"Dear Sylvia,"--So it ran--"I am sailing to-morrow to join the American Ambulance Field Service in France. It isn't a new notion. It has been in the back of my brain a long time. I should have gone in December if you had refused me then. I am not much good at anything but driving a car. I stuck to the business because you wanted me to but my heart wasn't in it. Dad understands, and is perfectly willing I should go. Don't misunderstand me, please, sweetheart. I am not doing this for gallery play or to work on your feelings. And I'm not going to talk any tommyrot about my life being spoiled and wanting to throw it away. I don't want to throw it away. I want to find it if I can over there. It seems to me France ought to drive whip and spur into any chap and make a man of him. Anyway, I'm going to have a try at it. Of course there is a little danger--not much. You must not worry. Danger agrees with me, and I'm a lucky chap in everything but love. Best wishes to old Phil. Remember that means ineverything."I would have come to say good-by in person, but it took a little more nerve than I have just now. It was easier for both of us for me to make a quiet getaway. Wish me luck, Sylvia."Yours, as always,"JACK."Sylvia read the letter, dazed, troubled but by no means surprised. It was like Jack to do the gallant, generous, splendid, impulsive thing. As she finished she made a rapid calculation. "I sail to-morrow." That must mean to-day. He was already gone. Somewhere out beyond the harbor his ship was plowing its way toward France. The tears came into her eyes. Jack was very dear to her. Why, oh why had she driven him to this unnecessary danger, this fearful carnage field overseas? And yet was he not right? Would he not find something worth the risk in the stern realities of that glorious and tragic country he went to aid? That he had not gone into it lightly she saw. He had counted the possible cost as any man who was not a fool must count it. But he had not gone in bravado or in bitterness. He had taken pains to show her that. He had gone simply, in quiet earnest to prove himself, not to throw away his life recklessly but to find it as he said. Dear Jack! No wonder Sylvia's eyes were wet as she folded his letter and put it back in its envelope.CHAPTER XXIVHIGH TIDEFor weeks after his injury Phil Lorrimer had been too sick to care very much about anything except the agreeable fact that his mother and Sylvia hovered over him like seraphim as he assured them later. It had mattered very little to him where he was nor how he got there so long as Sylvia was there too. It might be Heaven for all he knew. For a while it had seemed quite probable it was Heaven, for he remembered quite distinctly that Sylvia had kissed him and she had never done that on earth he was quite certain.But presently his mind had cleared and things had been explained. He heard how he had been hurt and how his mother had come at once. Neither of these things seemed hard to grasp. But why was Sylvia here? Sylvia was engaged to Jack. Why was she here spending long hours by his bedside? Sylvia was always kind. It must have been sheer kindness that brought her he concluded. But somehow there appeared to be more than kindness in Sylvia's eyes, though after that heavenly dream she had not kissed him again.It was not until he was almost able to travel that Sylvia told him that she and Jack were no longer engaged, that they had decided it had all been a mistake and that Jack had gone to France. Phil took the news in silence and sobriety. He had very little to say on that subject or any other for the rest of the day. And Sylvia, suddenly self-conscious, had kept away from the hospital on the next day. But on the next, the day before the cavalcade was to start for Greendale, she came. Phil was sitting by the window looking somewhat like his old self though gaunt and lean as a wintered wolf."You weren't here yesterday," he accused sternly."No. What a spoiled invalid you are getting to be! You don't expect to see me every day, do you? Those carnations need fresh water. I'll get some." Sylvia turned, flowers in hand, but Phil had waxed suddenly, unexpectedly imperious."Put 'em down," he ordered so stentoriously that Sylvia obeyed without really intending to."Come here," he still further ordered. Sylvia did not come nearer but she did stand perfectly still looking at him."I missed you like the devil yesterday," he observed."You flatter me," said Sylvia.He ignored her irony."I say, are you really not engaged any more?"Sylvia admitted that she really was not."Why did you end it?""I told you. We decided that it was a mistake.""When?""A few weeks ago.""Precisely when?""The night I knew you were hurt." Sylvia faced him steadily now. If he wanted facts he should have them."Was that why you broke it off?""I didn't break it off. Jack did.""You mean he didn't like your coming here to me?""No. It wasn't that. He just knew--well, he knew I couldn't marry him. Jack is a dear. He always sees things without being told.""And I don't see things until they are rammed into my darn fool eyes. Is that it?"Sylvia acknowledged that that seemed to be a fair statement of the case."You tried to show me a thing or two last winter?""Yes.""And when I wouldn't look, you cut me good and proper as I deserved and got engaged to Jack?"Sylvia nodded."Sylvia!""Well?""Barb opened my eyes as to what an idiot I'd been about the money business. She did it one night, too late though. I rushed out to see you the next day, first minute I had, and Jeanette told me you were engaged to Jack and had gone home. That cooked my goose, all right.""Well, the silly fowl ought to have been cooked." There was a faint twinkle in Sylvia's eyes."Granted," agreed Phil heartily. "See here, Sylvia, I've a whole lot of things to say to you but a man in a bath robe doesn't cut a very impressive figure saying the things I've got to say and--""Don't say them then. I insist on being impressed. Besides, it is time you went back to bed. I'm going, anyway.""Sylvia!"Sylvia paused in the doorway."Did you kiss me that night or did I dream it?""The idea!" But Sylvia's cheeks were less ambiguous in their answer than her lips as she fled into the corridor."Bless her!" grunted Phil. "Just wait until I get on my feet. I wouldn't care if she were Miss Midas herself, I'd run off with her. I wish she'd kiss me again."But it was May now and Sylvia had not kissed him again. Though she took very good care of her guest that particular attention did not seem to be included in the list. Up to this time, too, Phil had not been sufficiently "on his feet" either to run off with his hostess or even to have the presumption to ask her to marry him.May in Maryland! Is there anything lovelier the world over? Roses in the gardens, wistaria dripping purple trails from the balconies, waxen, fragrant magnolia bloom! Red bud and dogwood on the hills! Green fire everywhere!In Sylvia's garden Phil Lorrimer lay stretched at ease in a canopied hammock watching a pair of red birds carry on a lively courtship in the magnolia tree. He was getting on famously it was declared. Certainly he felt too much energy to be willing to stay recumbent much longer. He was beginning to be restless. It was a wonder he had not begun before. It was not so long ago that if any one had told him he would stay contentedly for nearly two months away from his beloved clinic he would have thought them mad and no doubt told them so. But sickness is a powerful leveller and Phil had other things on his mind beside medicine and surgery these May days."Enter egg nogg," announced Sylvia suddenly arriving, Hebe like, with a tray and a tall glass of foaming yellow deliciousness.Phil sat up."Gee! What business has a great hulking idiot like me to loaf around and let an angel like you wait on him hand and foot?""Angels aren't conspicuous for their hands and feet. They are all wings like that mosquito there. Don't let him bite. He'll disfigure your beauty. And don't stop to concoct highfaluting speeches. Your business is to drink.""All right I will, if you'll sit down too." He patted the hammock beside him and Sylvia accepted the invitation.When he had disposed of the egg nogg he set the empty glass on the tray on the grass where Sylvia had deposited it. Then he turned to look at his companion. Sylvia was well worth looking at these days. Her old rose bloom and "moonshininess" were back again. She had returned close to the "jubilant springs" from which she had journeyed afar during the troublous winter past, though perhaps the little girl Sylvia had disappeared forever in the course of her devious wayfaring. At any rate, the new womanliness was very becoming."Is this a good time to propose?" demanded Phil so suddenly that Sylvia blushed like a schoolgirl and drooped her head, but her lips twitched roguishly as she averred that it was as good a time as any."Very well. Remember I'm scared to death. I never proposed to a girl before in my life and I'm never going to do it again. One, two, three! Sylvia, will you marry me?"Sylvia lifted her head then and her eyes met Phil's straight and brave with the fine surrender of a proud woman."Yes," she said quietly."Thank the Lord!" Phil mopped his perspiring brow. "If you don't mind kissing me again I'd feel a little more as if it were real. I've lived a dreadfully long time on that heavenly kiss. I'd like an earth one, please."An hour later they were still in the hammock as blissful and mutually self-absorbed as the redbirds."Sylvia, do you realize that I haven't any money, thanks to this heavenly-infernal smash up of mine, that even my job is knocked galley westward by all this business? If I weren't too jolly happy to think at all I should think I was an idiot and an ass if nothing worse to ask a girl to marry me under the circumstances.""Don't think," said Sylvia. "What is the use? You will get caught up quick enough when you are well again. Don't talk about money. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.""All right, I won't. But, Sylvia, there is another thing." Phil's eyes strayed over the beautiful May sweet garden, on to the great red brick house whose open doors suggested hospitality and affluence and home happiness on a bountiful scale. "Have you thought you will have to give this up and come and live in a little airtight compartment in New York?"For a moment Sylvia was startled out of her new content. Her eyes, too, followed Phil's. Never had Arden Hall seemed so dear, so infinitely desirable as now in the ripe hour of her happiness. Somehow she had never thought of that particular complication though it was obvious enough. To lose the Hall now that she had just come into the very heart of it, or to have it again for brief holidays only, snatched "on the wing" as she had said once before! A redbird flashed like a flame before her in the sunshine. The redbirds would soon be nesting. Mechanically the thought crossed her mind. Nesting! That was it. She, too, would be nesting in the heart of the man she loved. She looked back to Phil who was watching her with troubled eyes."I shan't care, if I have you," she said.And it was true, would always be true for Sylvia Arden. She had been like the empty marshes, waiting for the tide to come in. The tide had come, full flood, sweeping every inlet and lagoon. There were no vacant places in her whole being. Love filled it all. Nothing mattered any more except this big, strange, beautiful, engulfing thing which had come to her and taken possession. Felicia's prophecy had come true. Sylvia had found the real thing at last, and knew the difference between it and the specious substitute with which she had striven to be content.CHAPTER XXVWARP AND WOOFEarly in June, Sylvia and her little circle were shocked and saddened by the sudden death of Angus McIntosh. He had gone to the office as usual but had come in early in the afternoon, and in the dusk Gus had found him sitting in the big chair beneath his mother's picture looking as serene as if he had just fallen asleep. It seemed there had been for quite a while past the probability that the very thing which had happened would happen. This Gus had known and had been in a measure prepared, though we are never fully armed against such loss. When our dear ones leave us there is always a sad surprise about it. We can never quite believe they can really go, however we think our minds are fortified.Silent in his grief as in his love, Gus went quietly about the grave duties which his foster-father's death imposed upon him, but no one could have seen the lad and not known he was suffering acutely. To Sylvia alone he seemed able to voice the grief that possessed him and to her he turned with natural impulse to seek solace from one who knew what the dead man had meant to the lonely boy. Sylvia gave him all the comfort and friending she could in his hour of need. She felt very pitiful for him not only because of this sorrow but because she knew he had another scarcely healed hurt, though this new grief had driven it into the background.When the old man's will was read many were surprised to learn that aside from some bequests to servants and old friends and a small annuity to "my beloved son, Augustus Nichols," the bulk of Angus McIntosh's hard earned and considerable property was left to Thomas Daly in trusteeship to found a hospital for Greendale. When people tried to commiserate Gus on his rather meager sharings he had rejected their condolences. It appeared he had for some time known of the disposition Angus McIntosh had made of his estate. It had, indeed, been by the lad's own wish that he was not burdened by the management and responsibility of a great property."What would I want with all that money?" he asked Sylvia. "I should have hated it. I don't want money. I've never wanted it. I've had more than my share already in my musical training. Thanks to his generosity, my violin will bring me all the income I can stand. I couldn't tend to a big property and keep on playing. I've got to play. It is all I'm fit for. He understood. We talked it over so often. And he didn't want to fritter away his money in little driblets in small charities. He wanted to leave it in a lump sum where it would really do some good. The hospital seemed to be the best. His mother died because she didn't have proper medical care. It always hurt him to think about it. He wants a room named after her. Oh, he knew exactly what he was doing. I wish people would stop sympathizing with me. I don't want their sympathy."So surprisingly it came about that Tom Daly's castle in the air suddenly appeared convertible to brick and mortar. And the beauty of having it so minutely and perfectly planned in advance was that there need not be the slightest delay in getting the substance of things hoped for under way. Thanks to Doctor Tom's unflagging effort other bequests to the hospital were already forthcoming, including Lois Daly's gift of love, but the big unhampered lump sum provided by Angus McIntosh's will made it possible to carry out the doctor's dreams on a scale which he had hardly dared hope to contemplate hitherto.One day Phil Lorrimer, up in New York, had a letter from Tom Daly. The latter had for some time been considering the advisability, even the necessity, of taking to himself a professional partner. His hands had been already full before the hospital project had matured. Now they were overflowing. All of which was preliminary to asking the younger man if he would consider moving to Greendale to become Tom Daly's associate.Phil's breath came hard as he read. It was of all things the one he would have liked best if he had chosen. Tom Daly had long been a boyish idol of his, and since the boy had attained his own manhood he had seen even more clearly the bigness of the other man's vision, the scope of the service he was rendering Greendale. Nothing could have pleased or flattered the young doctor more than that Tom Daly should consider him worthy of the proffered post.Moreover, Phil's sickness had taken heavy toll even of his abundant young vitality. It would be a year at least before he would be perfectly strong again, and he had been warned since he had been back that it was extremely doubtful whether he would be able to stand the city work and city life. Here was his release in dignified, desirable form.There were other considerations, too. It was no small inducement that he could be near his mother in Greendale. He had realized more than ever of late how hard it was for her to have her loved ones so scattered. His father was in China, his sister in Constantinople, he himself might just as well be at the uttermost parts of the earth for all she saw of him under normal conditions. And his going to Greendale would put an end to that source of regret and anxiety.But, chief of all naturally, was the knowledge that the arrangement would bring joy to Sylvia. In spite of her sincere willingness to go anywhere with him he knew it was hard for her to leave the beloved home of her heart. And now there would be no need of such a sacrifice. The cottage and the Hall were but a stone throw apart, an admirable proximity so far as the professional partnership was concerned.So Phil wired, "Accept gladly, if Sylvia approves," and had hardly sent the message before an enthusiastic letter arrived from Sylvia imploring him to say yes to Doctor Tom's proposition if it were not in any way contrary to his wishes and ambitions."Of course it is just too heavenly to think of our living at Arden Hall," she had written, "but, Phil, don't let any thought of me influence your decision. Whatever you want, I want. You know I'd be happy going to sea in a sieve with you if you elected to be a sieve pilot. But, oh Phil, I can't help hoping you will want to come to Greendale."All of which made Sylvia's approval fairly evident.Soon after this Phil went to call on the Huntleys, who had been kindness itself to him and to his mother during the latter's stay in the city. The doctor was not at home but Mrs. Huntley was delighted to see him and hovered over him with tea and sandwiches and cakes as a fond female bird hovers over its offspring with juicy worms.When Phil came to revealing his future plans he did so a little warily remembering how he had refused Justin Huntley's generous offer. But Mrs. Huntley seemed genuinely pleased."How lovely for you! Now you can marry that sweet girl and everything will be quite all right, will it not?"Phil explained that everything would have been quite all right in any case since the "sweet girl" had been willing to come to him if he had not been able to come to her."Quite as it should be," Mrs. Huntley had declared approvingly. "But I am glad it has come out as it has just the same. Do you know, Philip, I've always been a little glad you didn't take Justin's offer, dearly as I should have loved to have you with us."Phil hesitated to speak, not being quite certain of his hostess' course of reasoning. But she soon enlightened him."It isn't the kind of work for a young man," she went on. "It is too disillusioning. Don't you think so? It might have made you a little--just a little--cynical, you know. Mightn't it? It is hard to keep your faith in human nature when you have a practice like Justin's." She paused a moment then continued with unusual affirmatives. "Justin was a country practitioner in a little town once. He took his father's place. Wonderful old man--Justin's father! As much of a priest as a doctor Justin used to say. He lived among kind, simple, hard-working people and they loved him like a father. You should have seen them flocking in from the farms and mountains to his funeral. There was a kind of personal relation you don't get in cities.""No," agreed Phil. "Anyway, you don't get it in Dr. Huntley's kind of practice. I get some few chunks of personality at the clinic.""Sometimes I've wished Justin had stayed in the country and followed his father's steps. But I suppose it had to be this way. Justin wasn't satisfied until he had worked his way to the top, though sometimes one wonders what the top really is," she sighed. "But, anyway, I am glad your father's son is going to have a different outlook. Justin will be glad, too. He liked your refusal, though it disappointed him. He understood.""He has been very good to me, and you, too," said Phil, warmly. "I hope you don't think I don't appreciate his kindness and was ungrateful. It was a big thing to offer a young man. But I couldn't take it. I had to hold tight for my kind of a job. And, thanks to luck and Doctor Daly, I have it."Watching the fine, earnest, young face, with its clear, honest, blue eyes, and that firm, strong chin, Mrs. Huntley thought Phil Lorrimer owed his opportunity chiefly to his own intrinsic worth, clear head, and fine ideals, which was true. But perhaps almost more was he beholden to a big-souled missionary out in China who had set him a standard of manhood to follow and a gentle, low-voiced woman who lived at the foot of Sylvia's Hill and had a gift for mothering.July brought Stephen Kinnard back to Greendale after much wandering, from Alaska to Mexico, from Mexico to Quebec, and finally to Maryland. He had written charming desultory letters from time to time to Felicia and had been especially rejoiced over her having won the competition as he had prophesied. But never in any of the letters had he pressed again the question he had asked in September. Among other arts Stephen Kinnard possessed the art of long patience and the power of biding his time.Occasionally jolly, friendly, brotherly epistles had come for Hope, too. At first Hope had blushed delightfully over them and read and reread them until she fairly knew them by heart. But as the letters came less frequently she gradually ceased to watch for them. Youth needs something more substantial than a chimera to feed upon. Moreover, in June, a young architect had come to Greendale to build Doctor Tom's hospital, a rather clever young man with some Beaux Arts letters after his name and a good eye for a pretty girl. Passing up the Hill and down it as he did frequently in his interviews with the Doctor, he had occasion to go by the Oriole Inn and it took him remarkably little time to discover that it was agreeable to drop in afternoons for a cup of tea in the quaint dining-room or out under the trees which the orioles still haunted. Perhaps not the least of the charms of the place was the presence of the fair-haired, slender lily of a girl who hovered about with a pleasing anxiety that he be well served and often took the task of ministration upon herself in her zeal.Out of the corner of her eye Martha watched this too, even as she had watched Hope and Stephen the previous summer. It had for some time been evident to Martha's astute vision that so long as Hope remained unclaimed there would always be honey seekers about her sweet rose. Much as she dreaded to have Hope marry she thought she would prefer the sad certainty of such a contingency to the eternal worrying lest Hope be somehow hurt and her white flower-likeness be made to droop in the dust. The young architect apparently meant business. By July he was spending most of his free hours in Hope's society. Martha had almost settled down to acquiesce in the idea of Hope's surrender when she heard that Stephen Kinnard was back in Greendale, news which brought the anxious pucker back to her forehead.But she need not have worried. Hope was pleased to see Stephen as a younger sister might have been glad to welcome back a long absent brother. She had all but forgotten she had ever had any dreams about him. The real love which was daily more engrossing made the pale little phantom love so insignificant as to be scarcely a thing to be recalled. It had been love and not the lover that Hope had hungered for from the first.As for Stephen himself, Hope had never dwelt except upon the outer margins of his consciousness. He had admired her as the artist in him always paid tribute to beauty wherever he found it. He had a fatal gift of kindness always and gave careless largess easily to lovely women whenever they had the luck to cross his path. That Hope had invested him, even temporarily, with the glamour of her sweet, shy, little dreams he had no manner of idea. He had, from the beginning, paid homage to a higher court.Shrewdly perceiving that the chief obstacle to his suit was Sylvia, Stephen did not blunder into a premature insistence. Sylvia's wedding was set for early September. He could afford to wait a little, though he took pains to make himself very useful and desirable in little ways to the household on the Hill while he waited.During the summer Sylvia had a few brief letters from Jack. He was well, intensely thrilled by the experience he was undergoing, rejoicing endlessly, apparently, in his luck at having at last found a genuine task which he could pursue with all the zest of play. Physical courage had always been an inherent characteristic with him. Danger agreed with him as he had said to Sylvia. In deeds of daring he had always delighted, simply, with no fuss about it. Jack was never spectacular. It was merely that being a good gambler he liked hazards. This game of life and death made an excellent substitute for the game of love in which he had gallantly lost. In fact it seemed he found even greater satisfaction in it. At any rate, he was in it, as he had been in love, with all his might and main and with all his heart.Sylvia's engagement, expected as it had been, had appeared to disturb little less than the surface of his exultant, new found joy of service. Perhaps the larger issues swallowed up his private grief even as they had swallowed Hilda Jensen's. Certainly he had little time for thought or brooding. Life crowded thick around him. He was in the same unit with John Armstrong and that in itself was a satisfaction, for the two had long been staunch friends. Hilda, also, he saw occasionally as she was working in the hospital at Neuilly, not far from the front.It was Hilda who wrote in August that Jack had been wounded and was in the hospital in her care. The injury, though painful, was not serious and Jack made light of it as well he might, for he had been "cité" for "distinguished service under fire" and won the Croix de Guerre."The men all say he has a charmed life," wrote Hilda. "The Poilus are quite superstitious about him. He goes anywhere, everywhere with his car, in the most unheard of, impossible places with the utmost disregard of it and himself. John says he never saw anything like him. He keeps them all, French and American alike, in an uproar of mirth, too. Even in the hospital it is the same. He tells his funniest stories and makes his absurdest jokes and has everybody in a good humor without trying. He is the sunniest fellow I ever knew. You can't down him. You needn't worry about him as far as you are concerned, Sylvia. I don't mean he doesn't care. He does care tremendously. He deserves the Croix de Guerre, in love, too. He has been under fire. You can see that. But what I mean is, he is so thoroughly wholesome and happy-hearted he will come out all right. He can't help it. John says it is making a man of him over here, and I believe it is true, though I think you started that process."But, oh, Sylvia, it is dreadful! If ever it ends I shall fly back to safe, peaceful, happy America and try to forget all the agonies I've seen and lived over here. We all hope America will manage to keep out of war, but it seems as if she could not long do so with safety and honor. It is hard to forget theLusitania, and for us it is almost harder to forget Belgium. Americans at home will never fully understand Belgium. For us it has been stamped with red hot irons upon our minds and memories. We cannot forget."As Sylvia eagerly read this letter she couldn't help hoping that somehow or other this terrible experience Hilda and Jack were going through together might, in time, bring them still nearer. Women are incorrigible matchmakers where their old lovers are concerned, and Jack and Hilda had long been good friends. They were both too essentially sane and too young to let their lives be wrecked by the hapless experiences with which they had started out. If only they might find consolation and happiness in each other Sylvia thought she would have nothing left to wish for.And so summer days came and went, with their joys and their sorrows, their dreams and their despairs, their losses and their gains, woven all into the common web of life. And finally again came September.CHAPTER XXVITHE END AND THE BEGINNINGCloudless September afternoon! The same blue space of sky beyond the shining-leaved magnolia; the same pink and white riot of cosmos; the same dial dedicating itself to none but sunny hours! And again Barb and Suzanne and Sylvia on the porch at Arden Hall. Externally everything was much as it had been a twelve month ago. But the year had brought its changes and left its traces as years will. As the shell's growth is marked by its increasing number of circles so spiritual development stamps its impress upon human faces and even more on human souls. Barb and Suzanne and Sylvia were less unchanged than the outer world. All three had grown in the grace of wisdom, each according to her way and measure.Barb was still quiet and humble of heart, but the year had given her the poise which comes from increasing self dependence and even more from depths and widths of experience. Barbara was learning to base life broad on the roots of things and faced the world serenely content if a little gravely, going the "softlier all her days for the dream's sake" as so many women do.Suzanne was, on the surface, the least changed. She still flashed out conversational audacities and delighted in "taking a shot at the idols" as she put it. But underneath the jewel-like hardness and brilliance of the exterior there was a difference. Her theories of life were not so polished and compact and perfected. She had undergone more than one seismic upheaval of emotion during the year and her "cock-sureness" was shattered if not annihilated. But the greatest difference lay in her deepened power of human sympathy and understanding. The success of "Melissa on the Road" had not been mere accident but a logical outgrowth of its author's surer insight into life, and the play was an even more certain indication that Suzanne in finding herself had found something universal at the same time.As for Sylvia--but let Sylvia speak for herself. Suzanne, lolling as before in Sylvia's hammock, again pronounced judgment."I never knew a person for whom the whole universe seemed to be working the way it does for you, Sylvia Arden. Now, if I had wanted to live in a certain place Roger would have been called to Kamchatka or Kalamazoo or some other God forgotten spot. But just because you had your heart set on living at Arden Hall the fates come galloping up to present Phil a choice professional opening on a charger.""Do you know whether a charger is a horse or a platter?" laughed Sylvia. "I should never know from your phrasing.""It is both, of course. Don't criticize my diction. Diction is my business. And don't crab. Honest, Sylvia, don't you think your luck is altogether out of proportion to your deserts?""'In the course of justice which of us should see salvation?'" quoted Sylvia. "Oh, I know, Suzanne. It is almost too good to be true that Phil can find the right kind of work in Greendale and we can live here at Arden Hall. But you are mistaken about my having set my heart on living here. I love it better than any place on earth but I would have gone anywhere with Phil. Even the Hall wanes in comparison with him." And Sylvia blushed charmingly as she made the admission."Of course you think so. Quite the proper sentiment to express twenty-four hours before your wedding. May the Lord give me grace to feel the same next December when I follow your lead to the altar. But, Sylvia, you don't really know what you are talking about. I can't imagine you in a little apartment. You're too--spacious."Sylvia smiled."Oh, I believe I could have adjusted my spaciousness if necessary. But I'm rather glad I don't have to. I'd rather--spread.""Youwillspread, too," put in Barb. "You and Phil will have a wonderful opportunity to really live here, more than you could ever have done in the city.""I hope so." Sylvia's eyes were thoughtful as she looked out across the lawn, past the magnolia to the blue sky, just as she had a year ago. She looked as if she saw visions. Perhaps she did. The "home trust" which she and Felicia had formed years ago was still an integral part of her scheme of things. She meant her home to be a home in the truest sense, not just a house beneath whose roof she could shelter herself and her loved ones. She wanted her doors to stand open wide to the world--especially the lonely people. "The lonely people" were always very close to Sylvia's heart perhaps because her own lonely girlhood had given her the clew to the yearning that nearly all the world knows at times."You are going to keep on being viciously contented," accused Suzanne."I hope so," said Sylvia again. "I feel that way at present, anyway. I am afraid I'll never do anything very big, Suzanne. You and Barb are going to leave me way behind, I know. I haven't any special ambition except to be happy myself and to make other people within my range happy, too.""You are a genius at that. Remember what Mr. Kinnard said. Don't let Suzanne tease you, Sylvia. You have the secret of living. If all the people in the world wanted to be happy themselves and tried to see that other people near them were happy, why--""The millennium would have come," finished Suzanne. "You are blooming sentimentalists both of you, though I don't deny there is a little solid sense behind your sentiment. Anyway, I have a sneaking notion I shall have a sort of satisfaction knowing that down here on your Hill things are going to be a little more the way they ought to be than is customary in this cranky old world.""Why, Suzanne! That is just what I was thinking," cried Barb. "I see so much sin and sordidness and misery and things so snarled and twisted that it seems as if they never would smooth out. I'm going to see even more this year if I go in for the probation work. And it is wonderful to me to be able to think that it is all clean and sweet and happy and kind in Sylvia's world. It is kindness somehow that is important. If we would all be kind the way Christ taught us there wouldn't be any war and hate and competition and oppression. We'd all be just brothers and sisters.""Maybe that is what we are growing into," said Sylvia soberly. "Thank you, Barb. I like that--what you said just now. Remember, if you want to send anybody down to my--ourgarden-- It is Phil's, too--we shall be glad to take her--or him--in. We want to help.""We want to help." That is the keynote of the new democracy. And Barb and Suzanne and Sylvia, each in her own way, had enlisted in the shining army which is none other than the army of love.And indoors, while the three girls were thus philosophizing about the universe at large, Felicia and Stephen had suddenly concentrated upon themselves."Felicia," Stephen was saying, "I have waited very patiently. Haven't you a different answer for me this time? I am not going to pretend I shall go away broken-hearted if it is no. My heart is a little too old to break, but if you could make it yes it will make all the difference in the world. Couldn't you say it, dear? Sylvia won't need you after to-morrow. And you know the kiddies won't be the losers. We'll see to that. Those reasons of yours aren't operative any more, you know.""But there is still Sydney," she reminded him gravely, her face averted."There is," he admitted. "Ah, but, Felicia, you can't live all your days on a memory--even so vital a one. I don't expect to take Syd's place. I don't even want to. But, Felicia, look at me. Haven't I somewhere a place all my own in your heart?"And then Felicia lifted her eyes, still forget-me-not blue like Marianna's."Yes, Stephen, I believe you have--a big place. If you want me as I am, the best of me gone, the rest is all yours."Night and stillness of night on Arden Hall and Sylvia's garden! Suddenly out of the darkness Sylvia stole down the broad staircase, candle in hand, like a vestal virgin, in her white silk robe, her dark hair unbound, lying loose upon her shoulders.On the wall, near the foot of the stairs hung two portraits; one, of a dark-eyed young man, the other a lovely young girl, looking out with wistful, wondering gaze upon the world.Straight to the portraits went Sylvia, holding her candle high. For a moment she stood there with uplifted face and rapt gaze, trying to speak to these two, to bespeak their blessing this night on the daughter who was to follow in their footsteps to-morrow in giving herself in marriage to the mate she loved."If only you were here," she sighed. "I do want you so, Father! Mother! Please try to know and be glad I am so happy. Please be glad. I want you to be glad."In the flickering light of the uplifted candle it seemed to Sylvia as if her father's dark eyes smiled down into hers as if he understood and was glad as she desired."The truest and the kindest," she whispered. "That was what Doctor Tom said, and I know you must have been. Phil is like that, too, Father. I'm glad you know. Good night."Then she turned to the fair girl whom it had always been a little hard to think of as a mother, she was so tiny and sweet and girlish herself and her eyes looked so incredibly young and innocent."Little Mother!" crooned Sylvia. "Little, little Mother! I wonder if you were afraid at all. Did you ever feel like running away even from him? This marrying is such a big, solemn business. Didn't you feel a teeny little bit scared about it all? It isn't that you are afraid of him. It is rather yourself you don't trust, as if you weren't quite tall enough to reach up to marriage. Marriage is so high, so dreadfully high. But it is all right, isn't it, little Mother? You just have to trust love, don't you? Good night, little Mother. Please love me up there where you are."This rite over, Sylvia turned to go back upstairs. But the moonlight fell in bright patines across the floor from the latticed windows, beside the front door, and Sylvia had never been able to resist moonlight. Hastily she set down her candle and snatched up a black velvet cloak from the rack and throwing it about her shoulders, covering her thin silken draperies, she unbolted the rear door which led out into the garden and ran down the steps into the enchanted world outside.Even as she reached the path she uttered a half startled exclamation. A tall form was pacing up and down under the willow-trees, silhouetted against the whiteness of the garden space. She did not retreat however but stood motionless as a statue with the moonlight full upon her. In a moment the silhouetted figure turned and came swiftly toward her."Sylvia!""Phil!"For a second she was swept into Phil's arms, his kiss on her lips. Then they stood apart, looking at each other as if all at once they had discovered some new, sacred thing which all their love up to now had not taught them."Phil, I'm glad--glad it is you," breathed Sylvia. "Glad I'm going to be yours.""Forever and ever, amen," said Phil Lorrimer, as solemnly as if he were pronouncing his own wedding service.The actual ceremony took place the next day in the gray stone Gothic church where Sylvia's father and mother had been made man and wife. But to Sylvia, and perhaps to Phil, too, it always seemed as if the real wedding had been the night before in the white moonlight of Sylvia's own garden. There it was at least that Sylvia lost forever her fear of not being able to reach up to marriage however high it was. Love, she knew, would show her the way.
"Dear Sylvia,"--So it ran--
"I am sailing to-morrow to join the American Ambulance Field Service in France. It isn't a new notion. It has been in the back of my brain a long time. I should have gone in December if you had refused me then. I am not much good at anything but driving a car. I stuck to the business because you wanted me to but my heart wasn't in it. Dad understands, and is perfectly willing I should go. Don't misunderstand me, please, sweetheart. I am not doing this for gallery play or to work on your feelings. And I'm not going to talk any tommyrot about my life being spoiled and wanting to throw it away. I don't want to throw it away. I want to find it if I can over there. It seems to me France ought to drive whip and spur into any chap and make a man of him. Anyway, I'm going to have a try at it. Of course there is a little danger--not much. You must not worry. Danger agrees with me, and I'm a lucky chap in everything but love. Best wishes to old Phil. Remember that means ineverything.
"I would have come to say good-by in person, but it took a little more nerve than I have just now. It was easier for both of us for me to make a quiet getaway. Wish me luck, Sylvia.
"JACK."
Sylvia read the letter, dazed, troubled but by no means surprised. It was like Jack to do the gallant, generous, splendid, impulsive thing. As she finished she made a rapid calculation. "I sail to-morrow." That must mean to-day. He was already gone. Somewhere out beyond the harbor his ship was plowing its way toward France. The tears came into her eyes. Jack was very dear to her. Why, oh why had she driven him to this unnecessary danger, this fearful carnage field overseas? And yet was he not right? Would he not find something worth the risk in the stern realities of that glorious and tragic country he went to aid? That he had not gone into it lightly she saw. He had counted the possible cost as any man who was not a fool must count it. But he had not gone in bravado or in bitterness. He had taken pains to show her that. He had gone simply, in quiet earnest to prove himself, not to throw away his life recklessly but to find it as he said. Dear Jack! No wonder Sylvia's eyes were wet as she folded his letter and put it back in its envelope.
CHAPTER XXIV
HIGH TIDE
For weeks after his injury Phil Lorrimer had been too sick to care very much about anything except the agreeable fact that his mother and Sylvia hovered over him like seraphim as he assured them later. It had mattered very little to him where he was nor how he got there so long as Sylvia was there too. It might be Heaven for all he knew. For a while it had seemed quite probable it was Heaven, for he remembered quite distinctly that Sylvia had kissed him and she had never done that on earth he was quite certain.
But presently his mind had cleared and things had been explained. He heard how he had been hurt and how his mother had come at once. Neither of these things seemed hard to grasp. But why was Sylvia here? Sylvia was engaged to Jack. Why was she here spending long hours by his bedside? Sylvia was always kind. It must have been sheer kindness that brought her he concluded. But somehow there appeared to be more than kindness in Sylvia's eyes, though after that heavenly dream she had not kissed him again.
It was not until he was almost able to travel that Sylvia told him that she and Jack were no longer engaged, that they had decided it had all been a mistake and that Jack had gone to France. Phil took the news in silence and sobriety. He had very little to say on that subject or any other for the rest of the day. And Sylvia, suddenly self-conscious, had kept away from the hospital on the next day. But on the next, the day before the cavalcade was to start for Greendale, she came. Phil was sitting by the window looking somewhat like his old self though gaunt and lean as a wintered wolf.
"You weren't here yesterday," he accused sternly.
"No. What a spoiled invalid you are getting to be! You don't expect to see me every day, do you? Those carnations need fresh water. I'll get some." Sylvia turned, flowers in hand, but Phil had waxed suddenly, unexpectedly imperious.
"Put 'em down," he ordered so stentoriously that Sylvia obeyed without really intending to.
"Come here," he still further ordered. Sylvia did not come nearer but she did stand perfectly still looking at him.
"I missed you like the devil yesterday," he observed.
"You flatter me," said Sylvia.
He ignored her irony.
"I say, are you really not engaged any more?"
Sylvia admitted that she really was not.
"Why did you end it?"
"I told you. We decided that it was a mistake."
"When?"
"A few weeks ago."
"Precisely when?"
"The night I knew you were hurt." Sylvia faced him steadily now. If he wanted facts he should have them.
"Was that why you broke it off?"
"I didn't break it off. Jack did."
"You mean he didn't like your coming here to me?"
"No. It wasn't that. He just knew--well, he knew I couldn't marry him. Jack is a dear. He always sees things without being told."
"And I don't see things until they are rammed into my darn fool eyes. Is that it?"
Sylvia acknowledged that that seemed to be a fair statement of the case.
"You tried to show me a thing or two last winter?"
"Yes."
"And when I wouldn't look, you cut me good and proper as I deserved and got engaged to Jack?"
Sylvia nodded.
"Sylvia!"
"Well?"
"Barb opened my eyes as to what an idiot I'd been about the money business. She did it one night, too late though. I rushed out to see you the next day, first minute I had, and Jeanette told me you were engaged to Jack and had gone home. That cooked my goose, all right."
"Well, the silly fowl ought to have been cooked." There was a faint twinkle in Sylvia's eyes.
"Granted," agreed Phil heartily. "See here, Sylvia, I've a whole lot of things to say to you but a man in a bath robe doesn't cut a very impressive figure saying the things I've got to say and--"
"Don't say them then. I insist on being impressed. Besides, it is time you went back to bed. I'm going, anyway."
"Sylvia!"
Sylvia paused in the doorway.
"Did you kiss me that night or did I dream it?"
"The idea!" But Sylvia's cheeks were less ambiguous in their answer than her lips as she fled into the corridor.
"Bless her!" grunted Phil. "Just wait until I get on my feet. I wouldn't care if she were Miss Midas herself, I'd run off with her. I wish she'd kiss me again."
But it was May now and Sylvia had not kissed him again. Though she took very good care of her guest that particular attention did not seem to be included in the list. Up to this time, too, Phil had not been sufficiently "on his feet" either to run off with his hostess or even to have the presumption to ask her to marry him.
May in Maryland! Is there anything lovelier the world over? Roses in the gardens, wistaria dripping purple trails from the balconies, waxen, fragrant magnolia bloom! Red bud and dogwood on the hills! Green fire everywhere!
In Sylvia's garden Phil Lorrimer lay stretched at ease in a canopied hammock watching a pair of red birds carry on a lively courtship in the magnolia tree. He was getting on famously it was declared. Certainly he felt too much energy to be willing to stay recumbent much longer. He was beginning to be restless. It was a wonder he had not begun before. It was not so long ago that if any one had told him he would stay contentedly for nearly two months away from his beloved clinic he would have thought them mad and no doubt told them so. But sickness is a powerful leveller and Phil had other things on his mind beside medicine and surgery these May days.
"Enter egg nogg," announced Sylvia suddenly arriving, Hebe like, with a tray and a tall glass of foaming yellow deliciousness.
Phil sat up.
"Gee! What business has a great hulking idiot like me to loaf around and let an angel like you wait on him hand and foot?"
"Angels aren't conspicuous for their hands and feet. They are all wings like that mosquito there. Don't let him bite. He'll disfigure your beauty. And don't stop to concoct highfaluting speeches. Your business is to drink."
"All right I will, if you'll sit down too." He patted the hammock beside him and Sylvia accepted the invitation.
When he had disposed of the egg nogg he set the empty glass on the tray on the grass where Sylvia had deposited it. Then he turned to look at his companion. Sylvia was well worth looking at these days. Her old rose bloom and "moonshininess" were back again. She had returned close to the "jubilant springs" from which she had journeyed afar during the troublous winter past, though perhaps the little girl Sylvia had disappeared forever in the course of her devious wayfaring. At any rate, the new womanliness was very becoming.
"Is this a good time to propose?" demanded Phil so suddenly that Sylvia blushed like a schoolgirl and drooped her head, but her lips twitched roguishly as she averred that it was as good a time as any.
"Very well. Remember I'm scared to death. I never proposed to a girl before in my life and I'm never going to do it again. One, two, three! Sylvia, will you marry me?"
Sylvia lifted her head then and her eyes met Phil's straight and brave with the fine surrender of a proud woman.
"Yes," she said quietly.
"Thank the Lord!" Phil mopped his perspiring brow. "If you don't mind kissing me again I'd feel a little more as if it were real. I've lived a dreadfully long time on that heavenly kiss. I'd like an earth one, please."
An hour later they were still in the hammock as blissful and mutually self-absorbed as the redbirds.
"Sylvia, do you realize that I haven't any money, thanks to this heavenly-infernal smash up of mine, that even my job is knocked galley westward by all this business? If I weren't too jolly happy to think at all I should think I was an idiot and an ass if nothing worse to ask a girl to marry me under the circumstances."
"Don't think," said Sylvia. "What is the use? You will get caught up quick enough when you are well again. Don't talk about money. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth."
"All right, I won't. But, Sylvia, there is another thing." Phil's eyes strayed over the beautiful May sweet garden, on to the great red brick house whose open doors suggested hospitality and affluence and home happiness on a bountiful scale. "Have you thought you will have to give this up and come and live in a little airtight compartment in New York?"
For a moment Sylvia was startled out of her new content. Her eyes, too, followed Phil's. Never had Arden Hall seemed so dear, so infinitely desirable as now in the ripe hour of her happiness. Somehow she had never thought of that particular complication though it was obvious enough. To lose the Hall now that she had just come into the very heart of it, or to have it again for brief holidays only, snatched "on the wing" as she had said once before! A redbird flashed like a flame before her in the sunshine. The redbirds would soon be nesting. Mechanically the thought crossed her mind. Nesting! That was it. She, too, would be nesting in the heart of the man she loved. She looked back to Phil who was watching her with troubled eyes.
"I shan't care, if I have you," she said.
And it was true, would always be true for Sylvia Arden. She had been like the empty marshes, waiting for the tide to come in. The tide had come, full flood, sweeping every inlet and lagoon. There were no vacant places in her whole being. Love filled it all. Nothing mattered any more except this big, strange, beautiful, engulfing thing which had come to her and taken possession. Felicia's prophecy had come true. Sylvia had found the real thing at last, and knew the difference between it and the specious substitute with which she had striven to be content.
CHAPTER XXV
WARP AND WOOF
Early in June, Sylvia and her little circle were shocked and saddened by the sudden death of Angus McIntosh. He had gone to the office as usual but had come in early in the afternoon, and in the dusk Gus had found him sitting in the big chair beneath his mother's picture looking as serene as if he had just fallen asleep. It seemed there had been for quite a while past the probability that the very thing which had happened would happen. This Gus had known and had been in a measure prepared, though we are never fully armed against such loss. When our dear ones leave us there is always a sad surprise about it. We can never quite believe they can really go, however we think our minds are fortified.
Silent in his grief as in his love, Gus went quietly about the grave duties which his foster-father's death imposed upon him, but no one could have seen the lad and not known he was suffering acutely. To Sylvia alone he seemed able to voice the grief that possessed him and to her he turned with natural impulse to seek solace from one who knew what the dead man had meant to the lonely boy. Sylvia gave him all the comfort and friending she could in his hour of need. She felt very pitiful for him not only because of this sorrow but because she knew he had another scarcely healed hurt, though this new grief had driven it into the background.
When the old man's will was read many were surprised to learn that aside from some bequests to servants and old friends and a small annuity to "my beloved son, Augustus Nichols," the bulk of Angus McIntosh's hard earned and considerable property was left to Thomas Daly in trusteeship to found a hospital for Greendale. When people tried to commiserate Gus on his rather meager sharings he had rejected their condolences. It appeared he had for some time known of the disposition Angus McIntosh had made of his estate. It had, indeed, been by the lad's own wish that he was not burdened by the management and responsibility of a great property.
"What would I want with all that money?" he asked Sylvia. "I should have hated it. I don't want money. I've never wanted it. I've had more than my share already in my musical training. Thanks to his generosity, my violin will bring me all the income I can stand. I couldn't tend to a big property and keep on playing. I've got to play. It is all I'm fit for. He understood. We talked it over so often. And he didn't want to fritter away his money in little driblets in small charities. He wanted to leave it in a lump sum where it would really do some good. The hospital seemed to be the best. His mother died because she didn't have proper medical care. It always hurt him to think about it. He wants a room named after her. Oh, he knew exactly what he was doing. I wish people would stop sympathizing with me. I don't want their sympathy."
So surprisingly it came about that Tom Daly's castle in the air suddenly appeared convertible to brick and mortar. And the beauty of having it so minutely and perfectly planned in advance was that there need not be the slightest delay in getting the substance of things hoped for under way. Thanks to Doctor Tom's unflagging effort other bequests to the hospital were already forthcoming, including Lois Daly's gift of love, but the big unhampered lump sum provided by Angus McIntosh's will made it possible to carry out the doctor's dreams on a scale which he had hardly dared hope to contemplate hitherto.
One day Phil Lorrimer, up in New York, had a letter from Tom Daly. The latter had for some time been considering the advisability, even the necessity, of taking to himself a professional partner. His hands had been already full before the hospital project had matured. Now they were overflowing. All of which was preliminary to asking the younger man if he would consider moving to Greendale to become Tom Daly's associate.
Phil's breath came hard as he read. It was of all things the one he would have liked best if he had chosen. Tom Daly had long been a boyish idol of his, and since the boy had attained his own manhood he had seen even more clearly the bigness of the other man's vision, the scope of the service he was rendering Greendale. Nothing could have pleased or flattered the young doctor more than that Tom Daly should consider him worthy of the proffered post.
Moreover, Phil's sickness had taken heavy toll even of his abundant young vitality. It would be a year at least before he would be perfectly strong again, and he had been warned since he had been back that it was extremely doubtful whether he would be able to stand the city work and city life. Here was his release in dignified, desirable form.
There were other considerations, too. It was no small inducement that he could be near his mother in Greendale. He had realized more than ever of late how hard it was for her to have her loved ones so scattered. His father was in China, his sister in Constantinople, he himself might just as well be at the uttermost parts of the earth for all she saw of him under normal conditions. And his going to Greendale would put an end to that source of regret and anxiety.
But, chief of all naturally, was the knowledge that the arrangement would bring joy to Sylvia. In spite of her sincere willingness to go anywhere with him he knew it was hard for her to leave the beloved home of her heart. And now there would be no need of such a sacrifice. The cottage and the Hall were but a stone throw apart, an admirable proximity so far as the professional partnership was concerned.
So Phil wired, "Accept gladly, if Sylvia approves," and had hardly sent the message before an enthusiastic letter arrived from Sylvia imploring him to say yes to Doctor Tom's proposition if it were not in any way contrary to his wishes and ambitions.
"Of course it is just too heavenly to think of our living at Arden Hall," she had written, "but, Phil, don't let any thought of me influence your decision. Whatever you want, I want. You know I'd be happy going to sea in a sieve with you if you elected to be a sieve pilot. But, oh Phil, I can't help hoping you will want to come to Greendale."
All of which made Sylvia's approval fairly evident.
Soon after this Phil went to call on the Huntleys, who had been kindness itself to him and to his mother during the latter's stay in the city. The doctor was not at home but Mrs. Huntley was delighted to see him and hovered over him with tea and sandwiches and cakes as a fond female bird hovers over its offspring with juicy worms.
When Phil came to revealing his future plans he did so a little warily remembering how he had refused Justin Huntley's generous offer. But Mrs. Huntley seemed genuinely pleased.
"How lovely for you! Now you can marry that sweet girl and everything will be quite all right, will it not?"
Phil explained that everything would have been quite all right in any case since the "sweet girl" had been willing to come to him if he had not been able to come to her.
"Quite as it should be," Mrs. Huntley had declared approvingly. "But I am glad it has come out as it has just the same. Do you know, Philip, I've always been a little glad you didn't take Justin's offer, dearly as I should have loved to have you with us."
Phil hesitated to speak, not being quite certain of his hostess' course of reasoning. But she soon enlightened him.
"It isn't the kind of work for a young man," she went on. "It is too disillusioning. Don't you think so? It might have made you a little--just a little--cynical, you know. Mightn't it? It is hard to keep your faith in human nature when you have a practice like Justin's." She paused a moment then continued with unusual affirmatives. "Justin was a country practitioner in a little town once. He took his father's place. Wonderful old man--Justin's father! As much of a priest as a doctor Justin used to say. He lived among kind, simple, hard-working people and they loved him like a father. You should have seen them flocking in from the farms and mountains to his funeral. There was a kind of personal relation you don't get in cities."
"No," agreed Phil. "Anyway, you don't get it in Dr. Huntley's kind of practice. I get some few chunks of personality at the clinic."
"Sometimes I've wished Justin had stayed in the country and followed his father's steps. But I suppose it had to be this way. Justin wasn't satisfied until he had worked his way to the top, though sometimes one wonders what the top really is," she sighed. "But, anyway, I am glad your father's son is going to have a different outlook. Justin will be glad, too. He liked your refusal, though it disappointed him. He understood."
"He has been very good to me, and you, too," said Phil, warmly. "I hope you don't think I don't appreciate his kindness and was ungrateful. It was a big thing to offer a young man. But I couldn't take it. I had to hold tight for my kind of a job. And, thanks to luck and Doctor Daly, I have it."
Watching the fine, earnest, young face, with its clear, honest, blue eyes, and that firm, strong chin, Mrs. Huntley thought Phil Lorrimer owed his opportunity chiefly to his own intrinsic worth, clear head, and fine ideals, which was true. But perhaps almost more was he beholden to a big-souled missionary out in China who had set him a standard of manhood to follow and a gentle, low-voiced woman who lived at the foot of Sylvia's Hill and had a gift for mothering.
July brought Stephen Kinnard back to Greendale after much wandering, from Alaska to Mexico, from Mexico to Quebec, and finally to Maryland. He had written charming desultory letters from time to time to Felicia and had been especially rejoiced over her having won the competition as he had prophesied. But never in any of the letters had he pressed again the question he had asked in September. Among other arts Stephen Kinnard possessed the art of long patience and the power of biding his time.
Occasionally jolly, friendly, brotherly epistles had come for Hope, too. At first Hope had blushed delightfully over them and read and reread them until she fairly knew them by heart. But as the letters came less frequently she gradually ceased to watch for them. Youth needs something more substantial than a chimera to feed upon. Moreover, in June, a young architect had come to Greendale to build Doctor Tom's hospital, a rather clever young man with some Beaux Arts letters after his name and a good eye for a pretty girl. Passing up the Hill and down it as he did frequently in his interviews with the Doctor, he had occasion to go by the Oriole Inn and it took him remarkably little time to discover that it was agreeable to drop in afternoons for a cup of tea in the quaint dining-room or out under the trees which the orioles still haunted. Perhaps not the least of the charms of the place was the presence of the fair-haired, slender lily of a girl who hovered about with a pleasing anxiety that he be well served and often took the task of ministration upon herself in her zeal.
Out of the corner of her eye Martha watched this too, even as she had watched Hope and Stephen the previous summer. It had for some time been evident to Martha's astute vision that so long as Hope remained unclaimed there would always be honey seekers about her sweet rose. Much as she dreaded to have Hope marry she thought she would prefer the sad certainty of such a contingency to the eternal worrying lest Hope be somehow hurt and her white flower-likeness be made to droop in the dust. The young architect apparently meant business. By July he was spending most of his free hours in Hope's society. Martha had almost settled down to acquiesce in the idea of Hope's surrender when she heard that Stephen Kinnard was back in Greendale, news which brought the anxious pucker back to her forehead.
But she need not have worried. Hope was pleased to see Stephen as a younger sister might have been glad to welcome back a long absent brother. She had all but forgotten she had ever had any dreams about him. The real love which was daily more engrossing made the pale little phantom love so insignificant as to be scarcely a thing to be recalled. It had been love and not the lover that Hope had hungered for from the first.
As for Stephen himself, Hope had never dwelt except upon the outer margins of his consciousness. He had admired her as the artist in him always paid tribute to beauty wherever he found it. He had a fatal gift of kindness always and gave careless largess easily to lovely women whenever they had the luck to cross his path. That Hope had invested him, even temporarily, with the glamour of her sweet, shy, little dreams he had no manner of idea. He had, from the beginning, paid homage to a higher court.
Shrewdly perceiving that the chief obstacle to his suit was Sylvia, Stephen did not blunder into a premature insistence. Sylvia's wedding was set for early September. He could afford to wait a little, though he took pains to make himself very useful and desirable in little ways to the household on the Hill while he waited.
During the summer Sylvia had a few brief letters from Jack. He was well, intensely thrilled by the experience he was undergoing, rejoicing endlessly, apparently, in his luck at having at last found a genuine task which he could pursue with all the zest of play. Physical courage had always been an inherent characteristic with him. Danger agreed with him as he had said to Sylvia. In deeds of daring he had always delighted, simply, with no fuss about it. Jack was never spectacular. It was merely that being a good gambler he liked hazards. This game of life and death made an excellent substitute for the game of love in which he had gallantly lost. In fact it seemed he found even greater satisfaction in it. At any rate, he was in it, as he had been in love, with all his might and main and with all his heart.
Sylvia's engagement, expected as it had been, had appeared to disturb little less than the surface of his exultant, new found joy of service. Perhaps the larger issues swallowed up his private grief even as they had swallowed Hilda Jensen's. Certainly he had little time for thought or brooding. Life crowded thick around him. He was in the same unit with John Armstrong and that in itself was a satisfaction, for the two had long been staunch friends. Hilda, also, he saw occasionally as she was working in the hospital at Neuilly, not far from the front.
It was Hilda who wrote in August that Jack had been wounded and was in the hospital in her care. The injury, though painful, was not serious and Jack made light of it as well he might, for he had been "cité" for "distinguished service under fire" and won the Croix de Guerre.
"The men all say he has a charmed life," wrote Hilda. "The Poilus are quite superstitious about him. He goes anywhere, everywhere with his car, in the most unheard of, impossible places with the utmost disregard of it and himself. John says he never saw anything like him. He keeps them all, French and American alike, in an uproar of mirth, too. Even in the hospital it is the same. He tells his funniest stories and makes his absurdest jokes and has everybody in a good humor without trying. He is the sunniest fellow I ever knew. You can't down him. You needn't worry about him as far as you are concerned, Sylvia. I don't mean he doesn't care. He does care tremendously. He deserves the Croix de Guerre, in love, too. He has been under fire. You can see that. But what I mean is, he is so thoroughly wholesome and happy-hearted he will come out all right. He can't help it. John says it is making a man of him over here, and I believe it is true, though I think you started that process.
"But, oh, Sylvia, it is dreadful! If ever it ends I shall fly back to safe, peaceful, happy America and try to forget all the agonies I've seen and lived over here. We all hope America will manage to keep out of war, but it seems as if she could not long do so with safety and honor. It is hard to forget theLusitania, and for us it is almost harder to forget Belgium. Americans at home will never fully understand Belgium. For us it has been stamped with red hot irons upon our minds and memories. We cannot forget."
As Sylvia eagerly read this letter she couldn't help hoping that somehow or other this terrible experience Hilda and Jack were going through together might, in time, bring them still nearer. Women are incorrigible matchmakers where their old lovers are concerned, and Jack and Hilda had long been good friends. They were both too essentially sane and too young to let their lives be wrecked by the hapless experiences with which they had started out. If only they might find consolation and happiness in each other Sylvia thought she would have nothing left to wish for.
And so summer days came and went, with their joys and their sorrows, their dreams and their despairs, their losses and their gains, woven all into the common web of life. And finally again came September.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE END AND THE BEGINNING
Cloudless September afternoon! The same blue space of sky beyond the shining-leaved magnolia; the same pink and white riot of cosmos; the same dial dedicating itself to none but sunny hours! And again Barb and Suzanne and Sylvia on the porch at Arden Hall. Externally everything was much as it had been a twelve month ago. But the year had brought its changes and left its traces as years will. As the shell's growth is marked by its increasing number of circles so spiritual development stamps its impress upon human faces and even more on human souls. Barb and Suzanne and Sylvia were less unchanged than the outer world. All three had grown in the grace of wisdom, each according to her way and measure.
Barb was still quiet and humble of heart, but the year had given her the poise which comes from increasing self dependence and even more from depths and widths of experience. Barbara was learning to base life broad on the roots of things and faced the world serenely content if a little gravely, going the "softlier all her days for the dream's sake" as so many women do.
Suzanne was, on the surface, the least changed. She still flashed out conversational audacities and delighted in "taking a shot at the idols" as she put it. But underneath the jewel-like hardness and brilliance of the exterior there was a difference. Her theories of life were not so polished and compact and perfected. She had undergone more than one seismic upheaval of emotion during the year and her "cock-sureness" was shattered if not annihilated. But the greatest difference lay in her deepened power of human sympathy and understanding. The success of "Melissa on the Road" had not been mere accident but a logical outgrowth of its author's surer insight into life, and the play was an even more certain indication that Suzanne in finding herself had found something universal at the same time.
As for Sylvia--but let Sylvia speak for herself. Suzanne, lolling as before in Sylvia's hammock, again pronounced judgment.
"I never knew a person for whom the whole universe seemed to be working the way it does for you, Sylvia Arden. Now, if I had wanted to live in a certain place Roger would have been called to Kamchatka or Kalamazoo or some other God forgotten spot. But just because you had your heart set on living at Arden Hall the fates come galloping up to present Phil a choice professional opening on a charger."
"Do you know whether a charger is a horse or a platter?" laughed Sylvia. "I should never know from your phrasing."
"It is both, of course. Don't criticize my diction. Diction is my business. And don't crab. Honest, Sylvia, don't you think your luck is altogether out of proportion to your deserts?"
"'In the course of justice which of us should see salvation?'" quoted Sylvia. "Oh, I know, Suzanne. It is almost too good to be true that Phil can find the right kind of work in Greendale and we can live here at Arden Hall. But you are mistaken about my having set my heart on living here. I love it better than any place on earth but I would have gone anywhere with Phil. Even the Hall wanes in comparison with him." And Sylvia blushed charmingly as she made the admission.
"Of course you think so. Quite the proper sentiment to express twenty-four hours before your wedding. May the Lord give me grace to feel the same next December when I follow your lead to the altar. But, Sylvia, you don't really know what you are talking about. I can't imagine you in a little apartment. You're too--spacious."
Sylvia smiled.
"Oh, I believe I could have adjusted my spaciousness if necessary. But I'm rather glad I don't have to. I'd rather--spread."
"Youwillspread, too," put in Barb. "You and Phil will have a wonderful opportunity to really live here, more than you could ever have done in the city."
"I hope so." Sylvia's eyes were thoughtful as she looked out across the lawn, past the magnolia to the blue sky, just as she had a year ago. She looked as if she saw visions. Perhaps she did. The "home trust" which she and Felicia had formed years ago was still an integral part of her scheme of things. She meant her home to be a home in the truest sense, not just a house beneath whose roof she could shelter herself and her loved ones. She wanted her doors to stand open wide to the world--especially the lonely people. "The lonely people" were always very close to Sylvia's heart perhaps because her own lonely girlhood had given her the clew to the yearning that nearly all the world knows at times.
"You are going to keep on being viciously contented," accused Suzanne.
"I hope so," said Sylvia again. "I feel that way at present, anyway. I am afraid I'll never do anything very big, Suzanne. You and Barb are going to leave me way behind, I know. I haven't any special ambition except to be happy myself and to make other people within my range happy, too."
"You are a genius at that. Remember what Mr. Kinnard said. Don't let Suzanne tease you, Sylvia. You have the secret of living. If all the people in the world wanted to be happy themselves and tried to see that other people near them were happy, why--"
"The millennium would have come," finished Suzanne. "You are blooming sentimentalists both of you, though I don't deny there is a little solid sense behind your sentiment. Anyway, I have a sneaking notion I shall have a sort of satisfaction knowing that down here on your Hill things are going to be a little more the way they ought to be than is customary in this cranky old world."
"Why, Suzanne! That is just what I was thinking," cried Barb. "I see so much sin and sordidness and misery and things so snarled and twisted that it seems as if they never would smooth out. I'm going to see even more this year if I go in for the probation work. And it is wonderful to me to be able to think that it is all clean and sweet and happy and kind in Sylvia's world. It is kindness somehow that is important. If we would all be kind the way Christ taught us there wouldn't be any war and hate and competition and oppression. We'd all be just brothers and sisters."
"Maybe that is what we are growing into," said Sylvia soberly. "Thank you, Barb. I like that--what you said just now. Remember, if you want to send anybody down to my--ourgarden-- It is Phil's, too--we shall be glad to take her--or him--in. We want to help."
"We want to help." That is the keynote of the new democracy. And Barb and Suzanne and Sylvia, each in her own way, had enlisted in the shining army which is none other than the army of love.
And indoors, while the three girls were thus philosophizing about the universe at large, Felicia and Stephen had suddenly concentrated upon themselves.
"Felicia," Stephen was saying, "I have waited very patiently. Haven't you a different answer for me this time? I am not going to pretend I shall go away broken-hearted if it is no. My heart is a little too old to break, but if you could make it yes it will make all the difference in the world. Couldn't you say it, dear? Sylvia won't need you after to-morrow. And you know the kiddies won't be the losers. We'll see to that. Those reasons of yours aren't operative any more, you know."
"But there is still Sydney," she reminded him gravely, her face averted.
"There is," he admitted. "Ah, but, Felicia, you can't live all your days on a memory--even so vital a one. I don't expect to take Syd's place. I don't even want to. But, Felicia, look at me. Haven't I somewhere a place all my own in your heart?"
And then Felicia lifted her eyes, still forget-me-not blue like Marianna's.
"Yes, Stephen, I believe you have--a big place. If you want me as I am, the best of me gone, the rest is all yours."
Night and stillness of night on Arden Hall and Sylvia's garden! Suddenly out of the darkness Sylvia stole down the broad staircase, candle in hand, like a vestal virgin, in her white silk robe, her dark hair unbound, lying loose upon her shoulders.
On the wall, near the foot of the stairs hung two portraits; one, of a dark-eyed young man, the other a lovely young girl, looking out with wistful, wondering gaze upon the world.
Straight to the portraits went Sylvia, holding her candle high. For a moment she stood there with uplifted face and rapt gaze, trying to speak to these two, to bespeak their blessing this night on the daughter who was to follow in their footsteps to-morrow in giving herself in marriage to the mate she loved.
"If only you were here," she sighed. "I do want you so, Father! Mother! Please try to know and be glad I am so happy. Please be glad. I want you to be glad."
In the flickering light of the uplifted candle it seemed to Sylvia as if her father's dark eyes smiled down into hers as if he understood and was glad as she desired.
"The truest and the kindest," she whispered. "That was what Doctor Tom said, and I know you must have been. Phil is like that, too, Father. I'm glad you know. Good night."
Then she turned to the fair girl whom it had always been a little hard to think of as a mother, she was so tiny and sweet and girlish herself and her eyes looked so incredibly young and innocent.
"Little Mother!" crooned Sylvia. "Little, little Mother! I wonder if you were afraid at all. Did you ever feel like running away even from him? This marrying is such a big, solemn business. Didn't you feel a teeny little bit scared about it all? It isn't that you are afraid of him. It is rather yourself you don't trust, as if you weren't quite tall enough to reach up to marriage. Marriage is so high, so dreadfully high. But it is all right, isn't it, little Mother? You just have to trust love, don't you? Good night, little Mother. Please love me up there where you are."
This rite over, Sylvia turned to go back upstairs. But the moonlight fell in bright patines across the floor from the latticed windows, beside the front door, and Sylvia had never been able to resist moonlight. Hastily she set down her candle and snatched up a black velvet cloak from the rack and throwing it about her shoulders, covering her thin silken draperies, she unbolted the rear door which led out into the garden and ran down the steps into the enchanted world outside.
Even as she reached the path she uttered a half startled exclamation. A tall form was pacing up and down under the willow-trees, silhouetted against the whiteness of the garden space. She did not retreat however but stood motionless as a statue with the moonlight full upon her. In a moment the silhouetted figure turned and came swiftly toward her.
"Sylvia!"
"Phil!"
For a second she was swept into Phil's arms, his kiss on her lips. Then they stood apart, looking at each other as if all at once they had discovered some new, sacred thing which all their love up to now had not taught them.
"Phil, I'm glad--glad it is you," breathed Sylvia. "Glad I'm going to be yours."
"Forever and ever, amen," said Phil Lorrimer, as solemnly as if he were pronouncing his own wedding service.
The actual ceremony took place the next day in the gray stone Gothic church where Sylvia's father and mother had been made man and wife. But to Sylvia, and perhaps to Phil, too, it always seemed as if the real wedding had been the night before in the white moonlight of Sylvia's own garden. There it was at least that Sylvia lost forever her fear of not being able to reach up to marriage however high it was. Love, she knew, would show her the way.