A LONG CHAPTER. BUT THEN, LOVE IS LONG

Aunt Selina was almost the only person with whom Harry spoke during the interval between his last interview with Madge and his departure for foreign parts. He was living in the old house now, so he could not very well avoid seeing her. At the last moment, with his overcoat on and his hat in his hand, he sought out his aunt, and found her in a small room on the ground floor known as the morning-room, going over her accounts.

"Good-by, Aunt Selina," he said. "I'm going to sail for Europe on the first steamer I can get, so I shan't see you for some time."

Aunt Selina calmly took off her glasses, laid them beside her pen on the desk and paused before replying.

"Good-by, my dear," she said at length; "I'm sure I hope you'll enjoy yourself. Brown Shipley, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Harry. He was a little disconcerted; Aunt Selina played the game almost too well. Then as he stood unconsequently before her, he was seized by a sudden desire to confide in her. "Do you know why I'm going, Aunt Selina?" he asked.

"No, my dear."

"Well, why do you think?"

"I prefer not to guess, if that is what you mean. You may tell me, if you wish."

"Madge Elliston," mumbled Harry.

Aunt Selina stared immovably at her bank book for a moment; then she got up and faced her nephew.

"There is a streak of horse sense in the Wimbourne blood that has been the saving of all of us," she said. "I'm glad to see it come out in you. Good-by, my dear." She kissed him on the cheek.

"How do—how would you like it?" he asked, still hesitating, uncertain as to her meaning.

"Nothing better. I wish you the best of luck. And I think you're doing the wisest possible thing."

"I'm glad you do." He looked at her gratefully. "Did you suspect anything?"

"Not a thing."

"Then I don't believe any one does.... Good-by, Aunt Selina."

"You've done me a great honor. Good-by, dear."

They kissed again and he went out, feeling greatly strengthened and encouraged. As he drove down to the station he determined to go to a hotel in New York and keep out of the way of the James Wimbournes and all other possible confidants. The interview with Aunt Selina had been so perfect that he could not bear the thought of risking anti-climaxes to it. Suddenly he remembered that certain Cunard and White Star boats sailed to the Mediterranean from Boston. He could go directly there and wait for a steamer in perfect security.

So he took the next train to Boston and that very afternoon engaged passage to Gibraltar on a steamer sailing two days later. The interval he spent chiefly in laying up a great store of books on Spain and Portugal, which countries he planned to visit in extenso.

The dull, wet voyage he found enchanting when brightened up by the glowing pages of Lope de Vega, Calderon, "Don Quixote," "The Lusiads," "The Bible in Spain," and Lea's "History of the Inquisition," a galaxy further enhanced by the businesslike promises of guide books and numerous works on Hispanic architecture and painting. He landed at Gibraltar with something almost approaching regret at the thought that land traveling would allow him less time for reading.

In leisurely fashion he strolled through southern Spain and Portugal, presently reaching Santiago de Compostela. It had been his intention, when this part of the trip was finished, to go to Biarritz and from there work on through the towns of southern France, but a traveling Englishman told him that he ought on no account to miss seeing the cathedral of Gerona. So he changed his plans and proceeded eastward. When he reached Gerona he called himself a fool for having so nearly missed it, but after a week or ten days among the huge dark churches of Catalonia he suddenly sickened of sight-seeing and that very night caught a through express from Barcelona to Paris.

Harry had never known Paris well enough to care for it particularly, but just now there was something rather attractive to him in its late June gaiety. He arrived there just at the time of the Grand Prix, and as he strolled, lonely and unnoticed, through the brilliant Longchamps crowd he felt his heart unaccountably warming to these well-groomed children of the world. He had been outside the realm of social intercourse so long that he felt a sudden desire for converse with smart, cheerful, people of their type.

His desire was not difficult of fulfilment, as nothing but seven hours' traveling lay between him and a welcoming Belgrave Square. The next day he crossed the Channel and took his uncle and aunt completely by surprise. They were delighted to see him and were unaffectedly disappointed at having to leave him almost immediately for a dinner in Downing Street.

"But we're going to see a lot of you while you're here, dear boy," said Aunt Miriam, "if we have to break every engagement on our list. It isn't every day that I have a nephew turn into a successful playwright! What about a dinner, now? Giles, have you anything on for a week from Monday?"

"The truth is," observed Sir Giles to his nephew, "you've become a lion, and a lion is a lion even if he is in the family. Poor Harry, I feel for you!"

"That'll do, G. It's good for the boy."

"There's small danger of my being a lion in London, anyway," said Harry.

"Oh, I don't know," ruminated Uncle Giles: "adoration of success is the great British vice, you know."

"Monday the fourth, then, Giles," said his wife.

"Hooray, the national holiday!" retorted the irrepressible baronet. "I say, we'll have the room decorated with American flags and set off fireworks in the square afterward. We might make a real day of it, if you like, and go to tea at the American Embassy!"

"No, I don't think we'll do that," answered Aunt Miriam, closing her lips rather firmly.

Harry had a short talk alone with his aunt that night after she came back from the evening's business.

"Come in and help me take off my tiara," she said, leading the way into her bedroom. "I rather want to talk to you. Do you know, dear boy, I fancy something's come over you lately, you're changed, somehow. Is it only your success? What brought you over here, in the first place?"

"Spanish churches," answered Harry promptly. He had at one time half decided to confide in Aunt Miriam, but he definitely gave up the idea now. She was too sympathetic, by half. "Do you know Barcelona and Batalha? There's nothing like them."

"No, I've never been to Spain. They say there are fleas, and the beds are not reliable. I also understand that other arrangements are somewhat primitive."

"Oh, not always," replied Harry, smiling. "Still, I don't think I do quite see you in Spain, Aunt Miriam." Then he kissed her good night quite affectionately. He could be very fond of her, from a short distance.

As he strolled down Bond Street next morning Harry sighted an old school acquaintance; a man whom he had known as plain Tommy Erskine, but whom a succession of timely deaths, as he now vaguely remembered, had brought into the direct line of an earldom. Harry wondered if he would remember him; they had not met since their Harrow days. The other's somewhat glassy stare relaxed quickly enough, however, when he saw who it was.

"Well, Harry! Jolly old Harry!" he said in a tone of easy cordiality, as though he had not seen Harry perhaps for a week. "I say, turn around and toddle down to Truefitt's again with me, will you? Fellah puts stinking stuff on my hair three times a week; never do to miss a time, wot? Well, jolly old Harry; wherever have you been all these yahs? Didn't go up to Oxford, did you?"

"No," said Harry, "I went home, to America, and I've stayed there ever since. I'm a thorough Yankee again now; you won't know me. But Tommy, what's all this rot about you being a viscount or something?"

"Oh, bilge! Such a bilgy name, too—Clairloch—like a fellah with phlegm in his throat, wot? Never call me that, though; call me Tommy, and I'll call you Wiggers, just like jolly old times, wot?"

Harry felt himself warming to this over-mannered, over-dressed, over-exercised dandy who was such a simple and affectionate creature beneath his immaculate cutaway, and rather hoped he might see something of him during his stay in London.

"Do you ever ride these days, Tommy?" he asked presently. "That is, would you ride with me some day, if I can scratch up an animal?"

"Oh, rather. Every morning, before brekker. Only I'll mount you. Lots of bosses, all eating their silly heads off. Oh, rot!" he went on, as Harry demurred; "rot, Wiggers, of course I shall mount you. No trouble 't all. Pleasure. You come to England, I mount you. I go to America, you mount me. Turn about, you know."

"I'm afraid not, as we haven't got any saddle horses at present," answered Harry. "You can drive with Aunt Selina in the victoria, though, if you like," he added, smiling at the thought.

"Wot? Wot's that? Delighted, I'm shaw," said Tommy, vaguely scenting an invitation. "Oh, I say, Wiggers, speaking of aunts, wotever became of that jolly cousin of yaws? Carson gell—oldest—sister married Ned Twombly—you know." (For Jane had fulfilled her mission in life by marrying the heir to a thoroughly satisfactory peerage.)

"She's not my cousin," said Harry, "but she's still living in America, keeping house for my aunt—the one I mentioned just now—and doing lots of other things. Settlement work, and such. She and my aunt are thick as thieves."

"I say, how rum. Fancy, gell like that—good looks, and all that—trotting off to do slum work in a foreign country. Wot's the matter with London? Lots of slums here. Can't und'stand it, 't all. Never could und'stand it. Rum."

"Oh, no one ever understands Beatrice," said Harry. "Her friends have given up trying. Well, Tommy, I think I won't go into Truefitt's with you. See you to-morrow morning?"

"Righto—Achilles statue—seven-thirty sharp."

"Righto," answered Harry, and laughed to think how well he said it.

That was the beginning of a long month of gaiety for Harry, a month of theaters and operas, of morning rides in the Row, of endless chains of introductions, of showering invitations, of balls, dinners, parties of all kinds, of lazy week-ends in the Surrey hills or beside the Thames, of sitting, on one occasion at least, enthroned at Aunt Miriam's right hand and gazing down a long table of people who were not only all asked there to meet him but had actually jumped at the invitation; of tasting, in short, the first fruits of success among the most congenial possible surroundings.

And as his relish outlasted the season he saw no reason for not accepting an invitation to a yachting party over Cowes week and another to one of Tommy's ancestral seats in Rosshire over the twelfth; the more so as Uncle Giles and Aunt Miriam decamped for Marienbad early in August. So he became in turn one of the white-flanneled army of pleasure-seekers of the south and one of the brown-tweeded cohorts of the north. His month in Tommydom ran into five, into six, into seven weeks almost before he knew it; it threatened shortly to become two months. And then, instantaneously, the revulsion seized him, even as it had seized him in June at Manresa.

It happened one morning when the whole party were in the butts. Harry was ordinarily a tolerable shot, but to-day he shot execrably. After he had missed every bird in the first drive he cursed softly and broke his shooting-stick; after he had missed every bird in the second he silently handed his gun to his loader and walked down to his host, who had the next butt to his.

"Good-by, Tommy," he said, holding out his hand. "I'm going."

"Oh, don't do that," said Tommy. "Birds flying rotten high to-day."

"It's not that. I'm going home."

"Righto. See you at tea time, then."

"No, you won't see me again. I'm going to catch the three-eighteen for Glasgow, if I can make it. Sail from Liverpool Saturday."

Tommy's face, like his mind, became a blank, but he lived up to the traditions of his race and class. "Well, so long, old thing," he said, shaking Harry's hand. "Call on me if I can ever be any use. You'll find the motor down at the crossroads, and do look alive and get off before the next drive, there's a dear, or birds won't fly within a mile of the first butt."

Harry reached Liverpool next day and succeeded in getting a berth on a steamer sailing the day after. He landed in New York late one afternoon and took a night train for Bar Harbor, arriving there next morning. He telegraphed ahead the hour of his arrival, and James and Beatrice met him at the dock. They both seemed glad to see him, and he supposed he was glad to see them, but he found it strangely difficult to carry on conversation with them as they all drove up to the house together.

Aunt Selina kissed Harry affectionately and wholly refrained, he could not help noticing, from anything like knowing smiles or sly little asides. Aunt Selina could always be depended on.

The Gilsons were New Haven people whom Harry had always known, though never very well. He rather liked Mrs. Gilson, who was a plump, chirpy, festive little person, but as he drove over the two miles that lay between her house and Aunt Selina's he prayed with all his might that both she and her husband might be from home that afternoon. Half his prayer was granted, but not the most important half. Mr. Gilson was away, but Mrs. Gilson, not content with being merely in, came bounding to the door to meet him and was whirling him down a broad green lawn to the tennis court before he knew which end he was standing on.

"I do so want you to meet my cousin Dorothy Fitzgerald," she said. "Such a sweet girl, and it's so hard to get hold of men in Bar Harbor—you've no idea! She plays such a good game of tennis. I'm so glad to see you've got tennis shoes on—we were just trying to get up a four when you came. And how was your trip—do tell me all about it! Spain? Oh, I've always longed so to go to Spain! Young Mrs. Dimmock is here too—you know her? And a Mr. McLean—I'll introduce you. Portugal, too? Oh, how delightful; I do so want to hear all about Portugal. We've just got a new tennis net—I do hope it will work properly...."

She buzzed pleasantly along by his side, neither asking nor requiring attention. Harry's glance wandered back to the house; he caught a glimpse of two little figures bent over a table on a verandah; Madge and that confounded child, of course.

"Where is your little girl?" he asked.

"Oh, Lily—she's having her French lesson, I suppose. We find it works better that way, to leave the morning free for golf and bathing and use this first stupid part of the afternoon for lessons. She's doing so well, too, with dear Madge Elliston...."

"I want to see Lily before I go," said Harry firmly; "I don't think I have ever made her acquaintance. Madge Elliston, too," he added, trying to make this seem like a polite afterthought.

"Oh, yes, indeed; I'll tell them both to come down to the court after the lesson," replied his hostess.

By this time they were at the tennis court and introductions flew fast. Tennis ensued immediately and continued, quietly but absorbingly, through set after set till the afternoon was well-nigh gone. Presently they stopped playing and sat about sipping soft drinks, it seemed, for hours, and still Madge did not show up. At length he found himself being dragged into a single with Miss Fitzgerald. He played violently and nobly for a time, but when at last Madge with her small charge joined the group at the side of the court it was more than flesh or blood could stand. He left Miss Fitzgerald to serve into the backstop and walked across the court to where Madge stood.

"How do you do?" he said, holding out his perspiring hand.

"How do you do?" she answered, politely shaking it. It was the flattest meeting imaginable; nothing could have been more unlike the vision he had formed of it.

Lily was introduced and he stood making commonplace remarks to both of them until he became aware that he had been rude to Miss Fitzgerald. He went off to make his apologies to her, and found her willing to receive them and also to discontinue their game. But if he hoped that general conversation would give him a chance for a private word with Madge he was bound to be disappointed. Mrs. Gilson had other plans.

"Oh, Mr. Wimbourne, we're all going off on a picnic and we do so want you to join us! You will, won't you? Mrs. Dimmock knows such a sweet place on the Somesville road, and we're going to start right away. I'm not at all sure there's enough to eat, but that doesn't matter on a picnic, does it? Especially an evening picnic, when no one can see just how little there is! I do think it's so nice to get up things just on the spur of the moment like this, don't you? So much nicer than planning it all out ahead and then having it rain. Let's see, two, four, six—we shall all be able to pile in somehow...."

"But I'm afraid I shall have to change," objected Harry. "I don't quite see how I can manage."

"We shall see the moon rise over McFarland," observed young Mrs. Dimmock in a rapt manner, as though that immediately solved the problem.

Harry was at first determined not to go on any account; then he gathered that Madge was to be included in the expedition, and straightway became amenable. A picnic, an evening picnic, would surely give him the best possible opportunity....

The plan as at last perfected was that Harry should be driven home where he would change and pick up James and Beatrice, if possible, and with them drive out in the Wimbournes' buckboard to the hallowed spot on the Somesville road in plenty of time to see the moon rise over McFarland. This was substantially what occurred, except that Beatrice elected to remain at home with Aunt Selina. James and Harry took the buckboard and drove alone to the meeting place. They found the others already there and busy preparing supper. A fire crackled pleasantly; the smell of frying bacon was in the air. Harry, refreshed by a bath and the prospect of presently taking Madge off into some shadowy thicket, was in higher spirits than he had been all day. He bustled and chattered about with Mrs. Gilson and Mrs. Dimmock and joined heartily with them in lamenting that the clouds were going to cheat them of the much-advertised moonrise. He engaged in spirited toasting races with Miss Fitzgerald and sardine-opening contests with members of the strong-wristed sex. He vied with Mrs. Gilson herself in imparting a festive air to the occasion.

Then suddenly he realized that Madge was not there. He had been vaguely aware of something lacking even before he overheard something about "headache" and "poor little Lily," from which it became clear to him that Madge's professional duties had again dealt him a felling blow. He made some excuse about gathering firewood and darted off in a bee-line to the place where the horses were tethered.

He caught sight of James on the way and dragged him out of the others' hearing.

"James!" he whispered hoarsely, "you'll have to get home as you can. I'm going to take the buckboard—now—right off! Something very pressing—tell you about it later. Say I've got a stomach ache or something."

He jumped into the buckboard and started off at a fast clip. The night air rushing by him fanned his fevered senses and before the village was reached he was calm and deliberate. He drove straight to the Gilsons' house, tied his horse at the hitching-post, rang the front doorbell and asked for Miss Elliston.

He allowed her to come all the way down the stairs before he said anything. Half curious, half amused she watched him as he stood waiting for her.

"Nothing the matter with that kid?" he inquired at last.

She shook her head.

"Come with me then."

Without a word he turned and walked off through a French window which he held open for her. As she passed him she glanced at his set face and gave a slight choking sound. He supposed he was rather amusing. No matter, though; let her laugh if she wanted. He led her across the lawn to the tennis court where they had met this afternoon and beyond it, until at last they reached a small boathouse with a dock beside it. To this was moored a canoe. He had seen that canoe this afternoon and it had recurred to him on his drive. He stooped and unfastened the painter and then held out his hand.

"Get in there," he commanded.

She hesitated. "It's not safe, really—"

"Get in," he repeated almost roughly.

She settled herself in the bow and he took his place at the other end. With a few vigorous strokes of the paddle he sent the canoe skimming out over the dark, mysterious water. The night was close and heavy and gave the impression of being warm; it was in fact as warm as a Bar Harbor night at the end of August can respectably be. The sky was thickly overcast, but the moon which had so shamelessly failed to keep the evening's engagements shed a dim radiance through the clouds, as though generously lending them credit for having shut in a little daylight after the normal time for its departure. Not a breeze stirred; the surface of the water was still, though not with the glassy stillness of an inland lake. Low, oily swells moved shudderingly about; when they reached the shore they broke, not with the splashy cheerfulness of fair weather ripples, but gurgling and sighing among the rocks, obviously yearning for the days when they would have a chance to show what they really could do in the breaking business. The whole effect was at once infinitely calm and infinitely suggestive.

Neither of the occupants of the canoe spoke. Harry paddled firmly along and Madge watched him with a sort of fascination. At length her eyes became accustomed to the light and she was able to distinguish the grim, unchanging expression of his features and his eyes gazing neither at her nor away from her but simply through her. His face, together with the deathly calm of the night, worked a strange influence over her; it became more and more acute; she felt she must either scream or die of laughing....

"Well, Harry?"

"Well, Madge?"

His answer seemed less barren as she thought it over; there had been just enough emphasis on the last word to put the next step up to her. The moment had come. She drew a deep breath.

"The answer," she said, "is in the affirmative."

The next thing Madge was aware of was Harry paddling with all his might for the shore.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Going to get out of this confounded thing," he replied.

When they reached the dock he got out, helped her out and tied the canoe with great care. Then he gathered her to him and kissed her several times with great firmness and precision.

"You really are quite a nice young woman," he remarked; "even if you did propose to me."

"Harold Wimbourne! I never!"

"You said, 'Well, Harry.' I should like to know what that is if it isn't a proposal."

They turned and started up the steps toward the house. Madge seemed to require a good deal of helping up those steps. When they reached the top she swung toward him with a laugh.

"What is it now?" he asked.

"Nothing ... only that it should have happened in a canoe. You, of all people!"

They walked slowly across the tennis court and sat down in one of the chairs scattered along its western side. Here they remained for a long time in conversation typical of people in their position, punctuated by long and interesting silences.

"Suppose you tell me all about it," suggested Harry.

"Well, now that it's all done with, I suppose I was merely trying to be on the safe side, all along. I know, at least, that I had rather a miserable time after you left. All the spring. Then I came up here and it seemed to get worse, somehow. It was early in June, and everything was very strange and desolate and cold, and I cried through the entire first night, without stopping a moment!"

"Yes," said Harry thoughtfully, "I should think you might have gathered from that that all was not quite as it should be."

"Yes. Well, next morning I decided I couldn't let that sort of thing go on. So I took hold of myself and determined never to discuss the subject with myself, at all. And I really succeeded pretty well, considering. Whenever the idea of you occurred to me in spite of myself, I immediately went and did something else very hard. I've been a perfect angel in the house ever since then, and I don't mind saying it was rather brave of me!"

"You really knew then, months ago? Beyond all doubt or question?"

"I shouldn't wonder."

"Then why in the world didn't you telegraph me?"

"As if I would!" exclaimed Miss Elliston with an indignant sniff.

"That was the arrangement, you know."

"Oh, good gracious, hear the man! What a coarse, masculine mind you have, my ownest! You call yourself an interpreter of human character, but what do you really know of the maiden of bashful twenty-six? Nothing!"

"Well, well, my dear," said Harry easily, "have it your own way. I daresay it all turned out much better so. I was able to do up the Spanish churches thoroughly, and I had a lovely time in England. Just fancy, of all the hundreds of people I met there I can't think of a single one, from beginning to end, who said I had a coarse masculine mind."

"Brute," murmured Miss Elliston, apparently to Harry's back collar button.

"I suppose," she observed, jumping up a little later, "that you were really right in the beginning. That first evening, you know."

"Oh, I'm quite sure of it. How?"

"When you said I couldn't talk that way to you without being in love with you. I expect I really was, though the time hadn't come for admitting it, even to myself. In fact, I was so passionately in love with you that I couldn't bear to talk about it or even think about it, for fear of some mistake. If I kept it all to myself, you see, no harm could ever have been done."

"How sane," murmured Harry. "How incontrovertibly logical."

"Yes. You see," explained Miss Elliston primly, "no girl—no really nice girl, that is, can ever bring herself to face the question of whether she is in love with a man until he has declared himself."

"Consequently, it's every girl's—every nice girl's—business to bring him to the point as soon as possible. Any one could see that."

"And for that very reason she must keep him off the business just as long as she can. When you realize that, you see exactly why I acted as I did that night and why I worked like a Trojan to keep you from proposing. I failed, of course, at last—I hadn't had much experience. I've improved since...." She wriggled uncomfortably. "You acted rather beautifully that night, I will say for you. You made it almost easy."

"Hm. You seemed perfectly sure that night, though, that you were very far from being in love with me. You even offered to marry me, as I remember it, as an act of pure friendship. I don't see quite why you couldn't respectably admit that you were in love with me then, since in spite of your best efforts I had broken through to the point. How about that?"

"It was all too sudden, silly. I couldn't bring myself round to that point of view in a minute. I had to have time. Oh, my dear young man," she continued, resuming her primmest manner, "how little, how singularly little do you know of that beautiful mystery, a woman's heart."

"A woman's what?"

"Heart."

"Oh, yes, to be sure. As I understand it, the only mystery is whether it exists or not."

"How can you say that?" cried Madge with sudden passion, grasping at him almost roughly.

"I didn't," replied Harry.

"No, dear, excuse me, of course you didn't. Only I have to make a fool of myself every now and then...."

"But, oh, my dearest," she whispered presently with another change of mood, "if you knew what a time I've been through, really, since you've been gone! If you knew how I've lain awake at night fearing that it wouldn't turn out all right, that something would happen, that I'd lose you after all! I've scanned the lists of arrivals and departures in the papers; I've listened till I thought my ears would crack when other people talked about you. The very sound of your name was enough to make me weep with delight, like that frump of a girl in the poem, when you gave her a smile.... You see, I haven't been brave all the time. There were moments.... Do you know that backbone feeling?"

"I think so," said Harry. "You mean the one that starts very suddenly at the back of your neck and shoots all the way down?"

"Yes, and at the same time you feel as if your stomach and lungs had changed places, though that's not so important. I don't see why people talk about loving with their hearts; the real feeling is always in the spine. Well, no amount of bravery could keep that from taking me by surprise sometimes, and even when I was brave it would often leave me with a suspicion that I had been very silly and weak to trust to luck to bring everything to a happy ending. But I never could bring myself to send word to you. I was determined to give you every chance of changing your mind; I knew you would come back at last, if you cared enough.... And if anything had happened, or if you had decided not to come back—well, I always had something to fall back on. The memory of that one evening, and the thought that I had been given the chance of loving you and had lived up to my love to the best of my ability...."

"That doesn't seem very much now, does it?" suggested Harry.

"No. Oh, to think how it's come out—beyond all my wildest dreams!... I never thought it would be quite as nice as this, did you?"

"Never. The truth has really done itself proud, for once."

"The truth—fancy, this is the truth! This!... Oh, nonsense, it can't be! We aren't really here, you know. This is simply an unusually vivid subconscious affair—you know—the kind that generally follows one of the backbone attacks. It will pass off presently. It will, you know, even if it is what we call reality.... For the life of me, I don't really know whether it is or not!—Harry, did it ever occur to you that people are always marveling that dreams are so like life without ever considering the converse—that life is really very much like a dream?"

"A few have—a very few. A great play has been written round that very thing—La Vida Es SueÑo—life is a dream. We'll read it together sometime.—Heavens, I never realized what it really meant till now! Do you know what this seems like to me? It seems like the kind of scene I have always wanted to write but never quite dared—simply letting myself go, without bothering about action or probability or motivation but just laying it on with a trowel, as thick as I could. All that, transmuted into terms of reality—or what we call reality! Heavens, it makes me dizzy!"

"See here, Harold Wimbourne," said Madge, suddenly jumping up again; "it seems to me you've been talking a great deal about love and very little about marriage. What I want to know is, when are you going to marry me?"

"Oh, the tiresome woman! Well, when should you say?"

"To-morrow morning, preferably. If that won't do, about next Tuesday. No, of course I've got heaps of things to do first. How about the middle of October?"

"I was just thinking," said Harry seriously. "You see, my dear, I'm at present working on a play. Technically speaking. Only, owing to the vaporous scruples of a certain young person I haven't been able to put in any work on it for several months. Bachmann has been very decent. He has practically promised to put it on in January, if it's any good at all. That means having it ready before Christmas, and I shall have to work like the very devil to do that. I work so confoundedly slowly, you see. Then there'll be all the bother of rehearsals, lasting up to the first night, which I suppose would be about the end of January. I should like to have up till then clear, but I should think by about the middle of February—say the fifteenth...."

"Oh, indeed," replied Miss Elliston, "you should say about the fifteenth, should you? I'm sorry, very sorry indeed, but as it happens I have another engagement for the fifteenth—several of them. Possibly I could arrange something for next June, though, or a year from next January; possibly not. Better let the matter drop, perhaps; sorry to have disturbed—"

"When will you marry me?" interrupted Harry, doing something that entirely destroyed the dignity of Miss Elliston's pose. "Next week—to-morrow—to-night? I daresay we could wake up a parson...."

"Sorry, dear, but I've arranged to be married on the fifteenth of February, and no other date will do. You're hurting my left shoulder-blade cruelly, but I suppose it's all right. That's better.... Oh, Harry, I do want you to work like the very devil on this play! Don't think about marriage, or me, or anything that will hinder you. Because, dearest, I have a feeling that it's going to be rather a good one. A perfect rip-snorter, to descend to the vulgar parlance."

"Yes," said Harry, "I have a feeling that it is, too."

The sound of carriage wheels crunching along the gravel drive floated down and brought them back with a start to the consideration of actualities. They both sat silently wondering for a moment.

"What about Mrs. Gilson?" suggested Madge.

"Might as well," replied Harry.

"All right. You'll have to do it, though."

"Very well, then. Come along."

They rose and stood for a moment among the scattered chairs, both thinking of their absurd meeting on that spot this very afternoon, and then turned and started slowly up toward the house. When they had nearly reached the verandah steps Harry stopped and turned toward Madge.

"Well, the whole world is changed for us two, isn't it?"

"It is."

"Nothing will ever be quite the same again, but always better, somehow. Even indifferent things. And nothing can ever spoil this one evening?"

"Nothing?"

"Not all the powers of heaven or earth or hell? We have a sort of blanket insurance against the whole universe?"

"Exactly," said Madge. "We're future-proof."

"That's it, future-proof. I'll wait here on the porch. No Fitzgerald, mind."

He did not have to wait long. Madge found Mrs. Gilson in the hall, as it happened, with Miss Fitzgerald receding bedward up the stairs and far too tired to pay any attention to Madge's gentle "Mr. Wimbourne is here and would like to see you, Mrs. Gilson." So the good lady was led out into the dark porch and as she stood blinking in the shaft of light falling out through the doorway Harry appeared in the blackness and began speaking.

"I do hope you'll excuse my being so rude and leaving your party, Mrs. Gilson. There was a real reason for it. You see Madge and I"—taking her hand—"have come to an understanding. We're engaged."

Mrs. Gilson stood blinking harder than ever for one bewildered moment, and then the floodgates of speech were opened.

"Oh, my dear, how wonderful! Madge, my dearest Madge, let me kiss you! Whoever could have dreamed—Harry—you don't mind my calling you Harry, do you?—you must let me kiss you too! It's all so wonderful, and so unexpected, and I can't help thinking that if your dear mother—oh, Madge, you double-dyed creature, how long has this been going on and I never knew a thing? We all thought—your brother was so tactful and gave us to understand that you had acute indigestion or something, left over from the voyage, and we all quite understood, though I did think there might be something afoot when I saw your buckboard at the door. And I haven't heard a thing about Spain and Portugal, not a thing, though goodness knows there's no time to think of that now and you must let me give a dinner for you both at the earliest possible moment. When is it to be announced? I do hope before Labor Day because there's never a man to be had on the island after that...."

And so on. At last Harry made the lateness of the hour an excuse for breaking away and went round to the front door to get his buckboard. Madge had to go with him, though she had no particular interest in the buckboard.

"She's a good woman," said Harry as he fumbled with the halter. "Though—whoa there, you silly beast; you're liable to choke to death if you do that."

"The rein's caught over the shaft," explained Madge. "It makes her uncomfortable. Though what, dear?"

"That's the trace, and it's him, anyway. Oh, nothing. Only I never was so awfully keen on slobbering."

"She's a dear, really. If you knew what an angel she's been to me all summer! What makes her look round in that wild-eyed way?"

From Harry's answer, "He's tired, that's all," we may assume that this question referred to the horse, though her next remark went on without intermission: "I don't want you to go away to-night thinking—"

"I like slobbering," asserted Harry. "Always did.... Now if that's all, dear, perhaps I'd better make tracks." The last ceremonies of parting had been performed and he was in the buckboard.

"Just a moment, while I kiss your horse's nose. It doesn't do to neglect these little formalities.... I'm glad you like slobbering, dear, because your horse has done it all over my shoulder ... no, don't get out. It had to go in the wash anyway. He's a sweet horse; what is his name?"

"Dick, I think. Oh, no—Kruger. Yes, he's that old."

"Because, dear," went on Madge, with her hand on the front wheel; "there's one thing one mustn't forget. There was—Mr. Gilson, you know."

"Good Lord," said Harry, struck by the thought.

"Yes, and what's more, there still is!"

"A true model for us?"

"Yes. After all, we have no monopoly, you know."

"Good Lord, think of it! Millions of others!"

"It gives one a certain faith in the human race, doesn't it?"

"For Heaven's sake, Madge, don't be ultimate any more to-night! You make me dizzy—how do you suppose I'm going to drive between those white stones? Do you want me to be in love with the whole world?" And Madge's reply "Yes, dear, just that," was drowned in the clatter of his wheels.