Long Beach, on the first hot Sunday of May, when motorists come out
from New York, half-ready to open asphalt hearts to sea and sky.
Carl's first sight of it, save from an aeroplane, and he was mad-happy
to find real shore so near the city.
Ruth and he were picnicking, vulgar and unashamed, among the dunes at
the end of the long board-walk, like the beer-drinking, pickle-eating
parties of fishermen and the family groups with red table-cloths,
grape-basket lunches, and colored Sunday supplements. Ruth declared
that she preferred them to the elegant loungers who were showing off
new motor-coats on the board-walk. But Carl and she had withdrawn a
bit from the crowds, and in the dunes had made a nest, with a book and
a magazine and a box of chocolates and Carl's collapsible lunch-kit.
Not New York only, but all of Ruth's relatives were forgot. Aunt Emma
Truegate Winslow was a myth of the dragon-haunted past. Here all was
fresh color and free spaces looking to open sea. Behind the dunes,
with their traceries of pale grass, reveled the sharp, unshadowed
green of marshes, and an inland bay that was blue as bluing, a
startling blue, bordered by the emerald marshes. To one side--afar,
not troubling their peace--were the crimson roofs of fantastic houses,
like chalets and California missions and villas of the Riviera, with
gables and turrets of red tiles.
Before their feet was the cream-colored beach, marked by ridges of
driftwood mixed with small glistening shells, long ranks of
pale-yellow seaweed, and the delicate wrinkles in the sand that were
the tracks of receding waves. The breakers left the beach wet and
shining for a moment, like plates of raw-colored copper, making one
cry out with its flashing beauty. Then, at last, the eyes lifted to
unbroken bluewater--nothing between them and Europe save rolling waves
and wave-crests like white plumes. The sea was of a diaphanous blue
that shaded through a bold steel blue and a lucent blue enamel to a
rich ultramarine which absorbed and healed the office-worn mind. The
sails of tacking sloops were a-blossom; sea-gulls swooped; a tall
surf-fisherman in red flannel shirt and shiny black hip-boots strode
out into the water and cast with a long curve of his line; cumulus
clouds, whose pure white was shaded with a delicious golden tone, were
baronial above; and out on the sky-line the steamers raced by.
Round them was the warm intimacy of the dune sands; beyond was
infinite space calling to them to be big and unafraid.
Talking, falling into silences touched with the mystery of sun and
sea, they confessed youth's excited wonder about the world; Carl
sitting cross-legged, rubbing his ankles, a springy figure in blue
flannel and a daring tie; while Ruth, in deep-rose linen, her throat
bright and bare, lay with her chin in her hands, a flush beneath the
gentle brown of her cheeks, her white-clad ankles crossed under her
skirt, slender against the gray sand, thoughtful of eye, lost in
happiness.
"Some day," Carl was musing, "your children and mine will say, 'You
certainly lived in the most marvelous age in the world.' Think of it.
They talk about the romance of the Crusades and the Romans and all
that, but think of the miracles we've seen already, and we're only
kids. Aviation and the automobile and wireless and moving pictures
and electric locomotives and electric cooking and the use of radium
and the X-ray and the linotype and the submarine and the labor
movement--the I. W. W. and syndicalism and all that--not that I know
anything about the labor movement, but I suppose it's the most
important of all. And Metchnikoff and Ehrlich. Oh yes, and a good
share of the development of the electric light and telephone and the
phonograph.... Golly! In just a few years!"
"Yes," Ruth added, "and Montessori's system of education--that's what
I think is the most important.... See that sail-boat, Hawk! Like a
lily. And the late-afternoon gold on those marshes. I think this salt
breeze blows away all the bad Ruth.... Oh! Don't forget the attempts
to cure cancer and consumption. So many big things starting right now,
while we're sitting here."
"Lord! what an age! Romance--why, there's more romance in a wireless
spark--think of it, little lonely wallowing steamer, at night, out in
the dark, slamming out a radio like forty thousand tigers
spitting--and a man getting it here on Long Island. More romance than
in all the galleons that ever sailed the purple tropics, which they
mostly ain't purple, but dirty green. Anything 's possible now. World
cools off--a'right, we'll move on to some other planet. It gets me
going. Don't have to believe in fairies to give the imagination a job,
to-day. Glad I've been an aviator; gives me some place in it all,
anyway."
"I'm glad, too, Hawk, terribly glad."
The sun was crimsoning; the wind grew chilly. The beach was scattered
with camp-fires. Their own fire settled into compact live coals which,
in the dusk of the dune-hollow, spread over the million bits of quartz
a glow through which pirouetted the antic sand-fleas. Carl's cigarette
had the fragrance that comes only from being impregnated with the
smoke of an outdoor fire. The waves were lyric, and a group at the
next fire crooned "Old Black Joe." The two lovers curled in their
nest. Hand moved toward hand.
Ruth whispered: "It's sweet to be with all these people and their
fires.... Will I really learn not to be supercilious?"
"Honey! You--supercilious? Democracy---- Oh, the dickens! let's not
talk about theories any more, but just about Us!"
Her hand, tight-coiled as a snail-shell, was closed in his.
"Your hand is asleep in my hand's arms," he whispered. The ball of his
thumb pressed her thumb, and he whispered once more: "See. Now our
hands are kissing each other--we--we must watch them better.... Your
thumb is like a fairy." Again his thumb, hardened with file and wrench
and steering-wheel, touched hers. It was startlingly like a kiss of
real lips.
Lightly she returned the finger-kiss, answering diffidently, "Our
hands are mad--silly hands to think that Long Beach is a tropical
jungle."
"You aren't angry at them?"
"N-no."
He cradled her head on his shoulder, his hand gripping her arm till
she cried, "You hurt me." He kissed her cheek. She drew back as far as
she could. Her hand, against his chest, held him away for a minute.
Her defense suddenly collapsed, and she was relaxed and throbbing in
his arms. He slipped his fingers under her chin, and turned up her
face till he could kiss her lips. He had not known the kiss of man and
woman could be so long, so stirring. Yet at first he was disappointed.
This was, after all, but a touch--just such a touch as finger against
finger. But her lips grew more intense against his, returning and
taking the kiss; both of them giving and receiving at once.
Wondering at himself for it, Carl thought of other things. He was
amazed that, while their lips were hot together, he worried as to what
train Ruth ought to take, after dinner. Yet, with such thoughts
conferring, he was in an ecstasy beyond sorrow; praying that to her,
as to him, there was no pain but instead a rapture in the sting of her
lips, as her teeth cut a little into them.... A kiss--thing that the
polite novels sketch as a second's unbodied bliss--how human it was,
with teeth and lips to consider; common as eating--and divine as
martyrdom. His lips were saying to her things too vast and extravagant
for a plain young man to venture upon in words:
"Lady, to you I chant my reverence and faith everlasting, in such
unearthly music as the angels use when with lambent wings they salute
the marching dawn." Such lyric tributes, and an emotion too subtle to
fit into any words whatever, his lips were saying....
Then she was drawing back, rending the kiss, crying, "You're almost
smothering me!"
With his arms easily about her, but with her weight against his
shoulder, they and their love veiled from the basket-parties by the
darkness, he said, quiveringly: "See, my arms are a little house for
you, just as my hand was a little house for your hand, once. My arms
are the walls, and your head and mine together are the roof."
"I love the little house."
"No. Say, 'I love _you_."'
"No."
"Say it."
"No."
"Please----"
"Oh, Hawk dear, I couldn't even if--just now, I do want to say it, but
I want to be fair. I am terribly happy to be in the house of Hawk's
arms. I'm not afraid in it, even out here on the dark dunes--which
Aunt Emma wouldn't--somehow--approve! But I do want to be fair to you,
and I'm afraid I'm not, when I let you love me this way. I don't want
to hurt you. Ever. Perhaps it's egotistical of me, but I'm afraid you
would be hurt if I let you kiss me and then afterward I decided I
didn't love you at all."
"But can't you, some day----"
"Oh, I don't know, I don't _know_! I'm not sure I know what love is.
I'm not sure it's love that makes me happy (as I really am) when you
kiss me. Perhaps I'm just curious, and experimenting. I was quite
conscious, when you kissed me then; quite conscious and curious; and
once I caught myself wondering for half a second what train we'd take.
I was ashamed of that, but I wasn't ashamed of taking mental notes and
learning what these 'kisses,' that we mention so glibly, really are.
Just experimenting, you see. And if you were _too_ serious about our
kiss, it wouldn't be at all fair to you."
"I'm glad you're frank, blessed, and I guess I understand pretty well
how you feel, but, after all, I'm fairly simple about such things.
Blessed, blessed, I don't really know a thing but 'I love you.'"
His arms were savage again; he kissed her, kissed her lips, kissed the
hollow of her throat. Then he lifted her from the ground and would not
set her down till she had kissed him back.
"You frightened me a lot, then," she said. "Did the child want to
impress Ruth with his mighty strength? Well, she shall be impressed.
Hawk, I do hope--I do hate myself for not knowing my mind. I will try
not to experiment. I want you to be happy. I do want to be honest with
you. If I'm honest, will you try not to be too impatient till I do
know just what I want?... Oh, I'm sick of the modern lover! I talk and
talk about love; it seems as though we'd lost the power to be simple,
like the old ballads. Or weren't the ballad people really simple,
either? You say you are; so I think you will have to run away with
me.... But not till after dinner! Come."
The moon was rising. Swinging hands, they tramped toward the
board-walk. The crunch of their feet in the sand was the rhythmic
spell of a magician, which she broke when she sighed:
"Should I have let you kiss me, out here in the wilds? Will you
respect me after it?"
"Princess, you're all the respect there is in the world."
"It seems so strange. We were absorbed in war and electricity and
then----"
"Love is war and electricity, or else it's dull, and I don't think we
two 'll ever get dull--if you do decide you can love me. We'll wander:
cabin in the Rockies, with forty mountains for our garden fence, and
an eagle for our suburban train."
"And South Sea islands silhouetted at sunset!... Look! That moon!... I
always imagine it so clearly when I hear Hawaiian singers on the
Victrola--and a Hawaiian beach, with fireflies in the jungle behind
and a phosphorescent sea in front and native girls dancing in
garlands."
"Yes! And Paris boulevards and a mysterious castle in the Austrian
mountains, with a hidden treasure in dark, secret dungeons, and heavy
iron armor; and then, bing! a brand-new prairie town in Saskatchewan
or Dakota, with brand-new sunlight on the fresh pine shacks, and
beyond the town the plains with brand-new grass rolling."
"But seriously, Hawk, would you want to go to all those places, if you
were married? Would you, practically? You know, even rich
globe-trotters go to the same sorts of places, mostly. And we wouldn't
even be rich, would we?"
"No, just comfortable; maybe five thousand a year."
"Well, would you really want to keep on going, and take your wife? Or
would you settle down like the rest, and spend money so you could keep
in shape to make money to spend to keep in shape?"
"Seriously I would keep going--if I had the right girl to go with me.
It would be mighty important which one, though, I guess--and by that I
mean you. Once, when I quit flying, I thought that maybe I'd stop
wandering and settle down, maybe even marry a Joralemon kind of a
girl. But I was meant to hike for the hiking's sake.... Only, not
alone any more. I _need_ you.... We'd go and go. No limit.... And we
wouldn't just go places, either; we'd be different things. We'd be
Connecticut farmers one year, and run a mine in Mexico the next, and
loaf in Paris the next, if we had the money."
"Sometimes you almost tempt me to like you."
"Like me now!"
"No, not now, but---- Here's the board-walk."
"Where's those steps? Oh yes. Gee! I hate to leave the water without
having had a swim. Wish we'd had one. Dare you to go wading!"
"Oh, ought I to, do you think? Wading would be silly. And nice."
"Course you oughtn't. Come on. Don't you remember how the sand feels
between your toes?"
The moon brooded upon the lulled waves, and quested among the ridges
of driftwood for pearly shells. The pools left by the waves were
enticing. Ruth retreated into the shelter of the board-walk and came
shyly out, clutching her skirts, her feet and ankles silver in the
light.
"The sand does feel good, but uh! it's getting colder and colder!" she
wailed, as she cautiously advanced into the water. "I'll think up
punishments for you. You've not only caused me to be cold, but you've
made me abominably self-conscious."
"Don't be self-conscious, blessed. We are just children exploring." He
splashed out, coat off, trousers rolled to the knee above his thin,
muscular legs, galloping along the edge of the water like a large
puppy, while she danced after him.
They were stilled to the persuasive beauty of the night. Music from
the topaz jeweled hotels far down the beach wove itself into the peace
on land and sea. A fish lying on shore was turned by the moon into
ivory with carven scales. Before them, reaching to the ancient towers
of England and France and the islands of the sea, was the whispering
water. A tenderness that understood everything, made allowance for
everything in her and in himself, folded its wings round him as he
scanned her that stood like a slender statue of silver--dark hair
moon-brightened, white arms holding her skirts, white legs round which
the spent waves sparkled with unworldly fire. He waded over to her and
timidly kissed the edge of her hair.
She rubbed her cheek against his. "Now we must run," she said. She
quickly turned back to the shadow of the board-walk, to draw on her
stockings and shoes, kneeling on the sand like the simple maid of the
ballads which she had been envying.
They tramped along the board-walk, with heels clicking like castanets,
conscious that the world was hushed in night's old enchantment.
As they had answered to companionship with the humble picnic-parties
among the dunes, so now they found it amusing to dine among the
semi-great and the semi-motorists at the Nassau. Ruth had a distinct
pleasure when T. Wentler, horse-fancier, aviation enthusiast,
president of the First State Bank of Sacramento, came up, reminded
Carl of their acquaintanceship at the Oakland-Berkeley Aero Meet, and
begged Ruth and Carl to join him, his wife, and Senator Leeford, for
coffee.
As they waited for their train, quiet after laughter, Ruth remarked:
"It was jolly to play with the Personages. You haven't seen much of
the frivolous side of me. It's pretty important. You don't know how
much soul satisfaction I get out of dancing all night and playing
tennis with flanneled oafs and eating _marrons glaces_ and chatting in
a box at the opera till I spoil the entire evening for all the German
music-lovers, and talking to all the nice doggies from the Tennis and
Racquet Club whenever I get invited to Piping Rock or Meadow Brook or
any other country club that has ancestors. I want you to take
warning."
"Did you really miss Piping Rock much to-day?".
"No--but I might to-morrow, and I might get horribly bored in our
cabin in the Rockies and hate the stony old peaks, and long for tea
and scandal in a corner at the Ritz."
"Then we'd hike on to San Francisco; have tea at the St. Francis or
the Fairmont or the Palace; then beat it for your Hawaii and fireflies
in the bush."
"Perhaps, but suppose, just suppose we were married, and suppose the
Touricar didn't go so awfully well, and we had to be poor, and
couldn't go running away, but had to stick in one beastly city flat
and economize! It's all very well to talk of working things out
together, but think of not being able to have decent clothes, and
going to the movies every night--ugh! When I see some of the girls who
used to be so pretty and gay, and they went and married poor men--now
they are so worn and tired and bedraggled and perambulatorious, and
they worry about Biddies and furnaces and cabbages, and their hair is
just scratched together, with the dubbest hats--I'd rather be an idle
rich."
"If we got stuck like that, I'd sell out and we'd hike to the mountain
cabin, anyway, say go up in the Santa Lucias, and keep wild bees."
"And probably get stung--in the many subtle senses of that word. And
I'd have to cook and wash. That would be fun _as_ fun, but to have to
do it----"
"Ruth, honey, let's not worry about it now, anyhow. I don't believe
there's much danger. And don't let's spoil this bully day."
"It has been sweet. I won't croak any more."
"There's the train coming."