CHAPTER XVIII.
ON THE ROAD TO ORCHARD INN
Mechanically, Marjorie closed the journal of Brooke Hamilton and slipped the rubber around it. She felt as though she never wished to open it again. What a tragedy lay between those black, worn, leather covers. Brooke Hamilton had suffered too greatly she thought for that which he was not really to blame.
He had not understood that Angela loved him. Still, he had upbraided himself with the remorseful thought that he might have understood, if he had tried. Angela had always loved him. She had known that she loved him. He had not in the beginning loved her, or at least he had given no thought to love. The last despairing entry in the journal held strong accusation against himself for not having given love a place in his life. Mind had dominated heart, when instead heart and mind should have gone seeking love and achievement together.
Then the thought which had been pounding at the walls of her brain for admittance entered her consciousness. Suppose that, some day, too late, she were to discover she really loved Hal? She had the same friendly regard for Hal which Brooke Hamilton had entertained for Angela. Hal loved her truly. Angela had truly loved Brooke Hamilton.
The mere idea of such a far-fetched catastrophe filled the sober-faced, lately tearful lieutenant with panic. She took the sad little history of a man’s ambition and misunderstanding and hurriedly replaced it in the rosewood box. She turned the key, then placed the box in the cabinet. Having now read it, she could not bear to talk with Miss Susanna again about it that day. She longed to go out in the bright spring weather and walk until she had shaken off the deep-seated melancholy which had invaded her young heart. The quotation from Thanatopsis: “Go forth, under the open sky, and list to nature’s teachings,” recurred to her with force.
“It’s almost time for luncheon,” she murmured. “I can’t help it. I must go outdoors for awhile. I shan’t write a line today. Maybe not tomorrow. I’ll scribble a note to Miss Susanna and give it to Jonas to hand to her. Jerry’ll survive my desertion for once.”
Luncheon at the Arms was at one o’clock. It lacked only a few minutes of one when Marjorie came downstairs to find Jonas and deliver her note into his hands. She had stopped only long enough to bathe her slightly pinkish eye-lids and draw on a pretty buff sports coat and hat.
She had hardly progressed the length of the long stone walk leading to the gate when her drooping spirits began to revive. She was not shallow, in that she could lightly throw off the impression of the morning’s reading. She was strong-willed enough not to allow it to gain a distressing hold upon her. Most of all she wished to forget her dejected suppositions which concerned Hal.
Outside the gates of the Arms she paused to decide on which way to go. Should she walk to the town of Hamilton, or toward the campus. A walk into staid, drowsy Hamilton meant nothing more than a lonely prowling up and down the main streets. To go toward the campus! There was no telling who she might meet. Marjorie chose the campus, and variety.