April Gold (Musaicum Romance Classics). Grace Livingston Hill

“ten days is ten days. You can’t tell what might happen in ten days. You know I ought not really to be wasting this one day to go to New York. But I mean to make every hour of the other nine days count for something. I don’t mean to let that dirty thief get away with stealing if I can help it. For that’s what it is. It’s nothing short of robbery. He knows we’re in a hole because the bank is closed, and he’s taking advantage of it. I mean to leave no stone unturned. This having an injunction looming on the horizon every time we want to own a thing, even a little old second-hand flivver, is more than I want hung around my neck the rest of my life. Believe me, I mean to give the old geezer a run for his money, anyway.”

      “I don’t see what you can do!” said the mother hopelessly.

      “I’ll do plenty!” said the son briskly, although he hadn’t an idea in his head of anything that he could do. But he meant to do it just the same.

      He did not go in the other car as Rilla had suggested he might be asked to do. The invitation had come, but he had declined on the plea of not having time for so leisurely a trip. The truth was that he could not bear the cheerful throng of his old friends and their pleasant raillery; besides, he would not have a chance to talk to Barbara alone, and he somehow shrank from seeing her handing out her favors and smiles alike to all the boys. It hadn’t mattered so much when he was able to take her away from the rest whenever he tried, knowing that she enjoyed his companionship, looking forward to a day when they might really belong to one another. But now all that was off, and perhaps the less he saw of Barbara before she left the better. It was bound to be a wrench, and he would take it as bravely and as swiftly as possible.

      So it was with grave, inscrutable eyes that he presented himself on the ship a half hour before sailing time and brought his gift with him, an exquisitely mounted and fitted handbag of a unique design, simple but costly. He was glad that he had bought it a week before the bank failedbought it with a joyous heart, delighting that he knew her tastes. That at least would be perfect, his final gift to her. For it wasn’t at all likely that he would be able ever again to give her gifts like that. Also, it was something that would remind her constantly of him while she was travelingthat is, if she chose to carry it instead of any others she might have. Perhaps that wasn’t so good, now that things had turned out as they had. Perhaps it wasn’t good to remind her of himself, since nothing was ever likely to come of it further. Yet it might for a time provide a protection for her against someone less worthy than the memory of himself. Not that he counted himself worthy, only in the quality of his admiration for her. As yet he had not begun to call it by any tenderer name than admiration, though he knew in his heart it went deeper than that if he only had the right.

      So he carried his gift to the ship, intriguingly but simply wrapped, preserving its exquisite atmosphere even to the quality of its wrapping.

      At the last minute he had weakened and grown extravagant, purchasing besides a wealth of the handsomest long-stemmed roses, yellow with hearts of gold lit with a ruby light, the kind of roses that went with her red-gold hair, her amber-lighted brown eyes, and the warm brown outfits she so loved to wear.

      He had sent the roses to her cabin with his card and a book he wanted her to readjust a little, inexpensive book, but one that held great thoughts. He had slipped it under the great green bow of rich satin ribbon with which the luxurious flowers were tied. But the beautiful handbag he carried with him and put into her hands himself, that last five minutes when he drew her away from the rest and made her walk the deck with him away from the crowd. Then, standing with her alone, he found he had nothing to say but commonplaces!

      “What’s the matter with you, Thurl? You look so grown up and faraway,” challenged Barbara cheerfully. Her eyes were starry, and her face was lit with excitement of the day, her first trip abroad.

      “I’m fairly old,” he said gravely and tried to smile, but there was something in his eyes that told the girl there was more to his words than he cared to explain or she cared to recognize.

      “I wish you were going along!” she said fervently, and showed the dimple in her left cheek that made her smile so alluring. She had said the same to half a dozen other boys, and Thurlow knew it, yet his eyes flashed back an echo to her wish, even while he recognized that there was nothing really personal in her wish. Or was there? He could not be sure, and this was no time to find out. Perhaps there would never be a time to find out, now, anymore. It was too late!

      No, he couldn’t even say that. For honorably he had no right to find out more than eyes can flash in glances and soft inflections of voices can tell. No, they were not through college yet. At least! Stab! His thoughts brought him back to the stern facts of his life. There would never be any more college for him. More for her perhaps but none for him. That in itself was a barrier between them. If it had been the other way around, it wouldn’t have mattered in the least, for a woman felt no shame if she had not completed her education before she married, but a man was somehow disqualified if he had not as good an education as his girl. Married! What was he thinking about? How could he ever get married? And he was only a kid anyway, not half ready for life as he had been brought up to envision it. Yet here he was, by reason of this sudden financial cataclysm, standing as it were on one side of a great rift in the rock that rooted them and seeing it widen and widen into a yawning chasm with an invading sea to separate them.

      He stood there speechless, looking at her pretty hands as they fingered his gift lightly, caressing it with one hand that flashed with jewels her father had bought her, exclaiming over its beauties, saying that she would carry it always and that it was the loveliest bag she had ever seen, and lifting lovely glances to his grave face. He watched the lights play in and out among the waves of her glorious red-gold hair, and suddenly his heart seemed likely to burst. He wished he were a child and could put his face down in his hands and cry.

      And then into the midst of it came the awful warning: “All ashore that are going ashore!”

      For an instant the two young things looked aghast, questioning, into one another’s eyes. Then the girl rallied first.

      “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Thurl! It isn’t forever! I’m coming back, you know!” She said it lightly, cheerfully, and then she reached up her hands and drew his face down and kissed him lightly on the lips, still laughing.

      “Now go quick,” she laughed, “unless you’ll go along, you know!” she added mischievously and pushed him from her toward the gangway.

      Thurlow went forward with the surging multitude that was staying on land. He walked as in a daze, his heart dumb with sorrow. The touch of Barbara’s lips had been light as a butterfly’s wing, just brushing his. The thrill of that kiss remained, and yet he was conscious at once that there was a quality of aloofness about it. It was just a casual good-bye kiss, with nothing to distinguish it from the farewell she had given the rest of her friends who had come down to see her off. Perhaps her own girlishness had demanded that it should be so, he told himself as he stepped from the gangplank to the dock, trying to defend her even as he felt the pain of his conviction. Yet there was to him about that kiss something so final, in spite of the merry words she had spoken about her return, that his heart could not accept any hope. She did not know how she would find him when she came back. She did not know that he would be no longer in her pleasant circle of friends, that he might even be gone from the hometown. But there had been no room in her light planning of the future for any such possibility. She had said the words so lightly, as if all things would go right on just as they had been when she was at home, and she would come home to find them as ever on her return. As if there was plenty of time to settle great questions and eternal friendships. As if it didn’t matter any more to her than that. She was off for a good time, and of course he would be just as devoted when she returned, and shewell, she was not even showing any special tenderness for him, her oldest, most intimate friend. Just that light acceptance of his devotion as a matter of course.

      He did not resent it, but it hurt. Somehow as he stepped back in the crowd where he could get a good view of her as she stood smiling on that upper deck where he had left her, it hurt inexpressibly that she had not sensed that he was passing through seas of trouble and had not given him at least a look, a tenderer smile than just what she was handing out to every one of her friends.