Chapter XII: Broken Resolutions

For the preliminary stages in the making of love there is scarcely anything that is so delightful and convenient as a small boat just large enough for two.

Emily sat aft in the seat of honor, holding the yoke-lines and steering the skiff. In front of, and facing, her was Revere, with the oars, which, impelled by his powerful arms, afforded the motive power that speeded the boat on her way. He had been well trained, of course, and he rowed with the skill of a practised oarsman, a long, steady man-o'-war stroke, quick on the recover, delicate in the feather, deep and strong in the pull, which sent the boat flying over the water.

It was a sunny, delightful morning. The breeze blew soft over the harbor, and the water, rippling, bubbling, and lipping around the prow, made music suited indeed to words of love and beating hearts. Yet what they said was commonplace enough, after all. They did not say anything, in fact, for a few moments after they had pushed off from the little wharf. Revere was quite content to drink in the exquisite beauty of the young girl reclining in the stern-sheets before him.

He marked the freshness and sweetness of her face, the graceful curves of her vigorous, yet lissome, young body, and her dainty feet--the admiral was too thorough an aristocrat not to see his granddaughter well booted--peeping out from beneath the hem of her cool, flowing muslin skirt before him. From under her quaint, old-fashioned bonnet--a species of poke in vogue a year or two before--her blue eyes fearlessly and happily returned the ardent and admiring glances of his own. Lest the silence should prove embarrassing to her, however, and noticing, at last, that she dropped her eyes before him, he said,--

"I'd give a penny for your thoughts, Miss Emily, if I thought the coin would prove the open sesame to your mind."

"I was only thinking how beautifully you row, and wondering----"

"Yes, wondering?"

"How soon you had recovered from your accident, and how much better and stronger you seem than when I had to help you up the hill yesterday morning."

He laughed at this clever thrust, rather shamefacedly, it must be admitted, and flushed at the same time, while he answered her.

"I am afraid you will think me a great hypocrite," he admitted, contritely, realizing that he could lose nothing by frankness; "certainly, I am feeling very delightful--I mean, well and comfortable, now."

"Yet you are rowing in the hot sun! Now, I do not see how you can be comfortable at all, and I do not believe, since you feel so well now, that you needed any assistance whatever in getting up the hill. You deceived me. Neither my grandfather nor Captain Barry ever do that," she continued, gravely, at the same time looking reprovingly at him. She leaned back in the boat, as if the matter was decided. "I wanted to speak to you about it before, but there was always some one around."

"Miss Emily, let me explain," he exclaimed, filled with shame, surprised, yet pleased, to think she should take so trifling a matter so seriously. "You see," he added, half in jest and half in earnest, "after saving my life so gallantly the other night, I had rather a feeling of--er--dependence upon you, you know, the next morning, and it seemed natural and appropriate to ask you to help me up the hill. I could have gone up myself I--I suppose----"

"I am glad you are honest now, at any rate. I must say you seemed to acquire the feeling very lightly."

"Of honesty? Thank you!"

"I mean of dependence."

"I didn't. I never had it before. You see, it's dangerous to save a life. The one who is saved always feels that he belongs to the one who saves. Now, I----"

"How do you know so much about it?" she broke in, with instinctive promptness. She would like to have him complete his sentence, and yet, like all women, she tried to put it off; hence her interruption. "Did you ever save any one's life?"

"Yes, once," he replied, rather reluctantly, inwardly perturbed at the turn the conversation was taking.

"Oh, how was it?" she questioned, interestedly, dropping her tone of banter instantly. "Was it a fellow-officer?"

"No."

"A sailor, then?" anxiously.

"No; a young lady," desperately.

"Oh, a young lady!" she exclaimed in dismay, with a note of disappointment in her voice that she endeavored in vain to suppress, and which he was very glad indeed to recognize.

"Yes; one summer at Cape May. She got beyond her depth in the surf, and I swam out and brought her ashore without any great difficulty. Not a very romantic story, is it? Not half as much as--I mean, not at all----"

"Oh, I think it very romantic indeed," answered this child of nature, whose notions of romance and love and other things were drawn from the antique novels of her grandfather's library; "if I had saved any one's life I should----"

She stopped and blushed furiously as the natural answer to her impetuous remark sprang into her mind.

"I will finish for you," interrupted Revere, eagerly, his resolution of reticence recorded in his determination of the previous night growing decidedly faint in the face of the fascination she exercised over him. "I----"

He would have gone on, but something in her glance stopped him. With the quickness of love and intense sympathy he divined that the hour was not yet. There was an unspoken appeal in her eyes, in her burning cheek, her trembling hand, her heaving breast, which he could not disregard. He had been on the brink of an avowal. Thank heaven, he had stopped in time! For her sake and for his own he would be on his guard. He would not transgress again. He vowed it in his soul.

"I am deeply grateful," he went on, after a pause which somehow, in spite of him, expressed all he wished her to understand, "both to you and the sailor, and I hope to evidence my devotion and gratitude in some tangible way. By the way, what a strange character he seems! He appears to have taken a dislike to me. He said this morning he wished he had not saved me."

"How dared he speak so?" cried the girl, sitting up in the boat, her face flushed this time with indignation. "Not save your life? Why--but there," she went on, swiftly recovering herself, "he is a strange creature, as you say, and moody at times. He lives alone on the ship, and sees no one but grandfather and me. He is devoted to me. He would do anything for me."

"Those queer things in your room,--the harpoon, the shark's tooth, the model of the ship?"

"He put them there. They are odd things for a girl's room, are they not? but when you realize that they express the affection of an honest, faithful heart, they become quite fitting for any woman. Yes, I am fond of him, and I love those things for his sake. He is devoted to the admiral and to the ship, too."

Mr. Richard Revere was too profoundly conscious of the vast difference between Emily Sanford and any common sailor to feel the slightest jealousy at her ungrudging praise; indeed, he liked it.

"So I discovered," he assented, appreciatively. "Miss Emily, you go down to that ship sometimes; often, I suppose. Please do not go any more."

"Why not?" curiously.

"It is very insecure. I do not see how it can last much longer. Some day it will collapse into shapeless ruin; soon, I think. And if you were there----" He hesitated and looked at her. "Please do not go," he continued.

"But it will break Captain Barry's heart to have me refuse. I've always gone."

She spoke doubtfully, as if seeking a further reason.

"Better break his heart than throw away your life. Believe me, I have made a thorough inspection of the ship. It's unsafe. It's almost gone. I marvel that it stands now."

"Poor old ship!"

"Yes, 'tis sad indeed. But you won't go, will you?"

"Not--not--if you do not wish me,--I mean, not if it is unsafe," she answered, softly, looking down.

He had shot the boat in toward the shore of a little island in the harbor, and there, under the deep shadow of some overhanging trees, he stopped rowing, as he said, to rest a moment, just keeping the boat under control with the oars.

"Poor old ship!" continued the girl, mournfully, as she dabbled her sunburnt but shapely hand in the water; "when it goes, grandfather will go, Captain Barry will go, and I will be left--alone."

"No, no!" he exclaimed, softly, all his resolution gone in the face of the powerful yet innocent appeal. "Not alone, for I----"

"That girl?" she interrupted, meaningly.

"What girl?" impatiently.

"The one you saved. Is she beautiful?"

"Some people consider her so, I believe."

"What is she like?" breathlessly.

"She is tall and rather large. She has brown hair and brown eyes. She has been beautifully educated, and she is exquisitely bred."

"She sings, too, I suppose?"

"Yes; her voice has been very highly cultivated."

"And you have sung to her, with her?" sadly.

"Sometimes."

"That song we sang together last night?"

"Oh, no; she only sings classical music. I think she would disdain a simple ballad."

"Oh!" said the girl, with much disappointment, and humiliation as well; "I suppose they are simple, after all."

"I prefer them myself," answered Revere, tenderly.

The conversation was getting dangerous. She changed the subject at once.

"Have you made many cruises?"

"Only one. As soon as I was graduated I was ordered to the _Hartford_; but I was abroad when a lad, before I entered the Naval Academy."

"I suppose you have seen a great many beautiful and high-bred ladies in Boston and elsewhere?"

"Yes, a great many, indeed."

"Are they all very beautiful and charming?"

"Some of them are," he answered.

"I suppose," she said at last, desperately, "there are none of them like me?"

"No!" he replied, decisively.

"Is it so?" sadly. "Am I so different?"

"As different as day from night," joyously.

"Oh," softly, and with deep disappointment; "I have never been anywhere but just here. I have never seen any great ladies at all. I have never met any gentlemen except grandfather and--you. I do not know anything about the world beyond the horizon; but I have tried to read and learn, and I have dreamed about it, too. But I suppose one has to go and see before one can know of the people you speak of. You must think me so----"

"Emily," he said, his voice quivering with his feelings, "I have known you but two days, but I think you are the loveliest, the sweetest----"

She waved her hand in deprecation; but he would not be stopped this time. Truly he had forgotten all but his love for her.

"You do not know what the others know; I love you for that," he went on, impetuously. "You do not do what others do; I love you for that. You are not what the others are; I love you for that. There, it is out now. I did not mean to tell you just yet. I do not suppose that you can love me; at least, not yet. There is nothing in me that would win a woman's heart in two days, I know. But there is everything in you to win a man's heart in one glance; and I swear mine went out to you when I saw you holding the boat on the edge of the whirlpool, with your golden hair blown back in the wind and your blue eyes shining with encouragement and invitation."

It was heavenly to hear him, she thought. This was better than her dreams. She sat silent and still, her eyes persistently averted, quaffing deep draughts from a cup eternal, besides which even the nepenthe of the gods is evanescent.

"I won't ask you to answer me now; but will you not give me a trial?" he continued, hurriedly, fearing lest her silence might presage a refusal. "Let me have a chance to win your love, if I can. Let me see if I cannot make you love me. Won't you let me try? Emily, you are not even looking at me."

He was quite beside himself with anxiety now. She had been still so long. What could he do or say further? A small boat has its disadvantages for the ending of a love affair. In all his impatience he had to sit just where he was. He could come no nearer to her.

"If I could, Emily dear," he said, humbly beseeching her, "I would get down on my knees before you; but I can't in this little boat. Won't you please look at me? But perhaps you can more easily give me some hope if you don't look at me. Don't look. I'm not a very attractive fellow, I know."

This was an adroit move on his part, and his self-depreciation won a reply instantly.

"I--I like you very much," she said at last and very frankly. "I think I liked you when Captain Barry carried you up the hill,--even before, when you stood on the wreck. I wanted to help him. I don't know whether I--love you, but--what you have said has not been displeasing to me--on the contrary----"

"And you will try, you will wait? May I----?"

He waited breathless for her answer.

"Yes," she said at last, "you may."

"Oh, Emily!" he cried; "you have made me the happiest fellow on earth; and if I succeed in winning your love----"

"Do not despair," she whispered, softly, flashing a glance at him, her lips smiling, her eyes ashine with tears. "I think it has come," laying her hand on her heart with a sweet, unconscious movement. "I have dreamed ever since I was a woman that the prince would come some day from over the sea."

She stopped again. He stared at her in adoring silence. Her lips trembled, while her heart almost ceased to beat with the joy of it all. And her eyes were looking far away--over the sea, perhaps.

"We must not stay here longer," she said at last; "they will wonder what has become of us."

"You are the captain," he answered, laughing buoyantly in his happiness; "give your crew the order."

"Get under way, then," she replied, meeting his mood.

The little love scene had put strength into his arms. It seemed as if the power of his passion, failing other vent, had worked itself into the oar-blades, for the boat skimmed over the water like a bird, and in a few moments he unshipped his oars at the boat-landing. Swinging the skiff about so that the stern would be nearest the landing-place for her convenience, he stepped ashore, fastened the painter, and gave her his hand. Her own small palm met his great one frankly, and the two hands clung together in a clasp,--on his part of joy unspeakable, on hers of happy foreshadowings of the future.

Neither said anything as he helped her gravely up the steps. To kiss her then, even had they been alone, would have seemed to him sacrilege; there was something so holy, so innocent, so pure about the young girl, he thought, that he would like to throw himself upon his knees before her and kiss the steps her feet had trodden, so rapturous was his mood. Yet again, when he broke the silence, his words were commonplace. The noblest word would be ordinary when matched against his feelings then!

"What a sleepy, dull, dead little town this seems!" he remarked, looking curiously about him; "if it were a little handsomer, and overgrown with flowers and vines, it might be the town of the Sleeping Beauty; but the Beauty----"

"Is wide awake," she interrupted, a charming color irradiating her cheek, which made him sorry he had been so timid. "And awake without the prince's kiss, too!" she added, smiling archly, in that she was a very woman.

Perhaps, he thought, ruefully, she might not have resented that kiss, after all.

Well, the next time would see!