"That's right, youngster, that's right!" ejaculated Willie. "That's the proper spirit. If you'll just feel free to pull out when you please it will take a load off my mind, an' I shall turn to tinkerin' with a clear conscience."

"I will, I promise you."

"Then that's settled," sighed the inventor with relief. "I must say you're about the best feller ever was to come a-visitin', Bob. You ain't a mite of trouble to anybody."

With eyes still fastened on the bench with its chaos of tools, the old man moved unwillingly toward the door; but on the threshold he paused.

"I'll be back quick's I can," he called. "Likely I'll bring Jan in tow. I'd full as lief not tell him what we're doin' 'til next week if I had my choice; still, things bein' as they are, mebbe it's as well not to shut him out any longer. He gets miffed easy an' I wouldn't have his feelin's hurt fur a pot of lobsters."

With a gentle smile he waved his hand and was gone.

Left alone in the long, low-studded room, Bob rolled up his sleeves and to a brisk whistle began to plane down some pieces of thin board.

The bench at which he worked stood opposite a broad window from which, framed in a wreath of grapevine, he could see the bay and the shelving dunes beyond it. A catboat, with sails close-hauled, was making her way out of the channel, a wake of snowy foam churning behind her in the blue water. Through the door of the shed swept a breeze that rustled the shavings on the floor and blended the fragrance of newly cut wood with the warm perfume of sweet fern from the adjoining meadow.

For all its untidiness and confusion, its litter of boards, tools and battered paint pots, the shop was unquestionably one of the most homey corners of the Spence cottage. Its rough, unsheathed walls, mellowed to a dull buff tone, were here and there adorned with prints culled by Willie from magazines and newspapers. Likenesses of Lincoln and Roosevelt flanked the windows with an American flag above them, and a series of battleships and army scenes beneath. The inventor's taste, however, had not run entirely to patriotic subjects, for scattered along the walls, where shelves sagged with their burden of oilcans, putty, nails and fishing tackle, were a variety of nautical reproductions in color—a prize yacht heeling in the wind; a reach of rough sea whose giant combers swirled about a wreck; glimpses of marsh and dune typical of the land of the Cape dweller.

An air-tight stove, the solitary defence against cold and storm, stood in the corner, and before its rusty hearth a rickety chair and an overturned soap box were suggestively placed. But perhaps what told an observer more about Willie Spence than did anything else was a bunch of rarely beautiful sabbatia blooming in a pickle bottle and a wee black kitten who disported herself unmolested among the tools cluttering the deeply scarred workbench.

She was a mischievous kitten, a spoiled kitten; one who vented her caprice on everything that had motion. Did a curl of shavings drop to the ground, instantly Jezebel was at hand to catch it up in her diminutive paws; toss it from her; steal up and fall upon it again; and dragging it between her feet, roll over and over with it in a mad orgy of delight. A shadow, a string, a flicker of metal was the signal for a frolic. Let one's mood be austere as a monk's, with a single twist of her absurdly tiny body this small creature shattered its gravity to atoms. There was no such thing as dignity in Jezebel's presence. Already three times Bob Morton had lifted the mite off the table and three times back she had come, leaping in the path of his gleaming plane as if its metallic whir and glimmering reflections were designed solely for her amusement. In spite of his annoyance the man had laughed and now, stooping, he caught up the tormentor and held her aloft.

"You minx!" he cried, shaking the sprite gently. "What do you think I am here for—to play with you?"

The kitten blinked at him out of her round blue eyes.

"You'll be getting your fur mittens cut off the next thing you know," went on Bob severely. "Scamper out of here!"

He set the little creature on the floor, aimed her toward the doorway and gave her a stimulating push.

With a coquettish leap headlong into the sunshine darted Jezebel, only to come suddenly into collision with a stranger who had crossed the grass and was at that instant about to enter the workshop.

The newcomer was a girl, tall and slender, with lustrous masses of dark hair that swept her cheek in wind-tossed ringlets. She had a complexion vivid with health, an undignified little nose and a mouth whose short upper lip lent to her face a half childish, half pouting expression. But it was in her eyes that one forgot all else,—eyes large, brown, and softly deep, with a quality that held the glance compellingly. Her gown of thin pink material dampened by the sea air clung to her figure in folds that accentuated her lithe youthfulness, and as she stumbled over the kitten in full flight she broke into a delicious laugh that showed two rows of pretty, white teeth and lured from hiding an alluring dimple.

"You ridiculous little thing!" she exclaimed, snatching up the fleeing culprit before she could make her escape and placing her in the warm curve of her neck. "Do you know you almost tripped me up? Where are your manners?"

Jezebel merely stared. So did Robert Morton.

The girl and the kitten were too disconcerting a spectacle. By herself Jezebel was tantalizing enough; but in combination with the creature who stood laughing on the threshold, the sight was so bewildering that it not only overwhelmed but intoxicated.

It was evident the visitor was unconscious of his presence, for instead of addressing him, she continued to toy with the wisp of animation snuggled against her cheek.

"I do believe, Willie," she observed, without glancing up, "that Jezebel grows more fascinating every time I see her."

Bob did not answer. He was in no mood to discuss Jezebel. If he thought of her at all it was to contrast her inky fur with the white throat against which she nestled and speculate as to whether she sensed what a thrice-blessed kitten she was. It did flash through his mind as he stood there that the two possessed a bewitching, irresistible something in common, a something he was at a loss to characterize. It did not matter, however, for he could not have defined even the simplest thing at the moment, and this attribute of the kitten's and the girl's was very complex.

Perhaps it was the silence that at last caused the visitor to raise her eyes and look at him inquiringly. Then he saw a tremor of surprise sweep over her, and a wave of crimson surge into her face.

"I beg your pardon," she gasped. "I thought Willie was here."

"Mr. Spence has stepped over to the Eldredges'. I'm expecting him back every instant," Bob returned.

The girl's lashes fell. They were long and very beautiful as they lay in a fringe against her cheek, yet exquisite as they were he longed to see her eyes again.

"I'm Miss Morton's nephew from Indiana," the young man managed to stammer, feeling some explanation might bridge the gulf of embarrassment. "I am visiting here."

"Oh!"

Persistently she studied the toe of her shoe. If Bob had thought her appealing before, now, demure against the background of budding apple trees, with a shaft of sunlight on her hair, and the kitten cuddled against her breast, she put to rout the few intelligent ideas remaining to the young man.

Wonderingly, helplessly, he watched while she continued to caress the minute creature in her arms.

"Are you staying here long?" she asked at length, gaining courage to look up.

"I—eh—yes; that is—I hope so," Bob answered with sudden fervor.

"You like Wilton then."

"Tremendously!"

"Most strangers think the place has great beauty," observed his guest innocently.

"There's more beauty here in Wilton than I ever saw before in all my life," burst out Bob, then stopped suddenly and blushed.

His listener dimpled.

"Really?" she remarked, raising her delicately arched brows. "You are enthusiastic about the Cape, aren't you!"

"Some parts of it."

"Where else have you been?"

The question came with disturbing directness.

"Oh—why—Middleboro, Tremont, Buzzard's Bay and Harwich," answered the man hurriedly. As he named the list he was conscious that it smacked rather too suggestively of a brakeman's, and he saw she thought so too, for she turned aside to hide a smile.

"You might sit down; won't you?" he suggested, eager that she should not depart.

Flecking the dust from the soap box with his handkerchief, he dragged it forward and placed it near the workbench.

As she bent her head to accept the crude throne with a queen's graciousness, Jezebel, roused into playful humor, thrust forth her claws and, encountering Bob as he rose from his stooping posture, fixed them with random firmness in his necktie.

Now it chanced that the tie was a four-in-hand of raw silk, very choice in color but of a fatally loose oriental weave; and once entangled in its meshes the task of extricating its delicate threads from the clutch that gripped them seemed hopeless. It apparently failed to dawn on either of the young persons brought into such embarrassingly close contact by the dilemma that the kitten could be handed over to Bob; or that the tie might be removed. Instead they drew together, trying vainly to liberate the struggling Jezebel from her imprisonment. It was not a simple undertaking and to add to its difficulties the ungrateful beast, irritated by their endeavors, began to protest violently.

"She'll tear your tie all to pieces," cried the stranger.

"No matter. I don't mind, if she doesn't scratch you."

"Oh, I am not afraid of her. If you can hold her a second longer, I think I can free the last claw."

As the girl toiled at her precarious mission, Bob could feel her warm breath fan his cheek and could catch the fragrant perfume of her hair. So far as he was concerned, Jezebel might retain her hold on his necktie forever. But, alas, the slim, white fingers were too deft and he heard at last a triumphant:

"There!"

At the same instant the offending kitten was placed on the floor.

"You little monkey!" cried the man, smiling down at the furry object at his feet.

"Isn't she!" echoed the visitor sympathetically. "There she goes, the imp! What is left of your tie? Let me look at it."

"It's all right, thank you."

"There is just one thread ruffed up. I could fix it if I had a pin."

From her gown she produced one, but as she did so a spray of wild roses slipped to the ground.

"You've dropped your flowers," said Bob, picking them up.

"Have I? Thank you. They are withered, anyway, I'm afraid."

Tossing the rosebuds on the bench, she began to draw into smoothness the silken loop that defaced the tie.

"There!" she exclaimed, glancing up into his eyes and tilting her head critically to one side. "That is ever so much better. You would hardly notice it. Now I really must go. I have bothered you quite enough."

"You have not bothered me at all," contradicted Bob emphatically.

"But I know I must have," she protested. "I've certainly delayed you. Besides, it doesn't look as if Willie was coming back."

"Isn't there something I can do for you?"

"No, thank you. It was nothing important. In fact, it doesn't matter at all. I just came to see if he could fix the clasp of my belt buckle. It is broken, and he is so clever at mending things that I thought perhaps he could mend this."

"Let me see it."

"Oh, I couldn't think of troubling you."

"But I should be glad to fix it if I could. If not, I could at least hand it over to Willie's superior skill."

She laughed.

"I'm not certain whether Willie's skill is superior," was her arch retort.

"Why not make a test case and find out?"

Still she hesitated.

"You're afraid to trust your property to me," Bob said, piqued by her indecision.

"No, I'm not," was the quick response. "See? Here is the belt."

She drew from her pocket a narrow strip of white leather to which a handsome silver buckle was attached and placed it in his hand.

He took it, inspected its fastening and looked with beating pulse at the girdle's slender span.

"Do you think it can be mended?" she inquired anxiously.

"Of course it can."

"Oh, I'm so glad!"

"Give me a few days and you shall have it back as good as new."

"That will be splendid!" Her eyes shone with starry brightness. "You see," she went on, "it was given me on my birthday by my—my—by some one I care a great deal for—by my—" she stopped, embarrassed.

Robert Morton was too well mannered to put into words the interrogation that trembled on his lips, but he might as well have done so, so transparent was the questioning glance that traveled to her left hand in search of the telltale solitaire. Even though his search was not rewarded, he felt certain that the hand concealed in the folds of her dress wore the fatal ring. Of course, mused he, with a shrug, he might have guessed it. No such beauty as this was wandering unclaimed about the world. Well, her fiance, whoever he might be, was a lucky devil! Without doubt, confound his impudence, his arm had traveled the pathway of that band of leather scores of times.

One couldn't blame the dog! For want of a better vent for his irritation, Bob took up the belt and again examined it. He had been quite safe in boasting that the bauble should be returned to its owner as good as new, for although he did not confess it, on its silver clasp he had discovered the manufacturer's name. If the buckle could not be repaired, another of similar pattern should replace it. Unquestionably he was a fool to go to this trouble and expense for nothing. Yet was it quite for nothing? Was it not worth while to win even a smile from this creature whose approval gave one the sense of being knighted? True, titles meant but little in these days of democracy but when bestowed by such royalty— She broke in on his reverie by extending her hand. "Good-by," she said. "You have been very kind, Mr.—"

"My name is Morton—Bob Morton."

"Why! Then you must be the son of Aunt Tiny's brother?"

"Aunt Tiny!"

As she laughed he saw again the ravishing dimple and her even, white teeth.

"Oh, she isn't my real aunt," she explained. "I just call her that because I am so fond of her. I adore both her and Willie."

"Who is takin' my name in vain?" called a cheery voice, as the little inventor rounded the corner of the shed and entered the room. "Delight—as I live! I might 'a' known it was you. Well, well, dear child, if I'm not glad to see you."

He placed his hands on her shoulders and beamed into her blushing face while she bent and spread the loops of his soft tie out beneath his chin.

"How nice of you, Willie dear, to come back before I had gone!" she said, arranging the bow with exaggerated care.

"Bless your heart, I'd 'a' come back sooner had I known you were here," declared he affectionately. "What brings you, little lady?"

She pointed to the trinket dangling from Robert Morton's grasp.

"I snapped the clasp of my belt buckle, Willie—that lovely silver buckle Zenas Henry gave me," she confessed with contrition. "How do you suppose I could have been so careless? I have been heart-broken ever since."

"Nonsense! Nonsense!" cried the old man, patting her hand. "Don't go grievin' over a little thing like that. 'Tain't worth it. Break all the buckles ever was made, but not your precious heart, my dear. Like as not the thing can be mended."

"Mr. Morton says it can."

"If Bob says so, it's as good as done already," replied Willie reassuringly. "He's a great one with tools. Why, if he was to stay in Wilton, he'd be cuttin' me all out. So you an' he have been gettin' acquainted, eh, while I was gone? That's right. I want he should know what nice folks we've got in Wilton 'cause it's his first visit to the Cape, an' if he don't like us mebbe he'll never come again."

"I thought Mr. Morton had visited other places on Cape Cod," observed Delight, darting a mischievous glance at the abashed young man opposite.

"No, indeed!" blundered Willie. "He ain't been nowheres. Somebody's got to show him all the sights. Mebbe if you get time you'll take a hand in helpin' educate him."

"I should be glad to!"

Notwithstanding the prim response and her unsmiling lips, the young man had a discomfited presentiment that she was laughing at him, and even the farewell she flashed to him over her shoulder had a hectoring quality in it that did not altogether restore his self-esteem.

"Who is she?" he gasped, when he had watched her out of sight.

"That girl? Do you mean to say you don't know—an' you a-talkin' to her half the mornin'?" demanded the old man with amazement. "Why, it never dawned on me to introduce you to her. I thought of course you knew already who she was. Everybody in town knows Delight Hathaway, an' loves her, too," he added softly. "She's Zenas Henry's daughter, the one he brought ashore from the Michleen an' adopted."

"Oh!"

A light began to break in on Bob's understanding.

"It's Zenas Henry's motor-boat we're tinkerin' with now," went on Willie.

"I see!"

He waited eagerly for further information, but evidently his host considered he had furnished all the data necessary, for instead of enlarging on the subject he approached the bench and began to inspect the model.

"I s'pose, with her bein' here, you didn't get ahead much while I was gone," he ventured, an inflection of disappointment in his tone.

"No, I didn't."

"I didn't accomplish nothin', either," the little old man went on. "Jan warn't to home; he'd gone fishin'."

His companion did not reply at once.

"I don't quite get my soundin's on Jan," he at length ruminated aloud. "Somethin's wrong with him. I feel it in my bones."

"Perhaps not."

"There is, I tell you. I know Janoah Eldridge from crown to heel, an' it ain't like him to go off fishin' by himself."

"I shouldn't fret about it if I were you," Bob said in an attempt to comfort the disquieted inventor. "I'm sure he'll turn up all right."

Had the conversation been of a three-master in a gale; of buried treasure; or of the ultimate salvation of the damned, the speaker would at that moment have been equally optimistic.

The universe had suddenly become too radiant a place to harbor calamity. Wilton was a paradise like the first Eden—a garden of smiles, of dimples, of blushing cheeks—and of silver buckles.

He began to whistle softly to himself; then, sensing that Willie was still unconvinced by his sanguine prediction, he added:

"And even if Mr. Eldridge shouldn't come back, I guess you and I could manage without him."

"That's all very well up to a certain point, youngster," was the retort. "But who's goin' to see me through this job after you've taken wing?"

He pointed tragically to the beginnings of the model.

"Maybe I shan't take wing," announced Bob, looking absently at the cluster of withered roses in his hand. "You—you see," he went on, endeavoring to speak in off-hand fashion, "I've been thinking things over and—and—I've about come to the conclusion—"

"Yes," interrupted Willie eagerly.

"That it is perhaps better for me to stay here until we get the invention completed."

"You don't mean until the thing's done!"

"If it doesn't take too long, yes."

"Hurray!" shouted his host. "That's prime!" he rubbed his hands together. "Under those conditions we'll pitch right in an' scurry the work along fast as ever we can."

Robert Morton looked chagrined.

"I don't know that we need break our necks to rush the thing through at a pace like that," he said, fumbling awkwardly with the flowers. "A few weeks more or less wouldn't make any great difference."

"But I thought you said it was absolutely necessary for you to go home—that you had important business in New York—that—" the old man broke off dumbfounded.

Bob shook his head. "Oh, no, I think my affairs can be arranged," was the sanguine response. "A piece of work like this would give me lots of valuable experience, and I'm not sure but it is my duty to—"

The little old inventor scanned the speaker's flushed cheeks, his averted eye and the drooping blossoms in his hand; then his brow cleared and he smiled broadly:

"Duty ain't to be shunned," announced he with solemnity. "An' as for experience, take it by an' large, I ain't sure but what you'll get a heap of it by lingerin' on here—more, mebbe, than you realize."



CHAPTER VI

MARRYING AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE

That afternoon, after making this elaborate but by no means misleading explanation to Willie, Bob sent off to a Boston jeweler a registered package and while impatiently awaiting its return set to work with redoubled zest at the new invention.

What an amazingly different aspect the motor-boat enterprise had assumed since yesterday! Then his one idea had been to humor Willie's whim and in return for the old man's hospitality lend such aid to the undertaking as he was able. But now Zenas Henry's launch had suddenly become a glorified object, sacred to the relatives of the divinity of the workshop, and how and where the flotsam of the tides ensnared it was of colossal importance. Into solving the nautical enigma Robert Morton now threw every ounce of his energy and while at work artfully drew from his companion every detail he could obtain of Delight Hathaway's strange story.

He learned how the Michleen had been wrecked on the Wilton Shoals in the memorable gale of 1910; how the child's father had perished with the ship, leaving his little daughter friendless in the world; how Zenas Henry and the three aged captains had risked their lives to bring the little one ashore; and how the Brewsters had taken her into their home and brought her up. It was a simple tale and simply told, but the heroism of the romance touched it with an epic quality that gripped the listener's imagination and sympathies tenaciously. And now the waif snatched from the grasp of the covetous sea had blossomed into this exquisite being; this creature beloved, petted, and well-nigh spoiled by a proudly exultant community.

For although legally a member of the Brewster family, Willie explained, the girl had come to belong in a sense to the entire village. Had she not been cast an orphan upon its shores, and were not its treacherous shoals responsible for her misfortune? Wilton, to be sure, was not actually answerable for the crimes those hidden sand bars perpetrated, but nevertheless the fisherfolk could not quite shake themselves free of the shadow cast upon them by the tragedies ever occurring at their gateway. Too many of their people had gone down to the sea in ships never to return for them to become callous to the disasters they were continually forced to witness. The wreck of the Michleen had been one of the most pathetic of these horrors, and the welfare of the child who in consequence of it had come into the hamlet's midst had become a matter of universal concern.

"'Tain't to be wondered at the girl is loved," continued Willie. "At first people took an interest in her, or tried to, from a sense of duty, for you couldn't help bein' sorry for the little thing. But 'twarn't long before folks found out 'twarn't no hardship to be fond of Delight Hathaway. She was livin' sunshine, that's what she was! Wherever she went, be it one end of town or t'other, she brought happiness. In time it got so that if you was to drop in where there was sickness or trouble an' spied a nosegay of flowers, you could be pretty sure Delight had been there. Why, Lyman Bearse's father, old Lyman, that's so crabbed with rhumatism that it's a cross to live under the same roof with him, will calm down gentle as a dove when Delight goes to read to him. As for Mis' Furber, I reckon she'd never get to the Junction to do a mite of shoppin' or marketin' but for Delight stayin' with the babies whilst she was gone. I couldn't tell you half what that girl does. She's here, there, an' everywhere. Now she's gettin' up a party for the school children; now makin' a birthday cake for somebody; now trimmin' a bunnit for Tiny or helpin' her plan out a dress."

Willie stopped to rummage on a distant shelf for a level.

"Once," he went on, "Sarah Libbie Lewis asked me what Delight was goin' to be. I told her there warn't no goin' to be about it; Delight was bein' it right now. She didn't need to go soundin' for a mission in life."

"I take it you are not in favor of careers for women, Mr. Spence," observed Robert Morton, who had been eagerly drinking in every word the old man uttered.

"Yes, I am," contradicted the inventor. "There's times when a girl needs a career, but there's other times when to desert one's plain duty an' go huntin' a callin' is criminal. Queer how people will look right over the top of what they don't want to see, ain't it? I s'pose its human nature though," he mused.

A soft breeze stirred the shavings on the floor.

"Tiny thinks," resumed the quiet voice, "that I mix myself up too much with other folks's concerns anyhow. Leastways, she says I let their troubles weigh on me more'n I'd ought. But to save my life I can't seem to help it. Don't you believe those on the outside of a tangle sometimes see it straighter than them that is snarled up in the mess?"

Robert Morton nodded.

"That's the way I figger it," rambled on the old man. "Mebbe that's the reason I can't keep my fingers out of the pie. You'd be surprised enough if you was to know the things I've been dragged into in my lifetime; family quarrels, will-makin's, business matters that I didn't know no more about than the man in the moon. Why, I've even taken a hand in love affairs!"

He broke into a peal of hearty laughter. "That's the beatereee!" he declared, slapping his thigh. "'Magine me up to my ears in a love affair! But I have been—scores of 'em, enough I reckon, put 'em all together, to marry off the whole of Cape Cod."

"You must be quite an authority on the heart by this time," Robert Morton ventured.

"I ain't," the other declared soberly. "You see, none of the snarls was ever the same, so you kinder had to feel your way along every time like as if you was navigatin' a new channel. Women may be all alike, take 'em in the main, but they're almighty different when you get 'em to the fine point, an' that's what raises the devil with makin' any general rule for managin' 'em."

The philosopher held the piece of wood he had been planing to the light and examined it critically.

"Once," he resumed, taking up his work again, "when Dave Furber was courtin' Katie Bearse, I drove over to Sawyer's Falls with him to get Katie a birthday present an' among other things we thought we'd buy some candy. We went into a store, I recollect, where there was all kinds spread out in trays, an' Dave an' me started to pick out what we'd have. As I stood there attemptin' to decide, I couldn't help thinkin' that selectin' that candy was a good deal like choosin' a wife. You couldn't have all the different kinds, an' makin' up your mind which you preferred was a seven-days' conundrum."

The little inventor took off his spectacles, wiped them, and replaced them upon his nose.

"Luckily, as we was fixed, there was a chance in the box for quite a few sorts, so that saved the day. But s'pose, I got to thinkin', you could only have one variety out of the lot—which would you take? That's the sticker you face when choosin' a wife. S'pose, for instance, I was pinned down to nothin' but caramels. The caramel is a good, square, sensible, dependable candy. You can see through the paper exactly what you're gettin'. There's nothin' concealed or lurkin' in a caramel. Moreover, it lasts a long time an' you don't get tired of it. It's just like some women—not much to look at, but wholesome an' with good wearin' qualities. Should you choose the caramel, you'd feel sure you was doin' the wise thing, wouldn't you?"

Robert Morton smiled into the half-closed blue eyes that met his so whimsically.

"But along in the next tray to the caramel," Willie went on, "was bonbons—every color of the rainbow they were, an' pretty as could be; an' they held all sorts of surprises inside 'em, too. They was temptin'! But the minute you put your mind on it you knew they'd turn out sweet and sickish, an' that after gettin' 'em you'd wish you hadn't. There's plenty of women like that in the world. Mebbe you ain't seen 'em, but I have."

"Yes."

"Besides these, there was dishes of sparklin' jelly things on the counter, that the girl said warn't much use—gone in no time; they were just meant to dress up the box. I called 'em brainless candies—just silly an' expensive, an' if you look around you'll find women can match 'em. An' along with 'em you can put the candied violets an' sugared rose leaves that only make a man out of pocket an' ain't a mite of use to him."

Willie scanned his companion's face earnestly.

"Finally, after runnin' the collection over, it kinder come down to a choice between caramels or chocolates. Even then I still stood firm for the caramel, there bein' no way of makin' sure what I'd get inside the chocolate. I warn't willin' to go it blind, I told Dave. A chocolate's a sort of unknowable thing, ain't it? There's no fathomin' it at sight. After you've got it you may be pleased to death with what's inside it an' then again you may not. So we settled mostly on caramels for Katie. I said to Dave comin' home it was lucky men warn't held down to one sort of candy like they are to one sort of wife, an' he most laughed his head off. Then he asked me what kind of sweet I thought Katie was, an' I told him I reckoned she was the caramel variety, an' he said he thought so, too. We warn't fur wrong neither, for she's turned out 'bout as we figgered. Mebbe she ain't got the looks or the sparkle of the bonbons or jelly things, but she's worn almighty well, an' made Dave a splendid wife."

"With all your excellent theories about women, I wonder you never picked out a wife for yourself, Mr. Spence," Robert Morton remarked mischievously.

"Me get married?" questioned Willie, staring at the speaker open-eyed over the top of his spectacles.

"Why not?"

"Why, bless your heart, I never thought of it!" answered the little man naively. "It's taken 'bout all my time to get other folks spliced together. Besides," he added, "I've had my inventin'."

He glanced out of the window at a moving figure, then shot abruptly to the door and called to some one who was passing:

"Hi, Jack!"

A man in coast-guard uniform waved his hand.

"How are you, Willie?" he shouted.

"All right," was the reply. "How are you an' Sarah Libbie makin' out?"

"Same as ever."

"You ain't said nothin' to her yet?"

Robert Morton saw the burly fellow in the road sheepishly dig his heel into the sand.

"N—o, not yet."

"An' never will!" ejaculated the inventor returning wrathfully to the shop. "That feller," he explained as he resumed his seat, "has been upwards, of twenty years tryin' to tell Sarah Libbie Lewis he's in love with her. He knows it an' so does she, but somehow he just can't put the fact into words. I'm clean out of patience with him. Why, one day he actually had the face to come in here an' ask me to tell her—me! What do you think of that?"

Robert Morton chuckled at his companion's rage.

"Did you?"

"Did I?" repeated Willie with scorn. "Can you see me doin' it? No, siree! I just up an' told Jack Nickerson if he warn't man enough to do his own courtin' he warn't man enough for any self-respectin' woman to marry. An' furthermore, I said he needn't step foot over the sill of this shop 'till he'd took some action in the matter. That hit him pretty hard, I can tell you, 'cause he used to admire to come in here an' set round whenever he warn't on duty. But he saw I meant it, an' he ain't been since."

The old man paused.

"I kinder bit off my own nose when I took that stand," he admitted, an intonation of regret in his tone, "'cause Jack's mighty good company. Still, there was nothin' for it but firm handlin'."

"How long ago did you cast him out?" Bob asked with a chuckle.

"Oh, somethin' over a week or ten days ago," was the reply. "I thought he might have made some progress by now. But I ain't given up hope of him yet. He's been sorter quiet the last two times I've seen him, an' I figger he's mullin' things over, an' mebbe screwin' up his courage."

The room was still save for the purr of the plane.

"I suppose you will be marrying Miss Hathaway off some day," observed Bob a trifle self-consciously, without raising his eyes from his work.

"You bet I won't," came emphatically from the old inventor. "I've got some courage but not enough for that. You see, the man that marries her has got to have the nerve to face the whole village—brave Zenas Henry, the three captains, an' Abbie Brewster, besides winnin' the girl herself. 'Twill be some contract. No, you can be mortal sure I shan't go meddlin' in no such love affair as that. Anyhow, I won't be needed, for any man that Delight Hathaway would look at twice will be perfectly capable of meetin' all comers; don't you worry."

With this dubious comfort Willie stamped with spirit out of the shop.



CHAPTER VII

A SECOND SPIRIT APPEARS

Days came and went, days golden and blue, until a week had passed, and although Robert Morton haunted the post-office, nothing was heard from the jeweler to whom he had sent the silver buckle. Neither did the eager young man catch even a fleeting glimpse of its owner. It was, he told himself, unlikely that she would come to the Spence house again. When her property was repaired she probably would expect some one either to let her know, or bring it to her. It was to the latter alternative that Bob was pinning his hopes. The errand would provide a perfectly natural excuse for him to go to the Brewster home, and once there he would meet the girl's family and perhaps be asked to come again. Until the trinket came back from Boston, therefore, he must bide his time with patience.

Nevertheless the logic of these arguments did not prevent him from turning sharply toward the door of the workshop whenever there was a footfall on the grass. Any day, any hour, any moment the lady of his dreams might appear once more. Had not Willie said that she sometimes trimmed bonnets for Tiny? And was it not possible, yea, even likely that his aunt might be needing a bonnet right away. Women were always needing bonnets, argued the young man vaguely; at least, both his mother and sister were, and he had not yet lived long enough in his aunt's household to realize that with Tiny Morton the purchase of a bonnet was not an equally casual enterprise. He even had the temerity to ask Celestina when he saw her arrayed for the grange one afternoon why she did not have a hat with pink in it and was chagrined to receive the reply that she did not like pink; and that anyway her hat was well enough as it was, and she shouldn't have another for a good couple of years.

"I don't go throwin' money away on new hats like you city folks do," she said somewhat tartly. "A hat has to do me three seasons for best an' a fourth for common. I've too much to do to go chasin' after the fashions. I leave that to Bart Coffin's wife."

"Who is Bart Coffin?" inquired Bob, amused by her show of spirit.

"You ain't met Bart?"

"Not yet."

"Well, you will. He's the one who always used to stow all his catch of fish in the bow of the boat 'cause he said it was easier to row downhill. He ain't no heavyweight for brains as you can see, an' years ago he married a wife feather-headed as himself. He did it out of whole cloth, too, so he's got no one to blame if he don't like his bargain. At the time of the weddin' he was terrible stuck up about his bride, an' he gave her a black satin dress that outdid anything the town had ever laid eyes on. It was loaded down with ruffles, an' jet, an' lace, an' fitted her like as if she was poured into it. Folks said it was made in Brockton, but whether it was or not there's no way of knowin'. Anyhow, back she pranced to Wilton in that gown an' for a year or more, whenever there was a church fair, or a meetin' of the Eastern Star, or a funeral, you'd be certain of seein' Minnie Coffin there in her black satin. There wasn't a lay-out in town could touch it, an' by an' by it got so that it set the mark on every gatherin' that was held, those where Minnie's satin didn't appear bein' rated as of no account." Celestina paused, and her mouth took an upward curve, as if some pleasant reverie engrossed her. "But after a while," she presently went on, "there came an upheaval in the styles; sleeves got smaller, an' skirts began to be nipped in. Minnie's dress warn't wore a particle but it looked as out-of-date as Joseph's coat would look on Willie. The women sorter nudged one another an' said that now Mis' Bartley Coffin would have to step down a peg an' stop bein' leader of the fashions."

Celestina ceased rocking and leaned forward impressively.

"But did she?" declaimed she with oratorical eloquence. "Did she? Not a bit of it. Minnie got pictures an' patterns from Boston; scanted the skirt; took in the sleeves; made a wide girdle with the breadths she took out of the front—an' there she was again, high-steppin' as ever!"

Robert Morton laughed with appreciation.

"Since then," continued Celestina, "for at least fifteen years she's been makin' that dress over an' over. Now she'll get a new breadth of goods or a couple of breadths, turn the others upside down or cut 'em over, an' by keepin' everlastingly at it she contrives to look like the pictures in the papers most of the time. It's maddenin' to the rest of us. Abbie Brewster knows Minnie well an' somewhere in a book she's got set down the gyrations of that dress. I wouldn't be bothered recordin' it but Abbie always was a methodical soul. She could give you the date of every inch of satin in the whole thing. Just now there's 1914 sleeves; the front breadths are 1918; the back ones 1911. Most of the waist is January, 1912, with a June, 1913, vest. Half the girdle is made out of 1910 satin, an' half out of 1919. Of course there's lights when the blacks don't all look the same; still, unless you got close up you wouldn't notice it, an' Minnie Coffin keeps on settin' the styles for the town like she always has."

The narrator paused for breath.

"She's makin' it over again right now," she announced, rising from her chair and moving toward the pantry. "You can always tell when she is 'cause she pulls down all her front curtains an' won't come to the door when folks knock. The shades was down when Abbie an' me drove by there last week an' to make sure Abbie got out an' tapped to' see if anybody'd come to let us in, but nobody did. We said then: 'Minnie's resurrectin' the black satin.' You mark my words she'll be in church in it Sunday. It generally takes her about ten days to get it done. I was expectin' she'd give it another overhauling, for she ain't done nothin' to it for three months at least an' the styles have changed quite a little in that time. Sometimes I tell Willie I believe we'll live to see her laid out in that dress yet."

"You can bet Bart would draw a sigh of relief if we did," chimed in the inventor. "Why, the money that woman's spent pullin' that durn thing to pieces an' puttin' it together again is a caution. Bart said you'd be dumbfounded if you could know what he's paid out. If the coffin lid was once clamped down on the pest he'd raise a hallelujah, poor feller."

"Willie!" gasped the horrified Celestina.

"Oh, I ain't sayin' he'd be glad to see Minnie goin'," the little old man protested. "But that black satin has been a bone of contention ever since the day it was bought. To begin with, it cost about ten times what Bart calculated 'twould; he told me that himself. An' it's been runnin' up in money ever since. When he got it he kinder figgered 'twould be an investment somethin' like one of them twenty-year endowments, an' that for nigh onto a quarter of a century Minnie wouldn't need much of anything else. But his reckonin' was agog. It's been nothin' but that black satin all his married life. Let alone the price of continually reenforcin' it, the wear an' tear on Minnie's nerves when she's tinkerin' with it is somethin' awful. Bart says that dress ain't never out of her mind. She's rasped an' peevish all the time plannin' how she can fit the pieces in to look like the pictures. It's worse than fussin' over the cut-up puzzles folks do. Sometimes at night she'll wake him out of a sound sleep to tell him she's just thought how she can eke new sleeves out of the side panels, or make a pleated front for the waist out of the girdle. I guess Bart don't get much rest durin' makin'-over spells. I saw him yesterday at the post-office an' he was glum as an oyster; an' when I asked him was he sick all he said was he hoped there'd be no black satins in heaven."

"I told you she was fixin' it over!" cried Celestina triumphantly. "So you was at the store, was you, Willie? You didn't say nothin' about it."

"I forgot I went," confessed the little man. "Lemme see! I believe 'twas more nails took me down."

"Did you get any mail?"

"No—yes—I dunno. 'Pears like I did get somethin'. If I did, it's in the pocket of my other coat."

Going into the hall he returned with a small white package which he gave to Celestina.

"It ain't for me," said she, after she had examined the address. "It's Bob's."

"Bob's, eh?" queried the inventor. "I didn't notice, not havin' on my readin' glasses. So it's Bob's, is it?"

"Yes," answered Celestina, eyeing the neat parcel curiously. "Whoever's sendin' you a bundle all tied up with white paper an' pink string, Bob? It looks like it was jewelry."

Quickly Willie sprang to the rescue.

"Oh, Bob's been gettin' some repairin' done for the Brewsters," explained he. "Delight's buckle was broke an' knowin' the best place to send it, he mailed it up to town."

"Oh," responded Celestina, glancing from one to the other with a half satisfied air.

"Let's have the thing out an' see how it looks, Bob," Willie went on.

Blushingly Robert Morton undid the box.

Yes, there amid wrappings of tissue paper, on a bed of blue cotton wool, rested the buckle of silver, its burnished surface sparkling in the light.

He took it out and inspected it carefully.

"It is all O. K.," observed he, with an attempt at indifference. "See what a fine piece of work they made of it."

The old man took from the table drawer a long leather case, drew out another pair of spectacles which he exchanged for the ones he was already wearing, and after scrutinizing the buckle and scowling at it for an interval he carried it to the window.

"What's the matter?" Bob demanded, instantly alert. "Isn't the repairing properly done?"

"'Tain't the repairin' I'm lookin' at," Willie returned slowly. "I've no quarrel with that."

Still he continued to twist and turn the disc of silver, now holding it at arm's length, now bringing it close to his eye with a puzzled intentness.

Robert Morton could stand the suspense no longer.

"What's wrong with it?" he at last burst out.

Willie did not look up but evidently he caught the note of impatience in the younger man's tone, for he drawled quizzically:

"Don't it strike you as a mite peculiar that a buckle should go to Boston with D. L. H. on it an' come home marked C. L. G.?"

"What!"

"That's what's on it—C. L. G. See for yourself."

"It can't be."

"Come an' have a look."

The inventor placed the trinket in Robert Morton's hand.

"C. L. G.," repeated he, as he deciphered the intertwined letters of the monogram. "You are right, sure as fate! Jove!"

"They've sent you the wrong girl," remarked Willie. "It's clear as a bell on a still night. There must have been two girls an' two buckles, an' the jeweler's mixed 'em up; you've got the other lady's."

"That's a nice mess!" Bob ejaculated irritably. "Why, I'd rather have given a hundred dollars than have this happen. I'll wring that man's neck!"

"Easy, youngster! Easy!" cautioned Willie. "Don't go heavin' all your cargo overboard 'till you find you're really sinkin'. 'Tain't likely Miss C. L. G. will care a row of pins for Miss D. L. H.'s buckle. She'll be sendin' out an S. O. S. for her own an' will be ready to join you in flayin' the jeweler. Give the poor varmint time, an' he'll shift things round all right."

"But Miss Hathaway—"

"Delight's lived the best part of two weeks without that buckle, an' she don't look none the worse for not havin' it. I saw her in the post-office only yesterday an'—"

"Did you?" cried Bob eagerly, then stopped short, flushed, and bit his lip.

"Yes, she was there," Willie returned serenely, without appearing to have noticed his guest's agitation. "Young Farwell from Cambridge—the one that has all the money—was talkin' to her, an' she had that Harvard professor who boards at the Brewsters' along too; Carlton his name is, Jasper Carlton. He's a mighty good-lookin' chap." He stole a glance at the face that glowered out of the window. "Had you chose to stroll down to the store with me like I asked you to, you might 'a' seen her yourself."

"Oh, I—I—didn't need to see her," stammered Bob.

"Mebbe not," was the tranquil answer. "An' she didn't need to see you, neither, judgin' from the way she was talkin' an' laughin' with them other fellers. Still a young man is never the worse for chattin' with a nice girl. Now, son, if I was you, I wouldn't get stirred up over this jewelry business. We'll get a rise out of Miss C. L. G. pretty soon an' when she comes to the surface—"

"Who's that at the gate, Willie?" called Celestina from the kitchen.

"What?"

"There's somebody at the gate in a big red automobile. She's comin' in. You go an' see what she wants, 'cause my apron ain't fresh. Likely she's lost her way or else is huntin' board."

Although Willie shuffled obediently into the hall he was not in time to prevent the sonorous peal of the bell.

"Yes, he's here," they heard him say. "Of course you can speak to him. He's just inside. Won't you step in?"

Then without further ado, and with utter disregard of Celestina's rumpled apron, the door opened and the little inventor ushered into the string-entangled sitting room a dainty, city-bred girl in a sport suit of white serge. She was not only pretty but she was perfectly groomed and was possessed of a fascinating vivacity and charm. Everything about her was vivid: the gloss of her brown hair, the sparkle of her eyes, her color, her smile, her immaculate clothes—all were dazzling. She carried her splendor with an air of complete sureness as if she was accustomed to the supremacy it won for her and expected it. Yet the audacity of her pose had in it a certain fitness and was piquant rather than offensive.

The instant she crossed the threshold, Robert Morton leaped to meet her with outstretched hands.

"Cynthia Galbraith!" he cried. "How ever came you here?"

A ripple of teasing laughter came from the girl.

"You are surprised then; I thought you would be."

"Surprised? I can't believe it."

"If you'd written as you should have done, you wouldn't have been at all amazed to see me," answered the newcomer severely.

"I meant to write," the culprit asserted uneasily.

"Maybe you will inform me what you are doing on Cape Cod," went on the lady in an accusing tone.

"How did you know I was here?"

"You can't guess?"

"No, I haven't a glimmer."

From the pocket of her shell-pink sweater she drew forth a small white box of startlingly familiar appearance.

"Does this belong to you?" demanded she.

Beneath the mockery of her eyes Robert Morton could feel the color mount to his temples.

"Well, well!" he said, with a ghastly attempt at gaiety, "So you were C. L. G."

"Naturally. Didn't the initials suggest the possibility?"

"No—eh—yes; that is, I hadn't thought about it," he floundered. "It's funny how things come about sometimes, isn't it? I want you to meet my aunt, Miss Morton, and my friend Mr. Spence. I am visiting here."

Immediately the dainty Miss Cynthia was all smiles.

"So it is relatives that bring you to the Cape!" said she.

Robert Morton nodded. She seemed mollified.

"Didn't Roger write you that we had taken a house at Belleport for the season?" she asked.

"No," replied Bob. "I haven't heard from him for weeks."

"He's a brute. Yes, we came down in May just after I got back from California. We are crazy over the place. The family will be wild when I tell them you are here. My brother," she went on, turning with a pretty graciousness toward Celestina, "was Bob's roommate at Harvard. In that way we came to know him very well and have always kept up the acquaintance."

"Do you come from the West, same as my nephew does?" questioned Celestina when there was a pause.

The little lady raised her eyebrows deprecatingly.

"No, indeed! The East is quite good enough for us. We are from New York. The boys, however, were always visiting back and forth," she added with haste, "so we have quite an affection for Indiana even if we don't live there." She shot a conciliatory smile in Robert Morton's direction. "Couldn't you go back with me in the car, Bob," she asked turning toward him, "and spring a surprise on the household? Dad's down, Mother's here, and also Grandmother Lee; and the mighty and illustrious Roger, fresh from his law office on Fifth Avenue, is expected Friday. Do come."

"I am afraid I can't to-day," Bob answered.

"Why, Bob, there ain't the least reason in the world you shouldn't go," put in Celestina.

The young man fingered the package in his hand nervously.

"I really couldn't, Cynthia," he repeated, ignoring the interruption. "I'd like immensely to come another day, though. But to-day Mr. Spence and I have a piece of work on hand—"

He paused, discomfited at meeting the astonished gaze of Willie's mild blue eyes.

"Of course you know best," Cynthia replied, drawing in her chin with some hauteur. "I shouldn't think of urging you."

"I'd be bully glad to come another day," reiterated Robert Morton, fully conscious he had offended his fair guest, yet determined to stand his ground. "Tell the affluent Roger to slide over in his racer sometime when he has nothing better to do and get me."

"He will probably only be here for the week-end," retorted Cynthia coldly.

"Sunday, then; why not Sunday? Mr. Spence and I do not work Sundays."

"All right, if you positively won't come to-day. But I don't see why you can't come now and Sunday, too."

"I couldn't do it, dear lady."

"Well, Sunday then, if that is the earliest you can make it."

She smiled an adieu to Willie and Celestina, and with her little head proudly set preceded Bob to her car. But although the great engine throbbed and purred, it was some time before it left the gate and flashed its way down the high road toward Belleport.

After it had gone and Bob was once more in the house, Celestina had a score of questions with which to greet him. How remarkable it was that the owner of the missing jewelry should be some one he knew! The Galbraiths must be well-to-do. What was the brother like? Did he favor his sister?

These and numberless other inquiries like them furnished Celestina with conversation for the rest of the day. Willie, on the contrary, was peculiarly silent, and although his furtive glance traveled at frequent intervals over his young friend's face, he made no comment concerning Miss Cynthia L. Galbraith and her silver buckle.



CHAPTER VIII

SHADOWS

In the meantime the two men resumed their labors in the shop, touching shoulders before the bench where their tools lay. They planed and chiselled and sawed together as before, but as they worked each was conscious that a barrier of sudden reserve had sprung up between them, obstructing the perfect confidence that had previously existed. At first the old inventor tried to bridge this gulf with trivial jests, but as these passed unnoticed he at length lapsed into silence. Now and then, as he stole a look at his companion, he thought he detected in the youthful face a suppressed nervousness and irritation that found welcome vent in the hammer's vigorous blow. Nevertheless, as the younger man vouchsafed no information regarding the morning's adventure, Willie asked no questions.

He would have given a great deal to have satisfied himself about Cynthia Galbraith. It was easily seen that her family were persons of wealth and position with whom Robert Morton was on terms of the greatest intimacy. It even demanded no very skilled psychologist to perceive the girl's sentiment toward his guest, for Miss Galbraith was a petulent, self-willed creature who did not trouble to conceal her preferences. Her attitude was transparent as the day. But with what feeling did Robert Morton regard her? That was the burning question the little man longed to have answered.

Wearily he sighed. Alas, human nature was a frail, incalculable phenomenon.

How was it likely a young man with his fortune to make would regard a girl as rich and attractive as Cynthia Galbraith, especially if her brother chanced to be his best friend and all her family reached forth welcoming arms to him.

Willie was not a matchmaker. Had he been impugned with the accusation he would have denied it indignantly: Nevertheless, he had been mixed up in too many romances not to find the relation between the sexes a problem of engrossing interest. Furthermore, of late he had been doing a little private castle-building, the foundations of which now abruptly collapsed into ruins at his feet. The cornerstone of this dream-structure had been laid the day he had first seen Robert Morton and Delight Hathaway together. What a well-mated pair they were! For years it had been his unwhispered ambition to see his favorite happily married to a man who was worthy of the priceless treasure.

The Brewster household was aging fast. Captain Jonas, Captain Benjamin, and Captain Phineas were now old men; even Zenas Henry's hair had thinned and whitened above his temples, and Abbie, once so tireless, was becoming content to drop her cares on younger shoulders. Yes, Wilton was growing old, thought the inventor sadly, and he and Celestina were unquestionably keeping pace with the rest. In the natural course of events, before many years Delight would be deprived of her protectors and be left alone in the great world to fend for herself. She was well able to do so, for she was resourceful and capable and would never be forced to marry for a home as was many a lonely woman. Nor would she ever come to want; the village would see to that. Notwithstanding this certainty, however, he could not bear to think of a time when there would be no one to stand between her and the harsher side of life; no man who would count the championship a privilege, an honor, his dearest duty.

Wilton had never offered a husband of the type pictured in Willie's mind. The hamlet could boast of but few young men, and the greater part of those who lingered within its borders had done so because they lacked the ambition and initiative to hew out for themselves elsewhere broader fields of activity. Those of ability had gravitated to the colleges, the business schools, or gone to test their strength in the city's marts of commerce. Who could blame them for not resting content with baiting lobster pots and dredging for scallops? Were he a young man with his path untrodden before him he would have been one of the first to do the same, Willie confessed. Did he not constantly covet their youth and opportunity? Nevertheless, praiseworthy as their motive had been, the fact remained that nowhere in the village was there a man the peer of Delight Hathaway. Rare in her girlish beauty, rarer yet in her promise of womanhood, what a prize she would be for him who had the fineness of fiber to appreciate the guerdon!

Willie was wont to attest that he himself was not a marrying man; yet notwithstanding the assertion, deep down within the fastness of his soul he had had his visions,—visions pure, exalted and characteristic of his sensitively attuned nature. They were the exquisite secrets of his life; the unfulfilled dreams that had kept him holy; a part of the divine in him; echoes of hungers and longings that reached unsatisfied into a world other than this. Earth had failed to consummate the loves and ambitions of the dreamer. His had been a flattened, warped, starved existence whose perfecting was not of this sphere. And as without bitterness he reviewed the glories that had passed him by, he prayed that these bounties might not also be denied her who, rounding into the full splendor of her womanhood, was worthy of the best heaven had to bestow.

From her childhood he had watched her virtues unfold and none of their potentialities had gone unobserved by the quiet little old man. Through the beauty of his own soul he had been enabled to translate the beauties of another, until gradually Delight Hathaway had come to symbolize for him universal woman, the prototype of all that was purest, most selfless, most tender; most to be revered, watched over, beloved. Yet for all his worship the girl remained for him very human, a creature with bewitching and appealing ways. In the same spirit in which he rejoiced in the tint of a rose's petal or the shell-like flush of a cloud at dawn did he find pleasure in the crimson that colored her cheek, in the perfection of her features, in the shadowy, fathomless depths of her eyes. Father, brother, lover, artist, at her shrine he offered up a composite devotion which sought only her happiness.

With such an attitude of mind to satisfy was it a marvel that in the matter of selecting a husband for his divinity Willie was difficult to please; or that he studied with a criticism quite as jealous as Zenas Henry's own every male who crossed the girl's path?

Yet with all his idealism Willie was a keen observer of life, and from the first moment of their meeting he had detected in Robert Morton qualities more nearly akin to his standards than he had discovered in any of the other outsiders who had come into the hamlet. There was, for example, the son of the Farwells who owned the great colonial mansion on the point,—Billy Farwell, with his racing car and his dogs and his general air of elegance and idleness. Delight had known him since she was a child. And there was Jasper Carlton, the scholarly scientist, years the girl's senior, who annually came to board with the Brewsters during the vacation months. Both of these men paid court to the village beauty, Billy with a half patronizing, half audacious assurance born of years of intimacy; and the professor with that old-fashioned reserve and deference characteristic of the older generation. There were days when the two caused Willie such perturbation of spirit that he would willingly have knocked their heads together or cheerfully have wrung their necks.

Delight unhesitatingly acknowledged that she liked both of them and harmlessly coquetted first with the one, then with the other, until the old inventor was at his wit's end to fathom which she actually favored or whether she seriously favored either of them. Yet irreproachable as were these suitors, to place a man of Bob Morton's attributes in the same category with them seemed absurd. Why, he was head and shoulders above them mentally, morally, physically,—from whichever angle one viewed him. Moreover, blood will tell, and was he not of the fine old Morton stock? Whatever the Carlton forbears might be, young Farwell's ancestry was not an enviable one. Yes, Willie had settled Delight's future to his entire satisfaction and for nights had been sleeping peacefully, confident that with such a husband as Robert Morton her happiness and good fortune would be assured.

And then, like a thunderbolt out of the heavens, had come this Cynthia Galbraith with her fetching clothes, her affluence and her air of proprietorship! By what right had she acquired her monopoly of Bob Morton, and was its exclusiveness gratifying or irksome to its recipient? Might not this strange young man, concerning whom Willie was forced to own he actually knew nothing, be playing a double game, and the frankness of his face belie his real nature? And was it not possible that his annoyance and irritation were caused by having been trapped in it?

Well, avowed Willie, he would see that Delight encountered this Don Giovanni but seldom, at least until he gave a more trustworthy account of himself than he had vouchsafed up to the present moment. Contrary to the common law, the guest must be rated as guilty until he had proved himself innocent. Yet as he darted a glance at the earnest young face bending over the workbench Willie's conscience smote him and he questioned whether he might not be doing his comrade a dire injustice. The thought caused him to flush uncomfortably, and he flushed still redder when Bob suddenly straightened up and met his eye.

Both men stood alert, held tensely by the same sound. It was the low music of a girlish voice humming a snatch of song, and it was accompanied by the soft crackling of the needles that carpeted the grove of pine between the Spence and Brewster houses. In another instant Delight Hathaway strolled slowly out of the wood and entered the workshop. With her coming a radiance of sunshine seemed to flood the shabby room. She nodded a greeting to Bob, then went straight to Willie and, placing her hands affectionately on his shoulders, looked down into his face. They made a pretty picture, the bent old man with his russet cheeks and thin white hair, and the girl erect as an arrow and beautiful as a young Diana.

The little inventor lifted his mild blue eyes to meet the haunting eyes of hazel.

"Well, well, my dear," he said, as he covered one of her hands with his own worn brown one, "so you have come for your buckle, have you? It is all done, honey, an' good as the day when 'twas made. Bob has it in his pocket for you this minute."

By a strange magic the truth and sunlight of the girl's presence had for the time being dispelled all baser suspicions and Willie smiled kindly at the man beside him.

Holding out the crisp white package, Robert Morton came forward.

Delight looked questioningly from the box with its immaculate paper and neat pink string to its giver.

"He found he couldn't fix it himself," explained Willie, immediately interpreting the interrogation. "Neither him or I were guns enough for the job. So Bob got somebody he knew of to tinker it up."

"That was certainly very kind," returned Delight with gravity. "If you will tell me what it cost I—"

Again the old man stepped into the breach.

"Oh, I figger 'twarn't much," said he with easy unconcern. "The feller who did it was used to mendin' jewelry an' knew just how to set about it, so it didn't put him out of his way none."

"Yes," echoed Bob, with a grateful smile toward Willie. "It made him no trouble at all."

The two men watched the delicate fingers unfasten the package.

"See how nice 'tis," Willie went on. "You'd never know there was a thing the matter with it."

"It's wonderful!" she cried.

Her pleasure put to flight the old inventor's last compunction at his compromise with truth.

"I am so pleased, Mr. Morton!" she went on. "You are quite sure there was no expense."

"Nothing to speak of. I'm glad you like it," murmured the young man.

"Indeed I do!"

She stretched the band of white leather round her waist and Bob noticed how easily its clasp met.

"There!" exclaimed she, raising her hand in mocking imitation of a military salute, "isn't that fine?"

Willie laughed with involuntary admiration at the gesture, and as for Robert Morton he could have gone down on his knees before her and kissed her diminutive white shoe.

The girl did not prolong the tableau. All too soon she relaxed from rigidity into gaiety and came flitting to the work bench.

"What are you doing, Willie dear?" she asked. "You know you never have secrets from me. What is this marvellous thing you are busy with?"

Before answering, Willie glanced mysteriously about.

"It's because I know you can keep secrets that I ain't afraid to trust you with 'em," said he. "Bob an' I are workin' on the quiet at an idee I was kitched with a day or two ago. It's a bigger scheme than most of the ones I've tackled, an' it may not turn out to be anything at all; still, Bob has studied boats an' knows a heap about 'em, an' he believes somethin' can be made of it. But 'til our fish is hooked we ain't shoutin' that we've caught one. If the contrivance works," went on the little old man eagerly, "it will be a bonanza for Zenas Henry. It's—" he lowered his voice almost to a whisper, "it's an idee to keep motor-boats from gettin' snagged."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before his listeners saw him start and look apprehensively toward the door.

They were no longer alone. On the threshold of the workshop stood Janoah Eldridge.



CHAPTER IX

A WIDENING OF THE BREACH

"So," piped Janoah, "that's what you're doin', is it, Willie Spence? Well, you needn't 'a' been so all-fired still about it. I guessed as much all the time." There was an acid flavor in the words. "Yes, I knowed it from the beginnin' well as if I'd been here, even if you did shut me out an' take this city feller in to help you in place of me. Mebbe he has studied 'bout boats; but how do you know what he's up to? How do you know, anyhow, who he is or where he came from? He says, of course, that he's Tiny's nephew, an' he may be, fur all I can tell; but what proof have you he ain't somebody else who's come here to steal your ideas an' get money for 'em?"

There was a moment of stunned silence, as the barbs from his tongue pierced the stillness.

Then Delight stepped in front of the interloper.

"How dare you, Janoah Eldridge!" she cried. "How dare you insult Willie's friend and—and—mine! You've no right to speak so about Mr. Morton."

Before her indignation Janoah quailed. In all his life he had never before seen Delight Hathaway angry, and something in her flashing eyes and flaming cheeks startled him.

"I—I—warn't meanin' to say 'twas actually so," mumbled he apologetically. "Like as not the young man's 'xactly what he claims to be. Still, Willie's awful gullible, an' there's times when a word of warnin' ain't such a bad thing. I'm sorry if you didn't like it."

"I didn't like it, not at all," the girl returned, only slightly mollified by his conciliatory tone. "If you are anything of a gentleman you will apologize to Mr. Morton immediately."

"Ain't I just said I was sorry?" hedged the sheepish Janoah.

"Indeed, there is no need for anything further," Robert Morton protested. "Perhaps, knowing me so little, it was only natural that he should distrust me."

"It was neither natural nor courteous," came hotly from Delight, "and I for one am mortified that any visitor to the village should receive such treatment."

Then as if clearing her skirts of the offending Mr. Eldridge, she drew herself to her full height and swept magnificently out the door. An awkward silence followed her departure.

Robert Morton hesitated, glancing uneasily from Willie to Janoah, scented a storm and, slipping softly from the shop, went in pursuit of the retreating figure.

"For goodness sake, Janoah, whatever set you makin' a speech like that?" Willie demanded, when the two were alone. "Have you gone plumb crazy? The very notion of your lightin' into that innocent young feller! What are you thinkin' of?"

"Mebbe he ain't so innocent as he seems," the accuser sneered.

The little old man faced him sharply.

"Come," he persisted, "let's have this thing out. What do you know about him?"

"What do you?" retorted Janoah, evading the question.

The inventor paused, chagrined.

"You don't know nothin' an' I don't know nothin'," continued Janoah, seizing the advantage he had gained. "Each of us is welcome to his opinion, ain't he? It's a free country. You're all fur believin' the chap's an angel out of heaven. You've swallered down every word he's uttered like as if it was gospel truth, an' took him into your own house same's if he was a relation. There's fish that gobble down bait just that way. I ain't that kind. Young men don't bury themselves up in a quiet spot like Wilton without they've got somethin' up their sleeve."

Staring intently at his friend, he noted with satisfaction that Willie's brow had clouded into a frown.

"Is it to be expected, I ask you now, is it to be expected that a spirited young sprig of a college feller such as him relishes spendin' his time workin' away in this shop day in an' day out? What's he doin' it fur, tell me that? This world ain't a benevolent institution, an' the folks in it don't go throwin' their elbow-grease away unless they look to get somethin' out of it. This Morton boy has boned down here like a slave. What's in it fur him?"

"Why, it's his vacation an'—"

"Vacation!" interrupted Janoah scornfully. "You call it a vacation, do you, for him to be workin' away here with you? You honestly think he hankers after doin' it?"

"He said he did."

"An' you believed it, I s'pose, same's you credited the rest of his talk," jeered Mr. Eldridge. "Look out the winder, Willie Spence, an' tell me, if you was twenty instead of 'most seventy, if you'd be stayin' indoors a-carpenterin' these summer days when you could be outside?"

He swept a hand dramatically toward the casement and in spite of himself the old man obeyed his injunction and looked.

A dome blue as larkspur arched the sky and to its farthest bound the sea, reflecting its azure tints, flashed and sparkled as if set with stars of gold. Along the shore where glittered reaches of hard white sand and a gentle breeze tossed into billows the salt grass edging the margin of the little creeks, fishermen launching their dories called to one another, their voices floating upward on the still air with musical clearness.

"Would you be puttin' in your vacation a-workin' all summer, Willie, if you was the age of that young man?" repeated Janoah.

"He ain't here for all summer," protested the unhappy inventor, catching at a straw. "He's only goin' to stay a little while."

"He was here fur over night at first, warn't he?" inquired the tormentor. "Then it lengthened into a week; an' the Lord only knows now how much longer he's plannin' to hang round the place. Besides, if he's only makin' a short visit, it's less likely than ever he'd want to put in the whole of it tinkerin' with you. He'd be goin' about seein' Wilton, sailin', fishin', swimmin' or clammin', like other folks do that come here fur the summer, if he was a normal human bein'. But has he been anywheres yet? No, sir! I've had my weather eye out, an' I can answer for it that the feller ain't once poked his head out of this shop. What's made him so keen fur stayin' in Wilton an' workin'?"

Willie did not answer, but he took a great bandanna with a flaming border of scarlet from his pocket and mopped his forehead nervously.

"That young chap," resumed Janoah, holding up a grimy finger which he shook impressively at the wretched figure opposite, "is here for one of two reasons. You can like 'em or not, but they're true. He's either here to steal your ideas from you, or he's got his eye on Delight Hathaway."

He saw his victim start violently.

"Mebbe it's the one, mebbe it's the other; I ain't sayin'," announced Janoah with malicious pleasure. "It may even be both reasons put together. He's aimin' fur some landin' place, you can be certain of that, an' I'm warnin yer as a friend to look out fur him, that's all."

"I—I—don't believe it," burst out the little inventor, his benumbed faculties beginning slowly to assemble themselves. "Why, there ain't a finer, better-spoken young man to be found than Bob Morton."

Janoah caught up the final phrase with derision.

"The better spoken he is the more watchin' he'll bear," remarked he. "There's many a villain with an oily gift of gab."

"I'll not believe it!" Willie reiterated.

Mr. Eldridge shrugged his shoulders.

"Take it or leave it," he said. "You're welcome to your own way. Only don't say I didn't warn yer."

Flinging this parting shot backward into the room, Janoah Eldridge passed out into the rose-scented sunshine.

With a sad look in his eyes Willie let him go, watching the tall form as it strode waist-high through the brakes and sweet fern that patched the meadow. It was his first real quarrel with Janoah. Since boyhood they had been friends, the gentleness of the little inventor bridging the many disagreements that had arisen between them. Now had come this mammoth difference, a divergence of standard too vital to be smoothed over by a gloss of cajolery. Willie was angry through every fiber of his being. Slowly it seeped into his consciousness that Janoah's fundamental philosophy and his own were at odds; their attitude of mind as antagonistic as the poles. Against trust loomed suspicion, against generosity narrowness, against optimism pessimism. Janoah believed the worst of the individual while he, Willie, reason as he might, inherently believed the best. One creed was the fruit of a jealous and envious personality that rejoiced rather than grieved over the limitations of our human clay; the other was a result of that charity that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, because of a divine faith in the God in man.

For a long time Willie stood there thinking, his gaze fixed upon the gently swaying plumage of the pines. The shock of his discovery left him suddenly feeling very sad and very much alone. It was as if he had buried the friend of half a century. Yet even to bring Janoah back he could not retract the words he had uttered or exchange the light he followed for Janoah's sinister beckonings. In spite of a certain reasonableness in the pessimist's logic; in spite of circumstances he was incapable of explaining; in spite, even, of Cynthia Galbraith, a latent belief in Robert Morton's integrity crystallized into certainty, and he rose to his feet freed of the doubts that had previously assailed him.

At the instant of this emancipation the young man himself entered.

What had passed during the interval since he had gone out of the workshop Willie could only surmise, but it had evidently been of sufficiently inspiring a character to bring into his countenance a radiance almost supernatural in its splendor. Nevertheless he did not speak but stood immovable before the little old inventor as if awaiting a judge's decree, the glory fading from his eyes and a half-veiled anxiety stealing into them.

Willie smiled and, reaching up, placed his hands on the broad shoulders that towered opposite.

"I'm sorry, Bob," he affirmed with a sweetness as winning as a woman's. "You mustn't mind what Jan said. He's gettin' old an' a mite crabbed, an' he's kinder foolish about me, mebbe. I wouldn't 'a' had him hurt your feelin's—"

Robert Morton caught the expression of pain in the troubled face and cut the apology short.

"It's all right, Mr. Spence," he cried. "Don't give it another thought. So long as you remain my friend I don't care what Mr. Eldridge thinks. We'll pass it off as jealousy and let it go at that."

The old man tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth drooped and he sighed instead. To have Janoah's weaknesses thus nakedly set forth by another was a very different thing from recognizing them himself, and instinctively his loyalty rose in protest.

"Mebbe 'twas jealousy," he replied. "Folks have always stood out that Janoah was jealous. But somehow I'd rather think 'twas tryin' to look after me an' my affairs that misled him. S'pose we call it a sort of slab-sided friendliness."

"We'll call it anything you like," assented Bob, with a happy laugh.

This time Willie laughed also.

"So she stood by you, did she?" queried he with quick understanding.

"Yes."

"'Twas like her."

"It was like both of you."

The old man raised a hand in protest against the gratitude the remark implied.

"Delight ain't often wrong; she's a fair dealer." Then he added significantly, "Them as ain't fair with her deserve no salvation."

"Hanging would be too good for the man who was not square with a girl like that," came from Robert Morton with an emphasis unmistakable in its sincerity.



CHAPTER X

A CONSPIRACY

On Sunday morning, when a menacing east wind whipped the billows into foam and a breath of storm brooded in the air, the Galbraiths' great touring car rolled up to Willie's cottage, and from it stepped not only Robert Morton's old college chum, Roger Galbraith, but also his father, a finely built, middle-aged man whose decisive manner and quick speech characterized the leader and dictator.

He was smooth-shaven after the English fashion and from beneath shaggy iron-gray brows a pair of dark eyes, piercing in their intensity, looked out. The face was lined as if the stress of living had drawn its muscles into habitual tensity, and except when a smile relieved the setness of the mouth his countenance was stern to severity. His son, on the other hand, possessed none of his father's force of personality. Although his features were almost a replica of those of the older man, they lacked strength; it was as if the second impression taken from the type had been less clear-cut and positive. The eyes were clear rather than penetrating, the mouth and chin handsome but mobile; even the well-rounded physique lacked the rugged qualities that proclaimed its development to have been the result of a Spartan combat with the world and instead bore the more artificial sturdiness acquired from sports and athletics.

Nevertheless Roger Galbraith, if not the warrior his progenitor had been, presented no unmanly appearance. Neither self-indulgence nor effeminacy branded him. In fact, there was in his manner a certain magnetism and warmth of sympathy that the elder man could not boast, and it was because of this asset he had never wanted for friends and probably never would want for them. Through the talisman of charm he would exact from others the service which the more autocratic nature commanded.

Yet in spite of the opposition of their personalities, Robert Morton cherished toward both father and son a sincere affection which differed only in the quality of the response the two men called forth. Mr. Galbraith he admired and revered; Roger he loved.

Had he but known it, each of the Galbraiths in their turn esteemed Robert Morton for widely contrasting reasons. The New York financier found in him a youth after his own heart,—a fine student and hard worker, who had fought his way to an education because necessity confronted him with the choice of going armed or unarmed into life's fray. Although comfortably off, Mr. Morton senior was a man of limited income whose children had been forced to battle for what they had wrested from fortune. Success had not come easily to any of them, and the winning of it had left in its wake a self-reliance and independence surprisingly mature. Ironically enough, this power to fend for himself which Mr. Galbraith so heartily endorsed and respected in Bob was the very characteristic of which he had deprived his own boy, the vast fortune the capitalist had rolled up eliminating all struggle from Roger's career. Every barrier had been removed, every thwarting force had been brought into abeyance, and afterward, with an inconsistency typical of human nature, the leveler of the road fretted at his son's lack of aggressiveness, his eyes, ordinarily so hawklike in their vision, blinded to the fact that what his son was he had to a great extent made him, and if the product caused secret disappointment he had no one to thank for it but himself. Instead his reasoning took the bias that the younger man, having been given every opportunity, should logically have increased the Galbraith force of character rather than have diminished it, and very impatient was he that such had not proved to be the case.

Robert Morton was much more akin to the Galbraith stock, the financier argued. He had all the dog-like persistency, the fighter's love of the game, the courage that will not admit defeat. Although he would not have confessed it, Mr. Galbraith would have given half his fortune to have interchanged the personalities of the two young men. Could Roger have been blessed with Bob's attributes, the dream of his life would have been fulfilled. Money was a potent slave. In the great man's hands it had wrought a magician's marvels. But this miracle, alas, it was powerless to accomplish. Roger was his son, his only son, whom he adored with instinctive passion; for whom he coveted every good gift; and in whose future the hopes of his life were bound up. Long since he had abandoned expecting the impossible; he must take the boy as he was, rejoicing that Heaven had sent him as good a one. Yet notwithstanding this philosophy, Mr. Galbraith never saw the two young men together that the envy he stifled did not awaken, and the question rise to his lips:

"Why could I not have had such a son?"

The interrogation clamored now as he came up the walk to the doorway where Robert Morton was standing.

"Well, my boy, I'm glad to see you," exclaimed he with heartiness. "You are looking fit as a racer."

"And feeling so, Mr. Galbraith," smiled Bob. "You are looking well yourself."

"Never was better in my life."

As he stood still, sweeping his keen gaze over his surroundings, a telegraphic glance of greeting passed between the two classmates.

"How are you, old man?" said Roger.

"Bully, kipper. It's great to see you again," was the reply.

That was all, but they did not need more to assure each other of their friendship.

"You have a wonderful location here, Bob," observed Mr. Galbraith who had been studying the view. "I never saw anything finer. What a site for a hotel!"

Robert Morton could not but smile at the characteristic comment of the man of finance.

"You would have trouble rooting Mr. Spence out of this spot, I'm afraid," said he.

"Mr. Spence?"

"He is my host. My aunt, Miss Morton, is his housekeeper."

Robert Morton had learned never to waste words when talking with Mr. Galbraith.

"I see. I should be glad to meet your aunt and Mr. Spence."

"I know they would like to meet you too, sir. They are just inside. Won't you come in?"

Leading the way, Bob threw open the door into the little sitting room.

In anticipation of the visit Celestina had arrayed herself in a fresh print dress and ruffled apron and had compelled Willie to replace his jumper with a suit of homespun and flatten his locks into water-soaked rigidity. By the exchange both persons had lost a certain picturesqueness which Bob could not but deplore. Nevertheless the fact did not greatly matter, for it was not toward them that the capitalist turned his glance. Instead his swiftly moving eyes traveled with one sweep over the cobweb of strings that enmeshed the interior and without regard for etiquette he blurted out: