"Noticed what?"
"How funny they are in outline--your eyes, I mean."
"Thank you, Jim."
"Oh, they're most engaging eyes, Diana."
"More thanks, thank you!"
"I mean that they tip up a trifle--just a trifle, Japonette."
"They don't!"
"They do. Like a pretty Japanese girl's. Only yours are blue....
They're very blue--unusually--like the sky--that sort of blue."
"Young man," she said with mock seriousness, "don't you know what comes
of speculating in ladies' eyes?"
"Bankruptcy of the heart," he nodded.
"Then choose some safer and preferred stock, please."
He lay smiling up at her, watching the shades of expression varying in
her youthful face--watching the delicate shape of her mouth, which had
always fascinated him with its unspoiled purity.
"Do you know," he said, partly to himself, "that when I first set eyes
on you, Japonette, I knew I had never seen anything half as beautiful."
"You didn't think so long," she returned, laughing. "Christine is
goddess of beauty just now."
"I have always thought so," he repeated.
"Then--why don't you ever say it to me?"
His smile changed a little.
"What would be the use of my telling you that you are beautiful?"
"Use?"
"What good would it do for me to become sentimental over your beauty?"
"Lots of good--to me, Jim. You can't tell a girl too often that she is
pretty--when you really think so.... And I almost believe you do think
so." She glanced at him sideways, laughed a little, then her blue eyes
wandered and she leaned back, pensive, twisting a green oak leaf between
idle fingers.
"Do you know," he said after a moment, "that, just now, you are like
Japonette again. I haven't seen you so like the real Japonette for a
long while."
"How _can_ I be Japonette again? I lack the sandals and butterfly sash
and the peonies over my ears, Jim. And--that was about all you saw in
Japonette, wasn't it?"
"Almost all. Her face was only a shadowy flower against the sunshine,
and its enchantment turned the world to fairyland."
"Alas! the spell was temporary. The victim of my spells fled to the
roof, and told me stories about starlings and--and children.... But,
somehow, I let him get away from me, and I don't know how to find him
again."
Edgerton watched her. She had plaited a sash out of green oak leaves
and fitted it around her slender waist; and now, absently, she was
placing in her hair, above each little close-set ear, a scarlet wood
lily.
Presently she caught his eye, and made him a pretty gesture.
[Illustration: "Presently she caught his eye, and made him a pretty
gesture."]
"You see I am trying my best to return with you to yesterday.... It is
a long path--back over the hours and minutes to yesterday, back to a
land of dreamy suns and forgotten skies, and unremembered thoughts....
Shall I try to guide you?"
"Yes," he said, not smiling.
"We may lose our way among the phantoms," she warned him gayly; then
became preternaturally solemn, resting her chin in one hand.
Her seriousness enchanted him--her youthful grace as she bent slightly
above him, one warning finger uplifted as when a nurse speaks of
mysteries to a child in the quiet of twilight.
"Join hands with me in spirit, and I'll try to lead you," she said....
"Now, follow me, while we make our way through the throng of strange
faces, treading a path silently, discreetly, avoiding this pretty girl
with her bright brown eyes."
"Christine," he thought, and started to speak.
"Hush!" she cautioned him; "for we mustn't speak yet--not until we're in
the land of yesterday.... And we are passing over the minutes and hours
and days and weeks--and it's like treading on formless mist; so hold
tightly to my hand, and follow me--through a golden ballroom, around a
great gilded piano, then out into the June rain, Jim.... Have you let go
my hand?"
"No."
"Then we are very near the land of yesterday.... I thought I heard a
starling whistle. Surely! and there is the sunset over the river--and
now we are in the house, Jim. And it is not sunset, after all; it is
sunrise--the sunburst of Japan! And there, against it----"
"You!" he said in a voice not very firm.
"Hush! Those two figures we see are only phantoms. Let us stand here
by the door and listen to what they might have said."
"They _did_ say things!"
"Ah! but it is to what they might have said that we must try to listen.
Be very silent, now. Look at that girl in her silk and sandals and the
flowers in her hair! Look at that young fellow, rooted to the floor,
amazed at the apparition! Can you hear what he _might_ have said to her
in his astonishment?"
"He might have said: 'Your loveliness confounds me. You are the most
beautiful vision I have ever dreamed.' ... What does _she_ say,
Japonette?"
"She says: 'For a moment I was afraid you'd filled your suit cases with
our silver; but you are so obviously nice that I am not alarmed any
more. I'm merely ashamed to be caught here in this theatrical dress.'
What might he have said to that, Jim?"
"He might have said: 'Is it a heavenly possibility that you are real,
and not a vision? Allah is merciful to the believer in dreams. Your name
is Youth and Beauty; I will call you Japonette, but the high white gods
have named you Diana.' ... And what does _she_ say, Japonette?"
"She _might_ have answered: 'O youth with the engaging smile, out of my
breast you have charmed the winged heart, and it is fluttering there
above you, restless, uncertain--just beyond your reach.' ... And what
does--_might_ he have answered, Jim?"
"He might have said: 'I love you, but my outward self does not know it
yet--will not know it, even on the roof garden--even when the sun hangs
low and the starlings pipe, and all the west is a glory of gold and
rose; and I shall never know it until you lead me back from to-morrow,
through the magic path of days and hours, to the true world of
yesterday.' ... What answer does she make Diana?"
His voice had grown very unsteady; he lay there looking at her, the
smile stamped on his lips. And her faint smile had become fixed, too.
"She made no answer," said Diana.
"She might have.... Remember, all this is what they _might_ have said."
"And did not.... I don't know what she might have said." ... Suddenly
she flung the green sash of leaves from her body, tore the scarlet wood
lilies from her hair, and flung them away with a gay, little laugh.
"What an idle, silly pair we are," she said. "I've had my nap. I'm
awake, now."
"Was all that a dream?"
"You know it was.... It began with a fable--which sent me off to
sleep."
"It ended in truth--and an awakening--for one of us."
"Jim, you're not pretending to be serious, are you? Goodness!" she
added impatiently; "can't I pretend with you, and not be misunderstood?"
He sat up, sprang to his feet, and began to pace the moss.
She, resting against the silver birch, watched him, already a little
frightened, her heart beginning to beat high and fast.
Suddenly he came back and, resting on one knee, bent over beside her.
"Did you mean nothing of that? _Nothing?_"
"Nothing; why should you be silly enough to suppose----"
"I did suppose for a moment."
"Jim, you are not pretending to court me, are you?"
"Not pretending.... No, I'm not doing it.... How can a beggar think of
such a thing as courtship?"
"Beggars court most ardently--sometimes," she said, laughing
tremulously. "But it's not hearts they usually court."
He knelt there, thinking a moment, head bent. Then he looked up at her.
"I have no reason to believe that you care for me," he said--"more than
for any other man, I mean."
"You have no reason to believe so," she repeated, now thoroughly alarmed
at what she'd done; and yet it was what she had deliberately set out to
do. Her breath came unevenly. She strove to retain her composure, to
recover the ground he seemed to have gained.
"Jim," she said, "you are too easily affected by your surroundings. A
few trees, a summer sky, and a girl are destruction to you."
"You don't think that," he said quietly.
"I do, indeed. Witness my fate, and the plight of Christine."
He said, watching her: "Do you suppose that there is any sentimentality
between Christine Rivett and me?"
"Oh, Jim! don't shuffle----"
"She is in love with another man," he said.
"Nonsense!" But a strange thrill shot through and through her, and,
confused, she bent forward, looking him straight in the face.
"Diana! Diana!" he said under his breath, "did you care?"
"I?" she said, reddening. "Jim, I am not a baby.... I thought--as
everybody thought--but it was of no consequence--except that she is a
sweet girl, and you are my friend."
She recovered herself with a little laugh--or would have, had his hand
not closed on hers. She gave it a friendly and vigorous pressure, and
attempted to drop it; but he placed the other hand over it, inclosing
her slender fingers, which frightened her into pretense of
unconsciousness.
Now she stood on the threshold. Now she was on the eve of that daybreak
from which she had prayed that the shadows might flee away; and she
shrank from the coming light, afraid, while dawn threatened her with
what, as yet, she had left undone. And even through the confused sense
of expectancy and consternation ran a fierce flame of happiness.
Then, unable to endure it longer, she flung the mask from her, facing
the tempest she had sown.
"Let me go, Jim," she said in a colorless voice.
But he held her hand closely imprisoned, and the next moment her body.
The rapid racket of her heart seemed to stifle her; she tried to
speak--lay inert, crushed against his shoulder, dumb, scarlet, under his
kiss.
"I love you," he said; "I've always loved you.... I'm a blackguard to
say it--penniless nobody that I am--without much chance to be anything
else, apparently. But I say it for better or worse.... I love you.
You like me, but you think lightly of me.... With sufficient reason, God
knows.... And I have no right to touch you--no right in decency or law,
Diana."
She forced herself away from him, but, somehow, held his hands clasped
convulsively in hers.
"You--shouldn't have kissed me," she managed to say. "You mustn't do it
again--ever."
He laid his face against their clasped hands; her own tightened.
"Nevertheless," he said, "I love you."
"You mustn't speak that way--" She dropped her flushed face; he lifted
it, and kissed her again.
When he released her, she leaned back against the silver birch, head
lowered, silent and did not move her hands from the moss as he bent and
kissed them, too.
When at last she found her voice, she spoke so low that he bent his head
closer to listen.
"That is the one imprudence I have never before committed--contact with
any man. You must not do it to me again.... I don't know how to take
it. I _can't_ love you. You know that." She looked up at him. "Don't
you know it?"
"Yes," he said stubbornly.
"You _do_ know that I can't; don't you? And that you cannot really love
me?"
"I suppose it ought to be that way; but it isn't."
And now the moment had come to make her desire a certainty--and finish
what she had set herself to do--for this man's sake. She said:
"You _can't_ care for me, Jim! What am I anyway? A shallow,
pleasure-loving nobody, who sells her frivolous social gifts because it
is pleasanter and easier to make a living that way than to exercise a
decent profession. How can such a man as you really fall in love with
such a woman?"
She rose to her feet and stood leaning against the tree; and he rose,
too, releasing her fingers.
She touched her hair, passed her hands slowly over her eyes, let them
fall idly by her side; then, after a moment, looked up at him, faintly
smiling.
"Melodrama is no use, is it?" she said. "You are not impressed by it; I
can't act it. Life is less serious than the stage. Shall we come back
together along the road to yesterday, and find our old, safe footing?
... And--shall I forgive you what you've done this summer day?"
"I want you to marry me," he said between compressed lips. "I'll make
good, yet."
"What!" she exclaimed in apparent amazement. "_You!_"
"Will you marry me?"
How she forced the light laughter she never understood; and she saw her
gayety bring the blood to his face like a whip lash.
"Marry! No, I won't marry you," she laughed. "Mercy on the man! Does
he suppose I wish to marry a professional entertainer?--a generally
useful gentleman--a big, strong, healthy, well-built, intelligent
fellow, too indolent to rouse himself and make a respectable
living?--too self-indulgent to start in a manly career and fight the
world--take it by the throat and shake a decent living out of its sinful
old pockets?"
A deeper flush of astonishment and mortification swept his face,
settling to the roots of his hair.
She did not seem to notice it or his silence.
"Nonsense," she laughed; "a girl, with any humor, simply _couldn't_ love
such a man, even if she wanted to, Jim. Because, how can she respect
him? ... You're a dear, generous fellow--nice to everybody, perfectly
sweet to Silvette and to me, and I _do_ like you--even _love_ you, in a
certain sense--and I didn't really mind being kissed any more than as
though Silvette had done it. But I'm simply not fashioned to lose my
head over a man who is hired by the month to be socially pleasant." She
laughed again, and laid her hand carelessly on his arm; and under her
touch she felt it was rigid and hard as iron.
"You see, don't you?" she said sweetly. "You're not grown up yet, Jim.
It takes more than you yet are to satisfy me."
He managed to force his voice out of his quivering throat.
"You're right," he said. "I didn't know what I was talking about. You
are worth trying for."
They turned away together; she slipped one hand confidently through his
arm, leaning on him lightly as they walked.
"You're not hopelessly offended, are you, Jim?"
"No--good God, no."
"I'd love you if I could," she said soothingly, "but the instincts of
mating with anything resembling servitude are wanting in me. Besides,
two slaves are enough for one family--Silvette and I.... You are not
hurt or angry at my very horrid frankness?"
"No.... What you said is all right." He lifted his eyes and looked his
punishment squarely in the face; and her heart failed her, so that she
turned her head swiftly, the tears stinging her throat.
They walked soberly on through the meadow up to the house. She gave him
her hand at parting; then went leisurely to her room to dress for
dinner.
And Silvette found her there alone on her knees beside the window,
partly undressed, her head buried in her arms, the brown locks
clustering against her pale and tear-stained face.
"Diana!" she exclaimed softly. "What is the matter, child?"
[Illustration: "'Diana!' she exclaimed softly."]
The girl got up wearily, keeping her face out of the flood of light from
the electric brackets.
"Nothing much," she said; "I've only been very horrid to Jim."
"I thought you were going to be kinder," said Silvette, astonished.
"I have been; but he doesn't know it."
Her sister stood silent, looking at her with sorrowful eyes.
"Don't sympathize with me; I--I can't bear it, Silvie."
"No--if you don't wish it, dear.... Shall I fix your bath? ...
And--_who_ do you suppose is downstairs?"
Diana looked up inquiringly.
"The man you flirted with so outrageously at Keno!"
"Which?" asked Diana naively.
"Billy Inwood!"
Diana brightened a little.
"At least," she said with sad satisfaction, "I can occupy my mind with
him for a while. He got away before he was thoroughly disciplined. _I_
believe there was another girl somewhere.... I think I'll obliterate
her--unless I approve of her. There's the making of a man in that boy,
Silvette."
But she decided otherwise a few moments before dinner was announced,
when Inwood made his appearance in the drawing-room and greeted his
hostess. Then, catching sight of her, he came hastily toward her with
both hands outstretched.
"Diana!" he exclaimed; "_isn't_ this jolly! I'm terribly glad to see you
again... And Silvette! Oh, this is simply too delightful! I----"
Speech stopped, perhaps froze on his lips; then he turned fiery red as
he stepped forward to greet Mrs. Wemyss. A year ago she had been a
comparatively slim and pretty divorcee; to-day even the embarrassing
opulence and prodigality of her charms had not altered the doll-like
perfection of her features. He knew her instantly, and, in his brain,
chaos menaced him.
"How do you do," he said; "this is most delightful and surprising.
Lilly----"
"Charming," murmured Mrs. Wemyss; and, under her smile, she lowered her
voice: "I'm Lilly Wemyss; I've taken my maiden name. Don't forget, and
call me Mrs. Atherstane."
He nodded, the fixed smile imprinted on his features; and it remained
there as they stood in conversation until dinner was announced.
He took in Christine. The girl's arm rested lightly as a feather on his
sleeve. During dinner she talked to him pleasantly, but without
animation; and, somehow, all seemed to go wrong with him, for he found
scarcely anything to say to Christine--anything that was not trite and
banal. And his haunted eyes reverted again and again to Mrs. Wemyss.
"Oh, Lord!" he thought, "what a horrible mess; and is Lilly going to
expect me to--to----"
But his scared wits could speculate no farther, and he sat beside
Christine, worried, unhappy, penitent, too miserable to enjoy the moment
to which he had looked forward so impetuously all day long--a moment
which, two days ago, he dared not believe would ever again come into his
life.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*MILLE MODI VENERIS*
A number of matters had been slightly disturbing Colonel Curmew's
intellect and digestion. One thing, he had lost money at cards--a thing
he hated as heartily as Judge Wicklow hated it. Another matter--Jack
Rivett had fairly driven him out of Silvette's vicinity. True, an
easily transferred devotion to her sister already consoled him; the one
was as ornamental as the other, but he liked young Rivett no better.
He desired to ingratiate himself with Jack because the boy had never
liked him, and he neither understood why nor became reconciled to it;
and he was always making advances and assuming, under the jocular
familiarity of an older man, that there existed between himself and Jack
a delightful and cordial understanding, which Jack coolly ignored; and
the colonel disliked him the more.
Then, there was another matter which occupied him--had occupied him,
now, for several years. He meant to marry Christine Rivett some day.
For the present he was satisfied to treat her with the same jovial
familiarity with which he treated her brother; and now it seemed to him
that Christine, whom he feared might become too much interested in
Edgerton, was veering toward this young Inwood fellow who had just
arrived.
Colonel Curmew was not actually alarmed; he was merely bored, and now
and then a trifle uneasy, because he had to take this and other matters
into his calculations in being attentive to Diana Tennant.
No, he was not worried. He Lad become cheerfully convinced that both
these matters could be properly attended to. Let Christine have her
fling and grow up. Her fortune kept pace with her, anyway.
But about Diana Tennant he had not yet entirely made up his mind--and
yet he had made it up, too, after a fashion.
There were, including Diana's youth and beauty, several things about her
which were likely to attract the attention of such a man as Follis
Curmew. First of all, she was poor. Also, she was self-supporting and
alone in the world except for a similarly situated sister who didn't
count, and a very distant relative who didn't really count, either.
She was beautiful and clever; men appreciate such women. Such women, he
also believed, deeply appreciated the kind of things they could not
afford.... And, furthermore, he did not hesitate to believe that such
women were perfectly capable of appreciating middle-aged military
gentlemen of discretion, fortune, and liberality in reason.
So he contrived to get as close to Diana as he could on all occasions;
and very often, to her surprise, she found him at her heels or seated
unnaturally near her, pale eyes slightly protruding, his curling
mustache and little side whiskers faintly redolent of brilliantine.
Amused, and not yet uneasy, she mentioned his assiduity to her sister,
and thought nothing further of it; nor did Silvette, preoccupied with an
episode of her own which threatened to become something approaching a
problem.
Instinct told her that Jack Rivett preferred her to anybody at Adriutha;
and she liked him well enough to find his attention agreeable. But
little by little it became more marked--to her, if not to others--and
she experienced a slight uneasiness concerning this very rich and idle
only son, the ambition of whose father had now become plain to her.
So Silvette at first very pleasantly discouraged him, and kept out of
tete-a-tetes as much as possible, in which maneuvers she was not very
successful. For the girl found in this lazy, witty, good-humored,
self-indulgent young fellow a cool and confident adversary--resistless
because of his charming manner toward her and his unvarying cheerfulness
under rebuffs which were becoming more frequent and more severe--and,
alas, more useless.
About a week after Inwood's arrival, while writing a letter in the
rose-garden pavilion, a shadow checkered the lattice work and fell
across her note paper; and, glancing up, she beheld Jack Rivett, hands
in his coat pockets, the breeze ruffling his blond hair.
[Illustration: "Glancing up, she beheld Jack Rivett."]
"I'm writing," she said, annoyed.
"I'll sit down on the sundial," he rejoined with a bow and a smile as
though accepting a delightful invitation.
"But I'll be writing about two hours," she observed coldly.
"Writing about two hours?" he repeated. "But why write about hours at
all, dear lady. An hour is an arbitrary division of time, interesting
only to the unhappy."
"Very witty," she said. "Go and scratch it on the sundial."
And she resumed her letter, trying not to be aware of the blond young
man seated just outside the summer house, where the sun gilded his hair
and the wind mussed it into a most becoming mop.
Several times she bit the pearl tip of her penholder, frowning; but he
always seemed to catch her eye at such moments, and her deepening frown
only produced on his face an expression which was so very humble that it
became almost mischievous.
"Jack!"
He hurriedly rose, and looked all around him among the roses as though
eagerly searching for the person who had called him.
"_Jack!_" she repeated emphatically.
He pretended to discover her for the first time, and hurried joyously to
the lattice door.
"Jack--you perfect idiot! I want to write, and I simply can't, with you
sitting around in that martyred manner."
"How far away shall I retire?" he inquired, so sad and crestfallen, that
between amusement and annoyance she did not reply, but merely sat
tapping with her pen and inspecting her letter.
As she did not speak again, very cautiously--and holding up one hand as
an unwelcome dog holds up one beseeching paw to ward off calamity--he
ventured to seat himself on a bench outside the summer house.
She was perfectly aware of the inimitable pantomime, and a violent
desire to laugh seized her, but she only bit her lip and resolutely
dipped her pen into the ink once more.
She wrote obstinately, knowing all the while that she'd have to rewrite
it. His excessive stillness began to get on her nerves; and, after a
quarter of an hour's preternatural silence, she could endure it no
longer.
"Jack!"
"Dear lady?" he replied patiently.
"Why don't you say something?"
"I was forbidden the exquisite consolation of noise."
"It's horribly hot and still out here. Why don't the birds sing?"
"They're moulting, dear lady. All their little pin feathers have become
unfastened, and their bills are probably full of pins while they make
themselves tidy again."
"So that is why they don't sing in July?" she said.
"That is why," he explained seriously.
"Well, then, why don't _you_ sing? _You_ are not untidy."
"Nothing could suit my pensive and melancholy mood better," he said
sadly.
A moment later, sitting outside her door, he began with deep emotion to
sing one of Kirk's melting melodies:
"_With head bowed low a dentist stood_
_Before his office chair;_
_A handsome lady customer_
_Into his eyes did stare._
_He tried to fake a careless smile_
_And hide his drooping jaw,_
_But all in vain because his guilt_
_Was plainly to be saw._
_His voice was choked with shame and fear,_
_He said, 'Forgive me, miss!'_
_But when he begged her pardon there_
_The lady then did hiss:_
_Chorus._
"'_Take back them teeth you made me! I_
_Won't wear them in my face!_
_Go hang them in your parlor as_
_A badge of your disgrace._
_You swore them crowns was solid gold!_
_You're false--like teeth and men!_
_Take back them teeth, you lobster!_
_Never speak to me again!_
_Take back--take ba-ack--take ba-a-a----_'"
"Jack!" she exclaimed, "that is the most--most degraded thing I ever
heard you utter!"
"I'm accustoming you, by degrees, to my repertoire. With infinite
precautions you will, in time, be able to endure much worse than this,"
he explained kindly. "Now, what shall we try next, dear lady? I have a
little song called: 'Only a pint of shoe strings!'"
"Don't you dare attempt it! ... Jack, _please_ go away. Won't you, when
I ask it?"
"She mutters the unthinkable," he said, shaking his head. "My music has
unseated her reason. By and by she will begin to moan and revive."
"It's perfectly outrageous," she said, tearing up what she had written,
and moving aside a little so that sufficient space remained for--her
sister, perhaps. So he entered the summer house and waited for an
invitation, bland, cheerful, irresistible.
"I had no idea I was so pitiably weak-minded," she said.
He accepted the avowal as his invitation, and seated himself.
"Silvette," he said genially, "what are we going to do to-day?"
"Who?"
"Why, you and I. Who cares what the others do in this mad world, dear
lady?"
"I don't know about the world," she said, "but there's one girl in it
who is mad; and she's going to her room to write letters."
"When?"
"Now!"
"Don't."
"Indeed, I shall!"
"Shall, or will?" he inquired, guilelessly, "People mix up those two
auxiliaries so persistently that there's no telling what anybody really
means in these days."
She considered a moment, then turned and looked at him.
"Jack," she said sweetly, "don't follow me about?"
"I? Follow _you_! That's more madness, dear lady. Who on earth ever
whispered to you that I could ever do such a----"
"Won't you be serious, please?"
Her pretty, dark eyes were serious enough, even appealing. He became
solemn at once.
"You have forced me to say this," she ventured. "I didn't wish to; I
thought you'd understand, but you don't seem to. So I am compelled to
say to you that--it is--better taste for you to--not to----"
She hesitated, glanced up at him, colored brightly.
"You know perfectly well what I mean! And there you sit, letting me try
to tell you as nicely as I can----"
"About what, dear lady?"
"About you and me!" she said, incensed. "You know perfectly well that
I've been obliged to avoid being alone with you."
"Why?"
"Because," she said, intensely annoyed, "I am employed by your parents,
and you are an only son of Mr. Jacob Rivett.... Is that unmistakable?"
He said nothing.
She went on: "You know I like you, Jack. You seem to like me. If you
do, you'll understand that this--this continually seeking me out,
separating me from the others, isn't fair to me.... I'm trying not to
talk nonsense about it. I know you mean nothing but kindness; but it
isn't wise, and it is not agreeable, either. So let us enjoy our very
delightful friendship as freely among others as we do when alone
together--" She stopped abruptly, blushed to her hair, furious at
herself, astonished that her tongue could have blundered so. The next
instant she understood that he was too decent to notice her blunder.
Indeed, to look at him, she almost persuaded herself that he had not
even heard her speak, so coolly remote were his eyes, so preoccupied his
air as he sat facing the far hills, blue in the July haze.
Presently he looked up at her.
"What was it you were lecturing me about?" he asked cheerfully.
"About our twosing, Jack."
"Did you say you _did_ prefer it, or otherwise?"
"Otherwise--you monkey!" she said, laughing, free of the restraint and
of the bright color that had made even her neck hot.
"Very well," he said briskly; "keep your distance! Don't start running
after me the moment I come in sight across the landscape. Will you
promise?"
"I promise," she said solemnly.
"Thank you. I shall have a little leisure now. I'll have so much I
won't know what to do with it. Can you advise me?"
"I cannot."
"Then I'll have to think for myself.... I'll have to do something, of
course.... Suppose you and I take a canoe----"
"Canoes hold only two, Jack."
"By Jove! What am I thinking of! Thank you for saving me from
incredible suffering.... So suppose we don't take a canoe, you and I,
but we take the red runabout?"
"Jack!"
"What?"
"The red runabout holds two, only."
"I must be demented!" he said with a shudder.... "Silvette, I'll tell
you what we'll do--we'll take a walk, you and I. There's room all
around us for millions of other people. They can come if they like; if
they don't, why, it's up to them!"
"No, Jack."
"Won't it do?"
"No. Why won't you be a little bit serious about a matter that, after
all, concerns me very nearly."
"I _am_ serious," he said. "It concerns me, too."
"No, it doesn't."
"Indeed, it does. Two people are not to go twosing any more; _I'm_ one
of those people. Therefore, it concerns me, doesn't it?"
She looked at him, confused, half smiling, half reluctant.
"Don't you know," she said, "that your attention to me is worrying your
father and mother?"
He thought a moment, then slowly turned toward her a sober and youthful
face, from which all humor had departed; and she looked back at him out
of grave young eyes that met his very sweetly, but inexorably.
"Do you mean it, Silvette?"
"About your parents?"
"Yes."
"Yes, I do, Jack."