“Hang the story of her life!” muttered the miserable youth in the pool. His teeth were beginning to chatter.
“Do go on, aunty!” cried the eager Adnah.
“Well, child, they were all alike. Having insinuated their way into our confidences by agreeable manners and by their really indisputable attractiveness, having aroused the beginnings of tender emotions, what did these young men do, one and all? Why, instead of waiting until the acquaintance had ripened into mutual undying affection and then falling gracefully to their knees with honorable proposals of marriage, they one and all chose what seemed to be favorable moments and strove, by cajolery or stealth or even force, to kiss us. To kiss us!”
“Gracious!” exclaimed Adnah.
There was a moment’s silence. The young man in the pool could feel the goose-flesh pimpling between his shoulder blades.
“After all, though, it might not have been so very dreadful,” finally commented Adnah, after a thoughtful sigh.
“Adnah!” cried the horrified Aunt Matilda. “I am astounded!”
“I can’t help it, aunty,” said Adnah. “I can’t make it seem so terrible, no matter how hard I try. In fact it—it seems to me that it would have been—well—rather nice.”
“Adnah!”
“But, aunty, didn’t it ever seem that way to you, sometimes?”
Aunt Matilda was shocked and silent for a moment, then over her pale cheeks crept a pink flush.
“I’ll not deny,” she presently confessed in a hesitant voice, “that if we had not had each other to rely upon for firmness we might perhaps have been deluded by some of these young scapegraces. They were truly quite appealing at times. There was one in particular—”
Again Aunt Matilda became lost in meditation. The young man in the pool swore softly, even though he perceived the tear that trembled upon the lady’s eyelash. It was impossible to be sympathetic while a leech was fastened to his ankle.
“My mother must have thought the way I do, I am sure,” persisted Adnah. The remark brought Aunt Matilda out of the past with a jerk.
“Your poor mother had the most pitiful experience of all, child,” she replied. “She married. Shortly after you were born, she died, fortunately spared all knowledge of your father’s faithless fickleness. Adnah, he, too, married again! You, Adnah, was too young to protect yourself from a stepmother, but we came to your rescue. Your great uncle, Peter, had just died and left us this fine estate, and here we are, trying to shield you from the wiles of the destroyer, man!”
“Some men must be nice, or so many, many girls would not want them,” commented Adnah, still unconvinced.
“I’ll not deny, dear, that some of them seem quite nice,” admitted the other with a sigh. “There was one in particular—”
The dogs interrupted at this moment with a racing struggle for some red and brown object.
“Now what has Castor got?” cried Adnah, jumping up to give chase in a healthy and delightful burst of speed.
The youth in the pool dismally realized that Castor had his missing sock, a brown lisle affair with a quaint red pattern in it, at a dollar a pair. His teeth were pounding together like castanets, now, so loudly that he feared Aunt Matilda must surely hear them. Adnah presently returned, flushed rosy red by the exercise and more charming than ever.
“I couldn’t catch them,” she panted. “Gracious, but I am warm! There is plenty of time for a plunge before dinner. Just wait, Aunt Mattie, until I run for the bathing suits,” and she flashed away again.
Great Cæsar’s ghost! The hidden youth grew so warm with apprehension that the goose-flesh disappeared and the chattering of his teeth stopped. His dilemma was unspeakable and unsolvable, seemingly, but suddenly it was solved for him. The dogs came back!
The sock had been shredded and they sought fresh diversion. After a cordially barked invitation for the young man to come out and play, they went in after him. There was a tremendous splashing struggle. Suddenly the willows were pulled down by a muscular bare arm, and the face of a young man appeared above it to the astounded gaze of Aunt Matilda.
“Excuse me, madam,” he began, lunging viciously at Castor and Pollux with his feet. “Please call off your dogs.”
Aunt Matilda, pale but determined, whipped an antiquated monster of a pistol from her pocket, though she held it far off from her and to one side, with no intention, past, present or future, of ever firing it. It got its effectiveness from size alone, and was built for pure moral suasion if ever a pistol was.
“Hold perfectly still or I shall shoot,” she quaveringly warned him. “You are a male trespasser, sir!”
“I sincerely regret it, madam,” replied the culprit, slapping viciously at the mosquito behind his ear. He got it that time.
“You probably will,” freezingly retorted Aunt Matilda. “I shall telephone for the sheriff immediately, and if you are still here when he arrives you shall receive the full penalty of the law.”
The young man did some quick thinking. It was necessary.
“Madam, your dogs have stolen my clothing and my money, and I can not leave until I get them back,” he presently declared with lucky inspiration. “If you have me arrested for trespass I shall bring suit for the recovery of property.”
Aunt Matilda was sufficiently perplexed to lower her pistol and allow him to explain, while she coaxed the dogs out of the water. He was a splendid talker, and had fine, honest-looking blue eyes.
There was a rush of swift footsteps among the trees.
“Hide!” she commanded in sudden panic.
He promptly hid, and when Adnah arrived with the bathing suits, that young lady found her aunt calmly seated on the ground, holding Castor and Pollux each by a dripping collar.
“Leave my suit and return to the house at once with these dogs,” directed Aunt Matilda without turning her head.
“Why, Aunt Mattie, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing!” snapped Aunt Matilda in desperation. “Go back to the house and stay until I come. Ask no questions.”
Adnah searched the scene in mystification for a moment.
“Yes, aunty,” she suddenly said, and walked away in a flutter of excitement. She had caught the gleam of a bright eye peering at her from among the willows!
She burst into a spontaneous rhapsody of song as she went, trilling and warbling in sweet, untaught cadences, unconsciously like a bird singing to its mate in the springtime. She had a wonderful voice. The young man was sorry when she was out of hearing, but glad, too, for the water was beginning to pucker his cuticle in hard ridges like a wash-board.
“Now, young man,” said Aunt Matilda, “I shall leave this bathing suit here for your use. I shall expect you to put it on and retire from the premises as quickly as possible.”
“I must remain until nightfall,” was the firm reply. “I must find my money and clothes. I should feel ridiculous to be seen in such clothing as that. You, yourself, would scarcely care to have me seen emerging from your premises, on Sunday especially, in such outlandish garments.”
That last argument told. Aunt Matilda visibly weakened.
“Very well, then,” she grudgingly agreed, “but at dusk—Mercy, young man, how your teeth do chatter! Are you getting a chill? I’ll bring you a bowl of boneset tea and some dinner right away!” and she hurried off in much concern.
The young man lost no time in getting into that bathing suit, for the chill of the water was upon him.