“Ridiculous child!” he said, and went out with her.
“We’re going to take a ride on the lagoon,” she said, and led him to the landing place, where a little launch presently chugged up and discharged its dozen passengers. Felix and Rose-Ann clambered in, and sat in the bow. The other waiting people followed them, and the boat started slowly out into the mysterious islanded waters, stabbing with its searchlight into the warm thick darkness and revealing with that unearthly light, here and there, some place of trees bending to dip their boughs into the water—the edge of one of the islands around and past which they steered slowly, turning and winding about until they seemed to be exploring a vast islanded wilderness. The breeze stirred faintly the hair of their bared heads. The others of the party appeared to be lovers happily entranced with love and with the mysterious beauty of this realm which it seemed could hardly exist in the confines of a mere park. No one spoke, except in whispers.
“Life ought to be like this,” whispered Rose-Ann, taking his hand. “Not arranged and planned!”
A little later, she whispered fiercely: “Felix, are you thinking of that damned play? Then stop it!”
It was true. Felix had been thinking of his play. He became annoyed with her. She wanted him to write plays, to be a personage—and now, when he tried....
As if in reply to his thought, she bent and said in his ear, “Felix, if you write a conventional play like Hawkins’s, and make a success of it, I shall leave you!”
He was inwardly dismayed.
“I wonder—” said Rose-Ann aloud, and then stopped, as if startled at hearing her voice.
“Yes?” said Felix.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “I’ll tell you afterward.”