第7章

And they both laughed, and the squirrel that had come to meet Joan darted off with a sour look.He had anticipated a fat meal of peanuts.He was out of it now, he saw, and muttered whatever was the squirrel equivalent for a swear-word.

The boy and girl took the path that ran round the outskirts of the wood, swung into step and chimed into the cantata of spring with talk and laughter.

There had been rather a long silence.

Joan was sitting with her back against the trunk of a fallen tree, with her hands clasped round her knees.She had tossed her hat aside, and the sunlight made her thick brown hair gleam like copper.

They had come out at another aerie on the hill, from which a great stretch of open country could be seen.Her eyes were turned as usual in the direction of New York, but there was an expression of contentment in them that would have startled all the old people and things at home.

Martin Gray was lying full stretch on the turf with his elbows up and his chin on his left fist.He had eyes for nothing but the vivid girl whom he had found so unexpectedly and who was the most alive thing that he had ever seen.

During this walk their chatter had been of everything under the sun except themselves.Both were so frankly and unaffectedly glad to be able to talk at all that they broke into each other's laughing and childish comments on obvious things and forgot themselves in the pleasure of meeting.But now the time had come for mutual confidences, and both, in the inevitable young way, felt the desire to paint the picture of their own particular grievance against life which should make them out to be the two genuine martyrs of the century.It was now a question of which of them got the first look-in.The silence was deliberate and came out of the fine sense of sportsmanship that belonged to each.Although bursting to pour out her troubles, Joan wanted to be fair and give Martin the first turn, and Martin, equally keen to prove himself the champion of badly treated men, held himself in, in order that Joan, being a woman, should step into the limelight.It was, of course, the male member of the duet who began.A man's ego is naturally more aggressive than a woman's.

"Do you know," said Martin, arranging himself in a more comfortable attitude, "that it's over two months since I spoke to any one of about my own age?"Joan settled herself to listen.With the uncanny intuition that makes women so disconcerting, she realized that she had missed her chance and must let the boy have his head.

Not until he had unburdened his soul would she be able, she knew, to focus his complete attention upon herself.

"Tell me about it," she said.

He gave her a grateful look."You know the house with the kennels over there--the hounds don't let you miss it.I've been wandering about the place without seeing anybody since Father died.""Oh, then, you're Martin Gray!"

"Yes."

"I was awfully sorry about your father."

"Thanks." The boy's mouth trembled a little, and he worked his thumb into the soft earth."He was one of the very best, and it was not right.He was too young and too much missed.I don't understand it.

He had twenty-five years to his credit, and I wanted to show him what I was going to do.It's all a puzzle to me.There's something frightfully wrong about it all, and it's been worrying me awfully."Joan couldn't find anything to say.Years before, when she was four years old, Death had come to her house and taken her own father away, and she had a dim remembrance of dark rooms and of her mother crying as though she had been very badly hurt.It was a vague figure now, and the boy's queer way of talking about it so personally made the conventional expressions that she had heard seem out of place.

It was the little shake in his voice that touched her.

"He had just bought a couple of new hunters and was going to run the hunt this fall.I wanted him to live forever.He died in New York, and I came here to try and get used to being without him.I thought I should stay all alone for the rest of my life, but--this morning when I was moping about, everything looked so young and busy that Igot a sort of longing to be young and busy again myself.I don't know how to explain it, but everything shouted at me to get up and shake myself together, and on the almanac in Father's room I read a thing that seemed to be a sort of message from him.""Did you? What was it?"

"'We count it death to falter, not to die.' It was under to-day's date, and it was the first thing I saw when I went to the desk where Father used to sit, and it was his voice that read it to me.It was very wonderful and queer.It sort of made me ashamed of the way Iwas taking it, and I went out to begin again,--that's how it seemed to me,--and I woke everybody up and set things going and saw that the horses were all right, and then I climbed over the wall, and as I walked away, out again for the first time after all those bad weeks, I wanted to find some one young to talk to.I don't know how it was, but I went straight up the hill and wasn't a bit surprised when I saw you standing there.""That's funny," said Joan.

"Funny--how?"

"I don't know.But if you hadn't found me after the feeling that came to me at lunch--""Well?"

"Well, I'm sure I should have turned bitter and never believed any more in fairies and all that.I don't think I mean fairies, and Ican't explain what 'all that' stands for, but I know I should have been warped if I hadn't turned round and seen you."And she laughed and set him laughing, and the reason of their having met was waved aside.The fact remained that there they were--youth with youth, and that was good enough.