"The best thing about Cranbrooke, Max, is that he loves you," answered his wife, wilfully.
"Then I want you, henceforth, to try to like him better, dear; to like him for himself. He is coming in answer to my urgent request; and I feel certain the more you know of him, the more you will trust in him. At any rate, give him as much of your dear self as I can spare, and you will be sure of pleasing me."
"Max, now I believe it is you who are crying because you are too happy. I never heard such a solemn cadence in your voice. I don't want a minute of this lovely time to be sad. When we were in town, I fancied you were down—about something; now, you are yourself again; let me be happy without alloy. I am determined to be the cigale of the French fable, and dance and sing away the summer. Between us, we may even succeed in making that sober Cranbrooke a reflection of us both. There, now, the light has faded; quicken your speed; we must go ashore and meet him. See, the moon has risen—O Max darling, to please me, paddle in that silver path!"
This was the Ethel her husband liked best to see,—a child in her quick variations of emotion, a woman in steadfast tenderness. Conquering his own strongly excited feeling, he smiled on her indulgently; and when, their landing reached, Cranbrooke's tall form was descried coming down the bridge to receive them, he was able to greet his friend with an unshadowed face.
The three went in to dinner, which Ethel, taking advantage of the soft, dry air, had ordered to be served in a loggia opening upon the water. The butler, a sympathetic Swede, had decked their little round table with wild roses in shades of shell-pink, deepening to crimson. The candles, burning under pale-green shades, were scarcely stirred by the faint breeze. Hard, indeed, to believe that, upon occasion, that couchant monster, the bay, could break up into huge waves, ramping shoreward, leaping over the rock wall, upon the lawn, up to the loggia floor, and there beat for admission to the house, upon storm-shutters hastily erected to meet its onslaught!
To-night, a swinging lantern of wrought iron sent down through its panels of opal glass a gentle illumination upon three well-pleased faces gathered around the dainty little feast. Ethel, who, in the days of gipsying, would allow no toilets of ceremony, retained her sailor-hat, with the boat-gown of white serge, in which her infantile beauty showed to its best advantage. Cranbrooke was dazzled by the new bloom upon her face, the new light in her eye.
Pollock, too, tall, broad-shouldered, blonde, clean-shaven save for a mustache, his costume of white flannel enhancing duly the transparent healthiness of his complexion, looked wonderfully well—so Cranbrooke thought and said.
"Does he not?" cried Ethel, exultingly. "I knew you would think so. Max has been reconstructed since we have lived outdoors in this wonderful air. Just wait, Mr. Cranbrooke, till we have done with you, and you, too, will be blossoming like the rose."
"I, that was a desert, you would say," returned Cranbrooke, smiling. Involuntarily it occurred to him to contrast his own outer man with that of his host. Somehow or other, the fond, satisfied look Ethel bestowed upon her lord aroused anew in their friend an old, teasing spirit of envy of nature's bounty to another, denied to him.
As the moon transmuted to silver the stretch of water east of them, and the three sat over the table, with its carafes and decanters and egg-shell coffee-cups, till the flame of a cigar-lighter died utterly in its silver beak, their talk touching all subjects pleasantly, Cranbrooke persuaded himself he had indeed been dreaming a bad dream. The journey thither, of which every mile had been like the link of a chain, was, for him, after all, a mere essay at pleasure-seeking. He had come on to spend a jolly holiday with a couple of the nicest people in the world—nothing more! His fancies, his plans, his devices, conceived in sore distress of spirit, were relegated to the world of shadows, whence they had been summoned.