The sound of a mandolin floated to them over the water.
"Glen!" cried Indiana, starting up. Lord Canning rose also, self-contained and somewhat pale. They watched the boat growing larger. Burt was rowing and Glen playing, "My Georgia Lady-love." Indiana stood up and waved her handkerchief.
"Why does he play that now?" she thought. "He played it that day in the orchard—when he told me—and I was sorry for him. It was such a beautiful day! He said there would never be another—maybe there won't.
"'Way down in dear old Georgia State,
We parted—but she said she would wait—'"
sang Indiana, to the familiar strains. "There were so many apple-blossoms, and they were falling—falling over my face, my neck, my hair. The sky was so blue when I looked up through the blossoms—a different blue from this—
'She slowly dropped her head,
And then she softly said:
'Mister Johnson, 'deed I loves you too.''
We cried and made ourselves miserable—I wanted to kiss and comfort him, I wanted to whisper what he wished to hear—but something held me back. I was sorry for myself as well as for him. I wanted to please everyone—his folks and mine—but I couldn't. I didn't know then—I was waiting for this. But I'm sorry for Glen—so sorry!" She saw the boat through a mist of tears and the mandolin sounded far, very far away, as though Glen were still playing it in the orchard of her memory, where the blossoms fell, in a last rosy glow of the sun.
Lord Canning watched her, jealous of the new expression on her face. He realized she was carried away by some recollection in which Glen held a part. "A boy-and-girl affair, probably," he thought. "There is always a boy-and-girl affair, but it seldom amounts to anything—very seldom."
Glen joyfully recognized Indiana waving from the shore. "Looks as though she'd been standing watching for me ever so long, but that's too much to expect." Burt rowed slowly in, while Glen waved his cap, gaily. Indiana ran down to the dock to meet him, slowly followed by Lord Canning.
"Well, Glen, here you are at last!"