Ted lit another cigarette, looked up straight into Geoffrey Annersley"s war lined face.
"Thank you," he said. "I think I"ll remember it. Anyway I appreciate your saying it to me that way."
The subject dropped then, went back to war and how men feel on the edge of death, of the unimportance of death anyway.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
THE PAST AND FUTURE MEET
Larry knocked at Ruth"s door. It opened and a wan and pathetically drooping little figure stood before him. Ever since she had been awake Ruth, had been haunted by that unwelcome bit of memory illumination which had come the night before. No wonder she drooped and scarcely dared to lift her eyes to her lover"s face. But in a moment he had her in his arms, a performance which banished the droop and brought a lovely color back into the pale cheeks.
"Larry, oh Larry, is it all right? I"m not his wife? He didn"t marry me?"
Larry kissed her.
"He didn"t marry you. n.o.body"s going to marry you but me. No, I didn"t mean to say that now. Forget it, sweetheart. You are free, and if you want to say so I"ll let you go. If you don"t want--"
"But I do want," she interrupted. "I want Larry Holiday and he is all I want. Why won"t you ever, ever believe I love you? I do, more than anything in the world."
"You darling! Will you marry me? I shouldn"t have asked you that other time. I hadn"t the right. But I have now. Will you, Ruth? I want you so.
And I"ve waited so long."
"Listen to me, Larry Holiday." Ruth held up a small warning forefinger.
"I"ll marry you if you will promise never, never to be cross to me again.
I have shed quarts of tears because you were so unkind and--faithless. I ought to make you do some terrible penance for thinking the money or anything but you mattered to me. Not even the wedding ring mattered. I told you so but still you wouldn"t believe."
Larry shook his head remorsefully.
"Rub it in, sweetheart, if you must. I deserve it. But don"t you think I have had purgatory enough because I didn"t dare believe to punish me for anything? As for the rest I know I"ve been behaving like a brute. I"ve a devil of a disposition and I"ve been half crazy anyway. Not that that is any excuse. But I"ll behave myself in the future. Honest I will, Ruthie.
All you have to do is to lift this small finger of yours--" He indicated the digit by a loverly kiss "and I"ll be as meek and lowly as--as an ash can," he finished prosaically.
Ruth"s happy laughter rang out at this and she put up her lips for a kiss.
"I"ll remember," she said. "You"re not a brute, Larry. You"re a darling and I love you--oh immensely and I"ll marry you just as quick as ever I can and we"ll be so happy you won"t ever remember you have a disposition."
Another interim occurred, an interim occupied by things which are n.o.body"s business and which anybody who has ever been in love can supply ad lib by exercise of memory and imagination. Then hand in hand the two went down to where Geoffrey Annersley waited to bring back the past to Elinor Farringdon.
"Does he know me?" queried Ruth as they descended.
"He surely does. He knows all there is to know about you, Miss Elinor Ruth Farringdon. He ought to. He is your cousin and he married your best friend, Nan--"
"Wait!" cried Ruth excitedly, "it"s coming back. He married Nancy Hollinger and she gave me some San Francisco addresses of some friends of hers just before I sailed. They were in that envelope. I threw away the addresses when I left San Francisco and tucked my tickets into it. Why, Larry, I"m remembering--really remembering," she stopped short on the stairs to exclaim in a startled incredulous tone.
"Of course you are remembering, sweetheart," echoed Larry happily. "Come on down and remember the rest with Annersley"s help. He is some cousin.
You"d better be prepared to be horribly proud of him. He is a captain and wears all kinds of honorable and distinguished dingle dangles and decorations as well as a romantic limp and a magnificent gash on his cheek which he evidently didn"t get shaving."
Larry jested because he knew Ruth was growing nervous. He could feel her tremble against his arm. He was more than a little anxious as to the outcome of the thing itself. The shock and the strain of meeting Geoffrey Annersley were going to be rather an ordeal he knew.
They entered the living room and paused on the threshold, Larry"s arm still around the girl. Doctor Holiday and the captain both rose. The latter limped gallantly toward Ruth who stared at him an instant and then flung herself away from Larry into the other man"s arms.
"Geoff! Geoff!" she cried.
For a moment nothing more was said then Ruth drew herself away.
"Geoffrey Annersley, why did you ever, ever make me wear that horrid ring?" she demanded reproachfully. "Larry and I could have married each other months ago if you hadn"t. It was the silliest idea anyway and it"s all your fault--everything."
He laughed at that, a, big whole-souled hearty laugh that came from the depths of him.
"That sounds natural," he said. "Every sc.r.a.pe you ever enticed me into as a kid was always my fault somehow. Are you real, Elinor? I can"t help thinking I am seeing a ghost. Do you really remember me?" anxiously.
"Of course I remember you. Listen, Geoff. Listen hard."
And unexpectedly Ruth pursed her pretty lips and whistled a merry, lilting bar of melody.
"By Jove!" exulted the captain. "That does sound like old times."
"Don"t tell me I don"t remember," she flashed back happy and excited beyond measure at playing this new remembering game. "That was our special call, yours and Rod"s and mine. Oh Rod!" And at that all the joy went out of the eager, flushed face. She went back into her cousin"s arms again, sobbing in heart breaking fashion. The turning tide of memory had brought back wreckage of grief as well as joy. In Geoffrey Annersley"s arms Ruth mourned her brother"s loss for the first time.
Larry sent his uncle a quick look and went out of the room. The older doctor followed. Ruth and her cousin were left alone to pick up the dropped threads of the past.
They all met again at luncheon however, Ruth rosy cheeked, excited and red-eyed but on the whole none the worse for her journey back into the land of forgotten things. As Larry had hoped the external stimulus of actually seeing and hearing somebody out of that other life was enough to start the train. What she did not yet remember Geoffrey supplied and little by little the past took on shape and substance and Elinor Ruth Farringdon became once more a normal human being with a past as well as a present which was dazzlingly delightful, save for the one dark blur of her dear Rod"s unknown fate.
In the course of the conversation at table Geoffrey addressed his cousin as Elinor and was promptly informed that she wasn"t Elinor and was Ruth and that he was to call her by that name or run the risk of being disapproved of very heartily.
He laughed, amused at this.
"Now I know you are real," he said. "It is exactly the tone you used when you issued the contrary command and by Jove almost the same words except for the reversed t.i.tles. "Don"t call me Ruth, Geoff,"" he mimicked. ""I am not going to be Ruth any more. I am going to be Elinor. It is a much prettier name.""
"Well, I don"t think so now," retorted Ruth. "I"ve changed my mind again.
I think Ruth is the nicest name there is because--well--" She blushed adorably and looked across the table at the young doctor, "because Larry likes it," she completed half defiantly.
"Is that meant to be an official publishing of the bans?" teased her cousin when the laugh that Ruth"s nave confession had raised subsided leaving Larry as well as Ruth a little hot of cheek.
"If you want to call it that," said Ruth. "Larry, I think you might say something, not leave me everything to do myself. Tell them we are engaged and are going to be married--"
"To-morrow," put in Larry suddenly pushing back his chair and going over to stand behind Ruth, a hand on either shoulder, facing the others gallantly if obviously also embarra.s.sedly over her shyly bent blonde head.
The blonde head went up at that, and was shaken very decidedly.
"No indeed. That isn"t right at all," she objected. "Don"t listen to him anybody. It isn"t going to be tomorrow. I"ve got to have a wedding dress and it takes at least a week to dream a wedding dress when it is the only time you ever intend to be married. I have all the other things--everything I need down to the last hair pin and powder puff.
That"s why I went to Boston. I knew I was going to want pretty clothes quick. I told Doctor Holiday so." She sent a charming, half merry, half deprecating smile at the older doctor who smiled back.
"She most a.s.suredly did," he corroborated. "I never suspected it was part of a deep laid plot however. I thought it was just femininity cropping out after a dull season. How was I to know it was because you were planning to run off with my a.s.sistant that you wanted all the gay plumage?" he teased.
Ruth made a dainty little grimace at that.