"I'm so glad, Les. There'll be time for you to get into light things. Oh, I'm so glad your memory didn't really fail!"
He looked at her quietly a moment, but her gaze was now all on the sun-patterned turf. They had entered the forest of Betsey, and were pursuing the winding road toward the Point.
"Oh, that's nothing," he said solemnly. "I never forget appointments with ladies."
She laughed again, then ventured: "Tell me. Didn't you forget, just the tiniest little bit, when you were taking Louise across, or," she rather hurried on, "when you were out there in the middle of the lake and the engine was acting up? Please be ever so honest!"
Leslie looked down again at the girl beside him. Odd he had never noticed how intelligent and shyly grown-up Hilda was! She had been merely Louise's little sister; all at once she became Hilda, a self-sufficient entity, perfectly capable of standing alone. Also she looked very fresh and charming this morning in her cool white jumper and skirt. He looked at Hilda in a kind of searching way; then, pleasantly meeting her eyes, he answered her question. "No, not even the tiniest little bit."
Their walk together through the forest was enlivened with gay and unimportant chatter. As they passed the hidden bower where Hilda, at an earlier hour, had crouched to spy and listen, the girl almost danced at the thought of having so delightfully usurped her sister's place. And the best part of it was that it was perfectly all right; because Louise had gone to meet her own true lover. Leslie didn't belong to Louise; it seemed almost too wonderful to be true that he didn't!
As it happened, Louise entered the lad's thoughts also as he and Hilda walked side by side along the sylvan path. Perhaps something of the same odd transposition weighed, even with him. He had gone this identical way with some one else, only a few eternities ago. He had held her in his arms a moment, and then.... Then what was it she had said? Friends! First she had said she cared, and after that she had said she wanted.... Did she really know what she wanted? For weeks they had gone around together constantly. The moon had been wonderful. Then the letter had come from the West, and she had decided she had better begin being a nice, harmless sister. Still, she had let him kiss her once, even after the advent of the fatal epistle—a sort of passionate farewell surrender—wanted to let him down as easy as possible. Ugh! He was in no mood to spare her now. And then Leslie came slowly back; back to the bright, rare summer morning; back to the forest of Betsey, with its hopeful glints of sunshine; back—to Hilda. He sighed. At least he had learned something more about women.
They came to Beachcrest Cottage, and, since Leslie's cottage was further along, in the direction of the lighthouse, it was here they parted. Before he ran off, however, to make himself presentable, Leslie underwent the ordeal (pleasant rather than not as it turned out), of being introduced to Miss Whitcom.
She was seated on the second step of the flight leading up to the screened porch, seemed in very good spirits, and was writing a letter—employing a last year's magazine as base of operations. The ink bottle balanced itself just on the edge of the next step up: a key, if one please, to Marjory Whitcom's whole character. Had she been writing at the cottage desk in the living room, where everything was convenient, then she would never, never have spent her life doing wild and impossible things. And had the ink bottle been placed firmly instead of upon the ragged edge, then, having eluded Barrett O'Donnell all these years, she would not now be writing to him.