id="pgepubid00019">CHAPTER III

The Sycamore Divan

A virgin love in the heart of a young girl is like an effervescent chemical: it may withstand a great shock, but a single drop of an apparently harmless liquid may cause it to evaporate. This risk Dic took when he went that evening to see Tom; and the fact that Rita had written her letter, of which she had such grave misgivings, together with the words of Sukey Yates, made his risk doubly great. Poor Dic needed a thorough knowledge of chemistry. He did not know that he possessed it, but he was a pure-minded, manly man, and the knowledge was innate with him.

"Good evening, Rita," said Dic, when, after many efforts, she came out upon the porch where he was sitting with her father, her mother, and Tom.

"Good morning," answered Rita, confusedly, and her mistake as to the time of day added to her confusion.

"Good morning!" cried Tom. "It's evening. My! but she's confused because you're here, Dic."

Tom was possessed of a simian acuteness that had led him to discover poor Rita's secret before she herself was fully aware of its existence. She, however, was rapidly making the interesting discovery, and feared that between the ribbon, the letter, and Tom's amiable jokes, Dic would discover it and presume upon the fact. From the mingling of these doubts and fears grew a feeling of resentment against Dic—a conviction before the fact. She wished him to know her regard for him, but she did not want him to learn it from any act of hers. She desired him to wrest it from her by main force, and as little awkwardness as a man may use. Had Dic by the smallest word or act shown a disposition to profit by what Rita feared had been excessive frankness in her letter, or had he, in any degree, assumed the attitude of a confident lover, such word or act would have furnished the needful chemical drop, and Dic's interests would have suffered. His safety at this time lay in ignorance. He did not suspect that Rita loved him, and there was no change in his open friendly demeanor. He was so easy, frank, and happy that evening that the girl soon began to feel that nothing unusual had happened, and that, after all, the letter was not bold, but perfectly right, and quite proper in all respects. Unconsciously to her Dic received the credit for her eased conscience, and she was grateful to him. She was more comfortable, and the evening seemed more like old times than for many months before.

Soon after Dic's arrival, Tom rode over to see Sukey Yates. As the hollyhock to the bees, so was Sukey to the country beaux—a conspicuous, inviting, easily reached little reservoir of very sweet honey. Later, Mr. and Mrs. Bays drove to town, leaving Dic and Rita to themselves, much to the girl's alarm, though she and Dic had been alone together many times before. Thus Dic had further opportunity to make a mistake; but he did not mention the letter, and the girl's confidence came slowly back to her.

The evening was balmy, and after a time Dic and Rita walked to the crest of the little slope that fell gently ten or fifteen feet to the water's edge. A sycamore log answered the purpose of a divan, and a great drooping elm furnished a royal canopy. A half-moon hung in the sky, whitening a few small clouds that seemed to be painted on the blue-black dome. The air, though not oppressive, was warm enough to make all nature languorous, and the soft breath of the south wind was almost narcotic in its power to soothe. A great forest is never still; even its silence has a note of its own. The trees seem to whisper to each other in the rustling of their leaves. The birds, awakened by the wind or by the breaking of a twig, speak to their neighbors. The peevish catbird and the blue jay grumble, while the thrush, the dove, and the redbird peep caressingly to their mates, and again fall asleep with gurgles of contentment in their throats.

Rita and Dic sat by the river's edge for many minutes in silence. The ever wakeful whippoorwill piped his doleful cry from a tree across the water, an owl hooted from the blackness of the forest beyond the house, and the turtle-doves cooed plaintively to each other in their far-reaching, mournful tones, giving a minor note to the nocturnal concert. Now and then a fish sprang from the water and fell back with a splash, and the water itself kept up a soft babble like the notes of a living flute.

Certainly the time was ripe for a mistake, but Dic did not make one. A woman's favor comes in waves like the flowing of the sea; and a wise man, if he fails to catch one flood, will wait for another. Dic was unconsciously wise, for Rita's favor was at its ebb when she walked down to the river bank. Ebb tide was indicated by the fact that she sat as far as possible from him on the log. The first evidence of a returning flood-tide would be an unconscious movement on her part toward him. Should the movement come from him there might be no flood-tide.

During the first half-hour Dic did most of the talking, but he spoke only of a book he had borrowed from Billy Little. With man's usual tendency to talk a subject threadbare, he clung to the one topic. A few months prior to that time his observations on the book would have interested the girl; but recently two or three unusual events had touched her life, and her dread that Dic would speak of them, was rapidly growing into a fear that he would not. By the end of that first half-hour, her feminine vivacity monopolized the conversation with an ostentatious display of trivial details on small subjects, and she began to move toward his end of the log. Still Dic kept his place, all unconscious of his wisdom.

Geese seemed to be Rita's favorite topic. Most women are clever at periphrasis, and will go a long way around to reach a desired topic, if for any reason they do not wish to approach it directly. The topics Rita wished to reach, as she edged toward Dic on the log and talked about geese, were her unkind words and her very kind letter. She wished to explain that her words were not meant to be unkind, and that the letter was not meant to be kind, and thought to reach the desired topics by the way of geese.

"Do you remember, Dic," she asked, "a long time ago, when Tom and I and the Yates children spent the afternoon at your house? We were sitting near the river, as we are sitting now, and a gray wolf ran down from the opposite bank and caught a gander?"

"Yes, I remember it as if it were yesterday," replied Dic.

"Geese are such fools when they are frightened," continued Rita, clinging to her subject.

"So are people," answered Dic. "We are all foolish when frightened. The other day the barn door slammed to with a crash, and I was so frightened I tried to put the collar in the horse's mouth." Rita laughed, and Dic continued, "Once I was in the woods hunting, and a bear rose up—"

"But geese are worse than anybody when disturbed," interrupted Rita, "worse even than you when the barn door slams. The other day I wanted to catch a goose to get a—"

"They are not worse than a lot of girls at gabbling," interrupted Dic, ungallantly retaliating for Rita's humorous thrust.

"They are not half so dull as a lot of men," she replied, tossing her head. "When men get together they hum and hum about politics and crops, till it makes one almost wish there were no government or crops. But geese are—the other day I wanted to catch one to get a—"

"All men don't hum and hum, as you say," returned Dic. "There's Billy Little—you don't think he hums, do you?"

"No," answered the girl; "Billy Little always says something when he talks, but he's always talking. I will put him against any man in the world for a talking match. But the other day I wanted to catch a goose to get a