Involuntarily she stretched forth a hand until it rested lightly upon one of the singer’s. Instantly Hal had caught it, holding it in his own. He bent an adoring glance upon her, and sang on.
“This was what I was wishing for,” he declared fondly the moment he had finished the song. He gathered her slim hand more closely in his own. “I hardly dared take it with everybody looking on, for fear you’d not wish it.”
“It was dear in you to sing that, Hal.” The eyes of the pair met in a long fond glance of affection. “You know I shall always love it best of all songs. You understand why.”
“Yes, dear.” There was quiet rapture in the response. “I forgot to send back the music to it to Leila last spring. So I brought it to the Beach for Laurie to play. I thought you’d like to hear it again.”
“I love it. Think how much of happiness we owe Leila Greatheart. If it had not been for her Irish play you would never have come to Hamilton. You’d probably have gone to Alaska, as you had planned to do.”
“I had begun to feel that I couldn’t bear to see you for a while, knowing you didn’t love me,” Hal confessed. “I knew I’d never stop caring for you. I was sure it was the only thing for me to do.”
“I’m so glad you didn’t go. You see, Hal, I should have known later—that I cared—perhaps too late.” Marjorie’s lovely features shadowed. “I had begun to know that I missed you, and I’d read Brooke Hamilton’s journal and had felt a kind of terrible despair over it. He hadn’t understood Angela’s love for him until after her serious illness. Just when he was beginning to be happy he lost her. I couldn’t help wondering if it would be so with me. Brooke Hamilton helped us to our happiness. On that account there is something I’d like to do—I know it would please Miss Susanna. It’s about—about our wedding.”
“Our wedding.” Hal repeated the two magic words in a kind of beatified daze. “What about our wedding, dearest. Are you going to tell me that you’ve changed your mind and are going to marry me in the fall instead of next June?” There was a suppressed, hopeful note in the question.
“Not in the fall, or next June, either.” Marjorie’s up-flashing smile did not match her negative answer. “I can’t desert Hamilton until the dormitory is finished and dedicated and the biography completed. And there’s the Leila Harper Playhouse, too. So it couldn’t possibly be in the fall. But”—Marjorie made a tiny pause—“I think my work at Hamilton will have been completed by the last of next April.” She made another brief pause, then said with direct simplicity: “I’d like our wedding to take place on the evening of May Day, at Hamilton Arms. May Day was Brooke Hamilton’s birthday.”
“Marjorie!” Hal exclaimed very softly. He caught Marjorie’s free hand, then prisoned both her hands between his own. “My heart went down when you said ‘not next June.’ But the first of May! That is sooner than I had hoped for. You can depend upon Miss Susanna to back that plan. She’ll be delighted. How about General and Captain? Have you told them yet?”