"You mean when you go to light him?"
"Yes."
"You really want me to?"
He nodded.
A man was approaching them. He came round a bend in the road. It was
Lynndal Barry.
"I've been for a little stroll," he explained. "These woods are
certainly wonderful!"
"Yes, we like them," replied Hilda, in a very polite but at the same
time very friendly tone. She was just a tiny bit afraid of the man who
had come so far to marry her sister--not because Mr. Barry was the kind
of man who spreads about him an aura of awe, but because Hilda knew
there was something the matter. Yes, something seemed to be wrong. But
Hilda did not guess _how_ wrong.
"Were you going back to the cottage?" she asked.
"Yes, I thought I would."
"Then I'll walk back with you, if you don't mind."
"Well, good-bye," said Leslie.
"Good-bye, Les. You'll come for me?"
"Yes."
"What time?"
"Whenever you say."
"Right after dinner?"
"All right."
"So long."
"So long, Hilda."
He departed, scuffing foolishly and happily in the sand.
"We were cutting sticks for the roast," explained Hilda as she walked
back beside Lynndal toward Beachcrest.
"It will be jolly," he remarked. "You know, I've never been to one of
these beach roasts in my life."
"You never have?"
"No. And I've looked forward to the beach roasts ever since--well, ever
since I knew I was going to be up here this summer."
"You see, you came just in time!"
"Yes, didn't I?"
"The mid-summer Assembly Roast is the biggest roast of all."
"I'm in luck," he murmured.
And so they chatted together until Beachcrest was reached.
3
On the porch, where Miss Whitcom had been regaling her relations
with, it must be admitted, a rather sensational account of how the
inhabitants of Tahulamaji had formerly been cannibals, the absence of
Lynndal Barry was noticed.
"Where is he?" asked the Rev. Needham, with a quick inward flash of
nervousness.
Louise was assailed by a great longing to come out, wildly and fully,
with some superb flow of words which should ease the burden of her
heart. It seemed urgent, in fact, that she explain his absence. Aunt
Marjie braced herself for an expected scene. But just then the missing
man put in an appearance. Hilda preceded him up the steps. Instead
of crying out that her heart was breaking, Louise felt suddenly an
insane desire to laugh. Hilda was leading Lynndal back, as though to
compensate for leading Leslie off!
"Well, well," began the Rev. Needham, with all the hospitable bluffness
he could summon. "We were talking about you!"
"--Wondering where you were," continued Mrs. Needham.
"--Fearing you might have embarked for the wicked city of Beulah,"
Marjory gaily carried it on, "where young men are not safe, and the
song of the siren never dies away!"
The Rev. Needham looked startled, then rather grim, then again just
vaguely uneasy. Barry explained that he had been strolling in the woods.
"No danger of getting lost, at any rate," declared Miss Whitcom, "since
the church advertises so efficiently!"
There promised to be a rather pained silence; but Mrs. Needham rose,
smoothed down the front of her skirt, and announced that she must go
and dress for dinner.
"Ah, yes," lamented her sister cheerfully, "one must dress, even in the
wilderness."
"Oh, we don't really make anything of it, Marjie. Only it sort of rests
you--to make a change."
"Dress! Isn't it absurd? Yet how we dote on it! In this respect
we aren't, after all, civilized to any dangerous degree. Why, in
Tahulamaji--"
"Marjie, there isn't a bit of use of your changing. You look lovely."
"Thanks," replied her sister. "Still, one must."
"We all do just as we please up here in the woods, you know."
"Ah, but the men, the men," whispered Miss Whitcom with delicious
vulgarity behind her hand. "And after all, we must have some regard for
the conventions." Her tone was just a little pointed.
"Yes, Marjie, I suppose, in a way...." Anna admitted.
"And then--there's the church," Miss Whitcom persisted, almost brutally
whimsical.
"The church?"
"Since it tries so very hard to keep abreast of the times--one might
say, _à la mode_!"
The sisters went into the cottage. Louise rose.
"I must dress too," she announced, crossing quickly to the door.
"I like that gown ever so much," said Lynndal.
She turned and cast him a rueful glance. "Thank you. But I really must
change." She smiled faintly. The high colour had faded, and her eyes
had lost their look of splendid wildness.
"Wait for me!" cried Hilda, making a tomboy dive for the door, and
capturing her sister's waist, hanging on her affectionately as they
went in together.
"At any rate, we don't have to dress," laughed the Rev. Needham quite
jovially.
"You're sure? I'd begun to get rather scared. You see I didn't bring
out anything...."