In Geraldine"s bath-tub a colony of water-lilies were attempting to take root for the benefit of several species of water-beetles. The formidable larvae of dragon-flies occupied Kathleen"s bath; turtles peered at them from vantage points under the modern plumbing; an enormous frog regarded Kathleen solemnly from the wet, tiled floor. "Oh, dear," she said as Scott greeted her rapturously, "have I got to move all these horrid creatures?"
"For Heaven"s sake don"t touch a thing," protested Scott, welcoming his sister with a perfunctory kiss; "I"ll find places for them in a minute."
"How _could_ you, Scott!" exclaimed Geraldine, backing hastily away from a branch of green leaves on which several gigantic horned caterpillars were feeding. "I don"t feel like ever sleeping in this room again," she added, exasperated.
"Why, Sis," he explained mildly, "those are the caterpillars of the magnificent Regal moth! They"re perfectly harmless, and it"s jolly to watch them tuck away walnut leaves. You"ll like to have them here in your room when you understand how to weigh them on these bully little scales I"ve just had sent up from Tiffany"s."
But his sister was too annoyed and too tired to speak. She stood limply leaning against Kathleen while her brother disposed of his uncanny menagerie, talking away very cheerfully all the while absorbed in his grewsome pets.
But it was not to his sister, it was to Kathleen that his pride in his achievements was navely displayed; his running accompaniment of chatter was for Kathleen"s benefit, his appeals were to her sympathy and understanding, not to his sister"s.
Geraldine watched him in silence. Tired, not physically very well, this home-coming meant something to her. She had looked forward to it, and to her brother, unconsciously wistful for the protection of home and kin.
For the day had been a hard one; she was able to affix the red-cross mark to her letter to Duane that morning, but it had been a bad day for her, very bad.
And now as she stood there, white, nerveless, fatigued, an ache grew in her breast, a dull desire for somebody of her own kin to lean on; and, following it, a slow realisation of how far apart from her brother she had drifted since the old days of cordial understanding in the schoolroom--the days of loyal sympathy through calm and stress, in predatory alliance or in the frank conflicts of the squared circle.
Suddenly her whole heart filled with a blind need of her brother"s sympathy--a desire to return to the old intimacy as though in it there lay comfort, protection, sanctuary for herself from all that threatened her--herself!
Kathleen was a.s.sisting Scott to envelop the frog in a bath towel for the benevolent purpose of transplanting him presently to some other bath-tub; and Kathleen"s golden head and Scott"s brown one were very close together, and they were laughing in that intimate undertone characteristic of thorough understanding. Her brother"s expression as he looked up at Kathleen Severn, was a revelation to his sister, and it pierced her with a pang of loneliness so keen that she started forward in sheer desperation, as though to force a path through something that was pushing her away from him.
"Let me take his frogship," she said with a nervous laugh. "I"ll put him into a jolly big tub where you can grow all the water-weeds you like, Scott."
Her brother, surprised and gratified, handed her the bath-towel in the depths of which reposed the batrachian.
"He"s really an interesting fellow, Sis," explained Scott; "he exudes a sticky, viscous fluid from his pores which is slightly toxic. I"m going to try it on a Rose-beetle."
Geraldine shuddered, but forced a smile, and, holding the imprisoned one with dainty caution, bore him to a palatial and porcelain-lined bath-tub, into which she shook him with determination and a suppressed shriek.
That night at dinner Scott looked up at his sister with something of the old-time interest and confidence.
"I was pretty sure you"d take an interest in all these things, sooner or later. I tell you, Geraldine, it will be half the fun if you"ll go into it with us."
"I want to," said his sister, smiling, "but don"t hurry my progress or you"ll scare me half to death."
The tragic necessity for occupation, for interesting herself in something sufficient to take her out of herself, she now understood, and the deep longing for the love of all she had of kith and kin was steadily tightening its grip on her, increasing day by day. Nothing else could take its place; she began to understand that; not her intimacy with Kathleen, not even her love for Duane. Outside of these there existed a zone of loneliness in which she was doomed to wander, a zone peopled only by the phantoms of the parents she had never known long enough to remember--a dreaded zone of solitude and desolation and peril for her. The danger line marked its boundary; beyond lay folly and destruction.
Little by little Scott began to notice that his sister evidently found his company desirable, that she followed him about, watching his so-called scientific pursuits with a curiosity too constant to be a.s.sumed. And it pleased him immensely; and at times he held forth to her and instructed her with brotherly condescension.
He noticed, too, that her spirits did not appear to be particularly lively; there were often long intervals of silence when, together by the window in the library where he was fussing over his "Life History," she never spoke, never even moved from her characteristic att.i.tude--seated deep in a leather chair, arms resting on the padded chair-arms, ankles crossed, and her head a trifle lowered, as though absorbed in studying the Herati design on a Persian rug.
Once, looking up suddenly, he surprised her brown eyes full of tears.
"h.e.l.lo!" he said, amazed; "what"s the row, Sis?"
But she only laughed and dried her eyes, denying that there was any explanation except that girls were sometimes that way for no reason at all.
One day he asked Kathleen privately about this, but she merely confirmed Geraldine"s diagnosis of the phenomenon:
"Tears come into girls" eyes," she said, "and there isn"t anybody on earth who can tell a man why, and he wouldn"t comprehend it if anybody did tell him."
"I"ll tell you one thing," he said sceptically; "if Rose-beetles shed tears, I"d never rest until I found out why. You bet there"s always a reason that starts anything and always somebody to find it out and tell another fellow who can understand it!"
With which brilliant burst of higher philosophy they went out into the October woods together to hunt for coc.o.o.ns.
Geraldine, rather flushed and nervous, met them at Hurryon Gate, carrying a rifle and wearing the shortest skirts her brother had ever beheld. The symmetry of her legs moved him to reproof:
"I thought people looked that way only in tailor"s fashion plates," he said. "What are you after--chipmunks?"
"Not at all," said his sister. "Do you know what happened to me an hour ago? I was paddling your canoe into the Hurryon Inlet, and I suppose I made no noise in disembarking, and I came right on a baby wild boar in the junipers. It was a tiny thing, not eighteen inches long, Kathleen, and so cunning and furry and yellowish, with brown stripes on its back, that I tried to catch it--just to hug it."
"That was silly," said her brother.
"I know it was, now. Because I ran after it, and it ran; and, one by one, a whole herd of the cunning little things sprang out of the hemlock scrub and went off bucking and bucketing in all directions, and I, like a simpleton, hard after one of them----"
"Little idiot," said her brother solicitously. "Are you stark mad?"
"No, I"m just plain mad. Because, before I knew it, there came a crash in the underbrush and the biggest, furriest, and wickedest wild boar I ever saw halted in front of me, ears forward, every hair on end----"
"Lord save us, you jumped the sow!" groaned her brother. "She might have torn you to pieces, you ninny!"
"She meant to, I think. The next thing I knew she came headlong, mouth open, fairly screaming at me; and I turned and jumped clean into the Gray Water. Oh, Scott, it was humiliating to have to swim to the point with all my clothes on, scramble into the canoe, and shove off because a very angry wild creature drove me out of my own woods!"
"Well, dear, you won"t ever interfere with a sow and pigs again, will you?" said Kathleen so earnestly that everybody laughed.
"What"s the rifle for?" inquired Scott. "You don"t intend to hunt for her, do you?"
"Of course not. I"m not vindictive or cruel. But old Miller said, when I came past the lodge, dripping wet, that the boar are increasing too fast and that you ought to keep them down either by shooting or by trapping them, and sending them to other people for stocking purposes. The Pink "uns want some; why don"t you?"
"I don"t want to shoot or trap them," said Scott obstinately.
"Miller says they pulled down deer last winter and tore them to shreds.
Everything in the forest is afraid of them; they drive the deer from the feeding-grounds, and I don"t believe a lynx or even any of the bear that climb over the fence would dare attack them."
Kathleen said: "You really ought to ask some men up here to shoot, Scott. I don"t wish to be chased about by a boar."
"They never bother people," he protested. "What are you going to do with that rifle, Geraldine?"
"My nerve has gone," she confessed, laughing; "I prefer to have it with me when I take walks. It"s really safer," she added seriously to Kathleen. "Miller says that a buck deer can be ugly, too."
"Oh, Lord!" said her brother, laughing; "it"s only because you"re the prettiest thing ever, in that hunting dress! Don"t tell me; and kindly be careful where you point that rifle."
"As if I needed instructions!" retorted his sister. "I wish I could see a boar--a big one with a particularly frightful temper and tusks to match."
"I"ll bet you that you can"t kill a boar," he said in good-humoured disdain.
"I don"t see any to kill."
"Well, I bet you can"t find one. And if you do, I bet you don"t kill him."