Part 2

“Why not? Considering that I am on shore and you on the water it hardly seems necessary――――”

“Well, of course it’s your own private pool,” he said. “I thought perhaps nymphs objected to the odor of cigarette-smoke around their habitations.”

“This nymph doesn’t mind it,” she answered.

He selected a cigarette from his case very leisurely. He had had several opportunities to see her eyes and was wondering whether they were really the color they seemed to be. He had thought yesterday that they were blue, like the sky, or a Yale flag or――or the ocean in October; in short just _blue_. But to-day, seen from a distance of some fifteen feet, and examined carefully, they appeared quite a different hue, a――a violet, or――or mauve. He wasn’t sure just what mauve was, but he thought it might be the color of her eyes. At all events, they weren’t merely blue; they were something quite different, far more wonderful, and infinitely more beautiful. He would look again just as soon as he had the cigarette lighted, and――――

“Were you surprised to find me here this morning?” she asked suddenly. There was no hint of coquetry in her tone and he stifled the first reply occurring to him.

“I――no, I wasn’t――for some reason,” he answered honestly. “I dare say I ought to have been.”

“I came on purpose to meet you,” she said calmly.

“Er――thank you――that is――――!”

“I wanted to explain about yesterday. You see I didn’t want you to think I was just simply insane. There was――method in my madness.”

“But I didn’t think you insane,” he denied, depositing the burnt match carefully on a lily-pad and raising his gaze to hers. “I thought――that――――”

“Yes, go on,” she prompted. “Tell me what you did think when you found me here in that――that _thing_!”

“I thought I was in Arcadia and that you were just what you said you were, a water-nymph.”

“Oh,” she murmured disappointedly; “I thought you were really going to tell me the truth.”

“I will, then. Frankly, I didn’t know what to think. You said you were Clytie, and far be it from me to question a lady’s word. I was stumped. I tried to work it out yesterday afternoon and couldn’t, and so I came back to-day in the hope that I might have the good fortune to see you again.”

“It was rather silly,” she answered. “And I ought to have run away when I saw your canoe coming. But it was so unexpected and sudden, and I was bored and――and I wondered what you would look like when I told you I was a water-nymph!” She laughed softly. “Only,” she went on in a moment, with grievance in her tones, “you didn’t look at all surprised! I might just as well have said ‘I am Mary Smith’ or――or ‘Laura Devereux!’”

(“Aha!” quoth Ethan to himself, “I am learning.”)

“You were very disappointing,” she concluded severely.

“I am sorry, really. I realize now that I should have displayed astonishment and awe. Perhaps if you had said you were Laura――Laura Devereux, was it?――I would have really shown some emotion.”

“Why?” she questioned.

“Well, don’t you think――Laura, now, is――I’m afraid I can’t just explain.” He was watching her intently. She was studying her clasped hands. “I suppose what I meant was that Laura is such an attractive name, so――so musical, so melodious! And then coupled with Devereux it is even――even――er――more so!”

“Is it?” She didn’t look at him and her tone was almost icy.

(“I fancy that’ll hold you for awhile,” he said to himself. “My boy, you’re inclined to be a little too fresh; cut it out!”)

“I never thought Laura especially melodious,” she said.

“Perhaps you are prejudiced,” he suggested amiably.

“Why should I be?” she asked, observing him calmly. He hesitated and paid much attention to his cigarette.

“Oh, no reason at all, I suppose,” he answered finally. He looked up in time to surprise a little mocking smile in her eyes. Nonsense! He’d show her that she couldn’t bluff him down like that! “To be honest,” he continued, “what I meant was that some folks take a dislike to their own names; in which case they are scarcely impartial judges.” He looked across at her challengingly. She returned the look serenely.

“So you think that is my name?” she asked.

“Isn’t it?”

“I don’t see why you should think so,” she parried. “I might have found it in a novel. I’m sure it sounds like a name out of a novel.”

“But you haven’t denied it,” he insisted.

“I don’t intend to,” she replied, the little tantalizing smile quivering again at the corners of her mouth. “Besides, I have already told you that my name is Clytie.”

He tossed the remains of his cigarette toward where one of the swans was paddling about. The long neck writhed snake-like and the bill disappeared under the water. Then with an insulted air and an angry bob of the tail, the swan turned her back on Ethan and sailed hurriedly back to her family.

“I understand,” he said. “I will try not to forget hereafter that this is Arcadia, that you are Clytie and that I am Vertumnus.”

“Thank you, Vertumnus,” she said. “And now I must tell you what I came here to tell. You must know, sir, that I am not in the habit of sitting around on the grass in broad daylight dressed――as I was yesterday. If I did I should probably catch cold. Yesterday morning we――a friend and I――dressed up in costume and took each other’s pictures up there under the trees. Afterwards the fancy took me to come down here and――and ‘make believe.’ And then you popped on to the scene all of a sudden.”

“I see. Very rude of me, I’m sure. Of course, as we are in Arcady, and you are a nymph and I a――a god, I don’t understand at all what you are talking about; but I _would_ like to see those pictures!”

“I’m afraid you never will,” she laughed.

“I’m not so sure,” he said thoughtfully. “Strange things happen in――Arcady.”

“Weren’t you the least bit surprised when you saw me? And when I――acted so silly?”

“I certainly was! Really, for a while――especially after you had gone――I was half inclined to think that I had been dreaming. You did it rather well, you know,” he added admiringly.

“Did I?” She seemed pleased. “Didn’t it sound terribly foolish when I spouted that about Apollo?”

“Not a bit! I――I half expected the sun to do something when you raised your hands to it; I don’t know just what; wink, perhaps, or have an eclipse.”

“You’re making fun of me!” she said dolefully.

“But I am not, truly! However, I don’t think you treated your audience very nicely. To get me sun-blind and then steal away wasn’t kind. When I looked around you had simply disappeared, as though by magic, and I――” he shivered uncomfortably――“I felt a bit funny for a moment.”

“Really?” She positively beamed on him, and Ethan felt a sudden warmth at his heart. “I suppose every person has a sneaking desire to act,” she went on. “I know I have. Ever since I was a little girl I’ve loved to――to ‘make believe.’ That’s why I did it yesterday.”

“Have you ever considered a stage career?” he asked gravely. She leaned her chin in one small palm and observed him doubtfully.

“I never seem to know for certain,” she complained, “whether you are making fun of me or not. And I don’t like to be made fun of――especially by――――”

“Strangers? I don’t blame you, Miss――Clytie. I wouldn’t like it myself.”

She continued to study him perplexedly, a little frown above her somewhat impertinent nose. Ethan smiled composedly back. He enjoyed it immensely. The sunlight made strange little golden blurs in her eyes. They were very beautiful eyes; he realized it thoroughly; and he didn’t care how long she allowed him to look into them like this. Only, well, it was a bit disquieting to a chap. He could imagine that invisible wires led from those violet orbs of hers straight down to his heart. Otherwise how account for the tingling glow that was pervading the latter? Not that it was unpleasant; on the contrary――――

“I beg your pardon?” he stammered.

“I merely said that I had no idea of the stage,” she replied distantly, dropping her gaze.

“Oh!” He paused. It took him a moment to get the sense of what she had said through his brain. Plainly, Arcadian air possessed a quality not contained in ordinary ether, and its effect was strangely deranging to the senses. “Oh!” he repeated presently, “I am glad you haven’t. I shouldn’t want you to――er――――”

But that didn’t appear to be just the right thing to say, judging from the sudden expression of reserve which settled over her countenance. Ethan shook himself awake.

“It is time for me to go,” she said, getting to her feet. Ethan made an absurdly futile motion toward assisting her. “I think I have explained matters, don’t you?”

“You have explained,” he answered judicially, “but there is much more that would bear, that even demands elucidation.”

“I don’t see that there is,” she replied a trifle coldly.

“Oh, of course, if you prefer to have me place my own interpretation on――things――――!”

“What things?” she demanded curiously.

“What things?” he repeated vaguely. “Oh, why――er――lots,” he ended lamely.

She turned her back.

“Good morning,” she said.

He took a desperate resolve.

“Good morning. Now that I know who you are――――”

“You don’t know who I am!” she retorted, facing him defiantly.

“Pardon me, but――――”

“I didn’t say my name was――that!”

“And I know more besides,” he added mysteriously.

“You don’t!”

“Oh, very well.” He smiled superiorly.

“How could you?”

“You forget that we gods have powers of――――”

“Oh! Well, tell me, then.”

“Not to-day,” he answered gently. “To-morrow, perhaps.”

He raised his paddle and turned the canoe about.

“But you will not see me to-morrow,” she said, stifling the smile that threatened to mar her severity.

“You are not thinking of leaving Arcady?” he asked in surprise. “Where, pray, could you find a more delightful pool than this? Observe those swans! Observe the lilies! Besides, even in Arcady one doesn’t move so late in the season.”

She regarded him for a moment with intense gravity. Then,

“You really think so?” she asked musingly.

“I really do.”

He waited, wondering at himself for caring so much about her decision. At last,

“Perhaps you are right,” she said. “Good morning.”

“And I, shall see you to-morrow?” he cried eagerly.

She turned under the first tree. The green shadows played over her hair and dappled her white gown with tremulous silhouettes.

“That,” she laughed softly, tantalizingly, “is in the hands of the gods.”

Her dress showed here and there through the trees for a moment and then was lost to sight. Ethan heaved a sigh. Then he smiled. Then he seized the paddle and shot the canoe toward the outlet.

“Well,” he muttered, “I know how this god will vote!”

V.

Ethan laid aside his paddle and mopped his face with his handkerchief. The canoe, left to its own devices, poked its nose against the meadow bank and allowed its stern to float slowly around in the languid current. He gazed across the fields over which the heat-waves danced and shimmered and addressed himself to his cigarette case.

“Providence,” he said, “showed great wisdom when it arranged that the Pilgrims should land on the coast of Massachusetts. ‘From what I’ve seen of these folks and what I’ve heard about them,’ says Providence, ‘I don’t believe they’re going to be much of an acquisition to the New World. But I’ll give ’em a fair show. I’ll see that they land at Plymouth and if they can survive a Massachusetts winter _and_ a Massachusetts summer I’ll have nothing more to say. Those of them alive a year from now will be entitled to prizes in the Endurance Test and will have qualified to become Hardy Pioneers and build up the country.’”

He mopped his face again, lighted a cigarette and took up his paddle.

“One would think that this state might show moderation at some season of the year,” he added disgustedly. “But not content with her Old Fashioned Winters, Backward Springs and Early Falls she has to try and wrest the Hot Weather blue ribbon from Arizona! No wonder they say a Bostonian isn’t contented in Heaven; doubtless he finds the weather frightfully equable and monotonous!”

He righted the canoe and went on, with a glance at the sky above the hills.

“We’re probably in for a jolly good thunder-storm this afternoon,” he muttered.

By the time he had reached the entrance to the brook his forehead was again beaded with perspiration and his thin negligée shirt showed a disposition to cling to his shoulders. It was one of those intensely hot and exceedingly humid days which the early summer so often visits upon New England. Even the birds seemed to feel the heat and instead of singing and darting about across the shadowed stream were content to flutter and chirp drowsily amidst the branches. The hum of the insects held a lethargic tone that somehow, like a locust’s clatter in August, seemed to increase the heat. Ethan went slowly up the winding stream with divided opinions on the subject of his own sanity. To sit in a canoe in the broiling sun on a morning like this merely to talk to a girl was rank idiocy, he told himself. Then he recalled her eyes, her tantalizing little laugh, the soft tones of her voice, the provocative ghost of a smile that so often trembled about her red lips, and owned that she was worth it. After he had slipped under the stone footbridge it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps the girl would object quite as strongly as he to making a martyr of herself in the interests of polite conversation! Perhaps she wouldn’t come at all! In which case he would have had his journey for naught――and possibly a sunstroke thrown in! The more he considered that possibility the more reasonable it became, until, when he had shot the canoe into the little pond, and saw that the bank was empty of aught save a pair of the swans who were stretching their wings in the sunlight, he was not surprised.

“She certainly has more sense than I have,” he muttered.

Not a breath of air stirred the leaves of the encircling fringe of trees. The little lake was like an artist’s palette set with all the tender greens and pinks and whites and yellows of summer.

“I hope you like my pool?” inquired a voice.

Ethan turned from his survey of the scene and saw that the girl was standing under the shade of a willow a little distance up the slope. She was all in white, as yesterday, but a broad-brimmed hat of soft white straw hid her hair and threw a shadow over her face. Ethan raised his own less picturesque panama and bowed.

“It’s looking fine to-day, I think,” he answered. “Perhaps just a little bit ornate, though. There’s such a thing as over-decorating even a lotus pool.”

He turned the bow of the canoe toward the bank, swung it skilfully and stepped ashore. The girl watched him silently. When he had pulled the nose of the craft onto the grass and dropped his paddle he walked toward her. A little flush crept into her cheeks, but her eyes met his calmly.

“This is all dreadfully wrong, you know,” she said gravely. He stopped a few feet away and fanned himself with his hat.

“Yes, very warm, isn’t it?” he agreed affably.

“In the first place,” she went on severely, “you are trespassing.”

“I beg your pardon?” he asked as though he had not comprehended.

“I said you are trespassing.”

“Oh! Yes, of course. Well, really, you couldn’t expect me to sit out there in that hot sun, could you now? I――I have a rather delicate constitution.”

“But you were trespassing before! Coming up here only makes it worse.”

“Better, I call it,” he answered, turning to look back unregretfully at the pool.

“And then――then it is equally wrong for me to stay here and talk to you.”

“Oh come now!” he objected. “Nymphs in my day were not so conventional!”

“So I shall leave you,” she continued, unheeding and turning away.

“Then I shall go with you.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” she cried.

“Why not? Really, Miss Clytie, I am fairly respectable and I know of no reason why you shouldn’t be seen in my company. I have never done murder and never stolen less than a million dollars at a time. To be sure, I hope to become a practising attorney in the course of a year or so, but as yet my honor is unsullied.”

She hesitated, her eyes turned in the direction of the house.

“Besides,” he added hastily, “I was going to tell you what I know about you.”

“Then,” she answered reluctantly, “I’ll stay――a minute.”

“Thank you. And shall we be comfortable during that minute? ‘Come, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings.’”

She shook her head.

“Please!” he begged. “You will never be able to stand during all I have to tell you. Besides, you forget my delicate physique; I have been repeatedly warned against over-exertion.”

She sank gracefully to the grass in a billowing of white muslin, smiling and frowning at once as though annoyed by his persistence, yet too amiable to refuse. All of which produced its effect, Ethan realizing that she was doing him a great favor and becoming duly grateful. He followed her example, seating himself on the turf in front of her, paying, however, less attention to the disposition of his feet. Unconsciously his hand sought a pocket, then dropped away again. She laughed softly.

“Please do,” she said.

“You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” she answered. So he produced his cigarette case and then his match-box and finally blew a breath of gray smoke toward the motionless branches overhead.

“Feel better?” she asked sympathetically.

“Much, thank you.”

“Then you may begin.”

“Begin――――?”

“Tell me what you know about me.”

“Oh! To be sure. Well, let me see. In the first place, your name is Laura Devereux. I am right?”

She smiled mockingly.

“I haven’t agreed to tell you that.”

“Oh! But I know I am. I haven’t asked any questions, for that would have been taking an unfair advantage, I fancy. But I happened to overhear yesterday afternoon at the Inn that a family by the name of Devereux had taken The Larches. And, as I have been in Riverdell before, I know where The Larches is――are――. Would you say is or are?”

“I am only a listener.”

“Then I shall say am, to be on the safe side; I know where The Larches am. You are living at The Larches.”

“No, I――I am merely staying there.”

“For the summer; exactly. That’s what I meant. When you are at home you live in Boston. I won’t tell you how I discovered that, but it was quite fairly.”

“Do I――are you sure I am a Bostonian?”

“Hm! Now that you mention it――I am not. Perhaps your family moved to Boston from somewhere else?”

“Yes?”

“From――let me see! Pennsylvania? But no, you don’t talk like a Pennsylvanian. Maryland? No again. Where, please?”

“But I haven’t acknowledged the correctness of any of your premises yet,” she objected.

“But you don’t dare tell me I’m wrong,” he challenged.

“At least, I am not going to tell you so,” she answered.

“That is as good as an admission!”

“Very well,” she replied serenely. “And now that you know so much about me――that is all, by the way?”

“So far,” he replied.

“Then don’t you think I ought to know something about you?”

“I am flattered that you care to.” He laid a hand over his heart and bowed profoundly.

“My curiosity is of the idlest imaginable,” she responded cruelly.

“I regret that bow,” he said. “However, I shall tell you anyhow. I am like the prestidigitateur in that I have nothing to conceal. And,” he added ruefully, “mighty little to reveal. My name is Parmley, surnamed Ethan. I am holding nothing back there, for I have no middle name. It has been a custom in our family since the days of the disreputable old Norman robber from whom we are descended to exclude middle names. I was born in this same Commonwealth of Massachusetts of well-to-do and honest parents, both of whom have been dead for some years. I was an only child. Pray, Miss Devereux, consider――――”

“If you don’t mind,” she interrupted, “I’d rather you didn’t call me that. I haven’t owned to it, you know.”

“Pardon me! I was about to ask you, Miss Clytie, to consider that fact when weighing my faults. As a child I was intensely interesting; I have gathered as much from my mother. I passed successfully through the measles, mumps, scarlet fever and whooping-cough. I also had the postage-stamp, bird-egg and autograph manias. Later I wriggled my way through a preparatory school――a sort of hot-house for tender young snobs――and later managed, by the skin of my teeth and a condition or two, to enter college. As it has been the custom for the Parmleys to go to Harvard, I went there too. I am boring you frightfully?”

“No.”

“I succeeded in completing a four-year course in five. Some chaps do it in three, but I didn’t want to appear arrogant. I took it leisurely and finished in five. Then, as there had never been a lawyer in the family, I decided to study law. I entered the Harvard Law School and graduated a few weeks ago. I am now spending a hard-earned vacation. In September I am to enter a law firm in Providence as a sort of dignified office-boy.

“I am the possessor of some worldly wealth, not a great deal, but enough for one of my simple tastes. I am even a member of the landed gentry, since I own a piece of land with a house on it. I also own an automobile, and it is that I have to thank for this pleasant meeting.”

She smiled a question.

“I left Boston bright and early Monday morning with Farrell. Farrell calls himself a chauffeur, in proof of which he displays a license and a badge. If it wasn’t for that license and that badge I’d never suspect it. Farrell’s principal duty seems to be to hand me wrenches and screw-drivers and things when I lie on my back in the road and take a worm’s-eye view of the machine. All went as nice as you please until we reached a spot some two miles north of this charming hamlet. There things happened. I won’t weary you with a detailed list of the casualties. Suffice it to say that I walked into Riverdell and Farrell followed an hour later leaning luxuriously back in the car and watching that the tow-rope didn’t snap. I ate a supplementary breakfast at the Inn while Farrell entertained the blacksmith, and then, having nothing better to do, I dropped the canoe into the water and paddled downstream. Ever since I stole my first apple forbidden territory has possessed an unholy fascination for me, and that is why, perhaps, I roamed up the brook and stumbled, as it were, into Arcady.”

“What color is your machine?” she asked.

“Exceedingly blue.”

“And――isn’t it almost repaired?”

“Er――almost, yes.”

“It is taking a long while, seems to me.”

“Well, its malady was grave. I think it had tonsillitis, judging from the sounds it made.”

“Indeed? But it seemed to go very well.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said that it seemed to go very well.”

“You have seen it?”

“Yes, it passed the house yesterday at about two o’clock.”

“There are a great many blue cars in the world,” he defended.

“Has it returned yet?” she asked, unheeding.

“No. The fact is, I was on my way to Stillhaven to visit friends there, so I sent the car on for them to use. I have observed that, failing my presence, the car does fairly well for my friends.”

“What a pessimist! And you are staying in Riverdell?”

“For a few days, yes; at the Roadside.”

“Riverdell should feel flattered to find that you prefer it to Stillhaven as a summer resort.” She gathered her skirts together with one hand and started to rise. Ethan jumped to his feet and enjoyed the intoxicating felicity of feeling her hand in his.

“Thank you,” she murmured, smoothing her gown. Then, with a return of that provoking, mocking little smile, “Would it be a terrible blow to your vanity,” she asked, “if I were to tell you that your guesses are all wrong?”

“Terrible,” he answered anxiously.