It was eleven o'clock next morning before Ella ventured to rap softly on the door. They had just finished breakfast. The bride was clearing up the table, humming a song of her childhood.
Jim caught her in his arms.
“Once more before she comes!”
“Don't kill me!” she laughed.
Jim lounged in the window and smoked his cigarette while Ella and Mary chattered in the kitchenette.
In half an hour the scrub-woman had made her last trip with the extra dishes, and the little home was spick and span.
Mary sprang on the couch and snuggled into Jim's arms.
“I've changed our plans——” he began thoughtfully.
“We won't give up our honeymoon trip?” she cried in alarm. “That's one dream we MUST live, Jim, dear. I've set my heart on it.”
“Sure we will—sure,” he answered quickly. “But not in that car.”
“Why?”
Jim grinned.
“Because I like you better—you get me, Kiddo?”
She pressed close and whispered:
“I think so.”
“You see, that fool car might throw a tire or two. Believe me, it'll be a job to have her on my hands for a thousand miles. Of course, if I didn't know you, little girl, it would be all sorts of fun. But, honest to God, this game beats the world.”
He bent low and kissed her again.
“Where'll we go, then?” she murmured.
“That's what I'm tryin' to dope out. I like the sea. It lulls me just like whisky puts a drunkard to sleep. I wish we could get where it's bright and warm and the sun shines all the time. We could stay two weeks and then jump on the train and be in Asheville the day before Christmas.”
Mary sprang up excitedly.
“I have it! We'll go to Florida—away down to the Keys. It's the dream of my life to go there!”
“The Keys what's that?” he asked, puzzled.
“The Keys are little sand islands and reefs that jut out into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The railroad takes us right there.”
“It's warm and sunny there now?”
“Just like summer up here. We can go in bathing in the surf every day.”
Jim sprang to his feet.
“Got a bathing suit?”
“Yes—a beauty. I've never worn it here.”
“Why?”
“It seemed so bold.”
“All right. Maybe we can get a Key all by ourselves for two weeks.”
“Wouldn't it be glorious!”
“We'll try it, anyhow. I'll buy the doggoned thing if they don't ask too much. Pack your traps. I'll go down to the shop and get my things. We'll be ready to start in an hour.”
By four o'clock they were seated in the drawing-room of a Pullman car on the Florida Limited, gazing entranced at the drab landscape of the Jersey meadows.
Three days later, Jim had landed his boat on a tiny sand reef a half-mile off the coast of Florida with a tent and complete outfit for camping. Like two romping children, they tied the boat to a stake and rushed over the sand-dunes to the beach. They explored their domain from end to end within an hour. Not a tree obscured the endless panorama of sea and bay and waving grass on the great solemn marshes. Piles of soft, warm seaweed lay in long, dark rows along the high-tide mark.
Mary selected a sand-dune almost exactly the height and shape of the one on which they sat at Long Beach the day he told her of his love.
“Here's the spot for our home!” she cried. “Don't you recognize it?”
“Can't say I've ever been here before. Oh, I got you—I got you! Long Beach—sure! What do you think of that?”
He hurried to the boat and brought the tent. Mary carried the spade, the pole and pegs.
In half an hour the little white home was shining on the level sand at the foot of their favorite dune. The door was set toward the open sea, and the stove securely placed beneath an awning which shaded it from the sun's rays.
“Now, Kiddo, a plunge in that shining water the first thing. I'll give you the tent. I'll chuck my things out here.”
In a fever of joyous haste she threw off her clothes and donned the dainty, one-piece bathing suit. She flew over the sand and plunged into the water before Jim had finished changing to his suit.
She was swimming and diving like a duck in the lazy, beautiful waters of the Gulf when he reached the beach.
“Come on! Come on!” she shouted.
He waved his hand and finished his cigarette.
“It's glorious! It's mid-summer!” she called.
With a quick plunge he dived into the water, disappeared and stayed until she began to scan the surface uneasily. With a splash he rose by her side, lifting her screaming in his arms. Her bathing-cap was brushed off, and he seized her long hair in his mouth, turned and with swift, strong beat carried her unresisting body to the beach.
He drew her erect and looked into her smiling face.
“That's the way I'd save you if you had called for help. How'd you like it?”
“It was sweet to give up and feel myself in your power, dear!”
His drooping eyes were devouring her exquisite figure outlined so perfectly in the clinging suit.
“I was afraid to wear this in New York,” she said demurely.
“I can't blame you. If you'd ever have gone on the beach at Coney Island in that, there'd have been a riot.”
He lifted her in his arms and kissed her.
“And you're all mine, Kiddo! It's too good to be true! I'm afraid to wake up mornings now for fear I'll find I've just been dreaming.”
They plunged again in the water, and side by side swam far out from the shore, circled gracefully and returned.
Hours they spent snuggling in the warm sand. Not a sound of the world beyond the bay broke the stillness. The music of the water's soft sighing came on their ears in sweet, endless cadence. The wind was gentle and brushed their cheeks with the softest caress. Far out at sea, white-winged sails were spread—so far away they seemed to stand in one spot forever. The deep cry of an ocean steamer broke the stillness at last.
“We must dress for dinner, Jim!” she sighed.
“Why, Kiddo?”
“We must eat, you know.”
“But why dress? I like that style on you. It's too much trouble to dress.”
“All right!” she cried gayly. “We'll have a little informal dinner this evening. I love to feel the sand under my feet.”
He gathered the wood from the dry drifts above the waterline and kindled a fire. The salt-soaked sticks burned fiercely, and the dinner was cooked in a jiffy—a fresh chicken he had bought, sweet potatoes, and delicious buttered toast.
They sat in their bathing suits on camp-stools beside the folding table and ate by moonlight.
The dinner finished, Mary cleared the wooden dishes while Jim brought heaps of the dry, spongy sea grass and made a bed in the tent. He piled it two feet high, packed it down to a foot, and then spread the sheets and blankets.
“All ready for a stroll down the avenue, Kiddo?” he called from the door.
“Fifth Avenue or Broadway?” she laughed.
“Oh, the Great White Way—you couldn't miss it! Just look at the shimmer of the moon on the sands! Ain't it great?”
Hand in hand, they strolled on the beach and bathed in the silent flood of the moonlit night—no prying eyes near save the stars of the friendly southern skies.
“The moon seems different down here, Jim!” she whispered.
“It is different,” he answered with boyish enthusiasm. “It's all so still and white!”
“Could we stay here forever?”
He shook his head emphatically.
“Not on your life. This little boy has to work, you know. Old man John D. Rockefeller might, but it's early for a young financier to retire.”
“A whole week, then?”
“Sure! For a week we'll forget New York.”
They sat down on the sand-dune behind the tent and watched the waters flash in the silvery light, the world and its fevered life forgotten.
“You're the only thing real tonight, Jim!” she sighed.
“And you're the world for me, Kiddo!”
She waked at dawn, with a queer feeling of awe at the weird, gray light which filtered through the cotton walls. A sense of oneness with Nature and the beat of Her eternal heart filled her soul. The soft wash of the water on the sands seemed to be keeping time to the throb of her own pulse.
She peered curiously into the face of her sleeping lover. She had never seen him asleep before. She started at the transformation wrought by the closing of his heavy eyelids and the complete relaxation of his features. The strange, steel-blue coloring of his eyes had always given his face an air of mystery and charm. The complete closing of the heavy lids and the slight droop of the lower jaw had worked a frightful change. The romance and charm had gone, and instead she saw only the coarse, brutal strength.
She frowned like a spoiled child, put her dainty hand under his chin and pressed his mouth together.
“Wake up, sir!” she whispered. “I don't like your expression!”
He refused to stir, and she drew the tips of her fingers across his ears and eyelids.
He rubbed his eyes and muttered:
“What t'ell?”
“Let's take a bath in the sea before sunrise—come on!”
The sleeper groaned heavily, turned over, and in a moment was again dead to the world.
Mary's eyes were wide now with excitement. The hours were too marvelous to be lost in sleep. She could sleep when they must return to the tiresome world with its endless crowds of people.
She rose softly, ran barefoot to the beach, threw her night-dress on the sand and plunged, her white, young body trembling with joy, into the water.
It was marvelous—this wonderful hush of the dawn over the infinite sea. The air and water melted into a pearl gray. Far out toward the east, the waters began to blush at the kiss of the coming sun. The pearl gray slowly turned into purple. So startling was the vision, she swam in-shore and stood knee-deep in the shallows to watch the magic changes. In breathless wonder she saw the sea and sky and shore turn into a trembling cloud of dazzling purple. A moment before, she had caught the water up in her hand and poured it out in a stream of pearls. She lifted a handful and poured it out now, each drop a dazzling amethyst. And even while she looked, the purple was changing to scarlet—the amethyst into rubies!
A great awe filled her in the solemn hush. She stood in Nature's vast cathedral, close to God's heart—her life in harmony with His eternal laws.
How foolish and artificial were the ways of the far-away, drab, prosaic world of clothes and houses and furnishings! If she could only live forever in this dream-world!
Even while the thought surged through her heart, she lifted her head and saw the red rim of the sun suddenly break through the sea, and started lest the white light of day had revealed her to some passing boatman hurrying to his nets.
Her keen eye quickly swept the circle of the wide, silent world of sand-dunes, marsh and waters. No prying eye was near. Only the morning star still gleaming above saw. And they were twin sisters.
Four days flew on velvet wings before the first cloud threw its shadow across her life. Jim always slept until nine o'clock, and refused with dogged good-natured indifference to stir when she had asked him to get the wood for breakfast. It was nothing, of course, to walk a hundred yards to the beach and pick up the wood, and she did it. The hurt that stung was the feeling that he was growing indifferent.
She felt for the first time an impulse to box his lazy jaws as he yawned and turned over for the dozenth time without rising. He looked for all the world like a bulldog curled up on his bed of grass.
She shook him at last.
“Jim, dear, you must get up now! Breakfast is almost ready and it won't be fit to eat if you don't come on.”
He opened his heavy eyelids and gazed at her sleepily.
“All righto——! Just as you say—just as you say.”
“Hurry! Breakfast will be ready before you can dress.”
“Gee! Breakfast all ready! You're one smart little wifie, Kiddo.”
The compliment failed to please. She was sure that he had been fully awake twice before and pretended to be asleep from sheer laziness and indifference.
The thought hurt.
When they sat down at last to breakfast, she looked into his half-closed eyes with a sudden start.
“Why, Jim, your eyes are red!”
“Yes?”
“What's the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“You're ill—what is it?”
He grinned sheepishly.
“You couldn't guess now, could you?”
“You haven't been drinking!” she gasped.
“No,” he drawled lazily, “I wouldn't say drinking—I just took one big swallow last night—makes you sleep good when you're tired. Good medicine! I always carry a little with me.”
A sickening wave went over her. Not that she felt that he was going to be a drunkard. But the utter indifference with which he made the announcement was a painful revelation of the fact that her opinion on such a question was not of the slightest importance. That he was now master of the situation he evidently meant that she should see and understand at once.
She refused to accept the humiliating position without a struggle and made up her mind to try at once to mold his character. She would begin by getting him to cut the slang from his conversation.
“You remember the promise you made me one day before we were married, Jim?” she asked brightly.
“Which one? You know a fellow's not responsible for what he promises to get his girl. All's fair in love and war, they say——”
“I'm going to hold you to this one, sir,” she firmly declared.
“All right, little bright eyes,” he responded cheerfully as he lit a cigarette and sent the smoke curling above his red head.
She sat for a while in silence, studying the man before her. The task was delicate and difficult. And she had thought it a mere pastime of love! As her fiance, he had been wax in her hands. As her husband, he was a lazy, headstrong, obstinate young animal grinning good-naturedly at her futile protests. How long would he grin and bear her suggestions with patience? The transition from this lazy grin to the growl of an angry bulldog might be instantaneous.
She would move with the utmost caution—but she would move and at once. It would be a test of character between them. She edged her chair close to his, drew his head down in her lap and ran her fingers through his thick, red hair.
“Still love me, Jim?” she smiled.
“Crazier over you every day—and you know it, too, you sly little puss,” he answered dreamily.
“You WILL make good your promises?”
“Sure, I will—surest thing you know!”
“You see, Jim dear,” she went on tenderly, “I want to be proud of you——”
“Well, ain't you?”
“Of course I am, silly. I know you and understand you. But I want all the world to respect you as I do.” She paused and breathed deeply. “They've got to do it, too, they've got to——”
“Sure, I'll knock their block off—if they don't!” he broke in.
She raised her finger reprovingly and shook her head.
“That's just the trouble: you can't do it with your fists. You can't compel the respect of cultured men and women by physical force. We've got to win with other weapons.”
“All right, Kiddo—dope it out for me,” he responded lazily. “Dope it out——”
Her lips quivered with the painful recognition of the task before her. Yet when she spoke, her voice was low and sweet and its tones even. She gave no sign to the man whose heavy form rested in her arms.
“Then from today we must begin to cut out every word of slang—it's a bargain?”
“Sure, Mike—I promised!”
“Cut `Sure Mike!'”
She raised her finger severely.
“All right, teacher,” he drawled. “What'll we put in Sure Mike's place? I've found him a handy man!”
“Say `certainly.'”
Jim grinned good-naturedly.
“Aw hell, Kiddo—that sounds punk!”
“And HELL, Jim, isn't a nice word——”
“Gee, Kid, now look here—can't get along with out HELL—leave me that one just a little while.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“No?”
“And PUNK is expressive, but not suited to parlor use.”
“All right—t'ell with PUNK!” He turned and looked. “What's the matter now?” he asked.
“Don't you realize what you've just said?”
“What did I say?”
She turned away to hide a tear.
He threw his arms around her neck and drew her lips down to his.
“Ah, don't worry, Kiddo—I'll do better next time. Honest to God, I will. That's enough for today. Just let's love now. T'ell with the rest.”
She smiled in answer.
“You promise to try honestly?”
He raised his hand in solemn vow.
“S'help me!”
Each day's trial ended in a laugh and a kiss until at last Jim refused to promise any more. He grinned in obstinate, good-natured silence and let her do the worrying.
She watched him with growing wonder and alarm. He gradually lapsed into little coarse, ugly habits at the table. She tried playfully to correct them. He took it good-naturedly at first and then ignored her suggestions as if she were a kitten complaining at his feet.
She studied him with baffling rage at the mystery of his personality. The long silences between them grew from hour to hour. She could see that he was restless now at the isolation of their sand-island home. The queer lights and shadows that played in his cold blue eyes told only too plainly that his mind was back again in the world of battle. He was fighting something, too.
She was glad of it. She could manage him better there. She would throw him into the company of educated people and rouse his pride and ambition. She heard his announcement of their departure on the eighth day with positive joy.
“Well, Kiddo,” he began briskly, “we've got to be moving. Time to get back to work now. The old town and the little shop down in Avenue B have been calling me.”
“Today, Jim?” she asked quickly.
“Right away. We'll catch the first train north, stop two days, Christmas Eve and Christmas, in Asheville, and then for old New York!”
The journey along the new railroad built on concrete bridges over miles of beautiful waters was one of unalloyed joy. They had passed over this stretch of marvelous engineering at night on their trip down and had not realized its wonders. For hours the train seemed to be flying on velvet wings through the ocean.
She sat beside her lover and held his hand. In spite of her enthusiasm, he would doze. At every turn of entrancing view she would pinch his arm:
“Look, Jim! Look!”
He would lift his heavy eyelids, grunt good-naturedly and doze again.
In the dining-car she was in mortal terror at first lest he should lapse into the coarse table manners into which he had fallen in camp. She laid his napkin conspicuously on his plate and saw that he had opened and put it in place across his lap before ordering the meals.
The moment he found himself in a crowd, the lights began to flash in his eyes, his broad shoulders lifted and his whole being was at once alert and on guard. He followed his wife's lead with unerring certainty.
She renewed her faith in his early reformation, though his character was a puzzle. He seemed to be forever watching out of the corners of his slumbering eyes. She wondered what it meant.
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