He emerged in a rushy bay where a dory lay tied to a pier of two planks.
Beside it the water rippled with the fins of a string of fish. Doubtless
the light-keeper was on the island and would give him shelter.
He entered the bushes again to make his way to where he could see the
lamp-house. Presently he perceived the tall white pole carrying the
plated lamp, and another step brought him within sight of the house
itself.
He paused, standing in a clump of fireweed. He was all bright with the
flowers, and straight as if at attention, and unconsciously pressing his
cap to his heart. There he stood, his auburn hair getting wet, and noted
that the door was open, and thought that nobody was there.
But he was mistaken, for suddenly a girl rose from the doorsill. She
stood with parted lips as if gazing at one risen from the dead. Then she
suddenly advanced toward him.
“Are you one of Horatio’s friends?”
He smiled and shook his head.
“Please forgive me. I thought you had come from across the river. We
have never met any of his buddies. He was only a private—”
“But he was your brother.”
She burst into tears and hid her face in her hands.
He advanced through the fireweed and put his arm round her shoulders.
She quickly got control of herself and looked up at him, smiling through
her tears, and for a single second he looked deep into her eyes.
“You must go back to your shelter.”
“Then you must, too.”
He followed her to the lamp-house.
“I have a key. That is a precaution, in case anything happens to Mr.
Gillies. During the war we had to be careful.”
“Your brother was with the Canadians?”
“Yes. He was killed in the spring of 1916, and since then I never
mention the word explosion where my old father can hear it.”
“Is your mother living?”
“No. She died the day after Horatio died.”
He asked no more questions, but looked round to see what he could do to
make her comfortable. The interior of the sentry-box was painted a pale
apple-green, much like the bloom produced by the weathering of
niccolite, and that was why he had not noticed her at first, for she
wore a soft sweater of the same color. He quickly espied a crate that
once had held a lamp, and spread his coat over it and made her sit down.
Then he sat down at her feet, close to the open doorway, and minutes
went by with no other sound than the drumming on the roof and the soft
muttering in the cloud that surrounded them. At last he heard a dreamy
voice.
“Everything looks so different.”
“Yes, but we mostly live within a cloud.”
“Horatio doesn’t.”
Marvin was silent.
“I guess you think there isn’t any more Horatio.”
“I don’t know.”
The blue of the vapor shut them in, now luminous with reflected charges,
now suffused with faint saffron. For the moment they lived in heavenly
isolation, a world without passion or poison, where the marriage of true
minds is unimpeded.
“Do you think it’s impossible for Horatio to think?”
“No, he may think better than we do. Brains are not much good to think
with—they’re too much like electric burglar alarms.”
“Do you think Horatio sees?”
“I don’t know, but I suppose that an eye is the least part of sight.”
“If he has better eyes than ours, does he see only atoms?”
“More likely colors that we can’t imagine.”
“Why, you believe it just as much as I do!”
“No, I am just saying perhaps.”
“Well, I’m sure about it. I just know he holds the earth off at arm’s
length, and sees it all showery blue or billowy white. He sees it spin
with a sunset edge. Even battle smoke doesn’t look ugly then.”
“No.”
“And sometimes he blows the clouds away and gets the atmosphere. It is
full of voices that can’t be heard so far—at least I hope he never hears
me crying. But I hope he gets my sweet familiar thrushes, my sweet birds
antheming the morn. Do you think I’m crazy?”
“Far from it.”
“And you don’t mind my using poetry words?”
“I love your poetry words. Please go on.”
“Why, there isn’t any end to going on. The earth is so beautiful that it
makes me cry. When he was on the ocean, I just wouldn’t think about the
submarines. I thought about the waters at their priestlike task of pure
ablution round earth’s human shores. If he had to be drowned, he would
still be drowned in beauty.”
“Yes,” said Marvin, his voice barely breathing. He dared not look up,
for he knew that the triumphantly modeled lips were quivering, and the
forgetmenot eyes were full of tears.
But presently she laughed them away.
“I don’t know why I am talking like this to a stranger.”
“It’s because he’s been waiting for you.”
“You mustn’t say nice things, Mr. Soldier. But there’s one question
that’s harder than any to answer. I never dared ask it of any human
being—it sounds so coarse.”
“No question of yours,” said Marvin steadily, “could be coarse.”
“Well, then, do you think that Horatio has the sense of smell?”
“Yes, that is, if he has the other senses. But think how few are the
odors that we sense—just the spicy, flowery, fruity, resinous, foul, and
scorched.”
“It’s awfully brave of you to think that, and not make fun of me. If I
were an angel I should just love to hold the earth to my nose and smell
the sweet-breathing brier. That’s eglantine, you know.”
“I know, but the odor is evanescent.”
“So are all the woodland odors.”
“No. I’ve found one that will last.”
She looked at him thoughtfully.
“Are you a poet?”
“Far from it. I’m a business man. It’s a wonder I’m here at all instead
of a few miles east, at Sudbury. I might have been sent there to buy
nickel.”