"Billy," I said, "I've just seen a Good One too. She was dancing about on the water."
"Oh, rot!" cried Billy. "Mine's the One! Come on, I say! I'm certain she won't wait. She looked as though she wouldn't sit still for a single minute."
"What is she like, Billy?" I asked as we hurried away.
"She's—oh, she's the exact image of my mater!" he said.
Billy's mater had died about a year ago. At the age of twelve I had been deeply in love with her, and to this hour her image remains with me as the type of all that is most lovely and commendable in woman. O Billy's mater, will these eyes ever see you again? How glad I am to remember you! I know where you lie buried, but I doubt if there lives another soul who could find your resting-place. Harshly were you judged and conveniently were you forgotten! But I will scatter lilies on your grave this very night.
Well, we ran with all our might. Scarlet Feather, Gray Muff, and the dancing "good one" on the surface of the water were clean forgotten as if they had never existed—as perhaps one of them never did. "Just like my mater!" Billy kept gasping. "Hurry up! I tell you she won't wait! She's on the seat watching the water; no, not that seat. It's round the next bend but one."
We turned the bend and came in sight of the seat where Billy had seen what he saw. The seat was empty. We looked round us: not a soul was in sight. We checked our pace and in utter silence, and very slowly, crept up to the empty seat, gazing round us as we walked. Was there ever such a melancholy walk! Oh, what a Via Dolorosa we found it! Arrived at the seat, Billy felt it all over with his hands and, finding nothing, flung himself face downwards on the turf and uttered the most lamentable cry I have ever heard.
"I knew she wouldn't wait," he moaned. "Oh, why weren't we quicker! Oh, why didn't I ask her the time the minute I saw her!"
As, shattered and silent, we crawled back to school, continually loitering to gaze at a world that was all hateful, I realised with a feeling of awe that I had become privy to something deep in Billy's soul. And I inwardly resolved that, so far as I could, I would set the matter right, and put friendship on a footing of true equality, by telling Billy the deepest secret of mine.
"Billy," I said, as we lay wakeful in the small hours of the next morning, "come and stay with us next holidays, and I will show you something."