Archey Forbes came back in the beginning of May and the first call he
made was to the house on the hill. He had brought with him a collection
of souvenirs--a trench-made ring, shrapnel fragments of curious shapes,
the inevitable helmet and a sword handle with a piece of wire attached.
"It was part of our work once," he said, "to find booby traps and make
them harmless. This was in a barn, looking as though some one had tried
to hide his sword in the hay. It looked funny to me, so I went at it easy
and found the wire connected to a fuse. There was enough explosive to
blow up the barn and everybody around there, but it wouldn't blow up a
hill of bears when we got through with it."
He coloured a little through his bronze. "I thought you might like these
things," he awkwardly continued.
"Like them? I'd love them!" said Mary, her eyes sparkling.
"I brought them for you."
They were both silent for a time, looking at the souvenirs, but presently
their glances met and they smiled at each other.
"Of course you're going back to the factory," she said; and when he
hesitated she continued, "I shall rely on you to let me know how things
are going on."
Again he coloured a little beneath his bronze and Mary found herself
watching it with an indefinable feeling of satisfaction. And after he was
gone and she was carrying the souvenirs to the den, she also found
herself singing a few broken bars from the Blue Danube.
"Is that you singing!" shouted Helen from the library.
"Trying to."
Helen came hurrying as though to see a miracle, for Mary couldn't sing.
"Oh--oh!" she said, her eyes falling on the helmet. "Who sent it? Wally
Cabot?"
"No; Archey Forbes brought it."
"Oh-ho!" said Helen again. "Now I see-ee-ee!"
But if she did, she saw more than Mary.
"Perhaps she thinks I'm in love with him," she thought, and though the
reflection brought a pleasant sense of disturbance with it, it wasn't
long before she was shaking her head.
"I don't know what it is," she decided at last, "but I'm sure I'm not in
love with him."
As nearly as I can express it, Mary was in love with love, and could no
more help it than she could help the crease in her chin or the dreaminess
of her eyes. If Archey had had the field to himself, her heart might soon
have turned to him as unconsciously and innocently as a flower turns its
petals to the sun. But the day after Archey returned, Wally Cabot came
back and he, too, laid his souvenirs at Mary's feet.
It was the same Wally as ever.
He had also brought a piece of old lace for Aunt Cordelia, a jet necklace
for Aunt Patty, a prison-camp brooch for Helen. All afternoon he held
them with tales of his adventures in the air, rolling up his sleeve to
show them a scar on his arm, and bending his head down so they could see
where a German ace had nicked a bit of his hair out.
More than once Mary felt her breath come faster, and when Aunt Cordelia
invited him to stay to dinner and he chanced to look at her, she gave a
barely perceptible signal "Yes," and smiled to herself at the warmth of
his acceptance.
"I'll telephone mother," he said, briskly rising. "Where's the phone,
Mary? I forget the way."
She arose to show him.
"Let's waltz out," he laughed. "Play something, Helen. Something lively
and happy...."
It was a long time before Mary went to sleep that night. The moon was
nearly full and shone in her windows, a stream of its rays falling on her
bed and bringing to her those immortal waves of fancy which begin where
the scent of flowers stop, and end where immortal and melancholy music
begins. Unbidden tears came to her eyes, though she couldn't have told
you why, and again a sense of the fleeting of time disturbed her.
"Aunt Mary ..." In a few years she would be old, and her hair would be
white like Aunt Patty's.... And in a few years more....
But even as Wally Cabot kept her from thinking too much of Archey Forbes,
so now Archey unconsciously revenged himself and kept her thoughts from
centring too closely around Wally Cabot.
Archey called the next afternoon and Mary sat on the veranda steps with
him, while Helen made hay with Wally on a tête-à-tête above.
The few women who were left in the factory were having things made
unpleasant for them: that was what Archey had come to tell her. Their
canteen had been stopped; the day nursery discontinued; the nurses
discharged.
"Of course they are not needed there any longer, so far as that is
concerned," concluded Archey, "but they certainly helped us out of a hole
when we did need them, and it doesn't seem right now to treat them
rough."
At hearing this, a guilty feeling passed over Mary and left her cheeks
warm. "They'll think I've deserted them," she thought.
"Well, haven't you?" something inside her asked.
Some of her old dreams returned to her mind, as though to mock her. She
was going to be a new Moses once, leading her sisters out of the house of
bondage. Woman was to have things different. Old drudgeries were to be
lifted from her shoulders. The night was over. The dawn was at hand.
"Well, what can I do?" she thought uneasily.
"You can stop them from being treated roughly," something inside her
answered.
"I can certainly do that," she nodded to herself. "I'll telephone Uncle
Stanley right away."
But Uncle Stanley was out, and Mary was going riding with Wally that
afternoon. So she wrote a hurried note and left it at the factory as they
passed by.
"Dear Uncle Stanley," it read,
"Please see that every courtesy and attention is shown, the women who are
still working. We may need them again some day.
"Sincerely,
"MARY."
"Now!" she said to Wally, and they started on their ride. And, oh, but
that was a ride!
The afternoon was perfect, the sun warm but not hot, the air crystal
clear. It had showered the night before and the world, in its spring
dress, looked as though it had been washed and spruced for their
approval.
"All roses and lilies!" laughed Wally. "That's how I like life!"
They went along hillsides and looked down into the beautiful valleys;
they wound around by the sides of rivers and through deep woods; they
went like the wind; they loafed; they explored country lanes and lost
their way, stopped at a farm-house and found it again, shouted with
delight when a squirrel tried to race them along the top of a fence,
gasped together when they nearly ran over a turkey, chatted, laughed,
sang (though this was a solo, for Mary couldn't sing, though she tried
now and then under her breath), and with every mile they rode they seemed
to pass invisible milestones along the road which leads from friendship
to love.
It came to a crisis two weeks later, on an afternoon in June.
Mary was in the garden picking a bouquet for the table, and Wally went to
help her. She gave him a smile that made his heart do a trick, and when
he bent over to help her break a piece of mignonette, his hand touched
hers....
"Mary...." he whispered.
"Yes?"
"Do you love me a little bit now?"
"I wonder...." said she, and they both bent over to pick another piece of
mignonette. Away down deep in Mary, a voice whispered, "Somebody's
watching." She looked toward the house and caught sight of Helen who was
sitting sideways on the veranda rail and missing never a move.
Wally followed Mary's glance.
"She'll be down here in a minute," he frowned to himself. At the bottom
of the lawn, overlooking the valley, was a summer house of rustic cedar,
nearly covered with honeysuckle.
"Let's take a stroll down there, shall we?" he asked.
The tremor of his voice told Mary more than his words.
"He wants to love me," she thought, and burying her face in her bouquet
she said in a muffled little voice, "...I don't care."
They went down to the summer house, talking, trying to appear
indifferent, but both of them knowing that a truly tremendous moment in
their drama of life was close at hand.
They seated themselves opposite each other on the bench and Mary's dreamy
eyes went out over the valley.
"Mary...." he began. She looked at him for a moment and then her glance
went out over the valley again.
"Don't you think we've waited long enough?" he gently asked.
But Mary's eyes were still upon the valley below.
"In a way, I'm glad you've waited," he said. "Judge Cutler told me some
of the wonderful things you did here during the war. But you don't want
to be bothering with a factory as long as you live. It's grubby, narrow
work, and there's so much else in life, so much that's beautiful and--and
wonderful--"
For a fleeting moment a picture arose before Mary's eyes: a tired woman
bending over a wash-tub with a crying child tugging at her skirt. "So
much that's beautiful--and wonderful"--the words were still echoing
around her, and almost without thinking she said a peculiar thing.
"Suppose we were poor," said she.
"But we aren't poor," smiled Wally. "That's one reason why I want to take
you away from this. What's the use of having things if you can't enjoy
them?"
She thought that over.
"There is so much that I have always wanted to see," he continued, "but
I've had sense enough to wait until I found the right girl--so we could
go and see it together. Switzerland--and the Nile--and Japan--and the
Riviera, with 'its skies for ever blue.' Any place we liked, we could
stay till we were tired of it. And a house in New York--and an island in
the St. Lawrence--or down near Palm Beach. There's nothing we couldn't
do--nothing we couldn't have--"
"But don't you think--" hesitated Mary and then stopped, timid of
breaking the spell which was stealing over her.
"Don't I think what, dear?"
"Oh, I don't know--but you see so many married people, who seem to have
lost interest in each other--nice people, too. You see them at North East
Harbor--Boston--everywhere--and somehow they are bored at each other's
company. Wouldn't it be awful if--if we were to be married--and then got
like that, too?"
"We never, never could! Oh, we couldn't! You know as well as I do that we
couldn't!"
"They must have felt that way once," she mused, her thoughts still upon
the indifferent ones, "but I suppose if people were awfully careful to
guard against it, they wouldn't get that way--"
She felt Wally's arm along the back of the bench.
"Don't be afraid of love, Mary," he whispered. "Don't you know by now
that it's the one great thing in life?"
"I wonder...." breathed Mary.
"Oh, but it is. You shouldn't wonder. It's the sweetest story ever
told--the greatest adventure ever lived--"
But still old dreams echoed in her memory, though growing fainter with
every breath she drew.
"It's all right for the man," she murmured. "If he gets tired of hearing
the story, he's got other thoughts to occupy his mind. He's got his
work--his career. But what's the woman going to do?"
Instinct told him how to answer her.
"I love you," he whispered.
She looked at him. Somewhere over them a robin began to sing as though
its breast would burst. The scent of the honeysuckle grew intoxicating.
"Your heart is beating faster," he whispered again. "'Tck-tck-tck' it's
saying. 'There's going to be a wedding next month'--'Tck-tck-tck' it's
saying. 'Lieutenant Cabot is now about to kiss his future bride--"
Mary's head bent low and just as Wally was lifting it, his hand gently
cupped beneath her chin, he caught sight of Helen running toward them.
"Oh, Mary!" she called.
With an involuntary movement, Mary freed herself from Wally's hand.
"Four women to see you--from the factory, I think," Helen breathlessly
announced, and pretending not to notice Wally's scowl she added, "I
wouldn't have bothered you ... only one of them's crying...."