Marcia’s reply to his note came several days later. Its brevity did not conceal an indefinable and disturbing reserve. She would see him, she wrote, when she returned. With the note was inclosed the proof of the golf report. Its margin carried a penciled note.
“Can you not see that this only makes it worse?” Jeremy read his cherished report once more, and saw. It was a lie.
CHAPTER VII
LAKE SKOHOTA thrusts a long and slender arm past Fenchester to throw it cherishingly about a tiny island, cut off from the University campus and made part of it again by an arched bridge overhanging dappled waters. Willows bending from the islet’s bank weave their thousand-fingered enchantments above the dreaming shallows. The subtle spice of sedge and marsh-bloom blows from it to disperse its spell upon the air that whispers a never-finished tale of secrecy and sorcery to the trees. It is a place of witchery.
The sheen of countless stars glowed above the bridge and wavered below it, as two figures emerged from the pathway and paused at the summit of the arch to lean and look down through the darkness at the blackly opalescent gleam of the waters. A canoe stole around the bend and slipped beneath them, the stroke of its paddles accentuated in cool, delicious plashes of sound as it entered the arch.
“Another two,” said the soft and happy voice of a girl, rising to them; and a boyish voice answered:
“The night is full of them.”
The canoe merged with the darkness. The two figures on the bridge, silent, followed it with their blind speculations into an unknown world. From far across the open spaces of the lake came the music of women’s voices blended, which the night breeze hushed to hear; a modulation of wistful, minor strains: