The sound of departing wheels was lost in the swish of surf on the rocks. Maud Porter stood looking seaward. Again the New York boat in the distance, lost to sight now, boomed its signal to smaller fry as it advanced to the harbor. The rioting wind carried her thin gray veil out straight. She heard the house door open, and turned to meet the surprised gaze of Miss Barry, in a checked gingham gown, but with her scanty coiffure and long onyx earrings precisely as she had seen them last.
Mrs. Porter smiled radiantly, and captured her streaming veil.
"I'm what he left on the step," she said.
Miss Barry's surprised gaze grew uncertain. There was a familiar look about this radiant face, but where —
"Was you one of the Portland Aid – " she began.
"No, no!" Mrs. Porter stepped forward and held out both her hands. "Don't let my suit-case frighten you, dear Miss Barry. I've only come to call. Remember last Christmas in Chicago, and Linda's teacher, Mrs. Porter?"
"Mrs. Porter!" exclaimed Miss Barry, letting her hand be captured in the two outstretched ones. "Do excuse me!" Her face beamed welcome. She had liked Linda's voice teacher, and when Belinda Barry liked a person it was once and forever. "Come right into the house this minute," she said cordially. "I'm ashamed o' myself!"
CHAPTER VI
THE SHINGLED COTTAGE
Miss Barry's hard, kindly hands helped remove the visitor's hat and veil, although Mrs. Porter repeated her declaration that she had come only for a call.
"You're going to stay to dinner with me," returned the hostess. "I always do have enough for two."
Her lips, which had returned to their rather grim line, twitched a little as she spoke, and Maud Porter glanced about the living-room with its old-fashioned furniture and rag rugs. Beyond was the dining-room, divided from this only by an imaginary line, and the table stood ready set for one.
"You live here all alone?" asked the visitor.
"Not half as alone as I'd like to be. I don't mind the fish and the barnacles, but it's the folks coming to the back door. Sit right down, Mrs. Porter."
"Don't let me detain you if you were getting dinner." The caller laughed. "How about these folks that come to the front door; the things Captain Holt leaves on the step?"
"Oh, I'm in no hurry. I'm going to sit right down with you now. Things are stewing out there. There's nothing to hurt."
Miss Barry suited the action to the word. Mrs. Porter regarded her with curious interest as she sank into a rocker with chintz cushions. The hostess's narrow face, usually as devoid of expression as a mask, was now lighted by pleasure.
"How comes it you didn't let a body know?" she asked.
"I was going to be so wonderfully independent! I was going to come to the Cape, and find a place to live, and then some day saunter over to your cottage bareheaded, and surprise you."
"And all you accomplished was the surprise, eh?"
"That's it, and it's entirely your fault. I was driving about with Captain Holt to see the lay of the land, when suddenly the rocks and the water, and this cottage perched on them like a gull's nest, did something to me. I don't know what. I think it gave me a brain-storm. When he told me you lived here, what could I do but rush in to congratulate you?"
Miss Barry's lips twitched again. "I ain't any gull, I will maintain that, but – it is sightly, ain't it?"
"Wonderful. Nothing less than wonderful. But in a storm, Miss Barry?"
"Yes, the windows are all spray then, and the waves try to swallow me up, and I can't hear myself think, but – "
"Yes," – Mrs. Porter nodded as the other hesitated, – "I understand that 'but.'"
"How'd you leave my brother?"
"Very tired."
"That so? Wouldn't you think he'd come up here and rock in the cradle o' the deep awhile? You write him about that hammock out there."
Mrs. Porter looked out through the open window toward the end of the porch, where a hammock hung.
"The doctor says Colorado," she replied.
"Doctor? Is it as bad as that?" Miss Barry frowned questioningly. "Lambert never writes. I don't care for his stenographer's letters, and he knows it. If he can't take time to write himself, let it go." The speaker threw her head to one side, as if disposing of the matter of fraternal affection.
"Linda is blooming," remarked Mrs. Porter.
Miss Barry's lips took a thinner line. "Let her bloom," she responded dryly; and her visitor laughed again.
"Doesn't she write either?"
"I should say not."
"It will be less difficult now she's out of college," said Mrs. Porter pacifically. "Those girls are absolutely occupied, you know."
"Never play at all, I presume," returned her hostess, with a curling lip.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that."
"Better not if you care where you go to. – No," after a slight pause, "I understand my niece a good deal better than she thinks I do. It's enough that she scorns her own name. She was named for me. Belinda's been good enough for me, and she's no business to slight the name her parents gave her."
"Oh, Linda is such a free lance," said Mrs. Porter apologetically; "and 'Linda' sounds so breezy, so – so like her. 'Belinda' is quaint and demure, and – and you know, really, she isn't demure!"
"Not a great deal," agreed Miss Barry curtly. "I'm sorry my brother isn't well," she added.
"These business men let themselves be driven so. You remember my cousin Bertram King. He and Mr. Barry have been worn down in the same vortex, and both are ordered away. I told Bertram Maine was the best place in the world for him. As soon as I find an abiding-place I shall let him know."
Miss Barry rose suddenly. "I'm forgetting that you're starved. Just excuse me while I dish up the chowder," she said, and vanished.
Mrs. Porter clasped her hands and lifted her eyes.
"Chowder!" she repeated sententiously; then she too rose, went to the open window, and stood looking out.
The tide was rising, and the waves, climbing higher and higher, threw white arms toward the shingled cottage, as if claiming its boulder foundation, and striving to pass the barrier of daisies and draw the little house down to its own seething breast.
As the visitor stood there, a woman, bareheaded, stepped up from the grass upon the porch, and giving one glance from her prominent, faded eyes at the gray figure standing in the window, crossed the piazza to the front door, which was closed.
Mrs. Porter, advancing, opened it, and came face to face with a scrawny little woman, who stood with her head apologetically on the side. Her temples were decorated with those plastered curls of hair known as "beau-catchers," and across the forehead it was strained back and caught in a comb set with large Rhinestones. Her red-and-green plaid calico dress was open girlishly at the throat, around which a red ribbon was tied with the bow in the back.
"Why are they always thin here?" thought Maud Porter. "Is it eating fish? Do they never have to reduce?"
"Oh, pardon me!" exclaimed the newcomer, with such an elegant lift of her bony shoulders that it twisted her whole body. "I expected to see Belinda – that is – pardon me! – Miss Barry."
"She's in the kitchen just at present. Won't you come in?"
The newcomer accepted with alacrity, her prominent eyes openly scanning Mrs. Porter's costume.
"I wouldn't have thought of intruding had I supposed Miss Barry had a guest. I didn't notice Jerry brought anybody." Another writhe, and a rearrangement of a long necklace of imitation coral beads, which suffered against the red plaid.
"Yes, he brought happy me," returned Mrs. Porter,