“Just an old photograph of you.” He held it up.
“Oh; well, take it away. It’s not beautiful, Phil, but I’m told it flatters me quite a bit. I presume I get one of you in return?”
“When I have any you do,” laughed Phillip. “I’m off.”
“Queer chap,” mused John, when the door was closed. “Wonder why he wanted the picture?”
He put a couple of balls in his pocket and took up his bag. Then, his eye falling on the still slumbering David, he balanced six discarded clubs about him in such a way that they would topple to the floor at the slightest movement, and left the room.
Phillip wrote a letter that evening before dinner. One passage was as follows: “I’m sending a photograph of him. He gave it to me to-day. He says it flatters him, but it doesn’t really. I don’t think it does him justice. Anyhow, it will tell you more than I could even if I answered all your questions. I don’t see what difference it makes whether he’s light or dark, anyhow. And I don’t believe it was mamma that wanted to know. It sounds a heap more like Margey. Don’t let any one shoot over the East Farm; I want some birds left for North. If Nate comes up again, tell him to shoot ’round the house; that’s good enough for him, anyway.”
November made a graceful exit under blue skies and to the music of soft breezes, and December tramped on in the manner of a stage villain, filming the shallows with ice and piling the snow high in the streets. That first storm held for Phillip an irresistible attraction. He watched it through the window of his room until it was almost dark; and then, tossing aside the books with which he had been pretending to study, he called Tudor Maid and together they went forth and faced the beating wind and the flying, needlelike sleet. Maid couldn’t see the fun of it at first, but after Phillip had rolled her in a snowbank she, too, became imbued with the spirit of adventure and went bounding clumsily ahead through the drifts with all the ludicrous abandon of a ten-weeks’ puppy.
They followed the river, barely visible through the whirling mist, their path dimly outlined by the yellow lights that crept away into the gathering darkness in a far-reaching arc. They met no other wayfarers after they left the centre of the town, and, save for the occasional friendly gleam from house window and an infrequent car or snow-plow clanging and buzzing its way along, Phillip could have imagined himself back on one of his own country roads. At Mount Auburn they turned and struggled homeward, the wind at their backs now, and reached The Inn at half past six. Maid climbed onto a window seat, and with a long sigh of weariness and contentment went to sleep and snored peacefully until Phillip, his own appetite at length assuaged, woke her up to feast royally on roast beef.
But after a week of storm and stress December relented and—like the stage character it was representing—prepared for the final curtain of the year’s drama by wearing the softened, chastened mien that, on the stage at least, precedes and heralds repentance. The days were cold, bright and invigourating, and to Phillip, head over heels in love, formed a period of idyllic weather. It is probable, however, that Phillip would have accepted blizzard, deluge and cyclone with perfect cheerfulness so long as the roads that led to Boston were passable. For he had discovered that happiness for him was only another name for Betty Kingsford; and the pursuit of happiness occupied a great deal of his time and led his feet to Marlborough Street always once and often twice a week.
There was no false delicacy about Phillip’s love-making. He was in love and didn’t care who knew it. The Southern male creature accepts sentiment as a natural accompaniment to youth and is no more ashamed of being in love than he is of being a gentleman. If he doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, at least he does not hide it in his boots. There was a frankness and wholesomeness about Phillip’s wooing of Betty that appealed to Betty’s people even while it amused them. Mrs. Kingsford considered it a boy and girl affair, loath to own even to herself that Betty had reached an age when her affections might become seriously engaged, and negatively countenanced it. Betty’s father uttered a good many mild jokes at Betty’s expense and pretended to be fearful of an elopement. But he liked Phillip, and acknowledged to himself that if assiduity and perseverance counted for anything that youth had an excellent chance of some day becoming his son-in-law. Everett, in the manner of the elder brother the world over, found in Betty’s wooing food for much open amusement, and plagued both her and Phillip whenever possible, until he found that neither one minded it in the least. As for Betty herself, what she thought about it was difficult to tell. None knew save herself; Phillip least of all. Just so long as he was content to conceal his ardour under the semblance of ordinary friendship, Betty was kindness itself; admiration temperately expressed was received demurely and as a matter of course. But the first word of serious love-making summoned dire frowns and a chilliness of demeanour that cast Phillip into dismal abysses of doubt and despair, from which he was only rescued by the merciful Betty after repeated assertions of repentance and vows of future good behaviour. And thus December wore on and the Christmas recess approached.