For the next week, Cicely stalked her lion patiently, warily and in vain.
Gifford Barrett had come down to Quantuck, firmly resolved that on no
conditions would he consent to be lionized. His six weeks in Maine had
been all that he could endure. He had at last come to the wise conclusion
that his talent, if he had any, belonged to himself and his work, and was
not to be spread out thin on biscuits and served up at afternoon teas. He
had fled from Maine and from his admiring friends in a mood dangerously
near to disgust. His nostrils were tired of incense. He wished ozone,
unflavored with anything whatsoever. The symptom was a healthy one and
portended good things for the future. Meanwhile, it led him to choose a
resort where he knew no one, where he himself was unknown, and where he
could be as independent as he liked.
During the first week of his stay, he accomplished his ends. He went his
own way at his own times; he ignored the many inviting glances cast in
his direction; he talked only to the bathing master, the native
fishermen and the waiter at his table. With observant eyes, he took in
the least details of his surroundings; but he did it in an unseeing
fashion that completely misled the members of the summer colony who
discussed him largely under their awnings and wrangled solemnly over the
important question as to whether he was surly, or only shy.
On his side, Gifford Barrett was gaining considerable amusement from the
morning conventions on the beach. As a general thing, he only watched the
people in groups, and entertained himself with making shrewd guesses as
to the probable relationships existing in those groups. Only two
individuals made distinct impressions upon him. One of these was the
tall, lithe girl in the black suit, who walked as well as she swam; the
other was also a girl, but younger and less good-looking, and Gifford
Barrett found himself wondering how she could possibly be in so many
places at once. He appeared to be always falling over her, always coming
upon her path, on the cliff, on the moors, at the tiny post office where
it seemed to him that he spent half of his time waiting for the leisurely
distribution of the mails to be completed. She usually wore a grey
bicycle suit, and she was invariably attended by a small grey dog who
took unwarrantable liberties, in the post office, with people's trouser
legs and even had been known to whet his teeth on the softer portions of
umbrellas. To tell the truth, he paid more attention to the dog than he
did to the girl; and he was utterly unconscious of the expression of glee
that crossed Cicely's face, one day, when he exclaimed,--
"Get out, you small brute!" and accompanied the words with a pettish
little kick which reduced the dog to a yelping frenzy.
On one other occasion Cicely had been conscious of penetrating to the
nerve centres of her hero; although, fortunately for her peace of mind,
she did not know the exact way in which she had accomplished the feat.
Early one morning, Mr. Barrett had been strolling along the road nearest
the edge of the cliff when as if by chance, there had floated down upon
his astonished ears, a high girlish voice singing the second theme of his
_Alan Breck Overture_. For a moment, his lips had curled into a
complacent little smile; the next minute, he had sucked in his breath
sharply between his clenched teeth. In her excitement, Cicely had
mistaken her distance; she had flatted by a full half-tone the final
upper note, reducing the tonal climax of the overture to the level of a
comic song.
A few days later, however, Cicely was destined to make an impression
upon something besides the nerve centres of her hero. As a rule, Mr.
Barrett took his baths at odd hours, either going to the beach in the
early morning, or else delaying until the rest of the world was at the
noon dinner which it sought ravenously, the moment it left the beach.
On this particular day, however, his watch apparently had played him
false, and he came down upon the sand just as the throng of bathers was
at its height. In the eyes of Dragons' Row, he immediately became an
object of derision, for it was as Phebe had said, there was certainly
no doubt whatever of his being extremely bow-legged, and, strong and
powerful as he looked, he kept himself well away from the shock of the
breaking waves.
After his wonted fashion, he paddled about in the edge of the water for a
few moments, then turned to walk back to the shore. The next moment
proved to be his undoing. Unconscious for the once of his appearing,
Cicely had been swimming back and forth just outside the line of surf;
then borne on the crest of a wave higher by far than any of its fellows
had been, she came floating towards the beach. She landed on her feet as
usual; but the wave, heavier than she expected, swept her off her balance
and sent her sliding up the sand, straight against the retreating heels
of her hero. There were two hurried exclamations, there was a splash;
then the backward flow caught them, pulled them down and they reached the
line of breakers again just in time to be boiled sociably together in the
next in coming wave.
Gifford Barrett shook the water from his eyes and rubbed his right arm a
little anxiously, as he staggered to his feet again. Cicely had fled to
Allyn's side, and the young man nodded curtly to her as he stalked back
to the shore. At the water's edge, he was greeted with a voice which
sounded strangely familiar to his ears.
"How do you do? Vat was ve time you got boiled; wasn't it?"
No childish voice ever fell unheeded on Gifford Barrett's ears. The
stoutest spot in his mental armor yielded to the touch of small fingers,
and some of his best comradeships had been with tiny boys and girls. Now,
in an instant, all his sense of injured dignity fell away from him, and
the watchers under the awnings wondered at the sudden kindliness in his
face, as he grasped Mac's pudgy fist.
"Why, Mac, who ever dreamed of seeing you here, old man!"
"I live here now," Mac said gravely; "me and my mamma and everybody,
only papa."
"I thought you lived in Helena."
"Not now. We like it better here; it's so funny to sit in ve sand and
build pies. Can you build pies?"
"Yes, and forts."
Mac fell to prancing delightedly, quite regardless of the havoc his small
shoes were creating among the bare toes of his companion.
"Oh, can you? Truly, no joking? Make me one now."
"Mac!" The call came from the nearest awning.
"Vat's mamma," Mac said. "She wants us. Come." And he tugged at Gifford
Barrett's hand.
"Not just now, old man."
"Come. Aunt Teddy's vere, and all ve rest. Come."
"Mac!" This time, the voice was more decided.
"Yes, mamma; but he won't come."
"Mac, come here at once."
There was a brief skirmish; then as usual, Mac conquered, and Gifford
Barrett was led, an unwilling victim, to the awning where sat Mac's
mother, beyond her a serried rank of Mac's relatives and, beyond them
all, a tall girl in a black suit who watched him with dancing eyes.
The situation was not an easy one. It was Theodora who relieved it.
"Isn't this Mr. Gifford Barrett?" she asked, rising to meet him with the
easy dignity which she assumed at times and which made her husband feel
so proud of her. "You may not remember me, Mrs. Farrington; but I think I
met you in New York, two years ago, at a dinner that Mrs. Goodyear gave."
And, as she spoke, Theodora was distinctly grateful for the accident
which had left a dozen old letters in the tray of her trunk.
With a grave courtesy all his own, Gifford Barrett went through the
trying ordeal of an introduction in his bathing suit. Even Phebe was
forced to admit that he was well-bred, while, in the distance, Cicely
capered about madly, half in rapture that the desired meeting had taken
place, half in rage that she could not with dignity annex herself to the
group. For one short, ecstatic moment, she held her breath; then she
vented her feelings by plunging headlong into the next wave and swimming
off as fast as she could. Instead of making his bow and then beating the
decorous retreat of an eccentric recluse, Mr. Gifford Barrett, the
composer of the _Alan Breck Overture_, had deposited his tall form in his
rose-colored bathing suit on the sand at Theodora's feet.
"No; I thought I wouldn't go in to-day," she said. "I don't care very
much about it, when the surf is running so high."
"Your sister doesn't seem to mind any amount of surf," Mr. Barrett said,
glancing at Phebe.
Coming nearer him, one saw that his brown eyes were frank and kindly,
that his face was attractive when he smiled. Theodora liked him
unreservedly; she even began to remember him a little, in a vague sort
of way, and she hoped that Phebe would be in one of her more lenient
moods. In vain.
"Yes, I like to swim," Phebe said briefly.
"Evidently, for no one could swim as you do, without enjoying it," Mr.
Barrett observed, with an enthusiasm which was almost boyish.
"Mr. Drayton swims magnificently, and he hates it."
"Is this your first season here at Quantuck?"
"Yes."
Under cover of her gown Theodora gave Phebe a furtive poke. Phebe turned
abruptly and stared at her.
"Well?" she asked.
"Well what?" Theodora said, with a smile.
"What did you want? You poked me; didn't you?"
"I beg your pardon. Did I hit you? I get stiff with so long sitting
still. Is Quantuck an old ground of yours, Mr. Barrett?"
"No; I am a stranger here. Your little nephew is the first friendly face
I have seen."
"I hope you will be neighborly at the Lodge, then. It is just on the edge
of the bluff, and the latch-string is always out. So are we, for that
matter. We spend most of our time down here, all of us but Phebe. She
infests the golf links."
"You are a golf enthusiast, then Miss McAlister?"
"Yes. Aren't you?"
"No; not just now, at least. Have they good links here?"
"Very." Phebe rose as she spoke.
"Where are you going, Babe?" Hope asked.
"Down to take one more plunge, then back to the house. I'm going out
early this afternoon, and I must be ready."
Theodora's next remark fell upon empty ears. Gifford Barrett was watching
Phebe as she went away, admiring her tall, lithe figure, her well-set
head, and wondering why in the name of all that was musical this girl
should snub him so roundly. He searched his mind in vain for some just
cause of personal offence; he could not realize that, in Phebe's present
state of mind, there was no interest at all for her in a man who could
neither swim nor play golf, and that it was characteristic of Phebe
McAlister never to hide her feelings. Meanwhile, it was the first time in
his life that he had been snubbed by any girl, and he found the
experience novel, interesting and by no means satisfactory. As he left
the awning and strolled away up the beach, he was resolving that incense
and solitude should give way to snubbing. He would see more, much more of
this taciturn young woman, force her to talk and, if possible, undermine
her antipathy to himself.
Unhappily for Gifford Barrett, however, his conceit was playing him
false. Phebe felt no antipathy to him, none whatever; she was only
completely indifferent to the very fact of his existence, and she went
round the links, that afternoon with a healthy forgetfulness of the
fact that she had ever set eyes upon the tall person of the greatest
American composer.