The next morning the sun rose with a halo cast by prisms of ice in the
upper air, and presently a strong west wind sprang up. Jean calculated
that it would increase all the morning, perhaps all day, till it brought
lower clouds from the storm center and then a gentle rain.
It was Monday, the twenty-eighth. Marvin had promised to arrive before
her birthday, which would be Wednesday. He would not leave his arrival
till the last uncertain moment, and therefore he would come today. Her
confidence was childlike and absolute. Theoretically he might be struck
down by pneumonia or lightning or an automobile, but in fact he would be
on the mailboat when it reached Upper Encampment at ten o’clock.
Then he would borrow Mabel’s skiff and attempt to row down. But by that
time the waves would be very high, and to come in a skiff would be
dangerous. Therefore she must go and get him.
But first she must provide for dinner. She would give him perch. She
would give him strawberry shortcake made with preserved berries. So
after breakfast she slipped out to catch perch. She found herself
fishing with savage glee. Murder seemed natural. The prospect of
crunching them in his company thrilled her. Together they would set
their teeth in those delicate bodies, that opalescent nitrogen.
Her golden prey captured and imprisoned, she set out for the north.
Already the rowing was hard, but she hugged the western shore for a
mile, turned her bow, and shot across the river to the pier. Then she
stood watching. The wild west wind tousled her blossom of hair and
pressed her raiment against her young bosom and exquisite limbs. By and
by the postmistress joined her and was likewise sculptured.
Ten o’clock, and the punctual fleck of white appeared in the north, with
a banner of precious carbon flung eastward. She watched the prow. On and
on it came, silent, little, and dramatic. Presently the whistle sounded,
and the boat swung in.
And now she saw him! He had not been struck down, but had returned as
surely as a planet, as faithfully as an Indian who promises to be at a
certain tree on a certain day in a certain moon. He stood on the deck in
the very prow, straight as the flagstaff beside him, and waving his cap.
The pier groaned with the steamer’s impact. She caught the flung hawser
and fastened it round the post. She did not even look his way as he
leaped ashore and shook hands with Miss Mabel, but stood at attention
till she heard the mate’s order to cast off. Miss Mabel departed with
the mail-sack on her shoulder and her shawl blown stiffly out. The
steamer churned the water and was gone.
“Glad to see me?”
The wind tore the words from his lips.
“Of course.”
“Knew I’d come?”
“Of course.”
“Won’t you shake hands?”
She obeyed. Then she led the way to the dory and thrust his bag far up
under the tiny deck to keep it dry. She did not intend to ship any
water, but you never could tell.
She pushed out and began to breast the waves, so that later she might
safely turn and run before them. The wind sliced the top off an emerald
shell and blew it in his face. He laughed, tucked his cap into his
pocket, and let his hair blow free. She loved the slight changes that
time had wrought in him—just the least suggestion of a wrinkle left on
his brow by hard thinking, and a look in his eyes as if he had gazed on
things eternal. He kneeled before her as she rowed, so that he could
hear what she said.
“How’s the coal?”
“Haven’t thought of it in three years.”
“I thought you were specializing in fuels.”
“So I was, long ago. Your father writes me that you have been studying
chemistry yourself.”
“Oh, just playing. Tell me what you’ve been doing.”
“Studying the atom. Stealing the ideas of—” and he named a dozen men.
“Those names mean that you have been studying radiochemistry.”
“Wonderful you should know them.”
“What did you say?”
He leaned forward till their lips almost met.
“I say it’s wonderful that you should know such names, but quite
unnecessary.”
She gave an angry pull that jerked him back into his worshipful posture.
Then she smiled, reflecting that it would not do to get angry—that anger
was unscientific—that anger was proof of ignorance. He thought it
unnecessary for a creature of instinct to know even the names of
physical chemists, and he was quite right about it.
He leaned forward again.
“It’s a glorious advantage for you to know some physics and chemistry,
since you are going to marry the poor devil who has the responsibility
of organizing the Horatio Rich Laboratory.”
The oars hung in mid-air with surprise. The watchful west wind swung the
boat to leeward and filled it with a foot of water.
Instantly she was herself again and running before the wind. In fact the
unaffrighted boat ran better for its load, though now another inch would
swamp it. Marvin began humorously to bail out with an old tin can that
looked like battered silver.
But Jean, though guiding her boat with perfect skill, was more deeply
plunged in thought than ever she was plunged in her river. Last night
she had imagined drowning, how she would set her teeth and stand it. Now
she knew that she would have fought like any tigress to reach her mate.
She would have set her teeth as in childbirth. She would have struggled
to live till she bore him a child.
The battle was over. Instinct had won. She was doomed to motherhood, and
her heart was singing with terrible joy.
Marvin with his battered silver still knelt in the water, reducing it
inch by inch. She did not speak to him again as on they swept before
that wind and that passion. Nor when they reached the upper island did
she swerve in, but swept onward to her own.
The little bay received them quietly, and they mounted the cliff. She
led the way to a snug and sheltered cranny in the silica, where gray
moss had gathered deep. She tore away enough to reveal the stone
beneath, and they kindled a fire. She took off her wet moccasins and
placed them near the good heat. She unlaced his shoes, drew them off,
and set them beside her own. She seated herself in the moss, drew him
down beside her, put her arms about his neck and pressed her lips to
his.
“Now tell me about the laboratory.”
“Well, the other men will live on the west side of the inlet, but we
will live with your father.”
“That’s nice. Am I choking you?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t matter. Am I crushing your ribs?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t matter. Marvin, I don’t know any more about physics
and chemistry than the babe unborn, but could you please explain in
words of one syllable what you are going to investigate?”
“The atom.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s fun to investigate things.”
“Would you give only that answer to your father?”
“No. I’d tell him that if we don’t release some of its energy within a
century, our children’s standard of living will be too low to support
laboratories. And if we don’t succeed within two centuries, the world
will starve.”
She smiled as Cornelia may have smiled when her boy Tiberius set forth
to prevent Roman poverty, Roman starvation, Roman infanticide, and Roman
war.
“It’s all right, Marvin. You can’t help hoping, and I can’t help loving
you for hoping.”
“Darling, you don’t understand. Let me show you.”
And eternal youth went and brought his panacea. Other youths bring other
panaceas—laws, books, crosses, machines. They bring laws that none obey,
books that nobody reads, songs that are soon forgot, crosses that are
mocked in jewels, serums that save the unfit, telephones that transmit
hate and lies, dynamos and turbines that merely increase labor—and
mother believes in them all.
From his bag he brought a little instrument containing a pinch of salt;
nay, not so much, not a pinch. He took off his coat and spread it over
both their heads as they lay in the deep dry moss. When minutes had
passed and her eyes were grown accustomed to the darkness, he bade her
look.
There it was, the miracle she had longed to see. She held within her
hand a flight of stars, faint as the dawn of hope, straight as arrows,
radiant as heaven. Were they stars of Bethlehem, promising peace on
earth? She could not say. She could only remember that Mary of Bethlehem
bore a son, and that Marie of Poland bore a daughter.
“Jean, do you realize what power is going to waste before your eyes?”
“Yes.”
“It’s quiet, isn’t it?”
“Quiet as God.”
“Don’t you trust Him to give such power into the hands of your
children?”
She flung aside the little patch of night. “No, Marvin, I don’t trust
God to do a single thing for my children, but I’ll cheer you on in
anything you try to do for them. That’s what mother did when Horatio
started out to save the world by nitrogen. She could not bear to make it
hard for him in time of battle, and when my boys go to war, I’ll say
they are doing right.”
“Aren’t these rather bitter words?”
“No! I’ll believe in you. I’ll nurse you. I’ll go without comforts. I’ll
love you to death, but when it comes to saving my children from war,
you’ve got to do the thinking.”
“Jean, are these the reasons why you kept me waiting for three years?”
“Yes, three years was little enough.”
“Shall I release you?”
“No, I’ll marry you as soon as you like.”
He sat very still, looking out through the resonant trees to that white
river of foam and passion. He was silent for ages, and she thought him
weighing her fate. At last he spoke.
“Darling, it has just occurred to me that there must be another isotope
of osmium.”
“I’ll bet,” she smiled, “that there is.”
He was silent again for another age.
“Darling, why should one uranium live six million years while another
lives only two?”
She looked at him with roguish eyes.
“I don’t know. Let’s go and ask father.”