"Dear," he went on, "have you and I just been playing at life?"

"Oh, it seems so," she cried. "I know I am unhappy, groping." She stood up and put out her hands to him. He took them, drew her close to him.

"Ina," he said, "let me go with you and the children to the seash.o.r.e.

Let's try to know one another better."

A radiance came upon her, filling her eyes. She did not speak, only she held very fast to his hand, as though in the clasp she found an anchor.

There came the glorious summer day marked for the journey to the seash.o.r.e. Suzanna, Maizie, and Peter waited for the Bartlett carriage which was to convey them to the depot. At last they heard it coming. At last it stood before the gate, and Daphne put her small head out of the carriage window. Then Graham opened the door and sprang to the ground.

He said a word to David who was driving, and ran up the path.

Maizie began to dance, Peter to whistle. But Suzanna stood quite still, the glow of antic.i.p.ation falling from her face.

"Are you quite ready, Suzanna?" asked Mrs. Procter.

At the words Suzanna's control broke. With a little cry she ran into her mother's arms. "Oh, mother, mother," she sobbed, "I can't go away, so far away and leave you--a whole month!"

Mrs. Procter held the small figure close. Her own eyes were wet, but she spoke calmly:

"Why, little girl, mother will be here waiting for your return, and longing to hear all about your good time. Come, dry your eyes and think how happy you're going to be."

"But I know you'll be lonesome, mother, and so shall I be for you."

"But when you grow lonesome," Mrs. Procter whispered, "just think how lovely it will be to return home; and remember that father's machine will be given its great test before you come back. Mr. Bartlett and Mr.

Ma.s.sey have made all arrangements."

Suzanna's face brightened; the clouds dispelled themselves, so she was able to greet Graham with much of her old smile.

"All ready?" he cried as he ran up the steps. "Father and mother and a maid are following in another carriage. Nancy is with us."

He was quite plainly excited by some thought deeper than the mere fact of going to the seash.o.r.e. Suzanna's companionship was promised for long days to come; he knew her eye for beauty hidden from others; her quaint speech. And then, too, a new relationship had come to pa.s.s between himself and his mother. Between them an understanding that made him glow.

It seemed but a moment before they were all together in the train.

Suzanna settled herself to look out of the window at the pa.s.sing landscape, so exhilaratingly new to her. Maizie sat beside her, Peter across the aisle with Graham. Little Daphne was cuddled close to Mrs.

Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett was in the dining-car.

Maizie whispered to her sister: "We've come to the future now, haven't we, Suzanna?"

"Why, you can't ever come to the future," returned Suzanna.

Maizie puzzled a moment. "But don't you remember, mother said we might travel on a train some time in the future? So now we're doing it, why haven't we come to the future?"

"Because you never can come to the future," Suzanna repeated. She leaned forward and spoke to Mrs. Bartlett. "When you're living a day it's the present, isn't it, Mrs. Bartlett?"

Mrs. Bartlett looked long at the two children. "Maizie thinks the future an occasion, I think," she said, and then, because lucid explanation was beyond her, she continued: "You know we have a big cottage at the seash.o.r.e, and the cottage is close to the water."

Maizie it was who at last broke the thrilling silence: "Where there's an ocean? And where you can go wading and swimming?" she cried.

"And will there be sand?" asked Suzanna, hanging upon the answer breathlessly.

"Yes, there's a wide yellow beach running into the ocean where you can dig and build castles all day," said Mrs. Bartlett.

"Oh, my cup is full and runneth over," said Suzanna solemnly.

The train swept on through small towns and the children's delight and amazement increased. And when at noon the climax came, and they all went forward into the dining-car, they were one and all silent. No words great enough were in their vocabulary to express this moment.

Said Mr. Bartlett when they were all seated: "Now, children, you may order just exactly what you'd like. You first, Suzanna."

"Well," she said, without hesitation, "I should like some golden brown toast that isn't burned, with lots of b.u.t.ter on it, and a cup of cocoa with a marshmallow floating on top, and at the very last, a dish of striped ice cream with a cherry right in the middle."

Mr. Bartlett wrote the order rapidly on a card. Each of the children spoke out his deepest, perhaps his long-cherished desire. Some of the dishes were secretly and mercifully modified by Mrs. Bartlett, who sat in enjoyment of the scene.

"It's like a dream, Mrs. Bartlett," said Suzanna when, dinner finished, they were all back once more in the parlor car. "You don't think we'll wake up, do you?"

"No, I think not; you'll simply get wider and wider awake."

But, as the hours crept on and as she watched the flying landscape, the reaction to all her excitement came and a haze fell over everything, and she slept, to awaken some time later, full of contrition.

She spoke anxiously to Mrs. Bartlett: "Oh, I appreciated it all, Mrs.

Bartlett, but my eyes just closed down of themselves," she said.

Mrs. Bartlett smiled. "It's a long journey," she said, "but we'll soon see the end of it."

At nine o'clock the train stopped for the first time since dark had fallen. "Here we are," cried Mr. Bartlett. And in a few moments they were all standing on the platform of a little railroad station waiting while carriages were being secured to take them for the night to a hotel nestling on the top of a tall hill.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SEASh.o.r.e

Morning came--a rather misty morning that promised better as the day advanced. Suzanna, sleeping with Maizie in a small room on the second floor of the hotel, woke, gazed about her unfamiliar surroundings, sprang out of bed, and in her bare feet ran to the window. There before her was a magnificent group of mountains, wooded with majestic trees whose tops seemed to touch the sky. Beneath the mountains, just at their feet, a river ran, the sun dancing on its breast. Suzanna held her breath in sheer awe; she could not move even to call Maizie. She felt as though something great out there in the mountains called to her spirit and though she wished to answer she could not do so.

The tapestry spread below the mountains of water and green slopes and velvet meadows sun-kissed too, called to her; the artist in her was keenly, deeply responsive to the call, still she could not answer, only stand and gaze and gaze, and drink in the beauty that stretched before her.

Then old Nancy came with hurrying words, waking Maizie. "We can stay in this town but two hours before our train is due," she said. "So you must dress at once, Suzanna."

So Suzanna dressed in silence, answering none of Maizie's chatter, as though she had been in a far, unexplored country and had returned steeped in the mysteries of that distant land.

Her silence still lay upon her when after breakfast they all set out for a walk around the historic old town. There were babies, happy, dirty babies, playing about doorsteps of one-storied plaster houses, or toddling about the cobble-stoned roads.

The streets were narrow and steep, the roads wide with moss edged in between the wide cracks. Suzanna kept her eyes down; she would not look up at the mountains, and finally Mr. Bartlett, noticing her silence, asked: "Do you like it here, Suzanna?"

"Yes," she said. "But I can't look at the mountains. They take my breath away and make me stand still inside. Maybe some day I'll be able to look straight at them, but not now, and some day when I'm a woman I'm going to come back here and make a poem and set it to a wonderful painting."

He smiled at the way she put it.