"my gracious!" cried miss whitcom loudly and cordially, "i've been in arizona!"

"you have?"

"rather! i started a cactus candy business there before you were...." she paused, then wholeheartedly laughed a defiance at the very notion of grey hairs. "no, i won't say it. i won't go back so far as that. for i do believe you're thirty, sir, if you're a day."

"i'm thirty-three," confessed barry, looking older, for just a wistful moment, than his wont.

"well, then, when you were a youngster, we'll say, marjory whitcom was working fourteen long hours a day in an absurd little factory on the fringe of the desert—slaving like all possessed to make a go of it. the idea was a good one."

"yes," he agreed, "for we're turning out wonderful cactus candy now."

"i know it. the idea was corking. alas, so many of my ideas have been corking! but every one at that time said it was absurd to think of making candy out of cactus, and no one would believe the toltec legend which gave us our receipt. ah, yes—there's many a slip...."

[pg 143]

in her almost brazen way she cornered the new hero of point betsey—actually got between him and the others. but miss whitcom was shrewder, even, than she was brazen. you couldn't possibly deceive her when she had her reliable antennæ out. had she not seen the landscape between them? distinctly seen it? suspecting the imminence of a rather taut situation, this was her way of clearing the air.

louise did not altogether fathom her aunt's subtlety; but she was grateful, seizing the occasion to disappear. she flew up to her room, flung herself on the bed, and nervously cried a little.

lynndal was here. the long anticipated event had actually come to pass. but it wasn't the kind of event she had conceived. what was the trouble? was he not as she remembered him? yes, but with phantoms to dictate the pattern, how she had idealized him in the interim, and how the correspondence had served to build up in her mind a being of romance and fire which flesh and blood could never hope to challenge! well, he had come, this stranger—with his quiet kindliness, his somehow sensed aura of patience, where she looked for passion.

ghosts of the past played havoc with her heart, and she thought: "can i give myself to this man? can i be his, all his? can i be his for ever and ever? can i belong henceforth to him and no one else?"

the mood was one of general relaxation, however—though a relaxation she had, at an early hour, been far enough from anticipating. she reviewed the[pg 144] events of the day thus far. she had waked at flush of dawn; had risen full of a gay expectation, and had gone out to meet her lover. he had come; she had met him and had forestalled his kiss. now he was here. ten o'clock. and her heart was in a curious state of panic.

but barry, meanwhile, still down on the screened porch, was finding his fiancée's relative an intelligent and really engaging person. for her part, it had not taken long—with the cactus candy as bait—to lure him into enthusiasm over his dry-farming. she knew, it developed, very nearly as much about dry-farming as he did, and barry, of course, knew nearly as much about it as there was to know.

the rev. and mrs. needham, having gone on into the cottage living room, expecting that barry, momentarily arrested, would follow, stood a moment conferring in discreet tones.

"what do you think of him, anna?"

"he seems like a real nice sort, alf. what do you think?"

"i've always admired barry," he said proudly, a bit complaisantly. "during several years of business connection...."

"yes, alf he's certainly looked after our interests out west."

sly little wrinkles of worry just etched themselves across the rev. needham's florid brow. those interests in the west—heaven knew how much they meant! they kept the wolf from the door—a mild[pg 145] wolf, of course, and one that wouldn't really bite; but still a wolf. yes, they sustained the needham establishment in a kind of grand way—certainly in a way which wouldn't be possible on ministerial salary alone. and it was lynndal barry's initiative which had built the dam: the dam generated electricity and paid dividends. yes, they certainly owed a great deal—though of course it was all on a sufficiently regular business basis—to mr. barry.

"he's a fine, fine man—one of god's own noblemen, anna. it's only to be hoped...."

"hoped, alf?" anna was seldom able to supply, off-hand, what one groped for in one's perplexity.

"that louise," he began a little impatiently, "—that louise...."

"why, where is she?" asked mrs. needham, looking suddenly around.

ah, where indeed?

the rev. needham experienced an uncomfortable shivery sensation in his stomach. still, there was no reason other than what marjory had said about their walking rather far apart. what did she mean? what did she ever mean? ah, marjory....

they looked at her. yes, she had certainly captured mr. barry. poor marjory had a way....

"i wonder," sighed the rev. needham—a little ponderously to conceal an inner breathlessness. "i wonder...."

"what, alf?"

he shook himself, looking dimly horrified. [pg 146]"nothing, anna." what he wondered was whether his wife's sister had ever fallen by the wayside....

"alf," whispered anna, on the point of slipping upstairs to make sure for the last time that the visitor's room was quite ready, "how did you two get on?"

"i can't say very well," he answered with an inflection of nervous vagueness. "it was almost all about a bishop on the train. anna, i'm—i'm afraid it's no use. you know there are people in the world that seem destined never to understand each other...."

"oh, alf—she's so good-hearted!"

"that may be true," he replied, "but in tahulamaji i'm beginning to be convinced she led—that she may almost have led...."

"oh, alf!"

"and she'd forgotten...."

"what?"

he spoke with troubled petulance: "my denomination!"

when miss whitcom learned, as she did directly, that mr. o'donnell was at the elmbrook inn, down at crystalia, she emphatically changed colour. however much she might like to deny it, a fact was a fact. and in addition to that, her talk, for at least ten seconds, was utterly incoherent. she simply mixed the words all up, and nothing she said made any sense at all. of course she quickly regained her equilibrium and made a playful remark about "having had all that letterwriting trouble for nothing." but it must[pg 147] very plainly and unequivocally be set down that throughout those first ten seconds her colour was high, her coherence at zero.

the ensuing hour at beachcrest passed quietly, despite the fact that every one seemed moving at a high rate of tension.

mrs. needham spent a considerable portion of the time in conference with eliza. the advent of the grocer's boy occasioned the usual excitement. it must be understood that these arrivals mean ever so much more in the wilderness than they do in town. in town, supposing there is a certain item missing, you merely step to the phone and give your tradesman polite hell. but on point betsey there were no such resources possible. they did not even have electric lights, and it was merely possible, when things went wrong, to explode to the boy (which never did any good), or to explode in a grander yet still quite as futile way to the world at large. fortunately, this morning (the morning of this most momentous day!) the supplies arrived in relatively excellent condition.

the rev. needham, pacing up and down alone in the living room, paused nervously now and then to heed the muffled sounds issuing from sundry quarters of the cottage: the squeaky opening or closing of doors, which might somehow have a meaning in his life; the shuffle of steps (maybe portentous) across the sanded boards.... and most especially he pricked his ears—those small, alert ears of his, that were perpetually prepared for the worst—when the[pg 148] things came from the store. it would be horrible, with guests in the house, to have a short supply; although of course here again, as in the case of the pancakes, he was concerning himself outside his own department. but even if these responsibilities of the kitchen didn't really rest on his shoulders, nevertheless the rev. needham listened as each item was pronounced, upon its emergence from the huge market basket.

coffee, cheese, eggs—eggs, ah! we must look at them. one broken? well, we should be thankful for eleven sound ones. housekeeping, especially housekeeping in a cottage, develops a wonderful and luminous patience. this patience—like mercy, an attribute of god himself—may even sometimes lead one to the tracing of quite biblical applications. there were twelve disciples in the beginning, yet one of them, in the stress of events....

bread, celery, carrots, frosted cookies. where was the roast? the rev. needham's heart stood still. he halted, petrified with horrid fear. the roast, the roast! thank god they found it, down at the bottom of the basket. oh, thank god! the pacing was resumed.

up and down, up and down. one would have perceived here, so far as externals went, merely a quiet, middle-aged clergyman strolling in his home. yet in the cottage living room this clergyman and this angry dutch clock together synthesized contemporary events. "trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble!" ticked[pg 149] the clock sharply. and each step in the rev. needham's pacing seemed a question. as the years crept by, broadening vision seemed not very materially to be quieting the good man's fidgets and perturbations. it seemed merely to give them longer tether; for his unsettled state was organic. it would never be really otherwise. religion, science, feeling, thought, reason—all alike, in their several directions, seemed impotent to anchor him. the sea was too deep. he might, of course, call himself anchored; but alas, the cruel little demons of doubt and quandary were bound, sooner or later, to insinuate themselves back into his heart. his walk was groping, indecisive. each step was a question: "whither? why? how long? what is best? what is best? what is best?"

miss whitcom stood meditatively before the somewhat wavy mirror in her little room. she was pondering past, present, future. also, she was acknowledging that grey hairs had perceptibly multiplied since o'donnell last saw her. would he notice them? and if he did? well? she contemplated herself and her life in the wavy mirror.

beyond his own three-quarters partition, barry happened at the same moment to be standing before a mirror also—as men do sometimes, who would be sure to deny the charge were it publicly preferred against them. yes, he was getting along. not in[pg 150] any sense old, of course. to some a man of thirty-three seems still a young man. he tried to look at it that way. still thirty-three was thirty-three. and louise.... she was young, so young—and fresh, and sweet, and adorable.... his quiet eyes misted a moment as he thought of her. and for her sake he could wish himself one of those fabulous princes we read of in childhood. ah, yes—a kind of prince—just for her sake! he regarded himself in the glass solemnly and critically. there were undeniable lines of salient maturity in his face; and princes, that was sure, never had any lines at all. so young, so sweet, so charming! he sighed and went about unpacking his things. that he should win her—that he should win this dear girl for his wife ...!

"i have done nothing to deserve such happiness as this," he said softly. "in all my life, nothing, nothing!"

and then he took a ring out of a little box and gazed at it. and when he had gazed at it a long time, he put it back in the box and put the box in his pocket.

louise, in the seclusion of her room, no longer wept, though she still lay on the bed. tears had relieved the strain, and her heart was not so burdened. slowly reviving, she lay in a sort of half pleasant lethargy—not thinking, exactly, nor even actually feeling, for the moment. tears are like suave drugs: under their mystic persuasion life may assume the[pg 151] lovely softness of a mirage. but the softness is fleeting. it rests and it is gone. it is like false dawn. or it is like a dream of light when the night is blackest.