The Tyranny of Weakness | Page 8

She let her appraisal begin at the dark hair which the water had twisted into a curling lawlessness and end at his feet which were somewhat small for his stature. The general impression of that scrutiny was one which she secretly acknowledged to be startlingly, almost thrillingly, favorable. Then she realized that while one of her hands continued to dangle a wet stocking, the other was still tightly clasped in his own and that he was repeating his question.
"Why do you ask?" she na?vely inquired, as she quietly sought to disengage her imprisoned fingers.
"Why!" he echoed, in a shocked voice, pretending unconsciousness of her efforts at self-liberation. "Why does one ever ask a vital question? The last time I saw you I told you candidly that I meant to marry you. If you're already married--why, it might complicate matters, don't you think?"
"It might," the young woman conceded. "It might even alter matters altogether--but don't you think that even for a reunion we seem to have shaken hands almost long enough?"
With reluctance he released the captive fingers and reminded her that he was still unanswered.
"No," she told him, "I'm not married so far--of course I've tried hard, but the honest gander hasn't volunteered."
"Thank God!" was his instant and fervent comment.
Beyond her were the sands of the bar and the Atlantic Ocean stretching unbroken to the Madeiras and a flawless sky against which the gulls dipped and screamed.
She was straight and vivid, and his pulses quickened, taking fire. Sun, air and water; sparkle, radiance and color--these things were about him filling his senses with delight and she seemed to epitomize them all in a personal incarnation.
"Don't let me keep you standing," he begged her, belatedly remembering his manners. "You were taking your case when I came. Besides, Old Neptune in person will be along soon to claim this sandbar for himself. Meanwhile, 'The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to talk of many things.'"
"As for instance?"
"As for instance that there's less of the fortuitous in this meeting than appears upon the surface."
"Then you knew I was on the sandbar?"
Stuart Farquaharson shook his head. "I didn't even know that you were at Chatham. I just got here this morning driving through to Provincetown. But I did know that you were on Cape Cod, and that is why I'm on Cape Cod."
She dropped lightly to the sand and sat nursing her knees between interlocked fingers. Stuart Farquaharson spread himself luxuriantly at length, propped on one elbow. He could not help noting that the bare knee was dimpled and that the curved flesh below it was satin-smooth and the hue of apple blossoms. The warm breeze kept stirring her hair caressingly and, against the glare, she lowered her long lashes, half veiling her eyes. But at his avowal of the cause of his coming her lips curved with humorous scepticism.
"I'm afraid you acted very hastily," she murmured. "You've only known I was here for about six years."
He nodded, entirely unruffled.
"I have only recently been promoted to the high office of 'Master of my fate'--but before we get to that--where are you stopping?"
"Our party will be here at Chatham for several days. We're stopping at The Arms."
"You speak of a party, and that makes me realize the imperative need of improving this golden moment," Stuart Farquaharson announced urbanely, "because I have certain rude and elementary powers of deduction."
"Which lead you to what conclusion?" She turned eyes riffled with amusement from the contemplation of a distant sail to his face, and he proceeded to enlighten her.
"To two. First, that in Chatham, Massachusetts, as in the Valley of Virginia, there is probably a Jimmy Hancock buzzing about. Secondly, that since 'misfortunes come not single spies, but in battalions,' there are probably a flock of Jimmies. By the by, will you swim out here with me to-morrow morning?"
"To-morrow morning," she demurred. "I believe I have an engagement for a horseback ride with Billy Stirling. We're going to look at a wind mill or something."
The man shook his head in mock distress.
"I knew it," he sighed, then his tone grew serious and he began to speak rapidly. "You say I've known where you were for six years and that's true. It's also true that until this summer, I haven't in any genuine sense been the master of my movements. Four years were spent in college, and two in law school. There were vacations, of course, but my mother claimed them at home. She is dead now, and her last few years were years of partial invalidism--so she wanted her family about her."
"Oh," the girl's eyes deepened with sympathy. "I didn't know that. She was, I think, almost the loveliest woman I ever knew. She was everything that blue blood ought to be--and so rarely is."
"Thank you. Yes, I think my