But how could she go? Doctor Philip would think it queer and ungrateful of her after she had promised to stay. How could she desert him and the children and dear Granny? And if she went what could she do? What use was she anyway but to be a trouble and a burden to everybody? It would have been better, much better, if Larry had left her to die in the wreck.

Why didn't Geoffrey Annersley come and get her, if there was a Geoffrey Annersley? She knew she would hate him, but she wished he would come for all that. Anything was better than making Larry suffer, making all the Holidays suffer through him. Oh why hadn't she died, why hadn't she?

But in her heart Ruth knew she did not want to die. She wanted to live.

She wanted life and love and happiness and Larry Holiday.

And then Tony stood on the threshold, smiling friendly encouragement.

"Ready, hon? Oh, you look sweet! That blue is lovely for you. It never suited me at all. Blue is angel color and I have too much--well, of the other thing in my composition to wear it. Come on. The boys have been whistling impatience for half an hour and I don't want to scare Larry out of going. It is the first function he has condescended to attend in a blue moon."

On the porch Ted and Larry waited, two tall, st.u.r.dy, well-groomed, fine-looking youths, bearing the indefinable stamp of good birth and breeding, the inheritance of a long line of clean strong men and gentle women--the kind of thing not forged in one generation but in many.

They both rose as the girls appeared. Larry crossed over to Ruth. His quick gaze took in her nervousness and trouble of mind.

"Are you all right, Ruth? You mustn't let us bully you into going if you really don't want to."

"No, I am all right. I do want to--with you," she added softly.

"We'll all go over in the launch," announced Ted, but Larry interposed the fact that he and Ruth were going in the canoe. Ruth would get too tired if she got into a crowd.

"More professional graft," complained Ted. He was only joking but Tony with her sharpened sight knew that it was thin ice for Larry and suspected he had non-professional reasons for wanting Ruth alone in the canoe with him that night. Poor Larry! It was all a horrible tangle, just as her affair with Alan was.

It was a night made for lovers, still and starry. Soft little breezes came tiptoeing along the water from fragrant nooks ash.o.r.e and stopped in their course to kiss Ruth's face as she lay content and lovely among the scarlet cushions, reading the eloquent message of Larry Holiday's gray eyes.

They did not talk much. They were both a little afraid of words. They felt as if they could go on riding in perfect safety along the edge of the precipice so long as neither looked over or admitted out loud that there was a precipice.

CHAPTER XVIII

A YOUNG MAN IN LOVE

The dance was well in progress when Larry and Ruth arrived. The latter was greeted cordially and not too impressively by gay little Sue Emerson, their hostess, and her friends. Ruth was ensconced comfortably in a big chair where she could watch the dancers and talk as much or little as she pleased. Everybody was so pleasant and natural and uncurious that she did not feel frightened or strange at all, and really enjoyed the little court she held between dances. Pretty girls and pleasant lads came to talk with her, the latter besieging her with invitations to dance which she refused so sweetly that they found the little Goldilocks more charming than ever for her very denial.

They rallied Larry however on his rigorous dragonship and finally Ruth herself dismissed him to dance with his hostess as a proper guest should.

She never meant he must stick to her every moment anyway. That was absurd. He rose to obey reluctantly; but paused to ask if she wouldn't dance with him just once. No, she couldn't--didn't even know whether she could. He mustn't try to make her. And seeing she was in earnest, Larry left her. But Ted came skating down the floor to her and he begged for just one dance.

"Oh, I couldn't, Ted, truly I couldn't," she denied.

But obeying a sudden impulse Ted had swooped down upon her, picked her up and before she really knew what was happening she had slid into step with him and was whirling off down the floor in his arms.

"Didn't I tell you, sweetness?" he exulted. "Of course you can dance.

What fairy can't? Tired?" He bent over to ask with the instinctive gentleness that was in all Holiday men.

Ruth shook her head. She was exhilarated, excited, tense, happy. She could dance--she could. It was as easy and natural as breathing. She did not want to stop. She wanted to go on and on. Then suddenly something snapped. They came opposite Sue and Larry. The former called a gay greeting and approval. Larry said nothing. His face was dead white, his gray eyes black with anger. Both Ted and Ruth saw and understood and the lilt went out of the dance for both of them.

"Oh Lord!" groaned Ted. "Now I've done it. I'm sorry, Ruth. I didn't suppose the old man would care. Don't see why he should it you are willing. Come on, just one more round before the music stops and we're both beheaded."

But Ruth shook her head. There was no more joy for her after that one glimpse of Larry's face.

"Take me to a seat, Ted, please. I'm tired."

He obeyed and she sank down in the chair, white and trembling, utterly exhausted. She was hurt and aching through and through. How could she?

How could she have done that to Larry when he loved her so? How could she have let Ted make her dance with him when she had refused to dance with Larry? No wonder he was angry. It was terrible--cruel.

But he mustn't make a scene with Ted. He mustn't. She cast an apprehensive glance around the room. Larry was invisible. A forlornness came over her, a despair such as she had never experienced even in that dreadful time after the wreck when she realized she had forgotten everything. She felt as if she were sinking down, down in a fearful black sea and that there was no help for her anywhere. Larry had deserted her. Would he never come back?

In a minute Tony and the others were beside her, full of sympathetic questions. How had it seemed to dance again? Wasn't it great to find she could still do it? How had she dared to do it while Larry was off guard?

Why wouldn't she, couldn't she dance with this one or that one if she could dance with Ted Holiday? But they were quick to see she was really tired and troubled and soon left her alone to Tony's ministrations.

"Ruth, what is the trouble? Where is Larry? And Ted is gone, too. What happened?" Tony's voice was anxious. She hadn't seen Larry's face, but she knew Larry and could guess at the rest.

"Ted made me dance with him. I didn't mean to. But when we got started I couldn't bear to stop, it was so wonderful to do it and to find I could.

I--am afraid Larry didn't like it."

"I presume he didn't," said Larry's sister drily. "Let him be angry if he wants to be such a silly. It was quite all right, Ruthie. Ted has just as much right to dance with you as Larry has."

"I am afraid Larry doesn't think so and I don't think so either."

Tony squeezed the other girl's hand.

"Never mind, honey. You mustn't take it like that. You are all of a tremble. Larry has a fearful temper, but he will hang on to it for your sake if for no other reason. He won't really quarrel with Ted. He never does any more. And he won't say a word to you."

"I'd rather he would," sighed Ruth. "You are all so good to me and I--am making a dreadful lot of trouble for you all the time, though I don't mean to and I love you so."

"It isn't your fault, Ruthie, not a single speck of it. Oh, yes. I mean just what you mean. Not simply Larry's being so foolish as to lose his temper about this little thing, but the whole big thing of your caring for each other. It is all hard and mixed up and troublesome; but you are not to blame, and Larry isn't to blame, and it will all come out right somehow. It has to."

As soon as Ted had a.s.sured himself that Ruth was all right in his sister's charge he had looked about for Larry. Sue was perched on a table eating marshmallows she had purloined from somewhere with Phil Lambert beside her, but there was no Larry to be seen.

Ted stepped outside the pavilion. He was honestly sorry his brother was hurt and angry. He realized too late that maybe he hadn't behaved quite fairly or wisely in capturing Ruth like that, though he hadn't meant any harm, and had had not the faintest idea Larry would really care, care enough to be angry as Ted had not seen him for many a long day. Larry's temper had once been one of the most active of the family skeletons. It had not risen easily, but when it did woe betide whatever or whomever it met in collision. By comparison with Larry's rare outbursts of rage Tony's frequent ebullitions were as summer zephyrs to whirlwinds.

But that was long past history. Larry had worked manfully to conquer his familiar demon and had so far succeeded that sunny Ted had all but forgotten the demon ever existed. But he remembered now, had remembered with consternation when he saw the black pa.s.sion in the other's face as they met on the floor of the dance hall.

Puzzled and anxious he stared down the slope toward the water. Larry was just stepping into the canoe. Was he going home, leaving Ruth to the mercies of the rest of them, or was he just going off temporarily by himself to fight his temper to a finish as he had been accustomed to do long ago when he had learned to be afraid and ashamed of giving into it?

Ted hesitated a moment, debating whether to call him back and get the row over, if row there was to be, or to let him get away by himself as he probably desired.

"Hang it! It's my fault. I can't let him go off like that. It just about kills him to take it out of himself that way. I'd rather he'd take it out of me."

With which conclusion Ted shot down the bank whistling softly the old Holiday Hill call, the one d.i.c.k had used that day on the campus to summon himself to the news that maybe Larry was killed.

Larry did not turn. Ted reached the sh.o.r.e with one stride.

"Larry," he called. "I say, Larry."

No answer. The older lad picked up the paddle, prepared grimly to push off, deaf, to all intents and purposes to the appeal in the younger one's voice.