her home.
Jim sprang to the ground and lifted her out.
“Keep this coat,” he whispered. “We'll need it tomorrow. What time is
your school out?”
“At three o'clock.”
“I can come at four?”
“You don't have to work tomorrow?”
He hesitated a moment.
“No, I'm on a vacation till after Christmas. They're putting through my
new patent.”
He followed her inside the door and held her hand in the shadows of the
hall.
“All right, at four,” she said.
“I'll be here.”
He stooped and kissed her, turned and passed quickly out.
She stood for a moment in the shadows and listened to the throb of the
car until it melted into the roar of the city's life, her heart beating
with a joy so new it was pain.