III
They were awakened the next morning by a persistent and none too gentle knocking at the back door, and Nina, slipping on a dressing gown, hurried to respond. She opened the door upon a riotous, glittering June morning, and Margie, clear-eyed and glowing as the dawn—but far from amiable.
“Here’s your breakfast!” she said, thrusting a wooden box into Nina’s hands.
“Oh, but how awfully good and kind!” cried Nina. “I never—”
“Bill said you didn’t have a thing in the house,” Margie remarked, scornfully, “and couldn’t even light the stove. So he told me to bring this.”
Her brusque contempt was a little too much even for the gentle Nina.
“It’s very kind of you,” she said, with a polite smile. “But we’d have managed somehow—”
Margie shrugged her shoulders.[Pg 389]
“Well, Bill told me to bring your breakfast,” she said. “And to ask what you wanted from the store.”
“Thank you, but I couldn’t think—” Nina began, but with another disdainful shrug Margie had turned away.
“We’ll have to swallow our pride,” Rose suggested from the doorway. “Let’s be quick, too, before it gets cold.”
“I’m going to dress first,” said Nina. “Because when that scornful Margie goes out, I’m going to follow. I’ll follow her all day long till she goes to the store.”
And she meant that. She dressed herself with all her usual unobtrusive art, and she kept an eye on the house next door. In the very act of lifting her second cup of coffee to her lips, she heard the front door slam. She sprang up, pulled on a delightful little hat, and ran out of her own front door.
Margie was walking quickly up the road, a strong, lithe young figure in a jersey and a short skirt, bareheaded in the sun. And after her went the slender and elegant Mrs. De Haaven, going to market for the first time in her life.
In a happy mood Rose set to work; she washed the dishes, made the bed, set the little place in order, and then began unpacking the two big trunks. Most of the clothes could stay in them, but there were all sorts of other things—silver toilet articles, photographs, books, writing materials, all the dear, friendly things that had often made even hotel rooms look homelike. They worked wonders here. The only trouble was, that there was no shelf for the books, and no flowers.
“I’ll make a shelf!” Rose told herself.
So she went out on the beach and found a suitable small board; then she screwed two coat hooks into the wall beneath the sitting room window, laid the board across them, and stood the favorite books on this in a row.
“Crude, but well-meaning!” she observed, surveying her first piece of carpentering with a smile, and she went out to see if there were any flowers about to delight Nina with when she came home.
The first thing she saw was Bill coming down the road. Her impulse was to step back into the house, but she was ashamed of such weakness; Bill ought to be spoken to and thanked. So she sat down on the steps, and Bill, catching sight of her, swung off his hat with that same fine gesture.
“Comment ça va?” he inquired, standing bareheaded before her.
Certainly she had not expected French from Bill, but she politely suppressed her surprise and answered cheerfully:
“Tres bien, merci, monsieur! I was just wondering if there were any wild flowers growing about here?”
She looked up at him, but hastily glanced aside, for Bill was looking down at her with a smile which disconcerted her.
“Flowers, eh?” he said.
They were both silent for a time. Then Rose began, in a somewhat formal tone:
“My sister and I are both very grateful for—”
A crash interrupted her.
“What’s that?” asked Bill.
“It sounds like my shelf,” she replied, ruefully.
“Did you try to put up a shelf?” Bill demanded. “Let’s have a look at it.”
Somehow she did not want Bill to come into their house. Not that she distrusted or disliked him, but he made her uneasy. Still, she could not very well refuse to let him come, so, with a good grace, she opened the door and they entered.
His blond head almost reached the ceiling; his great shoulders blocked all the sunshine from the window; he seemed completely to fill the little room. And she did not like him to be there.
The pretty little things she had set out on the table seemed like a child’s toys, the house was like a doll’s house, and she herself, with her ineffectual shelf, felt altogether too diminished. He had been staring at the fallen shelf and the coat hooks for some time with an odd expression—as if he felt sorry for her.
“Look here!” he said. “When you want anything of that sort done, tell me.”
“There’s no reason on earth why I should trouble you, Mr.—”
“Morgan,” said he. “It wouldn’t be a trouble. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing!”
The earnestness with which he spoke confused her.
“Thank you, Mr. Morgan,” she began, hastily. “But—”
“Look here!” he interrupted. “I’ve got to go away—and I don’t like to leave you like this. You can’t look after yourself any better than a baby.”
Rose turned scarlet.
“You’re mistaken, Mr. Morgan!” she[Pg 390] declared, with a cold little smile. “You’re very much mistaken!”
“No,” he said. “No, I’m not. I knew, the first moment I saw you—”
“We won’t discuss the matter, if you please.”
“I’m not discussing anything,” said he, with a sort of gentleness. “I’m only telling you that you’ve got me to count on whenever you need me.”
Her hands clenched, but she answered quietly enough:
“I can’t imagine any possibility of ‘needing’ you, Mr. Morgan.”
He turned toward the door.
“I don’t mean to make a nuisance of myself,” he declared, gravely. And then he smiled. “I’m going away,” he added. “But I’m coming back!”
The screen door banged after him, and Rose sat down on the couch and began to cry.
“Beast!” she cried. “I’d like to shake him!”
But the idea of her shaking Mr. Morgan made her laugh. She dried her tears, ashamed of her temper, and when Nina got back, she was her usual good-natured, delightful self again. She did not mention the episode to Nina; it would only distress her.
“And I think I’m capable of managing Mr. Morgan!” she told herself, grimly.