He stared at her helplessly, then tossed both hands in a gesture of
despair. "I give it up. I give _you_ up, in fact. You fairly make my
head spin! It's getting late, Miss Yarnell. I think you'll find a path
behind the grove."
"I'm not going to Sandywood."
"Then I'll leave you in possession of the yacht. Good-night."
He took off his cap smilingly, and, turning, walked rapidly inland. He
had not gone half a dozen yards when he heard a light footstep behind
him, and wheeled to find her at his very heels.
"I'm going with you."
"You'll dog me across country?" he asked incredulously.
She flushed painfully, but stood her ground. "I'm going with you," she
repeated.
"Oh, Lord!" he groaned. For a moment he eyed her rather malevolently.
"Come back to the sloop, then. We'll talk it over."
She followed obediently as he clambered over the low rail of the _Wisp_.
"I don't know what to make of you," he complained.
"I hardly know what to make of myself."
"If I had more time, I might be able to get at things."
"You'd better simply take me with you."
"Hum-m," he said contemplatively.
They were standing side by side on the floor of the cockpit. He waved
his hand toward the bay. "All this beautiful scenery ought to be good
for your malady--whatever that may be. Look at that sunset, Miss
Yarnell. Why, hello! What's that? Dead into the sun! Can't you see it?"
She peered beneath the arch of her hand to mark the point. At that
moment her elbows were gripped as if by a giant. She felt herself
lifted, then thrust firmly, although gently, downward into the little
cabin.
It was all done in an instant. Fessenden slammed the double-doors deftly
upon his prisoner and dropped the catch into the slot.
"Good-night," he called reassuringly. He leaped ashore and hurried
inland.
V
Fessenden was well aware that the frail catch that held the doors of the
_Wisp's_ cabin would not long hold prisoner so vigorous a young woman as
Madge Yarnell. He guessed that in ten minutes she would be wending her
disconsolate way toward Sandywood. But ten minutes would be enough--he
gave himself no further concern about her.
He followed a cow-path beyond the pine grove, crossed a meadow or two,
and struck the road not far above White Cottage.
A quail called in a field of early wheat, and was answered from a
thicket of elderberry near at hand--a charmingly intimate colloquy.
Fessenden was serenely conscious that it was good to be only
twenty-eight, and on his way to dine, or sup, with an artless girl.
In ten minutes he was halting at the gate of White Cottage. Although it
was only the dusk of the day, the window shades were down, and the
lighted lamps within sent a glow across the wide porch. The door stood
invitingly open.
As he clicked the gate behind him, he felt as if he were about to enter
another world than the one he had left at Sandywood--the enchanted world
of boyhood.
At the thought, he pursed his lips and sent the rounded notes of the
quail through the evening haze.
He had not time to repeat them before a slender figure, appearing as if
by magic, extended him a warm little hand.
"Bob White!" she said gaily. "I'm very glad to see you. I was in the
hammock under the hickory there. That gives me a new name for you--I was
tired of Puddin' Tame." Her lips echoed the whistle.
[Illustration: musical notes of bird song: Bob White.]
"I'm glad you've come, Mr. Bob White."
"Did you dream for a moment I wouldn't?"
"I was a little afraid you might forget your promise. No, what I was
really afraid of was that you wouldn't find a chance to steal away. You
_did_ steal away, didn't you, ve-ry quietly?"
"I did. I sailed away, at any rate, and I didn't tell a soul where I was
bound."
"I knew you were a reliable man."
"How is the sprained ankle? You don't seem to be noticeably crippled."
"Of course not. That's all well now--I've been resting in the hammock
all day. But come into the house. Supper is ready, and Aunty Landis has
the most delicious chocolate, with whipped cream."
She tripped ahead of him up the pathway and into the house, calling:
"Aunty Landis! Uncle Landis! Here he is. Here's Mr. Bob White. He's
ready for supper, I'm sure."
The long-suffering good wife met him in the living-room. "Good-evening,
Mr.--ah----"
"My name is----"
"Bob White," interrupted the girl. "Please let it be Bob White. That
_must_ be your name. Don't you like it?"
"Very much."
"Then that's what we'll call him, please, Aunty Landis. Yesterday you
were Puddin' Tame, to-day you're Bob White, and all the time you're
really somebody else. I'll have the fun of meeting a new man any moment
I like."
Mrs. Landis received this remark with a look as nearly approaching to
sternness as she was capable of. "Betty, you must behave. Remember, you
ain't as much of a baby as the gentleman maybe takes you for."
The girl fell silent, and seated herself upon a chintz-covered sofa.
Fessenden scanned her more closely than the dusk outside had permitted
him to do.
Her hair was gathered in a shining braid that hung quite to her waist, a
girlish and charming fashion. Her blue eyes watched him demurely from
beneath a broad, low forehead. The sailor suit of yesterday had given
place to a simple white frock--Fessenden noticed that it came fairly to
her ankles, now discreetly slippered and stockinged.
At the moment of seating themselves at table, they were joined by Uncle
Landis, a middle-aged farmer whose preternaturally-shining face and
plastered hair, not to mention a silence unbroken throughout the meal,
gave plain proof of recent rigorous social instruction on the part of
his help-meet.
The memory of that supper has always been a delight to Fessenden. The
omelet was all golden foam; the puffed potatoes a white-and-brown cloud.
The spiced cantaloupe and brandied peaches reminded him of the wonderful
concoctions his Grandmother Winthrop had made--she who would never allow
any one but herself to wash the glass and silver.
The hot Maryland beaten biscuits were crusty to the smoking hearts of
them, withstanding his teeth's assault just long enough to make their
crumbling to fragments the more delicious. The chocolate, in blue china
cups not too small, was served as the Spaniards serve it and as it ought
to be served--of the consistency of molasses candy when poured into the
pan.
And then came the creamy rice pudding for dessert, whereupon Fessenden
won Mrs. Landis forever by asking for the receipt and gravely jotting it
down in his notebook, in spite of Betty's laughing eyes.
Betty's talk flashed and sparkled to his sallies. She showed a
self-possession remarkable in a farmer's daughter who was encountering a
man of the world for what must have been the first time in her life, as
he fancied. Once or twice he felt that she had led him on to talk of
himself and to expand his own ideas to a degree unusual in him.
"Betty, you're a witch," he declared at last. "I've been clattering away
here like a watchman's rattle. You can't be interested in all this stuff
about my cart-tail speeches for honest city government."
"But I am interested, decidedly. I like to hear about men that do
something--they're a novelty." Her frank smile warmed him. "I know there
are enough worthless men in the world to make the useful ones count all
the more. 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' That's
as true in Maryland as anywhere."
"You're a worldly-wise small person."
"Oh, I read and think a little, Mr. Bob White." She nodded her head at
him until the blonde braid danced.
After supper Uncle Landis abruptly vanished. Aunty Landis lingered in
the dining-room on the plea of clearing off the supper things--in point
of fact, Fessenden saw her no more that night. Betty led the way to a
couple of steamer-chairs at a corner of the porch.
The breeze had freshened a little, and he tucked her knitted scarf about
her shoulders with a care not altogether fatherly.
"Thank you, Bob White. You're very kind."
"Who wouldn't be kind to you, Betty? Look there! Over the top of the
hill. Even the stars are peeping out to see if you're comfortable."
She gave her little crowing laugh. "What a poet! I always think of
Emerson's verse about the stars. Do you remember it?
"Over our heads are the maple buds,
And over the maple buds is the moon;
And over the moon are the starry studs
That drop from the angel's shoon."
"Where did you learn Emerson?"
"I had a teacher who liked him."
"Did any one ever tell you that you talk as a prima donna ought to talk,
but never does--'soft, gentle, and low'?"
"Is that a compliment?"
"Certainly. Perhaps you sing."
"I'll get my guitar."
She flashed into the house and back again. The starlight enabled him to
see her indistinctly as she tightened the keys of a small guitar.
"I like this song," she explained. "It was written by Fessenden, you
know."
"By whom?"
"Thomas Fessenden, _the_ Fessenden, the man who----"
"Oh, of course."
To hear himself thus referred to, to hear one of his own casual songs
launched from the lips of a country girl in the splendor of a Maryland
night, was a novel experience even for Fessenden. He realized with
amusement that his identity was wholly unknown to Betty, that capricious
young person not having allowed him as yet to mention his own name.
She sang, her eyes laughing upon him as her lips rounded to the whistle
of the quail in the refrain.
"At morn when first the rosy gleam
Of rising sun proclaimed the day,
There reached me, through my last sweet dream,
This oft-repeated lay:
(Too sweet for cry,
Too brief for song,
'Twas borne along
The reddening sky)
_Bob White!
Daylight, Bob White!
Daylight!_"
"At eve, when first the fading glow
Of setting sun foretold the night,
The tender call came, soft and low,
Across the dying light:
(Too sweet for cry,
Too brief for song,
'Twas but a long
Contented sigh)
_Bob White!
Good-night, Bob White!
Good-night!_"
Fessenden applauded softly, and his young hostess smiled appreciation.
"Tell me about yourself, Bob White," she said. "Are you 'tinker, tailor,
soldier, sailor'?"
"Betty, perhaps _you_ can tell _me_ something. I got away to you without
letting any one at Sandywood know, by going for a sail in my sloop."
"A ve-ry good idea."
"Don't be too sure. After I'd gotten well off, one of the house-party--a
girl--coolly appeared from the cabin. She'd been bound to come with me,
you see."
"Why?"
"That's the problem. She was very mysterious, and persistent, no name!
When we landed in Piney Cove, she insisted upon following me."
"Goodness me!"
"We had the most extraordinary time--I fastened her in the cabin by main
force. I don't understand it at all. She said she knew I was coming to
meet you, and seemed very much wrought up about it. Hold on! She didn't
mention your name, but she said she knew who it was I had my appointment
with."
"How could she guess?"
"We happened to be standing together when your little friend, Jimmy
Jones, brought your note. She said this afternoon that she recognized
the style of the envelope."
Betty's guitar slipped from her lap to the floor. "Bob White, Bob
White!" she exclaimed. "What's her name?"
"Didn't I say? She's a Miss Yarnell--Miss Madge Yarnell, from Baltimore.
Do you know anything about her?"
The girl stooped to rescue the guitar. Her warm cheek touched his as he,
too, groped for it, and both recoiled a little consciously--Fessenden in
amusement at his own confusion.
"Do you know about Miss Yarnell?" he repeated.
"I've heard her name. A girl--the woman who gave me that song--knows who
she is. Isn't she the girl who tore down the flag?"
"Yes, that's the one. Can you imagine why she pursued me so? Do you
suppose she really recognized your writing paper? And even if she did,
what is it to her?"
She twanged a careless chord or two. "Oh, perhaps she was vexed because
you didn't stay at the house-party," she suggested; "because you
preferred White Cottage to Sandywood."
After a while he struck a match and looked at his watch. "Nine o'clock.
I must be going. If I stay much longer, the Cresaps will be sending out
their launch to tow me home. You know, I'm supposed to be becalmed out
in the bay. I hate to go. I've had a bully time."
"Really?"
"Perfect. Betty, look here! I'm staying at Sandywood only until Tuesday,
and to-day's Friday. H-i-n-t!"
She rose and made him an adorable curtsy. "Bob White, Esquire, I
respectfully invite you to come to my picnic to-morrow."
"Will there be a picnic, really?"
"Yes--for you and me."
"Great! I'll come, and humbly thank you."
"Then you must be at the foot of the lane by the brook at ten o'clock
to-morrow morning. And it's another secret, remember. Do you think you
can get away?"
"I _will_ get away. Perhaps I can invent a business letter that will
call me to Baltimore."
She clapped her hands. "Oh, I'll attend to that. You know Jimmy Jones is
really the Sandywood Station telegraph boy, and he'll do anything for
me."
"I don't doubt it. There's at least one other person in the same happy
condition."
"Haven't you a friend in Baltimore who might possibly send you a
telegram--somebody so real you could just show it to the Cresaps, and
they'd believe it? What fun!"
He chuckled. "This is a real conspiracy. The only friend the Cresaps and
I have in common is Danton."
"Who?"
"Charles Danton. D-a-n-t-o-n."
"I'll remember."
"All right. At ten o'clock to-morrow, at the foot of the lane. You'll
meet me there, honest Injun, Betty?"
"Honest Injun! Hope I may die!"
She had followed him to the edge of the porch and stood looking down at
him as he lingered a couple of steps below.
"Good-night, Betty."