Part 42 (1/2)

”Why,” said he, ”nothing's happened that I know of.”

The part of prudence was to halt, but anxiety hurried her on as if it might have been to the rescue of a child in pain.

”Didn't you see her?” she asked breathlessly.

”Yes, I saw her.”

He pa.s.sed a hand over his forehead and smoothed his hair in a way he had, ending the gesture at the back of his neck.

”How'd she look, Jerry? What was she doing?”

”Why,” said Jerry, narrowing his eyes, as if he recalled a picture he had found incredible, ”she was playing croquet out in the front yard.”

”But how'd she look?”

”Why, she's a kind of a dark-complexioned woman. She wears spe'tacles.

She's”--he paused there an instant and caught his breath--”she's pretty fleshy.”

”Was she nice to you?”

”Yes, she was nice. She meant to be real nice and kind. She made me”--a spasm twitched his face, and he concluded--”she made me play croquet.”

They stood there in the wood loneliness, dapples of sunlight flickering on them through the leaves. Marietta felt a strange wave of something rus.h.i.+ng over her. It might have been mirth, or indignation that somebody had destroyed her old friend's paradise; but it threatened to sweep her from her basis of control.

”You sit down, Jerry,” she said soberly. ”I'm going to the spring to get you a cup of water, and then we'll have our luncheon.”

When she returned, bearing the full cup delicately, he lay like a disconsolate boy, face down upon the ground; so she touched him on the shoulder and said, in a tone of the brisk housewife:--

”Luncheon's ready.”

Then Jerry sat up, and ate when she put food into his hand and drank from the cup she gave him. Marietta ate only a crumb here and there from her one bit of bread, for, seeing how hungry he was, she suspected that, in his poet's rapture, he had had no breakfast. She tried to rouse him to the things he loved.

”Only look through there,” she said, pointing to a vista where a group of birches were s.h.i.+mmering in green. ”I don't know 's I ever see a fountain such as they tell about, but this time in the year, before the leaves have fairly come, seems if the green was like a fountain springing up and never falling back. Maybe, though, it's the word I like, the sound of it. I don't know.”

Jerry turned his eyes on her in a quick, keen glance.

”Marietta,” he said, ”you have real pretty thoughts.”

”Do I?” asked Marietta, laughing, without consciousness. She was only glad to have beguiled him from the trouble of his mind. ”Well, if I do, I guess you put 'em into my head in the first place.” The feast was over, and she folded the napkin and swept away the crumbs. ”Want some more water?” she asked, pausing as she repacked the basket.

Jerry shook his head.

”Marietta,” said he, ”seems if it wa'n't a day since you and I used to be here picnicking.”

She laughed again whimsically.

”Well,” she said, ”when I travel back over the seams I've sewed, looks like a good long day. I guess there's miles enough of 'em to stretch from here to State o' Maine.”