EVERYBODY looked pretty tired when they came down to breakfast the
next morning. But at least everybody came down. Even Rollins! Never
have I seen Rollins so really addicted to coming down to breakfast!
Poor Allan John, of course, was all overwhelmed again with
humiliation and despair, and quite heroically insistent on removing
his presence as expeditiously as possible from our house party. It
_was_ his whistle that had screeched so in the night. And as far as
he knew he hadn't the slightest reason or excuse for so screeching
it beyond the fact that, rousing half-awake and half-asleep from a
most horrible nightmare, he had reached instinctively for the
little whistle under his pillow, and not realizing what he was
doing, cried for help, not just to man alone it would seem, but to
High Heaven itself!
"But however in the world did you happen to have the whistle under
your pillow?" puzzled the Bride.
"What else have I got?" answered Allan John.
He was perfectly right! Robbed for all time of his wife and child,
stripped for the ill-favored moment of all personal moneys and
proofs of identity, sojourning even in other men's linen, what did
Allan John hold as a nucleus for the New Day except a little silver
toy from another person's shipwreck? (Once I knew a smashed man who
didn't possess even a toy to begin a new day on so he didn't begin
it!)
"Well, of course, it was pretty rackety while it lasted," conceded
young Kennilworth. "But at least it gave us a chance to admire each
other's lingeries."
"Negligées," corrected George Keets.
"I said 'scare-clothes'!" snapped young Kennilworth. "Everybody who
travels by land or sea or puts in much time at house parties ought
to have at least one round of scare-clothes, one really chic
'escaping suit.'"
"The silver whistle is mine," intercepted the May Girl with some
dignity. "Mine and Allan John's. I found it and gave it to Allan
John. And he can blow it any time he wants to, day or night. But as
long as you people all made so much fuss about it--and looked so
funny," dimpled the May Girl transiently, "we will consider that
after this--any time the whistle blows--the call is just for me."
The May Girl's gravely ingenuous glance swept down in sudden
challenge across the somewhat amused faces of her companions,
"Allan John--is mine!" she confided with some incisiveness. "I
found him--too!"
"Do you acknowledge that ownership, Allan John!" demanded young
Kennilworth.
Even Allan John's sombre eyes twinkled the faintest possible glint
of amusement.
"I acknowledge that ownership," acquiesced Allan John.
"Now see here!--I protest," rallied George Keets. "Most
emphatically I protest against my fiancée assuming any masculine
responsibilities except me during the brief term of our
engagement!"
"But your engagement is already over!" jeered young Kennilworth.
"Nice kind of Lochinvar you are--drifting down-stairs just exactly
on the stroke of the breakfast bell!--'until breakfast time' were
the terms, I believe. Now Rollins here has been up since dawn!
Banging in and out of the house! Racing up and down the front walk
in the rain! Now that's what I call real passion!"
At the very first mention of his name Rollins had come sliding way
forward to the edge of his chair. He hadn't apparently expected to
be engaged till after breakfast. But if there was any conceivable
chance, of course----
"All ready--any time!" beamed Rollins.
"_Through_--breakfast time was what I understood," said George
Keets coldly.
"Through breakfast time was--was what I meant," stammered the May
Girl. From the only too palpable excitement on Rollins's face to
George Keets's chill immobility she turned with the faintest
possible gesture of appeal. Her eyes looked suddenly just a little
bit frightened. "A--after all," she confided, "I--I didn't know as
I feel quite well enough to-day to be engaged so much. Maybe I
caught a little cold yesterday. Sometimes I don't sleep very well.
Once----"
"Oh, come now," insisted young Kennilworth. "Don t, for Heaven's
sake, be a quitter!"
"A--'quitter'?" bridled the May Girl. Her cheeks went suddenly very
pink. And then suddenly very white. Like an angry little
storm-cloud that absurd fluff of gray hair shadowed down for an
instant across her sharply averted face. A glint of tears
threatened. Then out of the gray and the gold and the blue and the
pink and the tears, the jolliest sort of a little-girl-giggle
issued suddenly. "Oh, all right!" said the May Girl and slipped
with perfect docility apparently into the chair that George Keets
had drawn out for her.
George Keets I really think was infinitely more frightened than she
was, but in his case, at least, a seventeen years' lead in
experience had taught him long since the advisability of disguising
such emotions. Even at the dining-table of a sinking ship George
Keets I'm almost certain would never have ceased passing salts and
peppers, proffering olives and radishes, or making perfectly sure
that your coffee was just exactly the way you liked it. In the
present emergency, to cover not only his own confusion but the May
Girl's, he proceeded to talk archaeology. By talking archaeology in
an undertone with a faintly amorous inflection to the longest and
least intelligible words, George Keets really believed I think that
he was giving a rather clever imitation of an engaged man. What the
May Girl thought no one could possibly have guessed. The May Girl's
face was a study, but it was at least turning up to his! Whether
she understood a single thing he said, or was only resting, whether
she was truly amused or merely deferring as long as possible her
unhappy fate with Rollins, she sat as one entranced.
Slipping into the chair directly opposite them, young Kennilworth
watched the proceedings with malevolent joy. Between his very frank
contempt for the dulness of George Keets's methods, and his
perfectly palpable desire to keep poor Rollins tantalized as long
as possible, he scarcely knew which side to play on.
Everybody indeed except Ann Woltor seemed to take a more or less
mischievous delight in prolonging poor Rollins's suspense. Allan
John never lifted his eyes from his coffee cup, but at least he
showed no signs of disapproval or haste. Even George Keets, to the
eyes of a close observer, seemed to be dallying rather unduly with
his knife and fork as well as with his embarrassment.
As the breakfast hour dragged along, poor Rollins's impatience grew
apace. Fidgeting round and round in his chair, scowling ferociously
at anyone who dared to ask for a second service of anything,
dashing out into the hall every now and then on perfectly
inexplainable errands, he looked for all the world like some
wry-faced clown performing by accident in a business suit.
"Really, Rollins," admonished my Husband. "I think it would have
been a bit more delicate of you if you'd kept out of sight somehow
till Keets' affair was over--this hovering round so through the
harrowing last moments--all ready to pounce--hanged if I don't
think it's crude!"
"Crude?--it's plain buzzard-y!" scoffed Kennilworth.
It was the Bride's warm, romantic heart that called the time-limit
finally on George Keets's philandering.
"Really, I don't think it's quite fair," whispered the Bride. Taken
all in all I think the Bridegroom was inclined to agree with her.
But stronger than anybody's sense of justice, it was a composite
sense of humor that sped Rollins to his heart's desire. Even Ann
Woltor, I think, was curious to see just how Rollins would figure
as an engaged man.
The May Girl's parting with George Keets was at least mercifully
brief.
"Does he kiss my hand?" questioned the May Girl.
"No--I think not," flushed George Keets. Having no intention in the
world of kissing any woman in earnest, it was not in his code,
apparently, to kiss a young girl in fun. Very formally, with that
frugal, tight-lipped smile of his which contrasted so curiously
with the rather accentuated virility of his shoulders, he rose and
bowed low over the May Girl's proffered fingers. "Really it's been
a great honor. I've enjoyed it immensely!" he conceded.
"Thank you," murmured the May Girl. In a single impulse everybody
turned to look at Rollins, only to find that Rollins had
disappeared.
"Hi, there, Rollins! _Rollins_!" shouted young Kennilworth. "You're
losing time!"
As though waiting dramatically for just this cue, the hall
portieres parted slightly, and there stood Rollins grinning like a
Cheshire Cat, with a great bunch of purple orchids clasped in one
hand! Now we are sixty miles from a florist and the only neighbor
of our acquaintance who boasts a greenhouse is a most estimable but
exceedingly close-fisted flower-fancier, who might under certain
conditions, I must admit, give bread at the back door, but who
never under any circumstances whatsoever has been known to give
orchids at the front door. Nor did I quite see Rollins even in a
rain-storm actually breaking laws or glass to achieve his floral
purpose. Yet there stood Rollins in our front hall, at half-past
nine in the morning, with a very extravagant bunch of purple
orchids in his hand.
"Well--bully for you!" gasped young Kennilworth. "Now that's what I
call not being a mutt!"
Beaming with pride Rollins stepped forward and presented his
offering, the grin on his face never wavering.
"Just a--just a trifling token of my esteem, Miss Davies!" he
affirmed. "To say nothing of--of----"
The May Girl, I think, had never had orchids presented to her
before. It is something indeed of an experience all in itself to
see a young girl receive her first orchids. The faint astonishment
and regret to find that after all they're not nearly as darling and
cosy as violets or roses or even carnations--the sudden
contradictory flare of sex-pride and importance--flashed like so
much large print across the May Girl's fluctuant face.
"Why--why they're--wonderful!" she stammered.
Producing from Heaven knows what antique pin-cushion a hat-pin that
would have easily impaled the May Girl like a butterfly against the
wall, Rollins completed the presentation. But the end it seemed was
not yet. Fumbling through his pockets he produced a small wad of
paper, and from that small wad of paper a large old-fashioned seal
ring with several strands of silk thread dangling from it.
"Of course at such short notice," beamed Rollins, "one couldn't
expect to do much. But if you don't mind things being a bit
old-timey,--this ring of my great uncle Aberner's--if we tie it
on--perhaps?"
Whereupon, lashing the ring then and there to the May Girl's
astonished finger, Rollins proceeded to tuck the May Girl's whole
astonished hand into the crook of his arm, and start off with
her--still grinning--to promenade the long sheltered glassed-in
porch, across whose rain-blurred windows the storm raged by more
like a sound than a sight.
The May Girl's face was crimson!
"Well it was all your own idea, you know, this getting engaged!"
taunted Kennilworth.
It was not a very good moment to taunt the May Girl. My Husband saw
it I think even before I did.
"Really, Rollins," he suggested, "you mustn't overdo this arm-in-arm
business. Not all day long! It isn't done! Not this ball-and-chain
idea any more! Not this shackling of the betrothed!"
"No, really, Rollins, old man," urged young Kennilworth, "you've
got quite the wrong idea. You say yourself you've never been
engaged before, so you'd better let some of us wiser guys coach you
up a bit in some of the essentials."
"Coach me up a bit?" growled Rollins.
"Why, you didn't suppose for a minute, did you," persisted young
Kennilworth tormentingly, "that there was any special fun about
being engaged? You didn't think for a moment, I mean, that you were
really going to have any sort of good time to-day? Not both of you,
I mean?"
"Eh?" jerked Rollins, stopping suddenly short in his tracks, but
with the May Girl's reluctant hand still wedged fast into the crook
of his arm, he stood defying his tormentor. "Eh? _What_?"
"Why I never in the world," mused Kennilworth, "ever heard of two
engaged people having a good time the same day. One or the other of
them always has to give up the one thrilling thing that he yearned
most to do and devote his whole time to pretending that he's
perfectly enraptured doing some stupid fuddy-duddy stunt that the
other one wanted to do. It's simply the question always--of who
gives up! Now, Miss Davies for instance--" Mockingly he fixed his
eyes on the May Girl's unhappy face. "Now, Miss Davies," he
insisted, "more than anything else in the world to-day what would
you like to do?"
"Sew," said the May Girl.
"And you, Mr. Rollins," persisted Kennilworth. "If it wasn't for
Miss Davies here--what would you be doing to-day?"
"I?" quickened Rollins. "I?" across his impatient, irritated face,
an expression of frankly scientific ecstasy flared up like an
explosion. "Why those shells, you know!" glowed Rollins. "That last
consignment! Why I should have been cataloging shells!"
"There you have it!" cried Kennilworth. "Either you've got to sew
all day long with Miss Davies--or else she'll have to catalog
shells with you!"
"Sew?" hooted Rollins.
"Oh, I'd just love to catalog shells!" cried the May Girl. In that
single instant the somewhat indeterminate quiver of her lips had
bloomed into a real smile. By a dexterous movement, released from
Rollins's arm, she turned and fled for the door. "Up-stairs, you
mean, don't you?" she cried. The smile had reached her eyes now. In
another minute it seemed as though even her hair would be all
laughter. "At the big table in the upper hall? Where you were
working yesterday? One, on one side of the table--and one--the
other? And one, the _other_!" she giggled triumphantly.
With unflagging agility Rollins started after her.
"What I had really planned," he grinned, "was a walk on the beach."
"Arm--in--arm!" mused young Kennilworth.
"Eh! You think you're smart, don't you!" grinned Rollins.
"Yes, quite so," acknowledged Kennilworth. "But if you really want
to see smartness on its native heath just pipe your eye to-morrow
when I dawn on the horizon as an engaged man!"
"You?" called the May Girl. Staring back through the mahogany
banisters her face looked fairly striped with astonishment.
"You certainly announced your desire," said Kennilworth, "to go
right through the whole list. Didn't you?"
"Oh, but I didn't mean--everybody," parried the May Girl. Her mouth
and her eyes and her hair were all laughing together now. "Oh,
Goodness me--not _everybody_!" she gesticulated, with a fine air of
disdain.
"Not the married men," explained the Bride.
"No, I'm sure she discriminated against the married men," chuckled
the Bridegroom.
"Well--she sha'n't discriminate against _me_!" snapped young
Kennilworth. Absurd as it was he looked angry. Young Kennilworth,
one might infer, was not accustomed to having women discriminate
against him. "You made the plan and you'll jolly-well keep to it!"
affirmed young Kennilworth.
"Oh, all right," laughed the May Girl. "If you really insist! But for
a boy who's as truly unselfish as you are about nursery-governessing
other people's Pom dogs, and saving your last taste of anything for
your old Old Daddy--you've certainly got the worst manners!
"Manners!" drawled George Keets. "This is no test. Wait--till you
see his engagement manners!"
"Oh, she'll 'wait' all right!" sniffed young Kennilworth, and
turned on his heel.
Paul Brenswick, searching hard through the shipping news in the
morning paper, looked up with a faint shadow of concern.
"What's the grouch?" he questioned.
Standing with her hands on her Bridegroom's shoulders the Bride
glanced back from the stormy window to Kennilworth's face with a
somewhat provocative smile.
"Well--it _was_ in the mind of God, wasn't it?" she said.
"What was!" demanded young Kennilworth.
"The rain," shrugged the Bride.
"Oh--damn the rain!" cried young Kennilworth. "I wish people
wouldn't speak to me! It drives me crazy I tell you to have
everybody babbling so! Can't you see I want to work? Can't anybody
see--anything?" Equally furious all of a sudden at everybody, he
swung around and darted up the stairs. "Don't anybody call me to
lunch," he ordered. "For Heaven's sake don't let anyone be idiot
enough to call me to lunch."
Even Ann Woltor's jaw dropped a bit at the amazing rudeness and
peevishness of it.
It was then that the beaming grin on Rollins's face flickered out
for a single instant of incredulity and reproach.
"Why--Miss Woltor!" he choked, "you didn't have your tooth
fixed--after all!"
With a great crackle of paper every man's face seemed buried
suddenly in the shipping news.
"No!" I heard my Husband's voice affirm with extravagant precision,
"not the slightest mention anywhere of any maritime disaster."
"Not the slightest!" agreed George Keets.
"Not the slightest!" echoed Paul Brenswick with what seemed to me
like quite unnecessary monotony.
It was the Bride who showed the only real tact. Slipping her hand
casually into Ann Woltor's hand she started for the Library.
"Let's go see if we can't find something awfully exciting to read
to-day," she suggested. Once across the library threshold her voice
lowered slightly. "Really, Miss Woltor," she confided, "there are
times when I think that Mr. Rollins is sort of crazy."
"So many people are," acquiesced Ann Woltor without emotion.
Caroming off to my miniature conservatory on the pretext of
watering my hyacinths I met my Husband bent evidently on the same
errand. My Husband's sudden interest in potted plants was
bewitching. Even the hyacinths were amused I think. Yet even to
prolong the novelty of the situation there was certainly no time to
be lost about Rollins.
"Truly Jack," I besought him, "this Rollins man has got to be
suppressed."
"Oh, not to-day--surely?" pleaded my Husband. "Not on the one
engagement day of his life? Poor Rollins--when he's having such a
thrill?"
"Well--not to-day perhaps," I conceded with some reluctance. "But
to-morrow surely! We never have been used you know to starting off
the day with Rollins! And two breakfasts in succession? Well,
really, it's almost more than the human heart can stand. Far be it
from me," I argued, "to condone poor Allan John's lapse from
sobriety or advocate any plan whatsoever for the ensnaring of the
very young or the unwary; but all other means failing," I argued,
"I should consider it a very great mercy to the survivors if
Rollins should wake to-morrow with a slight headache. No real
cerebral symptoms you understand--nothing really acute. Just----!"
"Oh, stop your fooling!" said my Husband. "What I came in here to
talk to you about was Miss Woltor."
"'Woltor' or 'Stoltor'?" I questioned.
"Who said 'Stoltor'?" jerked my Husband.
"Oh, sometimes you say 'Woltor' and sometimes you say 'Stoltor'!" I
confided. "And it's so confusing. Which is it--really?"
"Hanged if I know!" said my Husband.
"Then let's call her Ann," I suggested.
With an impulse that was quite unwonted in him my Husband stepped
suddenly forward to my biggest, rosiest, most perfect pot of pink
hyacinths, and snapping a succulent stem in two thrust the great
gorgeous bloom incongruously into his button-hole. Never in fifteen
years had I seen my Husband with a flower in his button-hole.
Neither, in all that time, had I ever seen him flush across the
cheek-bones just exactly the shade of a rose-pink Hyacinth. I could
have hugged him! He looked so confused.
"Oh, I say--" he ventured quite abruptly, "Miss Woltor and I, you
know,--we never went near the dentist yesterday!"
"So I inferred," I said, "from Rollins's observation. What _were_
you doing?" Truly I didn't mean to ask, but the long-suppressed
wonder most certainly slipped.
"Why we were just arguing!" groaned my Husband. "Round and round
and round!"
"Round--what?" I questioned--now that the slipping had started.
"Round and round the country?"
"Country, no indeed!" grinned my Husband unhappily. "We never left
the place!"
"Never--left the place?" I stammered. "Why, where in Creation were
you?"
"Why, first," said my Husband, "we were down at the end of the
driveway right there by the acacia trees, you know. She was crying
so I didn't exactly like to strike the state highway for fear
somebody would notice her. And then afterward--when I saw that she
really couldn't stop----"
"Crying?" I puzzled. "Ann Woltor--crying?"
"And then afterward," persisted my Husband, "we went over to the
Bungalow on the Rock and commenced the argument all over again!
Fortunately there was some tea there and crackers and sardines and
enough firewood. But it was the devil and all getting over! We ran
the car into the boat-house and took the punt! I thought the surf
would smash us, but----"
"But what was the 'argument'?" I questioned.
"Why about her coming back!" said my Husband. "She was so
absolutely determined not to come back! I never in my life saw such
stubbornness! And if she once got away I knew perfectly well that
she never would come back! That she'd drop out of sight just as--And
such crying!" he interrupted himself with apparent irrelevance.
"Everything smashed up altogether at once!--Hadn't cried before,
she said, for eight years!"
"Well, it's time she cried, the poor dear!" I affirmed sincerely.
"But----"
"But I couldn't bring her back to the house!" insisted my Husband.
"Not crying so, not arguing so!"
"No, of course not," I agreed.
"I kept thinking she'd stop!" shivered my Husband.
"Jack," I asked quite abruptly, "Who is Ann Woltor?"
"Search me!" said my Husband, "I never saw her before."
"You--never saw her--before!" I stammered. "Why--why you called her
by name!--you----"
"I knew her face," said my Husband. "I've seen her picture. In
London it was. In Hal Ferry's studio. Fifteen years ago if it's a
day. A huge charcoal sketch all swoops and smouches.--Just a girl
holding up a small hand-mirror to her astonished face.--'_The woman
with the broken tooth_' it was called."
"Fifteen years ago?" I gasped. "'_The--the woman with the broken
tooth_!' What a--what a name for a picture!
"Yes, wasn't it?" said my Husband. "And you'd have thought somehow
that the picture would be funny, wouldn't you? But it wasn't! It
was the grimmest thing I ever saw in my life! Sketched just from
memory too it must have been. No man would have had the cheek to
ask a woman to pose for him like that,--to reduplicate just for fun
I mean that particular expression of bewilderment which he had by
such grim chance surprised on her unwitting face. Such shock! Such
_astonishment_! It wasn't just the astonishment you understand of
Marred Beauty worrying about a dentist. But a look the stark,
staring, chain-lightning sort of look of a woman who, back of the
broken tooth, linked up in some way with the accident of the broken
tooth, saw something, suddenly, that God Himself couldn't repair!
It was horrid, I tell you! It haunted you! Even if you started to
hoot you ended by arguing! Arguing and--wondering! Ferry finally
got so that he wouldn't show it to anybody. People quizzed him so."
"Yes, but Ferry?" I questioned.
"No," said my Husband. "It was only by the merest chance that I
heard the name Ann Stoltor associated in any way with the picture.
Hal Ferry never told anything. Not a word. But he never exhibited
the picture, I noticed. It was a point of honor with him, I
suppose. If one lives long enough, of course, one's pretty apt to
catch every friend off guard at least once in his facial
expression. But one doesn't exhibit one's deductions I suppose. One
mustn't at least make professional presentation of them."
"Yes, but Ann Woltor--Stoltor," I puzzled. "When she tried to bolt
so? Was it because she knew that you knew Hal Ferry? When you
called her Stoltor and dropped the lantern so funnily when you
first saw her, was it then that she linked you up with this
something--whatever it is that has hurt her so?--And determined
even then to bolt at the very first chance she could get? But why
in the world should she want to bolt?" I puzzled. "Certainly she's
had to take us on faith quite as much as we've taken her. And I?--I
_love_ her!"
In the flare of the open doorway George Keets loomed quite
abruptly.
"Oh, is this where you bad people are?" he reproached us. "We've
been searching the house for you."
"Oh, of course, if you really need us," conceded my Husband. "But
even you, I should think, would know a flirtation when you saw it
and have tact enough not to butt in."
"A flirtation?" scoffed Keets. "You? At ten o'clock in the morning?
All trimmed up like an Easter bonnet! And acting half scared to
death? It looks a bit fishy to me, not to say mysterious!"
"All Husbands move in a mysterious way their flirtations to
perform," observed my Husband.
From one pair of half-laughing eyes to the other George Keets
glanced up with the faintest possible suggestion of a sigh.
"Really, you know," said George Keets, "there are times when even
_I_ can imagine that marriage might be just a little bit jolly."
"Oh never jolly," grinned my Husband, "but there are times I
frankly admit--when it seems a heap more serious than it does at
other times."
"Less serious, you mean," corrected Keets.
"More serious," grinned my Husband.
"Oh, for goodness sake, let's stop talking about us," I protested,
"and talk about the weather!"
"It was the weather that I came to talk about," exclaimed George
Keets. "Do you think it will clear to-day?" he questioned.
For a single mocking instant my Husband's glance sought mine.
"No, not to-day, George," he said.
"U---m!" mused George Keets. "Then in that case," he brightened
suddenly, "if Mrs. Delville is really willing to put up a
water-proof lunch we think it would be rather good sport to go back
to the cave and explore a bit more of the beach perhaps and bring
home Heaven knows what fresh plunder from the shipwrecked trunk."
"Oh, how jolly!" I agreed. "But will Mrs. Brenswick go?"
"Mrs. Brenswick isn't exactly keen about it," admitted Keets. "But
she says she'll go. And Brenswick himself and Miss Woltor and Allan
John--" It was amusing how everybody called Allan John "Allan John"
without title or subterfuge or self-consciousness of any kind.
With their arms across each other's shoulders the Bride and
Bridegroom came frolicking by on their way to the foot of the
stairs.
"Oh, Miss Davies!--Miss Davies!" they called up teasingly. "Are you
willing that Allan John should go to the cave to-day?"
Smiling responsively but not one atom teased, the May Girl jumped
up from her tableful of shells and came out to the edge of the
balustrade to consider the matter.
"Allan John! Allan John!" she called. "Do you really want to go?"
"Why, yes," admitted Allan John, "if everybody's going."
Behind the May Girl's looming height and loveliness the little
squat figure of Rollins shadowed suddenly.
"Miss Davies and I are not going," said Rollins.
"Not--going?" questioned the May Girl.
"Not going," chuckled Rollins, "unless she walks with me!" He
didn't say "arm-in-arm." He didn't need to. That inference was
entirely expressed by the absurdly triumphant little glint in his
eye.
I don't think the May Girl intended to laugh. But she did laugh.
And all the laugh in the world seemed suddenly "on" Rollins.
"No--really, People," rallied the May Girl, "I'd heaps rather stay
here with Mr. Rollins and work on these perfectly darling shells.
One--on one side of the table--and one on the other."
"We are going to have lunch up here--in fact," counterchecked that
rascally Rollins with a blandness that was actually malicious.
"There is a magnificent specimen here I notice of 'Triton's
Trumpet'. The Pacific Islanders I understand use it very
successfully for a tea-kettle. And for tea-cups. With the aid of
one or two Hare's Ears which I'm almost sure I've seen in the
specimen cabinet----"
"'Hare's Ears'?" gasped the May Girl.
"It's the name of a shell, my dear,--just the name of a shell,"
explained Rollins with some unctuousness. "Very comfortable here we
shall be, I am sure!" beamed Rollins. "Very cosy, very scientific,
very ro-romantic, if I may take the liberty of saying so. Very----"
"Oh, Shucks!" interrupted George Keets quite surprisingly. "If Miss
Davies isn't going there's no good in anybody going!"
"Thank--you," murmured Ann Woltor. At the astonishingly new and
relaxed timbre of her voice everybody turned suddenly and stared at
her. It wasn't at all that she spoke meltingly, but the fact of her
speaking meltedly, that gave every one of us that queer little gasp
of surprise. Still icy cold, but fluid at last, her voice flowed
forth as it were for the very first time with some faint suggestion
of the real emotion in her mind. "Thank you--Mr. Keets," mocked Ann
Woltor, "for your enthusiasm concerning the rest of us."
"Oh, I say!" deprecated George Keets. "You know what I meant!" His
face was crimson. "It--it was only that Miss Davies was so awfully
keen about it all yesterday! Everybody, you know, doesn't find it
so exhilarating."
"No-o?" murmured Ann Woltor. In the plushy black somberness of her
eyes a highlight glinted suddenly. Suppressed tears make just
that particular kind of glint. So also does suppressed laughter.
"I was out in a storm--once," drawled Ann Woltor, "I found it
very--exhilarating."
With a flash of rather quizzical perplexity I saw my Husband's
glance rake hers.
Wincing just a little she turned back to me with a certain gesture
of appeal.
"Cry one day and laugh another, is it?" she ventured
experimentally.
"Going to the dentist isn't very jolly--you're quite right,"
interposed the Bride.
"No, it certainly isn't," sympathized every body.
It was perfectly evident that no one in the party except my Husband
and myself knew just what had happened to the dentistry expedition.
And Ann Woltor wasn't quite sure even yet, I could see, whether I
knew or not. The return home the night before had been so late the
commotion over Allan John's whistle so immediate--the breakfast
hour itself such a chaos of nonsense and foolery. Certainly there
was no object in prolonging her uncertainty. I liked her infinitely
too much to worry her. Very fortunately also she had a ready eye,
the one big compensating gift that Fate bestows on all people who
have ever been caught off their guard even once by a real trouble.
She never muffed any glance I noticed that you wanted her to catch.
"Oh, I hate to think, Ann dear," I smiled, "about there being any
tears yesterday. But if tears yesterday really should mean a laugh
to-day----"
"Oh, to-day!" quickened Ann Woltor. "Who can tell about to-day!"
"Then you really would like to go?" said George Keets.
Across Ann Woltor's shoulders a little shrug quivered.
"Why, of course, I'm going!" said Ann Woltor.
"Good! Famous!" rallied George Keets. "Now that makes how many of
us?" he reckoned. "Kennilworth?"
"No, let's not bother about Kennilworth," said my Husband.
"You?" queried George Keets.
"Yes, I'm going," acquiesced my Husband.
"And you, Mrs. Delville, of course?"
"No, I think not," I said.
"Just the Brenswicks then," counted George Keets. "And Allan John
and----"
Once again, from the railing of the upper landing, the May Girl's
wistfully mirthful face peered down through that amazing cloud of
gold-gray hair.
"Allan John--Allan John!" she called very softly. "I'd like to have
you dress warmly--you know! And not get just too absolutely tired
out! And be sure and take the whistle," she laughed very
resolutely, "and if anybody isn't good to you--you just blow it
hard--and I'll come."
As befitted the psychic necessities of a very cranky
Person-With-a-Future, young Kennilworth was not disturbed for lunch.
And Rollins, it seemed, was grotesquely genuine in his desire to
picnic up-stairs with the May Girl and the shells. Even the May
Girl herself rallied with a fluttering sort of excitement to the
idea. The shell table fortunately was quite large enough to
accommodate both work and play. Rollins certainly was beside
himself with triumph, and on Rollins's particular type of
countenance there is no conceivable synonym for the word "triumph"
except "ghoulish glee." Really it was amazing the way the May Girl
rallied her gentleness and her patience and her playfulness to the
absurd game. She opposed no contrary personality whatsoever even to
Rollins's most vapid desires. Unable as he was either to simulate
or stimulate "the light that never was on land or sea," it was
Rollins's very evident intention apparently to "blue" his Lady's
eyes and "pink" his Lady's cheeks by the narration at least of such
sights as "never were on land or sea"! Flavored by moonlight,
rattling with tropical palms, green as Arctic ice, wild as a loon's
hoot, science and lies slipped alike from Rollins's lips with a
facility that even I would scarcely have suspected him of! Lands he
had never visited--adventures he had never dreamed of cannibals not
yet born--babble--babble--_babble_--_babble_!
As for the May Girl herself, as far as I could observe, not a
single sound emanated from her the entire day, except the
occasional clank of her hugely over-sized "betrothal ring" against
the Pom dog's collar, or the little gasping phrase, "Oh, no, Mr.
Rollins! Not _really_?" that thrilled now and then from her
astonished lips, as, elbows on table, chin cupped in hand, she sat
staring blue-eyed and bland at her--tormentor.
It must have been five o'clock, almost, before the beach party
returned. Gleaming like a great bunch of storm-drenched jonquils,
the six adventurers loomed up cheerfully in the rain-light. Once
again George Keets and the Bridegroom were dragging the Bride by
her hand. Ann Woltor and my Husband followed just behind. Allan
John walked alone.
Even young Kennilworth came out on the porch to hail them.
"Hi, there!" called my Husband.
"Hi, there, yourself!" retaliated Kennilworth.
"Oh, we've had a perfectly wonderful day! gasped the Bride.
"Found the cave all right!" triumphed Keets.
"Allan John found a--found an old-fashioned hoop-skirt!" giggled
the Bride.
"The devil he did!" hooted Rollins.
"But we never found the trunk at all!" scolded the Bridegroom.
"Either we were way off in our calculations or else the sand----"
In a sudden gusty flutter of white the May Girl came round the
corner into the full buffet of the wind. It hadn't occurred to me
before just exactly how tired she looked. "Why, hello, everybody--"
she began, faltered an instant--crumpled up at the waist-line--and
slipped down in a white heap of unconsciousness to the floor.
It was George Keets who reached her first, and gathering her into
his long, strong arms, bore her into the house. It was the first
time in his life I think that George Keets had ever held a woman in
his arms. His eyes hardly knew what to make of it. And his
tightened lips, quite palpably, didn't like it at all. But after
all it was those extraordinarily human shoulders of his that were
really doing the carrying?
Very fortunately though for all concerned the whole scare was over
in a minute. Ensconced like a queen in the deep pillows of the big
library sofa the May Girl rallied almost at once to joke about the
catastrophe. But she didn't want any supper, I noticed, and dallied
behind in her cushions, when the supper-hour came.
"You look like a crumpled rose," said the Bride.
"Like a poor crumpled--white rose," supplemented Ann Woltor.
"Like a very long-stemmed--poor crumpled--white rose," deprecated
the May Girl herself.
Kennilworth brought her a knife and fork, but no smiles.
George Keets brought her several different varieties of his
peculiarly tight-lipped smile, and all the requisite table-silver
besides.
Paul Brenswick sent her the cherry from his cocktail and promised
her the frosting from his cake.
The Bride sent her love.
Ann Woltor remembered the table napkin.
Allan John watched the proceedings without comment.
It was Rollins who insisted on serving the May Girl's supper. "It
was his right," he said. More than this he also insisted on
gathering up all his own supper on one quite inadequate plate, and
trotting back to the library to eat it with the May Girl. This also
was his right, he said. Truly he looked very funny there all
huddled up on a low stool by the May Girl's side. But at least he
showed sense enough now not to babble very much. And once, at
least, without reproof I saw him reach up to the May Girl's fork
and plate and urge some particularly nourishing morsel of food into
her languidly astonished mouth.
It was just as everybody drifted back from the dining-room into the
library that the May Girl wriggled her long, silken, childish legs
out of the steamer-rug that encompassed her, struggled to her feet,
wandered somewhat aimlessly to the piano, fingered the keys for a
single indefinite moment and burst ecstatically into song!
None of us, except my Husband, had heard her sing before. None of
us indeed, except my Husband and myself, knew even that she could
sing. The proof that she could smote suddenly across the ridge of
one's spine like the prickle of a mild electric shock.
My Husband was perfectly right. It was a typical "Boy Soprano"
voice, a chorister's voice--clear as flame--passionless as syrup.
As devoid of ritual as the multiplication table it would have made
the multiplication table fairly reek with incense and Easter
lilies! Absolutely lacking in everything that the tone sharks call
"color"--yet it set your mind a-haunt with all the sad crimson and
purple splendors of memorial windows! Shadows were back of it! And
sorrows! And mysteries! Bridals! And deaths! The prattle alike of
the very young and the very old! Carol! And Threnody! And a fearful
Transiency as of youth itself passing!
She sang--
"There is a Green Hill far away
Without a city wall,
Where our dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us--all."
and she sang
"From the Desert I come to thee,
On a stallion shod with fire!
And the winds are not more fleet
Than the wings of my de-sire!"
Like an Innocent pouring kerosene on the Flame-of-the-World the
young voice soared and swelled to that lovely, limpid word
"desire." (In the darkness I saw Paul Brenswick's hand clutch
suddenly out to his Mate's. In the darkness I saw George Keets
switch around suddenly and begin to whisper very fast to Allan
John.) And then she sang a little nonsense rhyme about "Rabbits"
which she explained rather shyly she had just made up. "She was
very fond of rabbits," she explained. "And of dogs, too--if all the
truth were to be told. Also cats."
"Also--shells!" sniffed young Kennilworth.
"Yes, also shells," conceded the May Girl without resentment.
"Ha!" sniffed young Kennilworth.
"O--h, a--jealous lover, this," deprecated George Keets. "Really,
Miss Davies," he condoned, "I'm afraid to-morrow is going to be
somewhat of a strain on you."
"To-morrow?" dimpled the May Girl.
"Ha!--To-morrow!" shrugged young Kennilworth.
"It was the rabbits," dimpled the May Girl, "that I was going to
tell you about now. It's a very moral song written specially to
deplore the--the thievish habits of the rabbits. But I can't seem
to get around to the 'deploring' until the second verse. All the
first verse is just scientific description." Adorably the young
voice lilted into the nonsense---
"Oh, the habit of a rabbit
Is a fact that would amaze
From the pinkness of his blinkness and the blandness of his gaze,
In a nose that's so a-twinkle like a merri--perri--winkle---
And---"
Goodness me!--That _voice_!--The babyishness of it!--And the
poignancy! Should one laugh? Or should one cry? Clap one's hands?
Or bolt from the room? I decided to bolt from the room.
Both my Husband and myself thought it would be only right to
telephone Dr. Brawne about the fainting spell. There was a
telephone fortunately in my own room. And there is one thing at
least very compensatory about telephoning to doctors. If you once
succeed in finding them, there is never an undue lag in the
conversation itself.
"But tell me only just one thing," I besought my Husband, "so I
won't be talking merely to a voice! This Dr. Brawne of yours?--Is
he old or young? Fat or thin? Jolly? Or----?"
"He's about fifty," said my Husband. "Fifty-five perhaps. Stoutish
rather, I think you'd call him. And jolly. Oh, I----"
"Ting-a-ling--ling--_ling_!" urged the telephone-bell.
Across a hundred miles of dripping, rain-bejeweled wires, Dr.
Brawne's voice flamed up at last with an almost metallic crispness.
"Yes?"
"This is Dr. Brawne?"
"Yes."
"This is Mrs. Delville--Jack Delville's wife."
"Yes?"
"We just thought we'd call up and report the safe arrival of your
ward and tell you how much we are enjoying her!"
"Yes? I trust she didn't turn up with any more lame, halt, or blind
pets than you were able to handle."
"Oh no--_no_--not--at all!" I hastened to affirm. (Certainly it
seemed no time to explain about poor Allan John.)
"But what I really called up to say," I hastened to confide, "is
that she fainted this afternoon, and----"
"Yes?" crisped the clear incisive voice again.
"Fainted," I repeated.
"Yes?"
"_Fainted_!" I fairly shouted.
"Oh, I hardly think that's anything," murmured Dr. Brawne. His
voice sounded suddenly very far away and muffled as though he were
talking through a rather soggy soda biscuit. "She faints very
easily. I don't find anything the matter. It's just a temporary
instability, I think. She's grown so very fast."
"Yes, she's tall," I admitted.
"Everything else all right?" queried the voice. The wires were
working better now. "I don't need to ask if she's having a good
time," essayed the voice very courteously. "She's always so
essentially original in her ways of having a good time--even with
strangers--even when she's really feeling rather shy."
"Oh, she's having a good time, all right," I hastened to assure
him. "Three perfectly eligible young men all competing for her
favor!"
"Only three?" laughed the voice. "You surprise me!"
"And speaking of originality," I rallied instantly to that laugh,
"she has invented the most diverting game! She is playing at
being-engaged-to-a-different-man--every day of her visit. Oh _very_
circumspectly, you understand," I hastened to affirm. "Nothing
serious at all!"
"No, I certainly hope not," mumbled the voice again through some
maddeningly soggy connection. "Because, you see, I'm rather
expecting to marry her myself on the fifteenth of September next."