Part 5 (1/2)
Presently she straightened up where she was kneeling in the long gra.s.s and stretched her arms. Then, still kneeling, she gazed curiously at Wayne with all the charm of a friendly wild thing unafraid.
”Shall we play tennis?” she asked.
”Certainly,” said Wayne, startled.
”Come, then,” she said, picking up her basket in one hand and extending the other to Wayne.
He took the fresh, cool fingers, and turned scarlet. Once his glance sneaked toward Briggs, but that young man was absorbed in fis.h.i.+ng for brook trout with a net! Oh, ye little fishes! with a _net_!
Wayne's brain seemed to be swarming with glittering pink-winged thoughts all singing. He walked on air, holding tightly to the hand of his G.o.ddess, seeing nothing but a blur of green and suns.h.i.+ne. Then a clean-cut idea stabbed him like a stiletto: was this Vanessa or Iole?
And, to his own astonishment, he asked her quite naturally.
”Iole,” she said, laughing. ”Why?”
”Thank goodness,” he said irrationally.
”But why?” she persisted curiously.
”Briggs--Briggs--” he stammered, and got no further. Perplexed, his G.o.ddess walked on, thoughtful, pure-lidded eyes searching some reasonable interpretation for the phrase, ”Briggs--Briggs.” But as Wayne gave her no aid, she presently dismissed the problem, and bade him select a tennis bat.
”I do hope you play well,” she said. Her hope was comparatively vain; she batted Wayne around the court, drove him wildly from corner to corner, stampeded him with volleys, lured him with lobs, and finally left him reeling dizzily about, while she came around from behind the net, saying, ”It's all because you have no tennis shoes. Come; we'll rest under the trees and console ourselves with chess.”
Under a group of huge silver beeches a stone chess-table was set embedded in the moss; and Iole indolently stretched herself out on one side, chin on hands, while Wayne sorted weather-beaten basalt and marble chess-men which lay in a pile under the tree.
She chatted on without the faintest trace of self-consciousness the while he arranged the pieces; then she began to move. He took a long time between each move; but no sooner did he move than, still talking, she extended her hand and shoved her piece into place without a fraction of a second's hesitation.
When she had mated him twice, and he was still gazing blankly at the mess into which she had driven his forces, she sat up sideways, gathering her slim ankles into one hand, and cast about her for something to do, eyes wandering over the sunny meadow.
”We had horses,” she mused; ”we rode like demons, bareback, until trouble came.”
”Trouble?”
”Oh, not trouble--poverty. So our horses had to go. What shall we do--you and I?” There was something so subtly sweet, so exquisitely innocent in the coupling of the p.r.o.nouns that a thrill pa.s.sed completely through Wayne, and probably came out on the other side.
”I know what I'm going to do,” he said, drawing a note-book and a pencil from his pocket and beginning to write, holding it so she could see.
”Do you want me to look over your shoulder?” she asked.
”Please.”
She did; and it affected his penmans.h.i.+p so that the writing grew wabbly.
Still she could read:
(_Telegram_)
TO SAILING MASTER, YACHT THENDARA, BAR HARBOR:
Put boat out of commission. I may be away all summer.
WAYNE.