A Young Man in a Hurry, and Other Short Stories Part 21

She saw him every day; she dined at the club table now.

Miss Garcide's hay-fever increased with the ripening summer, and she lay in her room with all the windows closed, sneezing and reading Anthony Trollope.

When Miss Castle told her that Mr. Crawford was a guest at the club, Miss Garcide wept over her for an hour.

"I feel like weeping, too," said Miss Castle, tremulously--"but not over myself."

"Dot over hib?" inquired Miss Garcide.

"Yes, over him. He ought to marry a girl who could fall in love with him."

Meanwhile Crawford was dining every evening with her at the great club table, telling her of the day's sport, and how a black bear had come splas.h.i.+ng across the shallows within a few rods of where he stood fis.h.i.+ng, and how the deer had increased, and were even nibbling the succulent green stalks in the kitchen garden after nightfall.

During the day she found herself looking forward to his return and his jolly, spirited stories, always gay and humorous, and never tiresome, technical, nor conceited, although for three years he had held the club cup for the best fish taken on Sagamore water.

She took sun-baths in her hammock; she read novels; she spent hours in reverie, blue eyes skyward, arms under her head, swayed in her hammock by the delicious winds of a perfect June.

All her composure and common-sense had returned. She began to experience a certain feeling of responsibility for Crawford--a feeling almost maternal.

"He's so amusingly shy about speaking," she told Miss Garcide; "I suppose he's anxious and bashful. I think I'll tell him that it is all arranged. Besides, I promised Mr. Garcide to speak. I don't see why I don't; _I'm not a bit embarra.s.sed_."

But the days went s.h.i.+ning by, and a new week dawned, and Miss Castle had not taken pity upon her tongue-tied lover.

"Oh, this is simply dreadful," she argued with herself. "Besides, I want to know how soon the man expects to marry me. I've a few things to purchase, thank you, and if he thinks a trousseau is thrown together in a day, he's a--a man!"

That evening she determined to fulfil her promise to Garcide as scrupulously as she kept all her promises.

She wore white at dinner, with a great bunch of wild iris that Crawford had brought her. Towards the end of the dinner she began to be frightened, but it was the instinct of the Castles to fight fear and overcome it.

"I'm going to walk down to the little foot-bridge," she said, steadily, examining the coffee in her tiny cup; "and if you will stroll down with your pipe, I ... I will tell you something."

"That will be very jolly," he said. "There's a full moon; I mean to have a try at a thumping big fish in the pool above."

She nodded, and he rose and attended her to the door.

Then he lighted a cigar and called for a telegram blank.

This is what he wrote:

"_James J. Crawford, 318 New Broad Street, N.Y._: "I am at the Sagamore. When do you want me to return?

"JAMES H. CRAWFORD."

The servant took the bit of yellow paper. Crawford lay back smoking and thinking of trout and forests and blue skies and blue eyes that he should miss very, very soon.

Meanwhile the possessor of the blue eyes was standing on the little foot-bridge that crossed the water below the lawn.

A faint freshness came upward to her from the water, cooling her face.

She looked down into that sparkling dusk which hangs over woodland rivers, and she saw the ripples, all silvered, flowing under the moon, and the wild-cherry blossoms trembling and quivering with the gray wings of moths.

"Surely," she said, aloud--"surely there is something in the world besides men. I love this--all of it! I do indeed. I could find happiness here; I do not think I was made for men."

For a long while she stood, bending down towards the water, her whole body saturated with the perfume from the fringed milkweed. Then she raised her delicate nose a trifle, sniffing at the air, which suddenly became faintly spiced with tobacco smoke.

Where did the smoke come from? She turned instinctively. On a rock up-stream stood young Crawford, smoking peacefully, and casting a white fly into the dusky water. Swis.h.!.+ the silk line whistled out into the dusk.

After a few moments' casting, she saw him step ash.o.r.e and saunter towards the bridge, where she was standing; then his step jarred the structure and he came up, cap in one hand, rod in the other.

"I thought perhaps you might like to try a cast," he said, pleasantly.

"There's a good-sized fish in the pool above; I raised him twice. He'll scale close to five pounds, I fancy."

"Thank you," said Miss Castle; "that is very generous of you, because you are deliberately sacrificing the club loving-cup if I catch that fish."

He said, laughing: "I've held the cup before. Try it, Miss Castle; that is a five-pound fish, and the record this spring is four and a half."

She took the rod; he went first and she held out her hand so that he could steady her across the stones and out into the dusk.

"My skirts are soaked with the dew, anyway," she said. "I don't mind a wetting."

He unslung his landing-net and waited ready; she sent the line whirling into the darkness.

"To the right," he said.

For ten minutes she stood there casting in silence. Once a splash in the shadows set his nerves quivering, but it was only a muskrat.

"By-the-way," she said, quietly, over her shoulder, "I know why you and I have met here."

And as Crawford said nothing she reeled in her line, and held out her hand to him as a signal that she wished to come ash.o.r.e.

He aided her, taking the rod and guiding her carefully across the dusky stepping-stones to the bank.

She shook out her damp skirts, then raised her face, which had grown a trifle pale.

"I will marry you, Mr. Crawford," she said, bravely,--"and I hope you will make me love you. Mr. Garcide wishes it.... I understand ... that you wish it. You must not feel embarra.s.sed, ... nor let me feel embarra.s.sed. Come and talk it over. Shall we?"

There was a rustic seat on the river-bank; she sat down in one corner.

His face was in shadow; he had dropped his rod and landing-net abruptly.

And now he took an uncertain step towards her and sat down at her side.

"I want you to make me love you," she said, frankly; "I hope you will; I shall do all I can to help you. But--unless I do--will you remember that?--I do _not_ love you." As he was silent, she went on: "Take me as a comrade; I will go where you wish. I am really a good comrade; I can do what men do. You shall see! It will be pleasant, I think."

After a little while he spoke in a low voice which was not perfectly steady: "Miss Castle, I am going to tell you something which you must know. I do not believe that Mr. Garcide has authorized me to offer myself to you."

"He told me that he desired it," she said. "That is why he brought us together. And he also said," she added, hastily, "that you were somewhat bashful. So I thought it best to make it easy for us both. I hope I have."

Crawford sat motionless for a long while. At last he pa.s.sed his hands over his eyes, leaning forward and looking into her face.

"I've simply got to be honest with you," he said; "I know there is a mistake."