1
Leslie had some trouble with his engine on the return trip. It
sputtered and it balked. The never very regular rhythm grew more and
more broken, till at length there was no rhythm left at all. Finally
the thing simply stopped dead; it wouldn't budge. The little craft
rippled forward a few paces on momentum, then swung into a choppy
trough and began edging dismally back toward Beulah. Leslie was glad
then that Louise wasn't aboard. Yes, he was very glad indeed there were
no ladies present. He sat down in the bottom of the boat and took the
engine to pieces. Then he put it together again. And tossed and tossed.
And drifted. And cursed like a man.
When at last he limped up to the dock at Crystalia, missing fire
horribly, and having to help along by poling as soon as the water
was sufficiently shallow, he found Hilda waiting for him. She smiled
very brightly. And somehow he felt the unpleasantness of the voyage
fading into a plain sense of satisfaction over being back. It seemed a
singularly long time since he had set out with Louise....
"Good morning!" Hilda called to him from the dock.
He nodded and grinned; and poled, perhaps, the more vigorously. With
his foot he desperately prodded the almost exhausted engine.
"Why _Les_, what's the _matter_?" she cried. For he was, in truth, a
sight.
"Stalled two miles out," he replied bluntly, though not curtly, giving
the engine a final kick by way of advising it that its labours for the
day were at an end.
"Why, Les--how dreadful! Oh, I can't help laughing. Your face is so
funny!"
He made a grimace and rubbed his cheeks with the sleeve of his flannel
shirt, not particularly improving matters thereby.
"I don't want the old thing any more--it's just so much junk!" He
stepped out on the dock and moored the naughty little craft, though
without any great enthusiasm, and rather as though he hoped a strong
wind would come and carry the miscreant irrevocably to sea. Then he
added: "Hilda, I've got an idea! I'll auction it off and turn over the
proceeds to your father's missionary fund!"
Her laugh rang.
"Don't you think that would be a good idea?"
"Oh, Les--you're _so_ funny!"
She laughed a great deal as they walked along together through the
hot white sand toward the Crystalia cottages, occupied mostly by
Chicago-Oak Park people, and forming no part of what was generally
known as the religious colony. Leslie was by this time entirely over
his maritime grouch. He conceived, always in his elusively serious way,
a delight in being quite as "funny" as he could. An outsider might have
registered the impression that, even at his funniest, Leslie wasn't
honestly amusing enough to elicit such frequent, rich, joyous peals of
laughter; but Hilda was very happy--happy!--so happy that she needed no
deliberate stimulus to mirth; so happy she could with the utmost ease
shift her mood from grave to gay, or from gay to grave, matching the
mood of her companion.
"I know you've forgotten," she said, swinging along beside him and
occasionally flashing up a most captivating glance.
"Forgotten what?"
"I'll never tell!"
"Then how can I know what I've forgotten, if you don't remind me?"
Though gossamer at best, it had an effect of logic--perhaps a rather
graspable masculine logic, at that.
"Maybe you'll remember--when it's too late." Her eyes sparkled.
"Oh, you mean the tournament?"
She nodded.
"I hadn't forgotten it."
"Well, you see I was afraid you had."
He smiled. She was really quite delightful.
"I'm so glad, Les. There'll be time for you to get into light things.
Oh, I'm so glad your memory _didn't_ really fail!"
He looked at her quietly a moment, but her gaze was now all on the
sun-patterned turf. They had entered the forest of Betsey, and were
pursuing the winding road toward the Point.
"Oh, that's nothing," he said solemnly. "I never forget appointments
with ladies."
She laughed again, then ventured: "Tell me. Didn't you forget, just the
tiniest little bit, when you were taking Louise across, or," she rather
hurried on, "when you were out there in the middle of the lake and the
engine was acting up? Please be ever so honest!"
Leslie looked down again at the girl beside him. Odd he had never
noticed how intelligent and shyly grown-up Hilda was! She had been
merely Louise's little sister; all at once she became _Hilda_, a
self-sufficient entity, perfectly capable of standing alone. Also
she looked very fresh and charming this morning in her cool white
jumper and skirt. He looked at Hilda in a kind of searching way; then,
pleasantly meeting her eyes, he answered her question. "No, not even
the tiniest little bit."
Their walk together through the forest was enlivened with gay and
unimportant chatter. As they passed the hidden bower where Hilda, at an
earlier hour, had crouched to spy and listen, the girl almost danced at
the thought of having so delightfully usurped her sister's place. And
the best part of it was that it was perfectly all right; because Louise
had gone to meet her own true lover. Leslie didn't belong to Louise;
it seemed almost too wonderful to be true that he didn't!
As it happened, Louise entered the lad's thoughts also as he and
Hilda walked side by side along the sylvan path. Perhaps something of
the same odd transposition weighed, even with him. He had gone this
identical way with some one else, only a few eternities ago. He had
held her in his arms a moment, and then.... Then what was it she had
said? Friends! First she had said she cared, and after that she had
said she wanted.... Did she really know _what_ she wanted? For weeks
they had gone around together constantly. The moon had been wonderful.
Then the letter had come from the West, and she had decided she had
better begin being a nice, harmless sister. Still, she had let him
kiss her once, even after the advent of the fatal epistle--a sort
of passionate farewell surrender--wanted to let him down as easy as
possible. Ugh! He was in no mood to spare her now. And then Leslie
came slowly back; back to the bright, rare summer morning; back to the
forest of Betsey, with its hopeful glints of sunshine; back--to Hilda.
He sighed. At least he had learned something more about women.
They came to Beachcrest Cottage, and, since Leslie's cottage was
further along, in the direction of the lighthouse, it was here they
parted. Before he ran off, however, to make himself presentable, Leslie
underwent the ordeal (pleasant rather than not as it turned out), of
being introduced to Miss Whitcom.
She was seated on the second step of the flight leading up to the
screened porch, seemed in very good spirits, and was writing a
letter--employing a last year's magazine as base of operations. The
ink bottle balanced itself just on the edge of the next step up: a
key, if one please, to Marjory Whitcom's whole character. Had she
been writing at the cottage desk in the living room, where everything
was convenient, then she would never, never have spent her life doing
wild and impossible things. And had the ink bottle been placed firmly
instead of upon the ragged edge, then, having eluded Barrett O'Donnell
all these years, she would not now be writing to him.
"Aunt Marjie," said Hilda, her eyes shining and her cheeks flushed,
"this is Leslie."
He was pleased to meet Miss Whitcom, but assured her he must deny
himself the pleasure of shaking hands. Look at them! He had had his
engine all to pieces. He was going to auction off the boat now and give
the Rev. Needham's missionary fund the first real boost in a decade.
"Leslie!" hushed Hilda in great dismay. How did they know but the Rev.
Needham might be within hearing distance?
But Miss Whitcom laughed delightedly, whether or no, and said that
after hearing such a gallant expression of religious zeal she simply
must shake his hand, grime and all. And she did so. She had a way of
winning young men completely.
"And did you pilot my elder niece over to Beulah before we sleepyheads
here at home were even stirring?"
"Yes, Aunt Marjie. It was Leslie. You know!" And Hilda blushed at her
very vagueness, which swept back so quaintly to embrace the pancake
catastrophe.
"Oh, yes," replied Miss Whitcom with dreadful pointedness. "I know--oh,
yes. I know very well _indeed_! And I know of a certain young lady
who departed and forgot to turn off the burners of the stove, so that
plain, humdrum mortals must quit the table hungry--positively hungry!"
Leslie somehow managed to establish connections. "Whatever happened,
I'm afraid I was partly to blame, Miss Whitcom."
"Aha! Only partly?" For she fancied his chivalry carried along with it
a tone, so far as he was concerned, of extenuation.
"Well, I suppose having me there, talking, helped to make her forget."
"H'm!" She eyed him in her odd, sharp way. But he looked back with a
half understanding defiance. "So you won't take _all_ the blame?"
Leslie smote the lower step with his foot, then shyly glanced at Hilda.
Hilda laughed and coloured.