“He’s all right. We’ve talked things out. There’s a man in charge of that boy——”
“What man?” Jerry looked toward Richard.
“A man named Walter, whom few of you seem to know much about. It’s himself I mean. He thinks he’s doing it for me; and I let him think so; but he’s really out of my hands now. And one of these days, when he gets a good, sure grip on himself, I’ll match-make him off so secretly that neither he nor she will ever know that I planned it all myself.”
“She? Why, who——”
“Well,” she mused, “I’m not sure. If he keeps on the way he’s goin’ it’ll be one of the Fernzie girls, the younger one, maybe. But if he improves a lot, I may pick out an Armstrong or a Sheppard!”
“Oh!” gasped Jerry. Only a native could understand the prodigiousness of that colossal joke.
The talk drifted here and there, always subject to Phœbe’s clever will; and when she made some joking remark about the use of her cottage as a public bathing pavilion, and in the same breath announced that whatever those two “gallivanters” intended to do the rest of the night, she was going to her bed, the moment was right for Richard to raise two fingers mutely, “Let’s go swimmin’,” and for Jerry to fling up the answer, “All right.”
It was an outlandish thing to do, but what water lover could resist? The night was warm, the Lake was waveless, and the lump of a moon lighted up the scene.
Richard was waiting on the dock for her. A light in Phœbe’s room went out, and still he waited. For a moment he feared that Jerry had changed her mind, or perhaps had played a trick on him and had gone out the rear door and had fled home. Then the light downstairs went out suddenly; he heard the front door close with a click, and out of the shadow of the house he discerned the lithe brown figure moving towards him.
Somehow they did not plunge off instantly, as had been their habit. Instead, they stood on the edge of the dock and talked. He spoke of the new life opening before him; and he told her of his father, of his life of pathetic isolation. The pity of it struck her, and she showed it in her voice and in her eyes. Her hand touched his arm in sympathy.