They were enchanted with this suggestion. Indeed, they were in a state of mind to have a.s.sented if I advised them to sit out on a park bench until morning.

Yet, when I had put them and their scanty luggage into a taxicab, I suffered a bad pang of misgiving. What responsibility was I a.s.suming in letting my little-girl cousin go like this? What did I know of this man, or where he would take her? I think Phillida divined something of my trouble, for she leaned out the door to me and held up her face like a child's to be kissed.

"I am so _happy_," she whispered.

I turned to Vere; who had a long envelope in readiness to put in my hand.

"I guess you might like to have these for a while, Mr. Locke," he said, with one of his slow, straightforward glances.

With which farewells I had to be content, and watch their taxi swing out into the bright-dark flow of traffic where it was lost from my sight.

After which, I entered another taxicab by my unromantic self and was driven to that railroad station where I would find a train bound to the college town that was the home of Aunt Caroline and her husband. One always thought of Phil's parents in that order, although the Professor was a moderately distinguished scientist and his spouse merely masterful in her own limited circle.

The envelope Vere had given me contained their marriage certificate, his release from the Navy, and his membership card in the American Legion.

CHAPTER IV

"Fair speech is more rare than the emerald found by slave maidens on the pebbles."--PTAH-HOTEP.

At ten o'clock, next morning, I was summoned from my sleep by the bell of the telephone beside my bed. It was not a pleasant sleep, although I had not returned to my apartment until dawn. Nightmare doubts galloped ruthless hoofs over any repose.

Phillida's voice came over the wire to me like the morning song of a bird.

"Good-morning, Cousin Roger. We are going to take the train in a few moments. But I could not leave New York without telling you how happy I am. Are you--did I wake you up? I was afraid that I might, but Ethan said you would like me to call, even so."

"My dear, it was the kindest thought you ever had," I told her fervently.

"Was it?" she hesitated. "Then--were they pretty dreadful to you at home?"

"Quite!"

"Do you suppose they will _do_ anything dreadful about us?"

"No. Nothing."

It did not seem necessary to tell her that Aunt Caroline did not know where the runaways had gone, and was thereby debarred from hasty action.

Phillida's father had privately agreed with me in this.

"I am so very happy, Cousin Roger!"

"I am glad, Phil."

"And you will come to the farm soon?"

"Soon," I promised.

So the nightmares of immediate anxiety for her galloped themselves away, routed for that time. Like my gold-fish when their bowl has been unduly shaken, I sank down again into the quieted waters of my little world and absorption in my own affairs. There have been hours when I wondered if I was of more importance than they, as a matter of cosmic fact.

A month pa.s.sed before I kept my promise to go to the farm in Connecticut.

As a first reason, I wanted to leave my young couple alone for a period of adjustment. Also, I was curious to see how they would handle the business left to them. I held telephone conversations with Phillida, and with various contractors now and then. I sent out the furnishings for my own room. Everything else I purposely left to the experimenters.

There was a second reason, more obscure. I wanted to keep for a while the little mystery of the lady who had come to the farmhouse room in the dark of the night. She was pure romance, a rare incident in a prosaic age. My table had been bare of such delicately spiced morsels, and I relished the savor of this one upon my palate. I was not quite ready to find her in the matter-of-fact daughter of some neighbor, who had sought shelter from the storm in that supposedly empty house and probably mistaken me for a tramp.

Perhaps I was equally reluctant to go back and prove that the adventure was ended, that she had been a bird of pa.s.sage who had gone on with no thought of return.

With all these delays, and the fact that my work really kept me busy in town, April was verging toward May when I finally saw the last of my luggage put into the car and started on my fifty-mile drive to the house by the lake. I did not take this first visit very seriously, or intend it to be over long. To be a constraint upon the household I had established, or a.s.sume a right there, was far from the course I planned.

It was not certain Vere and I would be comfortable housemates. But to stay away altogether would have hurt Phillida as much as to stay too long, I considered. Probably a week would be about enough for this time.

So lightly, so ignorantly, I stepped from the first great division of my life into the second; not hearing the closing of the gate through which there was no turning back.

CHAPTER V

"The very room, coz she was in, Seemed warm from floor to ceilin'."

--THE COURTIN'.

I arrived at noon, when a bright sun set the country air afloat with motes like dust of gold. The place seemed drenched in golden light. Even the young gra.s.s had gold in its green, and the lake glittered hot with yellow sparkles.

The house was transformed. The cream-colored stucco that hid its homely walls, deep, arched porches that took the place of the old shallow affairs, scarlet Spanish tiles where bleached shingles had been--all united in giving it the gayest, most modern air imaginable. A gravel drive curved in beneath the new porte-cochere, inviting the wheels of my car to explore. Gra.s.s had been put in order, flower-beds laid out. The new dam was up, and the miniature lake no longer suggested a swamp. If the place had appealed to me in its dreary neglect, now it held out its arms to me and laughed an invitation.

As I stepped from my car, I heard running feet and a girl sped around the veranda to meet me. She cast herself into my arms before I fairly realized this was Phillida. A Phillida as new to my eyes as the house!

After the first greetings I held her off to a.n.a.lyze the change.

She was tanned and actually rosy. The corners of her once sad little mouth turned up instead of down and developed--I looked twice--yes, developed a dimple. The dull hair I always had seen brushed plainly back, now was parted on one side and fluffed itself across her forehead and about her cheeks with an astonishing effectiveness. She was attired in a China-blue linen frock with a scarlet sash knotted in front quite daringly, for Phillida.

"Why, Phil, how pretty we are!" I admired.

She looked up at me like a praised little girl, and smoothed the sash. I noticed she wore above her wedding ring that "diamond" which once had adorned Vere's finger so distastefully to me. It shone bravely in the sunlight with quite a display of fire. Tracing my gaze, she held out her hand for me to see.

"Yes, it was his, Cousin Roger. Of course, we have not very much money yet, and I do not care about all the engagement rings that ever were thought of. But, I was afraid people up here might notice that I had none and think slightingly of Ethan. So I asked him, and we went to a jeweler, who made it smaller to fit me. It is not a false stone, you know. It is a white topaz, and I love it better than the biggest diamond."

"Then you are still happy?"

"Forever and ever, world without end," she answered solemnly.

We went in.

Sun and sweet wind had worked white magic in the long-closed house.

Quaint furniture, no longer dust-grimed but l.u.s.trous with cleanliness and polish, had quite a different air. Fresh upholstery in cheerful tints, fresh paper on the walls, good rugs, order and daintiness everywhere changed the interior out of my recognition. Already the atmosphere of home and cheer was established.

"Come see your rooms," Phillida invited, enraptured by my admiration.