Marche, pacing the shabby sitting room after supper, an unlighted
cigarette between his fingers, listened to Jim recite his Latin lesson.
"_Atque ea qui ad efeminandos animos pertinent important_," repeated the
boy; and Marche nodded absently.
"Do you understand what that means, Jim?"
"Not exactly, sir."
Marche explained, then added smilingly: "But there is nothing luxurious
to corrupt manhood among the coast marshes down here. Barring fever and
moccasins, Jim, you ought to emerge, some day, into the larger world
equipped for trouble."
"I shall go out some day," said the boy.
Marche glanced up at the portrait of the boy's mother in its pale-gilt
oval. Near it, another nail had been driven, and on the faded wall paper
was an oval discoloration, as though another picture had once hung
there.
"I wish I might see your father before I go North," said Marche, half to
himself. "Isn't he well enough to let me talk to him for a few minutes?"
"I will ask him," said the boy.
Marche paced the ragged carpet until the return of Jimmy.
"Father is sorry, and asks you to please excuse him," he said.
Marche had picked up the boy's schoolbook and was looking at the writing
on the flyleaf again. Then he raised his head, eyes narrowing on the boy
as though searching for some elusive memory connected with him--with his
name in the Latin book--perhaps with the writing, which, somehow, had
stirred in him, once more, the same odd and uncomfortable sensation
which he had experienced when he first saw it.
[Illustration: "'Jim,' he said, 'where did you live?'"]
"Jim," he said, "where did you live when you lived in New York?"
"In Eighty-seventh Street."
"West?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you remember the house--the number?"
"No, sir."
"Was it a private house?"
"I don't know. It was very tall. We lived on one floor and used an
elevator."
"I see. It was an apartment house."
The boy stood, with blonde head lowered, silently turning over the
leaves of an old magazine.
Marche walked out to the porch; his brows were bent slightly inward, and
he bit the end of his unlighted cigarette until the thing became
useless. Then he flung it away. A few stars watched him above the black
ramparts of the pines; a gentle wind was abroad, bringing inland the
restless voice of the sea.
In Marche's mind a persistent thought was groping in darkness, vainly
striving to touch and awaken memories of things forgotten. What was it
he was trying to remember? What manner of episode, and how connected
with this place, with the boy's book, with the portrait of his mother in
its oval frame? Had he seen that portrait before? Perhaps he had seen it
here, five years ago; yet that could not be, because Herold had not been
here then.
Was it the writing on the flyleaf that had stirred some forgotten
memory? It had seemed to him familiar, somehow--yet not like the
handwriting in Herold's business letters to him. Yet it _was_ Herold's
writing--"Jim, from Daddy"--that was the inscription. And that
inscription had riveted his attention from the first moment he saw it.
Who was Herold? Who was this man whose undoubtable breeding and personal
cultivation had stamped his children with the same unmistakable
distinction?
Somehow or other there had been a great fall in the world for him--a
terrible tumble from higher estate to land him here in this desolation
of swamp-bound silence--here where only the dark pines broke the vast
sky line, where the only sound was the far rumor of the sea. Sick,
probably with coast fever, poor, dependent, no doubt, on the salary
Marche paid him, isolated from all in the world that made the world
endurable to intelligence, responsible for two growing children--one
already a woman--what must be the thoughts of such a man on a night like
this, for instance?
"I want to see that man," he kept repeating to himself. "I want to see
him; and I'm going to."
Restless, but now always listening for the sound of a light tread which
he had come to know so well--alas!--he began to walk to and fro, with
keen glances toward the illuminated kitchen window every time he passed
it. Sometimes his mind was chaotic; sometimes clear. The emotions which
had awakened in him within the week were complex enough to stagger a
more intelligent man. And Marche was not a fool; he was the typical
product of his environment--the result of school and college, and a New
York business life carried on in keenest competition with men as
remorseless in business as the social code permitted. Also, he went to
church on Sundays, read a Republican newspaper, and belonged to several
unexceptionable clubs.
That was the kind of a man he had been only a week ago--a good fellow in
the usual sense among men, acceptable to women, kind hearted, not too
cynical, and every idea in his head modeled upon the opinions he heard
expressed in that limited area wherein he had been born and bred.
That was the kind of a man he had been a week ago. What was he
now--to-night--here in this waste corner of the world with the light
from a kitchen window blazing on him as though it were the flashing
splendor streaming through the barred portals of paradise? Was it
possible that he, John Benton Marche, could be actually in love--in love
with the daughter of his own game warden--with a girl who served him at
supper in apron and gingham, who served him further in hip boots and
ragged jacket--this modern Rosalind of the marshes, as fresh and
innocent, as modest and ardent, as she of the Arden glades?
The kitchen door opened, and Molly Herold came down the steps and
straight toward him, unthinkingly, almost instinctively, laying her
hands in his as he met her under the leafless China tree in the yard.
"I was longer than usual to-night," she said, "trying to soften my hands
with that cold cream you so kindly sent for." She lifted them in the
starlight with a little laugh. "They're a trifle better, I think," she
said, "but they're always in water, you know, either there," she glanced
around at the kitchen, "or yonder with the decoys. But thank you all the
same," she added brightly. "Are you going to have another delightful
talk, now?"
"Do you care to?"
"Of course. The idea of my not caring to talk to you," she said,
laughing at the absurdity. "Shall we go into the sitting room, or walk
in the starlight? There are no snakes out, yet," she assured him,
"though if this weather holds, the moccasins will come out."
"We'll walk down to the shore," he said.
"One moment, then." She turned and sped to the house, reappearing, after
a few minutes, wearing her ragged shooting coat.
"Is your father comfortable?" he asked.
"Yes, thank you."
"Do you think he might want you?"
"No. Jim sleeps next to him, and he is preparing for bed, now." She
smiled. "What a darling my brother is, isn't he, Mr. Marche?"
"He's a fine boy."
They moved on together, down the rutted lane, between dismantled fences
and ragged, leafless hedges. She was lithe and light and sure footed,
but once or twice, as they skirted puddles, he supported her; and the
touch of his hand on her body almost unnerved him. Never had he dreamed
that contact with any woman could so thrill, so exquisitely shock. And
every instant he was falling deeper and deeper in love with her. He knew
it--realized it--made no effort to avoid it, fight it off, control it.
It was only his speech and manner that he held desperately under bit and
curb, letting his heart go to everlasting smash and his reason run riot.
And what on earth would be the end he could not imagine, for he was
leaving for the North in the morning, and he had not yet told her.
As they came out upon the shore, the dory loomed up, beached, a dark
silhouette against the starlit water. She laid her hands on the stern
and vaulted lightly to her perch, sliding along to make room for Marche.
From far away in the sound came the confused murmur of wild fowl
feeding. Except for that, and the ceaseless monotone of the outer sea,
there was no sound, not even the lap of water against the bow.
Marche, who had been leaning forward, head bent as though watching the
water, turned to the girl abruptly. "I want to do something for--Jim,"
he said.
The girl looked up at him, not understanding.
"Will your father let me?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"I mean that I want to send him to a good school--a good boys' school in
the North."
She caught her breath, was silent for a moment, then, amazed: "_Would_
you do that? Oh, I've wished for it--dreamed of it! But--how can you?
You are so kind--so good to us--but how could we--accept?"
"That's why I want to see your father."
"For _that_! Was it really for that, Mr. Marche?"
"Yes--partly." He swallowed and looked the other way, for the girl's
excited face was very near his own as she bent forward to search his
eyes for the least change of expression--bent nearer as though to
reassure herself that he meant it seriously. For an instant her soft
breath made the night air fragrant; he felt it, faint and fresh on his
cheek, and turned sharply, biting his lips lest he lose all
self-control.
"Could you and your father spare him?" he asked carelessly.
"Oh, if you only would give him that chance!" she cried. "But--tell
me--_how_ can we accept such a thing of you? Is it possible?"
"Would _you_ accept it?" he asked, turning toward her.
The question startled her. She looked at him, striving to think clearly,
trying to see this offered miracle through calm, impartial eyes.
"I--I would do anything--almost--for Jim," she said. "I'd have no pride
left, if his chances lay in the balance. But men--my father--may be
different."