Henry developed, after that first evening, a sudden passion for billiards; and later for poker, which he told Martha some friends were starting as a twice-a-week little game. And Martha had listened to his swaggering statement that “a man must have some vices,” with inscrutable eyes, and let him go. Perhaps now she fathomed—in part at least, for she was wiser far than Henry—the malady with which he was suffering. And so she did nothing, but waited; which you shall see was perhaps the wisest thing she could have done.
Henry called upon Miss Morton some ten times that month—always in the evening. Miss Morton, it appeared, was living with her mother for the summer only, in this tiny cottage which they had rented. They had been in it hardly more than a month, and fortunately, neither during that time nor subsequently during Henry’s regular evening visits, had either of them needed to purchase a pair of shoes at Dale’s.
About himself Henry was reticent. What he told of his affairs was fictitious but plausible. Miss Morton having few friends in the neighborhood, seemed hospitably to welcome his calls. Upon the occasion of his second visit, he had told her frankly, but with some embarrassment, that he had never been in a canoe before that first evening with her. And he was still more confused, and a little hurt, when he showed not the least surprise at his confession.
“But I want to learn, Miss Morton,” he added earnestly. “Won’t you teach me?”
Miss Morton would. And so began the series of canoe rides and lessons with which their friendship developed to its climax, and Henry’s soul underwent its next and final great change.
You are to picture Henry, then, on this momentous tenth evening, sitting very erect and manly upon the stern seat of Miss Morton’s canoe, in his shirt-sleeves, his forearms bared, hatless, and with his hair rumpled and pushed straight back—almost, but not quite, covering his bald spot. Miss Morton herself lay at his feet in the bottom of the canoe on a pile of cushions—her golden hair nestling against one of flaming red, and her baby blue eyes looking up into Henry’s face. And Henry was supremely happy—an unreasoning, turbulent happiness—as with long, swift strokes he sent the canoe skimming over the shimmering silver lake.
The moon overhead hung in a cloudless, starry sky; a soft, gentle summer breeze fanned his flushed face. Distant music from a talking machine on one of the cottage porches floated distinct across the lake. Henry looked at the girl’s gracefully reclining figure with a heart too full for words.
“I love the sound of music over water, don’t you?” asked Miss Morton softly.
Henry let his paddle trail idly in his left hand. A sudden madness possessed him. He leaned down and put his other hand over the girl’s as it lay in her lap.
“I love you—Elsie,” he said huskily.