After luncheon they walked up the boardwalk to the iron pier.
Seeing the lifeboat there, rising and falling in the waves, Clara asked:
"Would the lifeguard take us in his boat for a while, I wonder?"
Morrow went down to the beach and shouted to the lifeguard, who was none other than the robust and stentorian Captain Clark. The captain brought the boat ash.o.r.e and as there were no bathers in the water at this point, he agreed to row the young people out to the end of the pier.
"This is a great place for brides and grooms this summer," remarked the captain in his frank and jocular way.
Clara looked at Morrow with a blush and a laugh. Morrow was pleased at seeing that she seemed not displeased.
"We"re not married," said Morrow to the captain.
"Not yet, mebbe," said the captain with one of his significant winks, and then he gave vent to loud and long laughter.
That evening Morrow and Clara took the steamer trip from the Inlet to Brigantine and the ride on the electric car along flat and sandy Brigantine beach. On the return, they became very sentimental. They decided to walk all the way from the Inlet down the boardwalk. He found himself quite oblivious to the crowd of promenaders. The loveliest girl in the world might have pa.s.sed him a dozen times without attracting his attention. He had eyes and ears for none but Clara Hunt.
And that night, far from reproaching himself for his conduct toward the loveliest girl, etc., he hardly thought of her at all, more than to wonder by what good fortune he had avoided meeting her. Some of the people at their hotel made the same mistake regarding Morrow and Clara as Captain Clark had made; the two were seen constantly together. Others thought they were engaged.
Morrow spoke of this to her next morning as they were being whirled down to Longport on a trolley car along miles of smooth beach and stunted distorted pine trees. "I heard a woman on the piazza whisper that I was your fiance," he said.
"Well, what if you were--I mean what if she did?"
At Longport they took the steamer for Ocean City. They rode through that quiet place of trees and cottages on the electric car, returning to the landing just in time to miss the 11.50 boat for Longport. They had to wait an hour and a half and they were the only people there who were not bored by the delay. They returned by way of Somers" Point.
While the boat was gliding through the sunlit waters of Great Egg Harbour Inlet, Clara"s hand happened to fall on Morrow"s, which was resting on the gunwale. She let her hand remain there. Morrow looked at it, and then at her face. She smiled. When the Italian violin player on the boat came that way, Morrow gave him a dollar. Alas for the loveliest girl in the world!
They pa.s.sed most of that evening in a boardwalk pavilion, ostensibly watching the sea and the crowd. They went up the thoroughfare in a catboat the next morning, and, strange as it seemed to them, were the only people out who caught no fish. The captain winked at his mate, who grinned.
In the afternoon, while Morrow and Clara stood on the boardwalk looking down at the Salvation Army tent, along came that innocent eccentric "Professor" Walters in bathing costume and with his swimming machine.
The tall, lean whiskered, loquacious "Professor" had made Morrow"s acquaintance in a former summer and now greeted him politely.
"How d"ye do?" said the "Professor." "Glad to see you here. You turn up every year."
"You"re still given to rhyming," commented Morrow.
"Yes, I have a rhyme for every time, in pleasure or sorrow. Is this Mrs.
Morrow?"
"No."
"You ought to be sorry she isn"t," remarked the "Professor," taking his departure.
Morrow and Clara walked on in silence. At last he said somewhat nervously:
"Everybody thinks we"re married. Why shouldn"t we be?"
She answered softly, with downcast eyes:
"I would be willing if I were sure of one thing."
"What"s that?"
"That you have never loved any other woman. Have you?"
"How can you ask? Believe me, you are the only girl I have ever loved."
That evening, after dinner, Morrow and Clara, the newly affianced, about starting from the hotel to the boardwalk, were at the top of the hotel steps when a man appeared at the bottom.
Morrow uttered a cry of recognition.
"Why, Haddon, old boy, I"m glad to see you. Let me introduce you to my wife that is to be."
Haddon stood still and stared. Clara, too, remained motionless. After a moment, Haddon said very quietly:
"You"re mistaken. Let me introduce you to my wife that is."
Morrow looked at Clara. She turned her gray eyes fearlessly on Haddon.
"You, too, are mistaken," she said. "I had a husband before you married me. He"s my husband still. He"s doing a song and dance act in a variety theatre in Chicago. I"m sorry about all this, Mr. Morrow. I really like you. Good-bye."
She ran back into the hotel and arranged to make her departure on an early train next morning.
Haddon turned toward the boardwalk, and Morrow, quite dazed, involuntarily followed him. After a period of silence, Morrow said:
"This is astonishing. A bigamist, and a would-be trigamist. She came here the night before you left. How did you find out she was here?"
"I read it in the Atlantic City letter of _The Philadelphia Press_ that one of the Comic Opera singers daily seen on the boardwalk is Miss Clara Hunt, who is known to theatre-goers by her stage name, Lulu Ray. These newspaper correspondents know some of the obscurest people. If I had told you her real name, you would have known who she was in time to have avoided being taken in by her."
"Her having another husband lets you out."
"Yes. I"m glad and sorry, for d.a.m.n it, I was fond of the girl. Excuse me awhile, old fellow. I want to go on the pier and think awhile."
Haddon went out on the pier and looked down on the incoming waves and thought awhile. He found it a disconsolate occupation, even with a cigar to sweeten it. So he came back and mingled with the gay crowd on the boardwalk and tried to forget her.
Morrow had no sooner left Haddon than he felt his arm touched. Looking around, he saw the smiling face of the loveliest girl in the world.
"Well, by Jove, Edith," he said. "At last I"ve found you!"
"Yes. I heard you were down here. You see, I"ve been up in town for the last week. Gracious, but Philadelphia is hot! Here"s Aunt Laura."
Morrow spent the evening with Edith. One night a week later, he proposed to her on the pier.
"I will say yes," she replied, "if you can give me your a.s.surance that you"ve never been in love with any one else."
"That"s easily given. You know very well you"re the only girl I"ve ever loved."