leslie had some trouble with his engine on the return trip. it sputtered and it balked. the never very regular rhythm grew more and more broken, till at length there was no rhythm left at all. finally the thing simply stopped dead; it wouldn't budge. the little craft rippled forward a few paces on momentum, then swung into a choppy trough and began edging dismally back toward beulah. leslie was glad then that louise wasn't aboard. yes, he was very glad indeed there were no ladies present. he sat down in the bottom of the boat and took the engine to pieces. then he put it together again. and tossed and tossed. and drifted. and cursed like a man.
when at last he limped up to the dock at crystalia, missing fire horribly, and having to help along by poling as soon as the water was sufficiently shallow, he found hilda waiting for him. she smiled very brightly. and somehow he felt the unpleasantness of the voyage fading into a plain sense of satisfaction over being back. it seemed a singularly long time since he had set out with louise....
"good morning!" hilda called to him from the dock.
[pg 120]
he nodded and grinned; and poled, perhaps, the more vigorously. with his foot he desperately prodded the almost exhausted engine.
"why les, what's the matter?" she cried. for he was, in truth, a sight.
"stalled two miles out," he replied bluntly, though not curtly, giving the engine a final kick by way of advising it that its labours for the day were at an end.
"why, les—how dreadful! oh, i can't help laughing. your face is so funny!"
he made a grimace and rubbed his cheeks with the sleeve of his flannel shirt, not particularly improving matters thereby.
"i don't want the old thing any more—it's just so much junk!" he stepped out on the dock and moored the naughty little craft, though without any great enthusiasm, and rather as though he hoped a strong wind would come and carry the miscreant irrevocably to sea. then he added: "hilda, i've got an idea! i'll auction it off and turn over the proceeds to your father's missionary fund!"
her laugh rang.
"don't you think that would be a good idea?"
"oh, les—you're so funny!"
she laughed a great deal as they walked along together through the hot white sand toward the crystalia cottages, occupied mostly by chicago-oak park people, and forming no part of what was generally known as the religious colony. leslie was by[pg 121] this time entirely over his maritime grouch. he conceived, always in his elusively serious way, a delight in being quite as "funny" as he could. an outsider might have registered the impression that, even at his funniest, leslie wasn't honestly amusing enough to elicit such frequent, rich, joyous peals of laughter; but hilda was very happy—happy!—so happy that she needed no deliberate stimulus to mirth; so happy she could with the utmost ease shift her mood from grave to gay, or from gay to grave, matching the mood of her companion.
"i know you've forgotten," she said, swinging along beside him and occasionally flashing up a most captivating glance.
"forgotten what?"
"i'll never tell!"
"then how can i know what i've forgotten, if you don't remind me?" though gossamer at best, it had an effect of logic—perhaps a rather graspable masculine logic, at that.
"maybe you'll remember—when it's too late." her eyes sparkled.
"oh, you mean the tournament?"
she nodded.
"i hadn't forgotten it."
"well, you see i was afraid you had."
he smiled. she was really quite delightful.
"i'm so glad, les. there'll be time for you to get into light things. oh, i'm so glad your memory didn't really fail!"
[pg 122]
he looked at her quietly a moment, but her gaze was now all on the sun-patterned turf. they had entered the forest of betsey, and were pursuing the winding road toward the point.
"oh, that's nothing," he said solemnly. "i never forget appointments with ladies."
she laughed again, then ventured: "tell me. didn't you forget, just the tiniest little bit, when you were taking louise across, or," she rather hurried on, "when you were out there in the middle of the lake and the engine was acting up? please be ever so honest!"
leslie looked down again at the girl beside him. odd he had never noticed how intelligent and shyly grown-up hilda was! she had been merely louise's little sister; all at once she became hilda, a self-sufficient entity, perfectly capable of standing alone. also she looked very fresh and charming this morning in her cool white jumper and skirt. he looked at hilda in a kind of searching way; then, pleasantly meeting her eyes, he answered her question. "no, not even the tiniest little bit."
their walk together through the forest was enlivened with gay and unimportant chatter. as they passed the hidden bower where hilda, at an earlier hour, had crouched to spy and listen, the girl almost danced at the thought of having so delightfully usurped her sister's place. and the best part of it was that it was perfectly all right; because louise had gone to meet her own true lover. leslie didn't[pg 123] belong to louise; it seemed almost too wonderful to be true that he didn't!
as it happened, louise entered the lad's thoughts also as he and hilda walked side by side along the sylvan path. perhaps something of the same odd transposition weighed, even with him. he had gone this identical way with some one else, only a few eternities ago. he had held her in his arms a moment, and then.... then what was it she had said? friends! first she had said she cared, and after that she had said she wanted.... did she really know what she wanted? for weeks they had gone around together constantly. the moon had been wonderful. then the letter had come from the west, and she had decided she had better begin being a nice, harmless sister. still, she had let him kiss her once, even after the advent of the fatal epistle—a sort of passionate farewell surrender—wanted to let him down as easy as possible. ugh! he was in no mood to spare her now. and then leslie came slowly back; back to the bright, rare summer morning; back to the forest of betsey, with its hopeful glints of sunshine; back—to hilda. he sighed. at least he had learned something more about women.
they came to beachcrest cottage, and, since leslie's cottage was further along, in the direction of the lighthouse, it was here they parted. before he ran off, however, to make himself presentable, leslie underwent the ordeal (pleasant rather than not[pg 124] as it turned out), of being introduced to miss whitcom.
she was seated on the second step of the flight leading up to the screened porch, seemed in very good spirits, and was writing a letter—employing a last year's magazine as base of operations. the ink bottle balanced itself just on the edge of the next step up: a key, if one please, to marjory whitcom's whole character. had she been writing at the cottage desk in the living room, where everything was convenient, then she would never, never have spent her life doing wild and impossible things. and had the ink bottle been placed firmly instead of upon the ragged edge, then, having eluded barrett o'donnell all these years, she would not now be writing to him.
"aunt marjie," said hilda, her eyes shining and her cheeks flushed, "this is leslie."
he was pleased to meet miss whitcom, but assured her he must deny himself the pleasure of shaking hands. look at them! he had had his engine all to pieces. he was going to auction off the boat now and give the rev. needham's missionary fund the first real boost in a decade.
"leslie!" hushed hilda in great dismay. how did they know but the rev. needham might be within hearing distance?
but miss whitcom laughed delightedly, whether or no, and said that after hearing such a gallant expression of religious zeal she simply must shake[pg 125] his hand, grime and all. and she did so. she had a way of winning young men completely.
"and did you pilot my elder niece over to beulah before we sleepyheads here at home were even stirring?"
"yes, aunt marjie. it was leslie. you know!" and hilda blushed at her very vagueness, which swept back so quaintly to embrace the pancake catastrophe.
"oh, yes," replied miss whitcom with dreadful pointedness. "i know—oh, yes. i know very well indeed! and i know of a certain young lady who departed and forgot to turn off the burners of the stove, so that plain, humdrum mortals must quit the table hungry—positively hungry!"
leslie somehow managed to establish connections. "whatever happened, i'm afraid i was partly to blame, miss whitcom."
"aha! only partly?" for she fancied his chivalry carried along with it a tone, so far as he was concerned, of extenuation.
"well, i suppose having me there, talking, helped to make her forget."
"h'm!" she eyed him in her odd, sharp way. but he looked back with a half understanding defiance. "so you won't take all the blame?"
leslie smote the lower step with his foot, then shyly glanced at hilda. hilda laughed and coloured.
[pg 126]
so miss whitcom said, looking drolly off to sea: "the plot thickens!"
and she was right; there were greater doings ahead.
leslie sprang off along the ridge to get into tennis garb. he decided, as was only natural, that the one infallible way of cleansing himself was to plunge into the sea. he was consequently in his little cottage bedroom about two minutes, and then emerged in swimming apparel.
leslie was well-formed and sun-browned. he sped off over the sand to the shore, and thence dived straight out of sight.
"swims rather well," commented miss whitcom. "that crawl stroke isn't by any means the easiest to master."
"yes, leslie's the best swimmer on the point," said hilda proudly.
miss whitcom dipped her pen, but the ink went dry on it, and the letter lay uncompleted.
"i do believe he's forgotten all about you and is going to swim straight across!" she declared. for leslie was, indeed, streaking out in fine style, making the water splash in the sun, and occasionally tossing his head as though keenly conscious of life's delightfulness.
"he'll turn back," said hilda quietly.
"you think so?"
[pg 127]
"i know he will!" she laughed.
"oh, you know?"
"why how ridiculous! nobody could swim clear across, aunt marjie. it's seventy miles!"
"really?"
"did you ever hear of anybody swimming as far as that?"
"i'm not sure i ever did," the other admitted. they were silent a little, both watching the swimmer. then the lady remarked in a dreamy way: "they always look so fine and free when they're young, and the sun flashes over the water, and they make straight out, as though they never meant to stop at all."
hilda was a little at a loss to know how this rather curious speech should be taken. she felt dimly that there was something below the surface, as so frequently there seemed to be when aunt marjie spoke; but at first she couldn't imagine what it was.
"so fine and free," miss whitcom repeated in the same tone. "they make straight out. but they always turn back."
and then hilda asked, giving voice to a sudden bold dart of intuitive understanding: "you mean men, aunt marjie?"
whereupon her aunt laughed away the odd impulse of symbolism. "yes, the men, hilda. they try to carry us off our feet in the beginning. they want us to believe they're young gods. and they[pg 128] can't understand why some of us are coming to grow sceptical, and why we're beginning to want to try our hand at a few things ourselves."
"he's turning around now!" cried hilda, who was not paying the very best sort of attention.
"yes, poor dears," the other persisted. "the other shore would be too far off."
"oh, much too far!" agreed hilda, jumping up to wave her hand.
whatever aunt marjie might be getting at, hilda, for her part, was ever so glad of the sea's prohibitive vastness.
