Still Anthony kept close hold of the girl’s hands, and now after her first effort she made no further attempt to draw herself away. His eyes were fixed upon hers with an expression that there was no mistaking, yet something in the firm and resolute lines about his mouth revealed the will responsible for Anthony Graham’s success and power. Quietly he now drew his companion closer beneath the shelter of the trees, for the first drops of rain were beginning to fall.
“But I am still your friend, Anthony. You are mistaken in thinking that anything has come between us. As for my being engaged to some one else that is quite untrue. I only thought that you and Meg were so intimate that you no longer needed me.” For the first time Betty’s voice faltered.
Anthony was saying in a tone she should never forget even among the thousands of incidents in their crowded lives, “I shall always need and want you, Betty, to the last instant of created time.” Then he brought both her hands up to his lips and kissed them. “Meg was only enduring my friendship so that I might have some one with whom I could talk about you.”
Suddenly Anthony let go Betty’s hands and stepped back a few paces away from her. His face had lost the radiant look of a brief moment before.
“Betty, a little while ago you told me that you were still my friend and that no one had come between us, and it made me very happy. But I tell you honestly that I do not think I can be happy with such an answer for long. Two years ago, when you and I together watched the moon over Sunrise Hill, I dared not then say more than I did, I had not enough to offer you. But now things are different and it isn’t your friendship I want! Ten thousand times, no! It is your love! Do you think, Betty, that you can ever learn to love me?”
Now Betty’s face was white and her gray eyes were like deep wells of light.
“Learn to love you, Anthony? Why I am not a school girl any longer and I learned that lesson years and years ago.”
When the storm finally broke and the thunder crashed between the heavy deluges of rain neither Anthony nor Betty cared to make for the nearby shelter of Sunrise cabin. Instead they stood close together laughing up at the sky and at the lovely rain-swept world. Once Betty did remember to inquire for the vanished Polly, but Anthony assured her that Polly had joined Mollie and Billy half an hour before and that they would of course take the best possible care of her.
Nevertheless at this instant Polly O’Neill was actually floundering desperately about in the waters of Sunrise Lake while trying to make her way to the side of their overturned skiff. Billy Webster, with his arm about Mollie, was swimming with her safely toward shore.
“Don’t be frightened, it is all right, dear. I’ll look after Polly in a moment,” he whispered encouragingly.