"For your commands."
"You very nice boy!" she said gaily, springing to her feet. Then, the subtle demon of the sunlight prompting her: "You know, Kay, you don"t ever have to wait. Because I"m always ready to listen to any pro--any suggestions--from you."
The man looked into the girl"s eyes:
"You would care to hear what I might have to tell you?"
"I always care to hear what you say. Whatever you say interests me."
"Would it interest you to know I am--in love?"
"Yes. ... With wh--whom are--" But her breath failed her.
"With you. ... You knew it, Yellow-hair. ... Does it interest you to know it?"
"Yes." But the exhilaration of the moment was interfering with her breath again and she only stood there with the flushed and audacious little smile stamped on her lips forcing her eyes to meet his curious, troubled, intent gaze.
"You did know it?" he repeated.
"No."
"You suspected it."
"I wanted to know what you--thought about me, Kay."
"You know now."
"Yes ... but it doesn"t seem real. ... And I haven"t anything to say to you. I"m sorry--"
"I understand, Yellow-hair."
"--Except-thank you. And-and I am interested. ... You"re such a boy....
I like you so much, Kay.... And I AM interested in what you said to me."
"That means a lot for you to say, doesn"t it?"
"I don"t know. ... It"s partly what we have been through together, I suppose; partly this lovely country, and the sun. Something is enchanting me. ... And you are very nice to look at, Kay." His smile was grave, a little detached and weary.
"I did not suppose you could ever really care for such a man as I am," he remarked without the slightest bitterness or appeal in his voice. "But I"m glad you let me tell you how it is with me. ... It always was that way, Yellow-hair, from the first moment you came into the hospital. I fell in love then."
"Oh, you couldn"t have--"
"Nevertheless, and after all I said and did to the contrary. ... I don"t think any woman remains entirely displeased when a man tells her he is in love with her. If he does love her he ought to tell her, I think. It always means that much tribute to her power. ...
And none is indifferent to power, Yellow-hair."
"No. ... I am not indifferent. I like what you said to me. It seems unreal, though--but enchanting--part of this day"s enchantment. ...
Shall we start, Kay?"
"Certainly."
They went out together through the garden door into the open moor, swinging along in rhythmic stride, side by side, smiling faintly as dreamers smile when something imperceptible to the waking world invades their vision.
Again the brown grouse whirred from the whinns; again the subtle fragrance of the moor sweetened her throat with its clean aroma; again the haunting complaint of the lapwings came across acres of bog and furze; and, high in the afternoon sky, an invisible curlew sadly and monotonously repeated its name through the vast blue vault of s.p.a.ce.
On the edge of evening with all the west ablaze they came out once more on Isla Water and looked across the glimmering flood at the old house in the hollow, every distant window-pane a-glitter.
Like that immemorial and dragon-guarded jewel of the East the sun, cradled in flaky gold, hung a hand"s breadth above the horizon, and all the world had turned to a hazy plum-bloom tint threaded with pale fire.
On Isla Water the yellow trout had not yet begun to jump; evening still lingered beyond the world"s curved ruin; but the wild duck were coming in from the sea in twos and threes and sheering down into distant reaches of Isla Water.
Then, into the divine stillness of the universe came the unspeakable tw.a.n.g of a banjo; and a fat voice, slightly hoa.r.s.e:
"Rocks on the mountain, Fishes in the sea, A red-headed girl Raised h.e.l.l with me.
She come from Chicago, R.F.D.
An" she ain"t done a thing to a guy like me!"
The business was so grotesquely outrageous, so utterly and disgustingly hopeless in its surprise and untimelines, that McKay"s sharp laugh rang out under the sky.
There they were, the same trespa.s.sers of the morning, squatted on the heather at the base of Isla Craig--a vast heap of rocks--their machine drawn up in the tall green brakes beside the road.
The flashy, fat man, Macniff, had the banjo. The girl sat between him and the thin man, Skelton.
"Ah, there, old scout!" called out Macniff, flourishing one hand toward McKay. "Lovely evening, ain"t it? Won"t you and the wife join us?"
There was absolutely nothing to reply to such an invitation. Miss Erith continued to gaze out steadily across Isla Water; McKay, deeply sensitive to the ludicrous, smiled under the grotesque provocation, his eyes mischievously fixed on Miss Erith. After a long while: "They"ve spoiled it," she said lightly. "Shall we go on, Kay? I can"t endure that banjo."
They walked on, McKay grinning. The picnickers were getting up from the crushed heather; Macniff with his banjo came toward them on his incredibly thick legs, blocking their path.
"Say, sport," he began, "won"t you and the lady join us?" But McKay cut him short:
"Do you know you are impudent?" he said very quietly. "Step out of the way there."
"The h.e.l.l you say!" and McKay"s patience ended at the same instant.
And something happened very quickly, for the man only staggered under the smashing blow and the other man"s arm flew up and his pistol blazed in the gathering dusk, shattering the cairngorm on McKay"s shoulder. The young woman fired from where she sat on the gra.s.s and the soft hat was jerked from Miss Erith"s head. At the same moment McKay clutched her arm and jerked her violently behind a jutting elbow of Isla Rock. When she recovered her balance she saw he held two pistols.
"Boche?" she gasped incredulously.
"Yes. Keep your head down. Crouch among the ferns behind me!"
There was a ruddy streak of fire from the pistol in his right hand; shots answered, the bullets smacking the rock or whining above it.
"Yellow-hair?"
"Yes, Kay."
"You are not scared, are you?"
"Yes; but I"m all right."