Chapter 26

REVELATION

Dunham was not asleep. His half-amused, half-piqued thoughts rambled on. This niece of Judge Trent's was certainly an odd girl, with her preoccupations, her mysterious sacks of treasures, and her bottle of blackish fluid, her moods, her laughter, and her tears.

The fastidious Edna had been annoyed by last night's scene in the kitchen. Well, it was a strange scene. John recalled it now. He remembered quite well every word uttered by the rosy witch over her bubbling miniature caldron. She was concocting a philtre to make a girl happy,--herself. She had confided to the warm-hearted Irishwoman that she was in love, and condemned her stupidity that it had not been love at first sight; but since it had not been, the flame was likely to burn the longer. Didn't Jenny think so? And Jenny most reassuringly had thought so.

What sort of talks and beliefs had the girl been accustomed to in companionship with her ne'er-do-well father? Whatever her experiences, her atmosphere was one of strength and innocence. As this thought came to him with conviction, an involuntary desire to look at the subject of it caused his eyes suddenly to unclose.

The effect was electrical. Sylvia, from studying the features and hair, the outlines of throat and chest and shoulders of her vis-a-vis, had unconsciously forgotten the model in the man, had forgotten Edna Derwent. The ideal, never long absent from her thought since that morning at Hotel Frisbie, was now filling her material vision in utter unconsciousness of her scrutiny. She leaned slightly toward him in her absorption, and a woman's heart was in her eyes and tenderly curved lips when John's gaze suddenly encountered hers.

The social diplomacy which from boyhood it had been his second nature to practice stood him in good stead now.

In that instant he saw Sylvia's start and withdrawal, he felt his own color mount to match hers, but he continued absolutely motionless except for letting his eyelids fall again.

"Do forgive me," he said after a moment, in nasal and languid apology. "I hadn't an idea I should fall asleep. I'll wake up in a minute. I'm worse than a kid taken out in its baby carriage when I strike this air. Might as well chloroform me."

Sylvia was leaning against the mast, trying to swallow the heart that had leaped to her throat.

"Don't try to wake up," she replied after a time. She caught at his words as consolation, yet that look had been so deliberate, so wide. Could it be--

"My father taught me to sketch a little when I was a child," she went on, her breath still getting between her words most inconveniently. "I was wishing I had a pencil just then. You were being such a--such a docile model."

"Truly?" asked Dunham, lazily opening his eyes again. "Tell me honestly, as man to man. I prefer to know the worst. I'm sure I was all tumbled together like Grandpa Smallweed, and I've an awful suspicion that my mouth was open."

Sylvia shook her head.

"Honestly? Don't spare me."

He slowly pulled himself upright, and Sylvia shrank closer to the mast. Her eyes shone like those of a startled bird who awaits only a shade more certainty of danger to dart from the spot.

"No, no!" she exclaimed. "Were you really asleep?" she added naïvely.

He gave a low laugh.

"Excellent, tactful young lady. That is letting me down easy, even if I have been giving a good imitation of a fog horn. Really, I hope you will forgive me. There's only one way to secure my good manners on a boat, and that is to make me sail her."

Sylvia allowed herself to be reassured by the off-hand sincerity of his tone.

"Go to sleep as much as you like," she returned. "I told you I wanted to think. I'm very unhappy, Mr. Dunham," she went on after a moment, with sudden determination, and her recent excitement made actual tears veil her eyes this time.

"Why, what is the matter?"

"I have offended Edna."

"Surely not. How?"

"That is what I hoped you could tell me, else I wouldn't have mentioned it. Say, truly, if you know of anything I have done."

"I certainly do not," responded Dunham, with the more emphasis that he suddenly believed he did know--exactly. The exactness was the blow.

One of his arms was flung along the gunwale, and he frowned down at the other brown hand while the Idea, the overwhelming, absurd, pathetic, ridiculous Idea, paralyzed him.

Sylvia had not fallen in love at first sight. Whom had she recently seen for the second time? For whom was she brewing the blackish potion? Edna had suspected. That explained her undue irritation last evening. What had Sylvia found to be lacking in her philtre? For what had she gone to the woods this morning? What mystery was contained in the white bag which she defended with such zeal? Dunham felt as if his brain were softening. It was the limit of absurdity to be connecting these semi-barbaric fantasies with this sane and charming girl. He saw how Edna had been confounded and annoyed. Submerged by the Idea, he could not at once lift his eyes to Sylvia, although it stirred him to believe that those bright drops he had seen gather might be falling.

Under the sordid circumstances of her life it was quite possible that he was the first presentable man she had ever met, and the thought that she had set out with the primitive instincts and methods of a Romany girl to take him by fair means or foul roused in him a wild desire to laugh, which could be subdued only by another look at the thoughtful, feminine face so at variance with the Idea. Her soft voice broke the short silence.

"You know the kindest thing you could do would be to tell me if you do know anything I have done, or even have the least suspicion of something. You've known Edna so much longer than I have."

"Yes," responded Dunham. "But aren't you too sensitive?" he added to gain time.

"I hope not," answered the girl with childlike simplicity. "Thinkright says sensitiveness is only selfishness. I hope it's not that."

"Why, what has made you think Edna offended?"

Sylvia's lip trembled. "Oh, little things. Tiny things. Things a man would probably not notice. She didn't kiss me good-night last evening."

John feared the speaker was going to cry.

"She didn't me, either," he responded cheerfully. "I didn't think anything of it. I should have been more apt to notice it if she had."

Sylvia gave an April smile. "She didn't kiss me this afternoon. She was strange and unlike herself. She's been so all day. I've been thinking that perhaps I ought not to go back," finished the girl slowly.

"Perish the thought," returned Dunham hastily. He was surprised to find how earnestly he objected to any such desertion. "You must go back if only to set your thought about it straight. Ask"--No, he would not advise her to ask Edna. The latter might tell her frankly. "Edna is very much taken up with her carpentering," he went on. "Let her get over that."

"She has been so very kind to me," said Sylvia. "I want to be sure not to impose on her,--not to be in her way," and she looked so childlike and self-forgetful as she spoke, that her companion, bewildered and flattered as he was by the Look, and the Idea, indulged in a brief and pointed soliloquy:--

"Whether she is a gypsy or a saint, or whatever she is, she's a peach."

Sylvia's eyes grew wistful as the familiar home landmarks came in view.

"There is the Tide Mill," she said half to herself.

"Picturesque old affair, isn't it?" returned Dunham. "You were speaking a few minutes ago of sketching. That's a good subject."

The girl nodded, and her eyes rested on the mill pensively.

"Just as coldly heart-broken as ever," she said.

"What do you mean?"

She gave a slight gesture toward it. "Can't you see?"

Dunham gazed at the old building, standing above the inrushing tide.

"It does look rather forlorn, doesn't it," he returned, "with those blank shutters, tier upon tier."

"Yes, tear upon tear," answered Sylvia, with a faint smile at her own fancy. "One almost expects to see the salt drops raining down its face; but it is too tightly closed even for that. I was like that when I first came here, but Thinkright helped me, and I mustn't get so again, no matter what happens. I was very, very mistaken and unhappy in those days. You know I was."

The last words were uttered very low, and Dunham nodded.

"And now I've a longing, of course it's a silly one, that the Tide Mill should open its eyes too, and cheer up. I can't bear it to go on making a picture of the way I used to feel. It's as if it might drag me back again. To-day the feeling comes over me especially, because my heart is so heavy."

Sylvia's wide gaze rested on the mill, and she pressed her hand to her breast.

"Why, that's easily done," responded Dunham consolingly. "Just let Thinkright give me an axe, and I'll tickle that old pessimist's ribs until its eyes fly open and it giggles from its roof to its rickety old legs."

Sylvia shook her head. "No. Force would only do harm. Love must open the shutters."

"Love?" repeated John, staring at the speaker.

She nodded. "Yes, the same thing that opened mine."

He continued to regard her. "Do you know, you're a very odd girl," he said at last.

"No," she replied.

"To talk about Love opening those weather-beaten, rusty old blinds. How could it?"

"I don't know; but it will. I feel that it will. You will see." She gave a strange little smile, and Dunham regarded her uneasily.

For the first time it occurred to him that she might be unbalanced. In that revealing Look which he had surprised a while ago she seemed to have given herself to him. He had been strangely conscious of proprietorship in her, a sort of responsibility for her, ever since. By his strategy he had secured her unconsciousness of discovery, and thus given himself time.

She kept her eyes fixed on the shore they were approaching, and he continued to regard her furtively, from time to time.

"We can get into the Basin now, can't we, Benny?" she called to their forgotten boatman.

"Easy," he responded. "Suppose ye'll be comin' out afore eight o'clock."

"Well,--Mr. Dunham will," responded Sylvia slowly.

"And Miss Lacey also, of course," added John. According to the programme laid down by the Idea, Sylvia had an unfulfilled engagement on Hawk Island. She had yet to administer to him the contents of the black bottle, reinforced by the ingredient contained in the flat white bag. How with any consistency could she remain at the Mill Farm?

John flung back his head in a silent laugh and passed his hand across his forehead. The boat sailed toward the Tide Mill and under its cold shadow into the smiling, alluring Basin.

It seemed to Sylvia that months had passed since last those white birch stems had leaned toward her and waved green banners of welcome. "Ah. Listen!" she exclaimed. A tuneful jangle as of melodious bells fell on the quiet air, and then, like the clear tones of a silver flute, this phrase:--

"What is it?" whispered John, meeting Sylvia's eyes suddenly alight with joy.

"My hermit thrush," she murmured. "Listen!"

Again the sweet tangle of sounds; again the clear, perfect phrase, followed by melodious little bells. Dunham and Sylvia, motionless, continued to gaze into each other's eyes, and the girl's rapt smile stirred the man, for it was kin to the one he had surprised.

The boat glided silently toward the shore. Again the sweet flute sounded from the woods. "It is my welcome home," said Sylvia softly.