o es Hn fetes sits tafe) ites 3 : GES and ®abor. LIBRARY OF THE versity of Illinois. BOOK. VOLUME. gg al or < m - * * £ ‘i 3 © a Ce eed y eat ik on ee ye Me e {mews & yey Bi ae THE ROYAL MARINE at ray ame -e2 [See page 139 PIR Ss DDEN IN U AS EK HAD i" zs Sa wn 2 . fe fro pa wa © THE ROYAL MARINE Fn Tdyl of Warragansett Pier BY BRANDER MATTHEWS AUTHOR OF ‘THE STORY OF A STORY, AND OTHER STORIES” “VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN” ETO, ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1894 oy - CONTENTS CHAP, PAGE I. JUDGE GILLESPIE’S LUNCHEON. . a Il LITTLE MAT HITCHCOCK’S CRAB- BING-PARTY ° . e . ° ° . 30 III. THE HOP AT THE CASINO Re a ci IV. THE MORNING SERVICE AT THE CEReEEE OES oe” "+ gs eee ee V. MISS MARLENSPUYK’S READING- LITE, os Re a eee” Mamie ate eS 3) VI. THE CONCERT AT THE CASINO. . 116 S815 ILLUSTRATIONS “HE HAD A SUDDEN INSPIRATION”. . . . Frontispiece “<HOW’S THE WATER THIS MORNING?’”?, Facingp. 6 «(ST RECKON SO,’ SHE REPLIED” . . . . “ 26 “WHENEVER ANY OF THE OTHER MEN WENT OFF WITH HER FORA WALK” . .. “ 32 “TITTLE MAT HITCHCOCK”. . . .... “ 44 Deceerenitc =... a eae 62 ots! RS SN a 74 “¢sHE DIDN’T ACCEPT ME—NO,’ HE AN- 0 EEL SS SRG a a age a 108 ee Pe “nt THE ROYAL MARINE; AN IDYL OF NARRAGANSETT PIER CHAPTER I JUDGE GILLESPIE’S LUNCHEON Ir was not yet half-past eleven o’clock of a bright, warm morning towards the end of July when Mr. Joshua Hoff- man’s steam-yacht Lhadamanthus an- nounced her arrival at Narragansett Pier and dropped anchor off the beach. | A few minutes later an electric launch sped alongside the little float just within the breakwater before the Ca- sino, and the aged owner of the yacht stepped ashore, accompanied by one of 4 his guests, a young man of barely thir. 7 ty. Under the arch of the Casino thes old gentleman found a carriage, and af- ter making a bargain with the driver, he got in. “T shall be back about four o’clock,” he said to his young friend. “You will find me here in good time, sir,’ was the reply. Then the carriage drove off with the owner of the yacht, and the younger man was left standing. Before him was the open door of the Casino, but a single glance told him that the hour had not yet ar- rived when the veranda and the terrace filled up with guests. He turned to the right, and in two minutes he found himself tramping along a covered plank walk which ran in front of the line of low wooden bath- ing-houses. Striped awnings protected from the glare of the sun the gayly | 5 dressed women who sat on the platforms which projected from every bathing- house. Beyond these platforms there were slight white tents, under the shel- ter of which little children played in the sand and were happy. In front of the tents was the broad beach, whereon the surf was breaking sturdily. A throng of women, young and old, with here and there a man, or more of- ten a boy, floated leisurely down the plank walk, and filled the platforms, and spread out over the beach, exchang- ing frequent greetings with one another. The passenger who had just landed from the Lhadamanthus heard cheerful young voices on all sides of him asking each other, ‘ How’s the water this morn- ing?’ “Are you going in?” “Whose yacht is that?” with other questions of like importance. Although he had not yet recognized a single acquaintance in 6 the crowd which surged about him, the young man did not feel lonely. He gazed around placidly, interested by the sight and moving forward slowly. When he had gone to the end of the plank walk and had turned back again, two small boys in their bathing-suits, just out of the water and dripping wet, rushed past him in high glee; and in seeking to keep out of their way as they turned and twisted at his side, he care- lessly trod on the dress of the lady in front of him. He heard the skirt rip before the weight of his foot checked the progress of the owner of the dress. “T beg your pardon!” he cried, tak- ing off his hat hastily, as he heard her say “Oh!” in a tone of annoyance. Catching his apology, she turned and smiled sweetly, and said: “ It don’t mat- ter. It isn’t torn, I reckon.” The accent was Southern. So per- “6 How’s THE WATER THIS MORNING ?’” 7 haps was the face of the speaker. She was a girl of scant twenty, a little short, and almost plump. She had light brown hair which curled easily under a stiff sail- or hat. Her eyes were dark gray. She wore a white yachting-dress trimmed with blue; on the sleeve were the stripes and the crowned V.R. of a boatswain in the navy of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. At her right walked a handsome boy of six, strikingly like his sister. He, too, wore a sailor suit of British manu- facture ; his straw hat had a black band, whereon was stamped, in gold letters, Pb, 9. Victory.” As she turned away and passed on again, the young man who had trod on her gown caught sight of the man who was walking with her on the left. “Why, that’s little Mat Hitchcock,” he said to himself. As he had no great liking for Mr. Mather Hitchcock, he 8 dismissed the young lady’s companion from his mind. Leaving the bathing-houses, he went down on the beach and strolled along, looking for the strange and peculiar cos- tumes that were to be seen at Narragan- sett Pier, if the comic papers could be believed; but in less than ten minutes he was forced to the conclusion that the humorous artists were not credible, for — the bathing-dresses he saw before him then were as decorous as he had seen at any other American watering-place. Wherein Narragansett Pier differed from other watering-places was not in the costumes of its bathers, but in the beauty of its beach, which sloped slowly away, and on which the waves rolled in and curled over and fell forward with most enticing freshness. Their appeal was irresistible at last, and when the clock of the Casino doubt- “ Dee os * oP 4% Sue narttigte. Cs A ee “he=* = 9 fully chimed forth the hour of noon, the young man who had arrived on the Rhadamanthus was in the surf. The sand was fine and firm, and free from stones and shells. The waves fell for- ward sharply, and the surf tingled the blood of the bathers and refreshed them. There was no undertow, and so there ‘was no need of a life-line; even little children splashed about safely in water up to their armpits. To rescue any one who might stand in sudden need of help, there was a row-boat bobbing up and down just outside the breakers. Three small rafts, anchored one beyond the other, afforded resting-places for advent- urous swimmers; and the farthest of the three was furnished with a spring- board for diving. The young man who had landed from the yacht plunged head foremost into the first breaker he met, and then swam 10 briskly to the nearest raft. Having thus wet and warmed himself, he came inshore, that he might have the full benefit of the surf. When he touched bottom again and stood firm that a breaker larger than usual should curve over him, he found himself near a little group of bathers, and he could not help but hear their conversation. Two stal- wart young men, one with a white shirt having a light-blue C on it, and the other in a white shirt having a dark-red H on it, were begging a young lady to let them tow her out to the nearest raft. “But I can’t swim a stroke, and you know I mustn’t get my hair wet,” said the:girl, “if you want to see me at the hop to-night.” At the sound of her voice the passen- ger from the Lhadamanthus looked around, and he identified her at once as the young lady whose dress he had trod- 11 den upon nearly half an hour earlier. Her bathing-costume was of black, and her light-brown hair was coiled tightly about her shapely head, two or three stray locks curling prettily over her fore- head. In the full light of the mid-day sun there was a glint of gold in some of the braids) The water and the wind had heightened the fresh color in her cheeks. Apparently she had not recog- nized him again, and the young man, remarking her beauty, hoped that he had not torn her gown badly. At last she suffered herself to be per- suaded, and the two young athletes from Columbia College and Harvard stood before her side by side, and she rested a sunburnt hand lightly on the shoulder of each, and then they struck out to- gether, swimming high out of the water, so as to support her, while little Mat Hitchcock went on ahead as a pilot to 12 clear the way; and thus she was con- voyed safely to her destination, the ca- pricious surf sparing her hair. The young man watched while the girl was towed to the raft and helped up to a seat upon it. Then, with a half-sigh of regret that he did not have the pleasure of her acquaintance, he dived again into a big wave, and swam out steadily and sturdily beyond the life boat and around it and back again. ! Half an hour later he walked up the steps of the Casino, and found himself face to face with an old friend. “ Miss Marlenspuyk!” he cried. “Warren Payn, I declare!” was her response. “I am really glad to see you. Come and get me a chair, and sit down beside me and tell me all you know.” “Tm afraid that won’t take me long,” “LITTLE MAT HITCHCOCK”? Sr OS da es a) V<. ¥ < Ce} _— ™ * 13 he answered, as he followed the cheery old maid out on the terrace. The sight of her wrinkled face, with its crown of silver-gray hair and its wonderful blue eyes twinkling with good-humor, made the young man feel at home at once. He got her a com- fortable arm-chair, and he put another before her to serve as a footstool, and then he sat down beside her. ‘And how are you?” he began. “1? she returned, briskly. “I’m as well as any old woman of seventy has a right to be: ve my hair and my teeth and my eyes still, and I can sleep nights. What more can I expect? But you— you look run down. Are you here for the summer?” “No,” he responded; “I’m going to spend my vacation in the Adirondacks. I’m here only for the day—or for part of the day really. Mr. Hoffman—” 14 “JT thought that was his yacht!” she interjected. “The Jehadamanthus — yes,” Mr. Payn went on. “ Mr. Hoffman — he’s one of our vestrymen, you know—he met me in the street yesterday morning, and he said I looked tired, and that salt water was what I needed. So he ecar- ried me off. We were at New London last night, we are here now, and we go over to Newport at four o’clock; and I take the night boat back this evening, so as to be in time for my choir rehears- al to-morrow evening.” “You are still organist of St. Mar- tha’s?”’ she asked. . He nodded. “And our new rector is a hard worker. He keeps the church open all summer, and he has asked me to give special Sunday-night choral ser- — vices to attract the floating summer population of the city.” 15 “Well,” she said, laughing lightly, “if you haven’t changed of late, you are glad of the hard work.” He smiled. “I don’t run away from it, I hope,” he admitted. “And [ve composed a new Te Deum since you were at St. Martha’s last. When you get back to town you must let me know what morning you can come, and I'll do it for you. It has been quite a suc- cess. ve published it, and it is being done in many of the best churches out West.” “ Let’s see,” she said, looking at him, “how long is it since I had a chat with you last?” “It’s nearly a year,” he answered. “T haven’t seen you since Mr. Hoffman gave that reception to the Bishop of Tuxedo.” “Dear me!” said the old lady, “how time flies nowadays! A year, is it? 16 Well, well! And you must be twenty- seven or twenty-eight now ?” 7 “Tm just thirty,” he returned. “Thirty!” she echoed; “and not married yet? Of course not, or I should have heard of it. Not engaged either?” “Not yet,” he replied, “and Pm in no hurry to be married.” “Then you had better not stay here long,” she retorted; ‘this place is just full of pretty girls, and nice girls too.” : “T saw a pretty girl on the beach,” he said; “a charming girl; a South- erner, I should think, by her accent. I trod on her dress, and she forgave me very sweetly. I almost wish I was go- ing to stay here long enough to make her acquaintance.” “ Describe her to me,” Miss Marlen- spuyk commanded. “Well,” he began, “she was rather a short, I think, with light-brown hair and a good figure—” “JT suppose that means she- was plump?” the old maid interrupted. “You men somehow seem to detest slim women.” Mr. Payn laughed. “ Yes,” he ad- mitted, “I think you might fairly call this girl plump. But she was so young and fresh and wholesome—oh, I wish I could describe her properly! but I can’t.” He paused for a second, and suddenly his face lighted up. “But I can do better than describe her—I can show her to you.” “Where?” asked the old maid, sharp- ly, raising her glasses. “There,” the young man answered, “in the window on the stairs, looking down onus. Don’t you see? Up there —with that little Mat Hitchcock by her side.” 2 18 Miss Marlenspuyk lifted her eyes lei- surely, and caught sight of the young lady whose dress Mr. Warren Payn had torn that morning. The girl was framed in the broad window, on the edge of which she was sitting. By her side her young brother leaned forward, peering down on the crowd below. Just behind her stood Mr. Mather Hitchcock. “Ts that the girl you mean?’ Miss Marlenspuyk asked. ‘The one in the white sailor suit ?” | “That’s the one,” he responded, ea- gerly. “Whoisshe? I know you know everybody.” “JT know her—and I knew her great- grandfather,” the old maid answered, lowering her glasses. ‘ She’s the Royal Marine.” For a moment the young man looked at his companion in mute astonish- ment. 19 “The Royal Marine?” he repeated at last. i “Yes,” said Miss Marlenspnyk, “ that’s what Ieall her. Didn’t you see the V.R. and the British crown on her sleeve?” _ “JT noticed it,’ Mr. Payn acknowl- edged. ‘But I supposed she was wear- ing an imported dress, and—” “But what business has any Ameri- can girl got with Queen Victoria’s mon- ogram ?’ asked Miss Marlenspuyk, ener- getically. ‘If American girls are going to wear british crowns on their arms, what was the good of Bunker Hill and the Fourth of July and the Surrender of Cornwallis.” “ Really I don’t know,” said the mu- sician, smiling at her intensity. “ That’s why I call her the Royal Ma- rine,” the old maid declared. ‘‘She’s a dear good girl, and I’m very fond of her —but she’s a Royal Marine for all that!” 20 ® “And what do you call her little brother —for I saw he had ‘H. M.S. Victory’ on his hat?” “ Disousting, isn’t it?’ Miss Marlen- spuyk replied. ‘I suppose I must call him Her Majesty’s Midshipmite.” “Royal Marine or not,” said the young man, looking up at the window, “she’s just as pretty as she can be.” . “That’s nothing to her credit,” the old maid declared. “Tm just as pretty as I can be, too—so we all are—but it doesn’t do us much good, does it? The Royal Marine is pretty because she can’t help it; she was born so. So was her mother before her—and at the same age her grandmother was the best-looking of the three. That’s her grandmother over there talking to Judge Gillespie,” and with a gesture she indicated a hand- some old lady, over whose chair an old beau was bent in conversation. 21 “J know Judge Gillespie, of course,” Mr. Payn responded. “He’s one of our vestrymen too. But I don’t know Grandma—lI don’t even know her name —or her granddaughter’s name, for that matter.” “Wer granddaughter’s name is Carroll —Hectorina Carroll,” said Miss Marlen- spuyk. “ Hectorina?’ Mr. Payn repeated. “ Hectorina,” she returned. ‘It isan odd name, I admit—Hectorina Carroll. She’s no kin to Charles Carroll of Car- rollton, but for all that she’s a terrapin girl.” “ A terrapin girl?’ echoed the young man, helplessly. ‘A Baltimorean, I mean,” she ex- plained. ‘I call all these Marylanders terrapin girls—and they are a very good- looking lot, the terrapin girls here this year.” 22 “Tf Iam to judge by that specimen,” Payn assented, “ ve no doubt you are justified.” “ Hectorina is one of the prettiest of them, of course,” said Miss Marlen- spuyk, “but she is one of the nicest of them too. Some of them are mere fashion plates—‘ Casino costume from Worth, hat from Virot’—you know what I mean.” Payn smiled, and acknowledged that he had met that kind of young woman. « And some girls intended by nature to be pretty,’ Miss Marlenspuyk con- tinued, “come out here in the sunlight with hand-painted faces that wouldn’t deceive a blind man. No doubt these are not the nice girls; they are body- snatchers, mostly.” “What?” cried the young man, again - astonished. ‘ Body-snatchers ?” “You know what I mean—girls who 23 can’t let a man go by without reaching out for him. That’s what I call them— body-snatchers,” the old maid explained. Mr. Warren Payn laughed pleasantly. “T must study your private vocabu- lary,” he said; “you have a nice de- rangement of epitaphs. The ‘ Royal Marine’ is a ‘terrapin girl,’ I see, but she is not a ‘body-snatcher.’ Tm glad of that, I confess.”’ While Miss Marlenspuyk and Mr. Warren Payn had been discussing the different classes of terrapin girls, the Royal Marine and Her Majesty’s Mid- shipmite and Mr. C. Mather Hitchcock had disappeared suddenly. They were now seen threading their way through the throng of chairs on the veranda, mak- ing for the spot where Mrs. Carroll sat chatting with Judge Gillespie. | As the Royal Marine took a chair by the side of her grandmother, while little 24 Mat Hitchcock broke into a hasty con- versation with Judge Gillespie, Miss Marlenspuyk caught sight of them. ‘“‘T suppose they are getting together to go into the dining-room,” she said, rising. “Judge Gillespie is giving a luncheon to Mrs. Carroll this morning.” “JT wish I were going to take in Miss Carroll,” the composer declared. “Mr. Hitcheock will do that, proba- bly; he has been asked, I know,” the old maid returned, moving towards the veranda. ‘Come, and I will introduce you to her.” As they drew near to the group Payn overheard Hitchcock say, “Vm very sorry indeed, but I don’t see what I can do.” The Judge’s response was inaudible, but obviously he was annoyed. He bowed to Miss Marlenspuyk as he stepped up on the veranda, and he 25 stared at her companion, and then sud- denly recognizing him, shook him heart- ily by the hand. “Mr. Warren Payn it is, isn’t it?’ he cried. ‘I’m very glad to see you, very glad indeed.” Then he turned to Hitch- cock again, and said, “ Well, if you must go, of course there’s no help for it.” Miss Marlenspuyk presented Mr. War- ren Payn to Mrs. Carroll and to Miss Carroll. The girl had risen to give Miss Marlenspuyk her chair. The old maid took it, leaving the two young people standing side by side on the edge of the veranda. “JT hope I did not tear your dress very badly, Miss Carroll,” said the young man. “Oh dear no,” she answered, smiling. “T can fix it in ten minutes.” He noticed that her accent was Bal- timorean, but her voice was not s0 26 shrill as that of the average Maryland girl. ‘Are you here for the whole sea- son ?” he asked, after a pause. “T reckon so,” she replied. ‘“ Grand- ma likes it here.” “T don’t wonder,” he responded. “This is my first visit to Narragansett Pier, and it strikes me as a very pleas- ant place. The bathing is delight- fai: “T saw you swimming round the boat,” she said. “I wish I could swim; but I don’t like to get my hair wet.” “You don’t need to swim,” he re- turned, “if you are always as well cared for as this morning.” “Did you see me towed out?’ she laughed. “It was very good of them, wasn't it? I did so want to see how the beach looked from the raft. Mr. Hitchcock suggested it.” 27 Mr. Hitchcock and Mr. Payn there- upon exchanged perfunctory nods. Warren Payn had known little Mat — Hitcheock for years, and had never been able to discover why he detested the fellow; he began now to have a reason. There was an interval of silence, and then Miss Carroll turned to Payn again. “Have you come , for the season, Mr. Payn ?”’ she asked. “Only for the afternoon, I’m sorry to say,” he answered. “I’m here on Mr. Hoffman’s yacht. My real vacation doesn’t begin till next month.” “Tm so sorry,” she said, simply. “Id hoped you were going to stay. You see, there are so few men at the Pier yet.” After a second’s hesitation the young man answered: ‘‘ My plans are all un- settled now. I was going to the Adi- rondacks, but I really don’t know what 28 I shall do. Perhaps I may be able to come here, after all.” “Mr. Payn,” called the Judge, “can I have a moment with you?’ He led the young man aside, and said: “JI want you to do me a favor— if you will? Mrs. Carroll has kindly consented to honor me with her com- pany at luncheon to-day, and so has Miss Marlenspuyk, and also Miss Car- roll. I’m expecting Dr. Pennington, of St. Boniface’s—Philadelphia, you know; he will be here in a moment; and now Mr. Hitchcock, who was to have taken the sixth place, is suddenly summoned to see Mr. Hoffman on business. I know I have no right to ask you now, but you will put me under an obligation if you will join us.” The young man smiled, and respond- ed, “If I can be of any service to you, Judge, you may command me.” 29 “Thank you,” said Judge Gillespie. “T am delighted that you can make one of us.” And so it was that, after all, Mr. War- ren Payn, and not Mr. Mather Hitch- cock, took the Royal Marine in to lunch- eon that day. CHAPTER II LITTLE MAT HITCHCOCK’S CRABBING - PARTY Wuen Mr. Warren Payn gave up his trip to the Adirondacks and went to Nar- ragansett Pier to spend the month of his vacation he was quite honest with him- self; he confessed frankly that it was the Royal Marine that attracted him. He suspected that he loved her. More than once before, in other summers, had he thought that he was in love with some other pretty girl, and always be- fore the end of the summer he had dis- covered that though he might like the young lady very well indeed, he did not really love her. This time the symptoms were different, and they seemed to indi- cate that the heart was actually affected 31 at last. For one thing, he developed an acute jealousy whenever any of the other young men who were summering at Narragansett Pier came near Miss Hec- torina Carroll, going off with her for a walk to the Rocks, or taking her for a drive to Point Judith, or making up a party for a sail across the bay. He de- voted himself to her absolutely, and so far as possible he prevented the approach of Mr. Mather Hitchcock, for example, or any other of the sparse male popula- tion of the Pier. It was only when they were all in bathing together that Mr. Hill-Bunker, the young man with the crimson H on his bathing-shirt, or Mr. Beeckman Bleecker, the young man with the light blue C, was able to get within arm’s- length of the young lady from Balti- more, and even then Mr. Warren Payn was within arm’s-length also. If two 32 pairs of mixed doubles were arranged at tennis, he manceuvred openly to be her partner, and if he was forced to play against her, his side was certain not to win a set, no matter how skilful or how determined his fair ally might be. On the rainy days he would lure her over to the bowling-alley, choosing her balls for her and advising her on every doubtful roll. On the two nights a week when there were hops at the Casino he came with her, carrying Grandma’s cloak ; and he managed generally to get the first dance and the last, and more than his share of those intervening. They danced together very well. She was short, and he was not tall. Perhaps it should have been recorded earlier that he had dark eyes and dark hair, and that he wore a full dark mustache. He was not a handsome man exactly, but he was not ill-looking, and he carried himself 33 well. As it happened, he danced very well, and the Royal Marine was very fond of dancing, and this it was which gave him his first advantage with her, and led them to an earlier intimacy than would have been brought about other- wise. But although she was always willing to dance with him, she treated him very much as she treated all the other young men. She did not encourage him at all; she did not seem even to be conscious of his attentions. She was glad to see him when he joined her on the veranda of the Casino in the evening to listen to the music, or on the lawn of the little church after service on Sunday; she greeted him cordially always; but then her man- ner was just as frank and just as hearty towards Judge Gillespie, towards little Mat Hitcheock, towards Mr. Hill-Bunk- er, and towards Mr. Beeckman Bleecker. 3 34 Whenever he was foiled in his effort to monopolize the Royal Marine’s society, he failed to enjoy even the full share of it which fell to him when she had two or three other young men dancing at- tendance on her. Unless he had her all to himself he was not happy. He was not disagreeable under these circum- stances ; he was not sulky; but he talked little, and took only the slightest part in the dialogue. It seemed as though it was only in a duet that his vocal or- gans could be heard to advantage, their strains being too delicate and evasive to hold their own in the concerted pieces of general conversation. Whenever he was wholly deprived of the privilege of her company—that is to say, whenever she was invited to a little dinner at the Casino and he was not; whenever she went off for a day’s sail in a yacht belonging to a man he did not ~ _. \ ns 35 know; whenever she accepted one or an- other of the invitations that came to her - now and again to go over to Newport toa luncheon or a dance—whenever anything of this kind bore her temporarily be- yond his reach, he was disconsolate. He wandered melancholy along the Rocks, or he sat solitary on a chair on the ve- randa of the Casino, sunk in moody meditation. Of course the Royal Marine herself did not know the state to which he was reduced by her absence, but now and then one of the other girls would notice. Sometimes they would tease him about it unobtrusively. Once one of them was kind-hearted enough to tell ’Rina when she came back from Newport how much Mr. Payn had evidently missed her. That evening at the hop she re- ceived him more coldly than ever be- fore; it was indeed the very first time 36 that she had made any distinction of any kind between him and her other admir- ers. Perhaps if he had been an observer only, and not a lover wholly, he might have interpreted aright this sudden chill- ing of her manner, and he might have been elated rather than cast down that she allowed little Mat Hitchcock to carry Grandma’s shawl that evening, and to eseort them back to the hotel when at last the music ceased and the lights in the ball-room were lowered. For a dozen or more years Mr. Math- er Hitchcock had made it a point to be very attentive to the two or three pret- tiest girls at the Pier. It was surmised that every year he had proposed to two of them at least, and that if he was still a bachelor it was not his fault, but the fault of the score or more of lovely spin- sters who had refused to marry him. To none of the young ladies to whom he 37 had been devoted had he ever been more devoted than to the Royal Marine. To none of their other admirers had he ever felt as he felt towards Mr. Warren Payn. For one thing, he had never for- given the new-comer for having arrived just in time to take his place at Judge Gillespie’s little luncheon. More than once was Mr. Hitchcock annoyed to see Mr. Payn sitting next to Miss Carroll at some impromptu dinner or supper to whieh he (little Mat) was not invited. More often still—for he was known to all the cottagers and to all the regular visitors to the Pier—he had himself the satisfaction of sitting opposite to Miss Carroll at some such feast, while the new-comer, not so well known, was left out of the list of guests. Once when, as it chanced, they were neither of them asked on a certain yachting trip which was to take all day, little Mat saw how 38 desolate the organist looked, how for- lorn, how deserted, and in the contem- plation of his rival’s misery he forgot his own disappointment. Towards the end of August, Hitchcock was even moved to get up a crabbing expedition, carefully arranging that Payn should not be included ; and as the merry party drove past in two elongated buckboards, he had the malign pleasure of seeing the composer smoking a solitary cigar on the terrace of the Casino. That solitary cigar lasted Warren Payn nearly two hours. Often as he relighted it his thoughts wandered five minutes later, and the neglected cigar revenged itself by going out. The musician had always been given to day- dreaming. Perhaps a certain introspec- tive absent- mindedness is one mani- festation of the artistic temperament. Perhaps no man is really an artist— 39 painter or composer or what not—who has not the power of isolating himself and of becoming wholly oblivious of his surroundings, of being swept along, as it were, on the current of his own thoughts. These periods of mental hiber- nation, so to speak, the young musician had found to be the necessary concomi- tants of his periods of artistic productive- ness. During these hours of apparent sloth his mind was often most active. On the day of little Mat Hitchcock’s — crabbing party, for example, he sat on the terrace of the Casino for three hours, speaking to no one, lighting his cigar every quarter of an hour, and looking steadily out to sea. His body was still, but his mind was active. Though his feet did not move, his thoughts had put “on seven-league boots and were striding across the world. When he was tired of thinking of her he thought of him- 40 § self, and he wished he were a Prince Charming, young and beautiful and mighty, that he could come before her as a conqueror and lay himself at her feet. He built many an Aladdin’s pal- ace that he might beseech her to share it with him, planning it in accordance with what he knew of her tastes in house-keeping. Possibly Alnaschar was also a composer of music—one does not know, although one does know that he was never able to produce his greatest composition. When Warren Payn had made an end of his day-dreams at last, and had thrown away his cigar, not yet half smoked, he got up from the chair and started to return to his hotel. As he passed the door of the ladies’ room of the Casino he found himself walking by the side of Miss Marlenspuyk. “Well,” she said, smiling, “do you 41 think that I look like Ariadne, that you have deserted me so long ?” For a moment he stood stock - still, not yet awake to the world about him; then he recovered himself and knew where he was. “Do I look like Bacchus?” he re- turned. “If I look as I feel, I must look even soberer than usual.” “ Oh, I don’t object to sobriety,” she responded, as they passed down under the broad bridge into the road, and turned towards the long line of ho- tels. “I shouldn’t like the Pier if it were a brandy-and-watering place, as Saratoga is. But perhaps you are car- rying austerity to the very verge of boastfulness. Does the Royal Marine like you to be as serious as you are ~ now?” “I wish I could be sure that the Royal Marine liked me even a little,’ he an- - 42 swered, “and I’d be as serious as she chose.” ““T don’t know whether she likes you or not, and of course I shouldn’t tell you if I did,” the old maid replied. “But I do know that she is not a girl to take gray views of life. At her age and with her looks she has no use for sad-colored garments. Mr. Hitchcock said yesterday that her smile was like the Moonlight Concerto, and her laugh was like a wedding-march.” “Oh, he said that, did he?” the com- poser inquired. ‘ What does he know about concertos, I should like to know 2” “T don’t like Mr. Hitchcock any better than you do,” said Miss Marlen- spuyk, “and yet I don’t know why. Perhaps because I am not one of the girls he has asked to marry him; so I feel assured of his bad taste. And of his ignorance of music, and of most # 43 other things, [ have nodoubt. Indeed, if ignorance is bliss, I don’t know any one who has better right to be happy than Mr. Mather Hitchcock.” “Yes,” the composer returned, with a little laugh, partly at her joke and partly at his own; “a fellow has no right to be as ignorant of anything as that little Mat Hitchcock is of every- thing. He must have spent four years at some college conscientiously acquir- ing ignorance —for no man was ever born knowing so little as he does.” ' “What has he been doing to you to- day ?’ asked the old maid, her wonder- ful eyes twinkling humorously as she looked the composer in the face. “What has he been doing to me?” repeated the young man. “ He has been getting up a crabbing- party for Miss Carroll, and he didn’t let me in.” “Dutch treat, I suppose?” she in- 44 quired, Mat Hitchcock’s frugality being familiar to all his friends. “¢ Oh, of course,” he answered ; “ little Mat isn’t giving parties at his own ex- pense. He doesn’t care for a dollar any more than he does for his life.” Miss Marlenspuyk laughed. “I’ve known him generous enough to give himself away,” she said. “And ’m afraid you are giving yourself away now by your warmth. It’s none of my busi- ness, of course, but I’m old enough to be your grandmother, and you can con- fide in me if you think it would relieve your feelings. Are you really in love with my young friend, the Royal Ma- rine ?”’ When Miss Marlenspuyk made this kindly suggestion she did not know what it was she had exposed herself to, for the young lover saw his opportunity to talk of the woman he loved and of 45 himself and of his hopes and fears and his doubts and his despairs. She lis- tened in sympathetic silence while he poured out his feelings. When at last he paused, ashamed that he had talked so freely, and yet relievéd that he had found some one to whom he could express himself without reserve, Miss Marlenspuyk said: “ Well, you are in love. There’s no doubt of that, is there ?”’ “Sure,” he answered. ‘ There’s no doubt at all.” “Do you want to marry her?’ asked the old maid. “Don’t I, just?” returned the young man. “ Why, I’m dying to—” “Well,” interrupted Miss Marlen- spuyk, “if you want her to marry you, why don’t you ask her? You have known her nearly a month, and the days at the sea-side in summer are twice 46 as long as they are in town in winter, and so we get to know people twice as fast. Besides, this is the last week of August, and to-night is the last hop of the season, and next week everybody will be packing up.” “T know,” he returned, sadly. “ My own vacation will be up next week.” “ And I heard Mrs. Carroll say to- day they were soon going to the White Mountains for a fortnight,” the old lady continued. “She isn’t going to take her grand- daughter with her, is she ?” asked Payn, hurriedly. “ She isn’t going to leave her behind,” | Miss Marlenspuyk replied. ‘“ You may be sure of that. No, there is no use waiting, it seems to me. Now is your time. You are going to play your Te Deum to-morrow, I hear—though you didn’t tell me—” 47 “ Oh, Miss Marlenspnyk, forgive me,” he cried, piteously. ‘I meant to let you know in time—indeed I did.” “Well, I do know in time,” she re- sponded, smiling gently, “and I shall be there to hear it. And so will the Royal Marine. Why not walk home with her ?—I will take charge of Mrs. Car- roll—and you can ask her to be your wife half a dozen times between the church and the hotel.” “Once will be enough, I’m afraid,” he answered. “I know I’m so unworthy of her, and—and, oh, I don’t believe she cares for me at all!” “Tf that’s your state of mind,” the old maid declared, “I wouldn’t put it off till to-morrow. [dask her to-night at the hop. Take her out on the end of the bridge just before the last dance. Then you can know your fate before you sleep again.” 48 “Tf she were to accept me,” he said, “JT should be too happy to sleep for a week. But she won’t accept me; I know she won’t—she doesn’t care for me at all, does she 2?’ “ How should I know?” asked Miss Marlenspuyk. “If you want an an- swer to that question, you had best put it to the one person who really knows.” “TJ will!” the young man declared, for- cibly. ‘I will! Pll take your advice, and I’m ever so much obliged to you for making me see what’s best for me to do. You are a true friend, Miss Marlenspuyk. Tl] ask her to-night at the hop—or else to-morrow after church.” At this last evidence of his irreso- lution Miss Marlenspuyk smiled again. They had now come to her hotel, and she held out her hand. 49 ‘Thank you for seeing an old woman safely home,” she said. He grasped her hand and cried, “ Oh, you don’t know how much I love her!” “ Don’t tell methat,”’ shesaid. ‘I?m a woman myself, and I don’t like to hear any other woman so belauded. Tell that to her. Tell that to the Royal Marine !” With another smile of encourage- ment she left him and went up the short asphalt walk to her hotel. 4 CHAPTER III THE HOP AT THE CASINO Tue architects of the Casino at Nar- ragansett Pier fully understood the great principle that when a ball-room is built for use In summer it is not the ball-room itself which is important, but the covered promenades connected with it, since dancing in July and August is scarcely more than an excuse for a walk in the moonlight and the open air immediately before and after every waltz. The ball-room of the Narragan- sett Casino is not strikingly beautiful, it is not well ventilated, and its entrance is poor and stunted, but in its series of galleries and verandas it is unsurpass- able. A broad covered gallery, a sort 51 of second-story veranda, too long and too imposing to be called a loggia, stretches from the door of the ball-room along the full length of the building, and communicates with the unrivalled promenade afforded by the top of the arch across the road—a promenade which extends out even a little beyond the tower that rises almost from the edge of the water. This spacious prom- enade over the bridge and beyond, open to every breeze, and illuminated only by an occasional red-bulb electric light, has seats here and there along its sides and in its many odd corners. When Mr. Warren Payn came ont on the bridge promenade before the hop began on this last Saturday in August, and saw the broad face of the moon ris- ing red from the waters of the bay be- fore him, he felt the charm of the place ; and as he listened to the silvery plash 52 of the waves in the little cove below; he had to confess to himself that no bet- ter spot for a proposal could be found anywhere. It was a warm night, and the breeze which swept languidly across the bay was mild and balmy, but at the thought of the question he had deter- mined to put to Miss Hectorina Carroll that evening the young man shivered. : He looked at his watch. It was not yet half-past eight, and the music would not begin till nine. As the Pier was overcrowded that week, those who want- ed the best seats in the ball-room had already begun to arrive. He could see them passing along the upper gallery ~ in groups of three and four. He knew that Mrs. Carroll liked a special corner out of the draught, and he guessed that the Royal Marine would therefore be among the first to arrive. He threw his cigar far out on the rocks below him, 53 and walked back across the bridge. Once inside the building he took his position at the head of the stairs, that he might catch sight of her as soon as she should appear. He stood near the window in which he had seen her framed the first day they met, now more than a month ago. Only a month had he been at the Pier, and it had gone very swiftly, and yet he felt as if he had known her for years—indeed, as if he had always known her. He remem- bered his astonishment that first day when Miss Marlenspuyk had told him that the girl whose dress he had trod- den upon. was the Royal Marine, and he recalled Judge Gillespie’s delightful luncheon that afternoon when he sat beside her for two hours, and he smiled when he recollected the alacrity with which he had given up his camping-out in the Adirondacks to spend his vacation 54 cooped up in a single absurd little room just under the roof of a hotel at the Pier. Mrs. Carroll and ’Rina were at one of the smaller and older hotels, where the wretched rooms were reserved for the same people year after year; and so the composer had found it impossible to get in at that house. For the first fort- night after his arrival he went to her hotel every day, and often twice a day ; but when he saw that the other young ladies from Baltimore—and the house was filled with “terrapin girls,” as Miss Marlenspuyk had called them—when he saw that others noticed the frequency of his calls, a sense of delicacy kept him away. He met her quite as often, perhaps, on the beach and at the Casino; but he came to the house more rarely, for it seemed to him almost vulgar to parade his love before the groups of gos- sipers—old maids and wives and widows 55 —who rocked all day on the verandas of the hotel. He chanced to know that Judge Gil- lespie was to escort the Royal Marine and her grandmother to the Casino that evening, and so he had kept away. He had sent her a simple little bunch of sweet-pea blossoms, of the pale and gen- tle hues which she liked, and which har- monized most becomingly with her fresh complexion. After his modest nosegay had been delivered he had happened to see little Mat Hitchcock buying a large bouquet of roses. As he stood there at the head of the Casino stairs waiting for her to come he wondered whether she would wear his flowers or Hitch- cock’s. He wondered also how it was that so nice a girl could tolerate a fel- low like Hitchcock. When at last he caught sight of her his heart sank, for he saw that she was 56 carrying the roses in her hand. But when she and her grandmother came to- the top of the stairs and she greeted him with her sweetest smile, and thanked him for the lovely flowers he had sent her, and showed them to him pinned to her dress in a fragrant bunch, then his spirits rose again, and little Mat Hitch- cock’s big bouquet ceased to have any significance for him, even though she should carry it in her hand all the even- ing. They were in time to secure Mrs. Carroll the seat she preferred, and to see the dancers arrive and fill up the three rows of chairs, while the shallow balconies above were crowded with mere spectators. Narragansett Pier is like many another watering-place in that it is passing through a period of change. Once upon a time it was rather free and easy in its ways; and its gayety was 57 perhaps even a little noisy, though harm- less enough. Now it has become staider and more dignified, and yet a memory lingers of the former freedom. Time was, for example, when a dress-coat was unknown at the Pier, and when a man who might dare to don such a garment would have been made to feel that he was unsuitably attired. Even now there were a few men in sacks and cut-aways 5 but the most of them had dressed for the occasion, some with the white tie and the clawhammer, and some with the black cravat and the hybrid jacket which is known as a “ Tuxedo coat.” This was the garment Mr. Warren Payn wore. Among the girls there was a like di- versity of costume. Two or three ma- ture dames wore the full evening dress of modern society ; ten or a dozen girls came in their hats; the most of the 58 young ladies were clad in the simple light dresses in which the American woman looks most charming. Among these was the Royal Marine, who wore a white muslin gown, with broad blue ribbons floating out behind as she walked briskly into the ball-room. The dress was neat and becoming. The young man who loved her thought that he had never seen her look more beautiful. It even seemed to him that he detected an unusual animation about her. Perhaps, however, this was nothing more than the high spirits proper to a popular young woman at the last hop of the season, when she knew she looked at her best, and when she was certain of a good time. After the seats were all taken, and after the cloud of young men gathered about the door began to thicken, one by one the musicians appeared upon the 59 stage, the scenery on which was supposed to represent a garden in some: hitherto undiscovered country ; leisurely they ar- ranged the stands for their music, re- gardless of the impatience of the expect- ant young ladies. Finally, as the clock of the Casino struck nine in irregular cadence, the leader waved his bow and began the first waltz of the last hop of the season. Mr. Warren Payn and Miss Hectorina Carroll were almost the earliest couple on the floor, and they would have danced through the whole waltz if the Royal Marine had not remembered that she had promised a turn to Judge Gillespie. For the next dance little Mat Hitchcock claimed her. “As soon as I saw those flowers I knew Mr. Hitchcock would come early to be thanked,” said Miss Marlenspuyk, who had arrived a little late, and who —.- 60 now occupied a chair Mrs. Carroll had reserved for her. “I suppose you gave her the sweet-peas ?” The musician admitted it. “Are you going to speak to her to- night ?’ she asked, lowering her voice. “If I get a chance I will,” he an- swered. , “Tf you don’t get a chance to-night,” she returned, “you had better make one to-morrow. I sha’n’t forget my promise to carry off Grandma. But I suppose you could play your Te Deum with much more fervor to-morrow if to-night the Royal Marine promises to marry you.” He was about to reply when he saw little Mat Hitchcock and Miss Carroll drop out of the dance. “ Excuse me,” he cried hurriedly to Miss Marlenspuyk, as he sprang forward and asked her for a turn. Then he whirled her to the 61 other end of the ball-room almost be- fore little Mat could drop into the seat beside Mrs. Carroll, to receive that lady’s compliments on the taste with which he had chosen ’Rina’s bouquet. The next dance the Royal Marine divided between Mr. Hill-Bunker and Mr. Beeckman Bleecker; and the com- poser did not get his share. He sat through the waltz by the side of Miss Marlenspuyk. “Are you invited to the supper to- night ?” she asked. “No,” he answered. ‘Is Miss Car- roll going ?” “JT believe she is. It has been got up inahurry. Mr. Dexter—that Chi- cago widower, you know— he is giving it to La Marguerite.” “Now who is La Marguerite?” he laughingly inquired. “Don’t you know Virgie Chubb ?” 62 was Miss Marlenspuyk’s question in re- sponse. ‘“ She’s dancing now witlr Mr. Hitcheock.”’ | Payn looked across the floor and saw that little Mat’s partner was a tall, thin girl, blue-eyed and red-haired, with a large mouth and a long upper lip. “Pve met her,” he acknowledged. “Well, I heard one of you young men say she was ‘a daisy,’ and so, of course, I called her La Marguerite.” The musician smiled, and asked, “I wonder what nickname you will have for me next ?” “When I find one that fits you as well as La Marguerite fits Virgie Chubb I will cap you with it,’ Miss Marlen- spuyk responded. ‘I confess I do not understand her success this year here, for she is nobody in particular, and she is inclined to be rather rapid. Now, generally, at Narragansett a girl has to “LA MARGUERITE ” nee Bs | a .: 63 have a very good social standing before she can afford to be at all fast.” “T saw her out with a pair-of ponies and a buckboard this afternoon,” said Payn, “and if that is her ordinary gait she is very rapid indeed. I thought is the heavy man with her would be thrown out as they turned the corner of the Ca- sino.” | _) “Yes, she drives well,” admitted the old maid. “So did her father, if what Tam told is true.” “Did he drive a T-cart too?’ Payn asked. _ “No,” Miss Marlinspuyk gravely re- plied ; “he used to drive a milk-cart.” The musician laughed, and then the old maid laughed with him. “I suppose,” said the young man, “that the father’s former calling is the reason the daughter is now trying to get into the créme de la créme of society.” 64 Just then the music ceased, and Payn saw Beeckman Bleecker returning the Royal Marine to Grandma. Hastily begging Miss Marlenspuyk to excuse him again, the musician sprang up and asked Miss Hectorina if she would like to take a little walk out on the bridge to see the moonlight on the bay. Mrs. Carroll threw a shawl over her grand- daughter’s shoulders as the girl took the arm of the man who was desperately in love with her. “?Rina,’ said Grandma, “don’t sit down, for it is damp out there; and don’t be long, or I shall have to send some one after you; {’m so nervous about your having rheumatism, like your poor father had.” ““T won’t be jong; Grandma,” the girl promised. As the young couple went up the steps at the entrance and out on the up- 65 per veranda, Payn asked her if she was going to the supper after the hop. “Yes,” she answered. “I’m going, even if it is given to Virgie Chubb. But I don’t like her—that is, I don’t like her right much. She used to go to school with me in Baltimaw’, and she said my nose was like eternity —it had no end.” | Payn resented this assertion indig- nantly. “Oh, I didn’t mind,” the Royal Ma- rine interrupted. “ Virgie Chubb would say anything if she thought it was clev- er. She’s very clever, if she is o’nery. Miss Ma’lensptiyk says that the Chubbs were poor white trash.” Her little Southern accent filled him with delight, and her local locutions fell on his ears as though they were the words of a charm. “She isn’t any older than I am,” Miss Bae! 66 Hectorina continued, “and they say she’s going to marry that Mr. Dexter, who is a widower with six children. Now I couldn’t do that—could you? Id feel like I was marrying an orphan asylum.” It seemed to Warren Payn as if the occasion he was seeking was perhaps within his grasp. “Of course I shouldn’t want you to marry a widower, either with six chil- dren or without any,” he began. “I think a widower should always marry a widow; don’t you?” “‘T suppose that would be fairer,” she responded. ; “ What kind of a man do you expect your husband to be?” he asked, trying to lead up somehow to the avowal he wished to make. ‘Oh—I don’t know, really,” she re- turned. “I’m afraid I should be very exacting.” 67 “ Well—” he began again, seeing his opportunity at last. But just at that moment the Royal Marine was hailed by another young woman promenading on the arm of an- other young man. “Oh, ’Rina!” cried the other young woman, whom a dim electric light en- abled Payn to identify vaguely as La Marguerite —“’ Rina, you are coming to my supper after the ball, ain’t you?” “Yes, indeed,” answered Miss Hecto- rina, heartily. “Tm so glad,” continued Miss Virgie Chubb, “because Mr. Dexter was so anx- ious to have you come. He declared that everybody said you and I were the belles of the Pier this season !” And with that Miss Virgie left them. “The spiteful thing!” said Miss Hec- torina. And the young man who was seeking 68 a chance to tell her he loved her and to ask her to be his wife recognized at once that the propitious moment had passed. They crossed the bridge, and stood out on the balcony which projects over the rocks. A moonglade silvered the broad waters of the bay. Between Nar- ragansett and Newport could be seen the knotted string of faint electric lights which revealed the passing of the night boat on its voyage from Providence to New York. Just as the young people stepped out on the balcony the red-fire was ignited on the rocks before them, and then the distant steamboat blew her whistle three times in strident acknowl- edgment of the salute. ‘“‘TIsn’t it like a splendid scene at the theatre?” said the Royal Marine at last. “Tt is too romantic to be real !” “It is somewhat theatrical, I admit,” _ responded the composer. “But this 69 baleony would be a little too lofty for Romeo to climb, even if he had love’s light wings.” “T don’t like ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ do you ?” she asked. “Don’t you?” he replied, beginning . to see another opening in the distance before him. “ Why not? Isn’t Romeo the very type of an ardent lover? Isn’t Juliet—” “But it’s Juliet I don’t like,” inter- rupted the young lady. ‘She was too forward, I think. I don’t know any- body who’d behave like she did, do you? Why, she didn’t wait half long enough. She told him she loved him really before he had proposed, didn’t she? Juliet’s a leap-year girl—that’s what I call her.” “T don’t want to defend Juliet,” he responded. ‘ You see, I’m not Romeo, and it’s not Juliet I’m in love with—you must know that!” 40 There was no mistaking the meaning of this last sentence. They had been leaning over the railing of the balcony. Now when Mr. Payn spoke these last words, Miss Carroll stood upright suddenly. “It’s getting chilly here, isn’t it?” she asked, very hurriedly, and in obvious perturbation. “Don’t go yet, ’Rina—I may eall you Rina?’ he urged. “I have something I must say to you. [—” “Miss Hectorina,” said little Mat Hitcheock, still ten feet away from them, but eagerly advancing, ‘“ your grandmother is very anxious about you. She sent me to bring you in.” “T’m coming at once,” she answered. Little Mat was about to offer his arm, when Payn said: “I brought Miss Car- roll out, and I will take her back. We need not trouble you, Hitchcock.” Mt “ Tt’s no trouble, I assure you,” Hitch- cock explained. And the young lady walked back to the ball-room escorted by both men. So Payn saw a second opportunity slip out of his hands without any fault of his own. And Mrs. Carroll would not hear of her granddaughter’s going out on the bridge again all that evening. Payn danced with her more than once; but no man can propose while waltzing ata . hop. When eleven o’clock came and the music ceased, the Royal Marine said good-night to Mr. Payn and went down to Mr. Dexter’ssupper. Payn gave Mrs. Carroll his arm to her hotel. Then he came back to the Casino, and strolled out on the bridge again. He found a chair in a corner, and he lighted a cigar and sat down to think over the events of the 72 evening and to plan his campaign for the next day. . As he had passed the dining-room of the Casino he had heard Virgie Chubb’s loud laughter ring out sharply, and he was grieved that the woman he loved should be in company he did not ap- prove of. La Marguerite was not the associate he would have chosen for her, nor was Mr. Dexter the man he would have selected as her host. The young New-Yorker did not like Dexter, who had been a lawyer somewhere in Cali- fornia before he blossomed out in Chi- cago as one of the boldest operators in the wheat-pit. There was a coarse heartiness about the Westerner which was attractive to many, and which prob- ably accounted for the success Dexter had met with in the smart set of London, where he had been received with open arms two or three years before; but to 73 Warren Payn the man was most distaste- ful. In the musician’s fastidious eyes Miss Virginia Chubb and Mr. Cable J. Dexter were well matched when they were together. But Miss Hectorina Carroll was made of a different clay, more delicate and a finer quality; and she had no business to be in their society more often than mere chance might ar- range it. Miss Hectorina Carroll was the centre. of his thought as he sat on the bridge of the Casino, with the single eye of the Beavertail light gazing at him, and with the double stare of the Brenton’s Reef lightship fixed upon him. He re- proached himself with timidity, with procrastination, with insufferable irreso- lution. It was not his fault that Virgie Chubb had interrupted him once and that little Mat Hitchcock had interfered a second time; but it was his fault that 74 he had not made a third opportunity, and a fourth, and a fifth, if need had been. He knew now that he should have forced fortune to aid him. He re- solved that when another chance should come within his reach he would seize it swiftly. He heard the hour of midnight tolled with pleasing irregularity by the mellow bell of the Casino, and he was still re- solved never again to be irresolute. How long he sat there he did not know, for finally he dropped off to sleep in the middle of his rearrangement of the past and of his dreams for the future. Then suddenly it seemed to him that he was wide-awake again, and that the supper was over, and some of the party were coming out on the bridge for a final glimpse of the moonlit bay. The loud voices of Virgie Chubb and Dexter were unmistakable; and then Payn thought THE CASINO " oa eS oe Ce aa cae ‘ . ¢ ; _ LIBRARY OF THES UNIVERSITY of itLInojg. he, 5 < . ; *~ v ye meade . a . ; : . i . P 4 ae a ; a . , >5 Ss . ‘ . : ‘ f ¢ a : . Fs. oval | = he aJ x2 - “ ' i x, F - mA 75 he caught the girlish langh of the wom- an he loved. He started back into the shadow as some of the party stepped out on the baleony. He recognized the slight figure of a married sister of Mr. Beeckman Bleecker’s, who had been ma- tronizing the young ladies Mr. Cable J. Dexter had entertained at supper. Be- hind the matron of the party Payn saw Miss Hectorina Carroll. He stepped forward and said that he was very glad to see her once more. She did not seem surprised to meet him again at that hour. Leading her to a corner of the broad promenade away from the others, he de- clared that he had been trying all the evening to tell her that he loved her, and that he would be a most miserable man unless she would marry him. It seemed to him that she was taken wholly by surprise, and that she hesitated for a moment, and that finally she told him 76 that she really did not know what to say, for she was wholly unprepared for his proposal, and although she liked him very well, she did not know whether she loved him at all. Payn was encouraged that she did not reject him absolutely, and he urged his suit ardently. Finally she agreed to give him his answer on Mon- day evening, and during the two inter- vening days she promised to investigate her feelings, and to discover whether she did not really love him a little already. Then she bade him to go back to his dark corner, for she would not have Vir- gie Chubb guess what had been going on —no, not for worlds! She did not forbid him to come to see her during the two days of her self-examination, and finally she permitted him to kiss her hand. Then she left him and went back to the others. Payn sat silently in the shadow, listening to the laughter 77 of the young ladies at the outbreaks of Dexter’s easy humor. At last the ma- tron declared that it was time for girls to go to bed; and then they went down- stairs, all in high spirits as becomes a supper-party—all except the Royal Ma- rine, to whose silence Virgie Chubb made a jocular allusion as they were passing out of hearing. Every word of this brief conversation of his with the woman he loved was present to Payn’s memory as he sat in his chair in the corner, with his cigar in his hand—a cigar extinct and only half smoked. When the clock of the Casino struck one he roused himself with an effort. He had been asleep again. Then all at once he found himself wide-awake, and wondering whether he had been to sleep more than once— whether he had not been dreaming when he thought he saw her return, and when 78 he told her that he loved her, and when she promised to give him a final answer in forty-eight hours. Had the Royal Marine really stood before him after the Supper was over? Had he really pro- posed? Or was it all an hallucination on his part? Before now, more than once, his visions had taken on the sharpness of reality ; and he had long lingered in doubt as to whether some of them were actual occurrences or mere phantasms of the fancy. None had been more vivid than this; none had ever had the importance of this; and none had ever — puzzled him as this did. It was very late when at last he went to bed, worn out with perplexity and vexed by a problem he found insoluble. Finally he recalled the well-known habit of dreams to repeat themselves, and he determined to submit the question to this test, and to abide by the result. If he The 79 should dream again the whole interview with Hectorina, his proposal and her promise of a decision on Monday, then it had been but a dream the first time; it was untrue; it had not happened. If, on the other hand, he did not dream it again, then it was true; it had happened; she knew that he loved her; and she would give him his answer in forty- eight hours. Having thus resolved, he tumbled into bed. But he did not dream, as he was not able to sleep. CHAPTER IV THE MORNING SERVICE AT THE CHURCH Tue next morning, at a quarter before eleven, when the bell ceased to ring in the unfinished tower, the little stone church at Narragansett Pier was crowd- ed to the doors, as it always is in the month of Angust. The day was hot with a mellow summer heat, but an oc- casional breeze which blew lazily from behind Point Judith rustled the branch- es of the young maples beside the church, and rippled the varying greenness of the ivy which clad the rough stone walls of the sacred edifice. Within the building there was an increasing fluttér of fans. Miss Hectorina Carroll sat with her brother and her grandmother in a pow 81 on the centre aisle, almost exactly ona line with the organ, in front of which’ Mr. Warren Payn had taken his place long before the congregation began to arrive. In the pew behind her were Miss Marlenspuyk and Judge Gillespie, and also Mr. Mather Hitchcock and his mother. On the other side of the aisle Miss Virgie Chubb occupied the fore- most pew, having next to her, and to re- lieve the flippant levity of her floating draperies, the solid figure of Mr. Cable J. Dexter. Not far from these were Mr. Hill-Bunker with Mr. Beeckman Bleeck- er’s married sister, and Mr. Beeckman Bleecker with the unmarried sister of Mr. Hill-Bunker. Here and there throughout the church were scattered most of the girls whose acquaintance Warren Payn had made during his four weeks’ stay at the Pier. But he was not conscious of them. The Royal Marine 6 82 had been one of the first to arrive, and as the musician had seen her enter the door he had turned to the organ, reso- lutely refusing to meet her eye. In the state of doubt in which he found him- self he simply did not dare to look her in — the face. He did not know whether he had told her that he loved her or not; he did not know whether she had lis- tened to him or not; he did not know on what footing he stood; indeed, he seemed to walk in slippery places and to go in danger of an irreparable fall; he felt himself to be tied in a tangle of doubt and difficulty. As the service advanced he became calmer. Though he did not look at the Royal Marine, he asked himself whether or not she had seen him, half hidden as he was at the side of the church. When the time came at last for his Te Deum, and the organist slipped out from before 83 the instrument and offered the place to him, he wondered whether she had no- ticed the substitution. Of course he had told her about his Te Deum—what can young men talk about but their own deeds?—and she had been kept informed of the difficulties which had arisen to delay its performance. She had been enlightened as to all the peculiarities of all the singers of the amateur quartet who were to render it. She was familiar with the conceit of the tenor, with the selfishness of the soprano, with the jeal- ousy of the contralto, and with the stu- pidity of the bass. She had been indig- nant at their want of appreciation for his music, and she had laughed heart- ily at his account of the wiles whereby he had soothed the vanity and suscepti- bility of the singers. As the quartet stood up beside him he put her out of his thoughts for the mo- 84 ment, and concentrated his attention on the execution of his composition. As often happens, the singers did better than he had expected; even the bass remembered for once the suggestions which he had forgotten regularly at every rehearsal. And the composer’s share of the work was excellent; his music was fresh and firm; it was scholar- ly and yet modern; it was truly dramat- ic, asa Te Deum ought to be, without being in any way operatic and theatri- cal, as so many Te Deums are; it was not great, for Warren Payn was not a great composer, but it was not common- place; it had a certain individuality, not to call it originality. It had also what much modern music composed for the services of the church lacks absolutely— it had fervor; and while the singers were rendering it far better than the compos- er had hoped, he felt relieved of all his 85 own worries and anxieties. For the mo- ment at least he was lifted out of him- self. But after the Te Deum was ended, when he had given up the seat at the instrument tothe organist, and when the service went on, the artistic excitement which had buoyed him up faded away, and he was reduced again to a condition of miserable doubt. Even when the good old bishop went into the pulpit and gave out his text, “‘ Love one another,” and began to deliver the sermon, Warren Payn was not able to concentrate his attention on the wise words of the prel- ate, who was addressing himself directly to the modern men and women he saw before him, and who set forth a lofty ideal in the plainest and most common- sense manner. The composer had a seat by the organ, and he had right before him and not twenty feet away the pro- 86 file of the woman he loved. At first he scarcely ventured to glance at her, but when he saw that she was intent on the preacher, and unconscious of anybody else, he was emboldened to let his eyes rest on her longingly. She was listen- ing to the sermon, gazing steadily at the bishop. Her lover gazed steadily at her, listening but little. As she sat there before him, while the summer sunlight filled the church, he thought that he had never seen her look- ing more lovely or more lovable. She sat erect in the pew, her firm, full figure carrying her head vigorously and grace- fully. Her large eyes were fixed on the bishop, and her color came and went in response to the simple eloquence of the sermon. Her dress—of which her lover took but little note, save that he had a confused impression of a medley of green and brown and white, one tender 87 tint melting into another and mingling with it inextricably—set off the fresh- ness of her young complexion. The delicate tones of her attire made him see a sudden likeness to a flower, the calyx being her broad white straw hat with its warped and flaring brim. To the man whose eyes were fixed upon her with loving devotion she seemed as pure as the blossom of a vine in the spring-time, and he noted with delight the tiny tendrils of hair which escaped from her broad braids, and curled care- lessly about her neck here and there and down over her forehead. When he had made an end of staring —that is, when he was suddenly strick- en with remorse at the rudeness of which he had been guilty—he glanced about, wondering how it was that every one in the church was not also looking at her, The young musician flushed 88 with indignation when he discovered that Mr. Dexter had settled himself sideways so that he could see Miss Car- roll without the trouble of turning his neck, and that the Westerner was taking advantage of this attitude most of the time. Farther back and on one side Warren Payn saw Mr. Hill-Bunker and Mr. Beeckman Bleecker, and he saw that they were both looking at the Roy- al Marine as often as they dared. Lit- tle Mat Hitchcock, too, rarely took his eye off her. When Payn detected these things he was annoyed that he had to share the sight of her with others. He wished that he had the right to tell them all that she belonged to him, and that if they wished to gaze at her bean- ty they must ask his permission ; and he did not know whether he would grant the privilege or refuse it. . The sermon drew to its conclusion. 89 The Royal Marine was still listening with unflagging interest, only now and again taking her attention from the preacher to keep Her Majesty’s Mid- shipmite in order, and to remind him of the sanctity of the edifice wherein they were. Perhaps she was not wholly un- conscious of the admiring glances cast upon her, for she was aware that her gown and her hat were both becoming to her; but she did not pay these tokens of admiration the return compliment of seeming to see them. She kept her eyes fixed on the bishop; not once did they wander towards the organ, where the man who loved her was sitting in self-torment. He dreaded to meet her eye, and yet he could not understand how it was that she never once glanced in his direction all that morning. He wished that he could go to her boldly and demand her reasons for refusing to 90 look at him. Then he remembered the meeting on the bridge of the Casino the night before—if, indeed, there had real- ly been any meeting—and all his doubts came back upon him again with redoub- led force. He did not know how to ap- proach her, and therefore he did not dare make an effort to speak to her. He was sure, in fact, that he ought to avoid speaking to her. A shiver of fear seized him, and he resolved to keep away from her until he could find out just what had happened the night before. Then the bishop brought his sermon to an end at last, and the rector gave — out a hymn. While this was being sung Warren Payn saw Miss Marlenspuyk looking at him intently. She was close behind the Royal Marine. He under- stood at once what she meant. She had promised to help him to a quiet talk with the woman he loved. She had 91 agreed to lure away Grandma, so that he could walk home from church with ’Rina, and propose to her then and there. But this agreement was made before he had gone to sleep on the bridge of the Casino. When he had made it he want- ed to be left alone with the Royal Ma- rine; now there was nothing he was more afraid of. Unfortunately it was impossible to convey to Miss Marlen- spuyk across the crowded pews of the church any information as to this com- plete change of his wishes. She was firmly convinced, of course, that he still desired a chance to tell the young lady that he loved her. Being so convinced, she would surely so manceuvre as to ac- complish her purpose. She was arbi- trary, as the lover knew; and she was adroit ; and what she had determined to do was likely to be done. She would certainly arrange an interview between 92 him and the Royal Marine, despite his utmost endeavor. If he came within her reach after service it would be im- possible for him to escape her. She would carry out his supposed desires unfailingly and unflinchingly, no. mat- ter how he might struggle to prevent it. While the congregation were singing the doxology he came to a resolution. He dared not face ’Rina then, and as the only way to prevent Miss Marlenspuyk from bringing about a meeting he made up his mind to remain in church until the congregation had dispersed. He determined not to leave his harbor of refuge near the organ until he was as- sured that the coast was clear. There- fore when there was a general move- ment after the benediction he sat still. He refused to catch Miss Marlenspuyk’s eye, or to accept the invitation it con- en 95 veyed. He was glad that the old maid and Judge Gillespie and the Royal Ma- rine and Her Majesty’s Midshipmite and Grandma all made ready to move down the centre aisle together. If Miss Mar- Jenspuyk had been nearer to him he knew he would have been unable to re- sist her. As it was, she seemed sur- prised that he did not come forward at once to join them, and she made excuses for delay, so as to give him ample op- portunity. Then, when at last the little group started towards the door of the church, Miss Marlenspuyk put up her glasses for a final glance in his direction. To all these mute but obvious entreaties he remained insensible, and the party passed down the aisle, and left him still at the organ in apparent unconscious- ness of their presence. It seemed to him that there was an expression of sur- _ prise which flitted for a moment across 94 the face of the woman he loved as she saw that he failed to come forward to join her. As Cable J. Dexter and Virgie Chubb passed before the organ they both looked at the musician and smiled quizzically. That smile puzzled him. What did it mean? What did they know? They had been at the.Casino the night before, and perhaps they had overheard his pro- posal—that is,if he had proposed. Their smile could not mean that they sus- pected the strange dilemma in which he was placed. That was impossible, of course; and yet there was something in their expression which he could not ex- - plain. In his perplexity he turned and looked after them, and framed in the stone doorway, standing in front of the broad wooden doors decorated with iron anchors, recalling those on the skirt of the yachting-dress in which he had first 95 seen her, was the Royal Marine, who had paused to say good-morning to La Marguerite. In haste he turned his back to the door, and addressed himself to the quar- tet, who had also lingered. He thanked them for the trouble they had taken with his Te Deum ; and he listened po- litely to the suggestion of the soprano that if she ever sung it again there were two bars of her solo that she hoped he would transpose for her, as she at least was not afraid of taking a high note. Then, when they also were gone, so- prano and tenor, contralto and bass, the composer delayed the organist in need- less talk for ten minutes longer, for fear that Miss Marlenspuyk might have de- vised some means of detaining the Roy- al Marine. When at last he ventured forth, and was walking swiftly towards his hotel, 96 looking neither to the right nor to the left, he almost stumbled over Her Maj- esty’s Midshipmite. “Excuse me,” he stammered out, scarcely daring to raise his eyes for fear that the boy’s sister might be near at hand. “Oh, it’s Mr. Payn!” said the boy. “ How are you?” “Tm very well, thank you,” he re- sponded. “You don’t look well,” the boy re- turned. “ You look scared.” | “Do I?” he asked, helplessly. “?Deed you do,” was the response of Her Majesty’s Midshipmite, who had on the sailor suit in which Payn had first seen him, and the same sailor hat, with H. M.S. Victory stamped in gold on its band. “T’m ina hurry,” explained the young man. iy Bt x Treo aney, 97 “Oh, I say, Mr. Payn,” the boy con- tinned, “Sister “Rina was asking about you this morning.” “About me?” echoed the composer, stopping abruptly in his walk. ‘ What —what did she say ?” “She was talking to Miss Chubb— Virgie Chubb, you know—” “Yes, I know, I know,” the young man repeated. “ And she said,” the boy went on— “she said she wanted to know whether you were awake yet. Had you been getting up late, Mr. Payn ?” But the boy got no answer to his ques- tion, for Mr. Payn was striding away impatiently. 7 CHAPTER V MISS MARLENSPUYK’S READING-HOUR Warren Payn freed himself from Her Majesty’s Midshipmite as swiftly as he could, and as courteously, for he remembered always that the boy was her brother. Then he walked rapidly towards the beach. He knew that the Royal Marine never “ went in” on Sun- day, and a glimpse of the Casino clock told him that the bathing-hour was al- most past. On his way to the water he - met the bathers swarming back to their hotels for the early Sunday dinner. By the time he was ready for his swim the beach was almost deserted, save for a few belated excursionists. The surf was high and fierce, just what he would have 99 wished it to be, and after he had bat- tled with it for nearly half an hour he felt as though he had washed himself free of many doubts. Refreshed by his watery exercise, he was able to take a dispassionate view of his strange posi- tion. While he was dressing he made up his mind to go and tell the whole story to Miss Marlenspuyk. He was in dire want of advice, and he felt also the irresistible pressure of a desire to have a confidant. And he knew no one to whom he could go but the old maid, who had always befriended him, and who, indeed, had introduced him to the woman he loved. Besides, Miss Marlenspuyk was a very clever woman, and her advice was likely to be worth taking. Having determined to consult her and to act according to her suggestions, the composer finished his toilet and walked to the Casino. In 100 his present frame of mind he was not willing to sit through the long hotel dinner, and to talk to his neighbors at table on the usual personal topics, so he went into the Casino and dined by him- self. Then he smoked a cigar on one of the rear verandas, undisturbed by any one. At last the time came when he knew that Miss Marlenspuyk, having finished her dinner also, would have set- tled down to read the Sunday papers, which she used to call her Half-Hour with the Worst Authors. He found her alone in her favorite corner at one end of the veranda of: her hotel. She was seated in a little rock- ing-chair ; she had on her neat little gold spectacles; she held in her hand one sheet of a Sunday newspaper, and the other sheets lay in waves about her feet. It was obvious that she had been read- ing the latest news from Europe, and 101 that some princeling or kinglet had been getting himself into trouble. “TJ don’t see,” she began, as the mu- sician drew up a chair and took his seat beside her—‘ I don’t see why the people of Europe should be bothered with the personal peculiarities of their royal fami- lies. I never could understand why one of the higher anthropoid apes could not be trained to discharge all the func- tions of a constitutional monarch—could you ?” He looked at her as though he did not apprehend what she was saying. He was so engrossed with his own perplex- ity that he could not listen to anything else. “Miss Marlenspuyk,” he began, draw- ing his chair a little closer, and speak- ing in subdued tones, “can I tell you a story ?” Wait till ve taken my glasses off,” 102 the old maid responded, ‘‘and then you can tell me anything.” “Thank you,” he began. “ Indeed,” she interrupted, “ there are several things I want you to tell me very much. Why did you avoid me this morning when I was keeping my prom- ise to you—when I had Grandma under _ control, so that you could walk with Rina and ask her to marry you? Id like to know what explanation you have to offer of your extraordinary conduct. Even before I hear it, I want to tell you that I think you are a most negligent and dilatory wooer. Perhaps you can explain your strange behavior. I hope - you can; but I assure you I shall be very exacting and hard to please. Giv- ing you this solemn warning, by way of encouragement, I'll let you have the floor—as they say in Washing- ton.” 3 103 Having said this, she took off her spectacles, and put them into a little leather case marked with her monogram. Then she folded the portion of the news- paper she had on her lap, and laid it on the chair which supported her feet. Picking up the other sheets of the paper from the floor of the veranda, she folded them also, one by one, and placed them on top of the first portion. When she had made an end of this she looked up at the young man who was waiting silent beside her. “Well?” she said at last, with a rising inflection. Well,” he echoed, hesitating,“ I don’t really know where to begin—” “So I perceive,” she interrupted. “But I suppose,” he gained courage to say—“ I suppose I had best begin at the beginning—” “You had best begin somewhere,” 104 she declared, “or you will never be able to end at the end.” “The real beginning is this, I think,” he responded. “I’m absent - minded, and I’m given to day-dreams, and so sometimes I don’t really know whether I’ve done something or whether Pve only dreamed it.” “As a girl, I used to dream that I could fly,” said the old maid; “but when I waked up I always knew I couldn’t. dn fact, ’ve never been in doubt about any of my dreams. But what have you been dreaming about now, and how did any dream prevent your proposing to the Royal Marine this morning when I had cleared the way for you?” “That’s just it,” he explained, pite- ously. ‘ve dreamed that Pve pro- posed to her—or at least I may have dreamed it, or I may have done it; I don’t know.” oe eee 105 Miss Marlenspuyk turned and faced him, and looked him full in the eye. “ Well,’ she said at last, “I think you had best begin at the very beginning and tell me the whole story.” So he told her the whole story, and she listened intently, not interrupting him once. When he had made an end of his tale she drew a long breath. “Do you mean to tell me,” she asked, “that you really don’t know whether you have proposed marriage to Miss Hectorina Carroll or not?” = That’s just it,” he urged. “I was so dazed from dozing that ’m uncer- tain whether I was asleep or awake at the time when [ thought I was propos- ing to her.” “Why, [never heard of such a thing in all my life!” she declared. “No,” he admitted, with a pitiful pride. “ I suppose it is a unique experience.” 106 “ Unique?” she repeated. “I should think so! Of course I know that every man is the HOae of his own dreams, but then—” Apparently wor eh failed her, for she broke off abruptly. He sat silent, not knowing what to say. “Well,” she began again at last, “they say it’s impossible to have both tact and truth, and I’ve prided myself that I had at least tact; but I must say that you have put yourself into a most puzzling predicament. What are you going to do?” : “That’s just what I came to you to find out,” he said, imploringly. “ You are my only friend, and you are so clever, and I will do exactly what you tell me.” “But I don’t know what to tell you,” she responded. 107 “Perhaps I had best go straight to Rina,” he suggested, “and throw my- self on her mercy, and ask her whether I have proposed to her—” “ Certainly not!” declared Miss Mar- lenspuyk—“ that is, if you do want to marry her.” “Of course I do!” he assured her. “No girl would marry you,” the old maid returned, “after you had confessed to her that you really didn’t know whether you had proposed to her or not. You can see that for yourself. You must not ask her. Indeed, you mustn’t see her—you must keep out of her sight until we can find out whether you have asked her to marry you or not. You say she didn’t accept you?” “She didn’t accept me—no,” he an- swered ; “but she didn’t reject me either. She asked for time—and if I have time too, I’m sure I can persuade her to love 108 me, can’t 1? But I can’t if you won't let me see her.” “Do you suppose she would consult Grandma?” asked Miss Marlenspuyk. “T don’t know,” he replied. “She’s very independent, you see. She does her own thinking. But then she may have told her grandmother, perhaps.” “Tf she has told Grandma,” the old maid declared, “I can find out, for Mrs. Carroll won’t keep a secret from me— that is, if I really want to know it. If she has told Grandma, then we are all right, because you will know that you were awake when you proposed to her, and that she is to give you an answer to-morrow, and you can put forth all your powers of persuasion in the mean- time. But if she hasn’t told Grandma, then we are no better off, because we don’t know whether she is merely keep- ing her own counsel, or whether you 109 did propose in your sleep, after all. Still, we have a chance, and I will seek out Mrs. Carroll at once.” “Thank you,” said the young man, deeply grateful. “ But we must not count on that; for, as you said, the Royal Marine is very independent,” Miss Marlenspuyk went on. “And there really isn’t anybody else to help us out; for when you pro- posed—that is, if you did propose at all —nobody heard you but ’Rina, and we can’t ask her. Who else was at the sup- per ?” Payn gave her the name of Mr. Dex- ter’s guests. “ Virgie Chubb —I don’t like her ; she has no manners at all,” said Miss Marlenspuyk. “ But she is fond of hear- ing herself talk. Perhaps I could cross- question her without getting a crooked answer.” 110 “Do you think she overheard me pro- pose?” asked the young man, recalling the quizzical expression in the faces of Mr. Dexter and Miss Chubb as they had passed him in church that morning. He flushed red at the thought of his conversation with the woman he loved having been heard by La Marguerite. And yet at the same time he would have been glad if he were absolutely sure that she had overheard, for it would release him from his uncomfortable un- certainty. “T think she is quite capable of lis- tening,” said the old maid, “ whether she heard anything of importance or not. So is that Dexter man—though he is a man, after all, and twice too good for her. I will say for her, however, that she has the grace to be a little afraid of me. She knows who I am, of course, and she will be greatly complimented if 111 I stop and speak to her this evening after tea. So if she knows anything I ean find that out. And perhaps, as you say, she did overhear your proposal— that is, of course, if you did propose at all, which is what we want to discover.” Warren Payn could not but wince a little every time Miss Marlenspuyk im- paled him on the horns of his dilemma. “ You are very good to me,” he said, dolefully. ‘Tm really very much interested in your case,” she replied ; “ it is so extraor- dinary that I want to know the end of it, just as if it were a sensational novel.” He looked at her plaintively. “What am I to do,” he asked at last, “while you are doing all these things for me ?” “Do? she answered. “You must keep out of the way of the Royal Ma- rine, for one thing.” 112 “But Pve an engagement with her for this afternoon,” he cried, sorrowful- ly. “We are all going to the Rocks together at five o’clock—she and I and half a dozen more.” “You had best let her and half a dozen more go to the Rocks without you for once,” Miss Marlenspuyk replied. “In fact, you had best go way for twenty-four hours.” “Leave the Pier?’ he said, sadly. ‘Where must I go?” The old maid was touched by his will- ingness to obey her. “You need not go far,” she answered ; “oo to Newport. And you need not stay long; come back to-morrow after- noon.” “ But what reason can I give for go- ing, and for breaking my engagement to walk on the Rocks?” he asked. She reached forward and picked up 113 the folded Sunday newspaper on the chair before her. “Didn’t you tell me that you had promised to explain to Mr. Joshua Hoff- man all about the new organ you want for St. Martha’s ?” she inquired. “ Yes,” he answered. “ What of it ?” “T suppose you haven’t read any of the papers this morning?” she queried. “Jf you had, you would have seen that Mr. Joshua Hoffman is now at New- port, and that he leaves there to-mor- row, and that he starts on Tuesday for Kurope, to be gone all winter. Now, go back to your hotel, and write a non- committal note to the Royal Marine, telling her that you have to go over to Newport at once to see Mr. Hoffman, but that you will return in the morn- ing, and that you hope to see her to- morrow evening. So it will be all right, whether you have proposed or 8 114 not, and whether she has promised to give you an answer to-morrow evening or not.” “T see,” he said, with a flash of re- viving hope. “Then,” she went on, “after you have sent that note, you take a horse and go over to Newport. I suppose you had best see Mr. Hoffman if you can, and tell him what he wants to know. But go to the Ocean House, and as soon as I have had a chat with Grandma and a talk with La Marguerite I will tele- graph you. Perhaps the telegram will put you out of your misery, and per- haps it won’t. But I will do my best for you. Now be off with you!” “J will go at once,” he said, rising with alacrity. “Iwill do anything you tell me. And how can I ever thank you for all the trouble you are taking for me ?” | . \ > Reds eed a . Siete) er eee 115 “ Well,’ the old maid answered, “vou can repay me easily. If you ever do propose to ’Rina, and she accepts you, and you are married, you must make her happy, and I shall be doubly paid. She is a dear girl, and I am very fond of her.” CHAPTER VI THE CONCERT AT THE CASINO Tue vast verandas of the Ocean House at Newport were almost deserted at ten o’clock that Sunday night, when War- ren Payn returned from a_ prolonged and ineffectual endeavor to find Mr. Joshua Hoffman. The musician went to the office of the hotel for the key of his room, resolved to go to bed and try to sleep. With the key the clerk handed him a telegram, which he tore. open with feverish haste, hoping that it would put him out of his misery at last. The telegram was from Miss Marlen- spuyk, and it read as follows: ‘Grandma knows nothing. The Daisy 117 _—— says she heard you snore. Don’t think she heard anything else.” Unconscious of his acts, Payn dropped the flimsy paper on the desk of the ho- tel office, and stared the hotel clerk straight in the eye. Then he recovered himself, and picked up the telegram and read it again. It gave him no cer- tain information, and it left him in darkness and in doubt as before. Ap- parently there was absolutely no one who knew whether or not he had asked the Royal Marine to marry him except that young lady herself, and she was evidently resolved to keep her own counsel. In disgust at the absurd situation in whieh he still found himself, the young man crushed the telegram in his hand and flung it into the waste-basket. Then he stooped and picked it up, and read it a third time. As he did so a faint 118 ray of hope appeared. Miss Marlen- spuyk was not sure that Virgie Chubb had not overheard his proposal. The telegram declared, “Don’t think she heard anything else.” But this was only » the old maid’s opinion. Perhaps she was in error. Perhaps The Daisy knew more than she was willing to let Miss Marlenspuyk guess. There was a dim and remote chance here, and, feeble as it was, the composer clung to it eagerly. He looked at his watch, and found that it was nearly a quarter after ten; and he knew that it was hopeless for him to attempt to return to the Pier at that hour on a Sunday night. So he possessed his soul in patience, and went to his room and to bed, and after a while to sleep. His- slumber was broken and fitful, yet it was solid enough in its fragments to allow a troop of nightmares to ride rough-shod over 119 him, one after the other, each swifter of pace than the other, and more terrible of aspect. : Towards morning he fell into a deeper sleep, and he had a strange dream. He dreamed that he saw Miss Virgie Chubb growing out of the sands of the sea- shore, an actual daisy, and that Miss Marlenspuyk stood over her, plucking the petals one by one, and saying, “ He did—he didn’t.” Payn knew at once that the old maid was trying to discover whether or not he had proposed to the Royal Marine, and in his dream he thought it a most excellent device, and he wondered why it had not occurred to him before. With a lively desire to learn whether he did or he didn’t, he watched the fatal operation upon La Marguerite ; but, of course, before any final decision was reached he waked out of his sleep, still in uncertainty. 120 After breakfast he attempted again to find Mr. Hoffman, and this time he succeeded. When he had made an end of the business which was his excuse for being in Newport, the morning was wellnigh gone. Payn rode back to Narragansett Pier, arriving at his own hotel just as the dinner-bell rang. He had been gone a little less than twenty- four hours, and his trip across the bay had given him a sufficient excuse, for keeping away from the woman he loved. But now he was back at the Pier, and he was bare of excuses, and he did not know what it was best for him to do next. Naturally he went again to see Miss Marlenspuyk, entering her hotel by the side door, and peering about the veran- da to make sure that neither Mrs. Car- roll nor her granddaughter was with the old maid. 121 When at last he approached Miss Marlenspuyk her first words encouraged . him. “You needn’t look so scared,” she said; “the Royal Marine isn’t here. Really I feel sorry for you—but I sup- pose people with the artistic tempera- ment are always more emotional. Some- times I find myself doubting whether the game of life is worth the candle— and I’m sure it isn’t, if you burn the candle at both ends, as you are doing now. You look as white as a ghost with the dyspepsia.” “ How is she?” he asked; “‘and where is she ?” | “She is very well,” Miss Marlenspuyk answered, “and she has gone with Grand- ma to spend the day with a Southern friend who has a house half-way down to Point Judith—so you can’t see her till to-morrow.” 122 “Then I don’t believe I proposed to her,” he returned, promptly. ‘ Because, if I did, she agreed to give me an an- swer to-night, and if she had made that agreement I’m sure she wouldn’t break it by going away for the evening.” “JT thought you didn’t want to see her till you had found out absolutely whether you had spoken or not,” Miss Marlenspuyk retorted. | “T don’t know what I want,” he an- swered. ‘Of course I want to see her, for ’m not happy out of her sight. And then, again, while I’m in this un- certainty I’m afraid to go near her, for fear some stupid blunder of mine may spoil all my chances. It’s a very em- barrassing situation, isn’t it?” “It is indeed,” she responded, sym- pathetically. “I wish I had been able to help you out of it. But Grandma didn’t know anything—that I’m sure 123 of—and La Marguerite wouldn’t tell me anything, if she knows it—and [’m sure I don’t know whether she does or not.” “T’ll talk to her myself,” the musician declared. “I'll get it ont of her some- how. I think she will be so glad to tease me that if she knows anything she will be quite incapable of keeping it to herself.” “Yes,” said Miss Marlenspuyk, re- flectively, “I suppose you could coax an underbred girl like that to talk about anything—even about her own eaves- dropping.” ‘And then, even if I don’t learn any- thing from her, ?m going to make an end of this suspense,” he went on. “I can’t stand it any longer. I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to know the truth—I don’t mean about my proposal —I mean about ’Rina. LTve got to 124 know whether she loves me or not. I’m so worried now that m getting desperate.” “IT can understand that, you poor boy,” she said, commiseratingly. “ Yet they say that eels get used to being skinned, and that the lobsters no longer mind being boiled to death. You have been in hot water so long now that I thought perhaps—” She caught his eyes fixed on Bie. re- proachfully, and so she broke off. “Tf she refuses me now,” he declared, “after all this, I don’t know what I shall do!” “T can tell you what to do this after- noon,” the old maid responded. ‘Go and play tennis—play hard—play until it is too dark to see the balls. That’s where you men have the advantage of us poor women. You can take violent exercise and drive away care, while all 125 we can do is to sew—and sewing is so insipid. Tve seen the time when I felt like running the needle into my heart.”’ It was a relief for him to laugh lightly at her vehemence, as he rose from the chair beside her. “Your advice is good,” he returned, “Cas it always is; and I’ll take it, and take the exercise. I wish I could get little Mat Hitchcock to play with me. Id make it uncomfortable for him to-day ; and he fancies himself at tennis too!” She smiled in her turn. ‘ There,” she said, “run along now and _ play. And if you get any information out of La Marguerite, let me know at once, won't you?” : “Of course I will,’ he responded, taking his leave. She watched him as he walked away with the springing step of youth. She 126 smoothed her white hair, and sighed gently; then she adjusted her glasses, and took up her sewing again. As it happened, the first man whom Warren Payn met as he came out on the tennis-grounds of the Casino was little Mat Hitchcock, who promptly ac- cepted his challenge. They were both good average players, neither of them of tournament rank, but that afternoon they played the best tennis of their lives. The first set was the hardest fought, and Payn won it finally, 10-8, and he won all the others—7—5, 6-4, 6-8, 6-8, 6-0. This love-set was too much for little Mat; he lost his temper, and threw his racket on the court indig- _nantly, and said that he had never seen a such luck in his life, and that it was simply disgusting. So the musician went to his hotel tired, of course, but in a far happier frame of mind. He M 127 took a bath, and had a sharp appetite for his supper. After the usual evening repast in Au- gust at the Pier—bluefish and black- berries—he lighted a cigarette, and strolled leisurely back to the Casino. He wished to be there early, because the leader of the little orchestra had asked his permission to include in the programme of that evening a selection from Dontezwma, Warren Payn’s only comic opera, which had been sung dur- ing a brief season at one of the New York theatres three or four years before. At the very moment when the com- poser was lighting a second cigarette, Miss Marlenspuyk, in the parlor of her __ hotel, was surprised by a visit from the Royal Marine. “But I thought you were not going to be back till late to-night !” she cried, in astonishment. 128 “Tt looked a little like it was going to rain after supper,” the young lady an- swered, “and Grandma reckoned she’d rather be back here. But now we are here, Grandma allows it won’t rain, and she wants to know if you’ll go over to the Casino with us this evening.” Miss Marlenspuyk hesitated for a mo- ment, wishing that she could devise some indirect means of ascertaining just how the composer stood in the Royal Ma- rine’s opinion. “Do come,” the girl went on, laying her hand affectionately on the old maid’s arm. ‘Id love to have you, and Grand- © ma is always chirped up after she’s been talking to you about your old friends in the So’th.” “T shall be delighted to come, my dear,” Miss Marlenspuyk responded, rising. ‘Jl send for my shawl.” While they were waiting for this the ag 129 young woman and the old walked up and down the long veranda on one side of the hotel. And suddenly Miss Mar- lenspuyk had an inspiration. “Excuse my asking such a question, Rina, my dear,” she began, linking her arm in the girl’s, “but have you and Mr. Payn quarrelled ?” “ Quaw’led !” echoed ’Rina. ‘“ The idea! Why, I haven’t seen him for two days.” “ Ah!’ Miss Marlenspuyk responded. “Not since the hop at the Casino on Saturday night ?” “Not since the hop,” the young ane repeated. Then she checked herself. and smiled. “ That is to say,” she went on, “I haven’t spoken.to him since the hop, but [ve seen him since. I saw him in church yesterday, of cou’se, and I saw him Saturday night after the hop, out on the bridge, where we all went 9 130 for a breath of fresh air after that sup- per.” Miss Marlenspuyk had become so in- terested in the composer’s extraordinary dilemma that it was with an almost per- ceptible shade of anxiety that she asked, “ Didn’t he speak to you then ?” The girl laughed out, and hers was a silvery, happy laugh. “Why, Miss Ma’lenspuyk,” she cried, “how could he? He was fast asleep— and, do you know, I thought I almost heard him snaw!” Miss Marlenspuyk laughed also. She had the answer to the enigma now. There was only one person in the world who knew whether Warren Payn was asleep or awake when he thought he had asked ’Rina Carroll to marry him, and that one person had declared that he was asleep when she had seen him last. ; 131 “But what made you think we had quaw’led, Miss Ma’lenspnyk ?”’ the girl began. The bell-boy brought her shawl to the old maid, who took it and thanked him graciously. Then turning to the Royal Marine, and ignoring altogether the girl’s question, she said: “Can you excuse me a moment, my dear? I must write a note before I go.” “T’ll wait for you out here on the po’ch,” the young lady answered. Miss Marlenspuyk bade the bell-boy follow her. She went into the office of the hotel, and taking out one of her visiting-cards, she wrote on it, hastily: “TY have seen the lady. It is all right. You were dreaming.” : Sealing this in an envelope, she di- rected it to Mr. Warren Payn, and told the bell-boy to take it at once to the -musician’s hotel. 132 As the boy sped down the steps, glad to run an errand for her, the old maid joined the Royal Marine on the veran- da, and they started to get Grandma and to go together to the Casino. But of course Miss Marlenspuyk’s reassuring message did not find Warren Payn at his hotel, and, in fact, it did not come into his hands until near mid- night, when he returned to his room after a most exciting and memorable evening. When the bell-boy left the envelope at the hotel, the musician had been for ten minutes in the billiard-room of the Casino, perched on a high chair near one of the windows which opened on the broad upper gallery. Thus placed he could hear the music distinctly, and he could watch a billiard mateh between two of the best players at the Pier that summer. 153 While one of the players was chalk- ing his cue preparatory to a most difh- cult carom, Payn heard the long laugh of Miss Virgie Chubb. Gazing hastily out of the window, he saw that La Marguerite was promenading with two other girls. He resolved to seize the opportunity. To the great surprise of Miss Chubb, whom the composer had hitherto rather avoided than sought, he joined the three girls and insisted upon talking to her, succeeding at last in cutting loose from . her companions and in bearing La Marguerite off for a promenade with him alone. He was in good spirits ; he felt as though the hour was favorable, and as though the end of his perplexity was at hand. So he rattled along, lead- ing Virgie on further and further, and briskly keeping up his end of the con- versation. All the while he was seek- 134 ing how he should begin his inquisition into her knowledge of his acts two nights before. Before he could plan an attack, chance gave him an opening. “Last time I saw you up here on this floor of the Casino you weren’t so talk- ative,” said La Marguerite, with one of her loud laughs. “That was the night before last, wasn’t it ?” he returned, eagerly. She nodded, still langhing. “ Well,’ he pursued, “if I wasn’t talking, what was I doing?” “You were snoring!” she cried. “That’s what you were doing. You were asleep in the moonlight, out there over the bridge. Come along now, and I'll show you the place.” She took his arm, and he suffered himself to be led. But when they came to the top of the stairs they found themselves face to face 135 with another couple, Mr. Cable J. Dex- ter and Miss Hectorina Carroll. Fol- lowing behind them half-way down the stairs were Mrs. Carroll and Miss Mar- lenspuyk. Payn stepped back in astonishment. Over the Royal Marine’s shoulder he could see Miss Marlenspuyk nodding and smiling and making strange signs. He felt sure that she was trying to con- vey to him some important information, although he could not make out what it was. He watched her lips closely as they moved in silent speech, but his eyes did not help him to her meaning any better than his ears. And while he was thus engaged the Royal Marine stood before him, won- dering at the extraordinary contortions of his visage, as he unconsciously imi- tated the movement of Miss Marlen- spuyk’s mouth. She wore the same* 136 yachting costume in which he had first seen her, with the V. R. and the crown on her sleeve; but as he did not see her at all he did not remark her costume. She stood alone, for when the two couples had come together Virgie Chubb had abandoned Payn promptly, and had immediately taken possession of Dexter. The Chicago grain-operator looked at the musician with an amused smile ; then he winked; then he offered — his arm to La Marguerite, and they walked off together, leaving Payn stand- ing helpless by the side of the woman whom he loved, and to whom he longed to speak. On the landing below Mra Carroll | and Miss Marlenspnyk had been de- -tained by three old ladies who were go- ing down-stairs, and who broke at once into a most animated conversation, from which the old maid tried vainly to de- 137 tach herself. At last she made a final and despairing gesture to the musician, and began to answer the questions which two of the old ladies poured out upon her. Then Warren Payn saw that he should have to rely wholly on himself. “Shall we take a little walk too?” he asked. “JT began to think you were never going to speak to me again,” she said, as they moved away towards the bridge side by side, and keeping step to the music of a march which was floating out from the orchestra on the lower veranda—the first notes of the selection from his opera of AZontezuma. “T—[—lJI was so surprised, you know,” he stammered — “so surprised to see you here. I thought you were not going to be back this evening.” “Oh, I meant to be back all the 138 time, you know,” she returned, quickly —‘“as soon as I heard that they were going to play the tunes from your opera.” Then, as though afraid that she might have said more than she had intended, she added, with even greater rapidity, ‘‘ Besides, Grandma wanted to come back herself; she thought it looked like it was going to rain.” “Tt was very good of you to want to listen to my music,” he responded, ex- panding joyously, as he always did in her presence. “But who told you about it? I meant to take you by sur- prise.” “Oh,” she laughed, merrily, “a little bird told me—a little bird that is ve’y fond of music.” By this time they had come out on the broad bridge, and the waters of the bay lay spread out before them bathed in the molten moonlight. 139 “YT don’t think Grandma is a ve’y good judge of the weather—do you?” she went on, “if she was afraid of a sto’m to-night.” “If your being here is the result of her miscalculation,’ he said, “I will recommend her for Old Probabilities’ place whenever she wants it.” The splendid upper promenade was almost deserted, and when they came to the balcony at the end there was no- body at all within sound of their voices. The young man knew that the time had come, and at the moment of need he had a sudden inspiration. “Tt would be nice,” she declared, “ to have Grandma for the Clerk of the Weather if she could give us nights as lovely as this whenever she pleased.” The orchestra on the ground-floor of the Casino was still playing the arrange- ment from Montezuma, and the players 140 now began the serenade from that opera —the tenor love-song which had almost carried the piece into popularity, and which still survived the oblivion of the rest of the score. So it was to the accompaniment of his own music that the composer spoke again. “Miss ’Rina,” he said, and the tone in which he spoke betrayed his purpose to the girl who was listening, “did you ever have the feeling that something you think you are seeing or saying or doing for the first time has happened to you before ?” “Often and often,” she answered, with an effort to seem unconcerned. ‘And [Ive heard people say it’s because our brain had two halves — just like it was a silver dollar.” “JT have a feeling now,’ he went on, gravely, “as though I had said al- 141 ready what I am going to say to you now.” She knew then that the proposal was inevitable, and although he had hesitated for a moment, she said nothing. “T feel as though I had already told you that I love you.” Then he paused again, and the clear sweet notes of his song rang out on the silvery air from the orchestra beneath them. “Itseems as though I had always loved you, and that I must have told you of it many times.” Still she kept silent. “’ Rina,” he continued, steadily, “ will you be my wife ?” “T don’t know what to say,” the girl answered at last. “I didn’t think you were going to talk this way — at least, not yet awhile.” But you are going away so soon,” he urged, “and I must have your an- swer now.” 142 “YT can’t make up my mind all at once,” she said; ‘‘ you must give me time.” Then he wondered whether this too were also a dream. “TI can’t wait!’ he replied. “Ive been waiting all summer, for my mind was made up as soon as I saw you. 9) “Tet me have a week. On, you must!” she cried. ‘Give me two or three days, anyhow.” And again he doubted whether he were awake or asleep. “T don’t see why you can’t decide now,” he declared. “What do you need two days for? You don’t hate me now, do you ?” “ Oh no,” she answered, frankly. “I couldn’t do that.” “Then you do love me a little, don’t you?” he urged. 143 She did not reply. But when he promptly put his arm about her she yielded, and let him kiss her, just as the music came to an end. Half an hour later he took his prom- ised bride back to her grandmother. She found Miss Marlenspuyk sitting with Mrs. Carroll in a sheltered nook of the lower veranda. By the faces of the young couple the old maid saw what had happened, and, greatly to the surprise of Grandma, she drew the girl to her and kissed her on the forehead. “ And you thought we had quaw’led,” said the Royal Marine, while her grand- mother wondered at what was going on under her eyes but beyond her compre- hension. And while the granddaughter was explaining, Miss Marlenspuyk was con- gratulating Warren Payn. 144 “T see,” she said, “it was Lomeo and Juliet, after all, and not a /idswmmer- Nights Dream.” THE END UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 3 0112 072894089