Blue-Bird Weather Page 7

  III

  Blue-bird weather continued. Every day for a week Marche and MollyHerold put out for Foam Island under summer skies, and with a soft windfilling the sail; and in all the water-world there was no visible signof winter, save the dead reeds on muddy islands and the far and wintrymenace of the Atlantic crashing icily beyond the eastern dunes.

  Few ducks and no geese or swans came to the blind. There was nothingfor them to do except to talk together or sit dozing in the sun. And,imperceptibly, between them the elements of a pretty intimacy unfoldedlike spring buds on unfamiliar branches; but what they might developinto he did not know, and she had not even considered.

  She had a quaint capacity for sleeping in the sunshine while he was awayon the island prowling hopefully after black ducks. And one morning,when he returned to find her asleep at her post, a bunch of widgeon leftthe stools right under her nose before he had a chance to shoot.

  She did not awake. The sun fell warmly upon her, searching theperfections of the childlike face and throat, gilding the palm of onelittle, sun-tanned hand lying, partly open, on her knee. A spring-likewind stirred a single strand of bright hair; lips slightly parted, shelay there, face to the sky, and Marche thought that he had never lookedupon anything in all the world more pure and peaceful.

  At noon the girl had not awakened. But something in John B. Marche had.He looked in horrified surprise at the decoys, then looked at MollyHerold; then he gazed in profound astonishment at Uncle Dudley, who madea cryptic remark to the wife of his bosom, and then tipped upside down.

  Marche examined the sky and water so carefully that he did not see them;then, sideways, and with an increasing sensation of consternation, helooked again at the sleeping girl.

  His was not even a friendly gaze, now; there was more than dawning alarmin it--an irritated curiosity which grew more intense as the secondsthrobbed out, absurdly timed by a most remarkable obligato from hisheart.

  He gazed stonily upon this stranger into whose life he had drifted onlya week before, whose slumbers he felt that he was now unwarrantedlyinvading with a mental presumption that scared him; and yet, as often ashe looked elsewhere, he looked back at her again, confused by the slowlydawning recognition of a fascination which he was utterly powerless tocheck or even control.

  One thing was already certain; he wanted to know her, to learn from herown lips intimately about herself, about her thoughts, her desires, hertastes, her aspirations--even her slightest fancies.

  Absorbed, charmed by her quiet breathing, fascinated into immobility, hesat there gazing at her, trying to reconcile the steadily strengtheningdesire to know her with what he already knew of her--of this sleepingstranger, this shabby child of a poor man, dressed in the boots andshooting coat of that wretchedly poor man--his own superintendent, asick man whom he had never even seen.

  What manner of man could her father be--this man Herold--to have a childof this sort, this finely molded, fine-grained, delicate, exquisitelymade girl, lying asleep here in a wind-stirred blind, with the Creator'sown honest sun searching out and making triumphant a beauty such as hiswise and city-worn eyes had never encountered, even under the mercies ofsoftened candlelight.

  An imbecile repetition of speech kept recurring and even stirring hislips, "She'd make them all look like thirty cents." And he coloredpainfully at the crudeness of his obsessing thoughts, angrily, after amoment, shaking them from him.

  A cartridge rolled from the shelf and splashed into the pit water; thegirl unclosed her gray eyes, met his gaze, smiled dreamily; then,flushing a little, sat up straight.

  "Fifteen widgeon went off when I returned to the blind," he said,unsmiling.

  "I _beg_ your pardon. I am--I am terribly sorry," she stammered, with avivid blush of confusion.

  But the first smile from her unclosing eyes had already done damageenough; the blush merely disorganized a little more what was alreadychaos in a young man's mind.

  "Has--has anything else come in to the stools?" she asked timidly.

  "No," he said, relenting.

  But he was wrong. Something _had_ come into the blind--a winged,fluttering thing, out of the empyrean--and even Uncle Dudley had notseen or heard it, and never a honk or a quack warned anybody, orheralded the unseen coming of the winged thing.

  Marche sat staring out across the water.

  "I--am so very sorry," repeated the girl, in a low voice. "Are youoffended with me?"

  He turned and looked at her, and spoke steadily enough: "Of course I'mnot. I was glad you had a nap. There has been nothing doing--exceptthose stupid widgeon--not a feather stirring."

  "Then you are not angry with me?"

  "Why, you absurd girl!" he said, laughing and stretching out one handto her.

  Into her face flashed an exquisite smile; daintily she reached out anddropped her hand into his. They exchanged a friendly shake, stillsmiling.

  "All the same," she said, "it was horrid of me. And I think I boasted toyou about my knowledge of a bayman's duties."

  "You are all right," he said, "a clean shot, a thoroughbred. I ask nobetter comrade than you. I never again shall have such a comrade."

  "But--I am your bayman, not your comrade," she exclaimed, forcing alittle laugh. "You'll have better guides than I, Mr. Marche."

  "Do you reject the equal alliance I offer, Miss Herold?"

  "I?" She flushed. "It is very kind of you to put it that way. But I _am_only your guide--but it is pleasant to have you speak that way."

  "What way?"

  "The way you spoke about--your bayman's daughter."

  He said, smilingly cool on the surface, but in a chaotic, almost idioticinward condition: "I've sat here for days, wishing all the while that Imight really know you. Would you care to let me, Miss Herold?"

  "Know me?" she repeated. "I don't think I understand."

  "Could you and your father and brother regard me as a guest--as a friendvisiting the family?"

  "Why?"

  "Because," he said, "I'm the same kind of a man that you are a girl andthat your brother is a boy. Why, you know it, don't you? I know it. Iknew it as soon as I heard you speak, and when your brother came intothe room that first night with his Latin book, and when I saw yourmother's picture. So I know what your father must be. Am I not right?"

  She lifted her proud little head and looked at him. "We are what youthink us," she said.

  "Then let us stand in that relation, Miss Herold. Will you?"

  She looked at him, perplexed, gray eyes clear and thoughtful. "Do youmean that you really want me for a friend?" she asked calmly, but hersensitive lip quivered a little.

  "Yes."

  "Do men make personal friends among their employees? Do they? I askbecause I don't know."

  "What was your father before he came here?" he inquired bluntly.

  She looked up, startled, then the color came slowly back to her cheeks."Isn't that a little impertinent, Mr. Marche?"

  "Good heavens! Yes, of course it is!" he exclaimed, turning very red."Will you forgive me? I didn't mean to be rude or anything like it! Imerely meant that whatever reverses have happened to bring such a girlas you down into this God-forsaken place have not altered what you wereand what you are. _Can_ you forgive me?"

  "Yes. I'll tell you something. I _wanted_ to be a little moresignificant to you than merely a paid guide. So did Jim. We--it israther lonely for us. You are the first real man who has come into ourlives in five years. Do you understand, Mr. Marche?"

  "Of course I do."

  "Are you sure you do? We would like to feel that we could talk toyou--Jim would. It is pleasant to hear a man from the real worldspeaking. Not that the people here are unkind, only"--she looked up athim almost wistfully--"we _are_ like you, Mr. Marche--and we feelstarved, sometimes."

  He did not trust himself to speak, even to look at her, just at themoment. Not heretofore sentimental, but always impressionable, he wasyoung enough to understand, wise enough not to misunderstand.

  After a wh
ile, leaning back in the blind, he began, almost casually,talking about things in that Northern world which had once been hers,assuming their common interest in matters purely local, in details, ofmetropolitan affairs, in the changing physiognomy of the monstrous city,its superficial aspects, its complex phases.

  Timidly, at first, she ventured a question now and then, and after awhile, as her reserve melted, she asked more boldly, and even offeredher own comments on men and things, so that, for the first time, he hada glimpse of her mind at work--brief, charming surprises, momentaryviews of a young girl's eager intelligence, visions of her sad andsolitary self, more guessed at than revealed in anything she said orleft unsaid.

  And now they were talking together with free and unfeigned