Once Aboard the Lugger Part 36

Margaret put a white leg to the ground--listened; drew forth its companion--listened; glimpsed her white legs; shuddered at such immodesty with a man so close; veiled them to their toes with her bed- gown; listened; stepped again to the window.

"Oh, Bill!"

"Oh, Margaret!"

"Has anyone heard, do you think?"

"My darling, not a soul. It sounded loud to us. Oh, Margaret--"

"Hus.h.!.+ Yes?"

"Do you know why I am come?"

"Hus.h.!.+--no."

"I thought--from your note--that you didn't care to see me again. I thought-being away like that--that you found you didn't-love me after all. Oh, I was tortured, Margaret. Oh--!"

"Hus.h.!.+ Listen!"

"d.a.m.n!" said Bill.

The blessed damosel poked her beautiful head again into the night.

"It's all right. I thought I heard a sound. We must be careful."

"Oh, Margaret, I was tortured--racked. I had to come to you. Tell me I was wrong in thinking--"

"Oh, Bill, Bill, I--"

This girl was well-nigh in a swoon of delicious excitement. Emotion took her and must be gulped ere she found voice. She stretched her arms down towards him.

"Oh, Bill, I thought so, too."

A steely pang struck at his heart. "You thought you didn't love me after all?"

"No, no, no."

Emotion dragged her from the window to her waist. Her long hair cascaded down to him so that the delicious tips, kissing his face, might by his lips be kissed.

"No, no," she breathed; "I thought the same of you. I thought you might have found--"

"Yes?"

"Hus.h.!.+"

"d.a.m.n!" said Bill.

She reappeared; again her tresses trickled to him. "It's all right. I thought you might have found you didn't love me after all. Dearest, not hearing from you--"

In sympathy of spirit Bill groaned: "What could I do?"

She clasped her hands in a delicious ecstasy. "I know, I know. But you know how foolish I am. I felt--oh, Bill, forgive me!--I felt that, if you had really cared, a way of sending me a message might have been found. Of course, it was impossible. And there was more than that.

When we parted last week, I thought you seemed not to care very much--"

"Oh, Margaret!"

"I know, I know. I know now how foolish I was, but that is what I thought--and, Bill, it tortured me. I've not been able to sleep at nights. That is how I was awake just now."

"Margaret, I believe you're crying."

"I'm so--so happy now."

"Oh, so am I! Aren't you glad I came, Margaret?"

She murmured, "Oh, Bill!"; gave him a smile that pictured her answer.

Mutually they gazed for a s.p.a.ce, drinking delight.

Her thirst quenched, Margaret said:

"Bill, those nights, those terrible nights when I have been doubtful of you, filled me with thoughts that shaped into a poem last night."

"A poem to me?"

"About us. Shall I read it?--now that the doubt is all over."

He begged her read.

She was a s.p.a.ce from his sight; then, bending down to him, in her hand paper of palest heliotrope, whispered to him by light of the beautiful moon:

"Our meeting! Do you remember, dear, How Nature knew we met?

Twilight soft with a gentle breeze Bearing scent of the slumbering seas; Music sweet--'twas a nightingale, Trilling and sobbing from laugh to wail-- Golden sky that was flecked with red (Ribands of rose on a golden bed).

Ah, love! when first we met!"

She paused. "It was raining as a matter of fact, dearest," she whispered, "and just after breakfast. But you know what I mean. That is the imagery of it--as it seemed to me."

Bill said: "And to me; a beautiful imagery."

She smiled in the modest pride of authors.h.i.+p: "Oh, it's nothing, really. You know how these things come. To you in prose, to me in song. One has to set them down."

"One is merely the instrument," Bill said.

"Yes, the instrument." She hugged the phrase. "The _instrument_. How cleverly you put things!"

Bill disavowed the gift. Margaret breathed, "Oh, you do; I have so often noticed it." Bill again denied.

IV.