“The ways of the Poet are inscrutable,” observed Fulton; “he told me your name and spoke in the highest terms of your kindness of heart and tolerance of stupidity.”
“He was more sparing of facts in warning me of your approach. He said your name would be Frederick, as though the birds would supply the rest of it.”
“Very likely that’s the way of the illustrious—to assume that we are all as famous as themselves; highly flattering, but calculated to deceive. As the birds don’t know me, I will say that my surname is Fulton. A poor and an ill-favored thing, but mine own.”
“It quite suffices,” replied Marian in his own key. “We have built a château,” she explained, “and the châtelaine is even now gazing sadly upon the waters hoping that her true knight will appear. We have mixed metaphor and history most unforgivably—a French château, set here on an American lake in readiness for the Knights of the Round Table.”
“We mustn’t quibble over details in such matters; it’s the spirit of the thing that counts. I can see that Marjorie isn’t troubled by anachronisms.”
The blue sheets containing, presumably, this young man’s verses, were still in her belt, and their presence there did not add to her comfort. Of course he might not be the real author of those tributes to the lake’s divinities. His appearance did not strongly support the suspicion. The young man who had sent her flowers accompanied by verses on various occasions was an anæmic young person who would never have entrusted himself to so tricksy a bark as a canoe. Frederick Fulton was of a more heroic mould; she thought it quite likely that he could shoulder his canoe and march off with it if it pleased him to do so. He looked capable of doing many things besides scribbling verses. His manner, as she analyzed it, left nothing to be desired. While he was enjoying this encounter to the full, as his ready smile assured her, he did not presume upon her tolerance, but seemed satisfied to let her prescribe the terms of their acquaintance. This was a lark of some kind, and whether he had connived at the meeting, or whether he was as much in the dark as she as to the Poet’s purpose in bringing them together, remained a mystery.
She found a seat on a log near the engrossed Marjorie, and Fulton settled himself comfortably on the sand.
“This has been a day of strange meetings,” he began. “I really had no intention of coming to Waupegan; and I was astonished to find our friend the Poet on the hotel veranda this morning. He had told me to come;—it was rather odd—”
“Oh, he told you to come!”
“In town, two days ago he suggested it. I wonder if he’s in the habit of doing that sort of thing.”