“Oh, she’s not like the rest of them. She’s rather jolly.”
“Conceited little beggar, though, I suppose?”
“No, sir; not a bit. She’s just the right kind.” Then Dickie flushed and the conversation lapsed suddenly.
We were to go sailing on the river next morning, but when the time came Dickie pleaded delay. He had “promised to take a book to a friend.” He would be back in a few minutes. Two hours did Dickie take for that errand, and I began to think that perhaps my joking had been unwise.
Dickie now entered upon a chronic state of being “togged up.” He treasured faded flowers, raising hue and cry because the maid threw out a wilted peony which he had enshrined in a vase on his chiffonier. Once he almost fell into the river rescuing an envelope which had slipped from his pocket. The treasure it contained seemed to be a lock of dark hair. His spending money went for fancy chocolates, which I did not see him eat.
Such were the beginnings of this tremendous affair.
Very gentle and serious Dickie became in these days, moods new to him. Also he took to reading poetry. Scott’s “Marmion,” about the only piece of verse with which he had been on speaking acquaintance, he abandoned for fragments of “Locksley Hall” and “Lucille.” His musical taste underwent like change. The rollicking college airs he was accustomed to whistle with more vigor than accuracy gave place to “Tell Me, Pretty Maiden,” and “Annie Laurie.” These he executed quite as inaccurately, but—and this was some relief—in minor key.
Sitting in the sacred hush of the moonlight, we had long talks on sober subjects not at all related to “revolving wedges” and “guards back formation,” on which he had been wont to discourse. With uneasy conscience I meditated on the amazing alchemy, potent in young and tender passion.
One morning a grinning youngster with big blue eyes, like Rosie’s, handed me a note. It was rather sticky to the touch, by reason of the candy with which the messenger had been paid. It bore no address. “Darlingest Dearest——” Thus far I read, then folded it promptly and put it in my pocket.
The note was still there the next afternoon when, jibing our sail, we came abruptly on an unexpected scene. In a smart cedar rowboat, such as they have for hire at the summer hotel, an athletic youth wielded a pair of long, spruce oars. Facing him, with her back toward us and leaning comfortably against the chair seat in the stern, was a pretty girl in white.