When Becky wrote to Randy, she had a great deal to say about Archibald Cope.
"He is trying to paint the moor. He wants to get its meaning, and then make other people see what it means. He doesn't look in the least like that, Randy—as if he were finding the spirit of things. He has red hair and wears correct clothes, and says the right things, and you feel as if he ought to be in Wall Street buying bonds. But here he is, refusing to believe that anything he has done is worth while until he does it to his own satisfaction.
"We walked to Tom Never's Head yesterday. It was one of those clear silver days, a little cloudy and without much color. The cranberries are ripe and the moor was carpeted with them. When we got to Tom Never's we sat on the edge of the bluff, and Mr. Cope told me what he meant about the moor. It has its moods, he said. On a quiet, cloudy morning, it is a Quaker lady. With the fog in, it is a White Spirit. There are purple twilights when it is—Cleopatra, and windy nights with the sun going down blood-red, when it is—Medusa—— He says that the trouble with the average picture is that it is just—paint. I am not sure that I understand it all, but it is terribly interesting. And when he had talked a lot about that, he talked of the history of the island. He said that he should never be satisfied until somebody put a bronze statue of an Indian right where we stood, with his back to the sea. And when I said, 'Why with his back to it?' he said, 'Wasn't the sea cruel to the red man? It brought a conquering race in ships.'
"I told him then about our Indians in Virginia, and that some of us had a bit of red blood in our veins, and I told him that you and I always used the old Indian war cry when we called to each other, and he asked, 'Who is Randy?' and I said that you were an old friend, and that we had spent much of our childhood together."
As a matter of fact, Cope had been much interested in her account of young Paine. "Do you mean to say that he is still living on all that land?"
"Yes."
"Master of his own domain. I can't see it. The way I like to live is with a paint box, and a bag; and nothing to keep me from moving on."
"We aren't like that in the South."
"Do you like to stay in one place?"
"I never have. I have always been handed around."
"Would you like a home of your own?"
"Of course—after I am married."
"North, south, east or west?"
She put the question to him seriously. "Do you think it would make any difference if you loved a man, where you lived?"
"Well, of course, there might be difficulties—on a desert island."
"Not if you loved him."
"My sister wouldn't agree with you."
"Why not?"
"She is very modern. She says that love has nothing to do with it. Not romantic love. She says that when she marries she shall choose a man who lives in New York, who likes to go to Europe, and who hates the tropics. He must fancy pale gray walls and willow-green draperies, and he must loathe Florentine furniture. He must like music and painting, and not care much for books. He must adore French cooking, and have a prejudice against heavy roasts. He must be a Republican and High Church. She is sure that with such a man she would be happy. The dove of peace would hover over the household, because she and her husband would have nothing to quarrel about."
"Of course she doesn't mean it."
"She thinks she does."
"She won't if she is ever really in love."
He glanced at her. "Then you believe in the desert island?"
"I think I do——"
She stood up. "Did you feel a drop of rain? And Grandfather is waving."
The Admiral on the porch of the closed Lodge was calling to them to come under shelter.
It was a gentle rain, and they decided to walk home in it. They went at a smart pace, which they moderated as Cope showed signs of fatigue. "It's a beastly nuisance," he said, "to give out. I wish you would go on ahead, and let me rest here——"
They rested with him. The two men talked, and Becky was rather silent. When they started on again, Cope said to her, "Are you tired? It is a long walk."
"No," she said, "I am not tired. And I have been thinking a lot about the things you said to me."
He was not a conceited man, and he was aware that it was the things which he had said to her which had set her mind to work, not any personal fascination. She was quaint and charming, and he was glad that she had come. He had been lonely since his sister left. And his loneliness had fear back of it.
It was because of this conversation with Cope that Becky ended her letter to Randy with the following paragraph:
"Mr. Cope has a sister, Louise. She thinks that people ought to marry because they like the same things. She thinks that if two people care for the same furniture and the same religion and the same things to eat, that life will be lovely. She couldn't love a man enough to live on a desert island with him, because she adores New York. Of course, there is something in that, and if it is so, you and I ought to be very happy, Randy. We like old houses and the Virginia hills, and lots of books, and fireplaces—and dogs and horses and hot biscuits and fried chicken. It sounds awfully funny to put it that way, doesn't it, and practical? But perhaps Louise Cope is right, and one isn't likely, of course, to have the desert island test. Do youreallythink that anybody could be happy on a desert island, Randy?"
Randy replied promptly.
"If you were in love with me, Becky, you wouldn't be asking questions. You would believe that we could be blissful on a desert island. I believe it. It may not be true, yet I feel that a hut on a mountain top would be heaven for me if you were in it, Becky. In a way Cope's sister is right. The chances for happiness are greatest with those who have similar tastes, but not fried chicken tastes or identical religious opinions. These do not mean so much, but it would mean a great deal that we think alike about honesty and uprightness and truth and courage——
"And now, Becky, I might as well say it straight from the shoulder. I haven't the least right in the world to let you feel that you are engaged to me. I shall never marry you unless you love me—unless you love me so much that you would have the illusion of happiness with me on a desert island.
"I have no right to let you tie yourself to me. The whole thing is artificial and false. You are strong enough to stand alone. I want you to stand alone, Becky, for your own sake. I want you to tell yourself that Dalton isn't worth one single thought of yours. Tell yourself the truth, Becky, about him. It is the only way to own your soul.
"You may be interested to know that the Watermans left Hamilton Hill yesterday. Dalton went with them. I haven't seen him since the night of the Merriweathers' ball. I didn't tell you, did I, that after I took the fan away from him, I dropped him into the fountain? I had much rather have tied him to a stake, and have built a fire under him, but that isn't civilized, and of course, I couldn't. But I am glad I dropped him in the fountain——"
Becky read Randy's letter as she sat alone on the beach. It was cool and sunshiny and she was wrapped in a red cape. The winter gulls were beating strong wings above the breakers, and their sharp cries cut across the roar of the waters.
There had been a storm the night before—wind booming out of the northeast and the sea still sang the song of it.
Becky felt, suddenly, that she was very angry with Randy. It was as if he had broken a lovely thing that she had worshipped. She hated to think of that struggle in the dark—— She hated to think of Randy as—the Conqueror. She hated to think of George as dank and dripping. She wanted to think of him as shining and splendid, and Randy had spoiled that.
But she wanted to be fair. Hadn't George, after all, spoiled his own splendidness? He had wooed her and had run away. And he had not run back until he thought another man wanted her.
"Of course," said somebody behind her, "you won't tell me what you are thinking about. But if you will just let me sit here and think, by your side, it will be a great privilege."
It was Mr. Cope, and she was not sure that she wanted him at this moment. Perhaps something of her thought showed in her eyes, for when she said, "Oh, yes," he stood looking down at her. "Would you rather be alone with your letters? Don't hedge and be polite. Tell me."
"Well," she admitted, "my letters are a bit on my mind. But if you don't care if I am stupid, you can stay——"
He sat down. He had known her for ten days, and dreaded to think that in ten days more she might be gone. "I won't talk if you don't wish it."
Becky's eyes were on the sea. "I think I should like to talk. I have been thinking—about that Indian that you want commemorated in bronze up there on the bluff. Do you think he was cruel?"
"Who knows? He was, perhaps, a savage. Yet he may have been tender-hearted. I hope so, if he is going to be fixed in bronze for the ages to stare at."
"Did you," Becky asked, deliberately, "ever want to tie a man to a stake and build a fire under him?"
He turned and stared at her. "My dear child, what ever put such an idea in your head?"
"Well, did you?"
He considered it. "There was a time in France when I wanted to do worse than that."
"But that was war."
"No, it was a brute in my own company. He broke the heart of a little girl that he met in Brittany. He—he—well he murdered her—dreams.
"Perhaps he didn't know what he was doing."
"He knew. Every man knows."
"And you wanted to make him—suffer——"
"Yes."
She shivered. "Are all men like that?"
"Like what?"
"Cruel."
"It can't be cruelty. It's a sense of justice."
"I hope it is." She kept thinking about George rising dank and dripping from the fountain. She hated to think about it.
So she changed the subject. "I thought you were painting."
"I was. But the moor is fickle. Yesterday she billowed towards the south, all gray and blue. And last night the storm spoiled it; she is gorgeous and gay to-day, and I don't like her."
"Oh, why not?"
"She is too obvious. Anybody can paint a Persian carpet, but one can't put soul into a—carpet——"
He was petulant. "I shall never paint the pictures I want to paint. Life is too short."
"Life isn't short. Look at Grandfather. You will have forty years yet in which to paint."
And now it was he who changed the subject, quickly, as if he were afraid of it.
"My sister is coming to-morrow. I rather think you will like her."
"Will she like me, that's more important."
"She will love you, as I do, as everybody does, Becky."
They had reached that point in ten days that he could say such things to her and win her smile. She did not believe in the least that he loved her. He always laughed when he said it.
She liked him very much. She felt that the Admiral and Tristram and Archibald Cope were all of them the best of comrades. Except for Jane, she had had practically no feminine society since she came. And Jane was not especially inspiring, not like Tristram, who seemed to carry one's imagination back to Viking days.
Cope was immensely enthusiastic about Tristram. "If I could paint figures as I want to," he said, "I'd do Tristram as 'The Islander.' One feels that he belongs here as inevitably as the moors or the sands or the sea. Perhaps it is he who ought to be in bronze on the bluff, instead of the Indian."
"But he'd have to face the sea," said Becky.
"Yes," Cope agreed, "he would. He loves it and his ancestors lived by it. I'll stick to my Indian and the moor."
Becky gathered up her letters. "It is time for lunch, and Jane doesn't like to be kept waiting. Won't you lunch with us? Grandfather will be delighted."
"I shall get to be a perpetual guest. I feel as if I were taking advantage of your hospitality."
"We shouldn't ask you if we didn't want you."
"Then I'll come."
They walked up the beach together. Becky was muffled in her red cape, Cope had a sweater under his coat. The air was sharp and clear as crystal.
"How anybody can go in bathing in this weather," Becky shivered, as a woman ran down the sands towards the sea. She east off her bathing cloak and stood revealed, slim and rather startling, in yellow.
"She goes in every day," said Cope, "even when it storms."
"Who is she?"
"A dancer—from New York. Haven't you seen her before?"
"No. Where is she staying?"
"At the hotel."
"I thought the hotel was closed."
"Not for three weeks. There aren't many guests. This one came up a month ago. She dances on the moor—practising for some play which opens in October."
"What's her name?"
"I don't know. They call her 'The Yellow Daffodil' because of that bathing suit."
The girl was swimming now beyond the breakers.
Becky was envious. "I wish I could swim like that."
"You can do other things—that she can't do."
"What things?"
"Well, be a lady, for example. That's not exactly cricket, is it, to draw a deadly parallel? But I don't want people like that dancing on my moor."
Randy's letter had set Becky adrift. She was not in love with him. She was sure of that. And he had said he would not marry her without love. He had said that if she owned her soul she would think of Dalton as a cad and as a coward.
It seemed queer that Randy should be demanding things of her. He had always been so glad to take anything she would give, and now she had offered him herself, and he wouldn't have her. Not till she owned her soul.
She knew what he meant. The thought of George was always with her. She kept seeing him as she had first seen him at the station; as he had been that wonderful day when they had had tea in the Pavilion; the night in the music room when he had hissed her; the old garden with its pale statues and box hedges; and always there was his sparkling glance, his quick voice.
She would never own her soul until she forgot George. Until she put him out of her life; until the thought of him would not make her burn hot with humiliation; until the thought of him would not thrill to her finger-tips.
She found Cope's easy and humorous companionship a balance for her hidden emotions. And when Louise Cope came, she proved to be a rather highly emphasized counterpart of her brother. Her red-gold hair was thick and she wore it bobbed. Her skin was white but lacked the look of delicacy which seemed to contradict constantly Cope's vivid personality. She seemed to laugh at the world as he did. She called Becky "quaint," but took to her at once.
"Archie has been writing to me of you," she told Becky; "he says you came up like a bird from the south."
"Birds don't fly north in the fall——"
"Well, you were the—miracle," Cope asserted.
Louise Cope's shrewd glance studied him. "He has fallen in love with you, Becky Bannister," was her blunt assurance, "but you needn't let it worry you. As yet it is only an aesthetic passion. But there is no telling what may come of it——"
"Does he fall in love—like that?" Becky demanded.
"He has never been in love," Louise declared, "not really. Except with me."
Becky felt that the Copes were a charming pair. When she answered Randy's letter she spoke of them.
"Louise adores her brother, and she thinks he would be a great artist if he would take himself seriously. But neither of them seems to take anything seriously. They always seem to be laughing at the world in a quiet way. Louise is not pretty, but she gives an effect of beauty—— She wears a big gray cape and a black velvet tam, and I am not sure that the color in her cheeks is real. She is different from other people, but it doesn't seem to be a pose. It is just because she has lived in so many places and has seen so many people and has thought for herself. I have always let other people think for me, haven't I, Randy?
"And now that I have done with the Copes, I am going to talk about the things that you said to me in your letter, and which are really the important things.
"I hated to think that you dropped Mr. Dalton in the fountain. I hated to think that you wanted to burn him at the stake—there was something—cruel—and—dreadful in it all. I have kept thinking of that struggle between you—in the dark—— I have hated to think that a few years ago if you had felt as you do about him—that you might have—killed him. But perhaps men are like that. They care more for justice than for—mercy.
"I am trying to take your advice and tell myself the truth about Mr. Dalton. That he isn't worth a thought of mine. Yet I think of him a great deal. I am being very frank with you, Randy, because we have always talked things out. I think of him, and wonder which is the real man—the one I thought he was—and I thought him very fine and splendid. Or is he just trifling and commonplace? Perhaps he is just between, not as wonderful as I thought him, nor as contemptible as I seem forced to believe.
"Yet I gave him something that it is hard to take back. I gave a great deal. You see I had always been shut up in a glass case like the bob-whites and the sandpipers in the Bird Room, and I knew nothing of the world. And the first time I tried my wings, I thought I was flying towards the sun, and it was just a blaze that—burned me.
"Of course you are right when you say that you won't marry me unless I love you. I had a queer feeling at first about it—as if you were very far away and I couldn't reach you. But I know that you are right, and that you are thinking of the thing that is best for me. But I know I shall always have you as a friend. I don't think that I shall ever love anybody. And after this we won't talk about it. There are so many other things that we have to say to each other that don't hurt——"
Becky could not, of course, know the effect of her letter on Randy. The night after its receipt, he roamed the woods. She had thought him cruel—and dreadful. Well, let her think it. He was glad that he had dropped George in the fountain. He should always be glad. But women were not like that—they were tender—and hated—hardness. Perhaps that was because they were—mothers——
And men were—hard. He had been hard, perhaps, in the things he had said in his letter. Her words rang in his ears. "I had a queer feeling at first that you were very far away, and that I could not reach you." And she had said that, when his soul ached to have her near.
Yet he had tried to do the best that he could for Becky. He had felt that she must not be bound by a tie that was no longer needed to protect her from Dalton. She was safe at 'Sconset, with the Admiral and her new friends the Copes. He envied them their hours with her. He was desperately lonely, with a loneliness which had no hope.
He worked intensively. The boarders had gone from King's Crest, and he and the Major had moved into the big house. Randy spent a good deal of time in the Judge's library at Huntersfield. He and Truxton had great plans for their future. They read law, sold cars, and talked of their partnership. The firm was to be "Bannister, Paine and Beaufort"; it was to have brains, conscience, and business acumen.
"In the order named," Truxton told the Major. "The Judge has brains, Randy has a conscience. There's nothing left for me but to put pep into the business end of it."
Randy worked, too, on his little story. He did not know in the least what he was going to do with it, but it was an outlet for the questions which he kept asking himself. The war was over and the men who had fought had ceased to be important. He and the Major and Truxton talked a great deal about it. The Major took the high stand of each man's satisfaction in the thing he had done. Truxton was light-heartedly indifferent. He had his Mary, and his future was before him. But Randy argued that the world ought not to forget. "It was a rather wonderful thing for America. I want her to keep on being wonderful."
The Major in his heart knew that the boy was right. America must keep on being wonderful. Her young men must go high-hearted to the tasks of peace. It was the high-heartedness of people which had won the war. It would be the high-heartedness of men and women which would bring sanity and serenity to a troubled world.
"The difficulty lies in the fact that we are always trying to make laws to right the world, when what we need is to form individual ideals. The boy who says in his heart, 'I want to be like Lincoln,' and who stands in front of a statue of Lincoln, and learns from that rugged countenance the lesson of simple courage and honesty, has a better chance of a future than the boy who is told, 'There is evil in the world, and the law punishes those who transgress.' Half of our Bolsheviks would be tamed if they had the knowledge and love of some simple hero in their hearts, and felt that there was a chance for them to be heroic. The war gave them a chance. We have now to show them that there is beauty and heroism in orderly living——"
He was talking to Madge. She was still with the Flippins. The injury to her foot had been more serious than it had seemed. She might have gone with Oscar and Flora when they left Hamilton Hill. But she preferred to stay. Flora was to go to a hospital; Madge would not be needed.
"I am going to stay here as long as you will let me," she said to Mrs. Flippin; "you will tell me if I am in the way——"
Mrs. Flippin adored Madge. "It is like having a Princess in the house," she said, "only she don't act like a Princess."
The Major came over every afternoon. Kemp drove him, as a rule, in the King's Crest surrey. If the little man missed Dalton's cars, he said no word. He made the Major very comfortable. He lived a life of ease if not of elegance, and he loved the wooded hills, the golden air, the fine old houses, the serene autumn glory of this southern world.
On the afternoon when the Major talked to Madge of the world at peace, they were together under the apple tree which Madge had first seen from the window of the east room. There were other apple trees in the old orchard, but it was this tree that Madge liked because of its golden globes. "The red ones are wonderful," she said, "but red isn't my color. With my gold skin, they make me look like a gypsy. If I am to be a golden girl, I must stay away from red——"
"Is that what you are—a golden girl?"
"That was always George Dalton's name for me."
"I am sorry."
"Why?"
"Because I should like it to be mine for you. I should like to link my golden West with the thought of you."
"And you won't now, because it was somebody else's name for me?"
Kemp, before he went away, had made her comfortable with cushions in a chair-like crotch of the old tree. The Major was at her feet. He meditated a moment. "I shall make it my name for you. What do I care what other men have called you."
"Do you know what you called me—once?" she was smiling down at him.
"No."
"A little lame duck. It was when I first tried to use my foot. And you laughed, and said that it—linked us—together. And now you are trying to link me with your West——"
"You know why, of course."
"Yes, I do."
He drew a long breath. "Most women would, have said, 'No, I don't know.' But you told the truth. I want to link you with my life in every way I can because I love you. And you know that I care—very much—that I want you for my wife—my golden girl in my golden West——?"
"You have never told me before that—you cared."
"There was no need to tell it. You knew."
"Yes. I was afraid it was true——"
He was startled. "Afraid? Why?"
"Oh, I oughtn't to let you care," she said. "You don't know what a slacker I've been. And I don't want you to find out——"
"The only thing that I want to find out is whether you care for me."
She flushed a little under his steady gaze, then quite unexpectedly she reached her hand down to him. He took it in his firm clasp. "I do care—an awful lot," she said, "but I've tried not to. And I shouldn't let you care for me."
"Why—shouldn't?"
"I'm not—half good enough. My life has always been lived at loose ends. Nothing bad, but a thousand things that you wouldn't—like to hear—I'm not a golden girl—I'm a gilded one——"
"Why should you tell me things like that? I don't believe it."
"Please believe it," she said earnestly, "don't whitewash things. Just let me begin again—loving you——"
Her voice broke. He drew himself up, and took her in his arms. "My dear girl," he said, "my dear girl——"
"I never met a man like you, I never believed there were—such men——" He felt her tears against his hand.
"Listen," he said quietly; "let me tell you something of my life." He told her the things he had told Randy. Of the little wife he had not loved. "Perhaps if it had not been for her, I should not have had the courage to offer to you my—maimed—self. When I married her I was strong and young and had wealth to give her. Yet I did not give her love. And love is more than all the rest. I have that to give you—you know it."
"Yes."
"I have some money. I don't think it is going to count much with either of us. What will count is the way we plan our future. I have a big old ranch, and we'll live in it—with the dairy and the wide kitchen that you've talked about—and you won't have to wait for another world, dearest, to get your heart's desire——"
"I have my heart's desire," she whispered; "you are—my world."
Madge wrote to George Dalton that she was going to marry Major Prime.
"There is no reason why we should put it off; Georgie. The clergyman who prayed for Flora will perform the ceremony, and the wedding will be at the Flippins' farm.
"It seems, of course, too good to be true. Not many women have such luck. Not my kind of women anyway. We meet men as a rule who want us to be gilded girls, and not golden ones. But Mark wants me to be gold all through. And I shall try to be—— We are to live on his ranch, a place that passes in California for a farm—a sort of glorified country place. Mrs. Flippin is teaching me to make butter, so that I can superintend my own dairy, and I have learned a great deal about chickens and eggs.
"I am going to be a housewife in what I call a reincarnated sense—loving my house and the things which belong to it, and living as a part of it, not above it, and looking down upon it. Perhaps all American women will come to that some day and I shall simply be blazing the way for them. I shall probably grow rosy and round, and if you ever ride up to my door-step, yon will find me a buxom and blooming matron instead of a golden girl. And you won't like it in the least. But my husband will like it, because he thinks a bit as I do about it, and he doesn't care for the woman who lives for her looks.
"I shall come and see Flora before I go West. But I am going to be married first. We both have a feeling that it must be now—that something might happen if we put it off, and nothing must happen. I love him too much. Of course you won't believe that. I can hardly believe it myself. But I have someone to climb the heights with me, Georgie, and we shall ascend to the peak—together."
For a wedding present George sent Madge the pendant he had bought for Becky. To connect it up with Madge's favorite color scheme, he had an amethyst put in place of the sapphire. He was glad to give it away. Every time he had come upon it, it had reminded him of things that he wished to forget.
Yet he could not forget. Even as Becky had thought of him, he had thought of her; of her radiant youth on the morning that Randy had arrived; at the Horse Show in her shabby shoes and sailor hat; in the Bird Room in pale blue under the swinging lamp; in the music room between tall candles; in the garden, with a star shining into the still pool; that last night, on the balcony, leaning over, with a yellow lantern like a halo behind her.
There were other things that he thought of—of Randy, in khaki on the station platform; Randy, lean and tall among the boarders; Randy, left behind with Kemp in the rain; Randy, debonair and insolent, announcing his engagement on the terrace at Hamilton Hill; Randy, a shadow against a silver sky, answering Becky's call; Randy, in the dark by the fountain, with muscles like iron, forcing him inevitably back, lifting him above the basin, letting him drop——; Randy, the Conqueror, marching away with Becky's fan as his trophy——!
New York was, of course, at this season of the year, a pageant of sparkling crowds, and of brilliant window displays, of new productions at the theaters. People were coming back to town. Even the fashionable folk were running down to taste the elixir of the early days in the metropolis.
But George found everything flat and stale. He did the things he had always done, hunted up the friends he had always known. He spent weekends at various country places, and came always back to town with an undiminished sense of his need of Becky, and his need of revenge on Randy.
He had heard before he left Virginia that Becky was at Nantucket. He had found some consolation in the fact that she was not at Huntersfield. To have thought of her with Randy in the old garden, on Pavilion Hill, in the Bird Room, would have been unbearable.
He had a feeling that, in a sense, Madge's marriage was a desertion. He did not in the least want to marry her, but there were moments when he needed her friendship very much. He needed it now. And she was going to marry Major Prime, and go out to some God-forsaken place, and get fat and lose her beauty. He wished that she would not talk about such things—it made him feel old, and worried about his waist-line.
Even Oscar was failing him. "When Flora gets well," the little man kept telling him, "we are going to do some good with our money. We have done nothing but think of ourselves——"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't preach," George exploded. It seemed to him that the world had gone mad on the subject of reforms. Man was no longer master of his fate. The time would come when the world would be a dry desert, without a cocktail or a highball for a thirsty soul, and all because a lot of people had been feeling for some time as Flora and Oscar felt at this moment.
"I shall take Flora up to the Crossing in a few days," Oscar was saying; "the doctor thinks the sea air will do her good. I wish you would come with us."
George had no idea of going with Oscar and Flora. He had been marooned long enough with a sick woman and her depressed spouse. When Flora was better and she and Oscar got over their mood of piety and repentance, he would be glad to join them. In the meantime he searched his mind for some reasonable excuse.
"Look here," he said, "I'll join you later, Oscar. I've promised some friends at Nantucket that I'll come down for the hunting."
"I didn't know that you had friends in Nantucket," Oscar told him moodily.
"The Merediths," George remembered in the nick of time the name of Becky's grandfather. Oscar would not know the difference.
Having committed himself, his spirits soared. It had, he felt, been an inspiration to put it over on Oscar like that. Subconsciously he had known that some day he would follow Becky, and when the moment came, he had spoken out of his thoughts.
In the two or three days that elapsed between his decision and the date that he had set for his departure, he found himself enjoying the city—-its clear skies, its hurrying crowds, its color and glow, the tingle of its rush and hurry, its light-hearted acceptance of the pleasure of the moment.
He telegraphed for a room at a hotel in Nantucket. Once there, he was confident that he could find Becky. Everybody would know Admiral Meredith.
He went by boat from New York to New Bedford, and enjoyed the trip. Later on the little steamer,Sankaty, plying between New Bedford and Nantucket, he was so shining and splendid that he was much observed by the other passengers. His Jap servant, trotting after him, was perhaps less martial in bearing than the ubiquitous Kemp, but he was none the less an ornament.
Thus George came, at last, to Nantucket, and to his hotel. Having dined, he asked the way to the Admiral's house. He did not of course plan to storm the citadel after dark, but a walk would not hurt him, and he could view from the outside the cage which held his white dove. For he had come to that, sentimentally, that Becky was the white dove that he would shelter against his heart.
The clerk at the hotel desk, directing him, thought that the Admiral was not in his house on Main Street. He was apt at this season to spend his time in Siasconset.
"'Sconset? Where's 'Sconset?"
"Across the island."
"How can I get there?"
"You can motor over. There's a 'bus, or you can get a car."
So the next morning, George took the 'bus. He saw little beauty in the moor. He thought it low and flat. His heart leaped with the thought that every mile brought him nearer Becky—his white dove—whom he had—hurt!
He was set down by the 'bus at the post-office. He asked his way, and was directed to a low huddle of gray houses on a grassy street. "It is the 'Whistling Sally,'" the driver of the 'bus had told him.
When George reached "The Whistling Sally," he felt that there must be some mistake. Here was no proper home for an Admiral or an heiress. His eyes were blind to the charms of the wooden young woman with the puffed-out cheeks, to the beauty of silver-gray shingles, of late flowers blooming bravely in the little garden.
He kept well on the other side of the street. It might perhaps be embarrassing if he met Becky while she was with her grandfather. He wanted to see her alone. With no one to interfere, he would be, he was sure, master of the situation.
He passed the house. The windows were open, and the white curtains blew out. But there was no one in sight. At the next corner, he accosted a tall man in work clothes, with bronzed skin and fair hair.
"Can you tell me," George asked, "whether Admiral Meredith lives in that cottage—'The Whistling Sally'?"
"Yes. But he isn't there. He's gone to Boston."
George was conscious of a sense of shock.
"Boston?"
"Yes. He wasn't very well and he wanted to see his doctor."
"Has his—granddaughter gone with him?"
"Miss Becky? Yes."
"But—the windows of the house are open——"
"I open them every morning. The housekeeper is in Nantucket. But they are all coming back at the end of the week."
"Coming back?" eagerly; "the Admiral, and Miss Bannister?"
"Yes."
George drew a long breath. He walked back with Tristram to the low gray house. "Queer little place," he said.
Tristram eyed him with easy tolerance. "Of course it seems queer if you aren't used to it——"
"I thought the Admiral had money."
"Well, he has. But he forgets it out here——"
"Is there a good hotel?"
"Yes. It is usually closed by now. But they are keeping it open for some guests who are up for the hunting."
The hotel was a pleasant rambling structure, and overlooked the sea. George engaged a room for Saturday—and said that his man would bring his bags. He would have his lunch and take the afternoon 'bus back to Nantucket.
As he waited for the dining-room doors to open, a girl wrapped in a yellow cape crossed the porch and descended the steps which led to the beach. She wore a yellow bathing cap and yellow shoes. George walked to the top of the bluff and watched her. She threw off the cape, and stood slim end striking for a moment before she dived into the sea. She swam splendidly. It was very cold, and George wondered how she endured it. When she came running back up the steps and across the porch, she was wrapped in the cape. She was rather handsome in a queer dark way. "It was cold," she said, as she passed George.
He took a step forward. "You were brave——"
She stopped and shrugged her shoulders. "One gets warm," she said, "in a moment."
She left him, and he went in to lunch. He stopped at the desk on the way out. "I have changed my mind. My man will bring my bags to-morrow."
It was still too early for the 'bus, so George walked back up the bluff, turning at last towards the left. Crossing a grassy space, there was ahead of him a ridge which marked the edge of the moor. A little fog was blowing in, and mistily through the fog he saw a figure which moved as light as smoke above the eminence. It was a woman dancing.
As he came nearer, he saw that she wore gray with a yellow sash. Her yellow cape lay on the ground. "I am not sure," George said, as he stopped beside her, "whether you are a pixie or a mermaid."
"Look," she said, smiling, "I'll show you what I am——"
She began with a light swaying motion, like a leaf stirred by a breeze. Then, whipped into action, she ran before the pursuing elements. She cowered, and registered defiance. Her loosened hair hung heavy about her shoulders, then wound itself about her, as she whirled in a cyclone of movement. Beaten to the ground, she rose languidly, swayed again to that light step and stopped.
Then she came close to George. "You see," she said, "I am not a pixie or a mermaid. I am the spirit of the storm."
The Admiral's rheumatism had taken Becky to Boston. "There'll be treatments every morning," he said, "and we'll invite the Copes to visit us, and they will look after you while I am away."
The Copes were delighted. "Only it seems like an imposition——"
"The house is big enough for an army," the Admiral told them; "that's what we built houses for in the old days. To have our friends. Charles, my butler, and his wife, Miriam, who cooks, stay in the house the year round, so it is always open and ready."
"And you and I shall see Boston together," Archibald told Becky, triumphantly. "I wonder if you have ever seen Boston as I shall show it to you."
"Well, I've been to all the historic places."
"Bunker Hill and the embattled farmers, of course," said Archibald; "but have you seen them since the war?"
"No. Are they different?"
"They aren't, but you are. All of us are."
Louise was not quite sure that her brother ought to leave the island. "You are down here for the air, Arch, and the quiet."
He was impatient. "Do you think I am going to miss this?"
She frowned and shook her head. "I don't want you to miss it. But it will be going against the doctor's orders."
"Oh, hang the doctor, Louise. Being in Boston with Becky will be like—wine——"
But she was not satisfied. "You always throw yourself into things so—desperately——"
"Well, when I lose my enthusiasm I want to—die."
"No, you don't, Arch. Don't say things like that." Her voice was sharp.
He patted her hand. "I won't. But don't curb me too much, old girl. Let me play—while I can——"
They arrived in Boston to find a city under martial law, a city whose streets were patrolled by khaki-clad figures with guns, whose traffic was regulated by soldierly semaphores, who linked intelligence with military training, and picturesqueness with both.
For a short season Boston had been in the hands of the mob. All of her traditions of law and order had not saved her. It had been her punishment perhaps for leaving law and order in the hands of those who cared nothing for them. People with consciences had preferred to keep out of politics. So for a time demagogues had gotten the ear of the people, and chaos had resulted until a quiet governor had proved himself as firm as steel, and soldiers had replaced the policemen who had for a moment followed false gods.
"It all proves what I brought you here to see," Cope told Becky eagerly.
Coffee was being served in the library of the Meredith mansion on Beacon Street. The Admiral's library was as ruddy and twinkling as the little man himself. He had furnished it to suit his own taste. A great davenport of puffy red velvet was set squarely in front of a fireplace with shining brasses. The couch was balanced by a heavy gilt chair also in puffy red. The mantel was in white marble, and over the mantel was an oil portrait of the Admiral's wife painted in '76. She wore red velvet with a train, and with the pearls which had come down to Becky. The room had been keyed up to her portrait, and had then been toned down with certain heavy pieces of ebony, a cabinet of black lacquer, the dark books which lined the wall to the ceiling. The room was distinctly nineteenth-century. If it lacked the eighteenth-century exquisiteness of the house at Nantucket, with its reminder of austere Quaker prejudices, it was none the less appropriate as a glowing background for the gay old Admiral.
Becky and Cope sat on the red davenport. It was so wide that Becky was almost lost in a corner of it. The old butler, Charles, served the coffee. The coffee service was of repoussé silver. The Admiral would have no other. It had been given him by a body of seamen when he had retired from active duty.
"It all proves what I brought you here to see," Archibald emphasized, "how the gods of yesterday are going to balance the gods of to-day."
The Admiral chuckled. "There aren't any gods of to-day."
"The gods of to-day are our young men," Cope flung out, glowingly; "the war has left them with their dreams, and they have got to find a way to make their dreams come true. And that's where the old gods will help. Those fine old men who dreamed, backed their dreams with deeds. Then for a time we were so busy making money that we forgot their dreams. And when foreigners came crowding to our shores, we didn't care whether they were good Americans or not. All we cared was to have them work in our mills and factories and in our kitchens, and let us alone in our pride of ancestry and pomp of circumstance. We forgot to show them Bunker Hill and to tell them about the old North Church and Paul Revere and the shot heard 'round the world, and what liberty meant and democracy, and now we've got to show them. I am going to take you around to-morrow, Becky, and pretend you are Olga from Petrograd, and that you are seeing America for the first time."
Archibald Cope was kindled by fires which gave color to his pale cheeks. "Will you be—Olga from Petrograd?"
"I'd love it."
But the next morning it rained. "And you can't, of course, be Olga of Petrograd in the rain. Bunker Hill must have the sun on it, and the waves of the harbor must be sparkling when I tell you about the tea."
They decided, therefore, to read aloud "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table."
"Then if it stops raining," said Archibald, "we'll step straight out from its pages into the Boston that I want to show you."
He read well. Louise sat at a little table sewing a pattern of beads on a green bag. Becky had some rose-colored knitting. The Admiral was in his big chair by the fire with his hands folded across his waistcoat and his eyes shut. The colorful work of the two women, the light of the fire, the glow of the little lamp at Cope's elbow, the warmth of the red furniture saved the room from dreariness in spite of the rain outside.