He wrenched himself from her close embrace, at last, and rushing into the hallway, s.n.a.t.c.hed his coat from the chair where she had flung it.

Standing pa.s.sively where he had left her, Florence heard the outer door slam, followed by his swift tread upon the walk and the click as the gate latched.... Then there was silence.

For a long time she stood there, one hand clutching the back of a quaint, old-fashioned chair. A shudder pa.s.sed over her. She went to the window and looked out, but in the darkness of the street she could see nothing but the vague outlines of the houses across the way and a blot where the lilac-bush was in the yard.

Sinking upon the seat she proceeded to uncoil her heavy hair, braiding it deftly over her shoulder. Gathering up her combs from the cushion, she went into the hallway and pressed the b.u.t.ton regulating the lights.

In the white glow she regarded her face in the mirror over the fireplace shelf and smiled back faintly at the reflection.

As she turned to the stairway she perceived a white card lying on the floor. She picked it up and turned it over in her hand. It was a little photograph of a young, sweet-faced girl and written across the margin at the bottom she read--the writing ordinary--"To Jack, from Susie." She turned and stared an instant at the vestibule door. Then she mounted the stairs, slowly.

Her mother's voice from the hallway below awakened her.

"I'm here, dear," she called back. "I went to bed--I was so tired."

III

There is this to be said of Jack Houston: whenever he took liquor--which was often--he took it like a man. None of the alley-door for him; through the front door, as st.u.r.dy and frank as a Crusader or not at all--that was his way. Let a faculty man be coming toward him half a block distant, there was no hesitation; not a waver. He--if such were the circ.u.mstance--would nod and pa.s.s directly beyond the double swinging screens, and not give the incident another thought. Nor were bottles ever delivered to his room in boxes marked "Candles." Indeed the outward signs were that he took pride in the bravado with which he carried on the business; for there on the boxes were the stenciled labels--plain enough to be read distinctly across the street--"Perth Whiskey." But it was not that he had a pride in what certain of his fellows were wont to call his "independence." It was simply that he drank--drank when he chose; paid for what he drank; and drank it like a man--a Southern man, honorably. The real trouble was not that he saw fit and cared to drink, or what he drank; but that he drank so much.

And he was in love now; reveling in a mult.i.tude of agreeable sensations, which, perhaps, he had not even dreamed himself destined ever to experience in such fulness. a.n.a.lyzing his emotions he marveled at the condition he discovered. He set himself apart and regarded the other Jack Houston critically. He denied his heart's impeachment; the other Jack sneered and called him a fool. He laughed; the other Jack said,--or seemed to say: "Laugh away; but it's a serious business all the same."

He flaunted; the other adhered to the original charge. In the end he stood before that other Jack and held out his hand, as it were, and--like a man--confessed. And it devolved upon him forthwith to celebrate the discovery of a cardiac ailment he had not experienced before as he was experiencing it now. So, with barbaric, almost beautiful, recklessness, he got drunk; thoroughly, creditably drunk.

The next morning, heavy-headed, thick-tongued, he shifted his eyes sheepishly about the room, while Crowley, from the high ground of his own invincible virtue, talked down to him roundly. He did not interrupt the steady flow of malediction in which his immaculate room-mate seemed determined to engulf him; but when the lecture was ended, he looked up, steadily, and said: "Never mind, old top, it's the last; on the square it is."

As he had a perfect right to do under the circ.u.mstances, Crowley shrugged his shoulders, and looked out the window into the green of a maple.

"All right, old top," Houston driveled on pathetically--"mebbe I've said it before; but this time I mean it--see if I don't." And he reached across the table for a bottle of bitters. He poured half a small gla.s.s with shaking hands. Over the edge of the drink he perceived the sneer on Crowley's face. He set the gla.s.s and bottle on the _chiffonier_ carefully.

"Confound you! don't you believe me, you white-ribbon parson!" he cried.

Crowley smiled broadly.

Houston seized the gla.s.s. "There!" he exclaimed--"Now do you believe me?--Not even a bracer!" And he flung gla.s.s and liquor into the waste-paper basket.

Crowley laughed aloud at that, and went down-stairs, and Houston, as he finished dressing, heard him talking to the landlady's collie on the front porch.

For that afternoon--it being Sat.u.r.day--he had planned a boating trip, with a picnic supper, down the river. The care-taker at the boathouse helped him tote the canoe around the dam, while Florence, her face shaded by the blue parasol she carried, stood on the bank by the railway. Her hamper was stowed away securely, and while the man held fast to the frail craft, Houston lifted her fairly from the ground and set her, fluffy and cool, in the bow where he had arranged the cushions.

To the attendant music of many little cries of half fright, the canoe, at one sweep of the paddle, shot into midstream.

The river was unusually high; the spring rains had been frequent and plentiful, and now the water ran flush with the green banks on either side. Past the ivy-hung station they drifted with the current. Florence sat silent among the cushions watching the rhythmic, graceful sweep of the paddle, strongly, evenly manipulated by her flannel-clad gondolier.

It was an occasion for unvoiced enjoyment. On the left rose the hills--threaded by the winding, white boulevard--thick with greenery, through which now and then were to be caught glimpses of The Hermitage--poised obliquely on the hillside, a sheer declivity falling from its broad canopied piazza. Skirting the bank, the pa.s.sage of the canoe wrought havoc among the birds, and they flew to and fro across the stream, or, hopping nervously from branch to branch, screamed their displeasure at the rude invasion of their domestic quiet.

Florence removed her rings, and, dropping her hand over the low rail, let it trail through the dark-green water, alive with the shivering reflections of the bank verdure.

The boat glided beneath the old wooden bridge at the boulevard beginning, and two small boys who were fishing from the weather-stained structure forgot their lines to watch the pa.s.sage of the silent craft.

Further on, the current ran more swiftly and Jack ceased paddling, relaxed, steered merely.

They talked of many things in the stillness. Now and then they were moved to outbursts of sentiment occasioned by the beauty of the hills and the little surprises of charm that nature, at each curve of the wandering stream, brought into view. Overhead, feathery clouds, almost opalescent, floated in a turquoise sky; and the breeze that was wafted across the hills kissed cool their faces.

Florence drew in her dripping hand and dried it on her handkerchief.

The sun was obscured and she closed the blue parasol. Finally she said:

"Jack--Jack dear--why did you do it?"

She did not lift her eyes as she spoke, but, rather, regarded the tip of her parasol, pressed against the toe of one little patent-leather slipper.

"What?" he asked calmly; so calmly that she could not tell whether he were dissembling ignorance of her meaning.

"You understand," she said--"last night----"

"How do you know?" he exclaimed suddenly; but before she could reply he added, gently, "I'm sorry--I'm dead sorry!"

She was moved to lift her eyes by the note of contrition in his voice.

Her lips parted the least bit over her teeth and she smiled.

"How--how could you, dear?" she went on; "after--after--that night. I've been thinking about it all day. I didn't mean to mention it at first--but--but--I couldn't help it. You don't really like to do such things; do you, Jack? There, I know you don't. It's just what they call--spirits--I suppose----"

He laughed aloud, and his laugh was echoed back across the river. "Yes,"

he cried, gleefully--"that's it--_spirits_!"

She glanced up at him reprovingly. "You know I didn't mean that. I don't think you should laugh. But Jack dear,"--she gazed steadily, soberly, at him now--"you won't do it any more, will you?"

He did not answer.

"Can't you promise me, Jack--_me_?" she asked, tenderly.

Long afterward she recalled to him that instant of hesitation before he replied.

"I promise," he exclaimed, finally, with a brave note of resolution in his voice.

She sighed and settled back more comfortably among the cushions.

"I knew you would," she said.

After a moment: "Do you care so very--so very, very much?" he asked.

"Of course I do," she answered, quite gaily.

"Why?"

The eagerness in his voice startled her. It may have been that which induced the little tremor she felt pa.s.s over her. She closed her eyes as he, leaning forward, watched her.

"Dearest--dearest," she heard him whisper; "is it because--because----"

She opened her eyes then, dreamily, languishingly, and in them he seemed to read her answer, and was satisfied.

They had reached the point where they had planned to spread their picnic supper. He drove the canoe into the soft earth of the sloping bank and steadied it with the paddle while she, gathering up her fluffy skirts, stepped out. He dragged the boat upon the bank and handed her the hamper. They climbed up to a shelf of rock over the edge of which a spring sent whirling to the road below a glistening rope of water. They set the basket in the cool shade, at the edge of the shelf, and descending again followed the road along the stream. The air was filled with the sounds of joyous Nature. The world was glad and gay; glad for the tall, strong youth in flannels who strode beside a yellow-haired girl; and gay for the girl.