"There is nothing that you shall not know. But not yet--not yet! After
all, perhaps it's only that in another incarnation I was a vagrant bee
and I'm homesick for its irresponsibility."
"At all events"--he spoke with an access of boyish enthusiasm--"I 'thank
whatever gods may be' that I have known you as I have. I'm glad that we
have not just been idly rich together. Why, Cara, do you remember the
day we lost our way in the far woods, and I foraged corn, and you
scrambled stolen eggs? We were forest folk that day; primitive as in the
years when things were young and the best families kept house in caves."
The girl nodded. "I approve of my shadow," she affirmed.
The smile of enthusiasm died on his face and something like a scowl came
there.
"The chief trouble," he said, "is that altogether too decent brute,
Pagratide. I don't like double shadows; they usually stand for confused
lights."
"Are you jealous of Pagratide?" she laughed. "He pretends to have a
similar sentiment for you."
"Well," he conceded, laughing in spite of himself, "it does seem that
when a European girl deigns to play a while with her American cousins,
Europe might stay on its own side of the pond. This Pagratide is a
commuter over the Northern Ocean track. He harasses the Atlantic with
his goings and comings."
"The Atlantic?" she echoed mockingly.
"Possibly I was too modest," he amended. "I mean me and the
Atlantic--particularly me."
From around the curve of the road sounded a tempered shout. The girl
laughed.
"You seem to have summoned him out of space," she suggested.
The man growled. "The local from Europe appears to have arrived." He
gathered in his reins with an almost vicious jerk which brought the
bay's head up with a snort of remonstrance.
A horseman appeared at the turn of the road. Waving his hat, he put
spurs to his mount and came forward at a gallop. The newcomer rode with
military uprightness, softened by the informal ease of the polo-player.
Even at the distance, which his horse was lessening under the insistent
pressure of his heels, one could note a boyish charm in the frankness of
his smile and an eagerness in his eyes.
"I have been searching for you for centuries at least," he shouted, with
a pleasantly foreign accent, which was rather a nicety than a fault of
enunciation, "but the quest is amply rewarded!"
He wheeled his horse to the left with a precision that again bespoke the
cavalryman, and bending over the girl's gauntleted hand, kissed her
fingers in a manner that added to something of ceremonious flourish much
more of individual homage. Her smile of greeting was cordial, but a
degree short of enthusiasm.