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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Blue-Bird Weather, by Robert W. Chambers,
+Illustrated by Charles Dana Gibson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Blue-Bird Weather
+
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2008  [eBook #24389]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE-BIRD WEATHER***
+
+
+E-text prepared by S. Drawehn, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 24389-h.htm or 24389-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/8/24389/24389-h/24389-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/8/24389/24389-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+BLUE-BIRD WEATHER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Works of Robert W. Chambers
+
+  The Streets Of Ascalon
+  Blue-Bird Weather
+  Japonette
+  The Adventures of a Modest Man
+  The Danger Mark
+  Special Messenger
+  The Firing Line
+  The Younger Set
+  The Fighting Chance
+  Some Ladies in Haste
+  The Tree of Heaven
+  The Tracer of Lost Persons
+  A Young Man in a Hurry
+  Lorraine
+  Maids of Paradise
+  Ashes of Empire
+  The Red Republic
+  Outsiders
+  The Common Law
+  Ailsa Paige
+  The Green Mouse
+  Iole
+  The Reckoning
+  The Maid-at-Arms
+  Cardigan
+  The Haunts of Men
+  The Mystery of Choice
+  The Cambric Mask
+  The Maker of Moons
+  The King in Yellow
+  In Search of the Unknown
+  The Conspirators
+  A King and a Few Dukes
+  In the Quarter
+
+
+For Children
+
+  Garden-Land
+  Forest-Land
+  River-Land
+  Mountain-Land
+  Orchard-Land
+  Outdoor-Land
+  Hide and Seek in Forest-Land
+
+  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, New York
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BLUE-BIRD WEATHER
+
+by
+
+ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+[Decoration]
+
+With Illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "She trotted away to Marche's door and tapped softly."
+                                                         [Page 140]]
+
+
+D. Appleton and Company
+New York and London :: MCMXII
+
+Copyright, 1912, by
+Robert W. Chambers
+
+Copyright, 1911, by International Magazine Company
+
+Published October, 1912
+
+Published in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+  JOSEPH LEE
+  OF NEEDWOOD FOREST
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+  "She trotted away to Marche's door and tapped softly."  _Frontispiece_
+
+  "She said gravely: 'I am afraid it will be blue-bird weather.'"     14
+
+  "'Well,' he said pleasantly, 'what comes next, Miss Herold?'"       26
+
+  "'I'm _so_ sorry, Jim.'"                                            33
+
+  "They ate their luncheon there together."                           88
+
+  "'Jim,' he said, 'where did you live?'"                             99
+
+  "'He tells you that he--he is in love with you?'"                  127
+
+
+
+
+BLUE-BIRD WEATHER
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was now almost too dark to distinguish objects; duskier and vaguer
+became the flat world of marshes, set here and there with cypress and
+bounded only by far horizons; and at last land and water disappeared
+behind the gathered curtains of the night. There was no sound from the
+waste except the wind among the withered reeds and the furrowing splash
+of wheel and hoof over the submerged causeway.
+
+The boy who was driving had scarcely spoken since he strapped Marche's
+gun cases and valise to the rear of the rickety wagon at the railroad
+station. Marche, too, remained silent, preoccupied with his own
+reflections. Wrapped in his fur-lined coat, arms folded, he sat doubled
+forward, feeling the Southern swamp-chill busy with his bones. Now and
+then he was obliged to relight his pipe, but the cold bit at his
+fingers, and he hurried to protect himself again with heavy gloves.
+
+The small, rough hands of the boy who was driving were naked, and
+finally Marche mentioned it, asking the child if he were not cold.
+
+"No, sir," he said, with a colorless brevity that might have been
+shyness or merely the dull indifference of the very poor, accustomed to
+discomfort.
+
+"Don't you feel cold at all?" persisted Marche kindly.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"I suppose you are hardened to this sort of weather?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+By the light of a flaming match, Marche glanced sideways at him as he
+drew his pipe into a glow once more, and for an instant the boy's gray
+eyes flickered toward his in the flaring light. Then darkness masked
+them both again.
+
+"Are you Mr. Herold's son?" inquired the young man.
+
+"Yes, sir," almost sullenly.
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"Eleven."
+
+"You're a big boy, all right. I have never seen your father. He is at
+the clubhouse, no doubt."
+
+"Yes, sir," scarcely audible.
+
+"And you and he live there all alone, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, sir." A moment later the boy added jerkily, "And my sister," as
+though truth had given him a sudden nudge.
+
+"Oh, you have a sister, too?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"That makes it very jolly for you, I fancy," said Marche pleasantly.
+There was no reply to the indirect question.
+
+His pipe had gone out again, and he knocked the ashes from it and
+pocketed it. For a while they drove on in silence, then Marche peered
+impatiently through the darkness, right and left, in an effort to see;
+and gave it up.
+
+"You must know this road pretty well to be able to keep it," he said.
+"As for me, I can't see anything except a dirty little gray star up
+aloft."
+
+"The horse knows the road."
+
+"I'm glad of that. Have you any idea how near we are to the house?"
+
+"Half a mile. That's Rattler Creek, yonder."
+
+"How the dickens can you tell?" asked Marche curiously. "You can't see
+anything in the dark, can you?"
+
+"I don't know how I can tell," said the boy indifferently.
+
+Marche smiled. "A sixth sense, probably. What did you say your name is?"
+
+"Jim."
+
+"And you're eleven? You'll be old enough to have a gun very soon, Jim.
+How would you like to shoot a real, live wild duck?"
+
+"I _have_ shot plenty."
+
+Marche laughed. "Good for you, Jimmy. What did the gun do to you? Kick
+you flat on your back?"
+
+The boy said gravely: "Father's gun is too big for me. I have to rest it
+on the edge of the blind when I fire."
+
+"Do you shoot from the blinds?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Marche relapsed into smiling silence. In a few moments he was thinking
+of other things--of this muddy island which had once been the property
+of a club consisting of five carefully selected and wealthy members, and
+which, through death and resignation, had now reverted to him. Why he
+had ever bought in the shares, as one by one the other members either
+died or dropped out, he did not exactly know. He didn't care very much
+for duck shooting. In five years he had not visited the club; and why he
+had come here this year for a week's sport he scarcely knew, except that
+he had either to go somewhere for a rest or ultimately be carried,
+kicking, into what his slangy doctor called the "funny house."
+
+So here he was, on a cold February night, and already nearly at his
+destination; for now he could make out a light across the marsh, and
+from dark and infinite distances the east wind bore the solemn rumor of
+the sea, muttering of wrecks and death along the Atlantic sands beyond
+the inland sounds.
+
+"Well, Jim," he said, "I never thought I'd survive this drive, but here
+we are, and still alive. Are you frozen solid, you poor boy?"
+
+The boy smiled, shyly, in negation, as they drove into the bar of light
+from the kitchen window and stopped. Marche got down very stiffly. The
+kitchen door opened at the same moment, and a woman's figure appeared in
+the lamplight--a young girl, slender, bare armed, drying her fingers as
+she came down the steps to offer a small, weather-roughened hand to
+Marche.
+
+"My brother will show you to your room," she said. "Supper will be ready
+in a few minutes."
+
+So he thanked her and went away with Jim, relieving the boy of the
+valise and one gun-case, and presently came to the quarters prepared for
+him. The room was rough, with its unceiled walls of yellow pine, a
+chair, washstand, bed, and a nail or two for his wardrobe. It had been
+the affectation of the wealthy men composing the Foam Island Duck Club
+to exist almost primitively when on the business of duck shooting, in
+contradistinction to the overfed luxury of other millionaires
+inhabiting other more luxuriously appointed shooting-boxes along the
+Chesapeake.
+
+The Foam Island Club went in heavily for simplicity, as far as the
+two-story shanty of a clubhouse was concerned; but their island was one
+of the most desirable in the entire region, and their live decoys the
+most perfectly trained and cared for.
+
+Marche, washing his tingling fingers and visage in icy water, rather
+wished, for a moment, that the club had installed modern plumbing; but
+delectable odors from the kitchen put him into better humor, and
+presently he went off down the creaking and unpainted stairs to warm
+himself at a big stove until summoned to the table.
+
+He was summoned in a few moments by the same girl who had greeted him;
+and she also waited on him at table, placing before him in turn his
+steaming soup, a platter of fried bass and smoking sweet potatoes, then
+the inevitable broiled canvas-back duck with rice, and finally home-made
+preserves--wild grapes, exquisitely fragrant in their thin, golden
+syrup.
+
+Marche was that kind of a friendly young man who is naturally
+gay-hearted and also a little curious--sometimes to the verge of
+indiscretion. For his curiosity and inquiring interest in his fellow-men
+was easily aroused--particularly when they were less fortunately
+situated than he in a world where it is a favorite fiction that all are
+created equal. He was, in fact, that particular species of human
+nuisance known as a humanitarian; but he never dreamed he was a
+nuisance, and certainly never meant to be.
+
+Warmth and food and the prospects of to-morrow's shooting, and a
+slender, low-voiced young girl, made cheerful his recently frost-nipped
+soul, and he was inclined to expand and become talkative there in the
+lamplight.
+
+"Has the shooting been pretty good?" he asked pleasantly, plying knife
+and fork in the service of a raging appetite.
+
+"It _has_ been."
+
+"What do you think of the prospects for to-morrow?"
+
+[Illustration: "She said gravely: 'I am afraid it will be blue-bird
+weather.'"]
+
+She said gravely: "I am afraid it will be blue-bird weather."
+
+It was a new, but graphic, expression to him; and he often remembered
+it afterward, and how quaintly it fell from her lips as she stood there
+in the light of the kerosene lamp, slim, self-possessed, in her faded
+gingham gown and apron, the shapely middle finger of one little
+weather-tanned hand resting on the edge of the cloth.
+
+"You are Miss Herold, I suppose?" he said, looking up at her with his
+pleasant smile.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are not Southern?"
+
+"No," she said briefly. And he then remembered that the Hon. Cicero W.
+Gilkins, when he was president of the now defunct club, had installed a
+Northern man as resident chief game-protector and superintendent at the
+Foam Island Club House.
+
+Marche had never even seen Herold; but, through lack of personal
+interest, and also because he needed somebody to look out for the
+property, he had continued to pay this man Herold his inconsiderable
+salary every year, scarcely knowing, himself, why he did not put the
+Foam Island shooting on the market and close up the matter for good.
+
+"It's been five years since I was here, Miss Herold," he said, smiling.
+"That was in the old days of the club, when Judge Gilkins and Colonel
+Vyse used to come here shooting every season. But you don't remember
+them, I fancy."
+
+"I remember them."
+
+"Really! You must have been quite a child."
+
+"I was thirteen."
+
+"Oh, then you are eighteen, now," he said humorously.
+
+Her grave, young lips were only slightly responsive to his smile.
+
+"You have been here a long time," he said. "Do you find it lonely?"
+
+"Sometimes," she admitted.
+
+"What do you do for recreation?"
+
+"I don't think I know what you mean, Mr. Marche."
+
+"I mean for pleasure."
+
+She looked at him out of her clear, gray eyes, then turned her gaze on
+the window. But she could not see through it; the pane only reflected
+her face darkly; and to her, for a moment, it seemed that way with her
+whole pent-up life, here in the Virginia marshes--no outlet, no outlook,
+and wherever she turned her wistful eyes only her own imprisoned self to
+confront her out of the dull obscurity.
+
+"I suppose," he said, watching her, "that you sometimes go to Norfolk
+for a holiday?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or to Old Point, or Baltimore, perhaps?"
+
+She had her under lip between her teeth, now, and was looking so fixedly
+at the window that he thought she had not heard him.
+
+He rose from the table, and as she turned to meet his pleasant eyes he
+smilingly thanked her for waiting on him.
+
+"And now," he said, "if you will say to your father that I'd like to
+have a little talk with him----"
+
+"Father is ill in bed," she said, in a low voice.
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry. I hope it isn't anything serious."
+
+"I--think not."
+
+"Will he be able to see me to-morrow?"
+
+"I am afraid not, Mr. Marche. He--he asked me to say to you that you
+might safely transact any business with me. I know all about it," she
+said, speaking a little hurriedly. "I keep the accounts, and I have
+every item and every bill ready for your inspection; and I can tell you
+exactly what condition the property is in and what lumber has been cut
+and what repairs have been necessary. Whenever you are ready for me, I
+will come into the sitting room," she added, "because Jim and I have had
+our supper."
+
+"Very well," he said, smiling, "I am ready now, if you are."
+
+So she went away to rinse her hands and lay aside her apron, and in a
+few minutes she entered the sitting room. He rose and placed a chair for
+her, and she thanked him, flushing a little, and then he resumed his
+seat, watching her sorting over the papers in her lap.
+
+Presently she crossed one knee over the other, and one slim, prettily
+shaped foot, in its shabby shoe, swung clear of its shadow on the floor.
+Then she handed him a sheaf of bills for his inspection, and, pencil in
+hand, followed the totals as he read them off aloud.
+
+For half an hour they compared and checked off items, and he found her
+accounts accurate to a penny.
+
+"Father bought three geese and a gander from Ike Helm," she said. "They
+were rather expensive, but two were mated, and they call very well when
+tied out separated. Do you think it was too expensive?" she added
+timidly, showing him the bill.
+
+"No," he said, smiling. "I think it's all right. Mated decoys are what
+we need, and you can wing-tip a dozen before you get one that will talk
+at the right time."
+
+"That is true," she said eagerly. "We try our best to keep up the decoys
+and have nothing but talkers. Our geese are nearly all right, and our
+ducks are good, but our swans are _so_ vexing! They seem to be such
+fools, and they usually behave like silly cygnets. You will see
+to-morrow."
+
+While she was speaking, her brother came quietly into the room with an
+open book in his hands, and Marche, glancing at it curiously, saw that
+it was a Latin grammar.
+
+"Where do you go to school, Jim?" he asked.
+
+"Father teaches me."
+
+Marche, rather astonished at the calibre of his superintendent,
+glanced from the boy to his sister in silence. The girl's head
+remained steadily lowered over the papers on her knee, but he saw her
+foot swinging in nervous rhythm, and he was conscious of her silent
+impatience at something or other, perhaps at the interruption in their
+business discussion.
+
+[Illustration: "'Well,' he said pleasantly, 'what comes next, Miss
+Herold?'"]
+
+"Well," he said pleasantly, "what comes next, Miss Herold?"
+
+She handed him a list of the decoys. He read it gravely, nodded, and
+returned it.
+
+"You may count them for yourself to-morrow," she said.
+
+"Not at all. I trust you entirely," he replied laughingly.
+
+Then they went over the remaining matters, the condition of the pine
+timber, the repairs to the boats and blinds and stools, items for snaps,
+swivels, paint, cement, wire, none of which interested Marche as much as
+the silent boy reading his Latin grammar by the smoky lamp interested
+him, or the boy's sister bending over the papers on her knee, pencil
+poised in her pretty, weather-roughened hand.
+
+"I sent the shells from New York by express," he said. "Did they
+arrive?"
+
+"I left two hundred in your room," said the boy, looking up.
+
+"Oh, thank you, Jim." And, turning to his sister, who had raised her
+head, inquiringly, "I suppose somebody will call me at the screech of
+dawn, won't they?"
+
+"Do you know the new law?" she asked.
+
+"No. I don't like laws, anyway," he said smilingly.
+
+She smiled, too, gathering up her papers preparatory to departure.
+"Nobody is allowed," she said, "to put off from shore until the sun is
+above the horizon line. And the wardens are very strict." Then she rose.
+"Will you excuse me? I have the dishes to do."
+
+The boy laid aside his book and stood up, but his sister said:
+
+"Stay and study, Jim. I don't need any help."
+
+And Jim resumed his seat with heightened color. A moment later, however,
+he went out to the kitchen.
+
+"Look here, Molly," he said, "wha'd' you want to give me away for?
+He'll think I'm a sissy, helping you do dishes and things."
+
+"My dear, my dear!" she exclaimed contritely, "I didn't think of it.
+Please forgive me, Jim. Anyway, you don't really care what this man
+thinks about any of us----"
+
+"Yes, I do! Anyway, a fellow doesn't want another fellow to think he
+washes dishes."
+
+"You darling! Forgive me. I wasn't thinking. It was too stupid of me."
+
+"It really was," said the boy, in his sweet, dignified voice, "and I'd
+been telling him that I'd shot ducks, too."
+
+[Illustration: "'I'm _so_ sorry, Jim.'"]
+
+His sister caught him around the neck and kissed his blonde head. "I'm
+_so_ sorry, Jim. He won't think of it again. If he does, he'll only
+respect a boy who is so good to his sister. And," she added,
+cautioning him with lifted finger, "don't talk too much to him, Jim, no
+matter how nice and kind he is. I know how lonely you are and how
+pleasant it is to talk to a man like Mr. Marche; but remember that
+father doesn't wish us to say anything about ourselves or about him, so
+we must be careful."
+
+"Why doesn't father want us to speak about him or ourselves to Mr.
+Marche?" asked the boy.
+
+His sister had gone back to her dishes. Now, looking around over her
+shoulder, she said seriously, "That is father's affair, dear, not ours."
+
+"But don't you know why?"
+
+"Shame on you, Jim! What father cares to tell us he will tell us; but
+it's exceedingly bad manners to ask."
+
+"Is father really very ill?"
+
+"I told you that to ask me such things is improper," said the girl,
+coloring. "He has told us that he does not feel well, and that he
+prefers to remain in his room for a few days. That is enough for us,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said the boy thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Marche, buried under a mountain of bed clothes, dreamed that people were
+rapping noisily on his door, and grinned in his dream, meaning to let
+them rap until they tired of it. Suddenly a voice sounded through his
+defiant slumbers, clear and charming as a golden ray parting thick
+clouds. The next moment he found himself awake, bolt upright in the icy
+dusk of his room, listening.
+
+"Mr. Marche! Won't you _please_ wake up and answer?" came the clear,
+young voice again.
+
+"I _beg_ your pardon!" he cried. "I'll be down in a minute!"
+
+He heard her going away downstairs, and for a few seconds he squatted
+there, huddled in coverings to the chin, and eying the darkness in a
+sort of despair. The feverish drive of Wall Street, late suppers, and
+too much good fellowship had not physically hardened Marche. He was
+accustomed to have his bath tempered comfortably for his particular
+brand of physique. Breakfast, also, was a most carefully ordered
+informality with him.
+
+The bitter chill smote him. Cursing the simple life, he crawled gingerly
+out of bed, suffered acutely while hunting for a match, lighted the
+kerosene lamp with stiffened fingers, and looked about him, shivering.
+Then, with a suppressed anathema, he stepped into his folding tub and
+emptied the arctic contents of the water pitcher over himself.
+
+Half an hour later he appeared at the breakfast table, hungrier than he
+had been in years. There was nobody there to wait on him, but the dishes
+and coffee pot were piping hot, and he madly ate eggs and razor-back,
+and drank quantities of coffee, and finally set fire to a cigarette,
+feeling younger and happier than he had felt for ages.
+
+Of one thing he was excitedly conscious: that dreadful and persistent
+dragging feeling at the nape of his neck had vanished. It didn't seem
+possible that it could have disappeared overnight, but it had, for the
+present, at least.
+
+He went into the sitting room. Nobody was there, either, so he broke his
+sealed shell boxes, filled his case with sixes and fives and double B's,
+drew his expensive ducking gun from its case and took a look at it,
+buckled the straps of his hip boots to his belt, felt in the various
+pockets of his shooting coat to see whether matches, pipe, tobacco,
+vaseline, oil, shell extractor, knife, handkerchief, gloves, were in
+their proper places; found them so, and, lighting another cigarette,
+strolled contentedly around the small and almost bare room, bestowing a
+contented and patronizing glance upon each humble article and decoration
+as he passed.
+
+Evidently this photograph, in an oval frame of old-time water gilt, was
+a portrait of Miss Herold's mother. What a charming face, with its
+delicate, high-bred nose and lips! The boy, Jim, had her mouth and nose,
+and his sister her eyes, slightly tilted to a slant at the outer
+corners--beautifully shaped eyes, he remembered.
+
+He lingered a moment, then strolled on, viewing with tolerant
+indifference the few poor ornaments on the mantel, the chromos of wild
+ducks and shore birds, and found himself again by the lamp-lit table
+from which he had started his explorations.
+
+On it were Jim's Latin book, a Bible, and several last year's magazines.
+
+Idly he turned the flyleaf of the schoolbook. Written there was the
+boy's name--"Jim, from Daddy."
+
+As he was closing the cover a sudden instinct arrested his hand, and,
+not knowing exactly why, he reopened the book and read the inscription
+again. He read it again, too, with a vague sensation of familiarity with
+it, or with the book, or something somehow connected with it, he could
+not tell exactly what; but a slightly uncomfortable feeling remained as
+he laid aside the book and stood with brows knitted and eyes absently
+bent on the stove.
+
+The next moment Jim came in, wearing a faded overcoat which he had
+outgrown.
+
+"Hello!" said Marche, looking up. "Are you ready for me, Jim?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What sort of a chance have I?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is blue-bird weather," said the boy diffidently.
+
+Marche scowled, then smiled. "Your sister said it would probably be that
+kind of weather. Well, we all have to take a sporting chance with things
+in general, don't we, Jim?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Marche picked up his gun case and cartridge box. The boy offered to take
+them, but the young man shook his head.
+
+"Lead on, old sport!" he said cheerily. "I'm a beast of more burdens
+than you know anything about. How's your father, by the way?"
+
+"I think father is about the same."
+
+"Doesn't he need a doctor?"
+
+"No, sir, I think not."
+
+"What is it, Jim? Fever?"
+
+"I don't know," said the boy, in a low voice. He led the way, and Marche
+followed him out of doors.
+
+A gray light made plain the desolation of the scene, although the sun
+had not yet risen. To the south and west the sombre pine woods stretched
+away; eastward, a few last year's cornstalks stood, withered in the
+clearing, through which a rutted road ran down to the water.
+
+"It isn't the finest farming land in the world, is it, Jim?" he said
+humorously.
+
+"I haven't seen any other land," said the boy quietly.
+
+"Don't you remember the Northern country at all?"
+
+"No, sir--except Central Park."
+
+"Oh, you were New-Yorkers?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Father----" and he fell abruptly silent.
+
+They were walking together down the rutted road, and Marche glanced
+around at him.
+
+"What were you going to say about your father, Jim?"
+
+"Nothing." Then truth jogged his arm. "I mean I was only going to say
+that father and mother and all of us lived there."
+
+"In New York?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Is your--your mother living?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"I think I saw her picture in the sitting room," he said gently. "She
+must have been everything a mother should be."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Was it long ago, Jim?"
+
+"When she died?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Yes, very long ago. Six years ago."
+
+"Before you came here, then?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+After they had walked in silence for a little while, Marche said, "I
+suppose you have arranged for somebody to take me out?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+They emerged from the lane to the shore at the same moment, and Marche
+glanced about for the expected bayman.
+
+"Oh, there he is!" he said, as a figure came from behind a dory and
+waded leisurely shoreward through the shallows--a slight figure in hip
+boots and wool shooting hood and coat, who came lightly across the sands
+to meet him. And, astonished, he looked into the gray eyes of Molly
+Herold.
+
+"Father could not take you," she said, without embarrassment, "and Jim
+isn't quite big enough to manage the swans and geese. Do you mind my
+acting as your bayman?"
+
+"Mind?" he repeated. "No, of course not. Only--it seems rather rough on
+you. Couldn't you have hired a bayman for me?"
+
+"I will, if you wish," she said, her cheeks reddening. "But, really, if
+you'll let me, I am perfectly accustomed to bayman's work."
+
+"Do you _want_ to do it?"
+
+She said, without self-consciousness, "If it is the same to you, Mr.
+Marche, I had rather that the bayman's wages came to us."
+
+"Certainly--of course," he said hurriedly. Then, smiling: "You look the
+part. I took you for a young man, at first. Now, tell me how I can help
+you."
+
+"Jim can do that. Still, if you don't mind handling the decoys----"
+
+"Not at all," he said, going up to the fenced inclosures which ran from
+a rod or two inland down into the shallow water, making three separate
+yards for geese, swans, and ducks.
+
+Jim was already in the duck pen, hustling the several dozen mallard and
+black ducks into an inland corral. The indignant birds, quacking a
+concerted protest, waddled up from the shore, and, one by one, the boy
+seized the suitable ones, and passed them over the fence to Marche. He
+handed them to Molly Herold, who waded out to the dory, a duck tucked
+under either arm, and slipped them deftly into the decoy-crates forward
+and aft.
+
+The geese were harder to manage--great, sleek, pastel-tinted birds whose
+wing blows had the force of a man's fist--and they flapped and
+struggled and buffeted Jim till his blonde head spun; but at last Marche
+and Molly had them crated in the dory.
+
+Then the wild swans' turn came--great, white creatures with black beaks
+and feet; and Molly and Marche were laughing as they struggled to catch
+them and carry them aboard.
+
+But at last every decoy was squatting in the crates; the mast had been
+stepped, guns laid aboard, luncheon stowed away. Marche set his shoulder
+to the stern; the girl sprang aboard, and he followed; the triangular
+sail filled, and the boat glided out into the sound, straight into the
+glittering lens of the rising sun.
+
+A great winter gull flapped across their bows; in the lee of Starfish
+Island, long strings of wild ducks rose like shredded clouds, and,
+swarming in the sky, swinging, drifting, sheered eastward, out toward
+the unseen Atlantic.
+
+"Bluebills and sprigs," said the girl, resting her elbow on the tiller.
+"There are geese on the shoal, yonder. They've come out from Currituck.
+Oh, I'm afraid it's to be blue-bird weather, Mr. Marche."
+
+"I'm afraid it is," he assented, smiling. "What do you do in that case,
+Miss Herold?"
+
+"Go to sleep in the blind," she admitted, with a faint smile, the first
+delicate approach to anything resembling the careless confidence of
+camaraderie that had yet come from her.
+
+"See the ducks!" she said, as bunch after bunch parted from the water,
+distantly, yet all around them, and, gathering like clouds of dusky
+bees, whirled away through the sky until they seemed like bands of smoke
+high drifting. Presently she turned and looked back, signaling adieu to
+the shore, where her brother lifted his arm in response, then turned
+away inland.
+
+"That's a nice boy," said Marche briefly, and glanced up to see in his
+sister's face the swift and exquisite transformation that requires no
+words as answer.
+
+"You seem to like him," said he, laughing.
+
+Molly Herold's gray eyes softened; pride, that had made the love in
+them brilliant, faded until they grew almost sombre. Silent, her aloof
+gaze remained fixed on the horizon; her lips rested on each other in
+sensitive curves. There was no sound save the curling of foam under the
+bows.
+
+Marche looked elsewhere; then looked at her again. She sat motionless,
+gray eyes remote, one little, wind-roughened hand on the tiller. The
+steady breeze filled the sail; the dory stood straight away toward the
+blinding glory of the sunrise.
+
+Through the unreal golden light, raft after raft of wild ducks rose and
+whirled into the east; blue herons flopped across the water; a
+silver-headed eagle, low over the waves, winged his way heavily toward
+some goal, doggedly intent upon his own business.
+
+Outside Starfish Shoal the girl eased the sheet as the wind freshened.
+Far away on Golden Bar thousands of wild geese, which had been tipping
+their sterns skyward in plunging quest of nourishment, resumed a more
+stately and normal posture, as though at a spoken command; and the long
+ranks, swimming, and led by age and wisdom, slowly moved away into the
+glittering east.
+
+At last, off the starboard bow, the low, reedy levels of Foam Island
+came into view, and in a few minutes more the dory lay in the shallows,
+oars, mast, and rag stowed; and the two young people splashed busily
+about in their hip boots, carrying guns, ammunition, and food into the
+blind.
+
+Then Molly Herold, standing on the mud bank, flung, one by one, a
+squadron of wooden, painted, canvasback decoys into the water, where
+they righted themselves, and presently rode the waves, bobbing and
+steering with startling fidelity to the real things.
+
+Then it came the turn of the real things. Marche and Molly, a struggling
+bird tucked under each arm, waded out along the lanes of stools, feeling
+about under the icy water until their fingers encountered the wire-cored
+cords. Then, to the leg rings of each madly flapping duck and swan and
+goose they snapped on the leads, and the tethered birds, released, beat
+the water into foam and flapped and splashed and tugged, until, finally
+reconciled, they began to souse themselves with great content, and
+either mounted their stools or swam calmly about as far as their tethers
+permitted.
+
+Marche, struggling knee-deep in the water, his arms full of wildly
+flapping gander, hailed Molly for instructions.
+
+"That's a mated bird!" she called out to him. "Peg him outside by
+himself!"
+
+So Marche pegged out the furious old gander, whose name was Uncle
+Dudley, and in a few minutes that dignified and insulted bird, missing
+his spouse, began to talk about it.
+
+Every wifely feeling outraged, his spouse replied loudly from the
+extreme end of the inner lane, telling her husband, and every duck,
+goose, and swan in the vicinity, what she thought of such an inhuman
+separation.
+
+Molly laughed, and so did Marche. Duck after duck, goose after goose,
+joined indignantly in the conversation. The mallard drakes twisted their
+emerald-green heads and began that low, half gurgling, half quacking
+conversation in which their mottled brown and gray mates joined with
+louder quacks. The geese conversed freely; but the long-necked swans
+held their peace, occupied with the problem of picking to pieces the
+snaps on their anklets.
+
+"Now," said Molly breathlessly, as the last madly protesting bird had
+been stooled, "let's get into the blind as soon as we can, Mr. Marche.
+There may be ducks in Currituck still, and every minute counts now."
+
+So Marche towed the dory around to the westward and drew it into a
+channel where it might lie concealed under the reeds.
+
+When he came across to the blind he found Molly there, seated on the
+plank in the cemented pit behind the screen of reeds and rushes, laying
+out for him his cartridges.
+
+There they were, in neat rows on the rail, fives, sixes, and a few of
+swanshot, ranged in front of him. And his 12-gauge, all ready, save for
+the loading, lay across the pit to his right. So he dropped his booted
+feet into the wooden tub where a foot-warmer lay, picked up the gun,
+slid a pair of sixes into it, laid it beside him, and turned toward Miss
+Herold.
+
+The wool collar of her sweater was turned up about her delicately molded
+throat and face. The wild-rose color ran riot in her cheeks, and her
+eyes, sky tinted now, were wide open under the dark lashes, and the wind
+stirred her hair till it rippled bronze and gold under the edge of her
+shooting hood. She, too, was perfectly ready. A cheap, heavy, and rather
+rusty gun lay beside her; a heap of cheap cartridges before her.
+
+She turned, and, catching Marche's eyes, smiled adorably, with a slight
+nod of comradeship. Then, the smile still faintly curving her lips, she
+crossed her legs in the pit, and, warming her hands in the pockets of
+her coat, leaned back, resting against the rail behind.
+
+"You haven't a foot-warmer," he said.
+
+"I'm not cold--only my fingers--a little--stooling those birds."
+
+They spoke in low voices, under their breath.
+
+He fished from his pocket a flat Japanese hand-warmer, lighted the
+paper-cased punk, snapped it shut, and passed it to her. But she
+demurred.
+
+"You need it yourself."
+
+"No, I'm all right. Please take it."
+
+So she shyly took it, dropped it into her pocket, and rested her
+shapely little hand on it. "How delightful!" she said presently,
+shifting it to the other pocket. "Don't you really need it, Mr. Marche?"
+
+"No. Does it warm you?"
+
+"It is delicious. I _was_ a little chilled." She drew out one bare hand
+and looked at it thoughtfully. Then, with a little sigh, and quite
+unconscious of his gaze, she touched her lips to the wind-roughened
+skin, as though in atonement for her maltreatment of herself.
+
+Even as it now was the shape and beauty of the hand held Marche
+fascinated; it was so small, yet so firm and strong and competent, so
+full of youthful character, such a delicately fashioned little hand,
+and so pathetic, somehow--this woman's hand, with its fineness of
+texture and undamaged purity under the chapped and cruelly bruised,
+tender skin.
+
+She pocketed it again, looking out from under the wind-blown hair
+clustering from the edge of her shooting hood. "Blue-bird weather," she
+said, in her low and very sweet voice. "If no birds swing in by ten
+o'clock we might as well sleep until four."
+
+Marche leaned forward and scanned the water and sky alternately. Nothing
+stirred, save their lazily preening decoys. Uncle Dudley was still
+conversing with his wife at intervals; the swans and the cygnets fed or
+worried their leash snaps; the ducks paddled, or dozed on the stools,
+balanced on one leg.
+
+Far away, on Golden Bar, half a thousand wild geese floated, feeding;
+beyond, like snowflakes dotting the water, a few wild swans drifted.
+There were ducks, too, off Starfish Island again, but nothing flying in
+the blue except a slow hawk or some wandering gull, or now and then an
+eagle--sometimes a mature bird, in all the splendor of white head and
+tail, sometimes a young bird, seemingly larger, and all gray from crest
+to shank.
+
+Once an eagle threatened the decoys, and Uncle Dudley swore so lustily
+at him, and every duck and goose set up such a clamor, that Molly Herold
+picked up her gun for the emergency. But the magnificent eagle, beating
+up into the wind with bronze wings aglisten, suddenly sheered off; and,
+as he passed, Marche could see his bold head turn toward the blind where
+the sun had flashed him its telegraphic warning on the barrel of Molly's
+lifted gun.
+
+"Fine!" he whispered. "Splendid! I'm glad you didn't kill him."
+
+"I'm glad I didn't have to," she said.
+
+"Do you think you could have?"
+
+She turned toward him, wondering whether he might be serious; then
+smiled as he smiled.
+
+At the same instant, coming apparently from nowhere, four canvasbacks
+suddenly appeared over the clamoring decoys, so close in that, as they
+came driving by the blind and rose slightly, wings bowed, Marche could
+almost see their beady little eyes set in the chestnut red of the
+turning heads. Mechanically his gun spoke twice; rap-rap, echoed Miss
+Herold's gun, and splash! splash! down whirled two gray-and-red ducks;
+then a third, uncertain, slowed down, far out beyond the decoys, and
+slanted sideways to the water. The fourth went on.
+
+"Duffer that I am," said Marche good-humoredly. "That was a clean double
+of yours, Miss Herold!--clean-cut work."
+
+She said, slightly knitting her straight brows: "I should have crossed
+two of them and killed the one you missed. I think I'd better get the
+boat."
+
+"No, I'll go out after that kicker," he said, ashamed of his slovenly
+work.
+
+Five minutes later he returned with his kicker and her two ducks--great,
+fat, heavy canvasbacks, beautiful in their red, black, and drab plumage.
+
+"What about blue-bird weather, now?" he laughed.
+
+But she only smiled and said, "I'm very much afraid."
+
+For a long while they sat there, alert behind their wall of rustling
+reeds, watching sky and water. False alarms were not infrequent from
+their decoys. Sometimes the outbreak of quacking and honking was
+occasioned by some wandering gull, sometimes by a circling hawk or some
+eagle loitering in mid-heaven on broad and leisurely wings, reluctant to
+remain, unwilling to go; sometimes to a pair or two of widgeon or
+pintails speeding eastward high in the blue. But the sparkling,
+cloudless hours sped away, and no duck or goose or swan invaded the
+vicinity. Only one sly old black duck dropped into the reeds far back on
+the island; and Marche went after him with serious designs upon his
+fraudulent old life.
+
+When the young man returned, twenty minutes later, perfectly innocent of
+duck murder, he found the girl curled up in her corner of the pit, eyes
+closed, tired little head cradled in the curve of her left arm. She
+waked as he slid into the blind, and smiled at him, pretending not to
+have been asleep.
+
+"Did you get him?"
+
+"No. He went off at two hundred yards."
+
+"Blue-bird weather," she sighed; and again they exchanged smiles. He
+noticed that her eyes had somehow become exceedingly blue instead of the
+clear gray which he had supposed was their color. And, after her brief
+slumber, there seemed to be a sort of dewy freshness about them, and
+about her slightly pink cheeks, which, at that time, he had no idea were
+at all perilous to him. All he was conscious of was a sensation of
+pleasure in looking at her, and a slight surprise in the revelation of
+elements in her which, he began to decide, constituted real beauty.
+
+"That's a quaint expression--'blue-bird weather,'" he said. "It's a
+perfect description of a spring-like day in winter. Is it a local
+expression?"
+
+"Yes--I think so. There's a song about it, along the coast"--she
+laughed uncertainly--"a rather foolish song."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"If I remember"--she hesitated, thinking for a moment, then, with a
+laugh which he thought a little bashful--"it's really too silly to
+repeat!"
+
+"Please sing it!"
+
+"Very well--if you wish."
+
+And in a low, pretty, half-laughing voice, she sang:
+
+  "Quiet sea and quiet sky,
+  Idle sail and anchored boat,
+  Just a snowflake gull afloat,
+  Drifting like a feather--
+  And the gray hawk crying,
+  And a man's heart sighing--
+  That is blue-bird weather:--
+  And the high hawk crying,
+  And a maid's heart sighing
+  Till lass and lover come together,--
+  This is blue-bird weather."
+
+
+She turned her head and looked steadily out across the waste of water.
+"I told you it was silly," she said, very calmly.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Blue-bird weather continued. Every day for a week Marche and Molly
+Herold put out for Foam Island under summer skies, and with a soft wind
+filling the sail; and in all the water-world there was no visible sign
+of winter, save the dead reeds on muddy islands and the far and wintry
+menace of the Atlantic crashing icily beyond the eastern dunes.
+
+Few ducks and no geese or swans came to the blind. There was nothing
+for them to do except to talk together or sit dozing in the sun. And,
+imperceptibly, between them the elements of a pretty intimacy unfolded
+like spring buds on unfamiliar branches; but what they might develop
+into he did not know, and she had not even considered.
+
+She had a quaint capacity for sleeping in the sunshine while he was away
+on the island prowling hopefully after black ducks. And one morning,
+when he returned to find her asleep at her post, a bunch of widgeon left
+the stools right under her nose before he had a chance to shoot.
+
+She did not awake. The sun fell warmly upon her, searching the
+perfections of the childlike face and throat, gilding the palm of one
+little, sun-tanned hand lying, partly open, on her knee. A spring-like
+wind stirred a single strand of bright hair; lips slightly parted, she
+lay there, face to the sky, and Marche thought that he had never looked
+upon anything in all the world more pure and peaceful.
+
+At noon the girl had not awakened. But something in John B. Marche had.
+He looked in horrified surprise at the decoys, then looked at Molly
+Herold; then he gazed in profound astonishment at Uncle Dudley, who made
+a cryptic remark to the wife of his bosom, and then tipped upside down.
+
+Marche examined the sky and water so carefully that he did not see them;
+then, sideways, and with an increasing sensation of consternation, he
+looked again at the sleeping girl.
+
+His was not even a friendly gaze, now; there was more than dawning alarm
+in it--an irritated curiosity which grew more intense as the seconds
+throbbed out, absurdly timed by a most remarkable obligato from his
+heart.
+
+He gazed stonily upon this stranger into whose life he had drifted only
+a week before, whose slumbers he felt that he was now unwarrantedly
+invading with a mental presumption that scared him; and yet, as often as
+he looked elsewhere, he looked back at her again, confused by the slowly
+dawning recognition of a fascination which he was utterly powerless to
+check or even control.
+
+One thing was already certain; he wanted to know her, to learn from her
+own lips intimately about herself, about her thoughts, her desires, her
+tastes, her aspirations--even her slightest fancies.
+
+Absorbed, charmed by her quiet breathing, fascinated into immobility, he
+sat there gazing at her, trying to reconcile the steadily strengthening
+desire to know her with what he already knew of her--of this sleeping
+stranger, this shabby child of a poor man, dressed in the boots and
+shooting coat of that wretchedly poor man--his own superintendent, a
+sick man whom he had never even seen.
+
+What manner of man could her father be--this man Herold--to have a child
+of this sort, this finely molded, fine-grained, delicate, exquisitely
+made girl, lying asleep here in a wind-stirred blind, with the Creator's
+own honest sun searching out and making triumphant a beauty such as his
+wise and city-worn eyes had never encountered, even under the mercies of
+softened candlelight.
+
+An imbecile repetition of speech kept recurring and even stirring his
+lips, "She'd make them all look like thirty cents." And he colored
+painfully at the crudeness of his obsessing thoughts, angrily, after a
+moment, shaking them from him.
+
+A cartridge rolled from the shelf and splashed into the pit water; the
+girl unclosed her gray eyes, met his gaze, smiled dreamily; then,
+flushing a little, sat up straight.
+
+"Fifteen widgeon went off when I returned to the blind," he said,
+unsmiling.
+
+"I _beg_ your pardon. I am--I am terribly sorry," she stammered, with a
+vivid blush of confusion.
+
+But the first smile from her unclosing eyes had already done damage
+enough; the blush merely disorganized a little more what was already
+chaos in a young man's mind.
+
+"Has--has anything else come in to the stools?" she asked timidly.
+
+"No," he said, relenting.
+
+But he was wrong. Something _had_ come into the blind--a winged,
+fluttering thing, out of the empyrean--and even Uncle Dudley had not
+seen or heard it, and never a honk or a quack warned anybody, or
+heralded the unseen coming of the winged thing.
+
+Marche sat staring out across the water.
+
+"I--am so very sorry," repeated the girl, in a low voice. "Are you
+offended with me?"
+
+He turned and looked at her, and spoke steadily enough: "Of course I'm
+not. I was glad you had a nap. There has been nothing doing--except
+those stupid widgeon--not a feather stirring."
+
+"Then you are not angry with me?"
+
+"Why, you absurd girl!" he said, laughing and stretching out one hand
+to her.
+
+Into her face flashed an exquisite smile; daintily she reached out and
+dropped her hand into his. They exchanged a friendly shake, still
+smiling.
+
+"All the same," she said, "it was horrid of me. And I think I boasted to
+you about my knowledge of a bayman's duties."
+
+"You are all right," he said, "a clean shot, a thoroughbred. I ask no
+better comrade than you. I never again shall have such a comrade."
+
+"But--I am your bayman, not your comrade," she exclaimed, forcing a
+little laugh. "You'll have better guides than I, Mr. Marche."
+
+"Do you reject the equal alliance I offer, Miss Herold?"
+
+"I?" She flushed. "It is very kind of you to put it that way. But I _am_
+only your guide--but it is pleasant to have you speak that way."
+
+"What way?"
+
+"The way you spoke about--your bayman's daughter."
+
+He said, smilingly cool on the surface, but in a chaotic, almost idiotic
+inward condition: "I've sat here for days, wishing all the while that I
+might really know you. Would you care to let me, Miss Herold?"
+
+"Know me?" she repeated. "I don't think I understand."
+
+"Could you and your father and brother regard me as a guest--as a friend
+visiting the family?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because," he said, "I'm the same kind of a man that you are a girl and
+that your brother is a boy. Why, you know it, don't you? I know it. I
+knew it as soon as I heard you speak, and when your brother came into
+the room that first night with his Latin book, and when I saw your
+mother's picture. So I know what your father must be. Am I not right?"
+
+She lifted her proud little head and looked at him. "We are what you
+think us," she said.
+
+"Then let us stand in that relation, Miss Herold. Will you?"
+
+She looked at him, perplexed, gray eyes clear and thoughtful. "Do you
+mean that you really want me for a friend?" she asked calmly, but her
+sensitive lip quivered a little.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do men make personal friends among their employees? Do they? I ask
+because I don't know."
+
+"What was your father before he came here?" he inquired bluntly.
+
+She looked up, startled, then the color came slowly back to her cheeks.
+"Isn't that a little impertinent, Mr. Marche?"
+
+"Good heavens! Yes, of course it is!" he exclaimed, turning very red.
+"Will you forgive me? I didn't mean to be rude or anything like it! I
+merely meant that whatever reverses have happened to bring such a girl
+as you down into this God-forsaken place have not altered what you were
+and what you are. _Can_ you forgive me?"
+
+"Yes. I'll tell you something. I _wanted_ to be a little more
+significant to you than merely a paid guide. So did Jim. We--it is
+rather lonely for us. You are the first real man who has come into our
+lives in five years. Do you understand, Mr. Marche?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"Are you sure you do? We would like to feel that we could talk to
+you--Jim would. It is pleasant to hear a man from the real world
+speaking. Not that the people here are unkind, only"--she looked up at
+him almost wistfully--"we _are_ like you, Mr. Marche--and we feel
+starved, sometimes."
+
+He did not trust himself to speak, even to look at her, just at the
+moment. Not heretofore sentimental, but always impressionable, he was
+young enough to understand, wise enough not to misunderstand.
+
+After a while, leaning back in the blind, he began, almost casually,
+talking about things in that Northern world which had once been hers,
+assuming their common interest in matters purely local, in details, of
+metropolitan affairs, in the changing physiognomy of the monstrous city,
+its superficial aspects, its complex phases.
+
+Timidly, at first, she ventured a question now and then, and after a
+while, as her reserve melted, she asked more boldly, and even offered
+her own comments on men and things, so that, for the first time, he had
+a glimpse of her mind at work--brief, charming surprises, momentary
+views of a young girl's eager intelligence, visions of her sad and
+solitary self, more guessed at than revealed in anything she said or
+left unsaid.
+
+And now they were talking together with free and unfeigned interest and
+pleasure, scarcely turning for a glance at the water or sky, save when
+old Uncle Dudley made insulting remarks to some slow-drifting gull or
+soaring bird of prey.
+
+All the pent-up and natural enthusiasm of years was fairly bubbling to
+her lips; all the long-suppressed necessity of speech with one of her
+own kind who was not of her own kin.
+
+It seemed as though they conversed and exchanged views on every topic
+which concerned heaven and earth, flashing from one subject to another
+which had nothing at all to do with anything yet discussed.
+
+Out around them the flat leagues of water turned glassy and calm as a
+millpond; the ducks and geese were asleep on their stools; even old
+Uncle Dudley stood sentinel, with one leg buried in the downy plumage of
+his belly, but his weather eye remained brilliantly open to any stir in
+the blue vault above.
+
+[Illustration: "They ate their luncheon there together."]
+
+They ate their luncheon there together, he serving her with hot coffee
+from the vacuum bottle, she plying him with sandwiches.
+
+And now, to her beauty was added an adorable friendliness and
+confidence, free from the slightest taint of self-consciousness or the
+least blemish of coquetry. Intelligent, yet modest to the verge of
+shyness, eager yet reserved, warm hearted yet charmingly impersonal with
+him, he realized that she was finding, with him, only the happiness of
+speech with mankind in the abstract. And so she poured out to him her
+heart, long stifled in the abyss of her isolation; and, gazing into his
+eyes, she was gazing merely toward all that was bright and happy and
+youthful and responsive, and he was its symbol, God-sent from those busy
+haunts of men which already, to her, had become only memories of a
+blessed vision.
+
+And all the while the undercurrent of his own thoughts ran on
+unceasingly: "What can I do for her? I am falling in love--in love,
+surely, hopelessly. What can I do for her--for her brother--her father?
+I am falling in love--in love--in love."
+
+The long, still, sunny afternoon slipped away. Gradually the water
+turned to pearl, inlaid with gold, then with glowing rose. And now, far
+to the north, the first thrilling clangor of wild geese, high in the
+blue, came to their ears, and they shrank apart and lay back, staring
+upward. Nearer, nearer, came the sky trumpets, answering faintly each to
+each--nearer, nearer, till high over the blind swept the misty wedge;
+and old Uncle Dudley flapped his wings and stretched his neck, calling
+up to his wild comrades of earthly delights unnumbered here under the
+shadow of death. And every wild goose answered him, and the decoys
+flapped and clamored a siren welcome; but the flying wedge glided onward
+through the blue.
+
+"They've begun to move," whispered the girl. "But, oh, dear! It is
+blue-bird weather. Hark! Do you hear the swans? I can hear swans coming
+out of the north!"
+
+Marche could not yet hear them, but the tethered swans and geese heard,
+and a magnificent chorus rose from the water. Then, far away as
+fairyland, faintly out of the sky, came a new murmur--not the martial
+clangor of wild geese, but something wilder, more exquisitely
+unearthly--nearer, nearer, enrapturing its weird, celestial beauty. And
+now, through the blue, with great, snowy wings slowly beating, the swans
+passed over like angels; and like angels passing, hailing each other as
+they winged their way, drifting on broad, white pinions, they called,
+each to the other in their sweet, unreal voices, gossiping, garrulous,
+high in the sky. And far away they floated on until they became only a
+silver ribbon undulating against the azure; and even then Marche could
+hear the soft tumult of their calling: Heu! Heu! Hiou! Hiou-oo! until
+sound and snowy flecks vanished together in mid-heaven.
+
+Again, coming from the far north, the trumpets of the sky squadron were
+sounding; they passed, wedge after wedge, sometimes in steady formation,
+sometimes like a wavering band of witches, and again in shifting
+battalions, sternly officered, passing through intricate aërial
+maneuvers, and greeted by Uncle Dudley and the other decoys with wild
+beseeching mixed with applause.
+
+Snowy, angelic companies of swans came alternately with the geese; then
+a whimpering, whispering flight of wild ducks, water-fowl in thousands
+and tens of thousands, rushing onward through the aërial lanes.
+
+But none came to the blind. Occasionally a wedge of geese wavered,
+irresolute at the frantic persuasions of Uncle Dudley, but their leader
+always dragged them back to their course, and the sagging, hesitating
+ranks passed on.
+
+Sometimes, in a nearer flight of swans, some long-necked, snowy creature
+would bend its head to look curiously down at the tethered swans on the
+water, but always they continued on, settling some two miles south of
+Foaming Shoals, until there was half a mile of wild swans afloat there,
+looking like a long, low bank of snow, touched with faintest pink by the
+glow of the westering sun.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Marche, pacing the shabby sitting room after supper, an unlighted
+cigarette between his fingers, listened to Jim recite his Latin lesson.
+
+"_Atque ea qui ad efeminandos animos pertinent important_," repeated the
+boy; and Marche nodded absently.
+
+"Do you understand what that means, Jim?"
+
+"Not exactly, sir."
+
+Marche explained, then added smilingly: "But there is nothing luxurious
+to corrupt manhood among the coast marshes down here. Barring fever and
+moccasins, Jim, you ought to emerge, some day, into the larger world
+equipped for trouble."
+
+"I shall go out some day," said the boy.
+
+Marche glanced up at the portrait of the boy's mother in its pale-gilt
+oval. Near it, another nail had been driven, and on the faded wall paper
+was an oval discoloration, as though another picture had once hung
+there.
+
+"I wish I might see your father before I go North," said Marche, half to
+himself. "Isn't he well enough to let me talk to him for a few minutes?"
+
+"I will ask him," said the boy.
+
+Marche paced the ragged carpet until the return of Jimmy.
+
+"Father is sorry, and asks you to please excuse him," he said.
+
+Marche had picked up the boy's schoolbook and was looking at the writing
+on the flyleaf again. Then he raised his head, eyes narrowing on the boy
+as though searching for some elusive memory connected with him--with his
+name in the Latin book--perhaps with the writing, which, somehow, had
+stirred in him, once more, the same odd and uncomfortable sensation
+which he had experienced when he first saw it.
+
+[Illustration: "'Jim,' he said, 'where did you live?'"]
+
+"Jim," he said, "where did you live when you lived in New York?"
+
+"In Eighty-seventh Street."
+
+"West?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Do you remember the house--the number?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Was it a private house?"
+
+"I don't know. It was very tall. We lived on one floor and used an
+elevator."
+
+"I see. It was an apartment house."
+
+The boy stood, with blonde head lowered, silently turning over the
+leaves of an old magazine.
+
+Marche walked out to the porch; his brows were bent slightly inward, and
+he bit the end of his unlighted cigarette until the thing became
+useless. Then he flung it away. A few stars watched him above the black
+ramparts of the pines; a gentle wind was abroad, bringing inland the
+restless voice of the sea.
+
+In Marche's mind a persistent thought was groping in darkness, vainly
+striving to touch and awaken memories of things forgotten. What was it
+he was trying to remember? What manner of episode, and how connected
+with this place, with the boy's book, with the portrait of his mother in
+its oval frame? Had he seen that portrait before? Perhaps he had seen it
+here, five years ago; yet that could not be, because Herold had not been
+here then.
+
+Was it the writing on the flyleaf that had stirred some forgotten
+memory? It had seemed to him familiar, somehow--yet not like the
+handwriting in Herold's business letters to him. Yet it _was_ Herold's
+writing--"Jim, from Daddy"--that was the inscription. And that
+inscription had riveted his attention from the first moment he saw it.
+
+Who was Herold? Who was this man whose undoubtable breeding and personal
+cultivation had stamped his children with the same unmistakable
+distinction?
+
+Somehow or other there had been a great fall in the world for him--a
+terrible tumble from higher estate to land him here in this desolation
+of swamp-bound silence--here where only the dark pines broke the vast
+sky line, where the only sound was the far rumor of the sea. Sick,
+probably with coast fever, poor, dependent, no doubt, on the salary
+Marche paid him, isolated from all in the world that made the world
+endurable to intelligence, responsible for two growing children--one
+already a woman--what must be the thoughts of such a man on a night like
+this, for instance?
+
+"I want to see that man," he kept repeating to himself. "I want to see
+him; and I'm going to."
+
+Restless, but now always listening for the sound of a light tread which
+he had come to know so well--alas!--he began to walk to and fro, with
+keen glances toward the illuminated kitchen window every time he passed
+it. Sometimes his mind was chaotic; sometimes clear. The emotions which
+had awakened in him within the week were complex enough to stagger a
+more intelligent man. And Marche was not a fool; he was the typical
+product of his environment--the result of school and college, and a New
+York business life carried on in keenest competition with men as
+remorseless in business as the social code permitted. Also, he went to
+church on Sundays, read a Republican newspaper, and belonged to several
+unexceptionable clubs.
+
+That was the kind of a man he had been only a week ago--a good fellow in
+the usual sense among men, acceptable to women, kind hearted, not too
+cynical, and every idea in his head modeled upon the opinions he heard
+expressed in that limited area wherein he had been born and bred.
+
+That was the kind of a man he had been a week ago. What was he
+now--to-night--here in this waste corner of the world with the light
+from a kitchen window blazing on him as though it were the flashing
+splendor streaming through the barred portals of paradise? Was it
+possible that he, John Benton Marche, could be actually in love--in love
+with the daughter of his own game warden--with a girl who served him at
+supper in apron and gingham, who served him further in hip boots and
+ragged jacket--this modern Rosalind of the marshes, as fresh and
+innocent, as modest and ardent, as she of the Arden glades?
+
+The kitchen door opened, and Molly Herold came down the steps and
+straight toward him, unthinkingly, almost instinctively, laying her
+hands in his as he met her under the leafless China tree in the yard.
+
+"I was longer than usual to-night," she said, "trying to soften my hands
+with that cold cream you so kindly sent for." She lifted them in the
+starlight with a little laugh. "They're a trifle better, I think," she
+said, "but they're always in water, you know, either there," she glanced
+around at the kitchen, "or yonder with the decoys. But thank you all the
+same," she added brightly. "Are you going to have another delightful
+talk, now?"
+
+"Do you care to?"
+
+"Of course. The idea of my not caring to talk to you," she said,
+laughing at the absurdity. "Shall we go into the sitting room, or walk
+in the starlight? There are no snakes out, yet," she assured him,
+"though if this weather holds, the moccasins will come out."
+
+"We'll walk down to the shore," he said.
+
+"One moment, then." She turned and sped to the house, reappearing, after
+a few minutes, wearing her ragged shooting coat.
+
+"Is your father comfortable?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, thank you."
+
+"Do you think he might want you?"
+
+"No. Jim sleeps next to him, and he is preparing for bed, now." She
+smiled. "What a darling my brother is, isn't he, Mr. Marche?"
+
+"He's a fine boy."
+
+They moved on together, down the rutted lane, between dismantled fences
+and ragged, leafless hedges. She was lithe and light and sure footed,
+but once or twice, as they skirted puddles, he supported her; and the
+touch of his hand on her body almost unnerved him. Never had he dreamed
+that contact with any woman could so thrill, so exquisitely shock. And
+every instant he was falling deeper and deeper in love with her. He knew
+it--realized it--made no effort to avoid it, fight it off, control it.
+It was only his speech and manner that he held desperately under bit and
+curb, letting his heart go to everlasting smash and his reason run riot.
+And what on earth would be the end he could not imagine, for he was
+leaving for the North in the morning, and he had not yet told her.
+
+As they came out upon the shore, the dory loomed up, beached, a dark
+silhouette against the starlit water. She laid her hands on the stern
+and vaulted lightly to her perch, sliding along to make room for Marche.
+
+From far away in the sound came the confused murmur of wild fowl
+feeding. Except for that, and the ceaseless monotone of the outer sea,
+there was no sound, not even the lap of water against the bow.
+
+Marche, who had been leaning forward, head bent as though watching the
+water, turned to the girl abruptly. "I want to do something for--Jim,"
+he said.
+
+The girl looked up at him, not understanding.
+
+"Will your father let me?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"I mean that I want to send him to a good school--a good boys' school in
+the North."
+
+She caught her breath, was silent for a moment, then, amazed: "_Would_
+you do that? Oh, I've wished for it--dreamed of it! But--how can you?
+You are so kind--so good to us--but how could we--accept?"
+
+"That's why I want to see your father."
+
+"For _that_! Was it really for that, Mr. Marche?"
+
+"Yes--partly." He swallowed and looked the other way, for the girl's
+excited face was very near his own as she bent forward to search his
+eyes for the least change of expression--bent nearer as though to
+reassure herself that he meant it seriously. For an instant her soft
+breath made the night air fragrant; he felt it, faint and fresh on his
+cheek, and turned sharply, biting his lips lest he lose all
+self-control.
+
+"Could you and your father spare him?" he asked carelessly.
+
+"Oh, if you only would give him that chance!" she cried. "But--tell
+me--_how_ can we accept such a thing of you? Is it possible?"
+
+"Would _you_ accept it?" he asked, turning toward her.
+
+The question startled her. She looked at him, striving to think clearly,
+trying to see this offered miracle through calm, impartial eyes.
+
+"I--I would do anything--almost--for Jim," she said. "I'd have no pride
+left, if his chances lay in the balance. But men--my father--may be
+different."
+
+He said slowly: "Suppose I offered the same chance to you?"
+
+"What!" she said crisply.
+
+"Suppose I offered you a college finishing, Miss Herold. Would you
+accept?"
+
+She slowly grew scarlet under his gaze. "That would be insulting," she
+said, in a low voice.
+
+"Why, when only kindness is meant--as I mean it for Jim?"
+
+"It is not the same. I am a grown woman capable of caring for myself.
+Such an offer, however kindly meant, could only hurt me, humiliate
+me--and--I thought you found me companionable as I am. Friends do not
+offer to better each other--in such a way."
+
+"I have not offered it to you, Miss Herold."
+
+She looked up, still flushed and brilliant eyed; then her face changed
+softly. "I know it. I was foolishly sensitive. I know you couldn't offer
+such a thing to me. But I wish I knew whether we could accept for Jim.
+He is such a darling--so intelligent and perfectly crazy for an
+education. I've saved a little--that's why I wanted you to hire me for
+your bayman. You see I don't spend anything on myself," she added, with
+a blush.
+
+Marche was fighting hard for self-restraint; he was young and romantic,
+and his heart was very full. "What I'd like to do," he said, "would be
+to send Jim to some first-rate school until he is ready for college.
+Then I'd like to see him through college, and, if he cared for it, start
+him with me in business."
+
+"Oh," she cried softly, "is it possible! Is there--can any man really do
+such heavenly things? Have you any idea what you are saying? Do you
+realize what you are doing to me--with every word you utter?"
+
+"What am I doing to--to you?" he asked unsteadily.
+
+"Making me your slave," she said, in a low voice, thrilling with
+generous passion. "Even for the thought--even if father will not
+accept--what you have said to me to-night has put me in your debt
+forever. Truly--truly, I know what friendship is, now."
+
+She clasped her hands tightly and said something else, sweetly
+incoherent; and, in the starlight, Marche saw the tears sparkling on her
+lashes.
+
+With that he sprang nervously to the shore and began to tramp up and
+down the shingle, his mind in a whirl, every sense, common or the
+contrary, clamoring for finality--urging him to tell her the truth--tell
+her that he loved her, that he wanted her--her alone, out of all the
+world of women--that it was for love and for her, and for love of her,
+that he offered anything, did anything, thought anything now under the
+high stars or under the circling sun.
+
+And now, as he tramped savagely to and fro, he realized that he had
+begun wrong; that he should have told her he loved her first of all, and
+then acted, not promised.
+
+Would she look on his offer scornfully, now? Would she see, in what he
+asked of her, a bribe desired for the offer he had made in her brother's
+behalf? She did not love him. How could she, in a week? Never had there
+been even a hint of sentiment between them. What would she think--this
+young girl, so tranquilly confident in her friendship for him--what
+would she think of him and his love? He knew there was nothing
+mercenary or material in her character; he knew she was young, sweet
+tempered, reticent concerning herself, clean hearted, and proud. How
+could he come blundering through the boundaries of her friendship with
+such an avowal, at a moment's notice?
+
+He returned slowly to the boat and stood looking up at her; and he saw
+that she was smiling down at him in the starlight.
+
+"Why did you start off so abruptly and tramp up and down?" she asked.
+
+He looked up at her. "Shall we walk back, now?" he said.
+
+She extended her hands to him, and he swung her to the beach. For a
+moment he retained her hands; she looked at him, smiling, thrilling with
+all that he had said, meeting his eyes frankly and tenderly.
+
+"You are like some glorious magic prince to me," she said, "appearing
+among us here to win our hearts with a word."
+
+"Have I won yours with what I have said?"
+
+"Mine? Oh, don't you know it? Do you think--even if it doesn't come
+true--that I can ever forget what you have wished to do for Jim?"
+
+Still holding her hands, he lifted them, joined her fingers, and laid
+his lips to them. She bent her head and caught her breath in surprise.
+
+"I am going North to-morrow," he said.
+
+For a moment she did not comprehend his words. Then, a trifle dazed, she
+looked up at him. "To-morrow?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you coming back?"
+
+"Perhaps--next year."
+
+"_Next--year!_"
+
+"Do you--find it--a long time?"
+
+Her straight brows bent inward a little, the startled gray eyes became
+clear and steady. "Of course I knew that you must go--some time. But I
+had no idea that it would be so soon. Somehow, I have thought of you as
+being--here----"
+
+"Do you care?"
+
+Her honest eyes widened. "Care?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes. How greatly do you care?"
+
+The straight brows contracted still more as she stood considering
+him--so close that the fresh and subtle youth of her freshened the night
+again with its faint perfume.
+
+Again he touched her hands with his lips, she watching him palely, out
+of clear, gray eyes; then, as they turned away together, he encircled
+her slender waist with his arm.
+
+That she was conscious of it, and not disturbed by it, was part of her
+new mystery to him. Only once, as they walked, when his circling clasp
+tightened, did she rest her own hand over his where it held her body
+imprisoned. But she said nothing; nor had he spoken when the belt of
+pines loomed against the stars once more.
+
+Then, though neither had spoken, they stopped. He turned to face her,
+drew her into his arms, and the beating of his heart almost suffocated
+him as he looked into her eyes, clear, unshrinking eyes of gray, with a
+child's question in their starry depths.
+
+And he answered the question as in a dream: "I love you. I want you for
+my wife. I want you to love me. You are the first woman I have cared
+for. All that you are I want--no more than you are. You, as you are now,
+are all that I care for in the world. Life is young for us both, yet.
+Let us grow up together--if you can love me. Can you?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Can you not care for me a little, Molly?"
+
+"I do. I know--nothing about--love--real love."
+
+"Can you not imagine it, dear?"
+
+"I--it is what I _have_ imagined--a man--like you--coming this way into
+my loneliness. I recognize it. I have dreamed that it was like this.
+What is it that I should do--if this is really to come true?"
+
+"Love me."
+
+"I would--if I knew how. I don't know how," she said wistfully. "My
+heart is so full--already--of your goodness--I--and then this dream I
+have dreamed--that a man like you should come here and say this to
+me----"
+
+"Is it in you to love me?"
+
+"I'll try--if you'll tell me what to do--how to show it--to
+understand----"
+
+He drew her closer, unresisting, and looked deep into her young eyes,
+and kissed them, and then her lips, till they grew warmer and her breath
+came fragrant and uneven.
+
+"Can you love me?"
+
+"Yes," she whispered.
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+For a moment's exquisite silence she rested her flushed face against his
+shoulder, then lifted it, averted, and stepped aside, out of the circle
+of his arms. Head lowered, she stood there, motionless in the starlight,
+arms hanging straight; then, as he came to her, she lifted her proud
+little head and laid both her hands in his.
+
+"Of those things," she said, "that a woman should be to the man she
+loves, and say to that man, I am ignorant. Even how to speak to
+you--now--I do not know. It is all a dream to me--except that, in my
+heart, I know that I do love you. But I think that was so from the
+beginning, and after you have gone away I should have realized it some
+day."
+
+"You darling!" he whispered. Again she surrendered to him, exquisite in
+her ignorance, passive at first, then tremulously responsive. And at
+last her head drooped and fell on his shoulder, and he held her for a
+little longer, then released her.
+
+Trembling, she crept up the stairway to her room, treading lightly
+along the dark entry, dazed, fatigued, with the wonder of it all. Then,
+as she laid her hand on the knob of her bedroom door, the door of her
+father's room opened abruptly.
+
+"Molly?"
+
+"Yes, dear," she answered vaguely.
+
+He stood staring at her on the threshold, fully dressed, and she looked
+back at him, her eyes slightly confused by the light.
+
+"Where have you been?" he said.
+
+"With Mr. Marche."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To the dory--and back."
+
+"What did he say to you, child?"
+
+She came silently across the threshold and put her arms around his neck;
+and the man lost every atom of his color.
+
+"What did he say?" he repeated harshly.
+
+"That he loves me."
+
+"What!"
+
+"It is true, father."
+
+The man held her at arm's length roughly. "Good God!" he groaned, "how
+long has this been going on?"
+
+"Only to-night. What do you mean, father?"
+
+[Illustration: "'He tells you that he--he is in love with you?'"]
+
+"He tells you that he--he is in love with you? With _you_?" repeated
+Herold unsteadily.
+
+"Yes. It is true, too."
+
+"You mean he asked you to marry him!"
+
+"Yes. And I said I would."
+
+"_You_ love _him_!"
+
+The man's pallor frightened her silent. Then he dropped her arms, which
+he had been clutching, and stood staring at nothing, gnawing at his
+colorless lips.
+
+The girl watched him with dawning terror and finally ventured to speak.
+"Dear, what is the matter? Are you displeased with me? Do you think that
+he is not a man I should care for? You don't know him, dear. You have
+only to see him, to speak with him, hear his voice, look into his
+eyes----"
+
+"Good God!" groaned Herold, closing his sunken eyes. Then, almost
+feeling his way out and along the dark passageway, he descended the
+stairs, heavily.
+
+Marche, cleaning his gun in the sitting-room, looked up in surprise,
+then rose, laying aside stock, fore-end, and barrel, as Herold came into
+the room. The next instant, stepping nearer, he stared into Herold's
+face in silence. And so they met and confronted each other after many
+years.
+
+"Are _you_ Herold?" said the young man, in a low voice.
+
+"That is my name--now."
+
+"_You_ have been in my employment--for five years?"
+
+"Yes. Judge Gilkins gave me the chance. I could not suppose that the
+club would ever become your property."
+
+The younger man's face hardened. "But when it did become my property,
+why had you the indecency to stay?"
+
+"Where else could I go?"
+
+"You had the whole world to--operate in."
+
+Herold's thin face flushed. "It was fitter that I should work for you,"
+he said. "I have served you faithfully for five years."
+
+"And unfaithfully for ten! Wasn't it enough that Vyse and I let you go
+without prosecuting you? Wasn't it enough that we pocketed our loss for
+your wife's sake?"
+
+He checked himself in a flash of memory, turned, and looked at the
+picture on the wall. Now he knew, now he understood why his former
+associate's handwriting had seemed familiar after all these years.
+
+And suddenly he remembered that this man was Jim's father--and the
+father of the young girl he was in love with; and the shock drove every
+drop of blood out of his heart and cheeks. Ghastly, staring, he stood
+confronting Herold; and the latter, leaning heavily, shoulder against
+the wall, stared back at him.
+
+"I could have gone on working for you," he said, "trying to save enough
+to make restitution--some day. I _have_ already saved part of it. Look
+at me--look at my children--at the way we live, and you'll understand
+how I have saved. But I _have_ saved part of what I took. I'll give you
+that much before you go--before I go, too."
+
+His breath came heavily, unevenly; he cleared his eyes with a
+work-stained hand, fashioned for pens and ledgers.
+
+"You were abroad when I--did what I did. Vyse was merciless. I told him
+I could put it back if he'd give me the chance. But a thief was a thief
+to him--particularly when his own pocket was involved. He meant to send
+me to prison. The judge held him--he was his father-in-law--and he was
+an old man with a wife and children of his own."
+
+Herold was silent for a moment, and his gaze became vague and remote,
+then he lifted his head sharply:
+
+"A man makes one slip like that and the world damns him forever. And I
+tell you, Marche, that I am not dishonest by nature or in my character.
+God alone knows why I took those securities, meaning, of course, to
+return them, as all the poor, damned fools do mean when they do what I
+did. But Vyse made it a condition that I was to leave the country, and
+there was no chance of restitution unless I could remain in New York and
+do what I knew how to do--no chance, Marche--and so fortune ebbed, and
+my wife died, and the old judge saw me working on the water-front in
+Norfolk one day, and gave me this place. That is all."
+
+"Why did you feign illness?" asked Marche, in an altered voice.
+
+"You know why."
+
+"You thought I'd discharge you?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Marche stepped nearer. "Why did you come to me here to-night?"
+
+Herold flushed deeply. "It was your right to know--and my daughter's
+right--before she broke her heart."
+
+"I see. You naturally suppose that I would scarcely care to marry the
+daughter of a----" He stopped short, and Herold set his teeth.
+
+"Say it," he said, "and let this end matters for all of us. Except that
+I have saved seven thousand dollars toward--what I took. I will draw you
+a check for it now."
+
+He walked steadily to the table, laid out a thin checkbook, and with his
+fountain-pen wrote out a check for seven thousand dollars on a Norfolk
+bank.
+
+"There you are, Marche," he said wearily. "I made most of it buying and
+selling pine timber in this district. It seemed a little like expiation,
+too, working here for you, unknown to you. I won't stay, now, of course.
+I'll try to pay back the rest--little by little--somehow."
+
+"The way to pay it back," said Marche, "is to do the work you are fitted
+for."
+
+Herold looked up. "How can I?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I could not go back to New York. I have no money to go with, even if I
+could find a place for myself again."
+
+"Your place is open to you."
+
+Herold stared at him.
+
+Marche repeated the assertion profanely. "Damnation," he said, "if you'd
+talked this way to me five years ago, I'd never have stood in your way.
+All I heard of the matter was what Vyse told me. I'm not associated with
+him any more; I'll stand for his minding his own affairs. The thing for
+you to do, Courtney, is to get into the game again and clean up what you
+owe Vyse. Here's seven thousand; you can borrow the rest from me. And
+then we'll go into things again and hustle. It was a good combination,
+Courtney--we'd have been rich men--except for the slip you made. Come on
+in with me again. Or would you rather continue to inhabit your own
+private hell?"
+
+"Do you know what you are saying, Marche?" said the other hoarsely.
+
+"Sure, I do. I guess you've done full time for a first offense. Clean
+off the slate, Courtney. You and Vyse and I know it--nobody
+else--Gilkins is dead. Come on, man! That boy of yours is a corker! I
+love him--that little brother, Jim, of mine; and as for--Molly----" His
+voice broke and he turned sharply aside, saying: "It's certainly
+blue-bird weather, Courtney, and we all might as well go North. Come out
+under the stars, and we'll talk it over."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was almost dawn when they returned. Marche's hand lay lightly on
+Courtney's shoulder for a moment, as they parted.
+
+Above, as Courtney stood feeling blindly for his door, Molly's door
+swung softly ajar, and the girl came out in her night-dress.
+
+"Father," she whispered, "is it all right?"
+
+"All right, thank God, little daughter."
+
+"And--I may care for him?"
+
+"Surely--surely, darling, because he is the finest specimen of manhood
+that walks this merciless earth."
+
+"I knew it," she whispered gaily. "If you'll lend me your wrapper a
+moment, I'll go to his door and say good-night to him again."
+
+Her father looked at her, picked up his tattered dressing-gown from his
+bed, and wrapped her in it to the chin, then kissed her forehead.
+
+So she trotted away to Marche's door and tapped softly; and when he
+came and opened the door, she put her arms around his neck and kissed
+him.
+
+"Good night," she whispered. "I do love you, and I shall pray all night
+that I may be everything that you would wish to have me. Good night,
+once more--dearest of men--good night."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE-BIRD WEATHER***
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Blue-Bird Weather, by Robert W. Chambers,
+Illustrated by Charles Dana Gibson</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Blue-Bird Weather</p>
+<p>Author: Robert W. Chambers</p>
+<p>Release Date: January 21, 2008  [eBook #24389]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE-BIRD WEATHER***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by S. Drawehn, Suzanne Shell,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
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+<p>&nbsp;</p>
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+<img src="images/cover01.jpg" width="449" height="690" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+<h1>BLUE-BIRD WEATHER</h1>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox"><br /><b>Works of Robert W. Chambers</b><br />
+<br />
+
+The Streets Of Ascalon<br />
+Blue-Bird Weather<br />
+Japonette<br />
+The Adventures of a Modest Man<br />
+The Danger Mark<br />
+Special Messenger<br />
+The Firing Line<br />
+The Younger Set<br />
+The Fighting Chance<br />
+Some Ladies in Haste<br />
+The Tree of Heaven<br />
+The Tracer of Lost Persons<br />
+A Young Man in a Hurry<br />
+Lorraine<br />
+Maids of Paradise<br />
+Ashes of Empire<br />
+The Red Republic<br />
+Outsiders<br />
+The Common Law<br />
+Ailsa Paige<br />
+The Green Mouse<br />
+Iole<br />
+The Reckoning<br />
+The Maid-at-Arms<br />
+Cardigan<br />
+The Haunts of Men<br />
+The Mystery of Choice<br />
+The Cambric Mask<br />
+The Maker of Moons<br />
+The King in Yellow<br />
+In Search of the Unknown<br />
+The Conspirators<br />
+A King and a Few Dukes<br />
+In the Quarter<br />
+<br />
+
+<b>For Children</b><br />
+<br />
+Garden-Land<br />
+Forest-Land<br />
+River-Land<br />
+Mountain-Land<br />
+Orchard-Land<br />
+Outdoor-Land<br />
+Hide and Seek in Forest-Land<br />
+<br />
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, <span class="smcap">New York</span><br />
+<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 457px;">
+<a name="frontispiece"></a>
+<img src="images/gs01.png" width="433" height="700"
+alt="&quot;She trotted away to Marche&#39;s door and tapped
+softly.&quot; [Page 140]"
+title="Frontispiece" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;She trotted away to Marche&#39;s door and tapped softly.&quot; [<a href="#Page_140">Page 140</a>]
+</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h1>BLUE-BIRD<br />
+WEATHER</h1>
+
+<p class="center"><i>By</i> ROBERT W. CHAMBERS</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 393px;">
+<img src="images/tp01.png" width="200" height="140" alt="Decoration" title="Decoration" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><small>WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY</small><br />
+CHARLES DANA GIBSON</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br />
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON :: MCMXII<br /></p>
+
+
+<p class="center"> <span class="smcap">Copyright, 1912, by<br />
+ROBERT W. CHAMBERS</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1911, by International Magazine Company</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>Published October, 1912</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">Published in the United States of America</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p class="center">TO<br />
+<big>JOSEPH LEE</big><br />
+OF NEEDWOOD FOREST
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+<h3>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+
+<p class="loi">&nbsp;<span class="illnum">PAGE</span></p>
+
+<ul class="loi">
+
+<li><a href="#frontispiece">"She trotted away to Marche's door and tapped softly."    <span class="illnum"><i>Frontispiece</i></span></a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#Page_14">"She said gravely: 'I am afraid it will be blue-bird weather.'"     <span class="illnum">14</span></a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#Page_26">"'Well,' he said pleasantly, 'what comes next, Miss Herold?'"       <span class="illnum">26</span></a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#Page_33">"'I'm <i>so</i> sorry, Jim.'"                                              <span class="illnum">33</span></a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#Page_88">"They ate their luncheon there together."                           <span class="illnum">88</span></a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#Page_99">"'Jim,' he said, 'where did you live?'"                             <span class="illnum">99</span></a></li>
+
+<li><a href="#Page_127">"'He tells you that he&mdash;he is in love with you?'"                   <span class="illnum">127</span></a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="BLUE-BIRD_WEATHER" id="BLUE-BIRD_WEATHER"></a>BLUE-BIRD WEATHER</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2>
+
+<p><!-- Page 1 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span>It was now almost too dark to distinguish objects; duskier and vaguer
+became the flat world of marshes, set here and there with cypress and
+bounded only by far horizons; and at last land and water disappeared
+behind the gathered curtains of the night. There was no sound from the
+waste except the wind among the withered reeds and the furrowing splash
+of wheel and hoof over the submerged causeway.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 2 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>The boy who was driving had scarcely spoken since he strapped Marche's
+gun cases and valise to the rear of the rickety wagon at the railroad
+station. Marche, too, remained silent, preoccupied with his own
+reflections. Wrapped in his fur-lined coat, arms folded, he sat doubled
+forward, feeling the Southern swamp-chill busy with his bones. Now and
+then he was obliged to relight his pipe, but the cold bit at his
+fingers, and he hurried to protect himself again with heavy gloves.</p>
+
+<p>The small, rough hands of the boy who was driving were naked, and
+finally Marche mentioned it, asking the child if he were not cold.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," he said, with a colorless brevity that might have been
+shyness<!-- Page 3 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+or merely the dull indifference of the very poor, accustomed to
+discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you feel cold at all?" persisted Marche kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are hardened to this sort of weather?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>By the light of a flaming match, Marche glanced sideways at him as he
+drew his pipe into a glow once more, and for an instant the boy's gray
+eyes flickered toward his in the flaring light. Then darkness masked
+them both again.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you Mr. Herold's son?" inquired the young man.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," almost sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"How old are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eleven."</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 4 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>"You're a big boy, all right. I have never seen your father. He is at
+the clubhouse, no doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," scarcely audible.</p>
+
+<p>"And you and he live there all alone, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir." A moment later the boy added jerkily, "And my sister," as
+though truth had given him a sudden nudge.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you have a sister, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"That makes it very jolly for you, I fancy," said Marche pleasantly.
+There was no reply to the indirect question.</p>
+
+<p>His pipe had gone out again, and he knocked the ashes from it and
+pocketed it. For a while they drove on in silence, then Marche peered
+impatiently<!-- Page 5 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+through the darkness, right and left, in an effort to see;
+and gave it up.</p>
+
+<p>"You must know this road pretty well to be able to keep it," he said.
+"As for me, I can't see anything except a dirty little gray star up
+aloft."</p>
+
+<p>"The horse knows the road."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad of that. Have you any idea how near we are to the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Half a mile. That's Rattler Creek, yonder."</p>
+
+<p>"How the dickens can you tell?" asked Marche curiously. "You can't see
+anything in the dark, can you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how I can tell," said the boy indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>Marche smiled. "A sixth sense, probably. What did you say your name is?"</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 6 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>"Jim."</p>
+
+<p>"And you're eleven? You'll be old enough to have a gun very soon, Jim.
+How would you like to shoot a real, live wild duck?"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>have</i> shot plenty."</p>
+
+<p>Marche laughed. "Good for you, Jimmy. What did the gun do to you? Kick
+you flat on your back?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy said gravely: "Father's gun is too big for me. I have to rest it
+on the edge of the blind when I fire."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you shoot from the blinds?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Marche relapsed into smiling silence. In a few moments he was thinking
+of other things&mdash;of this muddy island which had once been the property
+of a club consisting of five carefully selected<!-- Page 7 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
+and wealthy members, and which, through death and resignation, had now reverted to him. Why he
+had ever bought in the shares, as one by one the other members either
+died or dropped out, he did not exactly know. He didn't care very much
+for duck shooting. In five years he had not visited the club; and why he
+had come here this year for a week's sport he scarcely knew, except that
+he had either to go somewhere for a rest or ultimately be carried,
+kicking, into what his slangy doctor called the "funny house."</p>
+
+<p>So here he was, on a cold February night, and already nearly at his
+destination; for now he could make out a light across the marsh, and
+from dark and infinite distances the east wind bore<!-- Page 8 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> the solemn rumor of
+the sea, muttering of wrecks and death along the Atlantic sands beyond
+the inland sounds.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Jim," he said, "I never thought I'd survive this drive, but here
+we are, and still alive. Are you frozen solid, you poor boy?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy smiled, shyly, in negation, as they drove into the bar of light
+from the kitchen window and stopped. Marche got down very stiffly. The
+kitchen door opened at the same moment, and a woman's figure appeared in
+the lamplight&mdash;a young girl, slender, bare armed, drying her fingers as
+she came down the steps to offer a small, weather-roughened hand to
+Marche.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother will show you to your <!-- Page 9 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>room," she said.
+"Supper will be ready in a few minutes."</p>
+
+<p>So he thanked her and went away with Jim, relieving the boy of the
+valise and one gun-case, and presently came to the quarters prepared for
+him. The room was rough, with its unceiled walls of yellow pine, a
+chair, washstand, bed, and a nail or two for his wardrobe. It had been
+the affectation of the wealthy men composing the Foam Island Duck Club
+to exist almost primitively when on the business of duck shooting, in
+contradistinction to the overfed luxury of other millionaires inhabiting
+other more luxuriously appointed shooting-boxes along the Chesapeake.</p>
+
+<p>The Foam Island Club went in heavily<!-- Page 10 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> for simplicity, as far as the
+two-story shanty of a clubhouse was concerned; but their island was one
+of the most desirable in the entire region, and their live decoys the
+most perfectly trained and cared for.</p>
+
+<p>Marche, washing his tingling fingers and visage in icy water, rather
+wished, for a moment, that the club had installed modern plumbing; but
+delectable odors from the kitchen put him into better humor, and
+presently he went off down the creaking and unpainted stairs to warm
+himself at a big stove until summoned to the table.</p>
+
+<p>He was summoned in a few moments by the same girl who had greeted him;
+and she also waited on him at table,<!-- Page 11 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>placing before him in turn his
+steaming soup, a platter of fried bass and smoking sweet potatoes, then
+the inevitable broiled canvas-back duck with rice, and finally home-made
+preserves&mdash;wild grapes, exquisitely fragrant in their thin, golden
+syrup.</p>
+
+<p>Marche was that kind of a friendly young man who is naturally
+gay-hearted and also a little curious&mdash;sometimes to the verge of
+indiscretion. For his curiosity and inquiring interest in his fellow-men
+was easily aroused&mdash;particularly when they were less fortunately
+situated than he in a world where it is a favorite fiction that all are
+created equal. He was, in fact, that particular species of human
+nuisance known as a humanitarian; but he never dreamed he was a
+<!-- Page 12 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>nuisance, and certainly never meant to be.</p>
+
+<p>Warmth and food and the prospects of to-morrow's shooting, and a
+slender, low-voiced young girl, made cheerful his recently frost-nipped
+soul, and he was inclined to expand and become talkative there in the
+lamplight.</p>
+
+<p>"Has the shooting been pretty good?" he asked pleasantly, plying knife
+and fork in the service of a raging appetite.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>has</i> been."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of the prospects for to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>She said gravely: "I am afraid it will be blue-bird weather."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">
+<img src="images/gs02.png" width="700" height="532" alt="&quot;She said gravely: &#39;I am afraid it will be blue-bird
+weather.&#39;&quot;" title="Page 14" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;She said gravely: &#39;I am afraid it will be blue-bird
+weather.&#39;&quot;</span></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class='leftpagenum'>
+<!-- Page 13 --><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a><br />
+<!-- Page 14 -->[Pg 14]</div>
+<div class='pagenum'>
+<!-- Page 15 --><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a><br />
+<!-- Page 16 --><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></div>
+
+<p><br />It was a new, but graphic, expression to him; and he often remembered it
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>afterward, and how quaintly it fell from her lips as she stood there in
+the light of the kerosene lamp, slim, self-possessed, in her faded
+gingham gown and apron, the shapely middle finger of one little
+weather-tanned hand resting on the edge of the cloth.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Miss Herold, I suppose?" he said, looking up at her with his
+pleasant smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not Southern?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said briefly. And he then remembered that the Hon. Cicero W.
+Gilkins, when he was president of the now defunct club, had installed a
+Northern man as resident chief game-protector and superintendent at the
+Foam Island Club House.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 18 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>Marche had never even seen Herold; but, through lack of personal
+interest, and also because he needed somebody to look out for the
+property, he had continued to pay this man Herold his inconsiderable
+salary every year, scarcely knowing, himself, why he did not put the
+Foam Island shooting on the market and close up the matter for good.</p>
+
+<p>"It's been five years since I was here, Miss Herold," he said, smiling.
+"That was in the old days of the club, when Judge Gilkins and Colonel
+Vyse used to come here shooting every season. But you don't remember
+them, I fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember them."</p>
+
+<p>"Really! You must have been quite a child."</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 19 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>"I was thirteen."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then you are eighteen, now," he said humorously.</p>
+
+<p>Her grave, young lips were only slightly responsive to his smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been here a long time," he said. "Do you find it lonely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," she admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you do for recreation?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I know what you mean, Mr. Marche."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean for pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him out of her clear, gray eyes, then turned her gaze on
+the window. But she could not see through it; the pane only reflected
+her face darkly; and to her, for a moment, it seemed that way with her
+whole pent-up life, here in the Virginia marshes&mdash;no
+<!-- Page 20 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>outlet,
+no outlook, and wherever she turned her wistful eyes only her own
+imprisoned self to confront her out of the dull obscurity.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he said, watching her, "that you sometimes go to Norfolk
+for a holiday?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Or to Old Point, or Baltimore, perhaps?"</p>
+
+<p>She had her under lip between her teeth, now, and was looking so fixedly
+at the window that he thought she had not heard him.</p>
+
+<p>He rose from the table, and as she turned to meet his pleasant eyes he
+smilingly thanked her for waiting on him.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," he said, "if you will say<!-- Page 21 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+to your father that I'd like to
+have a little talk with him&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Father is ill in bed," she said, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm sorry. I hope it isn't anything serious."</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;think not."</p>
+
+<p>"Will he be able to see me to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid not, Mr. Marche. He&mdash;he asked me to say to you that you
+might safely transact any business with me. I know all about it," she
+said, speaking a little hurriedly. "I keep the accounts, and I have
+every item and every bill ready for your inspection; and I can tell you
+exactly what condition the property is in and what lumber has been cut
+and what repairs have been<!-- Page 22 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+necessary. Whenever you are ready for me, I
+will come into the sitting room," she added, "because Jim and I have had
+our supper."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, smiling, "I am ready now, if you are."</p>
+
+<p>So she went away to rinse her hands and lay aside her apron, and in a
+few minutes she entered the sitting room. He rose and placed a chair for
+her, and she thanked him, flushing a little, and then he resumed his
+seat, watching her sorting over the papers in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she crossed one knee over the other, and one slim, prettily
+shaped foot, in its shabby shoe, swung clear of its shadow on the floor.
+Then she handed him a sheaf of bills for his inspection,<!-- Page 23 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> and,
+pencil in hand, followed the totals as he read them off aloud.</p>
+
+<p>For half an hour they compared and checked off items, and he found her
+accounts accurate to a penny.</p>
+
+<p>"Father bought three geese and a gander from Ike Helm," she said. "They
+were rather expensive, but two were mated, and they call very well when
+tied out separated. Do you think it was too expensive?" she added
+timidly, showing him the bill.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, smiling. "I think it's all right. Mated decoys are what
+we need, and you can wing-tip a dozen before you get one that will talk
+at the right time."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true," she said eagerly. "We try our best to keep up the decoys
+and <!-- Page 24 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>have nothing but talkers. Our geese are nearly all right, and our
+ducks are good, but our swans are <i>so</i> vexing! They seem to be such
+fools, and they usually behave like silly cygnets. You will see
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>While she was speaking, her brother came quietly into the room with an
+open book in his hands, and Marche, glancing at it curiously, saw that
+it was a Latin grammar.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you go to school, Jim?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Father teaches me."</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">
+<img src="images/gs03.png" width="700" height="522" alt="&quot;&#39;Well,&#39; he said pleasantly, &#39;what comes next, Miss
+Herold?&#39;&quot;" title="Page 26" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;Well,&#39; he said pleasantly, &#39;what comes next, Miss
+Herold?&#39;&quot;</span></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class='leftpagenum'>
+<!-- Page 25 --><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a><br />
+<!-- Page 26 -->[Pg 26]</div>
+<div class='pagenum'>
+<!-- Page 27 --><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a><br />
+<!-- Page 28 --><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></div>
+
+<p>Marche, rather astonished at the calibre of his superintendent, glanced
+from the boy to his sister in silence. The girl's head remained steadily
+lowered over the papers on her knee, but he saw<!-- Page 29 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> her foot swinging in
+nervous rhythm, and he was conscious of her silent impatience at
+something or other, perhaps at the interruption in their business
+discussion.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said pleasantly, "what comes next, Miss Herold?"</p>
+
+<p>She handed him a list of the decoys. He read it gravely, nodded, and
+returned it.</p>
+
+<p>"You may count them for yourself to-morrow," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. I trust you entirely," he replied laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>Then they went over the remaining matters, the condition of the pine
+timber, the repairs to the boats and blinds and stools, items for snaps,
+swivels, paint, cement, wire, none of which interested <!-- Page 30 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>Marche
+as much as the silent boy reading his Latin grammar by the smoky lamp interested
+him, or the boy's sister bending over the papers on her knee, pencil
+poised in her pretty, weather-roughened hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I sent the shells from New York by express," he said. "Did they
+arrive?"</p>
+
+<p>"I left two hundred in your room," said the boy, looking up.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you, Jim." And, turning to his sister, who had raised her
+head, inquiringly, "I suppose somebody will call me at the screech of
+dawn, won't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the new law?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I don't like laws, anyway," he said smilingly.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 31 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+She smiled, too, gathering up her papers preparatory to departure.
+"Nobody is allowed," she said, "to put off from shore until the sun is
+above the horizon line. And the wardens are very strict." Then she rose.
+"Will you excuse me? I have the dishes to do."</p>
+
+<p>The boy laid aside his book and stood up, but his sister said:</p>
+
+<p>"Stay and study, Jim. I don't need any help."</p>
+
+<p>And Jim resumed his seat with heightened color. A moment later, however,
+he went out to the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Molly," he said, "wha'd' you want to give me away for? He'll
+think I'm a sissy, helping you do dishes and things."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, my dear!" she exclaimed <!-- Page 32 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>contritely,
+"I didn't think of it. Please forgive me, Jim. Anyway, you don't really care what this man
+thinks about any of us&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do! Anyway, a fellow doesn't want another fellow to think he
+washes dishes."</p>
+
+<p>"You darling! Forgive me. I wasn't thinking. It was too stupid of me."</p>
+
+<p>"It really was," said the boy, in his sweet, dignified voice, "and I'd
+been telling him that I'd shot ducks, too."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 474px;">
+<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">
+<img src="images/gs04.png" width="474" height="700" alt="&quot;&#39;I&#39;m so sorry, Jim.&#39;&quot;" title="Page 33" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;I&#39;m <i>so</i> sorry, Jim.&#39;&quot;</span></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class='leftpagenum'>
+<!-- Page 33 -->[Pg 33]</div>
+
+<div class='pagenum'>
+<!-- Page 34 --><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></div>
+
+<p>His sister caught him around the neck and kissed his blonde head. "I'm
+<i>so</i> sorry, Jim. He won't think of it again. If he does, he'll only
+respect a boy who is so good to his sister. And," she added, cautioning
+him with lifted <!-- Page 35 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+finger, "don't talk too much to him, Jim, no matter how
+nice and kind he is. I know how lonely you are and how pleasant it is to
+talk to a man like Mr. Marche; but remember that father doesn't wish us
+to say anything about ourselves or about him, so we must be careful."</p>
+
+<p>"Why doesn't father want us to speak about him or ourselves to Mr.
+Marche?" asked the boy.</p>
+
+<p>His sister had gone back to her dishes. Now, looking around over her
+shoulder, she said seriously, "That is father's affair, dear, not ours."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you know why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shame on you, Jim! What father cares to tell us he will tell us; but
+it's exceedingly bad manners to ask."</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 36 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+"Is father really very ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told you that to ask me such things is improper," said the girl,
+coloring. "He has told us that he does not feel well, and that he
+prefers to remain in his room for a few days. That is enough for us,
+isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the boy thoughtfully.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<p><!-- Page 37 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+Marche, buried under a mountain of bed clothes, dreamed that people were
+rapping noisily on his door, and grinned in his dream, meaning to let
+them rap until they tired of it. Suddenly a voice sounded through his
+defiant slumbers, clear and charming as a golden ray parting thick
+clouds. The next moment he found himself awake, bolt upright in the icy
+dusk of his room, listening.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Marche! Won't you <i>please</i> wake up and answer?" came the clear,
+young voice again.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>beg</i> your pardon!" he cried. "I'll be down in a minute!"</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 38 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+He heard her going away downstairs, and for a few seconds he squatted
+there, huddled in coverings to the chin, and eying the darkness in a
+sort of despair. The feverish drive of Wall Street, late suppers, and
+too much good fellowship had not physically hardened Marche. He was
+accustomed to have his bath tempered comfortably for his particular
+brand of physique. Breakfast, also, was a most carefully ordered
+informality with him.</p>
+
+<p>The bitter chill smote him. Cursing the simple life, he crawled gingerly
+out of bed, suffered acutely while hunting for a match, lighted the
+kerosene lamp with stiffened fingers, and looked about him, shivering.
+Then, with a suppressed anathema, he stepped into his <!-- Page 39 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>folding tub and
+emptied the arctic contents of the water pitcher over himself.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he appeared at the breakfast table, hungrier than he
+had been in years. There was nobody there to wait on him, but the dishes
+and coffee pot were piping hot, and he madly ate eggs and razor-back,
+and drank quantities of coffee, and finally set fire to a cigarette,
+feeling younger and happier than he had felt for ages.</p>
+
+<p>Of one thing he was excitedly conscious: that dreadful and persistent
+dragging feeling at the nape of his neck had vanished. It didn't seem
+possible that it could have disappeared overnight, but it had, for the
+present, at least.</p>
+
+<p>He went into the sitting room. Nobody<!-- Page 40 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+was there, either, so he broke his sealed shell boxes, filled his case with sixes and fives and double B's,
+drew his expensive ducking gun from its case and took a look at it,
+buckled the straps of his hip boots to his belt, felt in the various
+pockets of his shooting coat to see whether matches, pipe, tobacco,
+vaseline, oil, shell extractor, knife, handkerchief, gloves, were in
+their proper places; found them so, and, lighting another cigarette,
+strolled contentedly around the small and almost bare room, bestowing a
+contented and patronizing glance upon each humble article and decoration
+as he passed.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently this photograph, in an oval frame of old-time water gilt, was
+a portrait of Miss Herold's mother. <!-- Page 41 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>What a charming face, with its
+delicate, high-bred nose and lips! The boy, Jim, had her mouth and nose,
+and his sister her eyes, slightly tilted to a slant at the outer
+corners&mdash;beautifully shaped eyes, he remembered.</p>
+
+<p>He lingered a moment, then strolled on, viewing with tolerant
+indifference the few poor ornaments on the mantel, the chromos of wild
+ducks and shore birds, and found himself again by the lamp-lit table
+from which he had started his explorations.</p>
+
+<p>On it were Jim's Latin book, a Bible, and several last year's magazines.</p>
+
+<p>Idly he turned the flyleaf of the schoolbook. Written there was the
+boy's name&mdash;"Jim, from Daddy."</p>
+
+<p>As he was closing the cover a sudden<!-- Page 42 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> instinct arrested his hand, and, not knowing exactly why, he reopened the book and read the inscription
+again. He read it again, too, with a vague sensation of familiarity with
+it, or with the book, or something somehow connected with it, he could
+not tell exactly what; but a slightly uncomfortable feeling remained as
+he laid aside the book and stood with brows knitted and eyes absently
+bent on the stove.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment Jim came in, wearing a faded overcoat which he had
+outgrown.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello!" said Marche, looking up. "Are you ready for me, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of a chance have I?"</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 43 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+"I'm afraid it is blue-bird weather," said the boy diffidently.</p>
+
+<p>Marche scowled, then smiled. "Your sister said it would probably be that
+kind of weather. Well, we all have to take a sporting chance with things
+in general, don't we, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Marche picked up his gun case and cartridge box. The boy offered to take
+them, but the young man shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Lead on, old sport!" he said cheerily. "I'm a beast of more burdens
+than you know anything about. How's your father, by the way?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think father is about the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't he need a doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I think not."</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 44 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+"What is it, Jim? Fever?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said the boy, in a low voice. He led the way, and Marche
+followed him out of doors.</p>
+
+<p>A gray light made plain the desolation of the scene, although the sun
+had not yet risen. To the south and west the sombre pine woods stretched
+away; eastward, a few last year's cornstalks stood, withered in the
+clearing, through which a rutted road ran down to the water.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't the finest farming land in the world, is it, Jim?" he said
+humorously.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't seen any other land," said the boy quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you remember the Northern country at all?"</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 45 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+"No, sir&mdash;except Central Park."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you were New-Yorkers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Father&mdash;&mdash;" and he fell abruptly silent.</p>
+
+<p>They were walking together down the rutted road, and Marche glanced
+around at him.</p>
+
+<p>"What were you going to say about your father, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing." Then truth jogged his arm. "I mean I was only going to say
+that father and mother and all of us lived there."</p>
+
+<p>"In New York?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Is your&mdash;your mother living?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I saw her picture in the sitting room," he said gently. "She
+<!-- Page 46 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>must have been everything a mother should be."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it long ago, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"When she died?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, very long ago. Six years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Before you came here, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>After they had walked in silence for a little while, Marche said, "I
+suppose you have arranged for somebody to take me out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>They emerged from the lane to the shore at the same moment, and Marche
+glanced about for the expected bayman.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 47 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+"Oh, there he is!" he said, as a figure came from behind a dory and
+waded leisurely shoreward through the shallows&mdash;a slight figure in hip
+boots and wool shooting hood and coat, who came lightly across the sands
+to meet him. And, astonished, he looked into the gray eyes of Molly
+Herold.</p>
+
+<p>"Father could not take you," she said, without embarrassment, "and Jim
+isn't quite big enough to manage the swans and geese. Do you mind my
+acting as your bayman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mind?" he repeated. "No, of course not. Only&mdash;it seems rather rough on
+you. Couldn't you have hired a bayman for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will, if you wish," she said, her cheeks reddening. "But, really, if
+<!-- Page 48 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>you'll let me, I am perfectly accustomed to bayman's work."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you <i>want</i> to do it?"</p>
+
+<p>She said, without self-consciousness, "If it is the same to you, Mr.
+Marche, I had rather that the bayman's wages came to us."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;of course," he said hurriedly. Then, smiling: "You look the
+part. I took you for a young man, at first. Now, tell me how I can help
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Jim can do that. Still, if you don't mind handling the decoys&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," he said, going up to the fenced inclosures which ran from
+a rod or two inland down into the shallow water, making three separate
+yards for geese, swans, and ducks.</p>
+
+<p>Jim was already in the duck pen, <!-- Page 49 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>hustling
+the several dozen mallard and black ducks into an inland corral. The indignant birds, quacking a
+concerted protest, waddled up from the shore, and, one by one, the boy
+seized the suitable ones, and passed them over the fence to Marche. He
+handed them to Molly Herold, who waded out to the dory, a duck tucked
+under either arm, and slipped them deftly into the decoy-crates forward
+and aft.</p>
+
+<p>The geese were harder to manage&mdash;great, sleek, pastel-tinted birds whose
+wing blows had the force of a man's fist&mdash;and they flapped and struggled
+and buffeted Jim till his blonde head spun; but at last Marche and Molly
+had them crated in the dory.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 50 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+Then the wild swans' turn came&mdash;great, white creatures with black beaks
+and feet; and Molly and Marche were laughing as they struggled to catch
+them and carry them aboard.</p>
+
+<p>But at last every decoy was squatting in the crates; the mast had been
+stepped, guns laid aboard, luncheon stowed away. Marche set his shoulder
+to the stern; the girl sprang aboard, and he followed; the triangular
+sail filled, and the boat glided out into the sound, straight into the
+glittering lens of the rising sun.</p>
+
+<p>A great winter gull flapped across their bows; in the lee of Starfish
+Island, long strings of wild ducks rose like shredded clouds, and,
+swarming in the sky, swinging, drifting, sheered <!-- Page 51 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>eastward, out toward
+the unseen Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p>"Bluebills and sprigs," said the girl, resting her elbow on the tiller.
+"There are geese on the shoal, yonder. They've come out from Currituck.
+Oh, I'm afraid it's to be blue-bird weather, Mr. Marche."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it is," he assented, smiling. "What do you do in that case,
+Miss Herold?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go to sleep in the blind," she admitted, with a faint smile, the first
+delicate approach to anything resembling the careless confidence of
+camaraderie that had yet come from her.</p>
+
+<p>"See the ducks!" she said, as bunch after bunch parted from the water,
+distantly, yet all around them, and, gathering <!-- Page 52 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>like clouds of dusky
+bees, whirled away through the sky until they seemed like bands of smoke
+high drifting. Presently she turned and looked back, signaling adieu to
+the shore, where her brother lifted his arm in response, then turned
+away inland.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a nice boy," said Marche briefly, and glanced up to see in his
+sister's face the swift and exquisite transformation that requires no
+words as answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to like him," said he, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>Molly Herold's gray eyes softened; pride, that had made the love in them
+brilliant, faded until they grew almost sombre. Silent, her aloof gaze
+remained fixed on the horizon; her lips <!-- Page 53 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>rested on each other in
+sensitive curves. There was no sound save the curling of foam under the
+bows.</p>
+
+<p>Marche looked elsewhere; then looked at her again. She sat motionless,
+gray eyes remote, one little, wind-roughened hand on the tiller. The
+steady breeze filled the sail; the dory stood straight away toward the
+blinding glory of the sunrise.</p>
+
+<p>Through the unreal golden light, raft after raft of wild ducks rose and
+whirled into the east; blue herons flopped across the water; a
+silver-headed eagle, low over the waves, winged his way heavily toward
+some goal, doggedly intent upon his own business.</p>
+
+<p>Outside Starfish Shoal the girl eased <!-- Page 54 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>the sheet as the wind freshened.
+Far away on Golden Bar thousands of wild geese, which had been tipping
+their sterns skyward in plunging quest of nourishment, resumed a more
+stately and normal posture, as though at a spoken command; and the long
+ranks, swimming, and led by age and wisdom, slowly moved away into the
+glittering east.</p>
+
+<p>At last, off the starboard bow, the low, reedy levels of Foam Island
+came into view, and in a few minutes more the dory lay in the shallows,
+oars, mast, and rag stowed; and the two young people splashed busily
+about in their hip boots, carrying guns, ammunition, and food into the
+blind.</p>
+
+<p>Then Molly Herold, standing on the <!-- Page 55 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>mud bank, flung, one by one, a
+squadron of wooden, painted, canvasback decoys into the water, where
+they righted themselves, and presently rode the waves, bobbing and
+steering with startling fidelity to the real things.</p>
+
+<p>Then it came the turn of the real things. Marche and Molly, a struggling
+bird tucked under each arm, waded out along the lanes of stools, feeling
+about under the icy water until their fingers encountered the wire-cored
+cords. Then, to the leg rings of each madly flapping duck and swan and
+goose they snapped on the leads, and the tethered birds, released, beat
+the water into foam and flapped and splashed and tugged, until, finally
+reconciled, they began to souse themselves with <!-- Page 56 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>great content, and
+either mounted their stools or swam calmly about as far as their tethers
+permitted.</p>
+
+<p>Marche, struggling knee-deep in the water, his arms full of wildly
+flapping gander, hailed Molly for instructions.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a mated bird!" she called out to him. "Peg him outside by
+himself!"</p>
+
+<p>So Marche pegged out the furious old gander, whose name was Uncle
+Dudley, and in a few minutes that dignified and insulted bird, missing
+his spouse, began to talk about it.</p>
+
+<p>Every wifely feeling outraged, his spouse replied loudly from the
+extreme end of the inner lane, telling her husband, and every duck,
+goose, and swan <!-- Page 57 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>in the vicinity, what she thought of such an inhuman
+separation.</p>
+
+<p>Molly laughed, and so did Marche. Duck after duck, goose after goose,
+joined indignantly in the conversation. The mallard drakes twisted their
+emerald-green heads and began that low, half gurgling, half quacking
+conversation in which their mottled brown and gray mates joined with
+louder quacks. The geese conversed freely; but the long-necked swans
+held their peace, occupied with the problem of picking to pieces the
+snaps on their anklets.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Molly breathlessly, as the last madly protesting bird had
+been stooled, "let's get into the blind as soon as we can, Mr. Marche.
+There may be <!-- Page 58 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>ducks in Currituck still, and every minute counts now."</p>
+
+<p>So Marche towed the dory around to the westward and drew it into a
+channel where it might lie concealed under the reeds.</p>
+
+<p>When he came across to the blind he found Molly there, seated on the
+plank in the cemented pit behind the screen of reeds and rushes, laying
+out for him his cartridges.</p>
+
+<p>There they were, in neat rows on the rail, fives, sixes, and a few of
+swanshot, ranged in front of him. And his 12-gauge, all ready, save for
+the loading, lay across the pit to his right. So he dropped his booted
+feet into the wooden tub where a foot-warmer lay, picked up the gun,
+slid a pair of sixes into it, laid <!-- Page 59 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>it beside him, and turned toward Miss
+Herold.</p>
+
+<p>The wool collar of her sweater was turned up about her delicately molded
+throat and face. The wild-rose color ran riot in her cheeks, and her
+eyes, sky tinted now, were wide open under the dark lashes, and the wind
+stirred her hair till it rippled bronze and gold under the edge of her
+shooting hood. She, too, was perfectly ready. A cheap, heavy, and rather
+rusty gun lay beside her; a heap of cheap cartridges before her.</p>
+
+<p>She turned, and, catching Marche's eyes, smiled adorably, with a slight
+nod of comradeship. Then, the smile still faintly curving her lips, she
+crossed her legs in the pit, and, warming her hands <!-- Page 60 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>in the pockets of
+her coat, leaned back, resting against the rail behind.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't a foot-warmer," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not cold&mdash;only my fingers&mdash;a little&mdash;stooling those birds."</p>
+
+<p>They spoke in low voices, under their breath.</p>
+
+<p>He fished from his pocket a flat Japanese hand-warmer, lighted the
+paper-cased punk, snapped it shut, and passed it to her. But she
+demurred.</p>
+
+<p>"You need it yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm all right. Please take it."</p>
+
+<p>So she shyly took it, dropped it into her pocket, and rested her shapely
+little hand on it. "How delightful!" she said presently, shifting it to
+the other pocket. "Don't you really need it, Mr. Marche?"</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 61 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+"No. Does it warm you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is delicious. I <i>was</i> a little chilled." She drew out one bare hand
+and looked at it thoughtfully. Then, with a little sigh, and quite
+unconscious of his gaze, she touched her lips to the wind-roughened
+skin, as though in atonement for her maltreatment of herself.</p>
+
+<p>Even as it now was the shape and beauty of the hand held Marche
+fascinated; it was so small, yet so firm and strong and competent, so
+full of youthful character, such a delicately fashioned little hand, and
+so pathetic, somehow&mdash;this woman's hand, with its fineness of texture
+and undamaged purity under the chapped and cruelly bruised, tender skin.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 62 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+She pocketed it again, looking out from under the wind-blown hair
+clustering from the edge of her shooting hood. "Blue-bird weather," she
+said, in her low and very sweet voice. "If no birds swing in by ten
+o'clock we might as well sleep until four."</p>
+
+<p>Marche leaned forward and scanned the water and sky alternately. Nothing
+stirred, save their lazily preening decoys. Uncle Dudley was still
+conversing with his wife at intervals; the swans and the cygnets fed or
+worried their leash snaps; the ducks paddled, or dozed on the stools,
+balanced on one leg.</p>
+
+<p>Far away, on Golden Bar, half a thousand wild geese floated, feeding;
+beyond, like snowflakes dotting the water, <!-- Page 63 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>a few wild swans drifted.
+There were ducks, too, off Starfish Island again, but nothing flying in
+the blue except a slow hawk or some wandering gull, or now and then an
+eagle&mdash;sometimes a mature bird, in all the splendor of white head and
+tail, sometimes a young bird, seemingly larger, and all gray from crest
+to shank.</p>
+
+<p>Once an eagle threatened the decoys, and Uncle Dudley swore so lustily
+at him, and every duck and goose set up such a clamor, that Molly Herold
+picked up her gun for the emergency. But the magnificent eagle, beating
+up into the wind with bronze wings aglisten, suddenly sheered off; and,
+as he passed, Marche could see his bold head turn toward the blind where
+the sun had <!-- Page 64 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>flashed him its telegraphic warning on the barrel of Molly's
+lifted gun.</p>
+
+<p>"Fine!" he whispered. "Splendid! I'm glad you didn't kill him."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad I didn't have to," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you could have?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned toward him, wondering whether he might be serious; then
+smiled as he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>At the same instant, coming apparently from nowhere, four canvasbacks
+suddenly appeared over the clamoring decoys, so close in that, as they
+came driving by the blind and rose slightly, wings bowed, Marche could
+almost see their beady little eyes set in the chestnut red of the
+turning heads. Mechanically his gun spoke twice; rap-rap, echoed Miss
+Herold's gun, and splash! <!-- Page 65 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>splash! down whirled two gray-and-red ducks;
+then a third, uncertain, slowed down, far out beyond the decoys, and
+slanted sideways to the water. The fourth went on.</p>
+
+<p>"Duffer that I am," said Marche good-humoredly. "That was a clean double
+of yours, Miss Herold!&mdash;clean-cut work."</p>
+
+<p>She said, slightly knitting her straight brows: "I should have crossed
+two of them and killed the one you missed. I think I'd better get the
+boat."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'll go out after that kicker," he said, ashamed of his slovenly
+work.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later he returned with his kicker and her two ducks&mdash;great,
+fat, heavy canvasbacks, beautiful in their red, black, and drab plumage.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 66 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+"What about blue-bird weather, now?" he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>But she only smiled and said, "I'm very much afraid."</p>
+
+<p>For a long while they sat there, alert behind their wall of rustling
+reeds, watching sky and water. False alarms were not infrequent from
+their decoys. Sometimes the outbreak of quacking and honking was
+occasioned by some wandering gull, sometimes by a circling hawk or some
+eagle loitering in mid-heaven on broad and leisurely wings, reluctant to
+remain, unwilling to go; sometimes to a pair or two of widgeon or
+pintails speeding eastward high in the blue. But the sparkling,
+cloudless hours sped away, and no duck or goose or swan invaded the
+vicinity. Only one <!-- Page 67 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>sly old black duck dropped into the reeds far back on
+the island; and Marche went after him with serious designs upon his
+fraudulent old life.</p>
+
+<p>When the young man returned, twenty minutes later, perfectly innocent of
+duck murder, he found the girl curled up in her corner of the pit, eyes
+closed, tired little head cradled in the curve of her left arm. She
+waked as he slid into the blind, and smiled at him, pretending not to
+have been asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you get him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. He went off at two hundred yards."</p>
+
+<p>"Blue-bird weather," she sighed; and again they exchanged smiles. He
+noticed that her eyes had somehow become exceedingly blue instead of the
+<!-- Page 68 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>clear gray which he had supposed was their color. And, after her brief
+slumber, there seemed to be a sort of dewy freshness about them, and
+about her slightly pink cheeks, which, at that time, he had no idea were
+at all perilous to him. All he was conscious of was a sensation of
+pleasure in looking at her, and a slight surprise in the revelation of
+elements in her which, he began to decide, constituted real beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a quaint expression&mdash;'blue-bird weather,'" he said. "It's a
+perfect description of a spring-like day in winter. Is it a local
+expression?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;I think so. There's a song about it, along the coast"&mdash;she laughed
+uncertainly&mdash;"a rather foolish song."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 69 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+"If I remember"&mdash;she hesitated, thinking for a moment, then, with a
+laugh which he thought a little bashful&mdash;"it's really too silly to
+repeat!"</p>
+
+<p>"Please sing it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well&mdash;if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>And in a low, pretty, half-laughing voice, she sang:</p>
+
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;Quiet sea and quiet sky,<br />
+Idle sail and anchored boat,<br />
+Just a snowflake gull afloat,<br />
+Drifting like a feather&mdash;<br />
+And the gray hawk crying,<br />
+And a man's heart sighing&mdash;<br />
+That is blue-bird weather:&mdash;<br />
+And the high hawk crying,<br />
+And a maid's heart sighing<br />
+Till lass and lover come together,&mdash;<br />
+This is blue-bird weather.&rdquo;<br />
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>She turned her head and looked steadily out across the waste of water.
+"I told you it was silly," she said, very calmly.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<p><!-- Page 70 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+Blue-bird weather continued. Every day for a week Marche and Molly
+Herold put out for Foam Island under summer skies, and with a soft wind
+filling the sail; and in all the water-world there was no visible sign
+of winter, save the dead reeds on muddy islands and the far and wintry
+menace of the Atlantic crashing icily beyond the eastern dunes.</p>
+
+<p>Few ducks and no geese or swans came to the blind. There was nothing for
+them to do except to talk together or sit dozing in the sun. And,
+imperceptibly, between them the elements of a pretty intimacy unfolded
+like spring <!-- Page 71 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+buds on unfamiliar branches; but what they might develop
+into he did not know, and she had not even considered.</p>
+
+<p>She had a quaint capacity for sleeping in the sunshine while he was away
+on the island prowling hopefully after black ducks. And one morning,
+when he returned to find her asleep at her post, a bunch of widgeon left
+the stools right under her nose before he had a chance to shoot.</p>
+
+<p>She did not awake. The sun fell warmly upon her, searching the
+perfections of the childlike face and throat, gilding the palm of one
+little, sun-tanned hand lying, partly open, on her knee. A spring-like
+wind stirred a single strand of bright hair; lips slightly parted, she
+lay there, face to the sky, <!-- Page 72 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+and Marche thought that he had never looked
+upon anything in all the world more pure and peaceful.</p>
+
+<p>At noon the girl had not awakened. But something in John B. Marche had.
+He looked in horrified surprise at the decoys, then looked at Molly
+Herold; then he gazed in profound astonishment at Uncle Dudley, who made
+a cryptic remark to the wife of his bosom, and then tipped upside down.</p>
+
+<p>Marche examined the sky and water so carefully that he did not see them;
+then, sideways, and with an increasing sensation of consternation, he
+looked again at the sleeping girl.</p>
+
+<p>His was not even a friendly gaze, now; there was more than dawning <!-- Page 73 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+alarm in it&mdash;an irritated curiosity which grew more intense as the seconds
+throbbed out, absurdly timed by a most remarkable obligato from his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>He gazed stonily upon this stranger into whose life he had drifted only
+a week before, whose slumbers he felt that he was now unwarrantedly
+invading with a mental presumption that scared him; and yet, as often as
+he looked elsewhere, he looked back at her again, confused by the slowly
+dawning recognition of a fascination which he was utterly powerless to
+check or even control.</p>
+
+<p>One thing was already certain; he wanted to know her, to learn from her
+own lips intimately about herself, about<!-- Page 74 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+her thoughts, her desires, her
+tastes, her aspirations&mdash;even her slightest fancies.</p>
+
+<p>Absorbed, charmed by her quiet breathing, fascinated into immobility, he
+sat there gazing at her, trying to reconcile the steadily strengthening
+desire to know her with what he already knew of her&mdash;of this sleeping
+stranger, this shabby child of a poor man, dressed in the boots and
+shooting coat of that wretchedly poor man&mdash;his own superintendent, a
+sick man whom he had never even seen.</p>
+
+<p>What manner of man could her father be&mdash;this man Herold&mdash;to have a child
+of this sort, this finely molded, fine-grained, delicate, exquisitely
+made<!-- Page 75 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+ girl, lying asleep here in a wind-stirred blind, with the Creator's
+own honest sun searching out and making triumphant a beauty such as his
+wise and city-worn eyes had never encountered, even under the mercies of
+softened candlelight.</p>
+
+<p>An imbecile repetition of speech kept recurring and even stirring his
+lips, "She'd make them all look like thirty cents." And he colored
+painfully at the crudeness of his obsessing thoughts, angrily, after a
+moment, shaking them from him.</p>
+
+<p>A cartridge rolled from the shelf and splashed into the pit water; the
+girl unclosed her gray eyes, met his gaze, smiled dreamily; then,
+flushing a little, sat up straight.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 76 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+"Fifteen widgeon went off when I returned to the blind," he said,
+unsmiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>beg</i> your pardon. I am&mdash;I am terribly sorry," she stammered, with a
+vivid blush of confusion.</p>
+
+<p>But the first smile from her unclosing eyes had already done damage
+enough; the blush merely disorganized a little more what was already
+chaos in a young man's mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Has&mdash;has anything else come in to the stools?" she asked timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, relenting.</p>
+
+<p>But he was wrong. Something <i>had</i> come into the blind&mdash;a winged,
+fluttering thing, out of the empyrean&mdash;and even Uncle Dudley had not
+seen or heard it, and never a honk or a quack<!-- Page 77 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+warned anybody, or
+heralded the unseen coming of the winged thing.</p>
+
+<p>Marche sat staring out across the water.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;am so very sorry," repeated the girl, in a low voice. "Are you
+offended with me?"</p>
+
+<p>He turned and looked at her, and spoke steadily enough: "Of course I'm
+not. I was glad you had a nap. There has been nothing doing&mdash;except
+those stupid widgeon&mdash;not a feather stirring."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are not angry with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you absurd girl!" he said, laughing and stretching out one hand to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Into her face flashed an exquisite smile; daintily she reached out and
+<!-- Page 78 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+dropped her hand into his. They exchanged a friendly shake, still
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," she said, "it was horrid of me. And I think I boasted to
+you about my knowledge of a bayman's duties."</p>
+
+<p>"You are all right," he said, "a clean shot, a thoroughbred. I ask no
+better comrade than you. I never again shall have such a comrade."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;I am your bayman, not your comrade," she exclaimed, forcing a
+little laugh. "You'll have better guides than I, Mr. Marche."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you reject the equal alliance I offer, Miss Herold?"</p>
+
+<p>"I?" She flushed. "It is very kind of you to put it that way. But I <i>am</i>
+<!-- Page 79 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+only your guide&mdash;but it is pleasant to have you speak that way."</p>
+
+<p>"What way?"</p>
+
+<p>"The way you spoke about&mdash;your bayman's daughter."</p>
+
+<p>He said, smilingly cool on the surface, but in a chaotic, almost idiotic
+inward condition: "I've sat here for days, wishing all the while that I
+might really know you. Would you care to let me, Miss Herold?"</p>
+
+<p>"Know me?" she repeated. "I don't think I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you and your father and brother regard me as a guest&mdash;as a friend
+visiting the family?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," he said, "I'm the same kind of a man that you are a girl and
+<!-- Page 80 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+that your brother is a boy. Why, you know it, don't you? I know it. I
+knew it as soon as I heard you speak, and when your brother came into
+the room that first night with his Latin book, and when I saw your
+mother's picture. So I know what your father must be. Am I not right?"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her proud little head and looked at him. "We are what you
+think us," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then let us stand in that relation, Miss Herold. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him, perplexed, gray eyes clear and thoughtful. "Do you
+mean that you really want me for a friend?" she asked calmly, but her
+sensitive lip quivered a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 81 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+"Do men make personal friends among their employees? Do they? I ask
+because I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"What was your father before he came here?" he inquired bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up, startled, then the color came slowly back to her cheeks.
+"Isn't that a little impertinent, Mr. Marche?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens! Yes, of course it is!" he exclaimed, turning very red.
+"Will you forgive me? I didn't mean to be rude or anything like it! I
+merely meant that whatever reverses have happened to bring such a girl
+as you down into this God-forsaken place have not altered what you were
+and what you are. <i>Can</i> you forgive me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'll tell you something. I <i>wanted</i> to be a little more
+significant to <!-- Page 82 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>you than merely a paid guide. So did Jim. We&mdash;it is
+rather lonely for us. You are the first real man who has come into our
+lives in five years. Do you understand, Mr. Marche?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure you do? We would like to feel that we could talk to
+you&mdash;Jim would. It is pleasant to hear a man from the real world
+speaking. Not that the people here are unkind, only"&mdash;she looked up at
+him almost wistfully&mdash;"we <i>are</i> like you, Mr. Marche&mdash;and we feel
+starved, sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>He did not trust himself to speak, even to look at her, just at the
+moment. Not heretofore sentimental, but always impressionable, he was
+young enough <!-- Page 83 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>to understand, wise enough not to misunderstand.</p>
+
+<p>After a while, leaning back in the blind, he began, almost casually,
+talking about things in that Northern world which had once been hers,
+assuming their common interest in matters purely local, in details, of
+metropolitan affairs, in the changing physiognomy of the monstrous city,
+its superficial aspects, its complex phases.</p>
+
+<p>Timidly, at first, she ventured a question now and then, and after a
+while, as her reserve melted, she asked more boldly, and even offered
+her own comments on men and things, so that, for the first time, he had
+a glimpse of her mind at work&mdash;brief, charming surprises, momentary
+views of a young <!-- Page 84 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>girl's eager intelligence, visions of her sad and
+solitary self, more guessed at than revealed in anything she said or
+left unsaid.</p>
+
+<p>And now they were talking together with free and unfeigned interest and
+pleasure, scarcely turning for a glance at the water or sky, save when
+old Uncle Dudley made insulting remarks to some slow-drifting gull or
+soaring bird of prey.</p>
+
+<p>All the pent-up and natural enthusiasm of years was fairly bubbling to
+her lips; all the long-suppressed necessity of speech with one of her
+own kind who was not of her own kin.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as though they conversed and exchanged views on every topic
+which concerned heaven and earth, <!-- Page 85 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>flashing from one subject to another
+which had nothing at all to do with anything yet discussed.</p>
+
+<p>Out around them the flat leagues of water turned glassy and calm as a
+millpond; the ducks and geese were asleep on their stools; even old
+Uncle Dudley stood sentinel, with one leg buried in the downy plumage of
+his belly, but his weather eye remained brilliantly open to any stir in
+the blue vault above.</p>
+
+<p>They ate their luncheon there together, he serving her with hot coffee
+from the vacuum bottle, she plying him with sandwiches.</p>
+
+<p>And now, to her beauty was added an adorable friendliness and
+confidence, free from the slightest taint of self-consciousness or the
+least blemish of <!-- Page 86 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>coquetry. Intelligent, yet modest to the verge of
+shyness, eager yet reserved, warm hearted yet charmingly impersonal with
+him, he realized that she was finding, with him, only the happiness of
+speech with mankind in the abstract. And so she poured out to him her
+heart, long stifled in the abyss of her isolation; and, gazing into his
+eyes, she was gazing merely toward all that was bright and happy and
+youthful and responsive, and he was its symbol, God-sent from those busy
+haunts of men which already, to her, had become only memories of a
+blessed vision.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">
+<img src="images/gs05.png" width="700" height="476" alt="&quot;They ate their luncheon there together.&quot;" title="Page 88" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;They ate their luncheon there together.&quot;</span></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class='leftpagenum'>
+<!-- Page 87 --><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a><br />
+<!-- Page 88 -->[Pg 88]</div>
+
+<div class='pagenum'>
+<!-- Page 89 --><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a><br />
+<!-- Page 90 --><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a>
+</div>
+
+<p><br />And all the while the undercurrent of his own thoughts ran on
+unceasingly: "What can I do for her? I am falling in love&mdash;in love,
+surely, hopelessly. <!-- Page 91 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+What can I do for her&mdash;for her brother&mdash;her father?
+I am falling in love&mdash;in love&mdash;in love."</p>
+
+<p>The long, still, sunny afternoon slipped away. Gradually the water
+turned to pearl, inlaid with gold, then with glowing rose. And now, far
+to the north, the first thrilling clangor of wild geese, high in the
+blue, came to their ears, and they shrank apart and lay back, staring
+upward. Nearer, nearer, came the sky trumpets, answering faintly each to
+each&mdash;nearer, nearer, till high over the blind swept the misty wedge;
+and old Uncle Dudley flapped his wings and stretched his neck, calling
+up to his wild comrades of earthly delights unnumbered here under the
+shadow of death. And every wild <!-- Page 92 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+goose answered him, and the decoys
+flapped and clamored a siren welcome; but the flying wedge glided onward
+through the blue.</p>
+
+<p>"They've begun to move," whispered the girl. "But, oh, dear! It is
+blue-bird weather. Hark! Do you hear the swans? I can hear swans coming
+out of the north!"</p>
+
+<p>Marche could not yet hear them, but the tethered swans and geese heard,
+and a magnificent chorus rose from the water. Then, far away as
+fairyland, faintly out of the sky, came a new murmur&mdash;not the martial
+clangor of wild geese, but something wilder, more exquisitely
+unearthly&mdash;nearer, nearer, enrapturing its weird, celestial beauty. And
+now, through the blue, with great, <!-- Page 93 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+snowy wings slowly beating, the swans
+passed over like angels; and like angels passing, hailing each other as
+they winged their way, drifting on broad, white pinions, they called,
+each to the other in their sweet, unreal voices, gossiping, garrulous,
+high in the sky. And far away they floated on until they became only a
+silver ribbon undulating against the azure; and even then Marche could
+hear the soft tumult of their calling: Heu! Heu! Hiou! Hiou-oo! until
+sound and snowy flecks vanished together in mid-heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Again, coming from the far north, the trumpets of the sky squadron were
+sounding; they passed, wedge after wedge, sometimes in steady formation,
+sometimes like a wavering band of <!-- Page 94 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+witches, and again in shifting
+battalions, sternly officered, passing through intricate a&euml;rial
+maneuvers, and greeted by Uncle Dudley and the other decoys with wild
+beseeching mixed with applause.</p>
+
+<p>Snowy, angelic companies of swans came alternately with the geese; then
+a whimpering, whispering flight of wild ducks, water-fowl in thousands
+and tens of thousands, rushing onward through the a&euml;rial lanes.</p>
+
+<p>But none came to the blind. Occasionally a wedge of geese wavered,
+irresolute at the frantic persuasions of Uncle Dudley, but their leader
+always dragged them back to their course, and the sagging, hesitating
+ranks passed on.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, in a nearer flight of <!-- Page 95 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+swans, some long-necked, snowy creature
+would bend its head to look curiously down at the tethered swans on the
+water, but always they continued on, settling some two miles south of
+Foaming Shoals, until there was half a mile of wild swans afloat there,
+looking like a long, low bank of snow, touched with faintest pink by the
+glow of the westering sun.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<p><!-- Page 96 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+Marche, pacing the shabby sitting room after supper, an unlighted
+cigarette between his fingers, listened to Jim recite his Latin lesson.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Atque ea qui ad efeminandos animos pertinent important</i>," repeated the
+boy; and Marche nodded absently.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you understand what that means, Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Marche explained, then added smilingly: "But there is nothing luxurious
+to corrupt manhood among the coast marshes down here. Barring fever and
+moccasins, Jim, you ought to <!-- Page 97 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>emerge, some day, into the larger world
+equipped for trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall go out some day," said the boy.</p>
+
+<p>Marche glanced up at the portrait of the boy's mother in its pale-gilt
+oval. Near it, another nail had been driven, and on the faded wall paper
+was an oval discoloration, as though another picture had once hung
+there.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I might see your father before I go North," said Marche, half to
+himself. "Isn't he well enough to let me talk to him for a few minutes?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will ask him," said the boy.</p>
+
+<p>Marche paced the ragged carpet until the return of Jimmy.</p>
+
+<p>"Father is sorry, and asks you to please excuse him," he said.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 98 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>Marche had picked up the boy's schoolbook and was looking at the writing
+on the flyleaf again. Then he raised his head, eyes narrowing on the boy
+as though searching for some elusive memory connected with him&mdash;with his
+name in the Latin book&mdash;perhaps with the writing, which, somehow, had
+stirred in him, once more, the same odd and uncomfortable sensation
+which he had experienced when he first saw it.</p>
+
+<p>"Jim," he said, "where did you live when you lived in New York?"</p>
+
+<p>"In Eighty-seventh Street."</p>
+
+<p>"West?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember the house&mdash;the number?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 548px;">
+<a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">
+<img src="images/gs06.png" width="548" height="700" alt="&quot;&#39;Jim,&#39; he said, &#39;where did you live?&#39;&quot;" title="Page 99" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;Jim,&#39; he said, &#39;where did you live?&#39;&quot;</span></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class='leftpagenum'>
+<!-- Page 99 -->[Pg 99]
+</div>
+
+<div class='pagenum'>
+<!-- Page 100 --><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></div>
+
+<p><br /><!-- Page 101 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>"Was it a private house?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. It was very tall. We lived on one floor and used an
+elevator."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. It was an apartment house."</p>
+
+<p>The boy stood, with blonde head lowered, silently turning over the
+leaves of an old magazine.</p>
+
+<p>Marche walked out to the porch; his brows were bent slightly inward, and
+he bit the end of his unlighted cigarette until the thing became
+useless. Then he flung it away. A few stars watched him above the black
+ramparts of the pines; a gentle wind was abroad, bringing inland the
+restless voice of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>In Marche's mind a persistent thought was groping in darkness, vainly
+striving to touch and awaken memories <!-- Page 102 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>of things forgotten. What was it
+he was trying to remember? What manner of episode, and how connected
+with this place, with the boy's book, with the portrait of his mother in
+its oval frame? Had he seen that portrait before? Perhaps he had seen it
+here, five years ago; yet that could not be, because Herold had not been
+here then.</p>
+
+<p>Was it the writing on the flyleaf that had stirred some forgotten
+memory? It had seemed to him familiar, somehow&mdash;yet not like the
+handwriting in Herold's business letters to him. Yet it <i>was</i> Herold's
+writing&mdash;"Jim, from Daddy"&mdash;that was the inscription. And that
+inscription had riveted his attention from the first moment he saw it.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 103 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>Who was Herold? Who was this man whose undoubtable breeding and personal
+cultivation had stamped his children with the same unmistakable
+distinction?</p>
+
+<p>Somehow or other there had been a great fall in the world for him&mdash;a
+terrible tumble from higher estate to land him here in this desolation
+of swamp-bound silence&mdash;here where only the dark pines broke the vast
+sky line, where the only sound was the far rumor of the sea. Sick,
+probably with coast fever, poor, dependent, no doubt, on the salary
+Marche paid him, isolated from all in the world that made the world
+endurable to intelligence, responsible for two growing children&mdash;one
+already a woman&mdash;what must be the <!-- Page 104 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>thoughts of such a man on a night like
+this, for instance?</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see that man," he kept repeating to himself. "I want to see
+him; and I'm going to."</p>
+
+<p>Restless, but now always listening for the sound of a light tread which
+he had come to know so well&mdash;alas!&mdash;he began to walk to and fro, with
+keen glances toward the illuminated kitchen window every time he passed
+it. Sometimes his mind was chaotic; sometimes clear. The emotions which
+had awakened in him within the week were complex enough to stagger a
+more intelligent man. And Marche was not a fool; he was the typical
+product of his environment&mdash;the result of school and college, and a New
+York business life carried on in <!-- Page 105 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>keenest competition with men as
+remorseless in business as the social code permitted. Also, he went to
+church on Sundays, read a Republican newspaper, and belonged to several
+unexceptionable clubs.</p>
+
+<p>That was the kind of a man he had been only a week ago&mdash;a good fellow in
+the usual sense among men, acceptable to women, kind hearted, not too
+cynical, and every idea in his head modeled upon the opinions he heard
+expressed in that limited area wherein he had been born and bred.</p>
+
+<p>That was the kind of a man he had been a week ago. What was he
+now&mdash;to-night&mdash;here in this waste corner of the world with the light
+from a kitchen window blazing on him as though it were the flashing
+<!-- Page 106 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+splendor streaming through the barred portals of paradise? Was it
+possible that he, John Benton Marche, could be actually in love&mdash;in love
+with the daughter of his own game warden&mdash;with a girl who served him at
+supper in apron and gingham, who served him further in hip boots and
+ragged jacket&mdash;this modern Rosalind of the marshes, as fresh and
+innocent, as modest and ardent, as she of the Arden glades?</p>
+
+<p>The kitchen door opened, and Molly Herold came down the steps and
+straight toward him, unthinkingly, almost instinctively, laying her
+hands in his as he met her under the leafless China tree in the yard.</p>
+
+<p>"I was longer than usual to-night," <!-- Page 107 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>she said, "trying to soften my hands
+with that cold cream you so kindly sent for." She lifted them in the
+starlight with a little laugh. "They're a trifle better, I think," she
+said, "but they're always in water, you know, either there," she glanced
+around at the kitchen, "or yonder with the decoys. But thank you all the
+same," she added brightly. "Are you going to have another delightful
+talk, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you care to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. The idea of my not caring to talk to you," she said,
+laughing at the absurdity. "Shall we go into the sitting room, or walk
+in the starlight? There are no snakes out, yet," she assured him,
+"though if this weather holds, the moccasins will come out."</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 108 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>"We'll walk down to the shore," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, then." She turned and sped to the house, reappearing, after
+a few minutes, wearing her ragged shooting coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Is your father comfortable?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he might want you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Jim sleeps next to him, and he is preparing for bed, now." She
+smiled. "What a darling my brother is, isn't he, Mr. Marche?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a fine boy."</p>
+
+<p>They moved on together, down the rutted lane, between dismantled fences
+and ragged, leafless hedges. She was lithe and light and sure footed,
+but <!-- Page 109 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>once or twice, as they skirted puddles, he supported her; and the
+touch of his hand on her body almost unnerved him. Never had he dreamed
+that contact with any woman could so thrill, so exquisitely shock. And
+every instant he was falling deeper and deeper in love with her. He knew
+it&mdash;realized it&mdash;made no effort to avoid it, fight it off, control it.
+It was only his speech and manner that he held desperately under bit and
+curb, letting his heart go to everlasting smash and his reason run riot.
+And what on earth would be the end he could not imagine, for he was
+leaving for the North in the morning, and he had not yet told her.</p>
+
+<p>As they came out upon the shore, the dory loomed up, beached, a dark
+silhouette <!-- Page 110 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>against the starlit water. She laid her hands on the stern
+and vaulted lightly to her perch, sliding along to make room for Marche.</p>
+
+<p>From far away in the sound came the confused murmur of wild fowl
+feeding. Except for that, and the ceaseless monotone of the outer sea,
+there was no sound, not even the lap of water against the bow.</p>
+
+<p>Marche, who had been leaning forward, head bent as though watching the
+water, turned to the girl abruptly. "I want to do something for&mdash;Jim,"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up at him, not understanding.</p>
+
+<p>"Will your father let me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you mean."</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 111 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>"I mean that I want to send him to a good school&mdash;a good boys' school in
+the North."</p>
+
+<p>She caught her breath, was silent for a moment, then, amazed: "<i>Would</i>
+you do that? Oh, I've wished for it&mdash;dreamed of it! But&mdash;how can you?
+You are so kind&mdash;so good to us&mdash;but how could we&mdash;accept?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's why I want to see your father."</p>
+
+<p>"For <i>that</i>! Was it really for that, Mr. Marche?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;partly." He swallowed and looked the other way, for the girl's
+excited face was very near his own as she bent forward to search his
+eyes for the least change of expression&mdash;bent nearer as though to
+reassure herself that he <!-- Page 112 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>meant it seriously. For an instant her soft
+breath made the night air fragrant; he felt it, faint and fresh on his
+cheek, and turned sharply, biting his lips lest he lose all
+self-control.</p>
+
+<p>"Could you and your father spare him?" he asked carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if you only would give him that chance!" she cried. "But&mdash;tell
+me&mdash;<i>how</i> can we accept such a thing of you? Is it possible?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would <i>you</i> accept it?" he asked, turning toward her.</p>
+
+<p>The question startled her. She looked at him, striving to think clearly,
+trying to see this offered miracle through calm, impartial eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I would do anything&mdash;almost&mdash;for Jim," she said. "I'd have no pride
+<!-- Page 113 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+left, if his chances lay in the balance. But men&mdash;my father&mdash;may be
+different."</p>
+
+<p>He said slowly: "Suppose I offered the same chance to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" she said crisply.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I offered you a college finishing, Miss Herold. Would you
+accept?"</p>
+
+<p>She slowly grew scarlet under his gaze. "That would be insulting," she
+said, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, when only kindness is meant&mdash;as I mean it for Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not the same. I am a grown woman capable of caring for myself.
+Such an offer, however kindly meant, could only hurt me, humiliate
+me&mdash;and&mdash;I thought you found me companionable <!-- Page 114 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>as I am. Friends do not
+offer to better each other&mdash;in such a way."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not offered it to you, Miss Herold."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up, still flushed and brilliant eyed; then her face changed
+softly. "I know it. I was foolishly sensitive. I know you couldn't offer
+such a thing to me. But I wish I knew whether we could accept for Jim.
+He is such a darling&mdash;so intelligent and perfectly crazy for an
+education. I've saved a little&mdash;that's why I wanted you to hire me for
+your bayman. You see I don't spend anything on myself," she added, with
+a blush.</p>
+
+<p>Marche was fighting hard for self-restraint; he was young and romantic,
+and his heart was very full. "What I'd <!-- Page 115 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>like to do," he said, "would be
+to send Jim to some first-rate school until he is ready for college.
+Then I'd like to see him through college, and, if he cared for it, start
+him with me in business."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she cried softly, "is it possible! Is there&mdash;can any man really do
+such heavenly things? Have you any idea what you are saying? Do you
+realize what you are doing to me&mdash;with every word you utter?"</p>
+
+<p>"What am I doing to&mdash;to you?" he asked unsteadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Making me your slave," she said, in a low voice, thrilling with
+generous passion. "Even for the thought&mdash;even if father will not
+accept&mdash;what you have said to me to-night has put me in your
+<!-- Page 116 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+debt forever. Truly&mdash;truly, I know what friendship is, now."</p>
+
+<p>She clasped her hands tightly and said something else, sweetly
+incoherent; and, in the starlight, Marche saw the tears sparkling on her
+lashes.</p>
+
+<p>With that he sprang nervously to the shore and began to tramp up and
+down the shingle, his mind in a whirl, every sense, common or the
+contrary, clamoring for finality&mdash;urging him to tell her the truth&mdash;tell
+her that he loved her, that he wanted her&mdash;her alone, out of all the
+world of women&mdash;that it was for love and for her, and for love of her,
+that he offered anything, did anything, thought anything now under the
+high stars or under the circling sun.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as he tramped savagely to <!-- Page 117 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>and fro, he realized that he had
+begun wrong; that he should have told her he loved her first of all, and
+then acted, not promised.</p>
+
+<p>Would she look on his offer scornfully, now? Would she see, in what he
+asked of her, a bribe desired for the offer he had made in her brother's
+behalf? She did not love him. How could she, in a week? Never had there
+been even a hint of sentiment between them. What would she think&mdash;this
+young girl, so tranquilly confident in her friendship for him&mdash;what
+would she think of him and his love? He knew there was nothing mercenary
+or material in her character; he knew she was young, sweet tempered,
+reticent concerning herself, clean hearted, and <!-- Page 118 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>proud. How could he come
+blundering through the boundaries of her friendship with such an avowal,
+at a moment's notice?</p>
+
+<p>He returned slowly to the boat and stood looking up at her; and he saw
+that she was smiling down at him in the starlight.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you start off so abruptly and tramp up and down?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at her. "Shall we walk back, now?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>She extended her hands to him, and he swung her to the beach. For a
+moment he retained her hands; she looked at him, smiling, thrilling with
+all that he had said, meeting his eyes frankly and tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>"You are like some glorious magic <!-- Page 119 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>prince to me," she said, "appearing
+among us here to win our hearts with a word."</p>
+
+<p>"Have I won yours with what I have said?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mine? Oh, don't you know it? Do you think&mdash;even if it doesn't come
+true&mdash;that I can ever forget what you have wished to do for Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>Still holding her hands, he lifted them, joined her fingers, and laid
+his lips to them. She bent her head and caught her breath in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going North to-morrow," he said.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment she did not comprehend his words. Then, a trifle dazed, she
+looked up at him. "To-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 120 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you coming back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps&mdash;next year."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Next&mdash;year!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you&mdash;find it&mdash;a long time?"</p>
+
+<p>Her straight brows bent inward a little, the startled gray eyes became
+clear and steady. "Of course I knew that you must go&mdash;some time. But I
+had no idea that it would be so soon. Somehow, I have thought of you as
+being&mdash;here&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you care?"</p>
+
+<p>Her honest eyes widened. "Care?" she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. How greatly do you care?"</p>
+
+<p>The straight brows contracted still more as she stood considering
+him&mdash;so close that the fresh and subtle youth of <!-- Page 121 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>her freshened the night
+again with its faint perfume.</p>
+
+<p>Again he touched her hands with his lips, she watching him palely, out
+of clear, gray eyes; then, as they turned away together, he encircled
+her slender waist with his arm.</p>
+
+<p>That she was conscious of it, and not disturbed by it, was part of her
+new mystery to him. Only once, as they walked, when his circling clasp
+tightened, did she rest her own hand over his where it held her body
+imprisoned. But she said nothing; nor had he spoken when the belt of
+pines loomed against the stars once more.</p>
+
+<p>Then, though neither had spoken, they stopped. He turned to face her,
+drew her into his arms, and the beating <!-- Page 122 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>of his heart almost suffocated
+him as he looked into her eyes, clear, unshrinking eyes of gray, with a
+child's question in their starry depths.</p>
+
+<p>And he answered the question as in a dream: "I love you. I want you for
+my wife. I want you to love me. You are the first woman I have cared
+for. All that you are I want&mdash;no more than you are. You, as you are now,
+are all that I care for in the world. Life is young for us both, yet.
+Let us grow up together&mdash;if you can love me. Can you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you not care for me a little, Molly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do. I know&mdash;nothing about&mdash;love&mdash;real love."</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 123 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>"Can you not imagine it, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;it is what I <i>have</i> imagined&mdash;a man&mdash;like you&mdash;coming this way into
+my loneliness. I recognize it. I have dreamed that it was like this.
+What is it that I should do&mdash;if this is really to come true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Love me."</p>
+
+<p>"I would&mdash;if I knew how. I don't know how," she said wistfully. "My
+heart is so full&mdash;already&mdash;of your goodness&mdash;I&mdash;and then this dream I
+have dreamed&mdash;that a man like you should come here and say this to
+me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it in you to love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try&mdash;if you'll tell me what to do&mdash;how to show it&mdash;to
+understand&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He drew her closer, unresisting, and looked deep into her young eyes,
+and <!-- Page 124 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>kissed them, and then her lips, till they grew warmer and her breath
+came fragrant and uneven.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Y-yes."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment's exquisite silence she rested her flushed face against his
+shoulder, then lifted it, averted, and stepped aside, out of the circle
+of his arms. Head lowered, she stood there, motionless in the starlight,
+arms hanging straight; then, as he came to her, she lifted her proud
+little head and laid both her hands in his.</p>
+
+<p>"Of those things," she said, "that a woman should be to the man she
+loves, and say to that man, I am ignorant. <!-- Page 125 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>Even how to speak to
+you&mdash;now&mdash;I do not know. It is all a dream to me&mdash;except that, in my
+heart, I know that I do love you. But I think that was so from the
+beginning, and after you have gone away I should have realized it some
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"You darling!" he whispered. Again she surrendered to him, exquisite in
+her ignorance, passive at first, then tremulously responsive. And at
+last her head drooped and fell on his shoulder, and he held her for a
+little longer, then released her.</p>
+
+<p>Trembling, she crept up the stairway to her room, treading lightly along
+the dark entry, dazed, fatigued, with the wonder of it all. Then, as she
+laid her hand on the knob of her bedroom door, <!-- Page 126 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>the door of her father's
+room opened abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Molly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear," she answered vaguely.</p>
+
+<p>He stood staring at her on the threshold, fully dressed, and she looked
+back at him, her eyes slightly confused by the light.</p>
+
+<p>"Where have you been?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"With Mr. Marche."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the dory&mdash;and back."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say to you, child?"</p>
+
+<p>She came silently across the threshold and put her arms around his neck;
+and the man lost every atom of his color.</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say?" he repeated harshly.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 470px;">
+<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">
+<img src="images/gs07.png" width="470" height="700" alt="&quot;&#39;He tells you that he&mdash;he is in love with you?&#39;&quot;" title="Page 127" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;&#39;He tells you that he&mdash;he is in love with you?&#39;&quot;</span></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class='leftpagenum'>
+<!-- Page 127 -->[Pg 127]</div>
+
+<div class='pagenum'>
+<!-- Page 128 --><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></div>
+
+<p><br /><!-- Page 129 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>"That he loves me."</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is true, father."</p>
+
+<p>The man held her at arm's length roughly. "Good God!" he groaned, "how
+long has this been going on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only to-night. What do you mean, father?"</p>
+
+<p>"He tells you that he&mdash;he is in love with you? With <i>you</i>?" repeated
+Herold unsteadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It is true, too."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean he asked you to marry him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And I said I would."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> love <i>him</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The man's pallor frightened her silent. Then he dropped her arms, which
+he had been clutching, and stood <!-- Page 130 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+staring at nothing, gnawing at his
+colorless lips.</p>
+
+<p>The girl watched him with dawning terror and finally ventured to speak.
+"Dear, what is the matter? Are you displeased with me? Do you think that
+he is not a man I should care for? You don't know him, dear. You have
+only to see him, to speak with him, hear his voice, look into his
+eyes&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" groaned Herold, closing his sunken eyes. Then, almost
+feeling his way out and along the dark passageway, he descended the
+stairs, heavily.</p>
+
+<p>Marche, cleaning his gun in the sitting-room, looked up in surprise,
+then rose, laying aside stock, fore-end, and barrel, as Herold came into
+the room. <!-- Page 131 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>The next instant, stepping nearer, he stared into Herold's
+face in silence. And so they met and confronted each other after many
+years.</p>
+
+<p>"Are <i>you</i> Herold?" said the young man, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"That is my name&mdash;now."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> have been in my employment&mdash;for five years?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Judge Gilkins gave me the chance. I could not suppose that the
+club would ever become your property."</p>
+
+<p>The younger man's face hardened. "But when it did become my property,
+why had you the indecency to stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where else could I go?"</p>
+
+<p>"You had the whole world to&mdash;operate in."</p>
+
+<p>Herold's thin face flushed. "It was <!-- Page 132 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>fitter that I should work for you,"
+he said. "I have served you faithfully for five years."</p>
+
+<p>"And unfaithfully for ten! Wasn't it enough that Vyse and I let you go
+without prosecuting you? Wasn't it enough that we pocketed our loss for
+your wife's sake?"</p>
+
+<p>He checked himself in a flash of memory, turned, and looked at the
+picture on the wall. Now he knew, now he understood why his former
+associate's handwriting had seemed familiar after all these years.</p>
+
+<p>And suddenly he remembered that this man was Jim's father&mdash;and the
+father of the young girl he was in love with; and the shock drove every
+drop of blood out of his heart and cheeks. <!-- Page 133 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>Ghastly, staring, he stood
+confronting Herold; and the latter, leaning heavily, shoulder against
+the wall, stared back at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I could have gone on working for you," he said, "trying to save enough
+to make restitution&mdash;some day. I <i>have</i> already saved part of it. Look
+at me&mdash;look at my children&mdash;at the way we live, and you'll understand
+how I have saved. But I <i>have</i> saved part of what I took. I'll give you
+that much before you go&mdash;before I go, too."</p>
+
+<p>His breath came heavily, unevenly; he cleared his eyes with a
+work-stained hand, fashioned for pens and ledgers.</p>
+
+<p>"You were abroad when I&mdash;did what I did. Vyse was merciless. I told him
+I could put it back if he'd give me the <!-- Page 134 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>chance. But a thief was a thief
+to him&mdash;particularly when his own pocket was involved. He meant to send
+me to prison. The judge held him&mdash;he was his father-in-law&mdash;and he was
+an old man with a wife and children of his own."</p>
+
+<p>Herold was silent for a moment, and his gaze became vague and remote,
+then he lifted his head sharply:</p>
+
+<p>"A man makes one slip like that and the world damns him forever. And I
+tell you, Marche, that I am not dishonest by nature or in my character.
+God alone knows why I took those securities, meaning, of course, to
+return them, as all the poor, damned fools do mean when they do what I
+did. But Vyse made it a condition that I was to leave <!-- Page 135 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>the country, and
+there was no chance of restitution unless I could remain in New York and
+do what I knew how to do&mdash;no chance, Marche&mdash;and so fortune ebbed, and
+my wife died, and the old judge saw me working on the water-front in
+Norfolk one day, and gave me this place. That is all."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you feign illness?" asked Marche, in an altered voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You know why."</p>
+
+<p>"You thought I'd discharge you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>Marche stepped nearer. "Why did you come to me here to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>Herold flushed deeply. "It was your right to know&mdash;and my daughter's
+right&mdash;before she broke her heart."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. You naturally suppose that <!-- Page 136 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>I would scarcely care to marry the
+daughter of a&mdash;&mdash;" He stopped short, and Herold set his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Say it," he said, "and let this end matters for all of us. Except that
+I have saved seven thousand dollars toward&mdash;what I took. I will draw you
+a check for it now."</p>
+
+<p>He walked steadily to the table, laid out a thin checkbook, and with his
+fountain-pen wrote out a check for seven thousand dollars on a Norfolk
+bank.</p>
+
+<p>"There you are, Marche," he said wearily. "I made most of it buying and
+selling pine timber in this district. It seemed a little like expiation,
+too, working here for you, unknown to you. I won't stay, now, of course.
+I'll try <!-- Page 137 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>to pay back the rest&mdash;little by little&mdash;somehow."</p>
+
+<p>"The way to pay it back," said Marche, "is to do the work you are fitted
+for."</p>
+
+<p>Herold looked up. "How can I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could not go back to New York. I have no money to go with, even if I
+could find a place for myself again."</p>
+
+<p>"Your place is open to you."</p>
+
+<p>Herold stared at him.</p>
+
+<p>Marche repeated the assertion profanely. "Damnation," he said, "if you'd
+talked this way to me five years ago, I'd never have stood in your way.
+All I heard of the matter was what Vyse told me. I'm not associated with
+him any more; I'll stand for his minding <!-- Page 138 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>his own affairs. The thing for
+you to do, Courtney, is to get into the game again and clean up what you
+owe Vyse. Here's seven thousand; you can borrow the rest from me. And
+then we'll go into things again and hustle. It was a good combination,
+Courtney&mdash;we'd have been rich men&mdash;except for the slip you made. Come on
+in with me again. Or would you rather continue to inhabit your own
+private hell?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what you are saying, Marche?" said the other hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I do. I guess you've done full time for a first offense. Clean
+off the slate, Courtney. You and Vyse and I know it&mdash;nobody
+else&mdash;Gilkins is dead. Come on, man! That boy of yours is <!-- Page 139 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>a corker! I
+love him&mdash;that little brother, Jim, of mine; and as for&mdash;Molly&mdash;&mdash;" His
+voice broke and he turned sharply aside, saying: "It's certainly
+blue-bird weather, Courtney, and we all might as well go North. Come out
+under the stars, and we'll talk it over."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was almost dawn when they returned. Marche's hand lay lightly on
+Courtney's shoulder for a moment, as they parted.</p>
+
+<p>Above, as Courtney stood feeling blindly for his door, Molly's door
+swung softly ajar, and the girl came out in her night-dress.</p>
+
+<p>"Father," she whispered, "is it all right?"</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 140 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>"All right, thank God, little daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;I may care for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely&mdash;surely, darling, because he is the finest specimen of manhood
+that walks this merciless earth."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it," she whispered gaily. "If you'll lend me your wrapper a
+moment, I'll go to his door and say good-night to him again."</p>
+
+<p>Her father looked at her, picked up his tattered dressing-gown from his
+bed, and wrapped her in it to the chin, then kissed her forehead.</p>
+
+
+<p>So she trotted away to Marche's door and tapped softly; and when he came
+and opened the door, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 141 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>"Good night," she whispered. "I do love you, and I shall pray all night
+that I may be everything that you would wish to have me. Good night,
+once more&mdash;dearest of men&mdash;good night."</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Blue-Bird Weather, by Robert W. Chambers,
+Illustrated by Charles Dana Gibson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Blue-Bird Weather
+
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 21, 2008  [eBook #24389]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE-BIRD WEATHER***
+
+
+E-text prepared by S. Drawehn, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 24389-h.htm or 24389-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/8/24389/24389-h/24389-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/8/24389/24389-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+BLUE-BIRD WEATHER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Works of Robert W. Chambers
+
+  The Streets Of Ascalon
+  Blue-Bird Weather
+  Japonette
+  The Adventures of a Modest Man
+  The Danger Mark
+  Special Messenger
+  The Firing Line
+  The Younger Set
+  The Fighting Chance
+  Some Ladies in Haste
+  The Tree of Heaven
+  The Tracer of Lost Persons
+  A Young Man in a Hurry
+  Lorraine
+  Maids of Paradise
+  Ashes of Empire
+  The Red Republic
+  Outsiders
+  The Common Law
+  Ailsa Paige
+  The Green Mouse
+  Iole
+  The Reckoning
+  The Maid-at-Arms
+  Cardigan
+  The Haunts of Men
+  The Mystery of Choice
+  The Cambric Mask
+  The Maker of Moons
+  The King in Yellow
+  In Search of the Unknown
+  The Conspirators
+  A King and a Few Dukes
+  In the Quarter
+
+
+For Children
+
+  Garden-Land
+  Forest-Land
+  River-Land
+  Mountain-Land
+  Orchard-Land
+  Outdoor-Land
+  Hide and Seek in Forest-Land
+
+  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, New York
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BLUE-BIRD WEATHER
+
+by
+
+ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
+
+[Decoration]
+
+With Illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "She trotted away to Marche's door and tapped softly."
+                                                         [Page 140]]
+
+
+D. Appleton and Company
+New York and London :: MCMXII
+
+Copyright, 1912, by
+Robert W. Chambers
+
+Copyright, 1911, by International Magazine Company
+
+Published October, 1912
+
+Published in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+  JOSEPH LEE
+  OF NEEDWOOD FOREST
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+  "She trotted away to Marche's door and tapped softly."  _Frontispiece_
+
+  "She said gravely: 'I am afraid it will be blue-bird weather.'"     14
+
+  "'Well,' he said pleasantly, 'what comes next, Miss Herold?'"       26
+
+  "'I'm _so_ sorry, Jim.'"                                            33
+
+  "They ate their luncheon there together."                           88
+
+  "'Jim,' he said, 'where did you live?'"                             99
+
+  "'He tells you that he--he is in love with you?'"                  127
+
+
+
+
+BLUE-BIRD WEATHER
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was now almost too dark to distinguish objects; duskier and vaguer
+became the flat world of marshes, set here and there with cypress and
+bounded only by far horizons; and at last land and water disappeared
+behind the gathered curtains of the night. There was no sound from the
+waste except the wind among the withered reeds and the furrowing splash
+of wheel and hoof over the submerged causeway.
+
+The boy who was driving had scarcely spoken since he strapped Marche's
+gun cases and valise to the rear of the rickety wagon at the railroad
+station. Marche, too, remained silent, preoccupied with his own
+reflections. Wrapped in his fur-lined coat, arms folded, he sat doubled
+forward, feeling the Southern swamp-chill busy with his bones. Now and
+then he was obliged to relight his pipe, but the cold bit at his
+fingers, and he hurried to protect himself again with heavy gloves.
+
+The small, rough hands of the boy who was driving were naked, and
+finally Marche mentioned it, asking the child if he were not cold.
+
+"No, sir," he said, with a colorless brevity that might have been
+shyness or merely the dull indifference of the very poor, accustomed to
+discomfort.
+
+"Don't you feel cold at all?" persisted Marche kindly.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"I suppose you are hardened to this sort of weather?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+By the light of a flaming match, Marche glanced sideways at him as he
+drew his pipe into a glow once more, and for an instant the boy's gray
+eyes flickered toward his in the flaring light. Then darkness masked
+them both again.
+
+"Are you Mr. Herold's son?" inquired the young man.
+
+"Yes, sir," almost sullenly.
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+"Eleven."
+
+"You're a big boy, all right. I have never seen your father. He is at
+the clubhouse, no doubt."
+
+"Yes, sir," scarcely audible.
+
+"And you and he live there all alone, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, sir." A moment later the boy added jerkily, "And my sister," as
+though truth had given him a sudden nudge.
+
+"Oh, you have a sister, too?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"That makes it very jolly for you, I fancy," said Marche pleasantly.
+There was no reply to the indirect question.
+
+His pipe had gone out again, and he knocked the ashes from it and
+pocketed it. For a while they drove on in silence, then Marche peered
+impatiently through the darkness, right and left, in an effort to see;
+and gave it up.
+
+"You must know this road pretty well to be able to keep it," he said.
+"As for me, I can't see anything except a dirty little gray star up
+aloft."
+
+"The horse knows the road."
+
+"I'm glad of that. Have you any idea how near we are to the house?"
+
+"Half a mile. That's Rattler Creek, yonder."
+
+"How the dickens can you tell?" asked Marche curiously. "You can't see
+anything in the dark, can you?"
+
+"I don't know how I can tell," said the boy indifferently.
+
+Marche smiled. "A sixth sense, probably. What did you say your name is?"
+
+"Jim."
+
+"And you're eleven? You'll be old enough to have a gun very soon, Jim.
+How would you like to shoot a real, live wild duck?"
+
+"I _have_ shot plenty."
+
+Marche laughed. "Good for you, Jimmy. What did the gun do to you? Kick
+you flat on your back?"
+
+The boy said gravely: "Father's gun is too big for me. I have to rest it
+on the edge of the blind when I fire."
+
+"Do you shoot from the blinds?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Marche relapsed into smiling silence. In a few moments he was thinking
+of other things--of this muddy island which had once been the property
+of a club consisting of five carefully selected and wealthy members, and
+which, through death and resignation, had now reverted to him. Why he
+had ever bought in the shares, as one by one the other members either
+died or dropped out, he did not exactly know. He didn't care very much
+for duck shooting. In five years he had not visited the club; and why he
+had come here this year for a week's sport he scarcely knew, except that
+he had either to go somewhere for a rest or ultimately be carried,
+kicking, into what his slangy doctor called the "funny house."
+
+So here he was, on a cold February night, and already nearly at his
+destination; for now he could make out a light across the marsh, and
+from dark and infinite distances the east wind bore the solemn rumor of
+the sea, muttering of wrecks and death along the Atlantic sands beyond
+the inland sounds.
+
+"Well, Jim," he said, "I never thought I'd survive this drive, but here
+we are, and still alive. Are you frozen solid, you poor boy?"
+
+The boy smiled, shyly, in negation, as they drove into the bar of light
+from the kitchen window and stopped. Marche got down very stiffly. The
+kitchen door opened at the same moment, and a woman's figure appeared in
+the lamplight--a young girl, slender, bare armed, drying her fingers as
+she came down the steps to offer a small, weather-roughened hand to
+Marche.
+
+"My brother will show you to your room," she said. "Supper will be ready
+in a few minutes."
+
+So he thanked her and went away with Jim, relieving the boy of the
+valise and one gun-case, and presently came to the quarters prepared for
+him. The room was rough, with its unceiled walls of yellow pine, a
+chair, washstand, bed, and a nail or two for his wardrobe. It had been
+the affectation of the wealthy men composing the Foam Island Duck Club
+to exist almost primitively when on the business of duck shooting, in
+contradistinction to the overfed luxury of other millionaires
+inhabiting other more luxuriously appointed shooting-boxes along the
+Chesapeake.
+
+The Foam Island Club went in heavily for simplicity, as far as the
+two-story shanty of a clubhouse was concerned; but their island was one
+of the most desirable in the entire region, and their live decoys the
+most perfectly trained and cared for.
+
+Marche, washing his tingling fingers and visage in icy water, rather
+wished, for a moment, that the club had installed modern plumbing; but
+delectable odors from the kitchen put him into better humor, and
+presently he went off down the creaking and unpainted stairs to warm
+himself at a big stove until summoned to the table.
+
+He was summoned in a few moments by the same girl who had greeted him;
+and she also waited on him at table, placing before him in turn his
+steaming soup, a platter of fried bass and smoking sweet potatoes, then
+the inevitable broiled canvas-back duck with rice, and finally home-made
+preserves--wild grapes, exquisitely fragrant in their thin, golden
+syrup.
+
+Marche was that kind of a friendly young man who is naturally
+gay-hearted and also a little curious--sometimes to the verge of
+indiscretion. For his curiosity and inquiring interest in his fellow-men
+was easily aroused--particularly when they were less fortunately
+situated than he in a world where it is a favorite fiction that all are
+created equal. He was, in fact, that particular species of human
+nuisance known as a humanitarian; but he never dreamed he was a
+nuisance, and certainly never meant to be.
+
+Warmth and food and the prospects of to-morrow's shooting, and a
+slender, low-voiced young girl, made cheerful his recently frost-nipped
+soul, and he was inclined to expand and become talkative there in the
+lamplight.
+
+"Has the shooting been pretty good?" he asked pleasantly, plying knife
+and fork in the service of a raging appetite.
+
+"It _has_ been."
+
+"What do you think of the prospects for to-morrow?"
+
+[Illustration: "She said gravely: 'I am afraid it will be blue-bird
+weather.'"]
+
+She said gravely: "I am afraid it will be blue-bird weather."
+
+It was a new, but graphic, expression to him; and he often remembered
+it afterward, and how quaintly it fell from her lips as she stood there
+in the light of the kerosene lamp, slim, self-possessed, in her faded
+gingham gown and apron, the shapely middle finger of one little
+weather-tanned hand resting on the edge of the cloth.
+
+"You are Miss Herold, I suppose?" he said, looking up at her with his
+pleasant smile.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are not Southern?"
+
+"No," she said briefly. And he then remembered that the Hon. Cicero W.
+Gilkins, when he was president of the now defunct club, had installed a
+Northern man as resident chief game-protector and superintendent at the
+Foam Island Club House.
+
+Marche had never even seen Herold; but, through lack of personal
+interest, and also because he needed somebody to look out for the
+property, he had continued to pay this man Herold his inconsiderable
+salary every year, scarcely knowing, himself, why he did not put the
+Foam Island shooting on the market and close up the matter for good.
+
+"It's been five years since I was here, Miss Herold," he said, smiling.
+"That was in the old days of the club, when Judge Gilkins and Colonel
+Vyse used to come here shooting every season. But you don't remember
+them, I fancy."
+
+"I remember them."
+
+"Really! You must have been quite a child."
+
+"I was thirteen."
+
+"Oh, then you are eighteen, now," he said humorously.
+
+Her grave, young lips were only slightly responsive to his smile.
+
+"You have been here a long time," he said. "Do you find it lonely?"
+
+"Sometimes," she admitted.
+
+"What do you do for recreation?"
+
+"I don't think I know what you mean, Mr. Marche."
+
+"I mean for pleasure."
+
+She looked at him out of her clear, gray eyes, then turned her gaze on
+the window. But she could not see through it; the pane only reflected
+her face darkly; and to her, for a moment, it seemed that way with her
+whole pent-up life, here in the Virginia marshes--no outlet, no outlook,
+and wherever she turned her wistful eyes only her own imprisoned self to
+confront her out of the dull obscurity.
+
+"I suppose," he said, watching her, "that you sometimes go to Norfolk
+for a holiday?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or to Old Point, or Baltimore, perhaps?"
+
+She had her under lip between her teeth, now, and was looking so fixedly
+at the window that he thought she had not heard him.
+
+He rose from the table, and as she turned to meet his pleasant eyes he
+smilingly thanked her for waiting on him.
+
+"And now," he said, "if you will say to your father that I'd like to
+have a little talk with him----"
+
+"Father is ill in bed," she said, in a low voice.
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry. I hope it isn't anything serious."
+
+"I--think not."
+
+"Will he be able to see me to-morrow?"
+
+"I am afraid not, Mr. Marche. He--he asked me to say to you that you
+might safely transact any business with me. I know all about it," she
+said, speaking a little hurriedly. "I keep the accounts, and I have
+every item and every bill ready for your inspection; and I can tell you
+exactly what condition the property is in and what lumber has been cut
+and what repairs have been necessary. Whenever you are ready for me, I
+will come into the sitting room," she added, "because Jim and I have had
+our supper."
+
+"Very well," he said, smiling, "I am ready now, if you are."
+
+So she went away to rinse her hands and lay aside her apron, and in a
+few minutes she entered the sitting room. He rose and placed a chair for
+her, and she thanked him, flushing a little, and then he resumed his
+seat, watching her sorting over the papers in her lap.
+
+Presently she crossed one knee over the other, and one slim, prettily
+shaped foot, in its shabby shoe, swung clear of its shadow on the floor.
+Then she handed him a sheaf of bills for his inspection, and, pencil in
+hand, followed the totals as he read them off aloud.
+
+For half an hour they compared and checked off items, and he found her
+accounts accurate to a penny.
+
+"Father bought three geese and a gander from Ike Helm," she said. "They
+were rather expensive, but two were mated, and they call very well when
+tied out separated. Do you think it was too expensive?" she added
+timidly, showing him the bill.
+
+"No," he said, smiling. "I think it's all right. Mated decoys are what
+we need, and you can wing-tip a dozen before you get one that will talk
+at the right time."
+
+"That is true," she said eagerly. "We try our best to keep up the decoys
+and have nothing but talkers. Our geese are nearly all right, and our
+ducks are good, but our swans are _so_ vexing! They seem to be such
+fools, and they usually behave like silly cygnets. You will see
+to-morrow."
+
+While she was speaking, her brother came quietly into the room with an
+open book in his hands, and Marche, glancing at it curiously, saw that
+it was a Latin grammar.
+
+"Where do you go to school, Jim?" he asked.
+
+"Father teaches me."
+
+Marche, rather astonished at the calibre of his superintendent,
+glanced from the boy to his sister in silence. The girl's head
+remained steadily lowered over the papers on her knee, but he saw her
+foot swinging in nervous rhythm, and he was conscious of her silent
+impatience at something or other, perhaps at the interruption in their
+business discussion.
+
+[Illustration: "'Well,' he said pleasantly, 'what comes next, Miss
+Herold?'"]
+
+"Well," he said pleasantly, "what comes next, Miss Herold?"
+
+She handed him a list of the decoys. He read it gravely, nodded, and
+returned it.
+
+"You may count them for yourself to-morrow," she said.
+
+"Not at all. I trust you entirely," he replied laughingly.
+
+Then they went over the remaining matters, the condition of the pine
+timber, the repairs to the boats and blinds and stools, items for snaps,
+swivels, paint, cement, wire, none of which interested Marche as much as
+the silent boy reading his Latin grammar by the smoky lamp interested
+him, or the boy's sister bending over the papers on her knee, pencil
+poised in her pretty, weather-roughened hand.
+
+"I sent the shells from New York by express," he said. "Did they
+arrive?"
+
+"I left two hundred in your room," said the boy, looking up.
+
+"Oh, thank you, Jim." And, turning to his sister, who had raised her
+head, inquiringly, "I suppose somebody will call me at the screech of
+dawn, won't they?"
+
+"Do you know the new law?" she asked.
+
+"No. I don't like laws, anyway," he said smilingly.
+
+She smiled, too, gathering up her papers preparatory to departure.
+"Nobody is allowed," she said, "to put off from shore until the sun is
+above the horizon line. And the wardens are very strict." Then she rose.
+"Will you excuse me? I have the dishes to do."
+
+The boy laid aside his book and stood up, but his sister said:
+
+"Stay and study, Jim. I don't need any help."
+
+And Jim resumed his seat with heightened color. A moment later, however,
+he went out to the kitchen.
+
+"Look here, Molly," he said, "wha'd' you want to give me away for?
+He'll think I'm a sissy, helping you do dishes and things."
+
+"My dear, my dear!" she exclaimed contritely, "I didn't think of it.
+Please forgive me, Jim. Anyway, you don't really care what this man
+thinks about any of us----"
+
+"Yes, I do! Anyway, a fellow doesn't want another fellow to think he
+washes dishes."
+
+"You darling! Forgive me. I wasn't thinking. It was too stupid of me."
+
+"It really was," said the boy, in his sweet, dignified voice, "and I'd
+been telling him that I'd shot ducks, too."
+
+[Illustration: "'I'm _so_ sorry, Jim.'"]
+
+His sister caught him around the neck and kissed his blonde head. "I'm
+_so_ sorry, Jim. He won't think of it again. If he does, he'll only
+respect a boy who is so good to his sister. And," she added,
+cautioning him with lifted finger, "don't talk too much to him, Jim, no
+matter how nice and kind he is. I know how lonely you are and how
+pleasant it is to talk to a man like Mr. Marche; but remember that
+father doesn't wish us to say anything about ourselves or about him, so
+we must be careful."
+
+"Why doesn't father want us to speak about him or ourselves to Mr.
+Marche?" asked the boy.
+
+His sister had gone back to her dishes. Now, looking around over her
+shoulder, she said seriously, "That is father's affair, dear, not ours."
+
+"But don't you know why?"
+
+"Shame on you, Jim! What father cares to tell us he will tell us; but
+it's exceedingly bad manners to ask."
+
+"Is father really very ill?"
+
+"I told you that to ask me such things is improper," said the girl,
+coloring. "He has told us that he does not feel well, and that he
+prefers to remain in his room for a few days. That is enough for us,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," said the boy thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Marche, buried under a mountain of bed clothes, dreamed that people were
+rapping noisily on his door, and grinned in his dream, meaning to let
+them rap until they tired of it. Suddenly a voice sounded through his
+defiant slumbers, clear and charming as a golden ray parting thick
+clouds. The next moment he found himself awake, bolt upright in the icy
+dusk of his room, listening.
+
+"Mr. Marche! Won't you _please_ wake up and answer?" came the clear,
+young voice again.
+
+"I _beg_ your pardon!" he cried. "I'll be down in a minute!"
+
+He heard her going away downstairs, and for a few seconds he squatted
+there, huddled in coverings to the chin, and eying the darkness in a
+sort of despair. The feverish drive of Wall Street, late suppers, and
+too much good fellowship had not physically hardened Marche. He was
+accustomed to have his bath tempered comfortably for his particular
+brand of physique. Breakfast, also, was a most carefully ordered
+informality with him.
+
+The bitter chill smote him. Cursing the simple life, he crawled gingerly
+out of bed, suffered acutely while hunting for a match, lighted the
+kerosene lamp with stiffened fingers, and looked about him, shivering.
+Then, with a suppressed anathema, he stepped into his folding tub and
+emptied the arctic contents of the water pitcher over himself.
+
+Half an hour later he appeared at the breakfast table, hungrier than he
+had been in years. There was nobody there to wait on him, but the dishes
+and coffee pot were piping hot, and he madly ate eggs and razor-back,
+and drank quantities of coffee, and finally set fire to a cigarette,
+feeling younger and happier than he had felt for ages.
+
+Of one thing he was excitedly conscious: that dreadful and persistent
+dragging feeling at the nape of his neck had vanished. It didn't seem
+possible that it could have disappeared overnight, but it had, for the
+present, at least.
+
+He went into the sitting room. Nobody was there, either, so he broke his
+sealed shell boxes, filled his case with sixes and fives and double B's,
+drew his expensive ducking gun from its case and took a look at it,
+buckled the straps of his hip boots to his belt, felt in the various
+pockets of his shooting coat to see whether matches, pipe, tobacco,
+vaseline, oil, shell extractor, knife, handkerchief, gloves, were in
+their proper places; found them so, and, lighting another cigarette,
+strolled contentedly around the small and almost bare room, bestowing a
+contented and patronizing glance upon each humble article and decoration
+as he passed.
+
+Evidently this photograph, in an oval frame of old-time water gilt, was
+a portrait of Miss Herold's mother. What a charming face, with its
+delicate, high-bred nose and lips! The boy, Jim, had her mouth and nose,
+and his sister her eyes, slightly tilted to a slant at the outer
+corners--beautifully shaped eyes, he remembered.
+
+He lingered a moment, then strolled on, viewing with tolerant
+indifference the few poor ornaments on the mantel, the chromos of wild
+ducks and shore birds, and found himself again by the lamp-lit table
+from which he had started his explorations.
+
+On it were Jim's Latin book, a Bible, and several last year's magazines.
+
+Idly he turned the flyleaf of the schoolbook. Written there was the
+boy's name--"Jim, from Daddy."
+
+As he was closing the cover a sudden instinct arrested his hand, and,
+not knowing exactly why, he reopened the book and read the inscription
+again. He read it again, too, with a vague sensation of familiarity with
+it, or with the book, or something somehow connected with it, he could
+not tell exactly what; but a slightly uncomfortable feeling remained as
+he laid aside the book and stood with brows knitted and eyes absently
+bent on the stove.
+
+The next moment Jim came in, wearing a faded overcoat which he had
+outgrown.
+
+"Hello!" said Marche, looking up. "Are you ready for me, Jim?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What sort of a chance have I?"
+
+"I'm afraid it is blue-bird weather," said the boy diffidently.
+
+Marche scowled, then smiled. "Your sister said it would probably be that
+kind of weather. Well, we all have to take a sporting chance with things
+in general, don't we, Jim?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Marche picked up his gun case and cartridge box. The boy offered to take
+them, but the young man shook his head.
+
+"Lead on, old sport!" he said cheerily. "I'm a beast of more burdens
+than you know anything about. How's your father, by the way?"
+
+"I think father is about the same."
+
+"Doesn't he need a doctor?"
+
+"No, sir, I think not."
+
+"What is it, Jim? Fever?"
+
+"I don't know," said the boy, in a low voice. He led the way, and Marche
+followed him out of doors.
+
+A gray light made plain the desolation of the scene, although the sun
+had not yet risen. To the south and west the sombre pine woods stretched
+away; eastward, a few last year's cornstalks stood, withered in the
+clearing, through which a rutted road ran down to the water.
+
+"It isn't the finest farming land in the world, is it, Jim?" he said
+humorously.
+
+"I haven't seen any other land," said the boy quietly.
+
+"Don't you remember the Northern country at all?"
+
+"No, sir--except Central Park."
+
+"Oh, you were New-Yorkers?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Father----" and he fell abruptly silent.
+
+They were walking together down the rutted road, and Marche glanced
+around at him.
+
+"What were you going to say about your father, Jim?"
+
+"Nothing." Then truth jogged his arm. "I mean I was only going to say
+that father and mother and all of us lived there."
+
+"In New York?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Is your--your mother living?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"I think I saw her picture in the sitting room," he said gently. "She
+must have been everything a mother should be."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Was it long ago, Jim?"
+
+"When she died?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Yes, very long ago. Six years ago."
+
+"Before you came here, then?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+After they had walked in silence for a little while, Marche said, "I
+suppose you have arranged for somebody to take me out?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+They emerged from the lane to the shore at the same moment, and Marche
+glanced about for the expected bayman.
+
+"Oh, there he is!" he said, as a figure came from behind a dory and
+waded leisurely shoreward through the shallows--a slight figure in hip
+boots and wool shooting hood and coat, who came lightly across the sands
+to meet him. And, astonished, he looked into the gray eyes of Molly
+Herold.
+
+"Father could not take you," she said, without embarrassment, "and Jim
+isn't quite big enough to manage the swans and geese. Do you mind my
+acting as your bayman?"
+
+"Mind?" he repeated. "No, of course not. Only--it seems rather rough on
+you. Couldn't you have hired a bayman for me?"
+
+"I will, if you wish," she said, her cheeks reddening. "But, really, if
+you'll let me, I am perfectly accustomed to bayman's work."
+
+"Do you _want_ to do it?"
+
+She said, without self-consciousness, "If it is the same to you, Mr.
+Marche, I had rather that the bayman's wages came to us."
+
+"Certainly--of course," he said hurriedly. Then, smiling: "You look the
+part. I took you for a young man, at first. Now, tell me how I can help
+you."
+
+"Jim can do that. Still, if you don't mind handling the decoys----"
+
+"Not at all," he said, going up to the fenced inclosures which ran from
+a rod or two inland down into the shallow water, making three separate
+yards for geese, swans, and ducks.
+
+Jim was already in the duck pen, hustling the several dozen mallard and
+black ducks into an inland corral. The indignant birds, quacking a
+concerted protest, waddled up from the shore, and, one by one, the boy
+seized the suitable ones, and passed them over the fence to Marche. He
+handed them to Molly Herold, who waded out to the dory, a duck tucked
+under either arm, and slipped them deftly into the decoy-crates forward
+and aft.
+
+The geese were harder to manage--great, sleek, pastel-tinted birds whose
+wing blows had the force of a man's fist--and they flapped and
+struggled and buffeted Jim till his blonde head spun; but at last Marche
+and Molly had them crated in the dory.
+
+Then the wild swans' turn came--great, white creatures with black beaks
+and feet; and Molly and Marche were laughing as they struggled to catch
+them and carry them aboard.
+
+But at last every decoy was squatting in the crates; the mast had been
+stepped, guns laid aboard, luncheon stowed away. Marche set his shoulder
+to the stern; the girl sprang aboard, and he followed; the triangular
+sail filled, and the boat glided out into the sound, straight into the
+glittering lens of the rising sun.
+
+A great winter gull flapped across their bows; in the lee of Starfish
+Island, long strings of wild ducks rose like shredded clouds, and,
+swarming in the sky, swinging, drifting, sheered eastward, out toward
+the unseen Atlantic.
+
+"Bluebills and sprigs," said the girl, resting her elbow on the tiller.
+"There are geese on the shoal, yonder. They've come out from Currituck.
+Oh, I'm afraid it's to be blue-bird weather, Mr. Marche."
+
+"I'm afraid it is," he assented, smiling. "What do you do in that case,
+Miss Herold?"
+
+"Go to sleep in the blind," she admitted, with a faint smile, the first
+delicate approach to anything resembling the careless confidence of
+camaraderie that had yet come from her.
+
+"See the ducks!" she said, as bunch after bunch parted from the water,
+distantly, yet all around them, and, gathering like clouds of dusky
+bees, whirled away through the sky until they seemed like bands of smoke
+high drifting. Presently she turned and looked back, signaling adieu to
+the shore, where her brother lifted his arm in response, then turned
+away inland.
+
+"That's a nice boy," said Marche briefly, and glanced up to see in his
+sister's face the swift and exquisite transformation that requires no
+words as answer.
+
+"You seem to like him," said he, laughing.
+
+Molly Herold's gray eyes softened; pride, that had made the love in
+them brilliant, faded until they grew almost sombre. Silent, her aloof
+gaze remained fixed on the horizon; her lips rested on each other in
+sensitive curves. There was no sound save the curling of foam under the
+bows.
+
+Marche looked elsewhere; then looked at her again. She sat motionless,
+gray eyes remote, one little, wind-roughened hand on the tiller. The
+steady breeze filled the sail; the dory stood straight away toward the
+blinding glory of the sunrise.
+
+Through the unreal golden light, raft after raft of wild ducks rose and
+whirled into the east; blue herons flopped across the water; a
+silver-headed eagle, low over the waves, winged his way heavily toward
+some goal, doggedly intent upon his own business.
+
+Outside Starfish Shoal the girl eased the sheet as the wind freshened.
+Far away on Golden Bar thousands of wild geese, which had been tipping
+their sterns skyward in plunging quest of nourishment, resumed a more
+stately and normal posture, as though at a spoken command; and the long
+ranks, swimming, and led by age and wisdom, slowly moved away into the
+glittering east.
+
+At last, off the starboard bow, the low, reedy levels of Foam Island
+came into view, and in a few minutes more the dory lay in the shallows,
+oars, mast, and rag stowed; and the two young people splashed busily
+about in their hip boots, carrying guns, ammunition, and food into the
+blind.
+
+Then Molly Herold, standing on the mud bank, flung, one by one, a
+squadron of wooden, painted, canvasback decoys into the water, where
+they righted themselves, and presently rode the waves, bobbing and
+steering with startling fidelity to the real things.
+
+Then it came the turn of the real things. Marche and Molly, a struggling
+bird tucked under each arm, waded out along the lanes of stools, feeling
+about under the icy water until their fingers encountered the wire-cored
+cords. Then, to the leg rings of each madly flapping duck and swan and
+goose they snapped on the leads, and the tethered birds, released, beat
+the water into foam and flapped and splashed and tugged, until, finally
+reconciled, they began to souse themselves with great content, and
+either mounted their stools or swam calmly about as far as their tethers
+permitted.
+
+Marche, struggling knee-deep in the water, his arms full of wildly
+flapping gander, hailed Molly for instructions.
+
+"That's a mated bird!" she called out to him. "Peg him outside by
+himself!"
+
+So Marche pegged out the furious old gander, whose name was Uncle
+Dudley, and in a few minutes that dignified and insulted bird, missing
+his spouse, began to talk about it.
+
+Every wifely feeling outraged, his spouse replied loudly from the
+extreme end of the inner lane, telling her husband, and every duck,
+goose, and swan in the vicinity, what she thought of such an inhuman
+separation.
+
+Molly laughed, and so did Marche. Duck after duck, goose after goose,
+joined indignantly in the conversation. The mallard drakes twisted their
+emerald-green heads and began that low, half gurgling, half quacking
+conversation in which their mottled brown and gray mates joined with
+louder quacks. The geese conversed freely; but the long-necked swans
+held their peace, occupied with the problem of picking to pieces the
+snaps on their anklets.
+
+"Now," said Molly breathlessly, as the last madly protesting bird had
+been stooled, "let's get into the blind as soon as we can, Mr. Marche.
+There may be ducks in Currituck still, and every minute counts now."
+
+So Marche towed the dory around to the westward and drew it into a
+channel where it might lie concealed under the reeds.
+
+When he came across to the blind he found Molly there, seated on the
+plank in the cemented pit behind the screen of reeds and rushes, laying
+out for him his cartridges.
+
+There they were, in neat rows on the rail, fives, sixes, and a few of
+swanshot, ranged in front of him. And his 12-gauge, all ready, save for
+the loading, lay across the pit to his right. So he dropped his booted
+feet into the wooden tub where a foot-warmer lay, picked up the gun,
+slid a pair of sixes into it, laid it beside him, and turned toward Miss
+Herold.
+
+The wool collar of her sweater was turned up about her delicately molded
+throat and face. The wild-rose color ran riot in her cheeks, and her
+eyes, sky tinted now, were wide open under the dark lashes, and the wind
+stirred her hair till it rippled bronze and gold under the edge of her
+shooting hood. She, too, was perfectly ready. A cheap, heavy, and rather
+rusty gun lay beside her; a heap of cheap cartridges before her.
+
+She turned, and, catching Marche's eyes, smiled adorably, with a slight
+nod of comradeship. Then, the smile still faintly curving her lips, she
+crossed her legs in the pit, and, warming her hands in the pockets of
+her coat, leaned back, resting against the rail behind.
+
+"You haven't a foot-warmer," he said.
+
+"I'm not cold--only my fingers--a little--stooling those birds."
+
+They spoke in low voices, under their breath.
+
+He fished from his pocket a flat Japanese hand-warmer, lighted the
+paper-cased punk, snapped it shut, and passed it to her. But she
+demurred.
+
+"You need it yourself."
+
+"No, I'm all right. Please take it."
+
+So she shyly took it, dropped it into her pocket, and rested her
+shapely little hand on it. "How delightful!" she said presently,
+shifting it to the other pocket. "Don't you really need it, Mr. Marche?"
+
+"No. Does it warm you?"
+
+"It is delicious. I _was_ a little chilled." She drew out one bare hand
+and looked at it thoughtfully. Then, with a little sigh, and quite
+unconscious of his gaze, she touched her lips to the wind-roughened
+skin, as though in atonement for her maltreatment of herself.
+
+Even as it now was the shape and beauty of the hand held Marche
+fascinated; it was so small, yet so firm and strong and competent, so
+full of youthful character, such a delicately fashioned little hand,
+and so pathetic, somehow--this woman's hand, with its fineness of
+texture and undamaged purity under the chapped and cruelly bruised,
+tender skin.
+
+She pocketed it again, looking out from under the wind-blown hair
+clustering from the edge of her shooting hood. "Blue-bird weather," she
+said, in her low and very sweet voice. "If no birds swing in by ten
+o'clock we might as well sleep until four."
+
+Marche leaned forward and scanned the water and sky alternately. Nothing
+stirred, save their lazily preening decoys. Uncle Dudley was still
+conversing with his wife at intervals; the swans and the cygnets fed or
+worried their leash snaps; the ducks paddled, or dozed on the stools,
+balanced on one leg.
+
+Far away, on Golden Bar, half a thousand wild geese floated, feeding;
+beyond, like snowflakes dotting the water, a few wild swans drifted.
+There were ducks, too, off Starfish Island again, but nothing flying in
+the blue except a slow hawk or some wandering gull, or now and then an
+eagle--sometimes a mature bird, in all the splendor of white head and
+tail, sometimes a young bird, seemingly larger, and all gray from crest
+to shank.
+
+Once an eagle threatened the decoys, and Uncle Dudley swore so lustily
+at him, and every duck and goose set up such a clamor, that Molly Herold
+picked up her gun for the emergency. But the magnificent eagle, beating
+up into the wind with bronze wings aglisten, suddenly sheered off; and,
+as he passed, Marche could see his bold head turn toward the blind where
+the sun had flashed him its telegraphic warning on the barrel of Molly's
+lifted gun.
+
+"Fine!" he whispered. "Splendid! I'm glad you didn't kill him."
+
+"I'm glad I didn't have to," she said.
+
+"Do you think you could have?"
+
+She turned toward him, wondering whether he might be serious; then
+smiled as he smiled.
+
+At the same instant, coming apparently from nowhere, four canvasbacks
+suddenly appeared over the clamoring decoys, so close in that, as they
+came driving by the blind and rose slightly, wings bowed, Marche could
+almost see their beady little eyes set in the chestnut red of the
+turning heads. Mechanically his gun spoke twice; rap-rap, echoed Miss
+Herold's gun, and splash! splash! down whirled two gray-and-red ducks;
+then a third, uncertain, slowed down, far out beyond the decoys, and
+slanted sideways to the water. The fourth went on.
+
+"Duffer that I am," said Marche good-humoredly. "That was a clean double
+of yours, Miss Herold!--clean-cut work."
+
+She said, slightly knitting her straight brows: "I should have crossed
+two of them and killed the one you missed. I think I'd better get the
+boat."
+
+"No, I'll go out after that kicker," he said, ashamed of his slovenly
+work.
+
+Five minutes later he returned with his kicker and her two ducks--great,
+fat, heavy canvasbacks, beautiful in their red, black, and drab plumage.
+
+"What about blue-bird weather, now?" he laughed.
+
+But she only smiled and said, "I'm very much afraid."
+
+For a long while they sat there, alert behind their wall of rustling
+reeds, watching sky and water. False alarms were not infrequent from
+their decoys. Sometimes the outbreak of quacking and honking was
+occasioned by some wandering gull, sometimes by a circling hawk or some
+eagle loitering in mid-heaven on broad and leisurely wings, reluctant to
+remain, unwilling to go; sometimes to a pair or two of widgeon or
+pintails speeding eastward high in the blue. But the sparkling,
+cloudless hours sped away, and no duck or goose or swan invaded the
+vicinity. Only one sly old black duck dropped into the reeds far back on
+the island; and Marche went after him with serious designs upon his
+fraudulent old life.
+
+When the young man returned, twenty minutes later, perfectly innocent of
+duck murder, he found the girl curled up in her corner of the pit, eyes
+closed, tired little head cradled in the curve of her left arm. She
+waked as he slid into the blind, and smiled at him, pretending not to
+have been asleep.
+
+"Did you get him?"
+
+"No. He went off at two hundred yards."
+
+"Blue-bird weather," she sighed; and again they exchanged smiles. He
+noticed that her eyes had somehow become exceedingly blue instead of the
+clear gray which he had supposed was their color. And, after her brief
+slumber, there seemed to be a sort of dewy freshness about them, and
+about her slightly pink cheeks, which, at that time, he had no idea were
+at all perilous to him. All he was conscious of was a sensation of
+pleasure in looking at her, and a slight surprise in the revelation of
+elements in her which, he began to decide, constituted real beauty.
+
+"That's a quaint expression--'blue-bird weather,'" he said. "It's a
+perfect description of a spring-like day in winter. Is it a local
+expression?"
+
+"Yes--I think so. There's a song about it, along the coast"--she
+laughed uncertainly--"a rather foolish song."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"If I remember"--she hesitated, thinking for a moment, then, with a
+laugh which he thought a little bashful--"it's really too silly to
+repeat!"
+
+"Please sing it!"
+
+"Very well--if you wish."
+
+And in a low, pretty, half-laughing voice, she sang:
+
+  "Quiet sea and quiet sky,
+  Idle sail and anchored boat,
+  Just a snowflake gull afloat,
+  Drifting like a feather--
+  And the gray hawk crying,
+  And a man's heart sighing--
+  That is blue-bird weather:--
+  And the high hawk crying,
+  And a maid's heart sighing
+  Till lass and lover come together,--
+  This is blue-bird weather."
+
+
+She turned her head and looked steadily out across the waste of water.
+"I told you it was silly," she said, very calmly.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Blue-bird weather continued. Every day for a week Marche and Molly
+Herold put out for Foam Island under summer skies, and with a soft wind
+filling the sail; and in all the water-world there was no visible sign
+of winter, save the dead reeds on muddy islands and the far and wintry
+menace of the Atlantic crashing icily beyond the eastern dunes.
+
+Few ducks and no geese or swans came to the blind. There was nothing
+for them to do except to talk together or sit dozing in the sun. And,
+imperceptibly, between them the elements of a pretty intimacy unfolded
+like spring buds on unfamiliar branches; but what they might develop
+into he did not know, and she had not even considered.
+
+She had a quaint capacity for sleeping in the sunshine while he was away
+on the island prowling hopefully after black ducks. And one morning,
+when he returned to find her asleep at her post, a bunch of widgeon left
+the stools right under her nose before he had a chance to shoot.
+
+She did not awake. The sun fell warmly upon her, searching the
+perfections of the childlike face and throat, gilding the palm of one
+little, sun-tanned hand lying, partly open, on her knee. A spring-like
+wind stirred a single strand of bright hair; lips slightly parted, she
+lay there, face to the sky, and Marche thought that he had never looked
+upon anything in all the world more pure and peaceful.
+
+At noon the girl had not awakened. But something in John B. Marche had.
+He looked in horrified surprise at the decoys, then looked at Molly
+Herold; then he gazed in profound astonishment at Uncle Dudley, who made
+a cryptic remark to the wife of his bosom, and then tipped upside down.
+
+Marche examined the sky and water so carefully that he did not see them;
+then, sideways, and with an increasing sensation of consternation, he
+looked again at the sleeping girl.
+
+His was not even a friendly gaze, now; there was more than dawning alarm
+in it--an irritated curiosity which grew more intense as the seconds
+throbbed out, absurdly timed by a most remarkable obligato from his
+heart.
+
+He gazed stonily upon this stranger into whose life he had drifted only
+a week before, whose slumbers he felt that he was now unwarrantedly
+invading with a mental presumption that scared him; and yet, as often as
+he looked elsewhere, he looked back at her again, confused by the slowly
+dawning recognition of a fascination which he was utterly powerless to
+check or even control.
+
+One thing was already certain; he wanted to know her, to learn from her
+own lips intimately about herself, about her thoughts, her desires, her
+tastes, her aspirations--even her slightest fancies.
+
+Absorbed, charmed by her quiet breathing, fascinated into immobility, he
+sat there gazing at her, trying to reconcile the steadily strengthening
+desire to know her with what he already knew of her--of this sleeping
+stranger, this shabby child of a poor man, dressed in the boots and
+shooting coat of that wretchedly poor man--his own superintendent, a
+sick man whom he had never even seen.
+
+What manner of man could her father be--this man Herold--to have a child
+of this sort, this finely molded, fine-grained, delicate, exquisitely
+made girl, lying asleep here in a wind-stirred blind, with the Creator's
+own honest sun searching out and making triumphant a beauty such as his
+wise and city-worn eyes had never encountered, even under the mercies of
+softened candlelight.
+
+An imbecile repetition of speech kept recurring and even stirring his
+lips, "She'd make them all look like thirty cents." And he colored
+painfully at the crudeness of his obsessing thoughts, angrily, after a
+moment, shaking them from him.
+
+A cartridge rolled from the shelf and splashed into the pit water; the
+girl unclosed her gray eyes, met his gaze, smiled dreamily; then,
+flushing a little, sat up straight.
+
+"Fifteen widgeon went off when I returned to the blind," he said,
+unsmiling.
+
+"I _beg_ your pardon. I am--I am terribly sorry," she stammered, with a
+vivid blush of confusion.
+
+But the first smile from her unclosing eyes had already done damage
+enough; the blush merely disorganized a little more what was already
+chaos in a young man's mind.
+
+"Has--has anything else come in to the stools?" she asked timidly.
+
+"No," he said, relenting.
+
+But he was wrong. Something _had_ come into the blind--a winged,
+fluttering thing, out of the empyrean--and even Uncle Dudley had not
+seen or heard it, and never a honk or a quack warned anybody, or
+heralded the unseen coming of the winged thing.
+
+Marche sat staring out across the water.
+
+"I--am so very sorry," repeated the girl, in a low voice. "Are you
+offended with me?"
+
+He turned and looked at her, and spoke steadily enough: "Of course I'm
+not. I was glad you had a nap. There has been nothing doing--except
+those stupid widgeon--not a feather stirring."
+
+"Then you are not angry with me?"
+
+"Why, you absurd girl!" he said, laughing and stretching out one hand
+to her.
+
+Into her face flashed an exquisite smile; daintily she reached out and
+dropped her hand into his. They exchanged a friendly shake, still
+smiling.
+
+"All the same," she said, "it was horrid of me. And I think I boasted to
+you about my knowledge of a bayman's duties."
+
+"You are all right," he said, "a clean shot, a thoroughbred. I ask no
+better comrade than you. I never again shall have such a comrade."
+
+"But--I am your bayman, not your comrade," she exclaimed, forcing a
+little laugh. "You'll have better guides than I, Mr. Marche."
+
+"Do you reject the equal alliance I offer, Miss Herold?"
+
+"I?" She flushed. "It is very kind of you to put it that way. But I _am_
+only your guide--but it is pleasant to have you speak that way."
+
+"What way?"
+
+"The way you spoke about--your bayman's daughter."
+
+He said, smilingly cool on the surface, but in a chaotic, almost idiotic
+inward condition: "I've sat here for days, wishing all the while that I
+might really know you. Would you care to let me, Miss Herold?"
+
+"Know me?" she repeated. "I don't think I understand."
+
+"Could you and your father and brother regard me as a guest--as a friend
+visiting the family?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because," he said, "I'm the same kind of a man that you are a girl and
+that your brother is a boy. Why, you know it, don't you? I know it. I
+knew it as soon as I heard you speak, and when your brother came into
+the room that first night with his Latin book, and when I saw your
+mother's picture. So I know what your father must be. Am I not right?"
+
+She lifted her proud little head and looked at him. "We are what you
+think us," she said.
+
+"Then let us stand in that relation, Miss Herold. Will you?"
+
+She looked at him, perplexed, gray eyes clear and thoughtful. "Do you
+mean that you really want me for a friend?" she asked calmly, but her
+sensitive lip quivered a little.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do men make personal friends among their employees? Do they? I ask
+because I don't know."
+
+"What was your father before he came here?" he inquired bluntly.
+
+She looked up, startled, then the color came slowly back to her cheeks.
+"Isn't that a little impertinent, Mr. Marche?"
+
+"Good heavens! Yes, of course it is!" he exclaimed, turning very red.
+"Will you forgive me? I didn't mean to be rude or anything like it! I
+merely meant that whatever reverses have happened to bring such a girl
+as you down into this God-forsaken place have not altered what you were
+and what you are. _Can_ you forgive me?"
+
+"Yes. I'll tell you something. I _wanted_ to be a little more
+significant to you than merely a paid guide. So did Jim. We--it is
+rather lonely for us. You are the first real man who has come into our
+lives in five years. Do you understand, Mr. Marche?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"Are you sure you do? We would like to feel that we could talk to
+you--Jim would. It is pleasant to hear a man from the real world
+speaking. Not that the people here are unkind, only"--she looked up at
+him almost wistfully--"we _are_ like you, Mr. Marche--and we feel
+starved, sometimes."
+
+He did not trust himself to speak, even to look at her, just at the
+moment. Not heretofore sentimental, but always impressionable, he was
+young enough to understand, wise enough not to misunderstand.
+
+After a while, leaning back in the blind, he began, almost casually,
+talking about things in that Northern world which had once been hers,
+assuming their common interest in matters purely local, in details, of
+metropolitan affairs, in the changing physiognomy of the monstrous city,
+its superficial aspects, its complex phases.
+
+Timidly, at first, she ventured a question now and then, and after a
+while, as her reserve melted, she asked more boldly, and even offered
+her own comments on men and things, so that, for the first time, he had
+a glimpse of her mind at work--brief, charming surprises, momentary
+views of a young girl's eager intelligence, visions of her sad and
+solitary self, more guessed at than revealed in anything she said or
+left unsaid.
+
+And now they were talking together with free and unfeigned interest and
+pleasure, scarcely turning for a glance at the water or sky, save when
+old Uncle Dudley made insulting remarks to some slow-drifting gull or
+soaring bird of prey.
+
+All the pent-up and natural enthusiasm of years was fairly bubbling to
+her lips; all the long-suppressed necessity of speech with one of her
+own kind who was not of her own kin.
+
+It seemed as though they conversed and exchanged views on every topic
+which concerned heaven and earth, flashing from one subject to another
+which had nothing at all to do with anything yet discussed.
+
+Out around them the flat leagues of water turned glassy and calm as a
+millpond; the ducks and geese were asleep on their stools; even old
+Uncle Dudley stood sentinel, with one leg buried in the downy plumage of
+his belly, but his weather eye remained brilliantly open to any stir in
+the blue vault above.
+
+[Illustration: "They ate their luncheon there together."]
+
+They ate their luncheon there together, he serving her with hot coffee
+from the vacuum bottle, she plying him with sandwiches.
+
+And now, to her beauty was added an adorable friendliness and
+confidence, free from the slightest taint of self-consciousness or the
+least blemish of coquetry. Intelligent, yet modest to the verge of
+shyness, eager yet reserved, warm hearted yet charmingly impersonal with
+him, he realized that she was finding, with him, only the happiness of
+speech with mankind in the abstract. And so she poured out to him her
+heart, long stifled in the abyss of her isolation; and, gazing into his
+eyes, she was gazing merely toward all that was bright and happy and
+youthful and responsive, and he was its symbol, God-sent from those busy
+haunts of men which already, to her, had become only memories of a
+blessed vision.
+
+And all the while the undercurrent of his own thoughts ran on
+unceasingly: "What can I do for her? I am falling in love--in love,
+surely, hopelessly. What can I do for her--for her brother--her father?
+I am falling in love--in love--in love."
+
+The long, still, sunny afternoon slipped away. Gradually the water
+turned to pearl, inlaid with gold, then with glowing rose. And now, far
+to the north, the first thrilling clangor of wild geese, high in the
+blue, came to their ears, and they shrank apart and lay back, staring
+upward. Nearer, nearer, came the sky trumpets, answering faintly each to
+each--nearer, nearer, till high over the blind swept the misty wedge;
+and old Uncle Dudley flapped his wings and stretched his neck, calling
+up to his wild comrades of earthly delights unnumbered here under the
+shadow of death. And every wild goose answered him, and the decoys
+flapped and clamored a siren welcome; but the flying wedge glided onward
+through the blue.
+
+"They've begun to move," whispered the girl. "But, oh, dear! It is
+blue-bird weather. Hark! Do you hear the swans? I can hear swans coming
+out of the north!"
+
+Marche could not yet hear them, but the tethered swans and geese heard,
+and a magnificent chorus rose from the water. Then, far away as
+fairyland, faintly out of the sky, came a new murmur--not the martial
+clangor of wild geese, but something wilder, more exquisitely
+unearthly--nearer, nearer, enrapturing its weird, celestial beauty. And
+now, through the blue, with great, snowy wings slowly beating, the swans
+passed over like angels; and like angels passing, hailing each other as
+they winged their way, drifting on broad, white pinions, they called,
+each to the other in their sweet, unreal voices, gossiping, garrulous,
+high in the sky. And far away they floated on until they became only a
+silver ribbon undulating against the azure; and even then Marche could
+hear the soft tumult of their calling: Heu! Heu! Hiou! Hiou-oo! until
+sound and snowy flecks vanished together in mid-heaven.
+
+Again, coming from the far north, the trumpets of the sky squadron were
+sounding; they passed, wedge after wedge, sometimes in steady formation,
+sometimes like a wavering band of witches, and again in shifting
+battalions, sternly officered, passing through intricate aerial
+maneuvers, and greeted by Uncle Dudley and the other decoys with wild
+beseeching mixed with applause.
+
+Snowy, angelic companies of swans came alternately with the geese; then
+a whimpering, whispering flight of wild ducks, water-fowl in thousands
+and tens of thousands, rushing onward through the aerial lanes.
+
+But none came to the blind. Occasionally a wedge of geese wavered,
+irresolute at the frantic persuasions of Uncle Dudley, but their leader
+always dragged them back to their course, and the sagging, hesitating
+ranks passed on.
+
+Sometimes, in a nearer flight of swans, some long-necked, snowy creature
+would bend its head to look curiously down at the tethered swans on the
+water, but always they continued on, settling some two miles south of
+Foaming Shoals, until there was half a mile of wild swans afloat there,
+looking like a long, low bank of snow, touched with faintest pink by the
+glow of the westering sun.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Marche, pacing the shabby sitting room after supper, an unlighted
+cigarette between his fingers, listened to Jim recite his Latin lesson.
+
+"_Atque ea qui ad efeminandos animos pertinent important_," repeated the
+boy; and Marche nodded absently.
+
+"Do you understand what that means, Jim?"
+
+"Not exactly, sir."
+
+Marche explained, then added smilingly: "But there is nothing luxurious
+to corrupt manhood among the coast marshes down here. Barring fever and
+moccasins, Jim, you ought to emerge, some day, into the larger world
+equipped for trouble."
+
+"I shall go out some day," said the boy.
+
+Marche glanced up at the portrait of the boy's mother in its pale-gilt
+oval. Near it, another nail had been driven, and on the faded wall paper
+was an oval discoloration, as though another picture had once hung
+there.
+
+"I wish I might see your father before I go North," said Marche, half to
+himself. "Isn't he well enough to let me talk to him for a few minutes?"
+
+"I will ask him," said the boy.
+
+Marche paced the ragged carpet until the return of Jimmy.
+
+"Father is sorry, and asks you to please excuse him," he said.
+
+Marche had picked up the boy's schoolbook and was looking at the writing
+on the flyleaf again. Then he raised his head, eyes narrowing on the boy
+as though searching for some elusive memory connected with him--with his
+name in the Latin book--perhaps with the writing, which, somehow, had
+stirred in him, once more, the same odd and uncomfortable sensation
+which he had experienced when he first saw it.
+
+[Illustration: "'Jim,' he said, 'where did you live?'"]
+
+"Jim," he said, "where did you live when you lived in New York?"
+
+"In Eighty-seventh Street."
+
+"West?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Do you remember the house--the number?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Was it a private house?"
+
+"I don't know. It was very tall. We lived on one floor and used an
+elevator."
+
+"I see. It was an apartment house."
+
+The boy stood, with blonde head lowered, silently turning over the
+leaves of an old magazine.
+
+Marche walked out to the porch; his brows were bent slightly inward, and
+he bit the end of his unlighted cigarette until the thing became
+useless. Then he flung it away. A few stars watched him above the black
+ramparts of the pines; a gentle wind was abroad, bringing inland the
+restless voice of the sea.
+
+In Marche's mind a persistent thought was groping in darkness, vainly
+striving to touch and awaken memories of things forgotten. What was it
+he was trying to remember? What manner of episode, and how connected
+with this place, with the boy's book, with the portrait of his mother in
+its oval frame? Had he seen that portrait before? Perhaps he had seen it
+here, five years ago; yet that could not be, because Herold had not been
+here then.
+
+Was it the writing on the flyleaf that had stirred some forgotten
+memory? It had seemed to him familiar, somehow--yet not like the
+handwriting in Herold's business letters to him. Yet it _was_ Herold's
+writing--"Jim, from Daddy"--that was the inscription. And that
+inscription had riveted his attention from the first moment he saw it.
+
+Who was Herold? Who was this man whose undoubtable breeding and personal
+cultivation had stamped his children with the same unmistakable
+distinction?
+
+Somehow or other there had been a great fall in the world for him--a
+terrible tumble from higher estate to land him here in this desolation
+of swamp-bound silence--here where only the dark pines broke the vast
+sky line, where the only sound was the far rumor of the sea. Sick,
+probably with coast fever, poor, dependent, no doubt, on the salary
+Marche paid him, isolated from all in the world that made the world
+endurable to intelligence, responsible for two growing children--one
+already a woman--what must be the thoughts of such a man on a night like
+this, for instance?
+
+"I want to see that man," he kept repeating to himself. "I want to see
+him; and I'm going to."
+
+Restless, but now always listening for the sound of a light tread which
+he had come to know so well--alas!--he began to walk to and fro, with
+keen glances toward the illuminated kitchen window every time he passed
+it. Sometimes his mind was chaotic; sometimes clear. The emotions which
+had awakened in him within the week were complex enough to stagger a
+more intelligent man. And Marche was not a fool; he was the typical
+product of his environment--the result of school and college, and a New
+York business life carried on in keenest competition with men as
+remorseless in business as the social code permitted. Also, he went to
+church on Sundays, read a Republican newspaper, and belonged to several
+unexceptionable clubs.
+
+That was the kind of a man he had been only a week ago--a good fellow in
+the usual sense among men, acceptable to women, kind hearted, not too
+cynical, and every idea in his head modeled upon the opinions he heard
+expressed in that limited area wherein he had been born and bred.
+
+That was the kind of a man he had been a week ago. What was he
+now--to-night--here in this waste corner of the world with the light
+from a kitchen window blazing on him as though it were the flashing
+splendor streaming through the barred portals of paradise? Was it
+possible that he, John Benton Marche, could be actually in love--in love
+with the daughter of his own game warden--with a girl who served him at
+supper in apron and gingham, who served him further in hip boots and
+ragged jacket--this modern Rosalind of the marshes, as fresh and
+innocent, as modest and ardent, as she of the Arden glades?
+
+The kitchen door opened, and Molly Herold came down the steps and
+straight toward him, unthinkingly, almost instinctively, laying her
+hands in his as he met her under the leafless China tree in the yard.
+
+"I was longer than usual to-night," she said, "trying to soften my hands
+with that cold cream you so kindly sent for." She lifted them in the
+starlight with a little laugh. "They're a trifle better, I think," she
+said, "but they're always in water, you know, either there," she glanced
+around at the kitchen, "or yonder with the decoys. But thank you all the
+same," she added brightly. "Are you going to have another delightful
+talk, now?"
+
+"Do you care to?"
+
+"Of course. The idea of my not caring to talk to you," she said,
+laughing at the absurdity. "Shall we go into the sitting room, or walk
+in the starlight? There are no snakes out, yet," she assured him,
+"though if this weather holds, the moccasins will come out."
+
+"We'll walk down to the shore," he said.
+
+"One moment, then." She turned and sped to the house, reappearing, after
+a few minutes, wearing her ragged shooting coat.
+
+"Is your father comfortable?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, thank you."
+
+"Do you think he might want you?"
+
+"No. Jim sleeps next to him, and he is preparing for bed, now." She
+smiled. "What a darling my brother is, isn't he, Mr. Marche?"
+
+"He's a fine boy."
+
+They moved on together, down the rutted lane, between dismantled fences
+and ragged, leafless hedges. She was lithe and light and sure footed,
+but once or twice, as they skirted puddles, he supported her; and the
+touch of his hand on her body almost unnerved him. Never had he dreamed
+that contact with any woman could so thrill, so exquisitely shock. And
+every instant he was falling deeper and deeper in love with her. He knew
+it--realized it--made no effort to avoid it, fight it off, control it.
+It was only his speech and manner that he held desperately under bit and
+curb, letting his heart go to everlasting smash and his reason run riot.
+And what on earth would be the end he could not imagine, for he was
+leaving for the North in the morning, and he had not yet told her.
+
+As they came out upon the shore, the dory loomed up, beached, a dark
+silhouette against the starlit water. She laid her hands on the stern
+and vaulted lightly to her perch, sliding along to make room for Marche.
+
+From far away in the sound came the confused murmur of wild fowl
+feeding. Except for that, and the ceaseless monotone of the outer sea,
+there was no sound, not even the lap of water against the bow.
+
+Marche, who had been leaning forward, head bent as though watching the
+water, turned to the girl abruptly. "I want to do something for--Jim,"
+he said.
+
+The girl looked up at him, not understanding.
+
+"Will your father let me?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"I mean that I want to send him to a good school--a good boys' school in
+the North."
+
+She caught her breath, was silent for a moment, then, amazed: "_Would_
+you do that? Oh, I've wished for it--dreamed of it! But--how can you?
+You are so kind--so good to us--but how could we--accept?"
+
+"That's why I want to see your father."
+
+"For _that_! Was it really for that, Mr. Marche?"
+
+"Yes--partly." He swallowed and looked the other way, for the girl's
+excited face was very near his own as she bent forward to search his
+eyes for the least change of expression--bent nearer as though to
+reassure herself that he meant it seriously. For an instant her soft
+breath made the night air fragrant; he felt it, faint and fresh on his
+cheek, and turned sharply, biting his lips lest he lose all
+self-control.
+
+"Could you and your father spare him?" he asked carelessly.
+
+"Oh, if you only would give him that chance!" she cried. "But--tell
+me--_how_ can we accept such a thing of you? Is it possible?"
+
+"Would _you_ accept it?" he asked, turning toward her.
+
+The question startled her. She looked at him, striving to think clearly,
+trying to see this offered miracle through calm, impartial eyes.
+
+"I--I would do anything--almost--for Jim," she said. "I'd have no pride
+left, if his chances lay in the balance. But men--my father--may be
+different."
+
+He said slowly: "Suppose I offered the same chance to you?"
+
+"What!" she said crisply.
+
+"Suppose I offered you a college finishing, Miss Herold. Would you
+accept?"
+
+She slowly grew scarlet under his gaze. "That would be insulting," she
+said, in a low voice.
+
+"Why, when only kindness is meant--as I mean it for Jim?"
+
+"It is not the same. I am a grown woman capable of caring for myself.
+Such an offer, however kindly meant, could only hurt me, humiliate
+me--and--I thought you found me companionable as I am. Friends do not
+offer to better each other--in such a way."
+
+"I have not offered it to you, Miss Herold."
+
+She looked up, still flushed and brilliant eyed; then her face changed
+softly. "I know it. I was foolishly sensitive. I know you couldn't offer
+such a thing to me. But I wish I knew whether we could accept for Jim.
+He is such a darling--so intelligent and perfectly crazy for an
+education. I've saved a little--that's why I wanted you to hire me for
+your bayman. You see I don't spend anything on myself," she added, with
+a blush.
+
+Marche was fighting hard for self-restraint; he was young and romantic,
+and his heart was very full. "What I'd like to do," he said, "would be
+to send Jim to some first-rate school until he is ready for college.
+Then I'd like to see him through college, and, if he cared for it, start
+him with me in business."
+
+"Oh," she cried softly, "is it possible! Is there--can any man really do
+such heavenly things? Have you any idea what you are saying? Do you
+realize what you are doing to me--with every word you utter?"
+
+"What am I doing to--to you?" he asked unsteadily.
+
+"Making me your slave," she said, in a low voice, thrilling with
+generous passion. "Even for the thought--even if father will not
+accept--what you have said to me to-night has put me in your debt
+forever. Truly--truly, I know what friendship is, now."
+
+She clasped her hands tightly and said something else, sweetly
+incoherent; and, in the starlight, Marche saw the tears sparkling on her
+lashes.
+
+With that he sprang nervously to the shore and began to tramp up and
+down the shingle, his mind in a whirl, every sense, common or the
+contrary, clamoring for finality--urging him to tell her the truth--tell
+her that he loved her, that he wanted her--her alone, out of all the
+world of women--that it was for love and for her, and for love of her,
+that he offered anything, did anything, thought anything now under the
+high stars or under the circling sun.
+
+And now, as he tramped savagely to and fro, he realized that he had
+begun wrong; that he should have told her he loved her first of all, and
+then acted, not promised.
+
+Would she look on his offer scornfully, now? Would she see, in what he
+asked of her, a bribe desired for the offer he had made in her brother's
+behalf? She did not love him. How could she, in a week? Never had there
+been even a hint of sentiment between them. What would she think--this
+young girl, so tranquilly confident in her friendship for him--what
+would she think of him and his love? He knew there was nothing
+mercenary or material in her character; he knew she was young, sweet
+tempered, reticent concerning herself, clean hearted, and proud. How
+could he come blundering through the boundaries of her friendship with
+such an avowal, at a moment's notice?
+
+He returned slowly to the boat and stood looking up at her; and he saw
+that she was smiling down at him in the starlight.
+
+"Why did you start off so abruptly and tramp up and down?" she asked.
+
+He looked up at her. "Shall we walk back, now?" he said.
+
+She extended her hands to him, and he swung her to the beach. For a
+moment he retained her hands; she looked at him, smiling, thrilling with
+all that he had said, meeting his eyes frankly and tenderly.
+
+"You are like some glorious magic prince to me," she said, "appearing
+among us here to win our hearts with a word."
+
+"Have I won yours with what I have said?"
+
+"Mine? Oh, don't you know it? Do you think--even if it doesn't come
+true--that I can ever forget what you have wished to do for Jim?"
+
+Still holding her hands, he lifted them, joined her fingers, and laid
+his lips to them. She bent her head and caught her breath in surprise.
+
+"I am going North to-morrow," he said.
+
+For a moment she did not comprehend his words. Then, a trifle dazed, she
+looked up at him. "To-morrow?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are you coming back?"
+
+"Perhaps--next year."
+
+"_Next--year!_"
+
+"Do you--find it--a long time?"
+
+Her straight brows bent inward a little, the startled gray eyes became
+clear and steady. "Of course I knew that you must go--some time. But I
+had no idea that it would be so soon. Somehow, I have thought of you as
+being--here----"
+
+"Do you care?"
+
+Her honest eyes widened. "Care?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes. How greatly do you care?"
+
+The straight brows contracted still more as she stood considering
+him--so close that the fresh and subtle youth of her freshened the night
+again with its faint perfume.
+
+Again he touched her hands with his lips, she watching him palely, out
+of clear, gray eyes; then, as they turned away together, he encircled
+her slender waist with his arm.
+
+That she was conscious of it, and not disturbed by it, was part of her
+new mystery to him. Only once, as they walked, when his circling clasp
+tightened, did she rest her own hand over his where it held her body
+imprisoned. But she said nothing; nor had he spoken when the belt of
+pines loomed against the stars once more.
+
+Then, though neither had spoken, they stopped. He turned to face her,
+drew her into his arms, and the beating of his heart almost suffocated
+him as he looked into her eyes, clear, unshrinking eyes of gray, with a
+child's question in their starry depths.
+
+And he answered the question as in a dream: "I love you. I want you for
+my wife. I want you to love me. You are the first woman I have cared
+for. All that you are I want--no more than you are. You, as you are now,
+are all that I care for in the world. Life is young for us both, yet.
+Let us grow up together--if you can love me. Can you?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Can you not care for me a little, Molly?"
+
+"I do. I know--nothing about--love--real love."
+
+"Can you not imagine it, dear?"
+
+"I--it is what I _have_ imagined--a man--like you--coming this way into
+my loneliness. I recognize it. I have dreamed that it was like this.
+What is it that I should do--if this is really to come true?"
+
+"Love me."
+
+"I would--if I knew how. I don't know how," she said wistfully. "My
+heart is so full--already--of your goodness--I--and then this dream I
+have dreamed--that a man like you should come here and say this to
+me----"
+
+"Is it in you to love me?"
+
+"I'll try--if you'll tell me what to do--how to show it--to
+understand----"
+
+He drew her closer, unresisting, and looked deep into her young eyes,
+and kissed them, and then her lips, till they grew warmer and her breath
+came fragrant and uneven.
+
+"Can you love me?"
+
+"Yes," she whispered.
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+For a moment's exquisite silence she rested her flushed face against his
+shoulder, then lifted it, averted, and stepped aside, out of the circle
+of his arms. Head lowered, she stood there, motionless in the starlight,
+arms hanging straight; then, as he came to her, she lifted her proud
+little head and laid both her hands in his.
+
+"Of those things," she said, "that a woman should be to the man she
+loves, and say to that man, I am ignorant. Even how to speak to
+you--now--I do not know. It is all a dream to me--except that, in my
+heart, I know that I do love you. But I think that was so from the
+beginning, and after you have gone away I should have realized it some
+day."
+
+"You darling!" he whispered. Again she surrendered to him, exquisite in
+her ignorance, passive at first, then tremulously responsive. And at
+last her head drooped and fell on his shoulder, and he held her for a
+little longer, then released her.
+
+Trembling, she crept up the stairway to her room, treading lightly
+along the dark entry, dazed, fatigued, with the wonder of it all. Then,
+as she laid her hand on the knob of her bedroom door, the door of her
+father's room opened abruptly.
+
+"Molly?"
+
+"Yes, dear," she answered vaguely.
+
+He stood staring at her on the threshold, fully dressed, and she looked
+back at him, her eyes slightly confused by the light.
+
+"Where have you been?" he said.
+
+"With Mr. Marche."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To the dory--and back."
+
+"What did he say to you, child?"
+
+She came silently across the threshold and put her arms around his neck;
+and the man lost every atom of his color.
+
+"What did he say?" he repeated harshly.
+
+"That he loves me."
+
+"What!"
+
+"It is true, father."
+
+The man held her at arm's length roughly. "Good God!" he groaned, "how
+long has this been going on?"
+
+"Only to-night. What do you mean, father?"
+
+[Illustration: "'He tells you that he--he is in love with you?'"]
+
+"He tells you that he--he is in love with you? With _you_?" repeated
+Herold unsteadily.
+
+"Yes. It is true, too."
+
+"You mean he asked you to marry him!"
+
+"Yes. And I said I would."
+
+"_You_ love _him_!"
+
+The man's pallor frightened her silent. Then he dropped her arms, which
+he had been clutching, and stood staring at nothing, gnawing at his
+colorless lips.
+
+The girl watched him with dawning terror and finally ventured to speak.
+"Dear, what is the matter? Are you displeased with me? Do you think that
+he is not a man I should care for? You don't know him, dear. You have
+only to see him, to speak with him, hear his voice, look into his
+eyes----"
+
+"Good God!" groaned Herold, closing his sunken eyes. Then, almost
+feeling his way out and along the dark passageway, he descended the
+stairs, heavily.
+
+Marche, cleaning his gun in the sitting-room, looked up in surprise,
+then rose, laying aside stock, fore-end, and barrel, as Herold came into
+the room. The next instant, stepping nearer, he stared into Herold's
+face in silence. And so they met and confronted each other after many
+years.
+
+"Are _you_ Herold?" said the young man, in a low voice.
+
+"That is my name--now."
+
+"_You_ have been in my employment--for five years?"
+
+"Yes. Judge Gilkins gave me the chance. I could not suppose that the
+club would ever become your property."
+
+The younger man's face hardened. "But when it did become my property,
+why had you the indecency to stay?"
+
+"Where else could I go?"
+
+"You had the whole world to--operate in."
+
+Herold's thin face flushed. "It was fitter that I should work for you,"
+he said. "I have served you faithfully for five years."
+
+"And unfaithfully for ten! Wasn't it enough that Vyse and I let you go
+without prosecuting you? Wasn't it enough that we pocketed our loss for
+your wife's sake?"
+
+He checked himself in a flash of memory, turned, and looked at the
+picture on the wall. Now he knew, now he understood why his former
+associate's handwriting had seemed familiar after all these years.
+
+And suddenly he remembered that this man was Jim's father--and the
+father of the young girl he was in love with; and the shock drove every
+drop of blood out of his heart and cheeks. Ghastly, staring, he stood
+confronting Herold; and the latter, leaning heavily, shoulder against
+the wall, stared back at him.
+
+"I could have gone on working for you," he said, "trying to save enough
+to make restitution--some day. I _have_ already saved part of it. Look
+at me--look at my children--at the way we live, and you'll understand
+how I have saved. But I _have_ saved part of what I took. I'll give you
+that much before you go--before I go, too."
+
+His breath came heavily, unevenly; he cleared his eyes with a
+work-stained hand, fashioned for pens and ledgers.
+
+"You were abroad when I--did what I did. Vyse was merciless. I told him
+I could put it back if he'd give me the chance. But a thief was a thief
+to him--particularly when his own pocket was involved. He meant to send
+me to prison. The judge held him--he was his father-in-law--and he was
+an old man with a wife and children of his own."
+
+Herold was silent for a moment, and his gaze became vague and remote,
+then he lifted his head sharply:
+
+"A man makes one slip like that and the world damns him forever. And I
+tell you, Marche, that I am not dishonest by nature or in my character.
+God alone knows why I took those securities, meaning, of course, to
+return them, as all the poor, damned fools do mean when they do what I
+did. But Vyse made it a condition that I was to leave the country, and
+there was no chance of restitution unless I could remain in New York and
+do what I knew how to do--no chance, Marche--and so fortune ebbed, and
+my wife died, and the old judge saw me working on the water-front in
+Norfolk one day, and gave me this place. That is all."
+
+"Why did you feign illness?" asked Marche, in an altered voice.
+
+"You know why."
+
+"You thought I'd discharge you?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Marche stepped nearer. "Why did you come to me here to-night?"
+
+Herold flushed deeply. "It was your right to know--and my daughter's
+right--before she broke her heart."
+
+"I see. You naturally suppose that I would scarcely care to marry the
+daughter of a----" He stopped short, and Herold set his teeth.
+
+"Say it," he said, "and let this end matters for all of us. Except that
+I have saved seven thousand dollars toward--what I took. I will draw you
+a check for it now."
+
+He walked steadily to the table, laid out a thin checkbook, and with his
+fountain-pen wrote out a check for seven thousand dollars on a Norfolk
+bank.
+
+"There you are, Marche," he said wearily. "I made most of it buying and
+selling pine timber in this district. It seemed a little like expiation,
+too, working here for you, unknown to you. I won't stay, now, of course.
+I'll try to pay back the rest--little by little--somehow."
+
+"The way to pay it back," said Marche, "is to do the work you are fitted
+for."
+
+Herold looked up. "How can I?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I could not go back to New York. I have no money to go with, even if I
+could find a place for myself again."
+
+"Your place is open to you."
+
+Herold stared at him.
+
+Marche repeated the assertion profanely. "Damnation," he said, "if you'd
+talked this way to me five years ago, I'd never have stood in your way.
+All I heard of the matter was what Vyse told me. I'm not associated with
+him any more; I'll stand for his minding his own affairs. The thing for
+you to do, Courtney, is to get into the game again and clean up what you
+owe Vyse. Here's seven thousand; you can borrow the rest from me. And
+then we'll go into things again and hustle. It was a good combination,
+Courtney--we'd have been rich men--except for the slip you made. Come on
+in with me again. Or would you rather continue to inhabit your own
+private hell?"
+
+"Do you know what you are saying, Marche?" said the other hoarsely.
+
+"Sure, I do. I guess you've done full time for a first offense. Clean
+off the slate, Courtney. You and Vyse and I know it--nobody
+else--Gilkins is dead. Come on, man! That boy of yours is a corker! I
+love him--that little brother, Jim, of mine; and as for--Molly----" His
+voice broke and he turned sharply aside, saying: "It's certainly
+blue-bird weather, Courtney, and we all might as well go North. Come out
+under the stars, and we'll talk it over."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was almost dawn when they returned. Marche's hand lay lightly on
+Courtney's shoulder for a moment, as they parted.
+
+Above, as Courtney stood feeling blindly for his door, Molly's door
+swung softly ajar, and the girl came out in her night-dress.
+
+"Father," she whispered, "is it all right?"
+
+"All right, thank God, little daughter."
+
+"And--I may care for him?"
+
+"Surely--surely, darling, because he is the finest specimen of manhood
+that walks this merciless earth."
+
+"I knew it," she whispered gaily. "If you'll lend me your wrapper a
+moment, I'll go to his door and say good-night to him again."
+
+Her father looked at her, picked up his tattered dressing-gown from his
+bed, and wrapped her in it to the chin, then kissed her forehead.
+
+So she trotted away to Marche's door and tapped softly; and when he
+came and opened the door, she put her arms around his neck and kissed
+him.
+
+"Good night," she whispered. "I do love you, and I shall pray all night
+that I may be everything that you would wish to have me. Good night,
+once more--dearest of men--good night."
+
+
+
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