The university clock struck two.
They listened. The reverberations of the second stroke died out. The maple leaves overhead rustled softly. From the beach, a block away, came the continuous low sound of little waves on shelving sand. The great lake that washes and on occasions threatens the shore at Sunbury had woven, from Henry's birth, a strand of colour in the fibre of his being. He felt the lake as deeply as he felt the maples and oaks of Sunbury; memories of its bars of crude' wonderful colour at sunset and sunrise, of its soft mists, its yellow and black November storms, its reaches of glacier-like ice-hills in winter, of moonlit evenings with a girl on the beach when the romance of youth shimmered in boundless beautiful mystery before half-closed eyes—these were an ever-present element in the undefined, moody ebb and flow of impulse, memory, hope, desire and spasmodic self-restraint that Henry would have referred to, if at all, as his mind.
'It's late enough,' said Corinne, with a little laugh.
Mildred turned away, placed a tiny foot on the bottom step, sighed, then murmured, very low, 'Hardly worth while going in.'
'Let's not,' muttered Humphrey.
'Listen.' Thus Corinne. She was leaning against the railing, with an extraordinarily graceful slouch. She had never looked so pretty, Henry thought. A little of the corner light reached her face, illuminating her velvet clear skin and shining on her blue black hair where it curved over her forehead. She made you think of health and of wild things. And she could, even at this time, earn her living. There was an offer now to tour the country forty weeks with a lyceum concert company. The letter had come to-day; Henry had seen it. She thought she wouldn't accept. Her idea was another year to study, then two or three years abroad and, possibly, a start in the provincial opera companies of Italy, Austria, and Germany. Yes, she had character of the sort that looks coolly ahead and makes deliberate plans. Despite her wide, easy-smiling mouth and her great languorous black eyes and her lazy ways, eyen Henry could now see this strength in her face, in its solid, squared-up framework. More than any girl Henry had ever known she could do what she chose. Men pursued her, of course. All the time. There were certain extremely persistent ones. And it came quietly through, bit by bit, that she knew them pretty well, knocked around the city with them, as she liked. But now she had chosen himself. No doubt about it.
She said:—
'Listen. Let's go down to the shore and watch for the sunrise. We couldn't sleep a wink after—after this—anyway.'
'Nobody'd ever know,' breathed Mildred.
Humphrey took her arm. They moved slowly down the walk toward the street.