I"ve reappraised the universe. You see, you"ve just made me a present of a brand-new world, and I"ve been pretty busy, I can tell you, untying the string and unwrapping the paper, and bless me, Crystal, it looks like a mighty fine present so far."
"Oh," she said, "I think you talk charmingly." She had started to say, "you make love charmingly," but on second thoughts decided that the overt statement had better come from him. "Dear me," she went on, "we have so much to talk about. There"s my job. Can"t we talk a little about that?"
They could and did. Their talk consisted largely in his telling her how much richer a service she could render his paper through having been unconsciously steeped in beauty than if she had been merely intellectually instructed--than if, as she more simply put it, she had known something. And as he talked, her mind began to expand in the warm atmosphere of his praise and to give off its perfume like a flower.
But the idea of her working with him day after day, helping the development of the paper which had grown as dear as a child to him, was so desirable that he did not dare to contemplate it unless it promised realization.
"Oh," he broke out, "you won"t really do it. Your family will object, or something. Probably when I go away to-night, I shall never see you again."
"You are still going away to-night?"
"I must."
She looked at him and slowly shook her head, as a mother shakes her head at the foolish plans of a child.
"I thought I was going," he said, weakly.
"Why?"
He groaned, but did not answer.
She thought, "Oh, dear, I wish when men want to be comforted they would not make a girl spend so much time and energy getting them to say that they do want it." Aloud she said:
"You must tell me what"s the matter."
"It"s a long story."
"We have all afternoon."
"That"s it--we haven"t all eternity."
"Oh, eternity," said Crystal, dismissing it with the Cord wave of the hand. "Who wants eternity? "Since we must die how bright the starry track," you know."
"No; what is that?"
"I don"t remember."
"Oh."
After this meeting of minds they drove for some time in silence. Ben was seeing a new aspect of Newport--bare, rugged country, sandy roads, a sudden high rock jutting out toward the sea, a rock on which tradition a.s.serts that Bishop Berkeley once sat and considered the illusion of matter. They stopped at length at the edge of a sandy beach. Crystal parked her car neatly with a sharp turn of the wheel, and got out.
"There"s a tea basket," she called over her shoulder.
Ben"s heart bounded at the news--not that he was hungry, but as the hour was now but little past half after two a tea basket indicated a prolonged interview. He found it tucked away in the back of the car, and followed her. They sat down at the edge of the foam. He lit a pipe, clasped his hands about his knees and stared out to sea; she curled her feet backward, grasped an ankle in her hand, and, looking at him, said:
"Now what makes you groan so?"
"I haven"t meant to be dishonest," he said, "but I have been obtaining your friendship--trying to--under false pretenses."
"Trying to?" said Crystal. "Now isn"t it silly to put that in."
He turned and smiled at her. She was really incredibly sweet. "But, all the same," he went on, "there is a barrier, a real, tangible barrier between us."
Crystal"s heart suffered a chill convulsion at these words. "Good gracious!" she thought. "He"s entangled with another woman--oh dear!--_marriage_"--But she did not interrupt him, and he continued:
"I let you think that I was one of the men you might have known--that I was asked to your party last night, whereas, as a matter of fact, I only watched you--"
Crystal"s mind, working with its normal rapidity, invented, faced, and pa.s.sed over the fact that he must have been one of the musicians. She said aloud:
"I think I ought to tell you that I"m not much of a believer in barriers--between sensible people who want friendship."
"Friendship!" exclaimed Ben, as if that were the last thing he had come out on a lovely summer afternoon to discuss.
"There aren"t any real barriers any more," Crystal continued.
"Differences of position, and religion, and all those things don"t seem to matter now. Romeo and Juliet wouldn"t have paid any attention to the little family disagreement if they had lived to-day."
"In the case of Romeo and Juliet, if I remember correctly," said Ben, "it was not exactly a question of friendship."
She colored deeply, but he refused to modify his statement, for, after all, it was correct. "But difference of opinion _is_ an obstacle,"
he went on. "I have seen husbands and wives parted by differences of opinion in the late war. And as far as I"m concerned there"s a war on now--a different war, and I came here to try to prevent my brother marrying into an enemy influence--"
"Good Heavens!" cried Crystal. "You are Ben Moreton! Why didn"t I see it sooner? I"m Crystal Cord," and, lifting up her chin, she laughed.
That she could laugh as the gulf opened between them seemed to him terrible. He turned his head away.
She stopped laughing. "You don"t think it"s amusing?" (He shook his head.) "That we"re relations-in-law, when we thought it was all so unknown and romantic? No wonder I felt at home with you, when I"ve read so many of your letters to David--such nice letters, too--and I subscribe to your paper, and read every word of the editorials. And to think that you would not lunch with me to-day, when my father asked you."
"To think that it was you I was being asked to lunch with, and didn"t know it!"
"Well, you dine with us to-morrow," she answered, stating a simple fact.
"Crystal," he said, and put his hand on hers as if this would help him through his long explanation; but the continuity of his thought was destroyed and his spirit wounded by her immediately withdrawing it; and then--so exactly does the spring of love resemble the uncertain glory of an April day--he was rendered perfectly happy again by perceiving that her action was due to the publicity of their position and not to repugnance to the caress.
Fortunately he was a man not without invention, and so when a few minutes later she suggested opening the tea basket, he insisted on moving to a more retired spot on the plea that the teakettle would burn better out of the wind; and Crystal, who must have known that Tomes never gave her a teakettle, but made the tea at home and put it in a thermos bottle, at once agreed to the suggestion.
They moved back across the road, where irregular rocks sheltered small plots of gra.s.s and wild flowers, and here, instead of an Arcadian duet, they had, most unsuitably, their first quarrel.
It began as quarrels are so apt to do, by a complete agreement. Of course he would stay over the next day, which was Sunday, and not very busy in the office of _Liberty_. In return he expected her undivided attention. She at once admitted that this was part of the plan--only there would have to be one little exception; she was dining out this evening. Oh, well, that could be broken, couldn"t it? She would like to break it, but it happened to be one of those engagements that had to be kept. Ben could not understand that.
At first she tried to explain it to him: She had chosen her own evening several weeks ago with these people, who wanted her to meet a friend of theirs who was motoring down specially from Boston. She felt she must keep her word.
"I a.s.sure you I don"t want to, but you understand, don"t you?"
If she had looked at his face she would not have asked the last question. He did not understand; indeed, he had resolved not to.
"No," he said, "I must own, I don"t. If you told me that you _wanted_ to go, that would be one thing. I shouldn"t have a word to say then."
"Oh yes, you would, Ben," said Crystal, but he did not notice her.