A Young Man in a Hurry, and Other Short Stories

“We can hear her whistle when she steams in,” he said.

“Are you actually inviting me to stay?” she laughed, seating herself on the soap-box once more.

They became very grave as he sat down on the ground at her feet, and, a silence threatening, she hastily filled it with a description of the yacht and Major Brent’s guests. He listened, watching her intently. And after a while, having no more to say, she pretended to hear sounds resembling a distant yacht’s whistle.

“It’s the red-winged blackbirds in the reeds,” he said. “Now will you let me say something – about the past?”

“It has buried itself,” she said, under her breath.

“To-morrow is Easter,” he went on, slowly. “Can there be no resurrection for dead days as there is for Easter flowers? Winter is over; Pasque Florida will dawn on a world of blossoms. May I speak, Kathleen?”

“It is I who should speak,” she said. “I meant to. It is this: forgive me for all. I am sorry.”

“I have nothing to forgive,” he said. “I was a – a failure. I – I do not understand women.”

“Nor I men. They are not what I understand. I don’t mean the mob I’ve been bred to dance with – I understand them. But a real man – ” she laughed, drearily – “I expected a god for a husband.”

“I am sorry,” he said; “I am horribly sorry. I have learned many things in four years. Kathleen, I – I don’t know what to do.”

“There is nothing to do, is there?”

“Your freedom – ”

“I am free.”

“I am afraid you will need more freedom than you have, some day.”

She looked him full in the eyes. “Do you desire it?”

A faint sound fell upon the stillness of the forest; they listened; it came again from the distant sea.

“I think it is the yacht,” she said.

They rose together; he took her paddle, and they walked down the jungle path to the landing. Her canoe and his spare boat lay there, floating close together.

“It will be an hour before a boat from the yacht reaches the wrecked launch,” he said. “Will you wait in my boat?”

She bent her head and laid her hand in his, stepping lightly into the bow.

“Cast off and row me a little way,” she said, leaning back in the stern. “Isn’t this lagoon wonderful? See the color in water and sky. How green the forest is! – green as a young woodland in April. And the reeds are green and gold, and the west is all gold. Look at that great white bird – with wings like an angel’s! What is that heavenly odor from the forest? Oh,” she sighed, elbows on knees, “this is too delicious to be real!”

A moment later she began, irrelevantly: “Ethics! Ethics! who can teach them? One must know, and heed no teaching. All preconceived ideas may be wrong; I am quite sure I was wrong – sometimes.”

And again irrelevantly, “I was horribly intolerant once.”

“Once you asked me a question,” he said. “We separated because I refused to answer you.”

She closed her eyes and the color flooded her face.

“I shall never ask it again,” she said.

But he went on: “I refused to reply. I was an ass; I had theories, too. They’re gone, quite gone. I will answer you now, if you wish.”

Her face burned. “No! No, don’t – don’t answer me; don’t, I beg of you! I – I know now that even the gods – ” She covered her face with her hands. The boat drifted rapidly on; it was flood-tide.

“Yes, even the gods,” he said. “There is the answer. Now you know.”

Overhead the sky grew pink; wedge after wedge of water-fowl swept through the calm evening air, and their aërial whimpering rush sounded faintly over the water.

“Kathleen!”

She made no movement.

Far away a dull shock set the air vibrating. The Dione was saluting her castaways. The swift Southern night, robed in rose and violet, already veiled the forest; and the darkling water deepened into purple.

“Jack!”

He rose and crept forward to the stern where she was sitting. Her hands hung idly; her head was bent.

Into the purple dusk they drifted, he at her feet, close against her knees. Once she laid her hands on his shoulders, peering at him with wet eyes.

And, with his lips pressed to her imprisoned hands, she slipped down into the boat beside him, crouching there, her face against his.

So, under the Southern stars, they drifted home together. The Dione fired guns and sent up rockets, which they neither heard nor saw; Major Brent toddled about the deck and his guests talked scandal; but what did they care!

Darrow, standing alone on the wrecked launch, stared at the stars and waited for the search-boat to return.

It was dawn when the truth broke upon Major Brent. It broke so suddenly that he fairly yelped as the Dione poked her white beak seaward.

It was dawn, too, when a pigeon-toed Seminole Indian stood upon the veranda of a house which was covered with blossoms of Pasque Florida.

Silently he stood, inspecting the closed door; then warily stooped and picked up something lying on the veranda at his feet. It was a gold comb.

“Heap squaw,” he said, deliberately. “Tiger will go.”

But he never did.

THE END