"Who was an excellent and rather stupid woman beloved for her good works."
"Oh, I know the modern whitewashers are determined to rob history of anything that is picturesque. No matter, I shall cling to my faith in Lucrezia and William Tell. Put that picture out of my sight. PLEASE, Emily."
Emily put the maltreated picture away in a drawer of her desk. Her brief anger had gone. She understood. At least she understood why the eyes had been cut out. It was harder to understand just why Ilse could care so much and so incurably for Perry Miller. And there was just a hint of pity in her heart as well... condescending pity for Ilse who cared so much for a man who didn't care for her.
"I think this will cure me," said Ilse savagely. "I can't... I won't love a turncoat. Blind bat... congenital idiot that he is! Pah, I'm through with him. Emily, I wonder I don't hate you. Rejecting with scorn what I want so much. Ice-cold thing, did you ever really care for anything or any creature except that pen of yours?"
"Perry has never really loved me," evaded Emily. "He only imagines he does."
"Well, I'd be content if he would only just imagine he loved me. How brazen I am about it. You're the one person in the world I can have the relief of saying such things to. That's why I can't let myself hate you, after all. I daresay I'm not half as unhappy as I think myself. One never knows what may be around the next corner. After this I mean to bore Perry Miller out of my life and thoughts just as I bored his eyes out. Emily," with an abrupt change of tone and posture, "do you know I like Teddy Kent better this summer than I ever did before."
"Oh." The monosyllable was eloquent, but Ilse was deaf to all its implications.
"Yes. He's really charming. Those years in Europe have done something to him. Perhaps it's just that they've taught him to hide his selfishness better."
"Teddy Kent isn't selfish. Why do you call him selfish? Look at his devotion to his mother."
"Because she adores him. Teddy likes to be adored. That's why he's never fallen in love with any one, you know. That... and because the girls chased him so, perhaps. It was sickening in Montreal. They made such asses of themselves... waiting on him with their tongues hanging out... that I wanted to dress in male attire and swear I wasn't of their sex. No doubt it was the same in Europe. No man alive can stand six years of that without being spoiled... and contemptuous. Teddy is all right with US... he knows we're old pals who can see through him and will stand no nonsense. But I've see him accepting tribute... graciously bestowing a smile... a look... a touch as a reward. Saying to every one just what he thought she'd like to hear. When I saw it I always felt I'd love to say something to him that he'd think of for years whenever he woke up at three o'clock o'night."
The sun had dropped into a bank of purple cloud behind the Delectable Mountain and a chill and shadow swept down the hill and across the dewy clover-fields to New Moon. The little room darkened and the glimpse of Blair Water through the gap in Lofty John's bush changed all at once to livid grey.
Emily's evening was spoiled. But she felt... KNEW... that Ilse was mistaken about many things. There was one comfort, too... evidently she had kept her secret well. Not even Ilse suspected it. Which was agreeable to both the Murray and the Starr.
IV
But Emily sat long at her window looking into the black night that turned slowly to pale silver as the moon rose. So the girls had "chased" Teddy.
She wished she had not run quite so quickly when he had called from Lofty John's bush. "Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad" was all very well in song. But one was not living in a Scotch ballad. And that change in Ilse's voice... that almost confidential note. Did Ilse mean... ? How pretty Ilse had looked to-night. In that smart, sleeveless dress of green sprinkled with tiny golden butterflies... with the green necklace that circled her throat and fell to her hips like a long green snake... with her green, gold- buckled shoes... Ilse always wore such ravishing shoes. DID Ilse mean... ? And if she did... ?
After breakfast Aunt Laura remarked to Cousin Jimmy that she felt sure something was on the dear child's mind.
Chapter XIV
I
"The early bird catches... the desire of his heart," said Teddy, slipping down beside Emily on the long, silken, pale-green grasses on the bank of Blair Water.
He had come so silently that Emily had not heard him until she saw him and she could not repress a start and blush... which she hoped wildly he did not see. She had wakened early and been seized with what her clan would doubtless have considered a temperamental desire to see the sun rise and make new acquaintances with Eden. So she had stolen down New Moon stairs and through the expectant garden and Lofty John's bush to the Blair Water to meet the mystery of the dawn. It had never occurred to her that Teddy would be prowling, too.
"I like to come down here at sunrise, now and then," he said. "It's about the only chance I have of being alone for a few minutes. Our evenings and afternoons are all given over the mad revelry... and Mother likes me to be with her every moment of the forenoons. She's had six such horribly lonely years."
"I'm sorry I've intruded on your precious solitude," said Emily stiffly, possessed of a horrible fear that he might think she knew of his habits and had come purposely to meet him.
Teddy laughed.
"Don't put on New Moon airs with me, Emily Byrd Starr. You know perfectly well that finding you here is the crown of the morning for me. I've always had a wild hope that it might happen. And now it has. Let's just sit here and dream together. God made this morning for us... just us two. Even talking would spoil it."
Emily agreed silently. How dear it was to sit here with Teddy on the banks of Blair Water, under the coral of the morning sky, and dream... just dream... wild, sweet, secret, unforgettable, foolish dreams. Alone with Teddy while all their world was sleeping. Oh, if this exquisite stolen moment could last! A line from some poem of Marjorie Pickthall quivered in her thought like a bar of music...
Oh, keep the world forever at the dawn.
She said it like a prayer under her breath.
Everything was so beautiful in this magical moment before sunrise. The wild blue irises around the pond, the violet shadows in the curves of the dunes, the white filmy mist hanging over the buttercup valley across the pond, the cloth of gold and silver that was called a field of daisies, the cool, delicious gulf breeze, the blue of far lands beyond the harbour, plumes of purple and mauve smoke going up on the still, golden air from the chimneys of Stovepipe Town where the fishermen rose early. And Teddy lying at her feet, his slim brown hands clasped behind his head. Again she felt inescapably the magnetic attraction of his personality. Felt it so strongly that she dared not meet his eyes. Yet she was admitting to herself with a secret candour which would have horrified Aunt Elizabeth that she wanted to run her fingers through his sleek black hair... feel his arms about her... press her face against his dark tender one... feel his lips on her lips...
Teddy took one of his hands from under his head and put it over hers.
For a moment of surrender she left it there. Then Ilse's words flashed into memory, searing her consciousness like a dagger of flame. "I've seen him accepting tribute"... "graciously bestowing a touch as a reward"... "saying to each one just what he thought she wanted to hear." Had Teddy guessed what she had been thinking? Her thoughts had seemed so vivid to her that she felt as if any one must SEE her thinking. Intolerable. She sprang up abruptly, shaking off his fingers.