Robert Morton returned from Belleport in a mood bordering on ecstasy, his path now clear before him. He would woo Delight Hathaway and win her, and with a strong mutual love and hope they would set forth in life together. He had, to be sure, no capital but his youth, his strength, and his education, but he did not shrink from hard work and felt certain that he would be able not only to keep want in abeyance but place happiness within the reach of the woman he loved.
Until Madam Lee, with her keen-visioned knowledge of human nature, had ranged in perspective all the tangled circumstances that had so insidiously woven themselves about him, he had been unable to see his way. The fetters that held him were so delicate and intangible that with an exaggerated sense of honor he had magnified them into bonds of steel, never daring to believe that they might be snapped and leave no scar. But now the facts stood lucidly forth. There was no actual engagement between himself and Cynthia, nor had there ever been any talk of one. He simply had been thrown constantly into her society and had drifted, at first thoughtlessly and afterward indifferently, until there had been created not only in the mind of the girl but also in the minds of all her family a tacit expectation that ultimately their permanent union would be consummated.
From the Galbraiths' point of view such a marriage would have been a very gratifying one, for although Robert Morton was without money, in his sterling character and his potentalities for success they had every faith. A span of years of intimacy had tested his worth, and had this not been the case his friendship with Roger had proved the tough fiber of his manliness. Of all their son's college acquaintances there was none who had been welcomed into the Galbraith home with the cordiality that had greeted Robert Morton. At first they had received him graciously for their boy's sake, but later this initial sufferance had been supplanted by an affectionate regard existing purely because of his own merits. They had loaded him with favors, pressed their hospitality upon him, and but for a certain pride and independence that restrained them would have smoothed his financial difficulties with the same lavishness they had those of their son.
Many a time Mr. Galbraith, unable to endure the sight of Bob's rigid self-denial, had delicately hinted at assistance, only to have the offer as delicately declined. It hurt and piqued the financier to be so firmly kept at a distance and be obliged to witness privations which a small gift of money might have alleviated; moreover he liked his own way and did not enjoy being balked in it by a schoolboy. Yet beneath his irritation he paid tribute to the self-respecting determination that had prompted the rebuff. The world in which he moved held few men of such ideals. Rather he had repeatedly been courted by the grafter, the promoter, the social climber, each beneath a thinly disguised friendship working for his own selfish ends. But here at last was the novel phenomena of one who scorned pelf, who would not even allow his gratitude to be bought. The sight was refreshing. It rejuvenated the New Yorker's jaded belief in human nature.
Forced to withdraw his bounty, he had sat back and watched while the academic career of the two young men wore on and at its close had seen the roads of the classmates divide, his own boy entering the law school, while Robert Morton, whose mind had always been of scientific trend, enrolled at Technology, there to take up post-graduate work in naval architecture. The choice of this subject reflected largely the capitalist's influence, for his own great fortune had been amassed in an extensive shipbuilding enterprise in which he saw the opportunity of placing advantageously a young man of Robert Morton's exceptional ability. The promised position was a variety of favor that Bob, proud though he was, saw no reason for declining. The opening, to be sure, would be his as a consequence of Mr. Galbraith's kindness, but the retention of the position would rest on his personal worth and hard work, a very satisfactory condition to one who demanded that he remain captain of his soul. Hence he had deliberately trained for the post and it was understood that the following October he would assume it. It was a flattering beginning for a novice, the salary guaranteed being generous and the chances for advancement alluring. Nor did the great man who had founded the business conceal from the ambitious neophyte that later he might be called upon to fill the niche left vacant by Roger's flight into professional life.
Such was the nicety with which Robert Morton had been dovetailed into the Galbraith plans, his welcome in every direction assured him. And now here he stood confronted by the probable overthrow of the whole delicately balanced structure. If he did not marry Cynthia and selected instead another bride, he risked forfeiting the regard of those who had become dear to him, imperilling his friendship with Roger, and sacrificing the brilliant and gratifying future for which he had so patiently labored. Never again, he knew beyond a question, would such an opportunity come within his grasp. He would be obliged to start out unheralded and painfully fight his way to recognition. That recognition would be his he did not doubt, for he never yet had failed in that to which he had set his hand. But, alas, the weary years before he would be able to make a hurrying universe sense that he was alive! He knew what struggle meant when stripped of its illusions, for had he not toiled for his education in the sweat of his brow? The triumph of the achievement had been sweet, but for the moment the courage to resume the weary, up-hill plodding deserted him. Why, it would be years before he could marry a girl who was accustomed to even as few luxuries as was Delight Hathaway!
And suppose a miracle happened and Mr. Galbraith was large-minded enough still to hold out to him the former offer? Should he wish to accept it? Would it not be almost charity? No, if he refused Cynthia's hand—and that was what, in bald terms, it would amount to—he must decline the other favor as well and be independent of the Galbraiths for good and all. Otherwise his position would be unendurable. It was an odious situation, the one in which he found himself. Only a cad cast a woman's heart back at her feet. The unchivalrousness of the act grated upon every fiber of his sensitively attuned, high-minded nature. Yet, as Madam Lee had reminded him, would he not be doing Cynthia a greater injustice if he married her without love. Friendship and brotherly affection were all he could honestly bestow, and although these he gave with all sincerity, as he now examined his heart in the light of the revelations real love had brought, he realized that beyond their confines existed a realm into which Cynthia Galbraith, fair though she was, had never set foot. No woman had crossed that magic threshold until now, when her presence stirred all the blended emotions of his manhood. Humility, tenderness, reverence possessed him; self descended from its throne of egoism and yielded its scepter to another; the hot blood of the primitive, untamed Viking raced in his veins. Soul, mind, heart, body were all awakened. He was a dolt who confused genuine passion with the milder preferences of callow youth.
Delight Hathaway was his mate, created for him before the hills in order stood. It was as inevitable that they should come together as that the river should sweep out to meet the sea, or the lily open to the kiss of the sunlight. All that this woman was in purity, in graciousness of heart, in brilliancy of intellect he loved, adored, approved; all that she was in physical beauty he reverenced and coveted. Her lot had been strangely cast and the scope of it limited to a very narrow vista. Oh, for success to place at her feet the riches of the earth! With such a goal to lure one on what was toil! Faugh! He laughed aloud at the word.
Madam Lee, with her unerring intuition, had probed his heart and read his destiny aright.
His future lay not with this pampered daughter of a great house whose selfishness he had repeatedly excused and refused to recognize; nor would he purchase worldly prosperity at the price of his soul. Casting aside the easier way, he would follow the rough path that mounted upward to the star of his desire. Before the waning of another moon both of these women who had come into his world should know his intentions and have the opportunity to accept or reject that which he had to offer them. He hoped Cynthia would understand and forgive; he was fond of Cynthia. And he hoped, prayed, implored Heaven that Delight Hathaway would not turn a deaf ear to his entreaties, for without the prize on which his hopes were set life's race would not be worth the running.
Well, he would not allow the thought of failure any place in his mind. Victory should be his—it would be,mustbe! See how all the world smiled on the vow he registered. The sky had never stretched more cloudlessly above his head; the air had never been sweeter, the dancing ripples of the bay gladder in their golden scintillations. The whole universe throbbed with youth and its dauntless supremacy. Something told him he would conquer and with a high heart he alighted at the door of the dear, familiar gray cottage.
Willie came to meet him.
"Well, son," said he, reaching forth his hands, "If I ain't glad to see you flitting home again! I've missed you like as if the two days was two weeks. I reckon your aunt has, too. Anyhow, she took to her bed quick as you was out of sight an' ain't been seen since."
"Aunt Tiny ill!"
"No, not sick exactly," explained Willie, as arm in arm they proceeded up the walk. "She's just struck of a heap with a lame shoulder such as she has sometimes. She can't move a peg, poor soul!"
"Great Scott! That's hard luck! Then since you're short-handed, I shall be more bother than I'm worth round here. I'd better have stayed where I was. You won't want any extra people to look out for and feed now, I fancy."
"Oh, law, I ain't doin' the cookin'!" grinned the little inventor, as if the bare notion of such a thing amused him vastly. "Why, I could no more cook a dish that was fit to eat than a mariner could run a pink tea. I'd die of starvation if the victuals was left to me. Let alone the cookin', we'd 'a' had to have help anyhow, 'cause Tiny's too miserable to do much for herself. So we've got in one of the neighbors."
"It's a shame!"
"Oh, we'll pull through alive," smiled Willie, cheerfully. "We've piloted our way through many a worse channel. This spell of Tiny's ain't nothin' she's goin' to die of, thank the Lord! She takes cold sudden sometimes, an' it always makes straight for that shoulder of hers, stiffenin' up every muscle in it. She'll admire to see you home again, I know. The sight of you will probably make her better right away. You can run up to her room now if you choose to. I'll be round in the shop when you want me."
With a beaming countenance the old man turned away.
Robert Morton opened the screen door diffidently, speculating as to whom he would confront in the kitchen; then he stopped, arrested on the doorsill.
At the wooden table near the pantry window stood Delight Hathaway, her sleeves rolled to the elbow, and her slender figure enveloped in a voluminous gingham pinafore that covered her from chin to ankle and was tied in place at the back by a pert bow. She was sifting flour into a mammoth yellow bowl, and as she stirred the mixture the sweep of her round white arm brought a flood of color into her cheeks and wreathed her brow with tiny, damp ringlets.
Bob held his breath, hungrily devouring her with his eyes, but a quick breeze brought the door to with a bang and the girl glanced over her shoulder.
"All hail!" she cried, the dimple darting out of hiding with her smile. "You have a new cook, monsieur."
"My word!" was all the young man could stammer.
"Is it as bad as all that?" she laughed.
"No—but—Great Hat—this is—is awful, you know."
"What is awful?" returned she, turning to face him.
"Why, having you come here and cook for us two men."
"Oh, I'm always cooking for somebody," was the matter-of-fact retort. "Why not you?"
"Well, it makes me feel like a—it doesn't seem right, somehow."
"It's as right as possible. I rather like it," said she, darting him a roguish look, then bending over the bowl before her.
"Well, you must let me help you, anyway. Can't I—I butter something?"
"Butter something!"
"Yes, things are always having to be buttered, aren't they—pans, and dishes, and cups—" he paused vaguely.
Her laugh echoed like a chime of miniature bells.
"I am sorry to say the pan is already buttered," replied she. "What other accomplishments have you?"
"Oh, I can do anything I am told," came eagerly from Bob.
"That's something, anyway. Then fetch me some flour, please."
"Flour?"
"It's in the barrel. No, that's the sugar bowl. The barrel under the shelf."
"The barrel! To be sure. Barrel ahoy! How could I have mistaken its sylph-like form? How much flour do you want?"
"Just a little."
She passed the sieve to him and went to inspect the oven.
Bob caught up the sifter, filled it to the brim, and came toward her, turning the handle as he approached.
"I say, this is great, isn't it?" he observed, so intent on the mechanism of the device that he did not notice the track of whiteness which he was leaving behind him. "It is like winding up a victrola."
Whistling a random strain fromFausthe turned the handle faster.
"Oh, Bob!" burst out Delight. "Look what you're doing."
Obediently he looked but did not comprehend. Her slip of the tongue had banished every other idea from his mind.
"Say it again, please."
"What?"
"SayBobagain as you did just now."
"I—didn't know I did," faltered the girl. "I—I—forgot."
"Forgot."
He dropped the sifter into the bowl and his hand closed firmly over the one that now rested on its yellow rim.
"Oh, see what you've done!" cried she. "You have spilled all that flour into the cake."
"No matter." His eyes were on hers.
"But it does matter. Willie's cake will be spoiled."
She tried vainly to draw away from the grip that imprisoned her.
"Please let me go."
He bent across the table until he could almost feel the blood beating in her cheeks.
"Say it once more," he pleaded.
Again her hand fluttered in his strong grasp.
"Please!"
"Please what?" persisted Robert Morton.
"Please—please—Bob," she murmured.
He was at the other side of the table now, but she was no longer there. Instead she stood at the screen door, shaking the flour from her apron.
"Don't move!" she cried severely. "You've walked all through that flour and are tracking it about every step you take. Look at the pantry! I shall have to sweep it all up."
"I'll do it," he answered with instant penitence.
"No. You sit right down there in that chair and don't you stir. I will go and get the dustpan and brush."
"I'm awfully sorry," called Bob, plunged into the depths of despair. "I didn't realize that when you turned the handle of the darn thing the stuff went through."
"What did you think a flour-sifter was for?" asked she, dimpling.
"I wasn't thinking of flour-sifters," declared he significantly.
He saw her blush.
"Mayn't I please get up?"
"No. Not until your shoes are brushed off," she replied provokingly.
"Let me take the brush then."
"Don't you see I am using it?"
"You could let me take it a second."
"I have been taught to complete one task before I began another," was the tantalizing reply, as she went on with her sweeping.
"The deuce!"
"You must not swear in my presence," she commanded, attempting to conceal a smile.
"Then stop dimpling that dimple."
"Don't you like dimples?" inquired she demurely. "Now Billy Farwell thinks that my dimples—"
"Hang Billy Farwell!"
"How rude of you! Billy never consigns you to such a fate." She waited, then added, "All he ever says is 'Confound Morton.'"
"I thought he had more spirit," was the ungrateful rejoinder.
"Oh, he has spirit enough," she explained. "He would say much more if he were allowed."
She saw Robert start forward.
"Of course," she went on in an even tone, "I shouldn't permit him to abuse a friend of Willie's."
"Oh, that's the reason you put the check on him, is it?"
"Aren't you Willie's friend?" she questioned evasively.
"Yes, but—"
"You don't seem to appreciate your luck. Now I adore Willie and believe that any one who has his friendship is the most fortunate person in the world."
He saw a grave and tender light creep into her wonderful eyes.
"I'm not arguing about Willie," said he. "You know how much I care for him. But I can't think of him now. It's you I'm thinking of—you—you."
She did not answer but bent her head lower over her sweeping.
"I don't believe there is any flour on my shoes, any way," grumbled the culprit presently, stooping to examine his feet with the air of a guilty child. He thought he heard her laugh.
"How much longer are you going to keep me in this infernal chair?" he fumed.
"Bob!" called a voice from upstairs.
"It's your aunt; she must have heard you come in."
He sprang up only to come into collision with the dustpan full of flour which lay near his chair. A second more and the fruits of the sweeping drifted broadcast in a powdery cloud.
"Delight! Dearest!" he cried, bending over the kneeling figure.
"You must go upstairs and see your aunt—please!" she begged. "She will think it so strange."
"All right, sweetheart. I'm coming, Aunt Tiny."
When Willie entered a few moments later in search of his co-laborer, Delight was alone. He glanced questioningly about the room,—at the girl's flushed cheeks, the half-made cake, the snowy floor.
"Bob—Mr. Morton spilled some flour," the young woman explained, evading his eye.
The little old man made no response. He studied the burning face, the drooping lashes; he also looked meditatively at some footprints on the floor. They may not have been as startling in their significance as were the famous marks Crusoe discovered in the sand, but they were quite as illuminating.
A trail of small ones led about the room and beside them, as if echoing to their light tread, was a series of larger ones. The inventor's gaze pursued them curiously to a spot before the stove where they became very much confused and afterward branched apart, the larger set trailing off toward the stairs, and the smaller moving back into the pantry.
The detective stroked his chin for an interval.
"U—m!" observed he thoughtfully.
The next day Mr. Howard Snelling made his appearance at the Spence workshop.
Bob was fitting wire netting to some metal uprights and struggling to focus his mind on what he was doing enough to forget that Delight Hathaway was on the other side of the partition when from the window above the bench he saw Cynthia Galbraith come rolling up to the gate in her runabout, accompanied by a strikingly handsome stranger.
He hurried out to meet them.
Her father and Roger, the girl said, had gone to a yacht race at Hyannis, so she had brought Mr. Snelling over. She introduced the two men but refused somewhat curtly to come in, explaining that she would be back, or some one else would, to fetch the guest home to Belleport for luncheon. Then, without a backward glance, she started the engine and disappeared around the curve of the Harbor Road.
Perhaps it was just as well, Robert Morton reflected, that she had not accepted his invitation to come in, for to bring her and Delight together at this delicate juncture might result in awkwardness; nevertheless, it certainly was something unprecedented for Cynthia to be so brusque and be in such a hurry. The enigma puzzled him, and he found it recurring to his mind persistently. However, he resolutely shook it off and turned his attention instead to his new acquaintance.
He was, he could not but admit, quite unprepared to find Mr. Howard Snelling, his future chief, possessed of so attractive a personality. Mr. Galbraith, when alluding to the expert craftsman, had never mentioned his age, and Bob had gleaned the impression that the man before whose ability the entire Galbraith shipbuilding plant bowed down was middle-aged, possibly even elderly. Therefore to be confronted by some one in the early forties was a distinct shock.
Snelling's hair was, to be sure, sprinkled lightly with gray, but this hint of maturity was given the lie by his ruddy, unlined countenance and the youthfulness with which he wore his clothes. A good tailor had evidently found a model worthy of his skill and had tried to live up to the task set him, for everything in the stranger's attitude and appearance proclaimed smartness and thesavoir faireof the man about town. Yet Howard Snelling was something far better than either a fashion plate or a society darling. He was energy personified. It spoke in every motion of his strong, fine hands, in the quick turn of his head, in the alert attention with which he listened. Nothing escaped his well-trained eye. One's very thoughts seemed to be at his mercy. Mingling, however, with these more astute qualities and counterbalancing them was a winning tact and courtesy which instantly put another at his ease. Without these characteristics Mr. Snelling would have been unbearable; but with them he was thoroughly charming.
"Well, Morton, I am glad to have a chance to meet you in the flesh," he said, as they still loitered at the gate. "The Galbraiths have sung your praises until I began to think you a sort of myth. You certainly have something to live up to if you are to reach the reputation they have painted of your virtues. Mr. Galbraith, in particular, thinks there is no obstacle that you cannot conquer."
He swept his eye curiously over the young man before him.
"You mustn't believe a word of what they've told you, Mr. Snelling," laughed Robert Morton. "Our friends are always over-indulgent to our faults. When I begin work under you, a thing I am greatly anticipating, you will find out what a duffer I really am."
The elder man smiled.
"I'm ready to take the chance," said he.
"Besides," Bob went on, "Mr. Galbraith has given you something of a character too. He has frightened me clean out of my life with his tales of your—"
"Pooh! Nonsense!" broke in Mr. Snelling deprecatingly. "I like my job, that's all; and Mr. Galbraith and I happen to hit it off." Nevertheless Bob could see that he was pleased by the flattery.
It was on his tongue's end to voice his thought and add that the man who could not get on with a person of Mr. Snelling's adroitness and diplomacy would be hard to please; but although he did not utter the words he felt them to be true.
"Now," began the New Yorker with a swift change of subject, "let us get down to business. How are we going to work this thing? You must coach me. I gather I am being employed on quite a delicate mission. My instructions are to come in here as a friend of yours and the Galbraiths, and without raising the suspicion that I have much of any knowledge about boats, I am to help get this invention into workable shape. Any parts we lack, any drawings we wish made, any materials we need I have authority to procure from our Long Island plant. There is to be no stint as to expense. The enterprise is to be carried through to the finish properly."
Robert Morton gasped.
"I had no idea Mr. Galbraith meant to go into it to such lengths," he murmured.
"Oh, Mr. Galbraith never does things by halves when once he is interested," was the reply. "Besides, he has a hunter's scent for the commercial. He says there is a live idea here that has money in it, and that's enough for him. Anyway, whether there is or not," Snelling added hurriedly, "we are to humor the old gentleman's whims and get his idea so he can handle it."
"It is tremendously generous of Mr. Galbraith."
Howard Snelling regarded his companion quizzically for a moment, then remarked with gravity:
"Oh, there is a kind heart in Mr. Galbraith, in spite of all his business instincts."
"Had you ever met the rest of the family before now?" questioned Bob more with a desire to turn the channel of conversation than because he had any interest in the matter.
The inquiry, idly made, produced an unexpected result, visibly throwing the expert out of his imperturbable composure; he flushed, stammered, and bit his lip before he successfully conquered his confusion:
"I—eh—oh, yes," was his reply. "I've been a dinner guest at the New York house several times; been sent for on a pinch to help out. Then Mr. Galbraith summons me there occasionally for consultation on business matters. The Belleport place is attractive, isn't it?"
"It's corking!"
"I suppose you spend a lot of time over there," ventured Snelling, lighting a gold-tipped Egyptian cigarette and offering Bob one.
Something in the question, he could not have told what, caused Robert Morton to dart a quick, furtive glance at the speaker.
Mr. Snelling was smoking and blowing indifferently into the air filmy rings of smoke, but through it the disconcerted young man encountered his penetrating gaze.
"I don't get over there very often," said Bob. "This invention keeps me rather busy."
"Of course, of course!" was the cordial response. "And now as to our policy on this deal. I shall follow your lead, understand. Any assertion you see fit to make you can trust me to swear to. You may introduce me to the old chap as your college pal, even your long-lost brother, if you choose."
"I hardly think that will be necessary," Robert Morton answered, a hint of coldness in his voice. "I shall simply introduce you for what you are, Mr. Galbraith's friend—"
"And yours," smiled Mr. Snelling, graciously placing a hand on the young man's shoulder.
It was unaccountable, absurd, that Bob should have shrunk at the touch; nevertheless he did so.
"Don't you think," he replied abruptly, "that the sooner we go in and get to work the better? How long do you expect to be able to stay here?"
Again the color crept into Snelling's cheek, but this time he was quite master of himself.
"I cannot tell yet. It will depend to some extent on how we get on."
"I suppose you really can't be spared from the Long Island plant a great while."
"As to that, Mr. Galbraith is all-powerful," was his smiling answer. "What he wills must be arranged. Fortunately just now business is running slack, at least my part of it is. Most of our contracts are well on the way to completion and others can carry them out, so I can stay down here as long as is necessary. It can go as my vacation, if worst comes to worst. Hence you see," concluded he, pulling a spray of honeysuckle to pieces, "we don't need to rush things."
They entered the gate, passed the low, silvered house now almost buried in blossoming roses, and following the clam-shell path that led to the workshop found Willie, his spectacles pushed back from his forehead, dragging a pile of new boards down from the shelf.
"We have a visitor, Mr. Spence," Bob said. "Mr. Snelling, a friend of Mr. Galbraith's and—" he paused the fraction of a second, "and of mine. He has come over to spend the morning and wants to see what we're doing."
The little old inventor reached out a horny palm.
"I'm glad to see you, sir," affirmed he simply. "Any friend of Bob's won't want for a welcome here. Set right down an' make yourself to home, or stand up an' poke found, if it suits you better. That's what Mr. Galbraith did. I reckon there warn't a corner of this whole place he didn't fish into. 'Twas amusin' to see him. He said it took him back to the days when he was a boy. I couldn't but smile to watch him fussin' with the plane an' saw an' hammer like as if they was old friends he hadn't clapped eyes on for years."
"It does feel good to handle tools when you haven't done so for a long time," assented Mr. Snelling.
"Likely you yourself, sir, ain't had a hammer nor nothin' in your hands for quite a spell," went on Willie, with a benign smile. "They don't look as if you ever had had."
Howard Snelling glanced down at his slender, well-modelled hands with their carefully manicured nails.
"I haven't done much carpentry of late years," he confessed. "It would be quite a novelty were I to be turned loose in a place like this. I should like nothing better."
"You don't say so!" responded Willie, with pleased surprise. "Well, well! Ain't that queer now? I'd much sooner 'a' put you down as a gentleman who wouldn't want to get into no dirt or clutter."
"You don't know me."
"Evidently not," the old man rejoined. "Well, you can have your wish fur's carpenterin' goes. You can putter round here much as you like."
Mr. Snelling moved toward the long workbench.
"This is a neat thing," remarked he, regarding the unfinished invention quite as if he had never heard of it before. "What are you doing here?"
A glow of satisfaction spread over the little fellow's kindly face.
"Why, me an' Bob," he explained, "are tinkerin' with a notion I got into my head a while ago. The idee kitched me in the night, an' I come downstairs an' commenced tacklin' it right away. But I didn't see my course ahead, an' 'twarn't 'til Bob hove in sight an' lent a helpin' hand that the contraption begun to take shape. But for him 'twould never have amounted to a darn thing, I reckon. I ain't much on the puttin' together, anyhow, an' this was such a whale of a scheme it had me floored. But it didn't seem to strike Bob abeam. He went at it like a dogfish for bait, an' he's beginnin' to tow the thing out of the fog now into clear water."
"It's quite a scheme," observed Snelling, with an assumed nonchalance. "How did you happen on it?"
"Them idees just come to me," was the ingenuous reply. "Some brains, like some gardens, grow one thing, some another. Mine seems to turn out stuff like this."
"It's pretty good stuff."
"It's a lot of bother to me sometimes," said the old man simply. "Still, I enjoy it. I'd be badly off if it warn't for the thinkin' I do. What a marvel thinkin' is, ain't it? You can think all sorts of things; can travel in your mind to 'most every corner of the globe. You can think yourself rich, think yourself poor, think yourself young, think yourself happy. There's nothin' you want you can't think you have, an' dreamin' about it is 'most as good as gettin' it."
Mr. Snelling nodded.
"Sometimes I think myself an artist, sometimes a musician," went on the wistful voice. "Then again I think myself a great man an' doin' somethin' worth while in the world. Then there's times I've thought myself with a family of children an' planned how they should learn mor'n ever I did." He mused, then banishing the seriousness of his tone by an embarrassed laugh added, "I've waked up afterward to think how much less it cost just to imagine 'em."
The heart that would not have been won by the naïvete of the speaker would have been stony indeed!
Howard Snelling flashed a tribute of honest admiration into the gentle old face.
"Dreams are cheap things," rambled on the little inventor. "Sometimes I figger the Lord gave 'em to those who didn't have much else, so'st to make 'em think they are kings. If you can dream there ain't a thing in all the world ain't yours."
The conversation had furnished Snelling with the opportunity to study more minutely the object on the table, and he now said with a motion of his hand toward it:
"Wouldn't it be rather nice if you had some netting of coarser mesh and which wouldn't corrode?"
"Oh, this screenin' ain't what I'd choose," returned Willie, "but 'twas all I had. I ripped it off the front door. Tiny didn't fancy my doin' it very well. 'Tain't often she's ruffled, an' even this time she didn't say much; still, I could see it didn't altogether please her."
"Tiny?" interpolated Mr. Snelling.
"My aunt, Miss Morton, who keeps house for Mr. Spence," explained Bob with proud directness.
"I wasn't aware you had relatives down here," the boat-builder observed, turning toward Robert Morton with interest. "I imagined you came to the Cape because of the Galbraiths."
"Oh, no. I didn't know the Galbraith's were here until the other day."
"Really!"
The single word was weighted with incredulousness.
"'Twas the funniest thing you ever knew how it happened," put in Willie.
Robert Morton tried to cut him short.
"A package for the Galbraiths was sent to me by mistake; that was how I secured their address," he said.
Snelling looked puzzled.
"That warn't it at all, Bob," persisted Willie. "You ain't tellin' it half as queer as 'twas."
It was useless to attempt to check the little old man now. Artlessly he babbled the story, and Howard Snelling, listening, constructed a good part of the romance interwoven with it from the young man's color and irritation.
"So there were two beauties in the case!" commented he, when the tale was finished.
"There were two silver buckles," came sharply from Bob.
"Which amounts to the same thing," smiled the New Yorker.
Robert Morton vouchsafed no reply.
"Have your friends the Galbraiths met this—other lady?" asked Snelling insinuatingly.
"No, not yet."
"I see."
There was something offensive in the observation; something, too, that compelled Robert Morton even against his will to add with dignity:
"I am expecting to take Miss Hathaway over to see them some day soon."
He told himself, as he uttered the words, that he owed Howard Snelling no explanation and that it was ridiculous of him to make one; nevertheless he felt impelled to do so.
Mr. Snelling smiled superciliously.
"That will be very pleasant, won't it?" he remarked.
One could not have quarreled with the sentiment, but its blandness conveyed an exasperating disbelief.
The young man bit his lip angrily.
At the same instant there was a sound at the door.
"Aunt Tiny wants to know—"
The three men glanced up simultaneously, and Mr. Snelling's jaw dropped with amazement.
"I beg your pardon," murmured Delight. "I did not know there was any one here."
"It's only Mr. Snelling, a friend of Bob's," Willie hastened to say.
"Mr. Snelling is also a friend of Mr. Galbraith's," interrupted Robert Morton, enraged that it fell to him to perform the introduction. "This is Miss Hathaway, Mr. Snelling."
"I am charmed to meet you, Miss Hathaway," Howard Snelling declared, bending low over the girl's outstretched hand. "I did not realize you were an inmate of the house." Then with a sidelong glance at Bob he added: "Wilton certainly abounds in beautiful surprises."
As with unveiled wonder he scanned the exquisite face, Robert Morton, looking on, could have strangled him with a relish.
For a week Howard Snelling came and went from the small, vine-covered cottage on the bay, making himself so useful and so delightful that the charm of his personality gradually obliterated the first unpleasant impression Bob had gained of him. He worked hard but worked with such unobtrusiveness that unless one scrutinized him closely the subtle power that lay behind his hand and brain might have passed unsuspected. Ever mindful that his role was that of the casual visitor, he listened with appreciation to Willie's harmless gossip and whenever the little old man advanced a theory as to the enterprise in which they were engaged he greeted it not only with respect but with cordiality. Now and then as the undertaking progressed, he ventured a tactful, almost diffident suggestion, the value of which the inventor was quick to detect. Also, in the same nonchalant fashion, he produced from time to time the necessary materials, weaving a fairy web of prevarication when questioned too closely as to their source.
"Oh, I have a friend in the boat-building business," said he, "who lets me have any small things I want. I have done some favors for him in the past and he is only too glad to square up the balance by sending me whatever I ask him for."
The explanation, given with off-hand candor, quite satisfied the artless Willie, who imagined all the world as truthful as himself and inquired no further, accepting with unfeigned joy the gifts the gods provided. His face glowed with almost beatific light as he saw his dream slowly take form. Nothing he had ever done equalled this masterpiece. The project was his first thought at waking, the last before closing his eyes at night. Sometimes, even, when all but the sea slept, he would tiptoe downstairs, candle in hand, just to steal a glance at the child of his fancy. So absorbed was he in its growth and progress that it never crossed his mind to marvel that two men of Howard Snelling's and Robert Morton's ability should sacrifice to the invention the golden hours of the rare June days. Their interest was nothing miraculous. Who wouldn't have been interested in such a wonderful undertaking?
Indeed, Mr. Snelling's concern for the venture was almost as keen as his own. From morning until late noon he toiled. Occasionally the Galbraiths' chauffeur brought him over from Belleport, but more often it was Cynthia who made the trip with him. Mr. Galbraith, it appeared, had been called back to New York on urgent business; Roger had gone with friends on a yachting cruise; and Mrs. Galbraith was devoting her time to her mother who was still indisposed. Hence Cynthia was forced to fill the gaps and serve both as host and hostess. It was a natural situation, and Bob thought nothing about it except selfishly to exult that under the conditions Cynthia was kept too busy to invade the Spence home or bother him with invitations. And that was not the only boon that came with Snelling's presence, for with three workers in the shop Robert Morton found not infrequent chances to steal into the kitchen, where Delight was busy with household tasks, and enjoy the rapture of a word or two with her.
Never were there such days of enchantment as these! He might, he often said to himself, have remained in Wilton an entire summer and his acquaintance with the lady of his heart never have reached the degree of intimacy that it attained during Celestina's illness. To behold the girl, fair as the new-blown rose, presiding at the wee breakfast table was to forget all else. How dainty she looked in her trim cotton gown, with its demure cuffs and collar of white, and how deftly her hands moved among the simple fittings of the table! The worn agate coffee-pot seemed transformed to classic outline, and the nectar it contained to ambrosia. And what a famous little cook she was! Surely such flaky biscuit could never have been made by other hands. Bob suddenly became surprisingly interested in kitchens and all that they contained. The glint of tin pans, the dull ebony of the stove, iridescent suds foaming fresh and hot,—all these took on a strange and homely beauty quite novel in its charm. He had never dreamed before what an incomparable Eden a kitchen was!
To slip in and fill the wood-box; to creep into the pantry and watch the beloved head as it bent over the baking table; to be permitted to wipe the dishes whileShewashed them made of the simple duties tasks for gods and goddesses. He loved the pretty way her fringed lashes lifted, the wave of color that swept her cheek when she was startled by his step; and there was something ravishingly confidential in her caution:
"Be careful, Bob, not to drop Aunt Tiny's china teacups."
It was all foolish and inconsequential—the sighs, the smiles, the silences—but they made a paradise of the grim old universe. Many a time he longed to press his lips to the white arm, to kiss the warm curve of her neck where soft curls clustered. But he did none of these things. By a gentle reserve the girl kept him at his distance, and although there was only Jezebel to see, he did not transgress the bounds Delight's sweet womanliness reared between them. Of course she knew he loved her. She could not but know. Even Jezebel from her round blue eyes proclaimed a complete understanding of the romance and drawing herself into a fluffy ball in Willie's great chair feigned sleep that she might not embarrass the lovers. The canary knew, and so did the impertinent crimson rambler that clambered up the window frame and spied in through the pane. It was no secret. The whole dazzling world shared in the exquisite mystery.
Were the tale to have been put into words half its delicate beauty would have been shattered. It was now a thing of clouds, of perfume, of sunshine. The waves whispered together of it; the birds trilled the story. A glance, a half-uttered sentence, the meeting of hands carried with them great throbbing reaches of emotion that went to make up the reality of the ephemeral drama. And then there was the tormenting, bewitching, wretched, alluring uncertainty of it all. One could never be sure, and in the spell of this disquietude lay half the magic.
Robert Morton speculated as to whether Willie, along with Jezebel and the canary, had fathomed the idyl. He wondered, too, how much Snelling suspected. The New Yorker had an irritating habit of waylaying Delight and making pretty speeches to her, as if for the wanton pleasure of watching the blush rise in her cheek. When it came to women there was no denying Howard Snelling was as great an authority as at building ships. He understood the sex and knew what pleased them, and with the subtle art of a courtier he breathed into their ears a flattery too delicate to be resented. Beside such an expert Bob, floundering in his first real love affair, felt but a blunderer. Perhaps Mr. Snelling realized this and rather enjoyed the amateur's chagrin. However that may have been, he certainly let no opportunity slip for the display of his proficiency. The discomfited lover fumed with jealous rage; yet on analyzing the causes of his wrath he discovered he actually had but scant ground for complaint. He was not engaged to Delight, and until he was he had no claim upon her and not the smallest right in the world to grumble if another man chose to pay her a compliment. And what were compliments anyway? Only empty words. Yet reason as he would, he wished Snelling twenty fathoms deep in the sea before ever he had come to Wilton, there to haunt Willie's shop and make of himself a menace to all tranquillity.
So the days passed in a delirious alternation of ecstasy and despair until one morning when Mr. Snelling came bringing from Madam Lee the long-delayed note which she had promised Bob she would send. She was now quite strong again, she wrote, and she wished him to arrange for his aunt, Mr. Spence and Miss Hathaway to come and have tea with the Belleport family on the following afternoon, when both Roger and Mr. Galbraith would be at home. With beating heart Robert Morton took the letter into the house and showed it to Delight.
"How nice of them!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I do wish we could go! Willie would love it. He liked Mr. Galbraith and his son so much! And Aunt Tiny would be in the seventh heaven if only she were able to accept. She so seldom has an invitation out, poor dear!"
"And you?"
"Oh, I couldn't go anyway."
"Why not?"
"Well, in the first place, I have nothing to wear to a place like that."
"Delight!"
"And besides," she hurried on, "they are only asking me because I happen to be here in the house."
"Indeed they're not!"
"But I know they are," persisted the girl. "Everybody doesn't want to see me just because you—"
"Because I what?" demanded Bob, with an ominous stride in her direction.
"Because you—and Mr. Snelling like me," concluded she tranquilly.
"Confound Snelling!"
"Indeed, no. He is a charming gentleman, and I won't have him confounded."
"Hang him then."
"Nor hanged either," she protested.
"Of course if you prefer Mr. Snelling—" began Robert Morton stiffly.
She broke into a teasing laugh.
"I may not prefer him, but nevertheless I will own he is the most wonderful specimen of masculinity that my eyes have ever beheld. Remember Wilton is a small place, pitifully limited in its outlook, and that I have not traveled the wide world to view the wonders it contains. Hence Mr. Snelling is to me like the Eiffel Tower, the Matterhorn, the tomb of Napoleon, or Fifth Avenue at Easter—something illustrious and novel."
"He is nothing so fine as any of those," snapped Bob.
"Oh, I don't know," was the provoking answer.
Robert Morton bit his lip and moved toward the door, but he had not got further than the sill before she whispered:
"Bob!"
Resolutely he held his peace.
"Please be nice, Bob," she cooed.
Ah, he was back again, but she had retreated behind the tall rocker.
"I suppose," she observed, hurtling the words over Jezebel's sleeping form, "that your aunt will be heartbroken to miss this party. Why don't you run upstairs and let her read the note? Then we can send our regrets when Mr. Snelling goes back to Belleport this noon."
Obediently the young man sped to do her bidding, and soon Delight heard his voice calling from the upper hall.
"She won't send her regrets. She says she's going. I tell her they will ask her another time, but she insists she feels lots better and was thinking of getting up, anyway. She wants to start putting fresh cuffs on her black cashmere this minute, and do I don't know what. You'd better come up and stop her."
But Celestina was not to be stopped. Go she would!
"My shoulder's 'most well anyhow," she affirmed, "an' I had planned to go down to supper. Do you think for one minute I'd miss a junket like this? Why, I'd go if it killed me! The Galbraiths are nice folks an' have been good to Bob and Willie. Besides," she added with ingratiating candor, "I want to see where they live. An' they're goin' to send the automobile for us, that great red one—imagine it! I ain't been in an automobile more'n six times in my whole life. Do you think I'd send my regrets? I'd go if I had to be carried on a stretcher!"
Delight and Robert Morton laughed at her enthusiasm.
"Now you trot straight down stairs, Bob," went on Celestina energetically, "an' write Mis' Lee we'll admire to come, all of us."
"But Aunt Tiny," put in Delight, "I'm not going. Somebody must stay here and look after the house."
"What for?" Celestina demanded. "The house won't run away, an' if thieves was to ransack it from attic to cellar they'd find nothin' worth carryin' away. Ridiculous!"
"She says she hasn't anything to wear," interrupted Bob.
"Delight Hathaway! For shame!" said the elder woman, raising a reproving finger. "You always look pretty as a picture in anything. Some folks need fine clothes to set 'em off but you don't. Don't be silly! Why, half the pleasure of Willie an' me would be wiped out if you didn't go, an' likely Bob would be disappointed, too."
"You bet I would!"
"W—e—ll," the girl yielded.
"There, that's right, my dear." Celestina reached out and patted the slender hand. "Now, Bob, you go along an' write your letter," commanded she. "An' Delight, you bring me up some hot water an' fetch my clean print dress from the hall closet. I kinder think, come to mull it over, that there's fresh cuffs on my cashmere already, but you might look an' see. An' hadn't we better furbish up my bonnet this afternoon? It ain't been touched this season."