“Isn’t it? I haven’t known much about the sea since my early boyhood. I was born on the east coast of Scotland, and used to tumble around in the surf half my time, wading or swimming. But that’s a pretty distant memory now. I suppose I still could swim—one couldn’t forget.”
“Oh, no—quite impossible. I was brought up to swim—and ride—but it’s years since I’ve done either. How I’d like to swim clear out into the blue over there! I suppose nothing so wonderful could happen to-day?”
“It might—for you, anyhow. Mrs. Devoe undoubtedly bathes here—she would have something to lend you.”
“Oh! I somehow got the impression that she was an old lady.”
Black laughed. “She calls herself old. As a matter of fact, she’s the youngest person I know. Her hair is perfectly white, but her eyes are unquestionably young—and very beautiful. She is vigorous as a girl, and full of the zest of life, though she insists she is old enough to be my mother. I suppose she must be, for she had a son who would have been my age if he’d lived. She is simply one of those remarkable women who never grow old—and her mind is one of the keenest I ever came up against. She has been a wonderful friend to me, as she was to everybody in my first parish, with her wealth, and her charm, and her generosity, though she was only there part of the time, for she’s a great traveller. You’ll like her—you can’t help it.”
“I shall feel as if I were intruding horribly. She must want to have a long talk with you alone—of course she will. You must let me manage it, or I shall be sorry I came.”
“I’ll let you, certainly—though I’ve no doubt she would manage it herself. She’s too clever to be defeated in getting anything she wants as much as she and I both want that talk. So don’t imagine yourself intruding. There are few people who understand better the laws of friendship, human and Divine, and nothing could make her happier than to know that I’ve found another friend. She’s always insisted that there were many people in the world who knew what real friendship meant, but I’ve doubted it. I still doubt it—in a way—but not as I did before.”
Thus the day began for them, with an entirely frank understanding that before it was over they were to know pretty well on what ground they stood. High ground it was to be, no question of that. There was no hint in Black’s language or in his manner of intended love-making, but his intense interest both in the subject before them and in Jane herself was very evident. It was quite enough to make the day a vivid one for any such man and woman. There are those who feel that there come hours when the expression of the best and finest friendship may surpass in beauty and in quality the more intimate revelations of a declared love. However that may be, it can hardly be denied that the early approaches of one spirit to another may contain an exquisite and unapproachable surprise and joy, to remain in memory in the whitest light that shines in a world of shadow.
There is no space to tell the whole story of that day. Of the arrival at the cottage—hardly a cottage, it stretched so far its long gray porches in a roomy hospitality—it can only be said that its welcome proved as friendly as the personality of its hostess. Mrs. Devoe put both arms about the shoulders of Robert Black, greeting him as a mother might have done. She gave Jane one smiling survey of discerning sweetness, said to Black, “She’s just what I should expect a friend of yours to be, my dear,” and bore Jane off to extend to her every comfort a traveller on a July day might need. Returning, having left Jane for the moment in a cool guest room, she questioned the man as one who must know her ground.
“How much does this mean, and just what do you want of me, Robert?”