"Right-O, Barrett. We knew how to stroke in those days! Well," she
continued after a moment, "and you haven't forgotten how I won the
race--and why?"
"A sudden cramp--I thought I was done for!"
"Oh, no, my friend." They were both smiling. "Time has played tricks
with your memory. It wasn't a cramp. Now think, think _hard_. You went
lazy at the finish. And so how could I help pulling in ahead in spite
of myself?"
"Marjory, I--"
"Be not forsworn, my friend. Let's agree that you went lazy at the
finish. After all these years, can't we? It was a singular thing," she
went on, half gravely and half smilingly. "You know I was just at the
age.... Well, it had a most singular effect upon me. Yes, I may say it
altered the whole course of my life, Barrett." She laughed softly.
"Great heavens, Marjory, you don't honestly mean ...!"
"Well, you see, I was one of the first of the 'new' women, and I just
simply rebelled. That was all. You haven't forgotten how I sent the
medal back to you?"
He looked quite serious. "I know," he said softly. "I was stupid about
it for a long time. There didn't seem to be any sense in your sending
it back. In fact...." He hesitated.
"Do let's be perfectly frank!" she invited, with another short laugh.
"Well, I thought it a wilful and childish attitude to take. I didn't
want them to say I'd beaten a woman. We were still living on the fringe
of chivalry, you know, when it was more important to walk on the proper
side of a woman and tip your hat to her at a certain angle than to give
her the vote. I was brought up in a delightful Victorian atmosphere,
where it wasn't considered the thing even to beat a woman at tennis, if
you could decently help it."
"Ah, yes!" cried Marjory. "Just think of it! But gradually you grew
wiser, Barrett--you and the world."
"Yes," he muttered, "I and the world."
"You came to see...."
"Yes, I came at last to see that you can't go lazy at the
finish any more. I told you, and I meant it, that at last I've
capitulated--capitulated at every point."
They walked on a little way in the moonlight, close to the waves. All
at once a bold thrill of tenderness came on him. He drew the woman into
his arms. She responded slowly. Afterward she professed to be not quite
sure whether they had kissed.
But there was a witness. Oh, yes--there was a witness who could
emphatically and joyfully testify that they did kiss, and that they
kissed more than once. The witness, of course, was our ubiquitous
little pagan god, who had abandoned at least a half dozen most
promising cases at the roast to chase for a moment down the beach after
this pair of obdurate mortals who had held off for twenty years.
7
At about ten o'clock the Rev. Needham took out his watch and thought it
was time he and his little party set their faces homeward. Mrs. Needham
had been talking gentle gossip with Mrs. Blake and the wife of the
minister from Dubuque; but she got up at once and obediently took her
husband's arm.
"We go to bed early at Beachcrest," she explained. They went to
bed early in town, for that matter, though the full truth went
uncommunicated.
"Where are the girls?" demanded the Rev. Needham, looking anxiously
round.
Louise came up hurriedly, followed by Barry. "Are you starting home
now, papa?" she asked, with what sounded strangely like eagerness.
"Well, we thought we'd just be starting along. It's--it's not late yet,
you know. We'll just slip on ahead and get the cottage lighted."
"I think we'll go along now too."
"Oh, I wouldn't hurry. The fire's quite good yet."
"Lynndal is tired," she insisted. "He didn't sleep more than a couple
of hours on the boat." And she gave him a very complex glance in which
there was something whisperingly like an element of tenderness.
"Well," capitulated Mrs. Needham.
But Louise was only one daughter. Where was Hilda?
Where indeed? Where _was_ she?
Anxious eyes explored the assembled company. Most of the young people
had mysteriously made off, some this way and some that, but all alike
into the friendly embrace of the darkness which lay so thick beyond the
glow of the fire. Where was Hilda?
"I think I saw her with the lad--is it Leslie?" said Lynndal Barry.
"Oh--Leslie," repeated Mrs. Needham.
"You didn't notice which way they went?" asked the minister.
"No, I'm afraid I didn't."
Then Louise came to the rescue. She pointed miserably, yet also with a
faint, new fact-facing grimness, toward the lake.
"They haven't taken out the _canoe_ ...!" Alfred Needham was horror
struck.
"It's perfectly calm, papa," Louise reminded him dryly.
Then, indeed, they saw the canoe, on the moonlit water. Both Leslie
and Hilda were paddling. But they were not exactly paddling toward the
shore.
"She knows it's not allowed, out like this at all hours of the night!"
cried the minister.
But his wife reassured him in her gentle way. "Alf, I wouldn't worry.
Leslie will look out for her."
Louise lowered her head. Then she moved almost imperceptibly closer to
Lynndal. At length the homeward march was begun. But the Rev. Needham
stopped again suddenly, looking at his wife in a helpless way.
"Anna, _where's your sister_?"
"Dear me!" cried Anna Needham. "We were starting right off without her!"
"Is that Miss Whitcom?" asked Barry.
"Who?"
"Where?"
"The lady just ahead, coming this way."
It was true. There was a lady approaching along the beach. But she was
with a man, and the man....
"Alf!" whispered Anna, gripping her husband's arm.
"Well?"
"Oh--_look_!"
"What is it, Anna?"
She murmured in almost an ecstasy: "Why, he's got his arm right round
her waist!"
The awful intelligence that this was indeed Marjory, and that a man
had his arm around her waist, smote the minister's consciousness with
peculiar and climactic force.
Hilda and Leslie took their own good time about coming in off the lake.
It was so wonderful out there in the moonlight.
"I've had a perfectly grand time!" she told him, her voice thrilling
richly with conviction. She knew she had had a grand time, and whatever
might be the sequel when she faced her parents, the grandness would
never, never diminish.
They ascended the slight sand elevation and reached the steps leading
up to the porch. Moonlight patched and patterned the steps. They did
not go any farther.
Hilda sat down, drawing her knees and chin together, while Leslie
whistled softly.
"Will your father be mad?" he asked.
"Oh, no!" the girl exclaimed, with the full and emphatic authority of
one who is gravely in doubt. "Why?" she added. "It isn't late, is it?"