At his expression, or, more at the tone he employed in its utterance, she shrank from him, and then, regardless of her steps, sped half-way up the hill, beside the spring course. There she flung herself upon a mossy plot, face down.
Crowley called to her from the road, but she did not answer; he went to her, and stooping touched her shoulder. Her whole body, prone before him, quivered. She was crying.
He talked to her a long time, there in the woodland, silence about them save for the calls of the birds.
She turned her wet eyes upon his face.
"Oh, to think every one doubts me!" she murmured. "You laughed at me when I asked you if I could help—you think I'm only a toy-like girl—a sort of great cat to be fondled always."
She seized a stick, broke it impetuously across her knee and rose before him.
"I will help!" she cried, "I will—and you'll see what I'll do!"
Afterward—long afterward—he remembered her, as she was that moment—her golden hair tumbling upon her shoulders; her eyes blazing, her glorious figure erect, her white hands clenched at her sides.
So it was Crowley—Jim Crowley the penitent, yet the sceptical—who brought them together, just as it was Crowley who waited, who counted the days, who watched.
II
From the walk he saw them on the tennis courts one evening a week later.
Unobserved he watched their movements; the girl's lithe, graceful; Houston's, strong, manly. He was serving and Crowley noted the swift sweep of his white arm, bare almost to the shoulder, and was thrilled. Florence had slipped the links in her sleeves and rolled her cuffs back to dimpled elbows and her forearms were brown from much golf.
Crowley approached the players after a moment and they joined him at the end of the net. The flush on the girl's face gave her beauty a radiance that he could not recall ever having noticed before. Usually Florence was marbly calm. Houston was warm, glowing.
"Gad, you're a fine pair; I've been watching you," Crowley blurted.
The girl shot him one swift glance, then her lips parted over her strong, white, even teeth, as she laughed.
"Aren't we?" she cried gaily—"just splendid——" And made a playful lunge at him with the raquet.
"Venus and Adonis playing tennis, eh?" Crowley said.
"Oh, cut it out," Houston exclaimed.
"They didn't play tennis, did they?" Florence asked.
"He ought to know," Houston put in, "he's working for that Rome scholarship—but he'll never get it any more than I shall the Athens...."
"They used to play hand ball—the gods did——" Crowley explained professorily. "And in a court, too. I suppose your tennis is merely a survival of that old Greek game."
The three sat at the edge of the court while Crowley discoursed learnedly upon the pastimes of the ancient Greeks. The deep throated bells in the Library Tower rang out the hour of eight across the maples and the amateur lecturer rose lazily.
"Do you want to go down town, Jack?" he asked indifferently.
Had Houston known how breathlessly Crowley hung upon his answer he would not have taken so long to make it. As it was he glanced up at his room-mate and across at Florence whose eyes met his with a look of inquiry. He looked away then and Crowley glanced at the girl, and in her eyes he seemed to see a challenge.
"He's not going down town," she said, quite definitely, though still smiling; "he's going home with me."
Crowley shrugged his shoulders.
"Are you, Jack?" he asked.
"She says so," was the light reply.
"Well, as I'm not invited I guess I had better be moseying along."
"Oh, you can come if you want to," Florence said naïvely.
"Oh, ho; if I want to! Well I guess not!" Crowley exclaimed and moved away, calling over his shoulder: "Good-night to you—Venus and Adonis."
"Isn't he a good sort?" Florence asked as the youth's tall figure disappeared around the corner of the red museum.
"Ripping!" Houston replied emphatically, "only I wish he weren't such an old Dryasdust...."
He carried the raquets under his arm with his coat wrapped about them. At the door of her home he started to put on his coat.
"You needn't," she said, perceiving his intent—"leave it off; it will be cooler. Shall we go in?" She took the coat and flung it over a chair in the hall and led the way into the little round room.
"Don't light up," he said—she was feeling along the top of the teak-wood rack for matches—"Don't you think this is nicer?"
In the shadow, and half-turned from him as it was, he could not see her face nor the smile that swept across it as he spoke.
He flung himself on the seat between the two windows, and she sank upon a low, old-fashioned stool before him, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her two slim hands. They talked commonplaces for a space, and gradually silence fell upon them. After a while he fumbled for his tobacco and little book of cigarette papers.
Divining the purpose of his search she glanced over her shoulder and asked archly in a half-whisper:
"Wouldn't you rather have a made one?"
She rose before he could reply, and took down from the rack across the corner a Japanese jar into the depths of which she plunged her hand. She held out to him a half-dozen of the little white tubes. Selecting one he lighted it.
Puffing contentedly: "Doesn't your mother mind?" he asked.
She shook her head and sat on the circular seat beside him.
"She's not here," she added. "There's a social at the church; she's there...."
"Oh," he muttered.
While he smoked, she looked out the window into the silent street now almost dark. Afterward she watched him blow thin, writhing rings; leaning toward him, supporting herself on one hand, pressed hard against the cushion.
"Why don't you smoke?" he ventured after a few moments, emboldened by the deepening shadows in the little room.
"I've a mind to," she said in a half whisper.
He crossed the room straightway and dove his own hand into the jar and held out a cigarette to her.
"I'll get a match," he said.
"Don't," she cried, "let me light it from yours."
They leaned toward each other on the window-seat until their faces were very close and the fire of his cigarette touched the tip of hers. Across the frail white bridge and through the pale cloud that rose, their eyes met and his gazed deep into hers, the depths of which he could not fathom. Then they drew back their heads with one accord and his hand fell upon hers where it lay on the cushion. Nor did she withdraw her hand even as his closed over it. The contact sent his blood tingling to his heart; he leaned nearer her. Their eyes, as now and then they saw in the little light the glowing coals of their cigarettes gave, did not waver. He ceased smoking, and so did she. His cigarette dropped from his nerveless fingers. Quickly he flung an arm about her and drew her toward him, holding her close, breathlessly. The perfume of her hair got into his brain, and deadened all but the consciousness of her nearness. She did not resist his impulse, but lay calm in his arms, her face upturned, her eyes melting, gazing into his.
"Dearest," he murmured—"dearest—dearest—"
"Kiss me—kiss me—Jack." The whisper was like the faint moving of young leaves in the forest.