marjory and anna met outside the cottage in a little rustic bower where there was a hammock, and where the rev. needham had constructed, with his own hands, a clumsy and rather unstable rustic bench. it had taken him nearly all one summer to build this bench. the clergyman had perspired a great deal, and gone about with a dogged look. they were all mightily relieved when the task was at last completed. it seemed to simplify life.
mrs. needham sat on the rustic bench now, fanning herself with her white apron. her face was flushed, her manner a little wild. she and eliza had reached the agonizing conclusion that the raisins, indispensable to the indian meal pudding, hadn't come, only to discover the little package lying out on the path where it had slipped from the grocer boy's basket. the pudding was saved, but what a shock to one's whole system!
"well, anna," said her sister, dropping fearlessly into the hammock. none but newcomers possessed that sublime faith in hammock ropes!
"i declare!" returned anna. "whew!"—her apron moving rapidly—"so warm!"
[pg 153]
"well, have you been charging up hillsides, or racing alfred on the beach?"
mrs. needham looked a little startled at the irreverent allusion. "oh, no, only planning with eliza, and—"
"you find eliza a treasure, don't you?"
"yes, she's very capable."
"i suppose a maid's capability must take on a special lustre in the wilderness. don't you sometimes fancy you see a faint halo over eliza's head? you people in this luxurious country have become so dependent, i don't know what you would do if there should ever be a general strike!"
"no, i don't know either," admitted mrs. needham. "eliza talks of going back. it's so quiet up here—girls don't like it. we've raised her twice. i really don't know what's going to be the end of the help question. and wages ...!" she raised her eyes to the heavens.
a short silence followed. marjory swung gently back and forth in the hammock. she might have been pronounced an eloquent embodiment of perfect calm; and yet her heart was curiously bumping about.
"anna," she asked slowly, "do you remember barrett o'donnell?"
her sister looked at her queerly a moment. "some friend, marjory?" for marjory had had, in her time, so many friends!
"you'll remember him, i know, when you see[pg 154] him," she nodded. and then she continued: "he's here."
"here?"
"well," her sister laughed, "not quite on the point, but at crystalia."
"really?"
"dear old barrett! i wonder...."
"marjory," the other asked, with an odd effect of conscious shrewdness, "is he—is mr. o'donnell the man?"
"for goodness sake, what man, anna?"
"why, i always felt," her sister replied quaintly, "that there was one man, all through the years—'way from the time we stopped telling each other secrets...."
marjory laughed loudly. but she seemed touched also. "it's a long time, isn't it, since we stopped telling secrets?"
and anna sighed, for perhaps her retrospect, if less exciting, was even longer than her sister's.
the two sat, after that, a little while without speaking. then anna's large round face assumed a truly brilliant expression.
"marjory!" she cried.
"well?"
"you say he's here?"
"um, though it seems impossible to credit such a thing. perhaps it's all a myth. he's at the elmbrook inn. is there," she whimsically faltered, "—is there honestly such a place?"
[pg 155]
"marjie, i mean to have him up!"
"anna—you mean here?"
"for luncheon!"
in their excitement the two ladies were really all but shouting at each other. they realized it and smiled; sank to quieter attitudes both of bearing and speech.
"you think he'd come, don't you marjie?"
"come? rather! did you ever hear of a travelling man turning down a chance at home cooking?"
"then i'm going to send right over and invite him. it will be real fun! i suppose," she embroidered, with as great an effect of roguery as she could enlist, "i suppose he's followed you up!"
"obviously!" her sister replied, not apparently flustered in the least.
"think of it!"
"yes, it is rather dreadful, isn't it—especially at our ages!"
"i think it's kind of splendid, marjie."
"er—alfred never was much of what you'd call the 'following' kind, was he anna?"
"well, i can't seem to remember. it seems to me once...."
"oh, they'll nearly always follow once. it's keeping right on that seems hard. of course," she added, "marriage puts a stop to all that sort of thing, doesn't it?"
"yes, i suppose, in a sense...."
"anna, there's just one way to keep 'em going:[pg 156] don't marry! well, you see for yourself how it is."
"yes, but it seems kind of dreadful to put it that way, don't it?"
"dreadful? oh, yes. yes, of course it's dreadful. still, it's rather nice."
"m-m-m," murmured anna.
the philosophy of man's pursuit proved baffling. here were two sisters who knew its bitters and its sweets. yet it is doubtful if for either the bitter was all bitter and the sweet all sweet....
hilda and leslie came back from the tennis tournament. they were hot and in high spirits.
"who won?" asked mrs. needham cheerily.
"we did, mama!"
"three cheers!" cried miss whitcom, sitting up enthusiastically in the hammock.
"you never saw such excitement!" cried hilda. "most of the games were deuce for both sides before anybody got it!"
"very close," was leslie's simpler version.
louise crept to her window and peered down into the bower. hilda and leslie were holding one racquet between them. it was his racquet and she was twining her fingers playfully in and out among the strings. a feeling of suffocation closed suddenly upon louise's throat.
and just then barry walked into the bower. he had been exploring the delightful wild endroit, and[pg 157] hoping that louise might suddenly appear, with some lovely tangle of wood and vine for background. for he hailed from a country where trees are scarce, and one's backgrounds from childhood are sand, desert sand. his life had grown suddenly so rich....
barry was welcomed. mrs. needham made room for him beside her on the rustic bench. she looked at him a little shyly, but with the ecstatic admiration, also, of one who would say: "this is the man we're giving our daughter to!"
but where was louise? her mother had scarcely seen her since the return from frankfort. how strangely she was behaving.
"i believe she's lying down," said barry, his tone warm with shielding tenderness and apology. "she got up so early to meet the boat. it was wonderful of her!"
the two young champions were giving aunt marjie a fuller account of the tennis combat. they still held the racquet between them. both were flushed, keen-eyed, ridiculously happy. how soon he had recovered! louise, up at her window, remembered leslie's mood at an earlier hour. at dawn she might have had him. now it was too late. "oh, the injustice of it!" she cried, her hands crushing her breast. but as she looked down into his glowing face, she realized a swift sense of humiliation. "he didn't care after all," she told herself.
[pg 158]
hilda and leslie evinced great willingness to convey the luncheon invitation to barrett o'donnell. leslie, of course, volunteered to go, and hilda, of course, said she simply would go too. so off they raced, still holding the tennis racquet between them.
louise watched them go. in her hand was the book she had bought in frankfort. suddenly, under stress of very violent emotion, she pressed it against her cheek.
barry watched them out of sight. he was thinking of louise. she had not yet kissed him. in his pocket was a little box, and inside the little box was a ring.
marjory also watched them go. she sighed even as she smiled: "another young thing, just starting out—boy-crazy. so futile." but she smiled more radiantly in spite of herself, and the other valuation would slip in: "so sweet!"
