Part 65 (1/2)
”Crying!” repeated Nina incredulously. Then, disarmed by the serene frankness of the girl, she added: ”A blue-stocking is bad enough, but a grimy one is impossible. _Allons! Vite_!” she insisted, driving Eileen before her; ”the country is demoralising you. Philip, we're dining early, so please make your arrangements to conform. Come, Eileen; have you never before seen Philip Selwyn?”
”I am not sure that I ever have,” she replied, with a curious little smile at Selwyn. Nina had her by the hand, but she dragged back like a mischievously reluctant child hustled bedward:
”Good-bye,” she said, stretching out her hand to Selwyn--”good-bye, my unfortunate fellow fogy! I go, slumpy, besmudged, but happy; I return, superficially immaculate--but my stockings will still be blue! ...
Nina, dear, if you don't stop dragging me I'll pick you up in my arms!--indeed I will--”
There was a laugh, a smothered cry of protest; and Selwyn was the amused spectator of his sister suddenly seized and lifted into a pair of vigorous young arms, and carried into the house by this tall, laughing girl who, an hour before, had lain there among the cus.h.i.+ons, frightened, unconvinced, clinging instinctively to the last gay rags and tatters of the childhood which she feared were to be stripped from her for ever.
It was clear starlight when they were ready to depart. Austin had arrived unexpectedly, and he, Nina, Eileen, and Selwyn were to drive to Hitherwood House, Lansing and Gerald going in the motor-boat.
There was a brief scene between Drina and Boots--the former fiercely pointing out the impropriety of a boy like Gerald being invited where she, Drina, was ignored. But there was no use in Boots offering to remain and comfort her as Drina had to go to bed, anyway; so she kissed him good-bye very tearfully, and generously forgave Gerald; and comforted herself before she retired by putting on one of her mother's gowns and pinning up her hair and parading before a pier-gla.s.s until her nurse announced that her bath was waiting.
The drive to Hitherwood House was a dream of loveliness; under the stars the Bay of Shoals sparkled in the blue darkness set with the gemmed ruby and sapphire and emerald of s.h.i.+ps' lanterns glowing from unseen yachts at anchor.
The great flash-light on Wonder Head broke out in brilliancy, faded, died to a cinder, grew perceptible again, and again blazed blindingly in its endless monotonous routine; far lights twinkled on the Sound, and farther away still, at sea. Then the majestic velvety shadow of the Hither Woods fell over them; and they pa.s.sed in among the trees, the lamps of the depot wagon s.h.i.+ning golden in the forest gloom.
Selwyn turned instinctively to the young girl beside him. Her face was in shadow, but she responded with the slightest movement toward him:
”This dusk is satisfying--like sleep--this wide, quiet shadow over the world. Once--and not so very long ago--I thought it a pity that the sun should ever set... . I wonder if I am growing old--because I feel the least bit tired to-night. For the first time that I can remember a day has been a little too long for me.”
She evidently did not ascribe her slight sense of fatigue to the scene on the veranda; perhaps she was too innocent to surmise that any physical effect could follow that temporary stress of emotion. A quiet sense of relief in relaxation from effort came over her as she leaned back, conscious that there was happiness in rest and silence and the soft envelopment of darkness.
”If it would only last,” she murmured lazily.
”What, Eileen?”
”This heavenly darkness--and our drive, together... . You are quite right not to talk to me; I won't, either... . Only I'll drone on and on from time to time--so that you won't forget that I am here beside you.”
She lay so still for a while that at last Nina leaned forward to look at her; then laughed.
”She's asleep,” she said to Austin.
”No, I'm not,” murmured the girl, unclosing her eyes; ”Captain Selwyn knows; don't you? ... What is that sparkling--a fire-fly?”
But it was the first paper lantern glimmering through the Hitherwood trees from the distant lawn.
”Oh, dear,” sighed Eileen, sitting up with an effort, and looking sleepily at Selwyn. ”_J'ai sommeil--besoin--dormir_--”
But a few minutes later they were in the great hall of Hitherwood House, opened from end to end to the soft sea wind, and crowded with the gayest, noisiest throng that had gathered there in a twelvemonth.
Everywhere the younger set were in evidence; slim, fresh, girlish figures pa.s.sed and gathered and crowded the stairs and galleries with a flirt and flutter of winnowing skirts, delicate and light as powder-puffs.
Mrs. Sanxon Orchil, a hard, highly coloured, tight-lipped little woman with electric-blue eyes, was receiving with her slim brunette daughter, Gladys.
”A tight little craft,” was Austin's invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action.
Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retrousse moustache.
The Lawns were there, the Minsters, the Craigs from Wyossett, the Grays of Shadow Lake, the Draymores, Fanes, Mottlys, Cardwells--in fact, it seemed as though all Long Island had been drained from Cedarhurst to Islip and from Oyster Bay to Wyossett, to pour a stream of garrulous and animated youth and beauty into the halls and over the verandas and terraces and lawns of Hitherwood House.