On the following afternoon Fanny Trehearne announced her intention of riding with Mr. Brinsley.
"I'd take you, too," she said to Lawrence, with a singularly cold stare. "Only as you can't ride much, you wouldn't enjoy it, you know."
"Certainly not," answered Lawrence, returning her glance with all coolness. "I shouldn't enjoy it at all."
"You might take my cousins out in the boat, instead."
"Are they tired of life?" enquired the young man, smiling. "No. I want to make a sketch in the woods. I'll go out by myself, thank you."
"Do you mean to sketch the place where we stopped yesterday?"
"Oh no—I'm going in quite another direction. I can't exactly explain where it is, because I've such a bad memory for names of roads, and all that. But I can find it."
Miss Cordelia Miner looked up from the magazine she was reading.
"You're not going to ride alone with Mr. Brinsley, are you?" she asked suddenly.
"Why not?" asked Fanny. "I don't see any reason why I shouldn't, It's safer than riding alone, isn't it?"
"I confess, I don't like the idea," said Miss Cordelia. "It looks as though there were something."
"Something of what kind?" Fanny watched Lawrence's face.
"Something—well—not really an engagement—but—"
"Well—why shouldn't I be engaged to Mr. Brinsley, if I like?" enquired the young girl, arching her brows.
"Why, Fanny! I'm surprised!" And, indeed, Miss Miner seemed so, for she almost sprang out of her chair.
"I don't know why you need be horrified, though," returned Fanny, calmly. "Should you be shocked if any one said that you were engaged to Mr. Brinsley? What's the matter with him, anyway?" she demanded, dropping into her favourite slang. "You'd be proud to be engaged to him—so would Elizabeth—so would Augusta! Then why shouldn't I be proud if I can get him? I'm sure, he's awfully good-looking, and he rides—like an angel."
"An angel jockey," suggested Lawrence, without a smile.
"Not at all!" exclaimed Fanny. "He rides like a gentleman and not in the least like a jockey."
Miss Cordelia had risen from her chair, and turned her back on the young people.
"You've no right to say such things to me, Fanny," she said, going slowly towards the window. Her voice shook.
The young girl saw that she was deeply hurt, and followed her quickly.
"I didn't mean to be horrid!" said Fanny, penitently. "I was only laughing, you know, and of course I shall take Stebbins. And I'm not engaged to Mr. Brinsley at all."
"Why didn't you say so at once?" asked Cordelia, half choking, and turning away her face.
Fanny, unseen by her cousin, glanced at Lawrence, and then at the door, and the young man departed immediately, leaving the two cousins to make peace.
He did not remain long in the house. Thrusting a sketch-book and a pencil into his pocket, with his pipe and pouch, he went out without seeing Fanny again, taking her at her word with regard to her plans for the afternoon. An hour later, he was seated under a tree high upon the side of the hill and almost out of sight of the Otter Cliff road. There was nothing particular in the way of a view from that point, but there were endless trees, and Lawrence amused himself in making a rough study of a mixed group of white pines, firs, and hackmatacks.
He did not draw very carefully, nor even industriously, and more than once he stopped working altogether for a quarter of an hour at a time. His principal object in coming had been to get out of the way just a little more promptly and completely than Fanny could have expected. His thoughts were much more concerned with her than with what he was doing.
Naturally enough, he was trying to understand the real bent of the girl's feelings. Setting aside the absurd chaff which had formed a good deal of the conversation on the previous afternoon, he tried to extract from it enough of truth to guide him, aiding himself by recalling little circumstances as well as words, for the one had often belied the other.
He saw clearly that Fanny Trehearne might have said to him, 'I like you, but I do not love you—win me if you can!' But it was like her to propose to 'flirt for a bet'—being at heart perhaps less of a flirt than she laughingly admitted herself to be. But that was not the point which chiefly interested him. What he wished to know was, just how far that undefined liking for him extended. To speak in the common phrase, he did not 'know where he was' with her, and it seemed that he had no means of finding out. On the other hand, he knew very well indeed that he himself was badly in love. The symptoms were not to be mistaken, nor had he been in love so often already as to make him sceptical as to what he felt. He was more distrustful of the result than of the impulse.
In his opinion Fanny was much too frank to be a flirt. Her directness was one of her principal charms, though he could not help suspecting that it must be one of her chief weapons. A little hesitation is often less deceptive than clear-eyed, outspoken truth. But Lawrence was no more able than most men of his age—or, indeed, of any age—to follow out a continuous train of thought where a woman was concerned. It is more often the woman's personality that concerns us, unreasoning men, than the probable direction of her own reasoning about us. We do not make love to an argument, so to speak, nor to a set of ideas, nor to a preconceived opinion of our merits or demerits. We make love to our own idea of what the woman is—and the depth of our disillusionment is the measure of our sincerity, when love is gasping between the death-blow and the death.
Moreover, what is called nowadays analysis of human nature, belongs in reality to transcendental thought. 'Transcendent' is defined as designating that which lies beyond the bounds of all possible experience. So far as we know, it is beyond those bounds to enter into the intelligence of our neighbour, subjectively, to identify ourselves with him and to see and understand the world with his eyes and mind. It follows that we are never sure of what we are doing when we attempt to set down exactly another man's train of thought, and it follows also that few are willing to recognize the result as at all resembling the process of which they are conscious within themselves. On certain bases, all men can appeal subjectively to all men, and all women to all women. But, as between the sexes, all observation is objective and tentative, whether it be that of the author, condemned to analyze a woman's character, or that of the man in love and attempting to understand the woman he loves.
And further, if we could see—as it is pretended by some that we can see on paper—precisely what is taking place in the intelligence of those we meet in the world, our friends would be as unrecognizable to us as a dissected man is unrecognizable for a human being except in the eyes of a doctor. The soul, laid bare, dissected, and turned inside out, with real success, would not be recognized by its dearest friend, were it ever so truthful a soul. We are all fundamentally and totally incapable of expressing exactly what we feel, and as we have no means of conveying truth without some sort of expression, we are helpless and are all more or less hopelessly misunderstood—a fact to which, if we please, we may ascribe that variety which is proverbially said to be the charm of life. Doubtless, this is a literary heresy; but it is a human truth a little above literature.
Lawrence had never attempted to write a book, but as he sat on the slope above the Otter Cliff road, drawing trees, it did not occur to him to draw a picture of what he thought about the inside of each tree, instead of a representation of what he saw. But he made the usual fruitless attempt to understand the woman he loved, and to reason about her, and failed to do either, which is also usual. The conclusion he reached was that he loved her, of which he had been aware before he had set himself to think it out.
What he saw was a strong girl's face with cool, inscrutable grey eyes that never took fire and gleamed, nor ever turned dull and vacant. Their unchanging steadiness contradicted the wayward speech, the sudden capricious confidence, even the gay laugh, sometimes. Lawrence had a lively impression that whatever Fanny said or did, she never meant but one thing, whatever that might be. And with this impression he was obliged to content himself.
From the place where he sat, he had a glimpse between the trees of the road below. On the side towards him there was a little open bit of meadow, where the gorge widened, and a low fence with a little ditch separated it from the highway. On the hillside, above this stretch of grass, the trees grew here and there, wide apart at first, and then by degrees more close together. He himself was seated just within the thick wood, at the edge of the first underbrush.
Now and then, people passed along the road: a light buckboard drawn by a pair of bays and containing a smart-looking couple, with no groom behind; a farmer's wagon, long, hooded, and dusty, dragged at a disjointed trot by a broken-down grey horse; a solitary rider, whose varnished shoes reflected the sunlight even to where Lawrence was sitting; a couple of pedestrians; a lad driving a cow; and then another buckboard; and so on.
Lawrence was thinking of shutting up his book and climbing higher up the steep side of New Port Mountain—as the hill is called—in search of another study, when, glancing down through the trees, he saw three riders coming slowly along the road—two in front, and one at some distance behind—a lady and gentleman and then a groom. His eyes were good, and he would have known Fanny Trehearne's figure and bearing even at a greater distance. She sat so straight—hands down, elbows in, head high, square in her saddle, yet flexible, and all moving with every movement of her Kentucky thoroughbred. They came nearer, and Lawrence saw them distinctly now. Brinsley was beside her. Lawrence laughed to himself at the idea that the man could ever have been in the Marines. He sat the horse he rode much more like a Mexican or an Indian than like a sailor or a marine. Even at that distance Lawrence could not help admiring his really magnificent figure, for Brinsley's perfections were showy and massed well afar off.
The riders reached the point where the little meadow spread out on their left, and to Lawrence's surprise, they halted and seemed to be consulting about something. They had turned towards him, and as they talked, he could see that Fanny looked across the meadow and up at the woods where he was sitting. It was of course utterly impossible that she should have known where he was, and it was almost incredible that she should see him, seated low upon the ground in the deep shade, when she was only visible to him between the stems of the trees. Nevertheless, not caring to be discovered, he crouched down amongst the ferns and grasses, still keeping his eye on the couple in the road far below.
Presently he saw Fanny turn her horse's head, walk him to the other side of the road, and turn again, facing the meadow. She looked up and down the road once, saw that no one was coming, and put her mare at the fence. It was a low one, and the ditch on the outer side was neither broad nor deep. The thoroughbred cleared it with a contemptuously insignificant effort, and cantered a few strides forward into the grass, shaking her bony head almost between her knees as Fanny brought her to a stand and turned again. Brinsley followed her on the big Hungarian horse he rode,—Mr. Trehearne's horse,—jumping the fence and ditch, and taking them again almost immediately, to wait for Fanny on the other side in the road. She followed again, and pulled up by his side. But they did not ride on at once. They seemed to be discussing some point connected with the place, for they pointed here and there with their hands as they spoke. Fanny reined in her mare and backed a little, as though she were going to jump again. The animal seemed nervous, stamping and pawing, and laying back her small ears.
A hundred yards or more in the direction from which they had come the road made a short bend round the foot of the spur of the hill, known as Pickett's. Just as Fanny put the mare at the fence a third time, a coach and four turned the corner of the road at a smart pace, leaders cantering and wheelers at a long trot.
Seeing three horses apparently halting in the way, some one in the coach sent a terrific and discordant blast from a post-horn ringing along the road as a warning. At that moment Fanny's mare was rising at the bars. She cleared them as easily as ever, but on reaching the ground instantly bolted across the grass, head down, ears back, heels flying. It all happened in a moment. The two men, Brinsley and groom, knew too much to scare the thoroughbred by a pursuit, and confident in Fanny's good riding, sat motionless on their horses in the road, after drawing away enough to let the coach pass.
The idiot with the horn continued to blow fiercely, and the big vehicle came swinging along at a great rate, with clattering of hoofs, for the road was hard and dry, baked after a recent rain—and with jingling of harness and sound of voices. The mare grew more and more frightened, and tore up the hillside like a flash, directly away from the noise. The young girl was a first-rate rider and knew the fearful danger, if she should be carried at such a pace amongst the trees. But her strength, great as it was, for a woman, was not able to produce the slightest impression upon the terrified creature she rode.
Lawrence knew nothing of riding, but the imminent peril of the woman he loved was clear to him in a moment. He had a horrible vision of the wild-eyed mare tearing straight towards him through the trees—wide apart at first, and then dangerously near together.
On they came, the thoroughbred swerving violently at one stem after another—the young girl's strong figure swaying to her balance at each headlong movement. He could see her set face, pale under the tan, and he could see the desperate exertion of her strength. He sprang forward and ran down between the trees at the top of his speed.
There is nothing equal to the absolute fearlessness of a naturally brave man who has no experience of the risk he runs and is bent on saving the life of the woman he loves. Louis Lawrence remembered afterwards what he had done and how he had done it, but he was unconscious of what he was doing at the time.
He rushed down the hill between the closer trees, and with utter recklessness sprang at the bridle as the infuriated mare dashed past him. Grasping snaffle and curb—tight drawn as they were—in both hands, he threw all his light weight upon them and allowed himself to be dragged along the ground between the trees at the imminent risk of his life—a risk so terrible that Fanny Trehearne turned paler for him than for her own danger. In half a dozen more strides they might both have been killed. But the mare stopped, quivering, tried to rear, but could not lift Lawrence far from the ground nor shake off his desperate hold, plunged once and again, and then stood quite still, trembling violently. Lawrence scrambled to his feet, still holding the bridle, and promptly placed himself in front of the mare.
For one breathless instant, Lawrence looked into Fanny's face, and neither spoke nor moved. Both were still very pale. Then the young girl slipped off, the reins in her hand.
"That was uncommonly well done," she said, with great calm. "You've saved my life."
She no longer looked at him while she spoke, but patted and stroked the thoroughbred, looking her over with a critical eye.
"Oh—that's all right," answered Lawrence. "Don't mention it!"
He laughed nervously, still panting from his violent exertion. Fanny herself was not out of breath, but the colour did not come back to her sunburnt cheeks at once, and her hand was hardly steady yet. She did not laugh with Lawrence, nor even smile, but she looked long into his eyes.
"I may not mention it, but I shan't forget it," she said slowly.
"It's one to me, isn't it?" asked Lawrence, who, in reality, was by far the cooler and more collected of the two.
"How do you mean?" enquired Fanny, knitting her brows half-angrily.
"One to me—in our game, you know," said the young fellow. "The game we agreed to play, yesterday."
"Yes—it's one to you. By the bye—you're not hurt anywhere, are you?"
She looked him over, as she had looked over her mare, with the same critical glance. His clothes were a little torn, here and there, being but light summer things, and his hat had disappeared, but it was tolerably clear that he was in no way injured.
"Oh, I'm all right," he answered cheerfully. "I should think you'd feel badly shaken, though," he added, with sudden anxiety.
"Not at all," said Fanny, determined to show no more emotion or excitement than he. "It was a case of sitting still—neck or nothing. It's nothing, as it happens."
At that moment Brinsley appeared, riding slowly through the trees, for fear of frightening the mare again.
"Are you hurt?" he shouted.
Fanny looked round, saw him, and shook her head, with a smile. Brinsley trotted up and sprang from his horse.
"Are you sure you're not hurt?" he asked again.
"Not in the least!"
"Thank God!" ejaculated Brinsley, with emphasis.
"You'd better thank Mr. Lawrence, too," observed Fanny, quietly. "He caught her going at a gallop, and hung on and was dragged. I don't remember ever seeing anything quite so plucky."
Brinsley looked coldly at his rival, and his beady eyes seemed nearer together than usual when he spoke to him.
"I think you're quite as much to be congratulated as Miss Trehearne," he said.
"Thanks."
"We'd better be getting down to the road again," said Fanny. "You can lead the mare and your own horse, too, Mr. Brinsley. She's quiet enough now, and I've all I can do to walk in these things."
Brinsley took the mare's bridle over her head and led the way with the two horses.
"Aren't you coming?" asked Fanny, seeing that Lawrence did not follow.
"Thanks—no," he answered. "I must find my hat, in the first place."
Brinsley looked over his shoulder, and saw the two hanging back. He stopped a moment, turning, and laying one hand on the mare's nose.
"You must be shaken, Mr. Lawrence," he said. "Why don't you take the groom's horse and ride home with us?"
"I can't ride," answered the younger man, loud enough for Brinsley to hear him. "And you know it perfectly well," he added under his breath.
Fanny frowned, but took no further notice of the remark.
"Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand to Lawrence. "Come home as soon as you can, won't you?"
"Oh yes—that is, I think I'll just see you take that fence again, and then I want to get a little higher up the hill and do another bit of a sketch. Then I'll come home. There's no hurry, is there?"
"Don't show off," said Fanny, severely. "It isn't pretty. Good-bye."
She walked fast and overtook Brinsley in a few moments. At the foot of the hill he prepared to mount her, leaving his own horse to the groom. Then a thing happened which he was never able to explain, though he was an expert in the field and no one could mount a lady better than he, of all Fanny's acquaintances. He bent his knee and held out his hand and stiffened his back and made the necessary effort just at the right moment, as he very well knew. But for some inexplicable reason Fanny did not reach the saddle, nor anywhere near it, and she slipped and would certainly have fallen if he had not caught her with his other hand and held her on her feet.
"How awkward you are!" she exclaimed viciously, with a little stamp. "Let me get on alone!"
And thereupon, to his astonishment and mortification, she pushed him aside, set her foot in the stirrup,—for she was very tall and could do it easily,—and was up in a flash. Lawrence, looking down at them from the edge of the woods, saw what happened, and so did Stebbins, the groom, who grinned in silence. He hated Brinsley, and it is a bad sign when a good servant hates his master's guest. Lawrence felt that in addition to scoring one in the game, he was avenged on his enemy for the latter's taunting invitation to ride.
"I think I may count that, and mark two. I'm sure she did it on purpose," he said audibly to himself.
Before Brinsley was mounted, Fanny was over the fence with her mare and waiting for him in the road.
"Oh, come along!" she cried, "Don't be all day getting on!"
"You needn't be so tremendously rough on a fellow," said Brinsley, as his horse landed in the road. "It wasn't my fault that I wasn't waiting for a runaway under the trees up there."
"Yes it was! Everything's your fault," answered Fanny, emphatically. "No—you needn't play Orlando Furioso and make papa's old rocking-horse waltz like that. My mare's got to walk a mile, at least, for her nerves."
It didn't require Brinsley's great natural penetration to tell him that Miss Fanny Trehearne was in the very worst of tempers—even to the point of unfairly calling her papa's sturdy Hungarian bad names. But he could not at all see why she should be so angry. It had certainly been her fault if he had failed to put her neatly in the saddle. But her ill-humour did not frighten him in the least, though he was very quiet for several minutes after she had last spoken.
"It's not wildly gay to ride with people who don't talk," observed Fanny.
"I was trying to think of something appropriate to say," answered Brinsley. "But you're in such an awful rage—"
"Am I? I didn't know it. What makes you think so?"
"What nerves you've got!" exclaimed Brinsley, in a tone of admiration.
"I haven't any nerves at all."
"I mean good nerves."
"I tell you I haven't any nerves. Why do you talk about nerves? They're not amusing things to have, are they?"
"Well—in point of humour—I didn't say they were."
"I asked you to say something amusing, and you began talking about nerves," said Fanny, in explanation.
"I'm not in luck to-day," said Brinsley, after a pause.
"No—you're not," was the answer; but she did not vouchsafe him a glance.
"I wish you'd like me," he said boldly.
"I do—at a certain distance. You look well in the landscape—and you know it."
"Upon my word!" Brinsley laughed roughly, and looked between his horse's ears.
"Upon your word—what?"
"I never had anything said to me quite equal to that, Miss Trehearne."
"No? I'm surprised. Perhaps you haven't known the right sort of people. You must find the truth refreshing."
Brinsley waited a few moments before speaking, and then, turning his head, looked at her with great earnestness.
"I wish you'd tell me why you've taken such a sudden dislike to me," he said in a low voice.
"Why are you so anxious to know, Mr. Brinsley?" asked Fanny, meeting his eyes quietly.
"Because I believe that somebody has been saying disagreeable things about me to you," he answered. "If that's the case, it would be fair to give me a chance, you know."
"Nobody's been talking against you. You've talked against yourself. Besides," she added, her face suddenly clearing, "it's quite absurd to make such a fuss about nothing! I'm only angry about nothing at all. It's my way, you know. You mustn't mind. I'll get over it before we're at home, and then I'll go off, and my cousins will give you lots of weak tea and flattery."
Brinsley, who was clever at most things, was not good at talking nor at understanding a woman's moods, and he felt himself at so great a disadvantage that he slipped into an inane conversation about people and parties without succeeding in finding out what he wished to know. If he had ever conceived any mad hope of winning Fanny's affections, he abandoned it then and there. He was still further handicapped, had Fanny known it, by the desperate state of his own affairs at that moment; and if she had known something of his reflexions, she might have pitied him a little—what she might have thought, if she had guessed the remainder, is hard to guess, for he had a very curious scheme in his mind for improving his finances. He had been playing high for some time, had lost steadily, and was at the end of his present resources, which, with him, meant that he was at the end of all he had in the world.
He was not by any means inclined to give up the pleasant intimacy he had formed and fostered with the three Miss Miners, nor the attendant luxuries which he had gained with it, and the introduction to Bar Harbour society, which meant good society elsewhere. But he felt that he had no choice, since the cards went against him. He was not a sharper. He played fair, for the sake of the enjoyment of the thing. It was his one great passion. When he was in luck he won enough for his extravagant needs, for he always played high, on principle. But when fortune foiled him, he had other talents of a more curious description, by the exercise of which to replenish his purse—talents, too, which he had exercised in America for a long time. His happy hunting-ground was really London, which accounted for his evident and almost extraordinary familiarity with its ways. There are indeed few places in the world where a man may follow a doubtful occupation more freely and more successfully.
Before they reached the Trehearnes' house, Brinsley had made up his mind that he must drink his last cup of tea with the three Miss Miners on that day or very soon afterwards, unless he were to be even more fortunate in his undertaking than he dared to expect. The immediate consequence was an affectation of a sad and stately manner towards Fanny as he helped her off her mare at the door.
"I'm afraid this has been our last ride," he said, in a subdued voice.
"What? Oh—'The Last Ride'—Browning—I remember," answered Fanny.
"No—I wasn't alluding to Browning. I'm going away very soon."
Fanny stared at him in some surprise.
"Oh! Are you? I am very sorry." She spoke cheerfully, and led the way into the house, Brinsley following her, with a dejected air. "You'll probably find my cousins in the library," she added. "I'm going to take off my hat—it's so hot."
The three Miss Miners were assembled, as usual at that hour, and greeted Brinsley effusively. Not wishing to be anticipated by Fanny in telling a story altogether to Lawrence's credit, he began to tell the three ladies of what had happened during the ride. He was very careful to explain that he had of course not dared to follow the run-away, lest he should have made matters much worse.
"It's quite dreadful," cried Miss Cordelia, on hearing of Fanny's narrow escape. "You should never have let her jump the fence at all. What do people do such mad things for!"
"If anything happened to the child, we might as well kill ourselves," said Elizabeth. "It's too dreadful to think of!"
"Well," answered Brinsley, "nothing has happened, you see. I've brought Miss Trehearne safe home, though I hadn't the good fortune to be the man who stopped her horse. You see," he added, smiling, "I want all the credit you can spare from Mr. Lawrence. I'm afraid there's not much to be got, though. He's had the lion's share."
"And where is he?" asked Augusta, who felt more sympathy for the artist than the others.
"Oh—he'll come back. He can't ride, you know, so he had to walk, poor fellow! He'd been pretty badly shaken, too, and he's not strong, I'm sure."
"You wouldn't have called him weak if you'd seen him hanging on while the mare dragged him," said Fanny, who had entered unnoticed.
"Oh, that's only strength in the hands!" said Brinsley, in a depreciative tone, and conscious of his own splendid proportions.
"Well, then, he's strong in the hands, that's all," retorted Fanny. "Please, some tea, Elizabeth dear—I'm half dead."
The three Miss Miners did their best to console Brinsley for Fanny's continued ill-treatment of him, but they did not succeed in lifting the cloud from his brow. At last he confessed that he was expecting to leave Bar Harbour at any moment.
There were to be fireworks that evening at the Canoe Club on the farther side of Bar Island—magnificent fireworks, it was said, which it would be well worth while to see. The night was calm and clear, and the moon, being near the last quarter, would not rise until everything was over.
"We'll go in skiffs," said Fanny. "When we're tired of each other, we can change about, you know. Mr. Lawrence can take one of us and Mr. Brinsley another, and the other two must take one of the men from the landing. I ordered the boats this morning when I was out."
The three Miss Miners looked consciously at one another, mutely wondering how they were to divide Mr. Brinsley amongst them, and wishing that they had consulted together in private before the moment for decision had come. But no one suggested that, as there were only four ladies, each of the men could very easily take two in a boat.
"We might toss up to see who shall take whom," suggested Brinsley, who had been unusually silent during the greater part of dinner.
"In how many ways can you arrange six people in couples?" asked Fanny.
Nobody succeeded in solving the question, of course. Even Elizabeth Miner, who was considered the clever member, gave it up in despair.
"Never mind!" said Fanny. "We'll see how it turns out when we get down to the landing-stage. These things always arrange themselves."
To the surprise of every one except Fanny herself, the arrangement turned out to be such that she and Miss Cordelia went together in the skiff pulled by the sailor, while Brinsley and Lawrence each took one of the other Miss Miners.
"We'll change by and by," said Fanny, as her boat shoved off first to show the way. "Keep close to us in the crowd when we get over."
The distance from the landing, across the harbour, through the channel between Bar Island and Sheep Porcupine to the Canoe Club, is little over half a mile; but at night, amidst a crowd of steamers, large and small, row-boats, canoes, and sail-boats,—the latter all outside the channel,—it took twenty minutes to reach the place where the fireworks were to be.
Fanny leaned back beside her cousin, and watched the lights in silence. Yellow, green, and red, they streamed across the brilliant black water in every direction, the yellow rays fixed or moving but slowly, the others gliding along swiftly above their own reflection, as the paddle steamers thrashed their way through the still sea. To left and right the shadowy islands loomed, darkly against the black sky, outlined by the stars. The warm damp air lifted the coolness from the water in little puffs, as the skiff slipped along. Now and then, in the gloom, a boat showed dimly alongside, and the laughing voices of girls and boys told how near it passed, a mere floating dimness upon blackness. The stroke of light sculls swished and tinkled with the laughter. The soft mysterious charm of the summer dark was breathed upon land and water—the distant lights were love-dreaming eyes, and each time, as the oars dipped, swept and rose, the gentle sound was like a stolen kiss.
Then, suddenly, with a wild screaming rush, a rocket shot up into the night, splitting the sky with a scar of fire. The burning point of it lingered a moment overhead, then cracked into little stars that shed a soft glow through the gloom, and fell in a swift shower of sparks. Then all was hushed again, and the red and green lights moved quickly over the water, hither and thither.
Close to the shore of the island the skiff ran round the point into the shallow water along the beach, and all at once in the distance the festooned lanterns of the Canoe Club came into view, so bright that one could distinguish the branches of the spruces in the red and yellow glare, and the moving crowd of people on the little landing-stage and below, before the clubhouse. And some two hundred yards out the lights began again, gleaming from hundreds of boats and little vessels of all rigs and builds. Between these seaward lights and those on land a deep black void stretched away up Frenchman's Bay.
Miss Cordelia started nervously at the rockets, but said nothing. Fanny sat beside her in silence. The sailor, only visible distinctly when the lights were behind him, pulled softly and steadily, glancing over his shoulder every now and then to see that the way was clear. The other skiffs kept near, both Brinsley and Lawrence being keenly on the lookout for a change. Now and then Fanny could hear them talking.
"I wonder why one voice should attract one and another should be disagreeable," she said at last, in a meditative tone.
"I was thinking of the same thing," answered Cordelia, thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Fanny, absently. "Of course you were," she added, a moment later. "I mean—" She paused. "Poor dear!" she exclaimed at last, stroking her cousin's elderly hand in the dark. "I'm so sorry!"
"Thank you, dear," answered Miss Miner, simply and gratefully.
It was little enough, but little as it was it made them both more silent than ever. With the boatman close before them, it was impossible to talk of what was in their thoughts. Fanny, for her part, was glad of it. She had understood her old-maid cousin since the night when Cordelia had broken down and laughed and cried in the garden, and she knew how little there could be to say. But Cordelia did not understand Fanny in the least. It was a marvel to her that any one should prefer Lawrence to Brinsley—almost as great a marvel as that she herself, in her sober middle age, should have felt what she knew was love and believed to be passion.
And now, Brinsley was going, and it was over. He would never come back, and she should never see him again—she was sure of that. She was only an old maid; a middle-aged gentlewoman who had never possessed any great attraction for anybody; who had always been more or less poor and unhappy, though of the best and living amongst the best; whose few pleasures had come to her unexpectedly, like rare gleams of pale sunshine on a very long rainy day; who had looked for little and had got next to nothing out of life, save the crumbs of enjoyment from the feast of rich relations, like the Trehearnes—a woman who had known something more grievous than sorrow and worse than violent grief, trudging through life in the leaden cowl of many limitations—the leaden cowl of that most innocent of all hypocrites, of her, or of him, who knows the daily burden of keeping up appearances on next to nothing, and of doctoring poor little illusions through a feeble existence, worth having because they represent all that there is to have.
She had been wounded by one of those arrows shot in the dark which hit hearts unawares and unaimed; and now that the shaft was suddenly drawn out, the heart's blood followed it and the nerves quivered where it had been. It was only one of the little tragedies which no one sees, few guess at, and nothing can hinder. But Fanny Trehearne felt that it was beside her, there in the little boat, while she watched the pretty fireworks, and she was sorry and did what she could to soothe the pain.
"Let's change, now," she said at last, just as the glow of a multitude of coloured fires died away on the water. "You take Mr. Brinsley, and I'll take Mr. Lawrence."
As she spoke, she gave her cousin's hand a little squeeze of sympathy, and heard the small sigh of satisfaction that answered the proposal. The rearrangement was effected in a few moments, the men holding the boats together by the gunwales while the ladies stepped from one into the other.
"Pull away," said Fanny, authoritatively, as soon as Lawrence had shoved off. "Let's get out of this! I'll steer, so you needn't bother about running into things."
Fairly seated in a boat, with the sculls shipped, and some one at the tiller lines, Lawrence could get along tolerably well, for he knew just enough not to catch a crab in smooth water, so long as he was not obliged to turn his head. But if he had to look over his shoulder, something was certain to happen, which was natural, considering that when he attempted to feather at all, he did it the wrong way.
"You're stronger than anybody would think," observed Fanny, as she saw how quickly the skiff moved. "You might do things quite decently, if you'd only take the trouble to learn."
"Oh no! I'm a born duffer," laughed Lawrence. "Besides, I couldn't row long like this. I couldn't keep it up."
They were just in front of the clubhouse now; and a score of rockets went up together, with a rushing and a crackling and a gleaming, as they soared and burst, and at last fell sputtering in the water all around the skiff. Lawrence had rested on his sculls to watch the sight.
"Pull away!" said Fanny. "We'll get under the foot-bridge by the landing. There's water enough there, and we can see everything."
Lawrence obeyed, and pulled as hard as he could.
"So your friend Mr. Brinsley is going away," observed the young girl, suddenly.
"My friend! I like that! As though I had brought him in my pocket."
"I'm very glad that he's going, at all events," said Fanny, without heeding his remark. "I'm not fond of him any more."
"I hope you never were—fond of him."
"Oh yes, I was—but I'm thankful to say that it's over. Of all the ineffable cads! I could have killed him to-day!"
"By the bye," said Lawrence, "when he was mounting you—didn't you do that on purpose?"
"Of course. And then I called him awkward. It was so nice! It did me good."
"Pure spite, I suppose. You couldn't have had any particular reason for doing it, could you?"
"Oh dear, no! What reason could I have? It wasn't his fault that the mare ran away, though I told him it was."
"That's interesting," observed Lawrence. "Do you often do things out of pure spite?"
"Constantly—without any reason at all!" Fanny laughed.
"Perhaps you'll marry out of spite, some day," said Lawrence, calmly. "Women often do, they say, though I never could understand why."
"I daresay I shall. I'm quite capable of it. And shouldn't I be just horrid afterwards!"
"I like you when you're horrid, as you call it. I didn't at first. You've given my sense of humour a chance to grow since I've been here. I say, Miss Trehearne—" He stopped.
"What do you say? It isn't particularly polite to begin in that way, is it? I suppose it's English."
"Oh, bother the English! And I apologize for being slangy. It's so dark that I can't see you frown. I meant to say, if you ever marry out of spite, and want to be particularly horrid afterwards, it wouldn't be a bad idea to marry me, for I don't mind that sort of thing a bit, you know."
"That's a singular offer!" laughed Fanny, leaning far back, and playing with the tiller lines in the glow of the Bengal lights.
"It's genuine of its kind," answered the young man. "Of course it isn't a sure thing, exactly," he added reflectively, "because it depends on your happening to be in the spiteful humour. But, as you say that often happens—"
"Well, go on!"
"I thought you might feel spiteful enough to accept this evening," concluded Lawrence.
"Take care—I might, you know—you're in danger!" She was still laughing.
"Don't mind me, you know! I could stand it, I believe."
"You're awfully amusing—sometimes, Mr. Lawrence."
"Meaning now?" enquired the artist, resting on his sculls, for they were under the shadow of the bridge.
"I can't see your face distinctly," answered Fanny. "So much depends on the expression. But I think—"
"What do you think? That it's awfully amusing of me to offer to be married as a sacrifice to your spite?"
"It's amusing anyway."
"A formal proposal would be, you mean?" asked Lawrence. Then he laughed oddly.
"I hate formality," answered Fanny. "That is, in earnest, you know. It's so disgusting when a man comes with his gloves buttoned and sits on the edge of a chair and says—"
"And says what?"
"Oh—you know the sort of thing. You must have done it scores of times."
"What? Proposed and been refused? You're complimentary, at all events. I've a great mind to let you be the first, just—well—how shall I say? Just to associate you with a novel sensation."
"I might disappoint you," said Fanny, demurely. "I told you so before. Just think, if I were to say 'yes,' you'd be most dreadfully caught. You'd have to eat humble pie and beg off, and say that you hadn't meant it."
"Oh no!" laughed the young man. "You'd break it off in a week, and then it would be all right."
"Are you going to be rude? Or are you, already? I'm not quite sure."
"Neither. Of course you'd break it off, if we had an agreement to that effect."
"You don't make any allowance for my spitefulness. It would be just like me to hold you to your engagement. Of course you wouldn't live long. We should be sure to fight."
"Oh—sure," assented Lawrence. "That is, if you call this fighting."
"It would be worse than this. But why don't you try? I'm dying to refuse you. I'm just in the humour."
"Why! I thought you said there was danger! If I'd known there wasn't—by the bye, this counts in the game, doesn't it?"
"There isn't anything to count, yet," said Fanny. "Look at those fiery fish—aren't they pretty? See how they squirm about, and fizzle, and behave like mad things! Oh, I never saw anything so pretty as that!"
"Yes. If one must have an interruption, they do as well as anything."
"You weren't talking very coherently, I believe," said the young girl, turning her head to watch the fireworks. "And you've made me miss lots of pretty things, I'm sure. Oh—they've gone out already! How dark it seems, all at once! What were you asking? Whether this counted in the game? Of course it counts. Everything does. But I don't exactly see how—"
She stopped and looked towards him in the dim gloom of the shadow under the bridge. But Lawrence did not speak. He looked over the side of the boat, softly slapping the black water with the blade of his scull.
"Why don't you go on?" asked Fanny, tapping the boards under her foot to attract his attention.
"I was thinking over the proper words," answered Lawrence. "How does one make a formal proposal of marriage? I never did such a thing in my life."
"An informal one would do for fun."
"I never did that, either."
"Never?"
"Never."
"Really? Swear it, as they say on the stage." Fanny laughed softly.
"Oh, by Jove, yes!" answered Lawrence, promptly. "I'll swear to that by anything you please."
"Well—you'll have to do it some day, so you'd better practise at once," suggested Fanny.
Lawrence did not notice that there was a sort of little relief in her tone.
"I suppose one says, 'My angel, will you be mine?'" he said. "That sounds like some book or other."
"It might do," answered Fanny, meditatively. "You ought to throw a little more expression into the tone. Besides, I'm not an angel, whatever the girl in the book may have been. On the whole—no—it's a little too effusive. Angel—you know. It's such nonsense! Try something else; but put lots of expression into it."
"Does one get down on one's knees?" enquired Lawrence.
"Oh no; I don't believe it's necessary. Besides, you'd upset the boat."
"All right—here goes! My dear Miss Trehearne, will you—
"Yes. That's it. Go on. The quaver in the voice is rather well done. 'Will you—' What?"
"Will you marry me?"
"Yes, Mr. Lawrence, I will."
There was a short pause, during which a number of fiery fish were sent off again, and squirmed and wriggled and fizzled their burning little lives away in the water. But neither of the young people looked at them.
"You rather took my breath away," said Lawrence, with a change of tone. "Did I do it all right?"
"Oh—quite right," answered Fanny, thoughtfully.
Immediately after the words Lawrence heard a little sigh. Then Fanny heard one, too.
"You didn't happen to be in earnest, did you?" she asked suddenly, in a low, soft voice.
"Well—I didn't mean—that I meant—you know we agreed to play a game—"
"I know we did—but—were you in earnest."
"Yes—but, of course— Oh, this isn't fair, Miss Trehearne!"
"Yes, it is. I said 'yes,' didn't I?"
"Certainly, but—"
"There's no 'but.' I happened to be in earnest, too—that's all. I've lost the game."