By the Parks the river was dense with row-boats, punts and Canaders. Girls lay back on cushions under sunshades—sweethearts and sisters. Men, in college colors and flannels, shouted to one another, “Look ahead, sir.” Here and there a Blue showed up or a Leander, occasioning respect and whispered explanations. The great men of the undergraduate world were pointed out. Peter was recognized as the stroke-oar of Calvary. He didn’t notice the heads that were turned—didn’t care. His eyes rested on Cherry as often as they dared. Before his parents she treated him casually. There were times when he spoke to her and she paid him no attention. He was unhappy—did she dislike him? Then, as though she felt that she was overdoing it, a secret flash would pass between them and his fears were quieted.
“Don’t forget,” his father reminded him; “we leave for London this afternoon.”
Hardcastle, with his lighter burden, was pushing on ahead. Peter looked at his watch, “It’s almost one now. And I don’t like to——.” He stooped to whisper to his father; then straightened up. “Cherry knows why. I don’t like to let Hardcastle out of my sight—not with Riska. He isn’t the sort of man——. We’ll have to follow. If I can’t punt you back, you can lunch at the inn at Marston Ferry and catch a tram. That’ll get you to the station in time.”
To Nan that day was like the repetition of an old story. Once before—how long ago was it?—once before she had drifted up this quiet stream, between gnarled trees and whispering rushes, to the gray inn where a crisis in her life had threatened. She recalled Jehane, dark and tragic, with trailing hands. She could see Billy, gay and careless. Peter was like him, and Kay was very much what she had been then.—Her eyes fell on Cherry; she examined her slightness, the frailty of her throat, her astonishing gray eyes looking out of a face of pallor, the delicate mist of hair sweeping across the whiteness of her forehead. Not the girl for Peter! There wasn’t a girl good enough. And then she tried to believe that she was foolish. It hadn’t happened to him yet—not yet.
And the parting—it was the same as long ago. Everything was repeating itself. She and Kay and Billy stepped aboard the ferry. At the last moment Glory said she would accompany them. The man pulled on the rope; the ferry lumbered out into the stream. Peter and the girl, and Hardcastle and Riska were waving to them from the bank. Nan had never thought that she could feel so cruel toward anybody. As she crossed the meadows she looked back. Peter and the girl, pigmy figures now, were still waving. Jehane and Billy had waved to her like that, standing near together. The old pang! And then she looked at Glory, walking quietly with her head bent, never turning. In a flash little memories, trifles in themselves, sprang up and became significant, each one pointing in the same direction. She stole forward and took Glory’s hand.
Hardcastle and Riska had vanished; their punt was gone from the landing. Upstream the river was lost to view in a slow bend. No one was in sight. An atmosphere of secrecy had settled down. From arbors of the inn and tufted places along the banks came the indistinct murmur of voices. The country looked uninhabited, stretching away for miles in squares and triangles of meadows, each one different in coloring from the next. Through the green panorama of trees and hedges the winding of the river was traceable by the flowered freshness that it left. Overhead, casting fantastic shadows, drifted white unwieldy clouds.
Peter helped her in, arranged the cushions for her and pushed off from the bank. He had expected to say so much to her to-day; now the silence was more happy. The day was running out; the veiled radiance of a summer’s evening crept across the landscape. A little breeze sprang up, blew through his hair and stooped the reeds to the water’s surface. She lay curled up and contented, humming to herself; he could just hear her voice above the splash of his pole and the lapping of the river. Sometimes she would raise her eyes and smile down the distance of the punt that separated them. When he wasn’t looking she gazed more intently at his tall, flanneled figure, noticing his tanned arms, with the sleeves rolled back, and the upright litheness of his body. Did his eyes catch hers unexpectedly, she veiled them in inscrutable innocence. The waterway was narrowing, becoming choked with weeds and bulrushes.
“Your mother,” he stopped punting and turned at the sound of her high, clear voice; “your mother didn’t like me. You may tell her that she needn’t be frightened.”
What did she mean? She spoke gently, without resentment. “Not like you, little Cherry! No one could help——.”
“Oh, yes. She didn’t like me.” She raised herself on her elbow. “And she was right. Won’t you please stop caring for me; then we can be friends. She saw what I told you from the first: that I’m not your sort—quite different, Peter.”