“No!” said the other decisively, thinking of Ruth and the picnic. “I must have a few hours ashore. I’ve been two months at sea and just got in. I’ll take her out at two in the morning if she’s ready.”
Caleb rose to go. “Right, son,” he said. “And don’t be scared to drive her. That fish must be got down there quick. I want to hold the business and avoid payin’ another insurance on it. You’ll either load molasses or salt home. The agents’ll give you instructions.”
After he left Donald shed his sea clothes, bathed, shaved and dressed, and glanced over a number of picture post cards from Joak McGlashan who had gone home to Glasgow for a visit. McGlashan was having a six months’ holiday after six years absence from home, and by the addresses from whence the cards came he was having a time and a half. “I’ll be back in time to go to the West Indies with you in the fall,” he wrote. “Hope you have good fishing and high line stocks this summer. Am enjoying myself, but I like the Canadian weather better than this. It’s aye raining here.”
About half-past ten he took leave of his mother and went to the Nickerson home. As he stepped up to the door his heart was pounding like a sledge-hammer against his ribs, and he felt pleasurably excited at the thought of seeing Ruth again after two months’ absence. The memory of that farewell in Halifax was still vivid, and he hoped, ere he sailed for Porto Rico, that he would be fortunate enough to have such another delightful valedictory moment with the girl of his heart.
She came to the door at his knock, and Donald noticed, with something of a shock, the half-fearful look in her eyes when she greeted him. She was pale and her hand was feverishly hot when she received his cordial clasp. “You’re a little pale,” he remarked in anxious concern. “Are you feeling all right, Ruth?” She led the way nervously into the parlor. “Oh, I’m all right,” she replied. “It’s the warm weather, I guess, and rushing around to get ready for the picnic. And how have you been?”
They sat and talked for a while, but to Ruth the conversation was an ordeal. She answered and remarked mechanically while her sub-conscious mind was thinking of the cruel duplicity which she was practising on the young fellow beside her. His eyes told her, too eloquently, of the manner in which he regarded her. She could see that and she looked forward to the day’s excursion with dread. It was too late now to withdraw from going, and she felt that the fateful hour was coming and it might as well be elsewhere as in her own home. By nature, open-hearted and free from deceit, it was terribly hard for her to dissemble her feelings, and for the past two months her thoughts had been whirling around like a chip in an eddy. In the quiet of the night Donald’s handsome tanned face, with its large dark eyes, would keep constantly coming before her in spite of all her efforts to eradicate all thoughts of him from mind and heart.
She was secretly engaged to Walter, and when he was with her she felt composed and happy, though, strangely enough, in all her intimate moments with him she had never been thrilled as she had been with McKenzie the night he bade her good-bye in Halifax. Walter had kissed her at the moment of their engagement, but there was something lacking on her part. She could not respond to his warm embrace and caress, and she thought it was because of her mind being troubled with the deception she was forced to play on McKenzie. When she gazed at the handsome, confident young sailor seated beside her, a strange yearning filled her—a desire for something she did not know—but when her feelings were becoming distraught, cold reason calmed them by bringing up her self-imposed axiom that she would not, and could not, marry a fisherman, nor exist as a fisherman’s wife.
Moodey came in, and after a puzzled glance at Donald and Ruth—a lightning glance with just a hint of jealousy in it—he thrust forth his hand and greeted McKenzie cordially. “I’m glad to see you again, Mac,” he said warmly. “You’re looking fine and dandy, by Jove, and as hard as nails. Going to the picnic with us? Good! We’ll have a jolly good time.” Donald returned the greeting with equal cordiality—the more so as he felt some regret for Moodey. A fine chap, Moodey, he thought. The affectation and swank of college days had been toned down, but he was still a little “uppish” with others not in his exact social scale.
With Helena Stuart and Judson making a party all to themselves, the other three walked down to the steamer. Ruth walked between them, outwardly care-free and as charming as ever, but torn in heart and mind with a dread of the day’s possible events.
Promptly at eleven the steamer, with a party of seventy-five young men and women aboard, cast off and proceeded down the harbor. It was a fine warm day and the sea was smooth, but in the pilot-house Captain Eben Westhaver was worrying. To Judson he confided his fears. “It’s a nice day naow, cap’en, but look at th’ glass and that brassy-lookin’ sky to th’ south’ard. Not that we need worry ’bout a summer squall in this able packet, but it ain’t pleasant picnicking in wind an’ rain, an’ we don’t want t’ have a crowd o’ sea-sick wimmen aboard.”