“Oh, it’s lovely,” she said in soft monotone, glancing at the lake.
“Yes,” replied Theodore dreamily.
His eyes were upon the placid water, his thoughts upon the girl at his side. Jinnie was thinking of him, too, and there they both sat, with passionate longing in their young hearts, watching nature’s great life go silently by.
“Play for me,” Theodore said at length, without taking his eyes from the water. “Stand by that big tree so I can look at you.”
Flushed, palpitating, and beautiful, Jinnie took the position he directed. She had come to play for him, to mimic the natural world for his pleasure.
“Shall I play about the fairies?” she asked bashfully.
“Yes,” assented King.
As on that night in his home when first she came into 216 his life in full sway, the man now imagined he saw creeping from under the flower petals and from behind the tall trees, the tiny inhabitants of Jinnie’s fairyland. Then he turned his eyes toward her, and as he watched the lithe young figure, the pensive face lost and rapt in the lullaby, Theodore came to the greatest decision of his life. He couldn’t live without Jinnie Grandoken! No matter if she was the niece of a cobbler, no matter who her antecedents were—she was born into the world for him, and all that was delicate and womanly in her called out to the manhood in him; and all that was strong, masterful, and aggressive in him clamored to protect and shield her, and in that fleeting moment the brilliant young bachelor suddenly lost his hold on bachelordom, as a boy loses his hold on a kite. There are times in every human life when such a decision as Theodore then made seemed the beginning of everything. It was as if the past had wrapped him around like the grey shell of a cocoon.
A loose lock of hair fell coquettishly from the girl’s dark head low upon the fiddle, and Theodore loved and wanted to kiss it, and when the instrument dropped from under the dimpled chin, he held out his hand.
“Come here, Jinnie,” he said softly. “Come sit beside me.”