CHAPTER III
IFAlix Deering had not barked her pretty shins against the center-board in Gerry Lansing’s sailing-boat on West Lake, it is possible that she would in the end have married Alan Wayne instead of Gerry Lansing.
When two years before Alan’s dismissal Nance had brought Alix, an old school friend, to Red Hill for a fortnight, everybody had thought what a splendid match Alix and Alan would make. But it happened that Alan was very much taken up at the time with memory and anticipation of a certain soubrette, and before he awoketo Alix’s wealth of charms the incident of the shins robbed him of opportunity.
Gerry, dressed only in a bathing-suit, his boat running free before a brisk breeze, had swerved to graze the Point, where half of Red Hill was encamped, when he caught sight of a figure lying on the outermost flat rock. He took it to be Nance.
“Jump!” he yelled as the boat neared the rock.
The figure started, scrambled to its feet, and sprang. It was Alix, still half asleep, who landed on the slightly canted floor of the boat. Her shins brought up with a thwack against the center-board, and she fell in a heap at Gerry’s feet. Her face grew white and strained; for a second she bit her lip, and then, “Imustcry,” she gasped, and cried.
Gerry was big, strong, and placid. Action came slowly to him, but when it came it was sure. He threw one knee over the tiller, and gathered Alix into his arms. She lay like a hurt child, sobbing against his shoulder.
“Poor little girl,” he said, “I know how it hurts. Cry now, because in a minute it will all be over. It will, dear. Shins are like that.” And then before she could master her sobs and take in the unconscious humor of his comfort, the boat struck with a crash on Hidden Rock.
The nearest Gerry had ever come to drowning was when he had fallen asleep lying on his back in the middle of West Lake. Even with a frightened girl clinging to him, it gave him no shock to find himself in the water a quarter of a mile from shore. But with Alix it was different. She gasped, and in consequence gulped down a large mouthful of the lake. Then she broke into hysterical laughter and swallowed more. Gerry held her up, and deliberately slapped her across the mouth. In a flash anger sobered her. Her eyes blazed.
“You coward,” she whispered.
Gerry’s face was white and stern.
“Put one hand on my shoulder and kick with your feet,” he said. “I’ll tow you to shore.”
“Put me on Hidden Rock,” said Alix; “I prefer to wait for a boat.”
“It will take an hour for a boat to get here,” answered Gerry. “I’m going to tow you in. If you say another word I shall slap you again.”
In a dead silence they plowed slowly to shore, and when Gerry found bottom, he stood up, took Alix in his arms, and strode well up the bank before he set her down.
During the long swim she had had time to think, but not to forgive. She stamped her sodden feet, shook out her skirts, and then looked Gerry up and down. With his crisp, light hair; blue eyes, wide apart and well open; and six feet of well-proportioned bulk, Gerry was good to look at, but Alix’s angry eyes did not admit it. They measured him scornfully; but it was not the look that hurt him so much as the way she turned from him with a little shrug of dismissal and started along the shore for camp.
Gerry reached out and caught hold of her arm. She swung around, her face quite white.
“I see,” she said in a low voice, “you want it now.”
Gerry held her with his eyes.
“Yes,” he answered, “I want it now.”
“Why did you yell at me to jump into your horrible boat?”
“I took you for Nance.”
“You took me for Nance,” repeated Alix with a mimicry and in a tone that left no doubt as to the fact that she was in a nasty temper. “Andwhy,” she went on, her eyes blazing and her slight figure trembling, “did you strike me—slap me across the face?”
“Because I love you,” replied Gerry, steadily.
“Oh!” gasped Alix. Her slate-gray eyes went wide open in unfeigned amazement, and suddenly the tenseness that is the essence of attack went out of her body. Instead of a self-possessed and very angry young woman, she became her natural self—a girl fluttering before her first really thrilling situation.
There was something so childlike in her sudden transition that Gerry was moved out of himself. For once he was not slow. He caught hold of her and drew her toward him.
But Alix was not to be plucked like a ripe plum. She freed herself gently but firmly, and stood facing him. Then she smiled, and with the smile she gained the upper hand. Gerry suddenly became awkward and painfully aware of his bare arms and legs. He felt exceptionally naked.
“When did it begin?” murmured Alix.
“What?” said Gerry.
“It,” said Alix. “When—how long have you loved me?”
Gerry’s face turned a deep red, but he raised his eyes steadily to hers. “It began,” he said simply, “when I took you in my arms and you laid your face against my shoulder and cried like—like a little kid.”
“Oh!” said Alix again, and blushed in her turn. She had lost the upper hand and knew it. Gerry’s arms went around her, and this time she raised her face and let him kiss her.
Drawn by Reginald Birch“‘CLEM,’ HE SAID, ‘DO YOU THINK IWANTTO GO AWAY?’”
Drawn by Reginald Birch
“‘CLEM,’ HE SAID, ‘DO YOU THINK IWANTTO GO AWAY?’”
“Now,” she said as they started for the camp, “I suppose I must call you Gerry.”
“Yes,” said Gerry, solemnly. “And I shall call you Little Miss Oh!”
So casual an engagement might easily have come to a casual end, but Gerry Lansing was quietly tenacious. Once moved, he stayed moved. No woman had ever stirred him before; he did not imagine that any other woman would stir him again.
To Alix, once the shock of finding herself engaged was passed, came full realization and a certain amount of level-headed calculation. She knew herself to be high-strung, nervous, and impulsive, a combination that led people to consider her lightly. On the day of the wreck Gerry had shown himself to be a man full grown. He had mastered her; she thought he could hold her.
Then came calculation. Alix was out of the West. All that money could do for her in the way of education and culture had been done, but no one knew better than she that her culture was a mere veneer in comparison with the ingrained flower of the Lansings’ family oak. Here was a man she could love, and with him he brought her the old homestead on Red Hill and an older brownstone front in New York the position of which was as unassailable socially as it was inconvenient as regards the present center of the city’s life. Alix reflected that if there was a fool to the bargain it was not she.
All Red Hill and a few Deerings gathered for the wedding, and many were the remarks passed on Gerry’s handsome bulk and Alix’s scintillating beauty; but the only saying that went down in history came from Alan Wayne when Nance, just a little troubled over the combination of Gerry and Alix, asked him what he thought of it.
Alan’s eyes narrowed, and his thin lips curved into a smile as he gave his verdict:
“Andromeda, consenting, chained to the rock.”