Jimmie brushed the sand slowly away from the buried hand and covered it with his own. He drew nearer, his face close, and closer to hers.
Gertrude closed her eyes. It was coming, it was coming and she was glad. That silly old vow of celibacy, her silly old thoughts about art. What was art? What was anything with the arms of the man you loved closing about you. His lips were on hers.
Jimmie drew a sharp breath, and let her go.
"Gertrude," he said, "I"m incorrigible. I ought to be spanked. I"d make love to--Eleanor"s grandmother if I had her down here on a night like this. Will you forgive me?"
Gertrude got to her feet a little unsteadily, but she managed a smile.
"It"s only the moon," she said, "and--and young blood. I think Grandfather Amos would probably affect me the same way."
Jimmie"s momentary expression of blankness pa.s.sed and Gertrude did not press her advantage. They walked home in silence.
"It"s awfully companionable to realize that you also are human, "Trude," he hazarded on the doorstep.
Gertrude put a still hand into his, which is a way of saying "Good night," that may be more formal than any other.
"The Colonel"s lady, and July O"Grady," she quoted lightly. "Good night, Jimmie."
Up-stairs in her great chamber under the eaves, Eleanor was composing a poem which she copied carefully on a light blue page of her private diary. It read as follows:
"To love, it is the saddest thing, When friendship proves unfit, For lots of sadness it will bring, When e"er you think of it.
Alas! that friends should prove untrue And disappoint you so.
Because you don"t know what to do, And hardly where to go."
CHAPTER XII
MADAM BOLLING
"Is this the child, David?"
"Yes, mother."
Eleanor stared impa.s.sively into the lenses of Mrs. Bolling"s lorgnette.
"This is my mother, Eleanor."
Eleanor courtesied as her Uncle Jimmie had taught her, but she did not take her eyes from Mrs. Bolling"s face.
"Not a bad-looking child. I hate this American fashion of dressing children like French dolls, in bright colors and smart lines. The English are so much more sensible. An English country child would have cheeks as red as apples. How old are you?"
"Eleven years old my next birthday."
"I should have thought her younger, David. Have her call me madam. It sounds better."
"Very well, mother. I"ll teach her the ropes when the strangeness begins to wear off. This kind of thing is all new to her, you know."
"She looks it. Give her the blue chamber and tell Mademoiselle to take charge of her. You say you want her to have lessons for so many hours a day. Has she brains?"
"She"s quite clever. She writes verses, she models pretty well, Gertrude says. It"s too soon to expect any special apt.i.tude to develop."
"Well, I"m glad to discover your philanthropic tendencies, David. I never knew you had any before, but this seems to me a very doubtful undertaking. You take a child like this from very plain surroundings and give her a year or two of life among cultivated and well-to-do people, just enough for her to acquire a taste for extravagant living and a.s.sociations. Then what becomes of her? You get tired of your bargain. Something else comes on the docket. You marry--and then what becomes of your protegee? She goes back to the country, a thoroughly unsatisfied little rustic, quite unfitted to be the wife of the farmer for whom fate intended her."
"I wish you wouldn"t, mother," David said, with an uneasy glance at Eleanor"s pale face, set in the stoic lines he remembered so well from the afternoon of his first impression of her. "She"s a sensitive little creature."
"Nonsense. It never hurts anybody to have a plain understanding of his position in the world. I don"t know what foolishness you romantic young people may have filled her head with. It"s just as well she should hear common sense from me and I intend that she shall."
"I"ve explained to you, mother, that this child is my legal and moral responsibility and will be partly at least under my care until she becomes of age. I want her to be treated as you"d treat a child of mine if I had one. If you don"t, I can"t have her visit us again. I shall take her away with me somewhere. Bringing her home to you this time is only an experiment."
"She"ll have a much more healthful and normal experience with us than she"s had with any of the rest of your violent young set, I"ll be bound. She"ll probably be useful, too. She can look out for Zaidee--I never say that name without irritation--but it"s the only name the little beast will answer to. Do you like dogs, child?"
Eleanor started at the suddenness of the question, but did not reply to it. Mrs. Bolling waited and David looked at her expectantly.
"My mother asked you if you liked dogs, Eleanor; didn"t you understand?"
Eleanor opened her lips as if to speak and then shut them again firmly.
"Your protegee is slightly deaf, David," his mother a.s.sured him.
"You can tell her "yes,"" Eleanor said unexpectedly to David. "I like dogs, if they ain"t treacherous."
"She asked you the question," David said gravely; "this is her house, you know. It is she who deserves consideration in it."
"Why can"t I talk to you about her, the way she does about me?"
Eleanor demanded. "She can have consideration if she wants it, but she doesn"t think I"m any account. Let her ask you what she wants and I"ll tell you."
"Eleanor," David remonstrated, "Eleanor, you never behaved like this before. I don"t know what"s got into her, mother."
"She merely hasn"t any manners. Why should she have?"
Eleanor fixed her big blue eyes on the lorgnette again.
"If it"s manners to talk the way you do to your own children and strange little girls, why, then I don"t want any," she said. "I guess I"ll be going," she added abruptly and turned toward the door.
David took her by the shoulders and brought her right about face.
"Say good-by to mother," he said sternly.
"Good-by, ma"am--madam," Eleanor said and courtesied primly.
"Tell Mademoiselle to teach her a few things before the next audience, David, and come back to me in fifteen minutes. I have something important to talk over with you."
David stood by the open door of the blue chamber half an hour later and watched Eleanor on her knees, repacking her suit-case. Her face was set in pale determined lines, and she looked older and a little sick. Outside it was blowing a September gale, and the trees were waving desperate branches in the wind. David had thought that the estate on the Hudson would appeal to the little girl. It had always appealed to him so much, even though his mother"s habits of migration with the others of her flock at the different seasons had left him so comparatively few a.s.sociations with it. He had thought she would like the broad sweeping lawns and the cherubim fountain, the apple orchard and the kitchen garden, and the funny old bronze dog at the end of the box hedge. When he saw how she was occupied, he understood that it was not her intention to stay and explore these things.
"Eleanor," he said, stepping into the room suddenly, "what are you doing with your suit-case? Didn"t Mademoiselle unpack it for you?" He was close enough now to see the signs of tears she had shed.