He did not know what to do, so he sat down in one of the chairs ranged along the wall. After a minute or so Mrs. Carleton and the Ordes came in. Bobby went over to them.
"Don"t you dance, Bobby?" asked Mrs. Carleton kindly.
"No, ma"am," replied Bobby in a very small voice.
When the music stopped, the children gathered in a group at the lower end of the hall. Bobby joined them; but somehow even then he felt out of it. Celia"s cheeks were flushed bright with the exercise and pleasure. Her spirits were high. She laughed and chatted with Gerald vivaciously. Poor Bobby she included in the brightness of her mood, but evidently only because he happened to be in the circle of it. She was sorry he did not dance; but she loved it, and just now she could think of nothing else but the enjoyment of it. Bobby could not understand that there was nothing personal in this. He saw, with a pang, that Gerald danced supremely well; that Morris romped through the steps with a cheerful hearty abandon not without its attraction; that Tad Fuller, who had come in with his mother and his brother, and half a dozen others whom Bobby knew, all made creditable performers; that even Angus, red-faced, awkward, perspiring as he was, could yet command the hand, time and attention of any little girl he might choose to favour. He himself was useless; and therefore ignored.
At the end of the children"s hour he said good night miserably, and trailed along home at his parents" heels. Ordinarily he liked to be out after dark. The stars and the velvet shadows and the magic transformations which the night wrought in the most ordinary and accustomed things attracted him strongly. But now he was too conscious of a smarting spirit. Mr. and Mrs. Orde were talking busily about something. He could not even get a chance to ask a question; and that seemed the last straw. His lips quivered, and he had to remember very hard that he was _not_ a little girl in order to keep back the tears.
Finally the talk died.
"Mamma," blurted out Bobby.
"Yes?"
"Can"t I learn how to dance?"
The pair wheeled arm in arm and surveyed him. In the starlight his round child face showed white and anxious.
"Why, of course you can, darling," replied Mrs. Orde, "Don"t you remember mamma wanted you to go to dancing school last winter, and you wouldn"t go?"
"How soon does dancing school open?" demanded Bobby.
"I don"t know. Not much before Christmas, I suppose."
Having thus made a definite resolution to remedy matters, Bobby felt better, even though he would have to wait another year. This recovery of spirit was completed the next day. He went with some apprehension to ask Celia to walk again. She had seemed to him so aloof the night before, that he could hardly believe her unchanged. However, she a.s.sented to the expedition with alacrity. Hardly had they quitted the hotel grounds when Bobby shot his question at her.
"Celia," said he, "if I learn how to dance this winter will you dance with me when you come back next summer?"
"Why of course," said Celia.
"Will you dance with me a lot?"
"Yes."
"Will you dance with me more than you do with any one else?"
Celia pondered.
"I don"t know," she said slowly. She paused, her eyes vague. "I guess so," she added at last.
"Then I"ll learn," said Bobby.
"It"s lots of fun," said she.
Bobby trod on air. Without his conscious intention their course took direction to the river front. They walked to the left along the wide, artificial bank of piling. Beneath them the water swished among the timbers. On one side were the sand-hills, on the other the blue, preoccupied river. Across the stream was another facade of piles, unbroken save for the little boatslips where the Life Saving men had their station. A strong sweet breeze came from the Lake. Far down ahead they could just make out the twin piers that, jutting into the Lake, continued artificially the course of the river. The lighthouses on their ends were dwarfed by distance.
By and by Celia tired a little, so they sat and dangled their feet and watched the tiny scalloped blue wavelets dance in the current. A pa.s.ser-by stopped a moment to warn them.
"Look out, youngsters, you don"t fall in," said he.
Bobby still exalted with the favour he had been vouchsafed, looked up with dignity.
"_I_ am taking care of this little girl," he said deliberately, and turned his back.
The man chuckled and pa.s.sed on.
For a long time they sat side by side looking straight out before them.
"Celia," said Bobby without turning his head, "I love you. Do you love me?"
"Yes," said Celia steadily.
Neither stirred by so much as a hair"s breadth. After a little they arose and returned to the hotel. Neither spoke again.
Strangely enough the subject was not again referred to, although of course the children continued to play together and the excursions were not intermitted. There seemed to be nothing to say. They loved each other, and they were glad of each other"s nearness. It sufficed.
Each morning Bobby awoke with a great uplift of the spirit, and a great longing, which was completely appeased when he had come into Celia"s presence. Each evening he retired filled with an impatience for the coming day, and with divine rapture of little memories of what had that day pa.s.sed. It seemed to him that hour by hour he and Celia drew closer in a sweet secret, intimacy that nevertheless demanded no outer symbol.
When he spoke to her of the simplest things, or she to him, he experienced a warm, cosy drawing near, as though beneath the commonplace remark lay something hidden and subtle to which each must bend the ear of the spirit gently. This was the soul of it, a supreme inner gentleness one to the other, no matter how boisterous, how laughing, how brusque might be the spoken word. And in correspondence all the beautiful sunlit summer world took on a new softness and splendour and glory in which they walked, but whose source they did not understand.
This much for the essence of it. But of course, Bobby, being masculine must give presents after his own notion, and being a small boy must give them according to his age. The quarter he had earned from his father he invested in a pack of cards on the upper left-hand corner of which were embossed marvellous doves, wonderful flowers and miraculous tangles of scroll-work in colour. These he printed with Celia"s name and address.
Near the wharf and railroad station stood a small booth from which a discouraged-looking individual tried to sell curios. Bobby"s eye fell on a cheap bracelet of silver wire from which dangled half a dozen moonstones. It caught his eye; day by day his desire for it grew; finally he asked advice on the subject.
"No, Bobby," replied his mother, "I don"t think Celia would care for it.
It is cheap-looking. She has several very pretty bangles already; and this is not a good one."
Nevertheless, Bobby, being as we have said thoroughly masculine, deliberated some days further, and bought it. The price was two dollars--an almost fabulous sum. Most men give their wives or sweethearts what they think they would like themselves were they women, and were a man to offer a gift. That is one reason why in so many bureau drawers are tucked away unused presents. Young as she was, Celia had the taste not to care for the moonstone bangle, but, like all the rest, she accepted it with genuine delight because Bobby gave it. She even wore it. These were the princ.i.p.al transactions of the kind; but anything Bobby particularly fancied he brought her. Shortly she became possessed of a bewildering collection consisting variously of large gla.s.s marbles with a twist of coloured gla.s.s inside; two or three lichi nuts, then a curiosity; a dried gull"s wing; several exploded shotgun sh.e.l.ls; and a "real," though broken-pointed chisel. Celia gave Bobby her tiny narrow gold ring with two little turquoises. He could just get it on his little finger, and wore it proudly, in spite of jeers. Being teased about Celia was embarra.s.sing to the point of pain; but in the last a.n.a.lysis it was not unpleasant.
So matters slipped by. Abruptly the end of August came. One day Bobby found Celia much perturbed.
"I can"t go out long," she said, "I"ve got to help mamma."
"What doing?" asked Bobby.
But Celia shook her head dolefully.
"Come, let"s go walk somewhere and I"ll tell you," said she.
They crossed Main Street to the shaded street on which lived Georgie Cathcart.
"What is it?" demanded Bobby again.
"We are going home to-morrow," Celia announced mournfully. "Mamma has a letter."
Bobby stopped short.
"Going home!" he echoed.
"Yes," said Celia.