In everybody's life there are hours or days or even weeks that refuse to
march on with the solemn procession of time, but lag behind and hide in
some byway of memory, there to remain for ever and ever. It was such a
week that tumbled unexpectedly out of Quin's calendar about the first of
June, and lived itself in terms of sunshine and roses, of moonshine and
melody, seven halcyon days between the time that Eleanor returned from
school and the Bartletts went away for the summer. For the first time
since he met her, she seemed to have nothing more demanding to do than to
emulate "the innocent moon, who nothing does but shine, and yet moves all
the slumbering surges of the world."
There was no doubt about Quin's "slumbering surges" being moved. Within
twenty-four hours of her return to town he became totally and hopelessly
demoralized. Education and business were, after all, but means to an end,
and when he saw what he conceived to be a short cut to heaven, he rashly
discarded wings and leaped toward his heart's desire.
The hour before closing at the factory became a time of acute torture. He
who usually stayed till the last minute, engrossed in winding up the
affairs of the day, now seemed perfectly willing to trust their
completion to any one who would undertake it. The instant the whistle
blew he was off like a shot, out of the factory yard, clinging to the
platform of a crowded trolley, catching an interurban car, plunging
through a thicket, down an old lane, and emerging into Paradise.
The Rannys were having the adventure of their lives with the secret farm,
an adventure shared with equal enthusiasm by their co-conspirators.
"Valley Mead" was proving the most marvelous of forbidden playthings, and
was doing for Randolph Bartlett what doctors and sanitariums and tears
and threats had failed to do. The old place had been overhauled, the
house made habitable, and now that furnishing was in progress, each day
brought new and fascinating developments.
Eleanor had arrived from school just in time to fling herself heart and
soul into the enterprise. By a happy chance she had been allowed to spend
the week with the Randolph Bartletts, only reporting to her grandmother
from time to time for consultations regarding summer clothes. Her strange
indifference to this usually all-important question, together with her
insistent plea to remain in Kentucky all summer, might have aroused the
old lady's suspicion had she not long ago decided that the explanation of
all Eleanor's motives was perversity.
Every morning Eleanor and Mrs. Ranny went out to the farm, and worked
with enthusiasm. Each piece of furniture that was taken out of the crate
was hailed with delight and dragged from one place to another to try its
effect. The hanging of curtains was suspended while they rushed out to
see the newly arrived rabbits with their meek eyes and tremulous pink
mouths, or dashed out to the poultry-yard to have another look at the
downy little fluffs of yellow that were pretending to be chickens.
But the real excitement of the day was when the workmen had departed, and
Mr. Ranny came out with his machine laden with priceless treasures from
the ten-cent store, or later when Quin Graham dashed up the lane with
anything from a garden-spade to a bird-house in his hands, and with an
enthusiasm and energy in his soul that communicated themselves to all
concerned. Then everybody would talk at once, and everybody insist upon
showing everybody else what had been done since morning, and there was
more hanging of pictures and changing of furniture, and so much chatter
and laughter that it was a wonder anything was accomplished.
Mr. and Mrs. Ranny had agreed that they would make Valley Mead livable at
the least possible expense, looking forward to a future day to make the
improvements that would require much outlay of money. The pride and
satisfaction they took in their petty economies were such as only the
inexperienced wealthy can feel.
As for Quin, he moved through the enchanted days, blind, deaf, and dumb
to everything but Eleanor. She was the dazzling sun in whose effulgent
rays the rest of humanity floated like midges. So wholly blinded was he
by her radiant presence that he did not realize the darkness into which
he was about to be plunged until her departure was imminent.
The evening before she left found them perched upon the orchard stile, in
that stage of intimacy that permitted him to sit at her feet and toy
pensively with the tassel on her girdle while his eyes said the
unutterable things that his lips were forbidden to utter.
The sky was flooded with luminous color, neither blue nor pink, but
something deliciously between, and down below them fields of wheat
rippled under the magic light.
"We ought to go in," said Eleanor for the third time. "We've been out
here an outrageously long time."
"They won't miss us," pleaded Quin; "besides, it's our last night."
"Don't talk about it!" said Eleanor. "It makes me so cross to have to
leave it all at the most exciting time! When I get back everything will
be finished and the fun all over."
"When _are_ you coming back?"
"Not until September. We have to come home then. Something's going to
happen."
Quin stopped twisting the tassel and looked at her quickly.
"What?" he demanded.
"Can you keep a secret?"
"Yes."
"It's a wedding, Quin."
If the earth had suddenly quaked beneath him he could not have
experienced a more horrible sense of devastation. He put out a hand as if
to steady himself.
"You don't mean----" he began, and could get no further.
"Yes, I do. It's to be a home wedding, very quiet, with only the family,
and afterward they are going out to the coast."
"Who are?" he asked dully.
"Aunt Enid and Mr. Chester. After waiting for twenty years. Isn't it too
funny for words?"
Quin thought it was. He threw himself back and shouted. He had never
enjoyed a joke so much in his life. It seemed replete with humor,
especially when he shared with Eleanor the part he had played in bringing
them together and described the waltz on the landing the night of the
Easter party. With the arrogance of youth they laughed hilariously at the
late blooming romance.
"What about Queen Vic?" asked Quin. "How did they ever get her consent?"
"They didn't ask for it. After letting her keep them apart all these
years, they just announced that they were going to be married in
September. I expect she raised the roof; but when she saw it was all
settled and she couldn't unsettle it, she came around and told Aunt Enid
she could be married at home."
"Good work!" said Quin, who was genuinely fond of both Miss Enid and Mr.
Chester. "How is Miss Isobel taking it?"
"Better than you would think. I don't know what has come over Aunt
Isobel, she's so much nicer than she used to be. The boys out at the
hospital have made her over."
"Miss Isobel's a pippin," said Quin, in a tone that implied a compliment.
"You ought to have seen how she looked after me when I was sick. Has
Madam found out about her going out to camp?"
"Yes; but she hasn't stopped her. Something you said once about everybody
having a right to do his duty as he saw it made Aunt Isobel take a firm
stand and stick it out. You have certainly jolted the family out of its
ruts, Quin. Look at Uncle Ranny; would you ever take him for the same
person he was six months ago?"
Quin removed his enamored gaze from her face long enough to glance toward
the house, where the usually elegant useless Randolph was perched in the
crotch of an old ash tree, sawing off a dead limb, and singing as he
sawed.
"Well, when it comes to him, I guess I _have_ had a finger in the pie,"
said Quin with pardonable pride. "He hasn't slipped the trolley for two
months; and if he can stay on the track now, it will be a cinch for him
after the first of July. All he needed was a real interest in life, and a
chance to work things out for himself."
"It's what we all need," Eleanor said gloomily. "I wish I could do what I
liked."
"What would you do?"
"I'd go straight to New York and study for the stage. It isn't a
whim--it's what I've wanted most to do ever since I was a little girl. I
may not have any great talent, but Papa Claude thinks I have. So does
Captain Phipps. To have to wait a whole year until I'm of age is too
stupid for words. It's just some more of grandmother's tyranny, and I'm
not going to submit much longer; would you?"
Quin contemplated his clasped fists earnestly. For the first time, his
belief in the consent of the governed admitted of exceptions.
"I'd go a bit slow," he said, feeling his own way cautiously. "This stage
business is a doubtful proposition. I don't see where the fun comes in,
pretending to be somebody else all the time."
"You would if you didn't like being yourself. Besides, I don't live my
own life as it is."
"You will some day--when you get married."
"But that's just it! I don't intend to marry--I am going to devote my
whole life to my work."
Quin, having but recently recovered from the fear that she was
contemplating matrimony, now underwent a similar torture at her avowal
that she was not. The second possibility was only a shade less appalling
than the first.
"The trouble is," she went on very confidentially, "I am not interested
in anything in the world but my art."
"Oh, come now, Miss Eleanor!" Quin rallied her. "You know you were
interested in the work out at the camp."
"That's true. I except that."
"And you can't say you haven't been interested in our selling this farm,
and getting Mr. and Mrs. Ranny fixed up, and all that."
"Of course I've been interested in that; it's been no end of fun."
"And then," Quin pursued his point quite brazenly, "there's me. I hope
you are a little bit interested in me?"
She tried to take it lightly. "Interested in you? Why, of course I am. We
all are. Uncle Ranny was saying only this morning----"
"I don't care a hang what he said. It's _you_ I'm talking about. Do you
like me any better than you did in the spring?"
"You silly boy, I've always liked you."
"But I told you I wanted a lot. Have I made any headway?"
"Headway? I should say you have. I never saw such improvement! If the
university classes have done this much for you in four months, what will
you be by the end of the year?"
"That's right," said Quin bitterly. "Open the switch and sidetrack me!
But just tell me one thing: is there anybody you _are_ interested in?"
"Now, see here, Quin," said Eleanor peremptorily, "you haven't any right
to ask me questions like that. All I promised was that you could be my
chum."
"Yes; but I meant a chum plus."
"Well, you'd better look out or you will be a chum minus." Then she
caught sight of his eyes, and leaned forward in sudden contrition. "I'm
sorry to hurt you, Quin, but you must understand----"
"I do," he admitted miserably. "Only this week out here together, and the
way you've looked at me sometimes, made me kind of hope----" His voice
broke. "It's all right. I'll wait some more."
This was the time Eleanor should have carried out her intention of going
back to the house. Instead, she sat on in the deepening twilight under
the feminine delusion that she was being good to the miserable youth who
sat huddled close to her knees on the step below her.
Through his whole big being Quin was quivering with the sense of her
nearness, afraid to move for fear something stronger than his will would
make him seize her slender little body and crush it to him in an agony of
tenderness and yearning.
"How beautiful it is out here now!" she said softly. "Don't you love the
feel of wings everywhere? Little flying things going home? Everything
seems to be whispering!"
Quin did not answer. He sat silent and immovable until the light in the
valley had quite faded, and the twitter of the birds had been superseded
by the monotonous, mournful plaint of a whip-poor-will in a distant tree.
Then he stirred and looked up at Eleanor with a rueful smile.
"I know what's the matter with that damned old bird," he said. "He's in
love!"