And when the endless meal was over, and yards of white veils had been tied over pounds of hair—or is it, too, bought by the yard?—and some eight ensembles with their abject complements had been packed into three automobiles and a trap, I drew a long breath and faced about. I had just then only one object in life—to find Alison, to assure her of my absolute faith and confidence in her, and to offer my help and my poor self, if she would let me, in her service.
She was not easy to find. I searched the lower floor, the verandas and the grounds, circumspectly. Then I ran into a little English girl who turned out to be her maid, and who also was searching. She was concerned because her mistress had had no dinner, and because the tray of food she carried would soon be cold. I took the tray from her, on the glimpse of something white on the shore, and that was how I met the Girl again.
She was sitting on an over-turned boat, her chin in her hands, staring out to sea. The soft tide of the bay lapped almost at her feet, and the draperies of her white gown melted hazily into the sands. She looked like a wraith, a despondent phantom of the sea, although the adjective is redundant. Nobody ever thinks of a cheerful phantom. Strangely enough, considering her evident sadness, she was whistling softly to herself, over and over, some dreary little minor air that sounded like a Bohemian dirge. She glanced up quickly when I made a misstep and my dishes jingled. All considered, the tray was out of the picture: the sea, the misty starlight, the girl, with her beauty—even the sad little whistle that stopped now and then to go bravely on again, as though it fought against the odds of a trembling lip. And then I came, accompanied by a tray of little silver dishes that jingled and an unmistakable odor of broiled chicken!
“Oh!” she said quickly; and then, “Oh! I thought you were Jenkins.”
“Timeo Danaos—what’s the rest of it?” I asked, tendering my offering. “You didn’t have any dinner, you know.” I sat down beside her. “See, I’ll be the table. What was the old fairy tale? ‘Little goat bleat: little table appear!’ I’m perfectly willing to be the goat, too.”
She was laughing rather tremulously.
“We never do meet like other people, do we?” she asked. “We really ought to shake hands and say how are you.”
“I don’t want to meet you like other people, and I suppose you always think of me as wearing the other fellow’s clothes,” I returned meekly. “I’m doing it again: I don’t seem to be able to help it. These are Granger’s that I have on now.”
She threw back her head and laughed again, joyously, this time.
“Oh, it’s so ridiculous,” she said, “and you have never seen me when I was not eating! It’s too prosaic!”