Dick could say nothing. Most of his education had come in through his pores.
“I like Mr. Wilson, too.”
“He is the other one, I suppose?”
Dick, his eyes fixed on the sand, did not catch the mirthful glance that was shot at him after these words. And her voice, friendly and unconscious, told him nothing.
“Yes, he is Mr. Beveridge’s friend. They room together.”
“Well, I hope they enjoy it.”
“Now, Dick, what makes you so cross? When you are such a bear, it wouldn’t be any wonder if I didn’t want to see you.”
He gazed for a minute at the rippling blue lake, then broke out: “Can you blame me for being cross? Is it my fault?”
She looked at him with wondering eyes.
“Why – you don’t mean it is my fault, Dick?”
“Do you think it is just right to treat me this way, Annie?”
“What way do you mean, Dick?”
He bit his lip, then looked straight into her eyes and came out with characteristic directness: —
“I don’t like to think I’ve been making a mistake all this while, Annie. Maybe I have never asked you right out if you would marry me. I’m not a college fellow, and it isn’t always easy for me to say things, but I thought you knew what I meant. And I thought that you didn’t mind my meaning it.”
She was beginning to look serious and troubled.
“But if there is any doubt about it, I say it right now. Will you marry me? It is what I have been working for – what I have been buying the schooner for – and if I had thought for a minute that you weren’t going to say yes sooner or later, I should have gone plumb to the devil before this. It isn’t a laughing matter. It has been the thought of you that has kept me straight, and – and – can’t you see how it is, Annie? Haven’t you anything to say to me?”
She looked at him. He was so big and brown; his eyes were so clear and blue.
“Don’t let’s talk about it now. You’re so – impatient.”
“Do you really think I’ve been impatient?”
She could not answer this.
“Now listen, Annie: I’m going to sail in the morning, away around to a place called Spencer, on Lake Huron; and I could hardly get back inside of ten or twelve days. And if I should go away without a word from you – well, I couldn’t, that’s all.”
“You don’t mean – you don’t want me to say before to-morrow?”
“Yes, that’s just what I mean. You haven’t anything to do to-night, have you?”
She shook, her head without looking at him. “Well, I ‘ll be around after supper, and we ‘ll take a walk, and you can tell me.”
But her courage was coming back. “No, Dick, I can’t.”
“But, Annie, you don’t mean – ”
“Yes, I do. Why can’t you stop bothering me, and just wait. Maybe then – some day – ”
“It’s no use – I can’t. If you won’t tell me to-night, surely ten – or, say, eleven – days ought to be enough. If I went off tomorrow without even being able to look forward to it – Oh, Annie, you’ve got to tell me, that’s all. Let me see you to-night, and I ‘ll try not to bother you. I ‘ll get back in eleven days, if I have to put the schooner on my back and carry her clean across the Southern Peninsula,” – she was smiling now; she liked his extravagant moods, – “and then you ‘ll tell me.” He had her hand; he was gazing so eagerly, so breathlessly, that she could hardly resist. “You ‘ll tell me then, Annie, and you ‘ll make me the luckiest fellow that ever sailed out of this town. Eleven days from to-night – and I ‘ll come – and I ‘ll ask you if it is to be yes or no – and you ‘ll tell me for keeps. You can promise me that much, can’t you?”
And Annie, holding out as long as she could, finally, with the slightest possible inclination of her head, promised.
“Where will you be this evening?” he asked, as they parted.
“I ‘ll wait on the porch – about eight.”
For the rest of the afternoon Dick sat brooding in his cabin. When, a little after six, he saw Henry coming down the companionway, his heart warmed.
“Thought I’d come over and eat with you,” said his cousin. “What’s the matter here – why don’t you light up?”
Dick, by way of reply, mumbled a few words and struck a light. Henry looked at him curiously.
“What is it, Dick?” he asked again.
There had been few secrets between them. So far as either knew, they were the last two members of their family, and their intimacy, though never expressed in words, had a deep foundation. Before the present arrangement of Dick’s work, which made it possible for them to meet at least once in the month, they had seen little of each other; but at every small crisis in the course of his struggle upward to the command of a schooner, Dick had been guided by the counsel and example of the older man. Now he spoke out his mind without hesitation.
“Sit down, Henry. When – when I told you about what I have been thinking – about Annie – why did you look at me as you did?”
“How did I look?”
“Don’t dodge, Henry. The idea struck you wrong. I could see that, and I want to know why.”
“Well,” Henry hesitated, “I don’t know that I should put it just that way. I confess I was surprised.”
“Haven’t you seen it coming?”
“I rather guess the trouble with me was that I have been planning out your future without taking your feelings into account.”
“How do you mean, – planning my future?”
“Oh, it isn’t so definite that I could answer that question offhand. I thought I saw a future for myself, and I thought we might go it together. But I was counting on just you and me, without any other interests or impediments.”
“But if I should marry – ”
“If you marry, your work will have to take a new direction. Your interests will change completely. And before many years, you will begin to think of quitting the Lake. It isn’t the life for a family man. But then – that’s the way things go. I have no right to advise against it.” Henry smiled, with an odd, half bitter expression. “And from what I have seen since my eyes were opened, I don’t believe it would do any good for me to object.”
“You are mistaken there, Henry,” the younger man replied quietly; “it isn’t going well at all. I’ve been pretty blue to-day.”
“Well,” said Henry, with the same odd expression, “I don’t know but what I’m sorry for that. That future I was speaking of seems to have faded out lately, – in fact, my plans are not going well, either. And so you probably couldn’t count on me very much anyway.”
He paused. Pink Harper, who acted as cook occasionally when the Anne was tied up and the rest of the crew were ashore, could be heard bustling about on deck. After a moment Henry rose, and, with an impulsive gesture, laid his hand on Dick’s shoulder. “Cheer up, Dick,” he said. “Don’t take it too hard. Try to keep hold of yourself. And look here, my boy, we’ve always stepped pretty well together, and we mustn’t let any new thing come in between us – ”
“Supper’s ready!” Pink called down the companionway.
Dick was both puzzled and touched; touched by