CHAPTER VIII.

TWO THINGS SHE KNEW ABOUT LOVE

This time the blue and brown eyes met squarely. Marjorie’s expression was a mixture of tolerance, vexation and resignation.

“I said it.” Jerry read the glance aright. “I’ll say it for myself, too. Nothing would please _me_ better. You know the rest. It’s the first, last and only appearance of Jeremiah as a buttinski. I knew that someday, somehow, somewhere I’d say something about you and Hal. ’Scuse me, Bean, ’scuse me.” Jerry’s apology was half joking, half earnest.

“Why—I—why—Jerry!” Marjorie stammered. She grew rosy from white throat to the roots of her curly hair. Concerning Hal’s avowal of love, her captain had been her only confidant. Even Constance did not know the circumstances of that bright summer afternoon which she had spent with Hal aboard the Oriole. “Why—Jurry-miar!” She used Danny Seabrooke’s nickname for Jerry, with a rather tremulous laugh. “Who—I never—”

“Nope; of course not.” Jerry’s reply was comfortingly positive. “Both you and Hal belong to the high inner order of the tight-shell clam. I can only guess how you stand with each other. I know he loves you. Never think he told me that. I knew it almost as soon as we first met you. It’s the same true love, broadened and deepened, that he’s giving you today. I wish you cared about him even one-half as much as he cares about you. You’d be loving him some. But I’m afraid you don’t. And that’s flat.”

“No, Jerry I don’t, and it is a relief to be able to say it frankly to you.” Marjorie’s recent confusion was clearing away. Her grave serenity of tone robbed her candid confession of all harshness.

“I’ve always hated to believe you didn’t for Hal’s sake. I was pretty sure of it last summer at the beach,” was Jerry’s sober answer.

“I’m _never_ going to marry, Jeremiah,” Marjorie informed her room-mate with a kind of pessimistic solemnity. “If I couldn’t love Hal enough to be his wife, knowing how splendid he is, surely I couldn’t marry any other man. Don’t think me selfish because I put my work at Hamilton above love. It is life to me—my highest, most complete ideal.”

Jerry surveyed her chum’s lovely, but very dignified features for an instant. She was divided between a desire to admire Marjorie’s lofty purpose in life and shake her soundly for her deliberate repudiation of Hal and his warm true love.

“I—I’m not sorry you spoke to me of Hal. I’d like you to know that—that we’re not betrothed—nor never will be.” Marjorie’s voice dropped on the last four words. “Only Captain and General know. Not even Connie. I don’t think I have the right to tell her. If Hal tells Laurie, he may ask Laurie to tell Connie. I hope so.”

“I know old Hal wouldn’t tell me.” Jerry’s voiced conviction was emphatic. Jerry was more disturbed than she then realized by the “wallop” which Marjorie had managed to “hand” old Hal somewhere along the road of time from the date of Connie’s wedding. She was inwardly convinced that the “turn-down” had come at the beach.

“I shall tell him that I have told you, Jerry,” Marjorie quietly announced. “It is Hal’s privilege to tell Laurie and your father and mother. It was mine to tell either you or Connie as my closest girl friend. I have chosen to tell you. You are as dear to me as Connie; but not dearer. Only—in this you have the first right to know.”

Marjorie smiled very tenderly on Jerry. Her plump, but not over-plump, partner in the journey through the land of college sat abstractedly scribbling on the back of one of her envelopes, head bent low. She was not far from tears. Jerry loathed tears when, on rare occasions, she had been what she termed “cry-baby” enough to shed them.

“Much obliged.” She now spoke gruffly to hide her threatened flow of emotion. “I—I wish you felt differently about Hal, Marjorie. I—I—always looked forward to having you for my sister in that way.” Jerry absently turned the envelope over and continued to write on its under side.

“Oh, Jeremiah, you’re just as much my sister now as you would be if I were—” Marjorie suddenly checked her impulsive assurance. Her honest nature compelled her to desist. No; it was not the same. She knew that no declaration of sisterhood to Jerry on her part could compare with the delight which would be her chum’s were they to become sisters through her marriage with Hal.

“Not the same, Bean; not the same.” Jerry shook a positive head.

“I know it isn’t. I knew it almost as soon as I said it,” Marjorie admitted rather humbly. “I love you a lot, Jerry. Most of all because you have always loved me and wanted me for your sister. I’m glad you spoke to me about Hal. There’s one thing I can do for him. Go to Sanford and help you give him a jolly Thanksgiving. We owe it to him to please him; more than we do to please the dormitory girls. He’s the one most in need of good cheer this Thanksgiving.”

“Ha-a-a-a!” Jerry sat up very straight and drew a long relieved breath. “You’re the best little sport, Marjorie Dean! I was afraid you might not care to see poor old Hallelujah on account of having turned him down.”

“I sha’n’t mind seeing Hal,” Marjorie said slowly, “for truly, Jerry, in my own way I like him as well as ever. I haven’t changed toward Hal. My attitude toward him is purely that of friendship. But he has changed. We’re like two persons, standing on opposite banks of a broad river, trying to call across to each other. Neither of us can understand the other. I wonder why true friendship can’t content Hal. He wonders why I can’t understand love.” She cast an almost mournful glance toward Jerry which Jerry did not forget for many days afterward.

“I only know two things surely about love,” Marjorie continued after a brief silence. “One is that I have never been in love. The other is that without love no marriage can be happy. And now let’s not talk of love any more, _ever again_, Jeremiah,” she ended in a whimsical tone which made Jerry smile.

“All right. Anything to please you, Bean,” she replied. She was secretly elated over Marjorie’s decision concerning Thanksgiving. Nothing could please Hal more she was sure. “It’s midnight, anyway. Time we put a curb on our talk fest.” She rose to begin preparations for sleep. She would have liked to assure Marjorie of how glad “old Hal” would be, but had agreed to Marjorie’s taboo.

Marjorie gathered up her handful of letters from the table, a contented little smile showing at the corners of her red mouth. She was glad that she and Jerry were going home; that the momentous decision had been made. Picking up the last envelope left on the table she saw it was not one of hers, but Jerry’s. A fresh flood of scarlet flew to her cheeks as she saw scribbled across the envelope in Jerry’s hand: “Marjorie Dean Macy.”