第29章

THE Lake at last--a sheet of shining metal brooded over by drooping trees.Charity and Harney had secured a boat and, getting away from the wharves and the refreshment-booths, they drifted idly along, hugging the shadow of the shore.Where the sun struck the water its shafts flamed back blindingly at the heat-veiled sky; and the least shade was black by contrast.

The Lake was so smooth that the reflection of the trees on its edge seemed enamelled on a solid surface; but gradually, as the sun declined, the water grew transparent, and Charity, leaning over, plunged her fascinated gaze into depths so clear that she saw the inverted tree-tops interwoven with the green growths of the bottom.

They rounded a point at the farther end of the Lake, and entering an inlet pushed their bow against a protruding tree-trunk.A green veil of willows overhung them.Beyond the trees, wheat-fields sparkled in the sun; and all along the horizon the clear hills throbbed with light.Charity leaned back in the stern, and Harney unshipped the oars and lay in the bottom of the boat without speaking.

Ever since their meeting at the Creston pool he had been subject to these brooding silences, which were as different as possible from the pauses when they ceased to speak because words were needless.At such times his face wore the expression she had seen on it when she had looked in at him from the darkness and again there came over her a sense of the mysterious distance between them; but usually his fits of abstraction were followed by bursts of gaiety that chased away the shadow before it chilled her.

She was still thinking of the ten dollars he had handed to the driver of the run-about.It had given them twenty minutes of pleasure, and it seemed unimaginable that anyone should be able to buy amusement at that rate.With ten dollars he might have bought her an engagement ring; she knew that Mrs.Tom Fry's, which came from Springfield, and had a diamond in it, had cost only eight seventy-five.But she did not know why the thought had occurred to her.Harney would never buy her an engagement ring: they were friends and comrades, but no more.He had been perfectly fair to her: he had never said a word to mislead her.She wondered what the girl was like whose hand was waiting for his ring....

Boats were beginning to thicken on the Lake and the clang of incessantly arriving trolleys announced the return of the crowds from the ball-field.The shadows lengthened across the pearl-grey water and two white clouds near the sun were turning golden.On the opposite shore men were hammering hastily at a wooden scaffolding in a field.Charity asked what it was for.

"Why, the fireworks.I suppose there'll be a big show." Harney looked at her and a smile crept into his moody eyes."Have you never seen any good fireworks?""Miss Hatchard always sends up lovely rockets on the Fourth," she answered doubtfully.

"Oh----" his contempt was unbounded."I mean a big performance like this, illuminated boats, and all the rest."She flushed at the picture."Do they send them up from the Lake, too?""Rather.Didn't you notice that big raft we passed? It's wonderful to see the rockets completing their orbits down under one's feet." She said nothing, and he put the oars into the rowlocks.

"If we stay we'd better go and pick up something to eat.""But how can we get back afterwards?" she ventured, feeling it would break her heart if she missed it.

He consulted a time-table, found a ten o'clock train and reassured her."The moon rises so late that it will be dark by eight, and we'll have over an hour of it."Twilight fell, and lights began to show along the shore.The trolleys roaring out from Nettleton became great luminous serpents coiling in and out among the trees.The wooden eating-houses at the Lake's edge danced with lanterns, and the dusk echoed with laughter and shouts and the clumsy splashing of oars.

Harney and Charity had found a table in the corner of a balcony built over the Lake, and were patiently awaiting an unattainable chowder.Close under them the water lapped the piles, agitated by the evolutions of a little white steamboat trellised with coloured globes which was to run passengers up and down the Lake.

It was already black with them as it sheered off on its first trip.

Suddenly Charity heard a woman's laugh behind her.The sound was familiar, and she turned to look.A band of showily dressed girls and dapper young men wearing badges of secret societies, with new straw hats tilted far back on their square-clipped hair, had invaded the balcony and were loudly clamouring for a table.The girl in the lead was the one who had laughed.She wore a large hat with a long white feather, and from under its brim her painted eyes looked at Charity with amused recognition.

"Say! if this ain't like Old Home Week," she remarked to the girl at her elbow; and giggles and glances passed between them.Charity knew at once that the girl with the white feather was Julia Hawes.She had lost her freshness, and the paint under her eyes made her face seem thinner; but her lips had the same lovely curve, and the same cold mocking smile, as if there were some secret absurdity in the person she was looking at, and she had instantly detected it.

Charity flushed to the forehead and looked away.

She felt herself humiliated by Julia's sneer, and vexed that the mockery of such a creature should affect her.She trembled lest Harney should notice that the noisy troop had recognized her; but they found no table free, and passed on tumultuously.

Presently there was a soft rush through the air and a shower of silver fell from the blue evening sky.In another direction, pale Roman candles shot up singly through the trees, and a fire-haired rocket swept the horizon like a portent.Between these intermittent flashes the velvet curtains of the darkness were descending, and in the intervals of eclipse the voices of the crowds seemed to sink to smothered murmurs.