That afternoon, after making this elaborate but by no means misleading explanation to Willie, Bob sent off to a Boston jeweler a registered package and while impatiently awaiting its return set to work with redoubled zest at the new invention.
What an amazingly different aspect the motor-boat enterprise had assumed since yesterday! Then his one idea had been to humor Willie's whim and in return for the old man's hospitality lend such aid to the undertaking as he was able. But now Zenas Henry's launch had suddenly become a glorified object, sacred to the relatives of the divinity of the workshop, and how and where the flotsam of the tides ensnared it was of colossal importance. Into solving the nautical enigma Robert Morton now threw every ounce of his energy and while at work artfully drew from his companion every detail he could obtain of Delight Hathaway's strange story.
He learned how theMichleenhad been wrecked on the Wilton Shoals in the memorable gale of 1910; how the child's father had perished with the ship, leaving his little daughter friendless in the world; how Zenas Henry and the three aged captains had risked their lives to bring the little one ashore; and how the Brewsters had taken her into their home and brought her up. It was a simple tale and simply told, but the heroism of the romance touched it with an epic quality that gripped the listener's imagination and sympathies tenaciously. And now the waif snatched from the grasp of the covetous sea had blossomed into this exquisite being; this creature beloved, petted, and well-nigh spoiled by a proudly exultant community.
For although legally a member of the Brewster family, Willie explained, the girl had come to belong in a sense to the entire village. Had she not been cast an orphan upon its shores, and were not its treacherous shoals responsible for her misfortune? Wilton, to be sure, was not actually answerable for the crimes those hidden sand bars perpetrated, but nevertheless the fisherfolk could not quite shake themselves free of the shadow cast upon them by the tragedies ever occurring at their gateway. Too many of their people had gone down to the sea in ships never to return for them to become callous to the disasters they were continually forced to witness. The wreck of theMichleenhad been one of the most pathetic of these horrors, and the welfare of the child who in consequence of it had come into the hamlet's midst had become a matter of universal concern.
"'Tain't to be wondered at the girl is loved," continued Willie. "At first people took an interest in her, or tried to, from a sense of duty, for you couldn't help bein' sorry for the little thing. But 'twarn't long before folks found out 'twarn't no hardship to be fond of Delight Hathaway. She was livin' sunshine, that's what she was! Wherever she went, be it one end of town or t'other, she brought happiness. In time it got so that if you was to drop in where there was sickness or trouble an' spied a nosegay of flowers, you could be pretty sure Delight had been there. Why, Lyman Bearse's father, old Lyman, that's so crabbed with rhumatism that it's a cross to live under the same roof with him, will calm down gentle as a dove when Delight goes to read to him. As for Mis' Furber, I reckon she'd never get to the Junction to do a mite of shoppin' or marketin' but for Delight stayin' with the babies whilst she was gone. I couldn't tell you half what that girl does. She's here, there, an' everywhere. Now she's gettin' up a party for the school children; now makin' a birthday cake for somebody; now trimmin' a bunnit for Tiny or helpin' her plan out a dress."
Willie stopped to rummage on a distant shelf for a level.
"Once," he went on, "Sarah Libbie Lewis asked me what Delight was goin' to be. I told her there warn't no goin' to be about it; Delight was bein' it right now. She didn't need to go soundin' for a mission in life."
"I take it you are not in favor of careers for women, Mr. Spence," observed Robert Morton, who had been eagerly drinking in every word the old man uttered.
"Yes, I am," contradicted the inventor. "There's times when a girl needs a career, but there's other times when to desert one's plain duty an' go huntin' a callin' is criminal. Queer how people will look right over the top of what they don't want to see, ain't it? I s'pose its human nature though," he mused.
A soft breeze stirred the shavings on the floor.
"Tiny thinks," resumed the quiet voice, "that I mix myself up too much with other folks's concerns anyhow. Leastways, she says I let their troubles weigh on me more'n I'd ought. But to save my life I can't seem to help it. Don't you believe those on the outside of a tangle sometimes see it straighter than them that is snarled up in the mess?"
Robert Morton nodded.
"That's the way I figger it," rambled on the old man. "Mebbe that's the reason I can't keep my fingers out of the pie. You'd be surprised enough if you was to know the things I've been dragged into in my lifetime; family quarrels, will-makin's, business matters that I didn't know no more about than the man in the moon. Why, I've even taken a hand in love affairs!"
He broke into a peal of hearty laughter. "That's the beatereee!" he declared, slapping his thigh. "'Magine me up to my ears in a love affair! But I have been—scores of 'em, enough I reckon, put 'em all together, to marry off the whole of Cape Cod."
"You must be quite an authority on the heart by this time," Robert Morton ventured.
"I ain't," the other declared soberly. "You see, none of the snarls was ever the same, so you kinder had to feel your way along every time like as if you was navigatin' a new channel. Women may be all alike, take 'em in the main, but they're almighty different when you get 'em to the fine point, an' that's what raises the devil with makin' any general rule for managin' 'em."
The philosopher held the piece of wood he had been planing to the light and examined it critically.
"Once," he resumed, taking up his work again, "when Dave Furber was courtin' Katie Bearse, I drove over to Sawyer's Falls with him to get Katie a birthday present an' among other things we thought we'd buy some candy. We went into a store, I recollect, where there was all kinds spread out in trays, an' Dave an' me started to pick out what we'd have. As I stood there attemptin' to decide, I couldn't help thinkin' that selectin' that candy was a good deal like choosin' a wife. You couldn't have all the different kinds, an' makin' up your mind which you preferred was a seven-days' conundrum."
The little inventor took off his spectacles, wiped them, and replaced them upon his nose.
"Luckily, as we was fixed, there was a chance in the box for quite a few sorts, so that saved the day. But s'pose, I got to thinkin', you could only have one variety out of the lot—which would you take? That's the sticker you face when choosin' a wife. S'pose, for instance, I was pinned down to nothin' but caramels. The caramel is a good, square, sensible, dependable candy. You can see through the paper exactly what you're gettin'. There's nothin' concealed or lurkin' in a caramel. Moreover, it lasts a long time an' you don't get tired of it. It's just like some women—not much to look at, but wholesome an' with good wearin' qualities. Should you choose the caramel, you'd feel sure you was doin' the wise thing, wouldn't you?"
Robert Morton smiled into the half-closed blue eyes that met his so whimsically.
"But along in the next tray to the caramel," Willie went on, "was bonbons—every color of the rainbow they were, an' pretty as could be; an' they held all sorts of surprises inside 'em, too. They was temptin'! But the minute you put your mind on it you knew they'd turn out sweet and sickish, an' that after gettin' 'em you'd wish you hadn't. There's plenty of women like that in the world. Mebbe you ain't seen 'em, but I have."
"Yes."
"Besides these, there was dishes of sparklin' jelly things on the counter, that the girl said warn't much use—gone in no time; they were just meant to dress up the box. I called 'em brainless candies—just silly an' expensive, an' if you look around you'll find women can match 'em. An' along with 'em you can put the candied violets an' sugared rose leaves that only make a man out of pocket an' ain't a mite of use to him."
Willie scanned his companion's face earnestly.
"Finally, after runnin' the collection over, it kinder come down to a choice between caramels or chocolates. Even then I still stood firm for the caramel, there bein' no way of makin' sure what I'd get inside the chocolate. I warn't willin' to go it blind, I told Dave. A chocolate's a sort of unknowable thing, ain't it? There's no fathomin' it at sight. After you've got it you may be pleased to death with what's inside it an' then again you may not. So we settled mostly on caramels for Katie. I said to Dave comin' home it was lucky men warn't held down to one sort of candy like they are to one sort of wife, an' he most laughed his head off. Then he asked me what kind of sweet I thought Katie was, an' I told him I reckoned she was the caramel variety, an' he said he thought so, too. We warn't fur wrong neither, for she's turned out 'bout as we figgered. Mebbe she ain't got the looks or the sparkle of the bonbons or jelly things, but she's worn almighty well, an' made Dave a splendid wife."
"With all your excellent theories about women, I wonder you never picked out a wife for yourself, Mr. Spence," Robert Morton remarked mischievously.
"Me get married?" questioned Willie, staring at the speaker open-eyed over the top of his spectacles.
"Why not?"
"Why, bless your heart, I never thought of it!" answered the little man naïvely. "It's taken 'bout all my time to get other folks spliced together. Besides," he added, "I've had my inventin'."
He glanced out of the window at a moving figure, then shot abruptly to the door and called to some one who was passing:
"Hi, Jack!"
A man in coast-guard uniform waved his hand.
"How are you, Willie?" he shouted.
"All right," was the reply. "How are you an' Sarah Libbie makin' out?"
"Same as ever."
"You ain't said nothin' to her yet?"
Robert Morton saw the burly fellow in the road sheepishly dig his heel into the sand.
"N—o, not yet."
"An' never will!" ejaculated the inventor returning wrathfully to the shop. "That feller," he explained as he resumed his seat, "has been upwards, of twenty years tryin' to tell Sarah Libbie Lewis he's in love with her. He knows it an' so does she, but somehow he just can't put the fact into words. I'm clean out of patience with him. Why, one day he actually had the face to come in here an' ask me to tell her—me! What do you think of that?"
Robert Morton chuckled at his companion's rage.
"Did you?"
"Did I?" repeated Willie with scorn. "Can you see me doin' it? No, siree! I just up an' told Jack Nickerson if he warn't man enough to do his own courtin' he warn't man enough for any self-respectin' woman to marry. An' furthermore, I said he needn't step foot over the sill of this shop 'till he'd took some action in the matter. That hit him pretty hard, I can tell you, 'cause he used to admire to come in here an' set round whenever he warn't on duty. But he saw I meant it, an' he ain't been since."
The old man paused.
"I kinder bit off my own nose when I took that stand," he admitted, an intonation of regret in his tone, "'cause Jack's mighty good company. Still, there was nothin' for it but firm handlin'."
"How long ago did you cast him out?" Bob asked with a chuckle.
"Oh, somethin' over a week or ten days ago," was the reply. "I thought he might have made some progress by now. But I ain't given up hope of him yet. He's been sorter quiet the last two times I've seen him, an' I figger he's mullin' things over, an' mebbe screwin' up his courage."
The room was still save for the purr of the plane.
"I suppose you will be marrying Miss Hathaway off some day," observed Bob a trifle self-consciously, without raising his eyes from his work.
"You bet I won't," came emphatically from the old inventor. "I've got some courage but not enough for that. You see, the man that marries her has got to have the nerve to face the whole village—brave Zenas Henry, the three captains, an' Abbie Brewster, besides winnin' the girl herself. 'Twill be some contract. No, you can be mortal sure I shan't go meddlin' in no such love affair as that. Anyhow, I won't be needed, for any man that Delight Hathaway would look at twice will be perfectly capable of meetin' all comers; don't you worry."
With this dubious comfort Willie stamped with spirit out of the shop.
Days came and went, days golden and blue, until a week had passed, and although Robert Morton haunted the post-office, nothing was heard from the jeweler to whom he had sent the silver buckle. Neither did the eager young man catch even a fleeting glimpse of its owner. It was, he told himself, unlikely that she would come to the Spence house again. When her property was repaired she probably would expect some one either to let her know, or bring it to her. It was to the latter alternative that Bob was pinning his hopes. The errand would provide a perfectly natural excuse for him to go to the Brewster home, and once there he would meet the girl's family and perhaps be asked to come again. Until the trinket came back from Boston, therefore, he must bide his time with patience.
Nevertheless the logic of these arguments did not prevent him from turning sharply toward the door of the workshop whenever there was a footfall on the grass. Any day, any hour, any moment the lady of his dreams might appear once more. Had not Willie said that she sometimes trimmed bonnets for Tiny? And was it not possible, yea, even likely that his aunt might be needing a bonnet right away. Women were always needing bonnets, argued the young man vaguely; at least, both his mother and sister were, and he had not yet lived long enough in his aunt's household to realize that with Tiny Morton the purchase of a bonnet was not an equally casual enterprise. He even had the temerity to ask Celestina when he saw her arrayed for the grange one afternoon why she did not have a hat with pink in it and was chagrined to receive the reply that she did not like pink; and that anyway her hat was well enough as it was, and she shouldn't have another for a good couple of years.
"I don't go throwin' money away on new hats like you city folks do," she said somewhat tartly. "A hat has to do me three seasons for best an' a fourth for common. I've too much to do to go chasin' after the fashions. I leave that to Bart Coffin's wife."
"Who is Bart Coffin?" inquired Bob, amused by her show of spirit.
"You ain't met Bart?"
"Not yet."
"Well, you will. He's the one who always used to stow all his catch of fish in the bow of the boat 'cause he said it was easier to row downhill. He ain't no heavyweight for brains as you can see, an' years ago he married a wife feather-headed as himself. He did it out of whole cloth, too, so he's got no one to blame if he don't like his bargain. At the time of the weddin' he was terrible stuck up about his bride, an' he gave her a black satin dress that outdid anything the town had ever laid eyes on. It was loaded down with ruffles, an' jet, an' lace, an' fitted her like as if she was poured into it. Folks said it was made in Brockton, but whether it was or not there's no way of knowin'. Anyhow, back she pranced to Wilton in that gown an' for a year or more, whenever there was a church fair, or a meetin' of the Eastern Star, or a funeral, you'd be certain of seein' Minnie Coffin there in her black satin. There wasn't a lay-out in town could touch it, an' by an' by it got so that it set the mark on every gatherin' that was held, those where Minnie's satin didn't appear bein' rated as of no account." Celestina paused, and her mouth took an upward curve, as if some pleasant reverie engrossed her. "But after a while," she presently went on, "there came an upheaval in the styles; sleeves got smaller, an' skirts began to be nipped in. Minnie's dress warn't wore a particle but it looked as out-of-date as Joseph's coat would look on Willie. The women sorter nudged one another an' said that now Mis' Bartley Coffin would have to step down a peg an' stop bein' leader of the fashions."
Celestina ceased rocking and leaned forward impressively.
"But did she?" declaimed she with oratorical eloquence. "Did she? Not a bit of it. Minnie got pictures an' patterns from Boston; scanted the skirt; took in the sleeves; made a wide girdle with the breadths she took out of the front—an' there she was again, high-steppin' as ever!"
Robert Morton laughed with appreciation.
"Since then," continued Celestina, "for at least fifteen years she's been makin' that dress over an' over. Now she'll get a new breadth of goods or a couple of breadths, turn the others upside down or cut 'em over, an' by keepin' everlastingly at it she contrives to look like the pictures in the papers most of the time. It's maddenin' to the rest of us. Abbie Brewster knows Minnie well an' somewhere in a book she's got set down the gyrations of that dress. I wouldn't be bothered recordin' it but Abbie always was a methodical soul. She could give you the date of every inch of satin in the whole thing. Just now there's 1914 sleeves; the front breadths are 1918; the back ones 1911. Most of the waist is January, 1912, with a June, 1913, vest. Half the girdle is made out of 1910 satin, an' half out of 1919. Of course there's lights when the blacks don't all look the same; still, unless you got close up you wouldn't notice it, an' Minnie Coffin keeps on settin' the styles for the town like she always has."
The narrator paused for breath.
"She's makin' it over again right now," she announced, rising from her chair and moving toward the pantry. "You can always tell when she is 'cause she pulls down all her front curtains an' won't come to the door when folks knock. The shades was down when Abbie an' me drove by there last week an' to make sure Abbie got out an' tapped to' see if anybody'd come to let us in, but nobody did. We said then: 'Minnie's resurrectin' the black satin.' You mark my words she'll be in church in it Sunday. It generally takes her about ten days to get it done. I was expectin' she'd give it another overhauling, for she ain't done nothin' to it for three months at least an' the styles have changed quite a little in that time. Sometimes I tell Willie I believe we'll live to see her laid out in that dress yet."
"You can bet Bart would draw a sigh of relief if we did," chimed in the inventor. "Why, the money that woman's spent pullin' that durn thing to pieces an' puttin' it together again is a caution. Bart said you'd be dumbfounded if you could know what he's paid out. If the coffin lid was once clamped down on the pest he'd raise a hallelujah, poor feller."
"Willie!" gasped the horrified Celestina.
"Oh, I ain't sayin' he'd be glad to see Minnie goin'," the little old man protested. "But that black satin has been a bone of contention ever since the day it was bought. To begin with, it cost about ten times what Bart calculated 'twould; he told me that himself. An' it's been runnin' up in money ever since. When he got it he kinder figgered 'twould be an investment somethin' like one of them twenty-year endowments, an' that for nigh onto a quarter of a century Minnie wouldn't need much of anything else. But his reckonin' was agog. It's been nothin' but that black satin all his married life. Let alone the price of continually reenforcin' it, the wear an' tear on Minnie's nerves when she's tinkerin' with it is somethin' awful. Bart says that dress ain't never out of her mind. She's rasped an' peevish all the time plannin' how she can fit the pieces in to look like the pictures. It's worse than fussin' over the cut-up puzzles folks do. Sometimes at night she'll wake him out of a sound sleep to tell him she's just thought how she can eke new sleeves out of the side panels, or make a pleated front for the waist out of the girdle. I guess Bart don't get much rest durin' makin'-over spells. I saw him yesterday at the post-office an' he was glum as an oyster; an' when I asked him was he sick all he said was he hoped there'd be no black satins in heaven."
"I told you she was fixin' it over!" cried Celestina triumphantly. "So you was at the store, was you, Willie? You didn't say nothin' about it."
"I forgot I went," confessed the little man. "Lemme see! I believe 'twas more nails took me down."
"Did you get any mail?"
"No—yes—I dunno. 'Pears like I did get somethin'. If I did, it's in the pocket of my other coat."
Going into the hall he returned with a small white package which he gave to Celestina.
"It ain't for me," said she, after she had examined the address. "It's Bob's."
"Bob's, eh?" queried the inventor. "I didn't notice, not havin' on my readin' glasses. So it's Bob's, is it?"
"Yes," answered Celestina, eyeing the neat parcel curiously. "Whoever's sendin' you a bundle all tied up with white paper an' pink string, Bob? It looks like it was jewelry."
Quickly Willie sprang to the rescue.
"Oh, Bob's been gettin' some repairin' done for the Brewsters," explained he. "Delight's buckle was broke an' knowin' the best place to send it, he mailed it up to town."
"Oh," responded Celestina, glancing from one to the other with a half satisfied air.
"Let's have the thing out an' see how it looks, Bob," Willie went on.
Blushingly Robert Morton undid the box.
Yes, there amid wrappings of tissue paper, on a bed of blue cotton wool, rested the buckle of silver, its burnished surface sparkling in the light.
He took it out and inspected it carefully.
"It is all O. K.," observed he, with an attempt at indifference. "See what a fine piece of work they made of it."
The old man took from the table drawer a long leather case, drew out another pair of spectacles which he exchanged for the ones he was already wearing, and after scrutinizing the buckle and scowling at it for an interval he carried it to the window.
"What's the matter?" Bob demanded, instantly alert. "Isn't the repairing properly done?"
"'Tain't the repairin' I'm lookin' at," Willie returned slowly. "I've no quarrel with that."
Still he continued to twist and turn the disc of silver, now holding it at arm's length, now bringing it close to his eye with a puzzled intentness.
Robert Morton could stand the suspense no longer.
"What's wrong with it?" he at last burst out.
Willie did not look up but evidently he caught the note of impatience in the younger man's tone, for he drawled quizzically:
"Don't it strike you as a mite peculiar that a buckle should go to Boston with D. L. H. on it an' come home marked C. L. G.?"
"What!"
"That's what's on it—C. L. G. See for yourself."
"It can't be."
"Come an' have a look."
The inventor placed the trinket in Robert Morton's hand.
"C. L. G.," repeated he, as he deciphered the intertwined letters of the monogram. "You are right, sure as fate! Jove!"
"They've sent you the wrong girl," remarked Willie. "It's clear as a bell on a still night. There must have been two girls an' two buckles, an' the jeweler's mixed 'em up; you've got the other lady's."
"That's a nice mess!" Bob ejaculated irritably. "Why, I'd rather have given a hundred dollars than have this happen. I'll wring that man's neck!"
"Easy, youngster! Easy!" cautioned Willie. "Don't go heavin' all your cargo overboard 'till you find you're really sinkin'. 'Tain't likely Miss C. L. G. will care a row of pins for Miss D. L. H.'s buckle. She'll be sendin' out an S. O. S. for her own an' will be ready to join you in flayin' the jeweler. Give the poor varmint time, an' he'll shift things round all right."
"But Miss Hathaway—"
"Delight's lived the best part of two weeks without that buckle, an' she don't look none the worse for not havin' it. I saw her in the post-office only yesterday an'—"
"Did you?" cried Bob eagerly, then stopped short, flushed, and bit his lip.
"Yes, she was there," Willie returned serenely, without appearing to have noticed his guest's agitation. "Young Farwell from Cambridge—the one that has all the money—was talkin' to her, an' she had that Harvard professor who boards at the Brewsters' along too; Carlton his name is, Jasper Carlton. He's a mighty good-lookin' chap." He stole a glance at the face that glowered out of the window. "Had you chose to stroll down to the store with me like I asked you to, you might 'a' seen her yourself."
"Oh, I—I—didn't need to see her," stammered Bob.
"Mebbe not," was the tranquil answer. "An' she didn't need to see you, neither, judgin' from the way she was talkin' an' laughin' with them other fellers. Still a young man is never the worse for chattin' with a nice girl. Now, son, if I was you, I wouldn't get stirred up over this jewelry business. We'll get a rise out of Miss C. L. G. pretty soon an' when she comes to the surface—"
"Who's that at the gate, Willie?" called Celestina from the kitchen.
"What?"
"There's somebody at the gate in a big red automobile. She's comin' in. You go an' see what she wants, 'cause my apron ain't fresh. Likely she's lost her way or else is huntin' board."
Although Willie shuffled obediently into the hall he was not in time to prevent the sonorous peal of the bell.
"Yes, he's here," they heard him say. "Of course you can speak to him. He's just inside. Won't you step in?"
Then without further ado, and with utter disregard of Celestina's rumpled apron, the door opened and the little inventor ushered into the string-entangled sitting room a dainty, city-bred girl in a sport suit of white serge. She was not only pretty but she was perfectly groomed and was possessed of a fascinating vivacity and charm. Everything about her was vivid: the gloss of her brown hair, the sparkle of her eyes, her color, her smile, her immaculate clothes—all were dazzling. She carried her splendor with an air of complete sureness as if she was accustomed to the supremacy it won for her and expected it. Yet the audacity of her pose had in it a certain fitness and was piquant rather than offensive.
The instant she crossed the threshold, Robert Morton leaped to meet her with outstretched hands.
"Cynthia Galbraith!" he cried. "How ever came you here?"
A ripple of teasing laughter came from the girl.
"You are surprised then; I thought you would be."
"Surprised? I can't believe it."
"If you'd written as you should have done, you wouldn't have been at all amazed to see me," answered the newcomer severely.
"I meant to write," the culprit asserted uneasily.
"Maybe you will inform me what you are doing on Cape Cod," went on the lady in an accusing tone.
"How did you know I was here?"
"You can't guess?"
"No, I haven't a glimmer."
From the pocket of her shell-pink sweater she drew forth a small white box of startlingly familiar appearance.
"Does this belong to you?" demanded she.
Beneath the mockery of her eyes Robert Morton could feel the color mount to his temples.
"Well, well!" he said, with a ghastly attempt at gaiety, "So you were C. L. G."
"Naturally. Didn't the initials suggest the possibility?"
"No—eh—yes; that is, I hadn't thought about it," he floundered. "It's funny how things come about sometimes, isn't it? I want you to meet my aunt, Miss Morton, and my friend Mr. Spence. I am visiting here."
Immediately the dainty Miss Cynthia was all smiles.
"So it is relatives that bring you to the Cape!" said she.
Robert Morton nodded. She seemed mollified.
"Didn't Roger write you that we had taken a house at Belleport for the season?" she asked.
"No," replied Bob. "I haven't heard from him for weeks."
"He's a brute. Yes, we came down in May just after I got back from California. We are crazy over the place. The family will be wild when I tell them you are here. My brother," she went on, turning with a pretty graciousness toward Celestina, "was Bob's roommate at Harvard. In that way we came to know him very well and have always kept up the acquaintance."
"Do you come from the West, same as my nephew does?" questioned Celestina when there was a pause.
The little lady raised her eyebrows deprecatingly.
"No, indeed! The East is quite good enough for us. We are from New York. The boys, however, were always visiting back and forth," she added with haste, "so we have quite an affection for Indiana even if we don't live there." She shot a conciliatory smile in Robert Morton's direction. "Couldn't you go back with me in the car, Bob," she asked turning toward him, "and spring a surprise on the household? Dad's down, Mother's here, and also Grandmother Lee; and the mighty and illustrious Roger, fresh from his law office on Fifth Avenue, is expected Friday. Do come."
"I am afraid I can't to-day," Bob answered.
"Why, Bob, there ain't the least reason in the world you shouldn't go," put in Celestina.
The young man fingered the package in his hand nervously.
"I really couldn't, Cynthia," he repeated, ignoring the interruption. "I'd like immensely to come another day, though. But to-day Mr. Spence and I have a piece of work on hand—"
He paused, discomfited at meeting the astonished gaze of Willie's mild blue eyes.
"Of course you know best," Cynthia replied, drawing in her chin with some hauteur. "I shouldn't think of urging you."
"I'd be bully glad to come another day," reiterated Robert Morton, fully conscious he had offended his fair guest, yet determined to stand his ground. "Tell the affluent Roger to slide over in his racer sometime when he has nothing better to do and get me."
"He will probably only be here for the week-end," retorted Cynthia coldly.
"Sunday, then; why not Sunday? Mr. Spence and I do not work Sundays."
"All right, if you positively won't come to-day. But I don't see why you can't come now and Sunday, too."
"I couldn't do it, dear lady."
"Well, Sunday then, if that is the earliest you can make it."
She smiled an adieu to Willie and Celestina, and with her little head proudly set preceded Bob to her car. But although the great engine throbbed and purred, it was some time before it left the gate and flashed its way down the high road toward Belleport.
After it had gone and Bob was once more in the house, Celestina had a score of questions with which to greet him. How remarkable it was that the owner of the missing jewelry should be some one he knew! The Galbraiths must be well-to-do. What was the brother like? Did he favor his sister?
These and numberless other inquiries like them furnished Celestina with conversation for the rest of the day. Willie, on the contrary, was peculiarly silent, and although his furtive glance traveled at frequent intervals over his young friend's face, he made no comment concerning Miss Cynthia L. Galbraith and her silver buckle.
In the meantime the two men resumed their labors in the shop, touching shoulders before the bench where their tools lay. They planed and chiselled and sawed together as before, but as they worked each was conscious that a barrier of sudden reserve had sprung up between them, obstructing the perfect confidence that had previously existed. At first the old inventor tried to bridge this gulf with trivial jests, but as these passed unnoticed he at length lapsed into silence. Now and then, as he stole a look at his companion, he thought he detected in the youthful face a suppressed nervousness and irritation that found welcome vent in the hammer's vigorous blow. Nevertheless, as the younger man vouchsafed no information regarding the morning's adventure, Willie asked no questions.
He would have given a great deal to have satisfied himself about Cynthia Galbraith. It was easily seen that her family were persons of wealth and position with whom Robert Morton was on terms of the greatest intimacy. It even demanded no very skilled psychologist to perceive the girl's sentiment toward his guest, for Miss Galbraith was a petulent, self-willed creature who did not trouble to conceal her preferences. Her attitude was transparent as the day. But with what feeling did Robert Morton regard her? That was the burning question the little man longed to have answered.
Wearily he sighed. Alas, human nature was a frail, incalculable phenomenon.
How was it likely a young man with his fortune to make would regard a girl as rich and attractive as Cynthia Galbraith, especially if her brother chanced to be his best friend and all her family reached forth welcoming arms to him.
Willie was not a matchmaker. Had he been impugned with the accusation he would have denied it indignantly: Nevertheless, he had been mixed up in too many romances not to find the relation between the sexes a problem of engrossing interest. Furthermore, of late he had been doing a little private castle-building, the foundations of which now abruptly collapsed into ruins at his feet. The cornerstone of this dream-structure had been laid the day he had first seen Robert Morton and Delight Hathaway together. What a well-mated pair they were! For years it had been his unwhispered ambition to see his favorite happily married to a man who was worthy of the priceless treasure.
The Brewster household was aging fast. Captain Jonas, Captain Benjamin, and Captain Phineas were now old men; even Zenas Henry's hair had thinned and whitened above his temples, and Abbie, once so tireless, was becoming content to drop her cares on younger shoulders. Yes, Wilton was growing old, thought the inventor sadly, and he and Celestina were unquestionably keeping pace with the rest. In the natural course of events, before many years Delight would be deprived of her protectors and be left alone in the great world to fend for herself. She was well able to do so, for she was resourceful and capable and would never be forced to marry for a home as was many a lonely woman. Nor would she ever come to want; the village would see to that. Notwithstanding this certainty, however, he could not bear to think of a time when there would be no one to stand between her and the harsher side of life; no man who would count the championship a privilege, an honor, his dearest duty.
Wilton had never offered a husband of the type pictured in Willie's mind. The hamlet could boast of but few young men, and the greater part of those who lingered within its borders had done so because they lacked the ambition and initiative to hew out for themselves elsewhere broader fields of activity. Those of ability had gravitated to the colleges, the business schools, or gone to test their strength in the city's marts of commerce. Who could blame them for not resting content with baiting lobster pots and dredging for scallops? Were he a young man with his path untrodden before him he would have been one of the first to do the same, Willie confessed. Did he not constantly covet their youth and opportunity? Nevertheless, praiseworthy as their motive had been, the fact remained that nowhere in the village was there a man the peer of Delight Hathaway. Rare in her girlish beauty, rarer yet in her promise of womanhood, what a prize she would be for him who had the fineness of fiber to appreciate the guerdon!
Willie was wont to attest that he himself was not a marrying man; yet notwithstanding the assertion, deep down within the fastness of his soul he had had his visions,—visions pure, exalted and characteristic of his sensitively attuned nature. They were the exquisite secrets of his life; the unfulfilled dreams that had kept him holy; a part of the divine in him; echoes of hungers and longings that reached unsatisfied into a world other than this. Earth had failed to consummate the loves and ambitions of the dreamer. His had been a flattened, warped, starved existence whose perfecting was not of this sphere. And as without bitterness he reviewed the glories that had passed him by, he prayed that these bounties might not also be denied her who, rounding into the full splendor of her womanhood, was worthy of the best heaven had to bestow.
From her childhood he had watched her virtues unfold and none of their potentialities had gone unobserved by the quiet little old man. Through the beauty of his own soul he had been enabled to translate the beauties of another, until gradually Delight Hathaway had come to symbolize for him universal woman, the prototype of all that was purest, most selfless, most tender; most to be revered, watched over, beloved. Yet for all his worship the girl remained for him very human, a creature with bewitching and appealing ways. In the same spirit in which he rejoiced in the tint of a rose's petal or the shell-like flush of a cloud at dawn did he find pleasure in the crimson that colored her cheek, in the perfection of her features, in the shadowy, fathomless depths of her eyes. Father, brother, lover, artist, at her shrine he offered up a composite devotion which sought only her happiness.
With such an attitude of mind to satisfy was it a marvel that in the matter of selecting a husband for his divinity Willie was difficult to please; or that he studied with a criticism quite as jealous as Zenas Henry's own every male who crossed the girl's path?
Yet with all his idealism Willie was a keen observer of life, and from the first moment of their meeting he had detected in Robert Morton qualities more nearly akin to his standards than he had discovered in any of the other outsiders who had come into the hamlet. There was, for example, the son of the Farwells who owned the great colonial mansion on the point,—Billy Farwell, with his racing car and his dogs and his general air of elegance and idleness. Delight had known him since she was a child. And there was Jasper Carlton, the scholarly scientist, years the girl's senior, who annually came to board with the Brewsters during the vacation months. Both of these men paid court to the village beauty, Billy with a half patronizing, half audacious assurance born of years of intimacy; and the professor with that old-fashioned reserve and deference characteristic of the older generation. There were days when the two caused Willie such perturbation of spirit that he would willingly have knocked their heads together or cheerfully have wrung their necks.
Delight unhesitatingly acknowledged that she liked both of them and harmlessly coquetted first with the one, then with the other, until the old inventor was at his wit's end to fathom which she actually favored or whether she seriously favored either of them. Yet irreproachable as were these suitors, to place a man of Bob Morton's attributes in the same category with them seemed absurd. Why, he was head and shoulders above them mentally, morally, physically,—from whichever angle one viewed him. Moreover, blood will tell, and was he not of the fine old Morton stock? Whatever the Carlton forbears might be, young Farwell's ancestry was not an enviable one. Yes, Willie had settled Delight's future to his entire satisfaction and for nights had been sleeping peacefully, confident that with such a husband as Robert Morton her happiness and good fortune would be assured.
And then, like a thunderbolt out of the heavens, had come this Cynthia Galbraith with her fetching clothes, her affluence and her air of proprietorship! By what right had she acquired her monopoly of Bob Morton, and was its exclusiveness gratifying or irksome to its recipient? Might not this strange young man, concerning whom Willie was forced to own he actually knew nothing, be playing a double game, and the frankness of his face belie his real nature? And was it not possible that his annoyance and irritation were caused by having been trapped in it?
Well, avowed Willie, he would see that Delight encountered this Don Giovanni but seldom, at least until he gave a more trustworthy account of himself than he had vouchsafed up to the present moment. Contrary to the common law, the guest must be rated as guilty until he had proved himself innocent. Yet as he darted a glance at the earnest young face bending over the workbench Willie's conscience smote him and he questioned whether he might not be doing his comrade a dire injustice. The thought caused him to flush uncomfortably, and he flushed still redder when Bob suddenly straightened up and met his eye.
Both men stood alert, held tensely by the same sound. It was the low music of a girlish voice humming a snatch of song, and it was accompanied by the soft crackling of the needles that carpeted the grove of pine between the Spence and Brewster houses. In another instant Delight Hathaway strolled slowly out of the wood and entered the workshop. With her coming a radiance of sunshine seemed to flood the shabby room. She nodded a greeting to Bob, then went straight to Willie and, placing her hands affectionately on his shoulders, looked down into his face. They made a pretty picture, the bent old man with his russet cheeks and thin white hair, and the girl erect as an arrow and beautiful as a young Diana.
The little inventor lifted his mild blue eyes to meet the haunting eyes of hazel.
"Well, well, my dear," he said, as he covered one of her hands with his own worn brown one, "so you have come for your buckle, have you? It is all done, honey, an' good as the day when 'twas made. Bob has it in his pocket for you this minute."
By a strange magic the truth and sunlight of the girl's presence had for the time being dispelled all baser suspicions and Willie smiled kindly at the man beside him.
Holding out the crisp white package, Robert Morton came forward.
Delight looked questioningly from the box with its immaculate paper and neat pink string to its giver.
"He found he couldn't fix it himself," explained Willie, immediately interpreting the interrogation. "Neither him or I were guns enough for the job. So Bob got somebody he knew of to tinker it up."
"That was certainly very kind," returned Delight with gravity. "If you will tell me what it cost I—"
Again the old man stepped into the breach.
"Oh, I figger 'twarn't much," said he with easy unconcern. "The feller who did it was used to mendin' jewelry an' knew just how to set about it, so it didn't put him out of his way none."
"Yes," echoed Bob, with a grateful smile toward Willie. "It made him no trouble at all."
The two men watched the delicate fingers unfasten the package.
"See how nice 'tis," Willie went on. "You'd never know there was a thing the matter with it."
"It's wonderful!" she cried.
Her pleasure put to flight the old inventor's last compunction at his compromise with truth.
"I am so pleased, Mr. Morton!" she went on. "You are quite sure there was no expense."
"Nothing to speak of. I'm glad you like it," murmured the young man.
"Indeed I do!"
She stretched the band of white leather round her waist and Bob noticed how easily its clasp met.
"There!" exclaimed she, raising her hand in mocking imitation of a military salute, "isn't that fine?"
Willie laughed with involuntary admiration at the gesture, and as for Robert Morton he could have gone down on his knees before her and kissed her diminutive white shoe.
The girl did not prolong the tableau. All too soon she relaxed from rigidity into gaiety and came flitting to the work bench.
"What are you doing, Willie dear?" she asked. "You know you never have secrets from me. What is this marvellous thing you are busy with?"
Before answering, Willie glanced mysteriously about.
"It's because I know you can keep secrets that I ain't afraid to trust you with 'em," said he. "Bob an' I are workin' on the quiet at an idee I was kitched with a day or two ago. It's a bigger scheme than most of the ones I've tackled, an' it may not turn out to be anything at all; still, Bob has studied boats an' knows a heap about 'em, an' he believes somethin' can be made of it. But 'til our fish is hooked we ain't shoutin' that we've caught one. If the contrivance works," went on the little old man eagerly, "it will be a bonanza for Zenas Henry. It's—" he lowered his voice almost to a whisper, "it's an idee to keep motor-boats from gettin' snagged."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before his listeners saw him start and look apprehensively toward the door.
They were no longer alone. On the threshold of the workshop stood Janoah Eldridge.