II
As the days went by, Bruce fell prey to a mood common to sensitive men in which he craved talk with a woman—a woman of understanding. It was Saturday and the office closed at noon. He would ask Millicent to share his freedom in a drive into the country; and without giving himself time to debate the matter, he made haste to call her on the telephone.
Her voice responded cheerily. Leila had just broken an engagement with her for golf and wouldn’t he play? When he explained that he wasn’t a member of a club and the best he could do for her would be to take her to a public course, she declared that he must be her guest. The point was too trivial for discussion; the sooner they started the better, and so two o’clock found them both with a good initial drive on the Faraway course.
“Long drives mean long talks,” she said. “We begin at least with the respect of our caddies. You’ll never guess what I was doing when you called up!”
“At the organ, or in the studio putting a nose on somebody?”
“Wrong! I was planting tulip bulbs. This was a day when I couldn’t have played a note or touched clay to save my life. Ever have such fits?”
“I certainly do,” replied Bruce.
Each time he saw her she was a little different—today he was finding her different indeed from the girl who had played for him, and yet not the girl of his adventure on the river or the Millicent he had met at the Country Club party. There was a charm in her variableness, perhaps because of her habitual sincerity and instinctive kindness. He waited for her to putt and rolled his own ball into the cup.
“Sometimes I see things black; and then again there does appear to be blue sky,” he said.
“Yes; but that’s not a serious symptom. If we didn’t have those little mental experiences we wouldn’t be interesting to ourselves!”
“Great Scott! Must we be interesting to ourselves?”
“Absolutely!”
“But when I’m down in the mouth I don’t care whether I’m interesting or not!”
“Nothing in it! Life’s full of things to do—you know that! I believe you’re just trying to psychoanalyze me!”
“I swear I’m not! I was in the depths this morning; that’s why I called you up!”
“Now——” She carefully measured a short approach and played it neatly. “Oh, you didn’t want to see me socially, so to speak; you just wanted someone to tell your troubles to! Is that a back-handed compliment?”
“Rather a confession—do you hate it?”
“No—I rather like that.”
With an artistic eye she watched him drive a long low ball with his brassie. His tall figure, the free play of arms and shoulders, his boyish smile when she praised the shot, contributed to a new impression of him. He appeared younger than the night he called on her, when she had thought him diffident, old-fashioned and stiffly formal.
As they walked over the turf with a misty drizzle wetting their faces fitfully it seemed to both that their acquaintance had just begun. When he asked if she didn’t want to quit she protested that she was dressed for any weather. It was unnecessary to accommodate himself to her in any way; she walked as rapidly as he; when she sliced her ball into the rough she bade him not follow her, and when she had gotten into the course again she ran to join him, as though eager not to break the thread of their talk. The thing she was doing at a given moment was, he judged, the one thing in the world that interested her. The wind rose presently and blew the mist away and there was promise of a clearing sky.
“You’ve brought the sun back!” he exclaimed. “Something told me you had influence with the weather.”
“I haven’t invoked any of my gods today; so it’s just happened.”
“Your gods! You speak as though you had a list!”
“Good gracious! You promised me once not to pick me up and make me explain myself.”
“Then I apologize. I can see that it isn’t fair to make a goddess explain her own divinity.”
“Oh-o-o-o,” she mocked him. “You get zero for that!”
She was walking along with her hands thrust into the pockets of her sweater, the brim of her small sport hat turned up above her face.
“But seriously,” she went on, “out of doors is the best place to think of God. The churches make religion seem so complicated. We can’t believe in a God we can’t imagine. Where there’s sky and grass it’s all so much simpler. The only God I can feel is a spirit hovering all about, watching and loving us—the God of the Blue Horizons. I can’t think of Him as a being whose name must be whispered as children whisper of terrifying things in the dark.”
“The God of the Blue Horizons?” He repeated the phrase slowly. “Yes; the world has had its day of fear—anything that lifts our eyes to the blue sky is good—really gives us, I suppose, a sense of the reality of God....”
They had encountered few other players, but a foursome was now approaching them where the lines of the course paralleled.
“Constance Mills and George Whitford; I don’t know the others,” said Millicent.
Mrs. Mills waved her hand and started toward them, looking very fit in a smart sport suit. Idly twirling her driver, she had hardly the air of a zealous golfer.
“Ah!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t we the brave ones? Scotch blood! Not afraid of a little moisture. Mr. Storrs! I know now why you’ve never been to see me—you’re better occupied. It’s dreadful to be an old married woman. You see what happens, Millicent! I warn you solemnly against marriage. Yes, George—I’m coming. Nice to meet you, even by chance, Mr. Storrs. By-by, Millie.”
“You’ve displeased her ladyship,” Millicent remarked. “You ought to go to see her.”
“I haven’t felt strongly moved,” Bruce replied.
“She doesn’t like being ignored. Of course nobody does, but Mrs. Mills demands to be amused.”
“Is she being amused now?” Bruce asked.
“I wish Leila could have heard that!”
“Doesn’t Leila like her sister-in-law?”
“Yes, of course she does, but Constance is called the most beautiful and the best dressed woman in town and the admiration she gets goes to her head a little bit. George Whitford seems to admire her tremendously. Leila has a sense of humor that sees right through Constance’s poses.”
“Doesn’t Leila pose just a little herself?”
“You might say that she does. Just now she’s affecting the fast young person pose; but I think she’s about through with it. She’s really the finest girl alive, but she kids herself with the idea that she’s an awful devil. Her whole crowd are affected by the same bug.”
“I rather guessed that,” said Bruce. “Let me see—was that five for you?”