She did like him. How it had grown, that first "fascination," born from a look! But----At last she seemed to find the words that summed it up.
"This is a big thing," she said, gravely. "It might be the biggest thing that"s happened to me; but, Bird-boy, there"s no hurry about it."
"No hurry?" He seemed to think that "hurry" was now the main point.
She shook her head. "We don"t have to settle anything about it, right here and right now. Now _do_ we?"
"Yes. _Yes!_" urged the boy.
"No," denied the girl"s wise young voice. "See here; I"ll be in London, and you will be there in a month. There"s plenty of time. You"ll come over then.... Then we can think of it.... Then maybe we"ll talk of it again...."
"Oh, will we," muttered Jack Awdas in a voice of utter expressionlessness. For the moment he was ready to say nothing more.
Silence fell between them.
Each full of thought, they ascended and descended the belt of softly-rolling dunes and came to where the sand had drifted half-way up the trunks of the growing pines.
Suddenly Golden gave a little exclamation. "Oh, look; what"s this?"
"What"s what?" he asked, stopping beside her.
"I thought it was a cute little flower that was growing up the tree,"
said the girl with down-bent head, "but look, it"s sown on to a ribbon, and it"s got itself wound way round the branch----"
She was disentangling the object that had taken her eye; a couple of lengths of ribbon, faded to white by the sea breeze and st.i.tched to a little padded square of satin, once mauve, now pale as the sand.
"What is it?" she wondered.
Half-absently Jack Awdas caught hold of the other ribbon as he looked at the thing.
And there was nothing to tell them what it was, the sachet of the Disturbing Charm that had hung about Mrs. Cartwright"s neck just before she had plunged into the waters of Biscay Bay; the Charm that the wind had caught and whirled away across the sands until at last it had been in that pine branch from which a girl"s hand unwound it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _And there was nothing to tell them what it was, the sachet of the Disturbing Charm._ ]
"Something from a wreck?" mused Golden.
The Charm dangled between them.
He was scarcely thinking of what he was doing as he twisted that ribbon over his own fingers.
He was set, so that he would not have realized, now, that he had set before. This was a universe away from that. _She_ knew that, the other one.... She"d been kind.... It wasn"t that she hadn"t liked him, he believed. She _had_ begun to like him near her, she _had_ liked it when he said "darling." Ah, to think that he had ever wanted to say "darling"
to any woman before! Here was his darling, and she must be made to see it, not later, not in London, but "right here and now."
As he twisted the ribbon, he spoke in the tone that had caused that other woman to shut her eyes; for it was the note of the mating call.
"I say, darling----"
Again the girl shook her head, but--was there now the least quiver of indecision in her gesture?
"I say, if n.o.body else has ever been allowed to call you that----"
"Oh, no!" she cried, sincerity itself.
He was mechanically twisting up that ribbon between them; another inch he took, another.
"Then if there"s n.o.body else you liked well enough for that, there"s a chance for me," persisted the soft husky voice of her lover above the faint distant crashing of those breakers behind them.
"Shall I tell you what?"
"What----?" she asked, slowly, no longer looking at him. A kind of arrogance seemed to shine up in him. Somewhere deep down in his heart he was cheering himself on by the reminder that he knew more than she. He seemed vaguely conscious of some force upon his side.... He would not have believed anyone who had told him that a woman"s strongest love, poured out upon him, had lent him magnetism, charged him. He fastened his blue eyes upon this girl, as upon some doggedly desired objective seen from his battle "plane as he drove through the blue, but he did not reply. He smiled, with all that is far-away in those searching eyes of his.
He had twisted up the last inch of that ribbon. Now he caught hold of the Charm that hung between the two ties, then came to the twin ribbon that she held. Before she knew what he would do with it, he wound that ribbon about her fingers and palm, binding her hand to his own with the Charm in it.
Close, close and warm his pulses beat to hers.
"I"ve caught you," he ventured, very softly, eyes intent upon her. He smiled more broadly at the first faint dawning of lovely trouble in her face. "Yes! This is what they"d call marriage-by-capture, I suppose?"
She didn"t speak. She didn"t move as he caught hold of her free hand as well. He held his crested head gaily as he said to her, "Of course I"m English and old-fashioned, and I know American girls are independent, and I ought to see the things they could teach me! But there"s something I could teach one of them. Let me try?"
Softly he muttered the word which was to mean everything as his own name for her. "Girl! _Girl!_ ... I say, let"s learn from each other?"
Still she didn"t speak. How find words, when at a nearness, a name, a touch, some spell seems snapped and the meanings of all words thereafter seem entirely to have altered? This stranger who had become her friend so soon had even more quickly changed to----
"_What?_"
Her lover nodded, saying below his breath, "It will be all right."
Then, loosing one of her hands, he deftly unwound the ribbon that was about the other. As he was stuffing the Charm with its ribbons inside the breast of his flyer"s coat, words came at last to his love.
Laughing tremulously, she asked, "Why, what are you doing that for?"
"Putting it by, safely," he smiled at her as he stood just a step away from her on the sand. "It"ll never leave me now, not that ribbon that--that tied our hands together for me. I say, I shall fasten it to my "bus later on, to bring me luck, Girl. It"s started already, what?"
He jerked his belt straight. "Hasn"t it?"
And with the words he took that one step nearer that brought her into his arms.
"Ah, please," he said, more softly than ever. "Please...."
He drew down to his shoulder the face so full of sweet disturbance, he folded her close, close to the wide breast beneath the white-embroidered wings. As if swayed by a Charm, she drew a long breath, then smiled in wonder, nestled, and yielded to his kisses--the first for both of them....
"What about America coming in now, Girl? She will, won"t she?... Yes, but say yes; you _must_! Say it!"
"No, Bird-boy! I just won"t _say_ it," was her last touch of mutiny.
"And--and I guess we"ll see about that "belonging" later on."
"Yes," triumphed Jack Awdas. "I "guess" so too!"
That was all those months ago.