"Perfectly," he announced. "I might say in all my experience I never
have yet got a lady left on a boat."
Miss Guinevere, used to being guided, handed him her band-box, and
followed him up the steep bank.
The path wound in and out among the trees, now losing itself in the
woods, now coming out upon the open river. The whole world was a riot of
crimson and gold, and it was warm with that soft echo of summer that
brings some of its sweetness, and all of its sadness, but none of its
mirth.
Mr. Opp walked beside his divinity oblivious to all else. The sunlight
fell unnoticed except when it lay upon her face; the only breeze that
blew from heaven was the one that sent a stray curl floating across her
cheek. As Mr. Opp walked, he talked, putting forth every effort to
please. His burning desire to be worthy of her led him into all manner
of verbal extravagances, and the mere fact that she was taller than he
caused him to indulge in more lofty and figurative language. He captured
fugitive quotations, evolved strange metaphors, coined words, and poured
all in a glittering heap of eloquence before her shrine.
As he talked, his companion moved heedlessly along beside him, stopping
now and then to gather a spray of goldenrod, or to gaze absently at the
river through some open space in the trees. For Miss Guinevere Gusty
lived in a world of her own--a world of vague possibilities, of
half-defined longings, and intangible dreams. Love was still an abstract
sentiment, something radiant and breathless that might envelop her at
any moment and bear her away to Elysium.
As she stooped to free her skirt from a detaining thorn, she pointed
down the bank.
"There's some pretty sweet-gum leaves; I wish they weren't so far down."
"Where?" demanded Mr. Opp, rashly eager to prove his gallantry.
"'Way down over the edge; but you mustn't go, it's too steep."
"Not for me," said Mr. Opp, plunging boldly through the underbrush.
The tree grew at a sharp angle over the water, and the branches were so
far up that it was necessary to climb out a short distance in order to
reach them. Mr. Opp's soul was undoubtedly that of a knight-errant, but
his body, alas! was not. When he found himself astride the slender,
swaying trunk, with the bank dropping sharply to the river flowing
dizzily beneath him, he went suddenly and unexpectedly blind. Between
admiration for himself for ever having gotten there, and despair of ever
getting back, lay the present necessity of loosening his hold long
enough to break off a branch of the crimson leaves. He tried opening one
eye, but the effect was so terrifying that he promptly closed it. He
pictured himself, a few moments before, strolling gracefully along the
road conversing brilliantly upon divers subjects; then he bitterly
considered the present moment and the effect he must be producing upon
the young lady in the red cloak on the path above. He saw himself
clinging abjectly to the swaying tree-trunk, only waiting for his
strength or the tree to give away, before he should be plunged into the
waters below.
"That's a pretty spray," called the soft voice from above; "that one
above, to the left."
Mr. Opp, rallying all his courage, reached blindly out in the direction
indicated, and as he did so, he realized that annihilation was imminent.
Demonstrating a swift geometrical figure in the air, he felt himself
hurling through space, coming to an abrupt and awful pause when he
struck the earth. Perceiving with a thrill of surprise that he was still
alive, he cautiously opened his eyes. To his further amazement he found
that he had landed on his feet, unhurt, and that in his left hand he
held a long branch of sweet-gum leaves.
"Why, you skinned the cat, didn't you?" called an admiring voice from
above. "I was just wondering how you was ever going to get down."
Mr. Opp crawled up the slippery bank, his knees trembling so that he
could scarcely stand.
"Yes," he said, as he handed her the leaves; "those kind of athletic
acts seem to just come natural to some people."
"You must be awful strong," continued Guinevere, looking at him with
approval.
Mr. Opp sank beside her on the bank and gave himself up to the full
enjoyment of the moment. Both hands were badly bruised, and he had a dim
misgiving that his coat was ripped up the back; but he was happy, with
the wild, reckless happiness of one to whom Fate has been unexpectedly
kind. Moreover, the goal toward which all his thought had been rushing
for the past hour was in sight. He could already catch glimpses of the
vision beautiful. He could hear himself storming the citadel with magic
words of eloquence. Meanwhile he nursed the band-box and smiled dumbly
into space.
From far below, the pungent odor of burning leaves floated up, and the
air was full of a blue haze that became luminous as the sun transfused
it. It enveloped the world in mystery, and threw a glamour over the
dying day.
"It's so pretty it hurts," said the girl, clasping her hands about her
knees. "I love to watch it all, but it makes the shivers go over
me--makes me feel sort of lonesome. Don't it you?"
Mr. Opp shook his head emphatically. It was the one time in years that
down in the depths of his soul he had not felt lonesome. For as Indian
summer had come back to earth, so youth had come back to Mr. Opp. The
flower of his being was waking to bloom, and the spring tides were at
flood.
A belated robin overhead, unable longer to contain his rapture, burst
into song; but Mr. Opp, equally full of his subject, was unable to utter
a syllable. The sparkling eloquence and the fine phrases had evaporated,
and only the bare truth was left.
Guinevere, having become aware of the very ardent looks that were being
cast upon her, said she thought the boat must be about due.
"Oh, no," said Mr. Opp; "that is, I was about to say--why--er--say, Miss
Guin-never, do you think you could ever come to keer about me?"
Guinevere, thus brought to bay, took refuge in subterfuge. "Why--Mr.
Opp--I'm not old enough for you."
"Yes, you are," he burst forth fervently. "You are everything for me:
old enough, and beautiful enough, and smart enough, and sweet enough. I
never beheld a human creature that could even begin to think about
comparing with you."
Guinevere, in the agitation of the moment, nervously plucked all the
leaves from the branch that had been acquired with such effort. It was
with difficulty that she finally managed to lift her eyes.
"You've been mighty good to me," she faltered, "and--and made me lots
happier; but I--I don't care in the way you mean."
"Is there anybody else?" demanded Mr. Opp, ready to hurl himself to
destruction if she answered in the affirmative.
"Oh, no," she answered him; "there never has been anybody."
[Illustration: "'Why, Mr. Opp, I'm not old enough'"]
"Then I'll take my chance," said Mr. Opp, expanding his narrow chest.
"Whatever I've got out of the world I've had to fight for. I don't mind
saying to you that I was sorter started out with a handicap. You know my
sister--she's a--well, a' invalid, you might say, and while her pa was
living, my fortunes wasn't what you might call as favorable as they are
at present. I never thought there would be any use in my considering
getting married till I met you, then I didn't seem able somehow to
consider nothing else. If you'll just let me, I'll wait. I'll learn you
to care. I won't bother you, but just wait patient as long as you say."
And this from Mr. Opp, whose sands of life were already half-run! "All I
ask for," he went on wistfully, "is a little sign now and then. You
might give me a little look or something just to keep the time from
seeming too long."
It was almost a question, and as he leaned toward her, with the sunlight
in his eyes, something of the beauty of the day touched him, too, just
as it touched the weed at his feet, making them both for one
transcendent moment part of the glory of the world.
Guinevere Gusty, already in love with love, and reaching blindly out for
something deeper and finer in her own life, was suddenly engulfed in a
wave of sympathy. She involuntarily put out her hand and touched his
fingers.
The sun went down behind the distant shore, and the light faded on the
river. Mr. Opp was almost afraid to breathe; he sat with his eyes on the
far horizon, and that small, slender hand in his, and for the moment the
world was fixed in its orbit, and Time itself stood still.
Suddenly out of the silence came the long, low whistle of the boat. They
scrambled to their feet and hurried down the path, Mr. Opp having some
trouble in keeping up with the nimbler pace of the girl.
"I'll be calculatin' every minute until the arrival of the boat
to-morrow night," he was gasping as they came within sight of the wharf.
"I'll be envyin' every--"
"Where's my band-box?" demanded Guinevere. "Why, Mr. Opp, if you haven't
gone and left it up in the woods!"
Five minutes later, just as the bell was tapping for the boat to start,
a flying figure appeared on the wharf. He was hatless and breathless,
his coat was ripped from collar to hem, and a large band-box flapped
madly against his legs as he ran. He came down the home-stretch at a
record-breaking pace, stepped on board as the gang-plank was lifted,
deposited his band-box on the deck, then with a running jump cleared the
rapidly widening space between the boat and the shore, and dropped upon
the wharf.
He continued waving his handkerchief even after the boat had rounded
the curve, then, having edited a paper, promoted a large enterprise,
effected a proposal, and performed two remarkable athletic stunts all in
the course of a day, Mr. Opp turned his footsteps toward home.