"And it wouldn't make any difference," Eve pursued, "if they could.
Would it? Say quickly, Adam," she cried, shaking our clasped hands in
mid air. "You are too slow. Would it?"
"No, Eve," I answered, smiling again. Indeed I had not stopped smiling.
"But we might excite envy in their breasts, which is a sin we pray to
be delivered from."
"Oh, well," she said, "there is nobody to see but Captain Fergus, and he
has not been married long. I love this place, Adam. Do you
remember--here were your pebbles, in the sod just here. And here I sat
when you warned me not to spot my dress,--when I took you for a
fisherman,--and you took me for a governess."
"Did you think I could forget?"
And we fell silent, and presently Eve would have me row her out upon the
water, for it was as warm as summer. And, that pleasing me,--although it
would have been enough for me that I was pleasing Eve,--we wandered to
Old Goodwin's stone pier, and took one of his boats, and rowed out. And
I paddled about, having nowhere in particular to go, and we found
ourselves near the great white schooner, almost under her stern; and I
looked up, and read her name, Arcadia, and there was Captain Fergus, in
his faded old blue cap, looking down at us over the rail. His face was
bronzed by sun and wind and rain, and there were little wrinkles about
his eyes after the manner of your seafaring men, and his eyes were of a
deep blue--the blue of the deep sea. They made me think of Old Goodwin's
eyes, although Old Goodwin's eyes are not blue.
He touched his cap. "Won't you come aboard?" he asked in a deep voice
which made one think of rolling seas and fresh winds and bellying sails.
"Thank you." I hesitated, and looked at Eve, but she did not wait for
me.
"We shall be glad to," she said. And she turned to me. "Hurry, Adam, and
row around to the ladder."
So I got us around to the steps, and there was a sailor with a boat-hook
to hold the boat for us and to take charge of it, and Captain Fergus
waiting at the gangway. And I introduced myself, but Eve did not wait
for introductions, but smiled at him, and said that she thought he knew
her father.
The wrinkles about Captain Fergus's pleasant eyes deepened.
"You are very like him," he said. And he led us over to the port side,
toward some chairs from one of which had risen a slender woman, with a
pleasant face and hair beginning to be well streaked with gray, but not
many years older than Eve. Mrs. Fergus, I found, had been Marian Wafer;
had been Miss Wafer for so long that she had become confirmed in the
habit of spinsterhood, and did not find it easy to get out of that habit
now that she was married.
We settled ourselves in the chairs, and had some pleasant, desultory
talk; and the sun shone, not too brightly, through a bluish haze; there
was hardly a breath of wind to ruffle the calm surface of the bay, and
peace was on the face of the waters. The stillness almost seemed to
drowse and to make a soft noise, like the distant sound of locusts in
August. It soothed us, and the talk died, and we sat motionless and in
silence, gazing out at the distant islands in their misty blue veils, or
at two tiny sails, motionless too, two or three miles away, or, nearer
yet, at an empty expanse of glassy water.
Suddenly a cat's-paw swept over the surface like a breath over a mirror,
and the shining launch of the Arcadia shot out from Old Goodwin's
landing, and came toward us at great speed; not at forty miles an hour,
for the landing was not far off. She was towing an aquaplane, which
stood very nearly perpendicular in the water, and I saw one man standing
up and steering, and the heads of three or four people showing
occasionally above the deck. The launch itself was at a pretty angle,
with daylight showing under ten feet of her keel, and throwing
cataracts out from either side like a fire engine; and she hid her
passengers until she swerved. She was not bringing her passengers aboard
the Arcadia, for she slackened speed and curved prettily, and drifted
before us, almost within reach, and I saw that the people aboard of her,
besides an officer and a sailor, were Old Goodwin and Elizabeth Radnor
and another girl, a stranger. Miss Radnor and the stranger were clad in
bathing-suits.
Eve did not seem as much surprised as I should have expected, and she
smiled and spoke to her father and Miss Radnor, and he waved his hand;
and the strange girl arose, stood poised for a moment on the rail,
tossed her arms high above her head, dived overboard and struck out for
the aquaplane. Miss Radnor instantly arose and followed, without
bothering to poise, and they had a race for it. The strange girl swam
well, but Miss Radnor had more power, and she gained.
Captain Fergus's great voice rang out. "Go it, Olivia! You're almost
there. Once more and more power to you!"
And Olivia spurted, but got to laughing and lost a stroke; and Elizabeth
Radnor caught her, but she got to laughing too, so that both seized
their goal at the same instant. They drew themselves partly upon it, but
the aquaplane sank under their weight, and the water swirled about their
knees, for the launch was barely moving. But it began to surge ahead,
faster and faster, so that the two girls found a firm support beneath
their feet as they rose carefully. Olivia held two ropes fastened at the
forward corners, and Miss Radnor steadied herself behind, with a hand on
Olivia.
The launch twisted and turned, and made loops and circles and spirals,
and Olivia still stood straight, like a Greek charioteer, holding the
lines with hands and rigid arms that were beginning to ache; but Miss
Radnor's knees were bending more and more, and she was swaying. And she
laughed.
"Good-bye, Olivia," she said; and she dived sidewise, and came up again,
and was swimming easily.
The launch stood in nearer to the schooner, and Olivia staggered as they
turned; but she got her balance, and once more stood straight. And the
launch began to twist and double and turn in loops and circles, faster
and faster. Olivia stood upright for two or three turns, then she began
to sway; and she saw that it was the beginning of the end, and she
stooped quickly, and swung her arms low, then high above her head, and
she gave a spring backward, and turned a half-somersault--and a little
more.
"Good!" cried Captain Fergus. "A pretty backward dive! Olivia's a good
swimmer--capital. Almost as good as Elizabeth." He turned to us. "Just
wait until you see Elizabeth do some of her stunts. Have you ever seen
her?"
I smiled and shook my head. "Miss Radnor seems an extremely competent
person--in many ways."
Captain Fergus looked sharply at me for an instant, then he chuckled as
though there was a good joke somewhere within hail.
"So she is," he said; "so she is, very competent. She's an able seaman.
Elizabeth's a great favorite of mine, rather more of a favorite than--"
"Dick!" said Mrs. Fergus warningly.
"Eh?" He turned to Mrs. Fergus, and smiled the smile that crinkled all
about his pleasant eyes. His eyes smiled too, those eyes of deepest
blue. "I wasn't going to say anything imprudent, Marian, only that
Elizabeth is rather more of a favorite than some others that I could
name. Oh, I'm not going to call any names, Marian. You needn't be
scared. Marian's always afraid," he said to Eve and me, "that I'm going
to be indiscreet, and I've never in my life been indiscreet. Have I,
Marian?"
Mrs. Fergus laughed. "How should I know? I've no doubt that you have
been, many times. You aren't politic, Dick."
"Heaven save us!" said Captain Fergus under his breath. "I hope not.
Neither are you, Marian. I don't know of anybody less politic than you."
Mrs. Fergus laughed again, merrily. "Richard was a sailor for so many
years," she said, "that he can't get out of his sailor's ways."
"They are good ways," I said. "Don't you think so, Mrs. Fergus?"
"They are good ways," Mrs. Fergus repeated, looking at her husband, "and
I like them." And Eve smiled across at me.
The launch had stopped her engine, and was waiting for the two girls.
Elizabeth Radnor reached her first, a white arm shot out of the water
and the hand grasped the gunwale, and Old Goodwin helped her aboard, and
she stood on the deck and dripped. And Olivia came up on the other side,
and Old Goodwin helped her aboard, but she did not stand on the deck to
drip. She jumped into the cockpit, and dripped on the cushions.
"There!" Mrs. Fergus exclaimed. "If that isn't just like her to run
streams of water on the cushions. Why couldn't she do as Elizabeth does,
and--"
"Doesn't matter," Captain Fergus growled. "Cushions waterproof, and the
sun'll dry the top in five minutes."
Mrs. Fergus made a motion of impatience, and there was a slight
compression of her lips.
"I know that it doesn't really matter," she said, "a little thing like
wetting the cushions--when they could have been kept dry just as easily.
Elizabeth--"
"It really isn't any matter about the cushions," Captain Fergus
interrupted gently. "Big crew doing nothing--they'll be set to work
presently scrubbing the launch inside and out. What's a little water?
Doesn't hurt anything."
Mrs. Fergus laughed softly. "You'd let them do anything, Dick,--stick
pins into you--"
"If it would be any fun for them," said Captain Fergus gruffly, "I guess
I could stand it. What's a pin anyway?"
Mrs. Fergus laughed again. "You'd find out. But I was really thinking
of the difference in the girls. Elizabeth is naturally considerate,
Olivia is not. Olivia is a good swimmer, of course, and she is pretty
and sweet and attractive, but she has done some outrageous things in the
last three years. Nothing bad, but absolutely inconsiderate." She was
talking to us now more than to her husband. "She swims so well that she
jumps in--or she used to--whenever she feels like it, clothes and all.
Why, she even took her mother's parasol in with her one day. It ruined
the parasol, of course. She was all dressed up for a party, and had on a
lovely dress, with a beautiful old ribbon sash, which was spoiled.
Luckily her dress was a wash dress, but it had to be done up again, and
the Greshams had no money to waste." She broke out in sudden laughter.
"But it was funny, Dick, to see her swimming about, holding the parasol.
Do you remember? At sixteen Olivia Gresham was just a pirate, and she is
more or less of one at eighteen. Look at Jack Ogilvie and the way she
treats him, and he as nice a boy as ever lived."
"You may look at Jack Ogilvie now," said Captain Fergus quietly, "if you
will raise your eyes. There he comes."
Accordingly we raised our eyes, all of us, and we saw nothing but those
two tiny sails that I have mentioned, almost in the same place in which
they had been for the last half hour; and a motor-boat, almost hidden
in the haze and very difficult to make out, seeming to be soaring over
the tops of the waves toward us. It must have been five miles away.
"But, Dick," said Mrs. Fergus, "where is Jack? Is he--"
"In that motor-boat. Don't you see it? Head on."
He whistled shrilly. The launch had been lying idly before us, her
engine stopped, and Miss Radnor sat upon the deck with her feet dangling
over the side. At the whistle she glanced down the bay, then looked
around at us and waved her hand. Then she simply straightened out and
slipped into the water feet first, and disappeared.
"Captain Fergus," asked Eve, "how can you possibly tell who is in that
boat? I can hardly see the boat."
He laughed. "I can't tell," he said, "of course, because I can't see
any of her crew; but I know the boat, and Ogilvie should be in it."
"But how can you know the boat? One motor-boat looks much like another
at that distance--to me."
"I don't know how, but I know the boat. How do you know your friends as
far off as you can see them?"
And Eve laughed, and she went on marvelling. But Miss Radnor, who had
disappeared so quietly, had not reappeared, and Mrs. Fergus seemed to be
getting anxious. She looked at her husband.
"Dick," she began, "I wish Elizabeth wouldn't stay under so long.
Where--"
At that moment a red cap bobbed up on the surface of the glassy water
almost at the side of the yacht, and Miss Radnor laughed up at us. She
swam to a boat swinging at the boom, climbed in and up the little rope
ladder to the boom, and so on deck.
"Sorry," she called, "to drip on your deck, but I want to dive."
And she went up the rigging as far as she could go, which was not
far--was not far enough, it seemed.
"You should have the mainsail up," she said. "I could go up on the
rings. It is such a disappointment! I wanted to try it from the
spreaders."
"I'll send you up in a sling." And forthwith two sailors came running,
and unhooked a halliard from somewhere, and got out a boatswain's chair,
and hooked it on, and she put her legs through, and they hoisted her up
to the spreaders. She looked very small up there, as she held on to the
spreader, and gingerly got herself out of the chair, and stood up,
holding by the stay. And, still holding on carefully, she pulled on the
halliard with her free hand, until the boatswain's chair was far enough
down again to go down of its own weight. Then she edged out to the end
of the spreader, and got her feet clear of the stay, though how she did
it I could not imagine, holding on to the stay behind her back. But she
did it, and I could see her moving her feet ever so slightly, to get the
right grip. Then, suddenly she let go, and swung her arms up slowly, and
shot outward in a beautiful swan dive that rivalled Annette Kellerman at
her best; and she struck the water as straight as a pikestaff. There was
not much spray when she struck. It reminded me of scaling stones in the
way we used to call "cutting the devil's throat." Her slender body
entered the water with much the same kind of a noise.
There was nothing shallow about that dive, for she did not come up for a
long time. At last I saw a shadow in the water shooting slowly toward
the launch, and the red cap came floating to the surface as if it were
only a red rubber balloon; and a white arm shot out, and the hand
grasped the gunwale, and again Old Goodwin helped her aboard, and she
sat on the deck and dabbled her feet in the water, as she had before,
but this time she sat beside Olivia. And Jack Ogilvie--if it was he--in
his motor-boat was almost in. I could see the crew of the boat pretty
well, and there was none among them who looked like Ogilvie, except the
one in an ensign's uniform, and Ogilvie was not an ensign. Then the boat
was abreast of the launch, and Elizabeth Radnor turned her head, and
waved and called, and beckoned.
"Hello, Elizabeth!" the ensign called in return, and the boat began to
turn. "Sorry I wasn't nearer to see your dive, but I saw it pretty well.
You couldn't repeat it for my benefit, I suppose?"