Chapter 28

THE POTION

They were a rather silent party on the homeward way. Dunham sailed the boat. Benny Merritt, fortified with thick slices of Mrs. Lem's good bread and butter, fell asleep and snored peacefully. He had bargained with Minty for this substantial repast as the price of sailing her around the Basin, and Sylvia had been quite concerned that he had no appetite for the afternoon tea which the others took before setting forth.

At Anemone Cottage the party was received with acclaim. Miss Lacey's cheeks had been very pink from the moment of discovering with her spyglass a fourth figure in the boat; and Judge Trent had no cause to complain of his supper.

The effervescent spirits which had this morning been Sylvia's seemed now to have passed into her hostess, and the glad eagerness with which the younger girl followed the other's mood was noted and appreciated by Dunham, who, when he could catch Sylvia's eye, sent her reassuring smiles, not one of which was lost upon Edna.

Sylvia almost persuaded herself that she had been imaginative and unjust. Of course Edna had been too occupied in greeting Judge Trent just now, and in caring for his comfort, to give her more than a smiling nod of welcome on her arrival, but Edna's good cheer at the supper table was charming, and each guest in his way showed response to her mood.

"I've another day of my carpenters to-morrow," she said after a while, "and I can't be sorry. They're great fun. I'm having the shed changed. The architect had suggested a more acute angle than my carpenter liked. I told Willis I thought he was improving on Mr. Lane's lines, and he replied, with that delightful drawl, 'Ye-us, he had sech a quick yank!'"

Another day of the carpenters! Sylvia was sorry to hear this, since it occupied Edna; and yet, one more day alone on the shore! Ah, what joy, if she could only escape Dunham and her uncle!

The evening was perfect, and when the party rose from the table they gravitated as usual to the piazza.

"What a clear horizon!" said Edna. "The moon will be coming up in a few minutes. Do you feel properly romantic, Judge Trent?"

"I feel the nearest approach to it that a man in my class ever does," he replied. "That was an excellent supper, Edna. If you'll show me the way to the kitchen I could almost kiss the cook, if she would consider it."

Miss Lacey was listening and bridling triumphantly behind a neighboring pillar.

"You needn't go so far," rejoined Edna gayly. "Miss Lacey made that dessert."

The judge was unperturbed, as he stood, his hands clasped behind him. "In that case, Martha," he remarked, his impersonal gaze resting on the shadowy distance, "please consider yourself chastely saluted."

"This evening demands music," said Edna. "I'll sing for you to-night, John."

"Good girl," returned Dunham, with an involuntary glance toward Sylvia's starlit face.

The hostess went indoors, and Sylvia started after her. "Do you mind if I sit near the piano, Edna?" she asked.

"And miss the moonrise? I certainly should not allow it. Stay right where you were."

"Of course, stay right where you were," said John quietly, "or rather sit here." He placed a cushion for Sylvia on the top step, and as she accepted the position he placed himself at her feet.

Miss Martha sank into a rocking-chair, and Judge Trent moved down upon the grass, where he walked back and forth, a shadowy figure in the evening hush, for the wind goes down with the sun at Hawk Island.

"Ask her to sing the 'Sea Pictures,'" suggested Sylvia to her companion.

John called his request, and Edna complied. She had scarcely commenced the first song when a halo of light appeared on the horizon, foretelling the edge of the orange-colored disc which soon began its splendid ascent from the silhouetted waves. The air was full of the scent of sweet peas, that clung in lavish abundance to the base of the cottage. The vista of firs framed the rising moon, which gradually flecked the water with dancing gold. Edna's voice flooded the air with strange melody.

Sylvia's responsive sense yielded to the witchery of the hour. Petty thoughts were swept away. John's eyes were constantly drawn back to her rapt face as the light grew clearer.

"The little stars are going out, do you see?" she murmured, and he nodded.

Soon Edna began the accompaniment of "In Haven," the one which Sylvia called the island song. The first notes brought a new light to her face, and she smiled into Dunham's upturned eyes.

"This is mine," she said. The words of the song came clearly to them, as the moon-path broadened and lengthened between the spires of the firs.

"Closely let me hold thy hand, Storms are sweeping sea and land, Love alone will stand.

"Closely cling, for waves beat fast, Foam flakes cloud the hurrying blast, Love alone will last.

"Kiss my lips and softly say, 'Joy, sea-swept, may fade to-day; Love alone will stay.'"

Sylvia leaned her head against the vine-wreathed stone, and her eyes closed against the glory of a world that seemed hushing itself to listen,--closed against John Dunham, whose personality had so strangely permeated the song on the day she first heard it. What a different day from this, and how long, long ago it was! Then storm was sweeping sea and land; the hurrying blast, the beating waves, the driven foam flakes, had been an actuality. Now all unrest was in her own thought, while o'er sea and land brooded a peace that suggested eternity. The sweetness of that which alone would last,--how it appealed to her!

She could see beneath her lashes the moonlight falling on John's strong profile, and on the brown hands that clasped his knee. If, without word or look, he could reach up to her one of those hands, and she could put her own into it with the knowledge that there was its rightful place, what would every storm of circumstance mean to her henceforth!

She came to herself with a start. Here on Edna's very piazza, enjoying her hospitality, she was indulging in a dream of theft from her. If her thoughts could be so betrayed, might it not be that some action had indeed given Edna just cause of offense? She remembered the day when, in the boat with her newly discovered uncle, he had told her that Dunham was straining at the leash to get away to Boston to Miss Derwent. Every moment of the latter's charming hospitality, and now her glorious voice, doubtless bound him closer to her. Sylvia knew herself to be not of their world, and perhaps she was more of a novelty to Dunham than she could realize. It was some strangeness in her, possibly some unconscious _gaucherie_, that so often called his attention to herself. Surely she should blush forever that, so soon as her thoughts escaped control, the subject began to attempt to betray her Princess and usurp her place.

"I mustn't stay here. I ought not to stay," thought Sylvia in sudden panic. "I cannot be trusted."

The song closed. Dunham turned his head and looked up at his companion.

"Your song, is it?" he asked softly. "Let me in, too. It belongs to this place."

"Go and tell Edna how you like it," said Sylvia. "She always says it belongs to this island."

"And to her present guests especially," rejoined Dunham. "Won't you seal the partnership before I go?"

He reached his hand up to her with the movement she had pictured.

Her own were clasped behind her head. "No," she answered quickly. "Take Edna's hand upon it. Let her know how you love it, for it is one of her own favorites."

Dunham still hesitated, regarding the moonlit face, and Sylvia suddenly rose and, passing him, ran down the steps and joined Judge Trent in his measured promenade.

Miss Martha marveled at the ease with which her niece took possession of the lonely man who courted loneliness; and she could see by the way the judge turned toward the young girl, as she took his arm, that he was not an unwilling captive. "I shouldn't wonder if the child made Calvin real human," she thought, with a contented sigh. Sylvia was a possession which they held in common. Miss Martha seemed to see a future in which her relation with her ex-lover ceased to be one of armed neutrality.

Dunham, who had gone into the house to thank his entertainer, soon reappeared, with Edna beside him. They strolled off the piazza and down the rock path toward the golden street which joined the short avenue of firs, and Sylvia saw them no more that night.

She took care to be in bed, with her light out, before Edna came upstairs, only calling to her a cheery good-night as she passed her door. She hoped her friend would come in and stay for a little talk, but Edna paused only for a moment to exclaim upon the beauty of the evening and the pity of the fact that sleep was a necessity. Then she too said good-night, and passed on.

Affairs the next morning turned out quite as Sylvia would have had them. At breakfast she discovered that Judge Trent and Dunham had departed early on a fishing expedition. Edna was absorbed with her carpenters and their alterations, and Sylvia found no difficulty in escaping unquestioned to the woods, the pillow slip hanging over her arm.

This time when she returned at noon there was no one in sight, and she laid down bottle and bag in a corner of the piazza while she went to the well for a drink. Returning, she again took the flat, stiff pillow slip and went upstairs with it.

The men came home to dinner a little late. They brought no treasures back save those of John's imagination; and he regaled the company during the meal with such accounts of the morning's experiences as caused Miss Martha to entertain fears concerning his ultimate destination.

They all left the table at last in a gale of merriment, and went out on the piazza to drink their coffee. When they had finished Edna offered to show Judge Trent a shady hammock where breezes were warranted to lull all but the uneasiest conscience to rest. It was swung between two balsam firs, and the young people, leaving the judge therein, his cap pulled down over his eyes, went back to the piazza.

As soon as Dunham went up the steps his eye fell on a bottle on the floor in a corner. He recognized it at once, and pounced upon it.

"At last!" he exclaimed, and held it up to the light. "You've been in the woods again this morning." He frowned at Sylvia, who laughed softly and colored to the tips of her ears. "Aha! You look guilty enough for anything. I thought your eyes had an extra sparkle this noon."

Edna caught her lip between her teeth, and stood still, regarding her blushing guest.

A curious excitement took possession of Dunham. Had Sylvia left the bottle purposely for him to find it? "It has gone down fast since yesterday," he went on. "Remember, I saw it yesterday. Any one who comes in on this will have to be prompt and firm." He looked accusingly at the girl, who was the picture of embarrassment, as she stood there, laughing with a conscious air.

"Very well," she exclaimed suddenly. "You shan't tease me any longer about that. Here!" She seized a cup from the coffee table, and, emptying into it the remaining contents of the bottle, she handed it to Dunham.

He looked at her strangely.

"What is this? An elixir?"

"You say so," she replied saucily.

"Will it make me fluent, and sparkling, and gay?"

"You say so."

"Then I should let Edna have a share." He started to hand the cup to his hostess.

"No, no," laughed Sylvia, putting out a protesting hand. "She doesn't need it. It's not fit for Edna. Take it yourself, and--the consequences."

Dunham looked over the rim of the cup at the merry, defiant face, and drank. He then replaced the cup on the table, with sudden gravity and a look of tardy apprehension in the direction of Edna.

"It's not sweet," he said.

"No," returned Sylvia, "except in its results."

Their young hostess stood there, rigid, her hand leaning on the back of a chair. John could not meet the speaker's eyes.

"I have a new story upstairs," he said abruptly. "I'm going to get it and see if I can't induce one of you to read aloud."

He disappeared, and Sylvia regarded the empty bottle with reminiscent eyes.

"What did you expect to do with that stuff, Sylvia?" asked Edna.

"Something that will make a transformation in my life," replied the other slowly. "I want to tell you about it when we have more time. I know you have to go back now to your workmen,--but I'm very hopeful, Edna, and, unless I deceive myself greatly, I shall be happy; and you've been so wonderfully generous to a stranger, you'll be happy for me, I'm sure."

"We haven't time to talk now, as you say," returned Edna, with a measured coldness that caused her friend to look up, the light vanishing from her face. "Your actions have amazed me beyond words. Would you be willing that Thinkright should know the dreams and plans you have indulged in in this place?"

Sylvia stood dumb, transfixed, convicted of guilt.

"It does not come gracefully from your hostess to lecture you, I know; but against my will I have learned what I know, and--the disappointment has been bitter, Sylvia. Don't be vexed with me for speaking plainly. I can help you, I believe, when we get an opportunity for a quiet talk. Yes, I'm coming, Jenny," for the girl was at the door, bringing a question from the carpenter. "Excuse me, Sylvia. We'll talk later."

Dunham, upon reaching his room, forgot all about the book he had come to seek. Standing still in the middle of the floor, he alternately went into paroxysms of laughter and scowled gravely at the wall.

"Nonsense!" he ruminated. "Edna and I are both idiots. I could see that Edna was back in that kitchen while we stood there. This is the twentieth century, and Sylvia has never lived out of the world."

So from moment to moment he would dispose of the Idea; but then there was the Look. That had been unmistakable. There was a chamber in Dunham's heart where that memory picture hung, and it seemed to him impertinence to open the door. As often as the recollection returned to him he recoiled from it. That look had been a theft from Sylvia, not a gift; but she had given him the potion at last. Again John laughed at himself for believing in her intention. Again he scowled at the wall because she had fulfilled it.

At last he shook himself together. An unacknowledged longing possessed him to see how she would carry herself now. He caught up the book he had come for, and went downstairs to the piazza. Sylvia had vanished. Disappointed, he went back into the house. Straying to the piano, he sat down and began to play a Chopin prelude. It was John's one and only instrumental achievement, learned by ear, and dug out of the ivories, as one might say, by long hours of laborious search for its harmonies.

Edna glided into the room. "If you don't mind, John," she said, "this is Miss Lacey's nap-time."

He dropped his hands. "Certainly I won't mind, if you'll produce Miss Sylvia. She's slipperier than a drop of quicksilver."

Edna stiffened slightly. "Perhaps she has gone to sleep, too."

"Well, you haven't, anyway. Come! I hate those carpenters with a virulence that grows worse every hour."

The young hostess laughed. "I've only to stay with them a little while longer. Come with me. They're nearly through, and then we'll get Sylvia and go off somewhere."

John followed lazily to mysterious regions at the back of the cottage. Sylvia, listening at the head of the stairs, heard them go. It was her opportunity.