she really did have a very little headache; though this was the least of her troubles.
there sounded a whistle outside. in the midst of her wretchedness, louise lifted her head and listened. low and sustained, it had saluted her ear when dawn's pink flush was in the sky; but now it seemed far more eager; it seemed to glint through the sunshine.
springing to her window, louise crouched there. the historical novel lay on the sill, where she had left it. her fingers closed tensely about it, although she did not at first realize what it was she was clutching. leslie was outside. she could see him coming on through the forest, and caught her breath in a little hysterical gasp of joy. leslie! she couldn't let him go! she loved him! she had never, she felt, loved anybody as she loved leslie. oh, the injustice of it! that he must be denied her, though it was he she loved the best! but there must be a way. somehow, somehow she must contrive.... she must contrive, whatever it might cost, to keep him.... but she faltered. wasn't it too late?
his hands were in his pockets; his face was richly animated; his eyes were full of light. leslie was[pg 178] almost handsome—ah, strangely more beautiful now than when she had wanted to be his friend. his brightness dazzled her; and she looked out at him through her perplexed tears.
he had held her for a moment in his arms as they stood, so deeply enthralled, on that dappled forest road. would he ever hold her in his arms again?
"leslie!" she murmured.
he halted, looking quickly about.
"i'm here," she continued, in the same unhappy tone, "—up here!" they were the very words lynndal had used when he stood above her on the deck of the steamer.
and it was plain, too painfully plain, leslie had not been searching her window. at first he appeared a little embarrassed. an indefinite numbness closed about her heart. it seemed, all at once, as though retrospect embodied no mutual past for these two. intimate strangers! for all at once leslie seemed as essentially unknown and aloof from her destiny as lynndal had seemed during that first curious, bewildering moment when his steamer was coming in. leslie—merely a lad passing by outside, under her window. and she blushed at the thought of having dared to speak to him....
"do you know where hilda is?" he enquired, trying to throw a great deal of carelessness into both tone and posture.
louise miserably shook her head.
[pg 179]
"i was to meet her," leslie explained simply. and, smiling, he turned with abruptness and began strolling off. he could be cool enough when it pleased him.
"leslie!" she cried out, though discreetly. for she dared not let lynndal hear her. in volume her voice by no means matched its almost terrible intensity.
the tone arrested him. "what?" and he stopped and looked bluntly back at the window.
"wait, leslie, i think i know where hilda is."
"where?"
"wait just a minute. i'm coming down. will you come around to the back door?"
he nodded, too indifferent to voice the curiosity he might normally be expected to feel over her desire to emerge from the back rather than from the front door of the cottage.
as she flew, a sudden determination swayed her. both men, she argued, were strangers again. she must win leslie back!
when she stole out to him a moment later, he was loitering casually in the vicinity of a little shed where driftwood was kept. the rev. needham always made a point of talking about the rare quality of surf-wood blazes. the rev. needham had constructed this shed also with his own hands, just as he had constructed the remarkable rustic bench; only the shed had taken another summer, of course. this shed was really a beachcrest institution; so was [pg 180]likewise the perennial lugging up of driftwood for storage therein recognized to be an almost religious adjunct of point life. there was an informal rule—of ancient standing, playfully enough conceived, and of course playfully laid down—that no one should come in from the beach without at least one piece of driftwood. much preferably, of course, a respectable, staggering armful. the rule was wholly playful; and yet, should several days pass with no contribution at all to the shed, mrs. needham and the girls would be troubled, and perhaps even a trifle frightened, to behold the minister himself tottering in with a colossal load. he would cast reproachful glances their way. and it would sometimes be a long while before he regained any sort of serenity. yet it was a favourite maxim with the rev. needham that they came up here to the cottage for sheer relaxation and amusement.
leslie had selected from the shed a smooth splinter, once part of a ship's spar. he had taken out his knife and was busy whittling. and he kept at this self-imposed task quite doggedly, seeming to find in it a certain sanctuary. his eyes scrupulously followed the slashings of the blade. thus they avoided hers—for the most part without too deliberately seeming to do so. louise was herself dimly grateful for the distraction.
"what do you think i found in frankfort this morning?" she demanded, trying to smile with something of the old bewitchment. the historical novel[pg 181] was clasped behind her. she had certainly not meant to show it to him; yet here it was.
"i give up," he replied, accentuating the final word with a particularly telling stroke on the spar splinter.
then she drew the book slowly round into sight and half extended it, as though it were an offering that might effect a return, somehow, to that golden relationship which lynndal's coming had broken off.
"a book?" he went on whittling.
"you haven't even read the title!" she cried, half pleadingly.
"something new?"
"why, les...."
glancing back at the book, he merely muttered: "oh."
"you remember you were telling me about it. i happened to see it in a window." she spoke a little hysterically, and began wishing she had not come down. "only think—in a town like frankfort, of all places! i was so surprised that i walked right in and bought it! i—i expect to enjoy it very much," she ended miserably.
leslie whittled, still stubbornly taciturn. if he would ask about lynndal—if he would only show some kind of emotion: anything would be better than this awful silence. finally, since he thus forced her hand, louise reminded him that she had previously intimated a knowledge of her sister's whereabouts.
[pg 182]
"do you know where she is?" he looked at her with a furtive flash of interest.
"i think she's gone to the tree-house."
"alone?"
"yes, i think so."
"long ago?"
"no, not so very long."
leslie began humming, and shifted restlessly.
"i think you'd find her there, les, if you wanted to find her. but if...." she left it dumbly in the air.
still the boy hummed, his eyes never leaving the spar.
"are you two going for a hike, or something?"
he stirred and looked up quickly at a little red squirrel chattering on a bough above them. "we're going to cut sticks for the roast tonight."
"is there to be a roast?"
"the mid-summer assembly roast," he explained, a little pointedly. there seemed no reason for one's forgetting so important an event as the assembly roast.
"oh, yes," she replied. "i'd forgotten all about it, for the moment. will it be over beyond the lighthouse?"
"yes, clear around the point."
"sticks, you mean, for marshmallows?" how obvious it all sounded!
"marshmallows and wienies," he told her.[pg 183] "there will have to be at least three dozen sticks, so i guess i'd better...."
the little squirrel chattered brazenly on above them. a locust was shrilling somewhere across the dazzling sand. she told herself she had given him every chance.
"you mustn't let me keep you, les."
"oh, that's all right."
she had given him every chance. he did not care, after all. she had been deceived in him. oh, the injustice of it all!
"i must go find mr. barry," she said. "he'll wonder what's become of me!" and she forced a brief little laugh. "it will be lots of fun. i'd forgotten all about the mid-summer roast! i'll—we'll see you there...."
"yes," he answered.
their eyes suddenly met. she flushed, and her throat ached. he turned slowly away.
"good-bye, les."
"good-bye," he answered.
louise reëntered the cottage by the back door. eliza was singing over her work at the sink. and leslie, smiling in a kind of baffling way, strolled off, still whittling the broken spar.
and eros skipped beside him. eros knew well enough where the tree-house was. he didn't have to be shown, for as a matter of fact he had helped construct it, up in the crotch of a giant oak: had subsequently climbed nimbly to the tiny empire of its [pg 184]seclusion in the interest of many a summer twain. yes, eros knew the way quite well. however, for the sheer sake of companionship, he chose to skip along by the side of a lad who was whittling a broken spar and smiling in a kind of baffling way.
