“That’s true.” Marjorie inwardly derided herself for being such an utter stupid. She tried to make herself believe that it was only Hal, her boy chum, with whom she was out boating. She could not. The young man at the wheel whose familiar handsome features were touched with an intensity of purpose quite foreign to them was all but a stranger to her. In the past she had had only rare, disquieting glimpses of the intense side Hal was showing today.
A flat, uncomfortable silence suddenly drifted down upon them. Hal’s courteous attempt to talk trivialities, simple because he knew that was what Marjorie preferred him to do was a failure. He had come to the place where he could no longer continue to hide his heart from her.
The silence between them continued; deepened. Both had begun to feel the tensity of the situation. Both had tried to talk pleasantries and both had failed. Hal occupied himself with sending the Oriole scudding cleverly in and out among the numerous pleasure craft, large and small which dotted the course he was steadily taking toward quieter more aloof waters.
Now and again they were briskly hailed by the occupants of other passing boats. Hal lightened momentarily as he answered the merry salutations, then relapsed into somber gravity.
“What a lot of people you know at Severn Beach, Hal.” Marjorie was glad to find her voice again. Hal was waving an acknowledgment to a noisy, rollicking crew of young men in a passing power launch who had sent out a ringing hail to him.
“I only know a bunch of yachtsmen and a few other fellows.” Hal disclaimed popularity with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “The Clipper, my racing sailboat, is better known along this coast than I am. Oh, but she’s a winner!” Hal brightened with pride of ownership. “She won every race I entered her for last summer. She’s won two this season, and she’s entered in a spiffy race the yacht club is going to pull off in a couple of weeks. You’d better stay at the beach and see it. I’ll take you aboard for the race, if you’ll stay.” Half laughingly, half pleadingly he offered this bribe.
“That would be glorious; to be in a real race!” Marjorie looked her regret. “You’re always so good to me, Hal; always planning some perfectly dandy stunt just to please me. But you know how it is about Hamilton. I feel it truly a sacred obligation; my work there, I mean. I couldn’t allow personal pleasure to come before it.”
“No; nor love, either,” Hal burst forth with a hurt vehemence which brought the hot blood to Marjorie’s cheeks. “I beg your pardon, Marjorie,” he said almost immediately afterward. “I spoke on impulse. Still, that’s the way I feel about your going back to Hamilton next fall when I love you so dearly and want you to marry me. I wish you cared even half as much for me as you do for your work at Hamilton. But you don’t care at all.”
“I do care for you, Hal, as one of the best friends I have,” Marjorie protested, raising her brown eyes sorrowfully to Hal’s clouded face.
“I know,” Hal rejoined a shade less forcefully. “I value your friendship, Marjorie, more highly than I can say. But friendship’s not what I want from you, dear girl. I love you, truly and forever. I’ve loved you since first you came to Sanford to live. I’d have told you so long ago but you never gave me an opportunity.” Hal paused. He regarded Marjorie wistfully; questioningly.