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CHAPTER I. – ON THE SANDS
“It’s too perfect a night to stay on shore, girls and boys. Let’s go for a moonlight cruise in the Oriole!” Hal Macy sprang up from the white sands where he had been devotedly lounging at Marjorie Dean’s feet and held out his hands to her.
“Oh, glorious!” Marjorie gaily accepted the proffered hands. She laughed, with the sheer pleasure of youth, as Hal swung her to her feet. “My, what a strong person you are, Hal Macy!” she lightly commented as she freed her hands from Hal’s lingering clasp.
“Glad you think so,” emphasized Hal. He could not help wishing Marjorie were not quite so matter-of-fact.
“I don’t think so,” promptly disagreed Danny Seabrooke. “Macy is a weakling; a mere muscleless infant compared to me.”
“Oh, see here, Danny Seabrooke, you’ll have to eat that. Think I’ll stand for any such talk? Eat it now, or else prove it,” challenged Hal.
“I can prove it,” Danny waved confidently. “Just watch me lift Geraldine from the shifting sands.”
“Yes, just watch him,” drawled Lawrence Armitage. He took up a guitar, temporarily idle on the sands, and began to strum it lightly. His deep blue eyes rested mirthfully on Danny and Jerry.
“Wait a second,” Danny elaborately braced his feet in the sand. “Now, ready! Heave, heave, ho!”
Jerry suddenly let go of his hands and dropped back on the beach. “No, thank you.” She pretended displeasure. “I don’t care for your wonderful assistance.” She directed a scornful glance at her would-be helper.
“You did that on purpose,” accused Danny. “You are a cruel, cruel girl. Suppose I had lost my balance and dug my nose into the sand?”
“Sorry you didn’t,” was the unfeeling reply.
“Squabbling again,” Laurie reached out a helping hand to Jerry and drew her to her feet. Danny looked sadly on.
“Please forgive me and continue to regard me as your friend. That’s all I ask of you,” he pleaded with stony Jerry.
“You talk like a popular song,” she criticized. She broke into smiles when he knelt on the sand before her and contritely offered her his hand.
“Was that a compliment?” Danny grinned hopefully.
“Why should I throw bouquets at you? Can you think of a reason?” Jerry asked him. “I can’t think of one.”
“Neither can I,” Danny agreed, and the squabblers burst into laughter.
“Isn’t the moon wonderful tonight?” Standing beside Hal on the wide strip of gleaming beach Marjorie worshipped the white night. “Leila recites an old Irish poem about moonlight that must have been written for this night. It goes like this:
“The magic of yon sailing moon
Lures my poor heartstrings out of me;
God’s moonshine whitens the lagoon;
The earth’s a silver mystery.”
Hal listened. His mind was centered on Marjorie rather than on the quaint bit of verse she was reciting. In her white lingerie frock, her vividly beautiful face raised toward the pale glory of the drifting moon, her loveliness filled Hal’s boyish heart with worship.
He would have liked to tell her that he thought her far more wonderful than either the silvery moon or the most exquisite bit of Irish verse that had ever been composed. Long friendship with Marjorie warned him against such an avowal. She was so different from most girls about compliments. She did not like to be told that she had done well, while she positively loathed being told she was beautiful. She had a clever way of politely ignoring a compliment, then immediately changing a subject from personal to impersonal which Hal considered maddening.
Since the first week in July when the Deans had arrived at Severn Beach, there to spend a part of the summer, Hal had been trying to decide whether or not he should allow another summer to pass without telling Marjorie of his love for her. On that memorable autumn evening of last year when Constance and Laurie had announced their early approaching marriage Hal had been dejectedly certain that Marjorie had nothing to give him save friendship. He had resolved then never to ask her to marry him unless he should come to believe that she had experienced a change of heart toward him.
Lately, since Marjorie had come to stay at Severn Beach, where the Macys usually spent the summers, Hal had been sorely tempted to break his proud resolution. Constance and Laurie had returned from their winter in Europe and were visiting Hal and Jerry at Cliff House, the apartment hotel in which the Macy family lived. Their perfect happiness made Hal wonder wistfully why it was that Marjorie could not love him even half so fondly as Constance loved Laurie. He had been Marjorie’s faithful cavalier for the same number of years that Laurie had been Constance’s. Now Laurie had won Connie for his wife, while he and Marjorie were still, as she had often said, “just good friends.”
This disheartening thought now flashed through his brain for perhaps the hundredth time that week. The calm friendly glance he forced himself to bend on Marjorie as she finished quoting the verse bore no sign of his disquieting reflections.
“Bully for the Irish!” he exclaimed with deceiving heartiness.
“You’re not a bit under the magic spell of the white moonshine,” she rebuked with a laughing, upward glance at Hal.
“How do you know I’m not?” His tones were teasing, but into his eyes had leaped a sudden purposeful gleam which told a different story. “Moonlight affects different persons in different ways. Wait till we take to the launch. Then I’ll turn moony and sing sentimental songs. I’ll give you a fine imitation of a moonstruck nut. I wouldn’t dare try it on shore. I might be run in for disturbing the peace.”
“Run in for disturbing the peace?” inquired a horrified voice at Marjorie’s elbow. Danny Seabrooke peered apprehensively around Marjorie at Hal. “Ah, I understand.” He grew apologetic. “You weren’t speaking of me. You meant your – well – er – ” Danny drew down his freckled face very sorrowfully. “When did it happen, Macy?”
“It hasn’t happened yet, but it will soon,” Hal promised with cool significance.
“I shan’t be here to see it. I’m going to take a walk up the beach with Geraldine.” Danny hastily fell behind a few steps and took Jerry by a plump arm. “Come along,” he urged. “It’s not safe around here.”
“It’s safe enough for me.” Jerry briskly shook off Danny’s detaining hand. “I’m going out in the Oriole. Hurry up, you sentimental strollers,” she called over one shoulder to Constance and Laurie. They had paused for a moment, hand in hand, and were raptly gazing out to sea. “Come out of lovers’ lane and join the crowd.”
“Have a little more regard for our married dignity, Jeremiah,” Laurie reminded. “Kindly remember that Connie and I came down to the beach this evening solely to look after you four children.”
“Much obliged, but Dan-yell is the only one who needs a guardian of this illustrious bunch.” Jerry bowed ironical thanks.
“All right for you, Jurry-miar Macy. I tried to be pleasant with you. I respectfully called you Geraldine. But no more!” Danny shook a displeased finger at Jerry. “I’m going to walk beside Constance.”
“Poor Connie,” groaned Jerry.
“Fortunate Connie, you mean,” corrected Danny with a vast smile. “Do talk to me, Constance. Forget your husband for five seconds. You look so sympathetic. But you’re not.” Danny fixed an accusing glance on laughing Constance. “You’re laughing at me.”
“Why shouldn’t I laugh at you, Danny Seabrooke? You’re so funny and foolish.”
“Funny and foolish.” Danny cocked his head on one side and considered. “Nope, that’s not sympathy. I’ll have to try again. Let me see. Marjorie might appreciate me.”
With a forward dive he caught Marjorie by one arm and began walking her rapidly up the beach and away from Hal. “Good-night, Mr. Macy,” he flung back over one shoulder.
“Not yet,” Hal cleared the widening space between him and Danny almost at a leap. “Now Dan-yell!” He grabbed Danny by the shoulders; spun him round until he faced down the beach. A vigorous push from Hal’s avenging arms sent Danny careering down the beach at a mad gallop.
“Never touched me!” he sent back defiantly to Hal. He gave an agile sideways bounce, barely managing to dodge Jerry, Laurie and Constance in his headlong flight. “Good-bye. I’m never coming back!” he yelled at the trio.
Within the next three minutes Danny had changed his mind. “Fine night for a run,” was his bland venture as he caught up with the three strollers. “Only I’d rather know beforehand that I was going to take a run. Macy is what I should call dangerous. He ought to be caged.”
“Neither Jerry nor Danny will ever grow up,” was Marjorie’s amused remark as Hal returned to her side.
“I don’t think you’ve grown up much, Marjorie,” Hal burst forth with sudden eager wistfulness. “You look just as you did the first time I ever saw you; only you are even prettier than you were then.”
Hal’s stubborn restraint gave way before the uncontrollable impulse to speak his mind to Marjorie. “You were coming out the gate of Sanford High, and I wondered who you were,” Hal went on boyishly. “I described you to Jerry afterward, and asked all about you. She didn’t know you very well then. I made her promise and double promise that she’d never tell you I quizzed her about you.”
“And she never did,” Marjorie gaily assured. “I never even suspected you two of having had a secret understanding about just me. Jerry is a good secret keeper. I’m glad college hasn’t made me staid and serious. I’ve loved the good times I’ve had at Hamilton as much as I’ve loved the work. Now I’m ready to put my whole heart into work there so as to try to make Hamilton mean as much to other students as it has meant to me.”
Marjorie had purposely hurried away from Hal’s very personal admission. He now brought her back to it with an earnest abruptness which raised a brighter color in her face.
“I wish you’d stay in Sanford and make the old town seem as much to me as it used to,” he said. “I have a standing grudge against Hamilton College. Can’t help having one, even though you and Jerry do think it’s the only place on the map.”
“It’s the only place on the map for us until our work is done, Hal,” she defended. “Once I thought I couldn’t leave General and Captain to go back to Hamilton next fall. I found I was hard-hearted enough to do even that for the sake of my work there. I’m having a gorgeous time at the beach! Still I’m almost impatient for next week to come and bring with it my mid-summer trip to Hamilton. You can understand, I’m sure, Hal, how I feel about the building of the dormitory.”
“Work can’t fill your life, Marjorie,” Hal answered with a tender, unconscious deepening of tone. “See how happy Connie and Laurie are! They love each other. That’s the real meaning of life. Not even music could come between them and love. Could anything be more perfect than their romance? I’ve wished always that it would be so with you and me. I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time, but I – ”
“I hate to complain of your sister, Macy, but it’s necessary.” Danny Seabrooke bounced into the midst of Hal’s declaration of love.
“I’ll disown you as my brother if you listen to what he says,” Jerry appeared at Danny’s elbow.
“Oh, go away off the beach, both of you!” Hal waved the contesting pair away from him. He wished both Danny and Jerry anywhere but close at hand.
“Shan’t go a step,” defied Jerry. “Never think, Hal Macy, that you can chase me into the Atlantic Ocean. You may walk with Dan-yell, I’ve had enough of him. Go ahead and untie the Oriole. I’m going to monopolize Marvelous Marjorie for a while.” Jerry tucked an arm in one of Marjorie’s.
“Only for about five minutes,” stipulated Hal. He cast a half smiling, half challenging glance at Marjorie. “I want to talk to her myself. Come along, old Seabean,” he motioned Danny.
The two young men ran ahead to untie the motor boat belonging to Hal which was tied up at the Cliff House pier. Marjorie drew a soft little breath of relief. Hal’s significant rush of words had taken her unawares. Until now she had never failed to steer him away from anything approaching sentiment. Tonight, however, she had sensed a certain determined quality in his voice which was not to be denied. Hal did not intend to be kept from saying his say much longer.
CHAPTER II. – MUSIC AND MOONLIGHT
“I hear your voice across the years of waiting;
Out of the past it softly calls to me:
True love knows neither ebbing nor abating;
How long, dear heart, must we two parted be?”
sang Constance, a lingering, old-world sadness in her pure perfect tones. For a moment after the last note died out on the white balmy night no one spoke. Only the steady, even purr of the Oriole’s engine broke the potent stillness which had fallen upon the sextette of young folks.
“That was a very sad song, Mrs. Lawrence Constance Armitage,” complained Danny with a subdued gurgle. “It almost made we weep, but not quite. I happened to recall in time that I wasn’t in the same class with dear heart; that I had never been parted from dear heart, or any other old dear. That put a smother on my weeps.”
“Glad something did.” Laurie had accompanied Constance’s song on the guitar. He now sat playing over softly the last few plaintive measures of the song.
“It’s a beautiful song, Connie,” Marjorie said with the true appreciation of the music lover. “I love those last four lines, even if they are awfully hopeless. I never heard you sing it before. What is it called?”
“‘Sehnsucht.’ That means in German ‘longing.’ I found it last winter in a collection of old German love songs. I liked it so much that I tried to put the words into English. It’s the only time I ever attempted to write verse. It turned out better than I had expected.” There was a tiny touch of pride in the answer.
“Connie used to sing it often for an encore last winter. Then she always had to sing it again. People never seemed to get enough of that particular song.” Laurie’s voice expressed his own adoring pride in Constance.
“I don’t wonder. The music is the throbbing, I-can’t-live-without-you kind, same as the words. It gets even me. You all know how sentimental I am – not,” Jerry declared.
“Why, may I ask, does it get you?” briskly began Danny. “Why – ”
“You may ask, but that’s all the good it will do you,” Jerry retorted with finality. “Let me take the wheel awhile, Hal. You may sing a little for the gang. I may not admire some points about you, but I’ll say you can sing, even if you are my brother.”
“Oh, let me sing,” begged Danny. “You never heard me at my best.”
“I hope I never shall.” Jerry did not even trouble to glance at the modest aspirant for vocal glory. “Don’t speak to me, if you can help it. Just hearing you speak might get on my nerves and make me fall overboard.” She rose carefully in her seat in order to change places with Hal.
Hal had taken no part in the discussion which had followed Constance’s song. He was leaning over the wheel, his clean-cut features almost sternly set as he sent the Oriole speeding through a gently rippling sea. His thoughts were moodily centered on Marjorie. Danny’s and Jerry’s untimely interruption upon his impulsive declaration of love was in the nature of a misfortune to him. His first feeling of vexation in the matter had deepened into one of dejection as he listened to Connie’s song. He could not help wondering darkly if that was the way it would be with him. Would it become his lot to long some day for Marjorie, and vainly, across the years? He was sure of his love for her. He was sure it would never ebb nor abate. What about her love for him? Hal had nothing but doubts.
Last fall he had reluctantly come to the conclusion that Marjorie did not care in the least for him, other than in the way of friendship. It was only since she had come to Severn Beach that he had begun to take heart again. He had been her devoted companion, as of old, on all of the pleasure sails, drives and jaunts which the sextette of Sanford young folks had enjoyed. It had sometimes seemed to Hal that Marjorie was a trifle more gracious to him than of yore. He felt that she was fond of him in a comradely way. He could not recall an occasion since he had known Marjorie when she had accepted the attentions of another Sanford boy. That was one thing he might be glad of.
The white glory of the night, the tender beauty of the girl he adored, her avowed enthusiastic preference for work above all else in life had crystallized Hal’s troubled resolve to ask Marjorie the momentous question which, somehow, he had never before found the right opportunity for asking. And Jerry and Danny had “butted in” and spoiled it! This was his rueful reflection as he silently allowed Jerry to replace him at the wheel.
“I won’t be stingy with the wheel,” he soberly assured his sister, “but you’d better ask Dan-yell to sing.”
“Never. I have too much consideration for the rest of the gang,” Jerry retorted.
“And I have myself to consider,” flung back Danny. “I wouldn’t sing if Jerry-miar dropped to her knees on the sand and begged me to. Understand, every one of you, I can sing, warble, carol, chant or trill. There is no limit to my vocal powers. There was a time when I might possibly have been persuaded to sing. That time is past.”
“Thank you, Jerry,” Laurie said very solemnly.
“You’re welcome,” chuckled Jerry. “Glad I could be so useful.”
“O, don’t be too ready to laugh. I may sing just for spite,” Danny warned. “To sing, or not to sing? That is the question.”
“Take time to think it over, Danny,” laughed Marjorie. “While you are thinking Connie will sing the song of Brahms I like so much. Please, Connie, sing ‘The Summer Fields,’” she urged. “Then you’ll sing, won’t you, Hal?” She turned coaxingly to Hal who had seated himself beside her on one of the built-in benches of the motor boat.
“Maybe,” Hal made half reluctant promise. He was wishing he dared take Marjorie’s slim hands, lying tranquilly in her lap, and imprison them in his own.
Glancing frankly up at him Marjorie glimpsed in his eyes a bright intent look which hardly pleased her. It was an expression which was quite new to his face. She thought, or rather, feared she understood its meaning. “He’ll go on with what he started to say to me the very first chance he has,” was her dismayed reflection. “Oh, dear; I wish he wouldn’t.”
Laurie had already begun a soft prelude to “The Summer Fields.” Marjorie had immediately looked away from Hal and out on the moonlit sea. She had the impression that Hal’s eyes were still upon her. She felt the hot blood rise afresh to her cheeks. For a brief instant she was visited by a flash of resentment. Why, oh, why, must Hal spoil their long, sincere friendship by trying to turn it into a love affair?
Again Constance’s golden tones rose and fell, adding to the enchantment of the night. Marjorie’s instant of resentment took swift wing as she listened to the wistful German words for which the great composer had found such a perfect setting. She was glad she loved music and moonlight and poetry and all the beautiful bits of life. She did not wish life to mean the kind of romance Hal meant. Her idea of romance meant the glory of work and the stir of noble deeds.
“Now it’s your turn, Hal. It’s not fair to make me do all the singing. Jerry claims she can’t sing, and she won’t let Danny sing. Laurie makes me do his share of it. Marjorie can sing, but she thinks she can’t. That leaves only you, and you haven’t a ghost of an excuse. Go ahead now. Be nice and sing the Boat Song.” Constance ended coaxingly.
“All right, Connie. Instruct your husband to play a few bars of it strictly in tune and I’ll see what I can do.” Hal straightened up suddenly on the bench with an air of pretended importance.
“See to it that your singing’s strictly in tune,” Laurie advised. “I can be trusted to do the rest.” Already his musician’s fingers were finding the rhythmic introduction to Tosti’s “Boat Song.”
“The night wind sighs,
Our vessel flies,
Across the dark lagoon.”
Hal took up the swinging measures of the song in his clear, sweet tenor and sent it ringing across the water. Tonight he came into a new and sombre understanding of the song. Never before had he realized the undercurrent of doubt it contained. Perhaps Tosti had composed the song out of his own lover’s hopes and fears. Unconsciously Hal’s weight of troubled doubt went into an impassioned rendering.
Laurie and Constance understood perfectly his unintentional betrayal of his feelings. Danny, razor keen of perception, also grasped the situation. This time he had nothing to say.
“And here am I,
To live or die;
As you prove hard or kind;
Prove hard or kind.”
Jerry sat looking unduly solemn as Hal tunefully voiced the sentimental, worshipping lines and took up the echoing refrain. When the song ended an odd silence fell which no one of them seemed willing to shatter. Connie and Laurie were frankly holding hands, their young faces touched with a romance born of music and moonlight. Danny was staring intently at Jerry as though absorbed in her management of the wheel.
Marjorie sat bathed in moonlight, looking unutterably lovely and trying her utmost not to appear self-conscious. She was under the blind impression that she alone understood what lay behind Hal’s song. In reality she understood less concerning the strength of his love and devotion for her than did those who had been their intimate girl and boyhood friends. She did, however, detect a certain melancholy tinge to his singing which gave her a peculiar conscience-stricken feeling.
“No, I don’t care to sing any more tonight,” he said, when Laurie came out of his dream and asked him to sing an old Spanish serenade. “I’m not in a singing humor.”
“Poor old Hal,” Jerry was thinking as she gave the wheel an impatient turn by way of showing her disapproval. “He does love her so! Marjorie’s the sweetest girl ever, but she’s hard, not kind, when it comes to love. She’s a regular stony heart.”
CHAPTER III. – “SOMETHING TO REPORT”
“Tomorrow? Let me think.” Marjorie’s dark brows drew thoughtfully together. “Why, I’m not going anywhere, Hal.” Marjorie made an effort to be casual which was only half successful. “I’m going to be busy packing. I shall have to take an early train for Hamilton on Thursday morning so as not to reach there late at night. I won’t have a minute’s spare time Thursday morning. I’ll have to be ready as ready can be on Wednesday night.”
The boating party had left the Oriole once more tied to the pier and had strolled back along the sands to Cliff House. To her surprised relief, Hal had not attempted to renew the subject she dreaded to discuss. In fact he had had very little to say. Responsive to this new mood of his she had walked beside him almost in silence, smiling at the animated discussion Jerry and Danny kept up all the way to the hotel. Laurie and Connie were as mute as she and Hal. Such understanding silences were characteristic of them, however.
As ardently as he had courted an opportunity to tell Marjorie he loved her Hal now upbraided himself for having been so stupid as to blurt out his feelings “when the gang were around.” He would finish telling her what he had begun to say when Danny and Jerry had interrupted. He was resolved on that point. He was also determined that she should hear him out before she left Severn Beach on her mid-summer trip to Hamilton.
“Can’t you find time to go out in the Oriole with me tomorrow afternoon, Marjorie?” There lurked a trace of stubborn purpose in Hal’s question. “It will be our last sea voyage in the good ship, Oriole, this summer, you know. I suppose you will go from Hamilton back to Sanford.” Hal eyed her almost gloomily.
Marjorie nodded. The two had reached the main entrance of the hotel a trifle ahead of their chums. They now stood waiting at the foot of the wide, ornamental flight of steps which led up to the central veranda of the enormous white stone hotel.
“I’ll try to go for a part of the afternoon, Hal,” she promised, careful to keep reluctance out of her voice. Pinned down to answer directly she had not the stony-heartedness with which Jerry had ticketed her. She could not flatly refuse the invitation of her boy friend of long standing.