Part 14 (1/2)

Tony behind them made a sudden movement that let out nearly a yard of rope, and the _Farfalla_ listed heavily to starboard.

'Tony!' Constance threw over her shoulder. 'Don't you know enough to sit still when you are holding the sheet?'

'_Scusi_,' he murmured. The sulky look had vanished from his face; he wore an expression of alert attention.

'Of course we shall have them at the villa,' said Miss Hazel. 'And we shall have to get some new dishes. Elizabetta has already broken so many plates that she has to stop and wash them between courses.'

Constance looked dreamily across the lake; she appeared to be thinking.

'I wonder,' she inquired finally, 'if Jerry Junior knew we were here in Valedolmo?'

Her father emerged from the columns of his paper.

'Of course he knew it, and having heard what a dangerous young person you were, he said to himself, ”I'd better keep out.”'

'I wish I knew. It would make the score against him considerably heavier.'

'So there is already a score? I hadn't supposed that the game had begun.'

She nodded.

'Six years ago--but he doesn't know it. Yes, Dad,' her tone was melodramatic, 'for six years I've been waiting for Jerry Junior and planning my revenge. And now, when I have him almost in my grasp, he eludes me again!'

'Dear me!' Mr. Wilder e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. 'What did the young man do?'

Had Constance turned she would have found Tony's face an interesting study. But she knew well enough without looking at him that he was listening to the conversation, and she determined to give him something to listen to. It was a salutary thing for Tony to be kept in mind of the fact that there were other men in the world.

She sighed.

'He was the first man I ever loved, father, and he spurned me. Do you remember that Christmas when I was in boarding-school and you were called South on business? I wanted to visit Nancy Long, but you wouldn't let me because you didn't like her father; and you got Mrs. Jerymn Hilliard whom I had never set eyes on to invite me there? I didn't want to go, and you said I must, and was perfectly horrid about it?--you remember that?'

Mr. Wilder grunted.

'Yes, I see you do. And you remember how, with my usual sweetness, I finally gave way? Well, Dad, you never knew the reason. The Yale Glee Club came to Westfield that year just before the holidays began, and Miss Jane let everybody go to the concert whose deportment had been above eighty--that of course included me.

'Well, we all went, and we all fell in love--in a body--with a soph.o.m.ore who played the banjo and sang negro songs. He had lovely dark gazelle-like eyes, and he sang funny songs without smiling. The whole school raved about him all the way home; we cut his picture out of the programme and pasted in the front of our watches. His name, father'--she paused dramatically--'was Jerymn Hilliard Junior!'

'I sat up half the night writing diplomatic letters to you and Mrs.

Hilliard; and the next day when it got around that I was actually going to visit in his house--well, I was the most popular girl in school. I was sixteen years old then; I wore sailor suits and my hair was braided down my back. Probably I did look young; and then Nannie, whom I was supposedly visiting, was only fifteen. There were a lot of cousins in the house besides all the little Hilliards, and what do you think? They made the children eat in the school-room! I never saw him until Christmas night; then when we were introduced, he shook my hand in a listless sort of way, said ”How d'y' do?” and forgot all about me. He went off with the Glee Club the next day, and I only saw him once more.

'We were playing blind man's buff in the school-room; I had just been caught by the hair. It hurt and I was squealing. Everybody else was clapping and laughing, when suddenly the door burst open and there stood Jerry Junior! He looked straight at me and growled----

'”What are you kids making such an infernal racket about?”'

She shut her eyes.

'Aunt Hazel, Dad, just think. He was my first love. His picture was at that moment in a locket around my neck. And he called me a _kid_!'