Part 15

A young man in rusty meadow-colored clothes appeared to be kneeling with his back toward her. She advanced swiftly toward him, curious only of a great wonder and an indescribable (and possibly fatal) beating of her heart. And suddenly she knew that her man was real and no hallucination, for she perceived at her feet the stub of a Turkish cigarette, still smoking. Then she called to him:

"Halloo, there!"

The Earl of Merrivale started as if he had been shot at, then leaped to his feet and turned toward her with a cry of joy.

"What are you doing here?" he cried.

And they had approached to within touching distance of each other.

"I don't know," she said. "What are you?"

"It was too early to pay calls," he said, "so I thought I'd have one more whack at the big char and bring him to you for a present. But tell me--does our bet still stand?"

He looked at her so tenderly and lovingly and hopefully that she hadn't the heart to be anything but tender and loving herself.

"The bet still stands," she said, "if you win. I've missed you terribly."

"I took him," said the earl. "I was just weighing him when you called. He weighs a lot more than three pounds. So I win."

"Yes, you win."

"And the bet still stands?"

She nodded happily.

"And you won't renege--you'll pay? You'll be Countess of Merrivale?"

"If you want me to be," she said humbly.

"If I want you to be!"

And she had imagined herself so often in his arms that she was not now surprised or troubled to find herself there.

"I was so unhappy," she said; "and now I'm so happy."

And after a little while she said:

"I'd like to see him."

Presently they stood looking down at the great trout.

"He's done a lot for us, hasn't he?" said Gay. "He was the beginning of things. And it seems sort of a pity----"

"He's still breathing. He'll live if we put him back. Shall we?"

"Yes, please."

There was plenty of life and fight in the old trout. He no sooner felt that water was somewhere under him than he gave a triumphant, indignant flop, tore himself from Merrivale's hands, and disappeared with a splendid, smacking splash.

"Good old boy!" laughed Merrivale.

"And yet," said Gay, "it's a pity that we couldn't take him back to camp and show him off. He was the biggest trout I ever saw."

"He wasn't a trout, dear," said Merrivale; and he grinned lovingly at her. "He was a char."

"Of course he was," said Gay humbly; "I forgot."

XXXVI

I wish I could write first, "The Seven Darlings lived happily ever afterward," and then the word "Finis." But I cannot end so easily and maintain a reputation for veracity. They can't have lived happily afterward until they are dead--can they? At the moment they have just closed The Camp after the summer and scattered to their winter homes; that is, all of them except Gay.

The Camp, of course, is no longer an inn. They run it on joint account for themselves and for their friends. And they have delightful times.

Colonel Meredith has built a tremendous house on his ancestral acres, and during the winter Arthur and his wife, the Herrings, the Reniers, the Jonstones, and the Langhams are apt to make it their headquarters.

Gay and her young man were to have visited the Merediths this winter. There was going to be a united family effort to discover the buried silver which Mr. Bob Jonstone sold to his cousin, but of course the great war has upset this excellent plan, together with a good many million other plans, even more excellent and important.

The Earl of Merrivale is fighting somewhere in the wet ditches--Gay doesn't know exactly where. She herself, a red cross on her sleeve, is with one of the field-hospitals, working like a slave to save life. Because her husband is an Englishman, she didn't think that she could ever be kind to a German or an Austrian, but that turned out to be a whopping big error of judgment. They all look alike to her now, and her heart almost breaks over them. But I don't know what will become of her if anything happens to Merrivale. I think poor little Gay would just curl up and die. He is all the world to her, just as she is to him.

Well, they are only one loving couple out of a good many hundred thousands. The times are too momentous to follow them further or waste words and sympathy on them. The world is thinking in big figures, not in units.

Only a sentimentalist here and there regards as more important than empire and riches the little love-affairs that death is hourly ending, and the little babies who are never to be born.