The Gay Rebellion. Chambers Robert William

you look long enough and hard enough," he said, "you will just be able to make out the vague outline of a slender human hand among the leaves, holding the end of the hammock. See it?"

      Langdon looked long and steadily. Presently he fished out a jeweller's glass, screwed it into his eye, and looked again.

      "Do you think that's a human hand?"

      "I do."

      "It's a slim one – a child's, or a young girl's."

      "It is. She had be-u-tiful hands."

      "Who?"

      "That girl I saw last evening."

      Langdon slowly turned and looked at Sayre.

      "Well, what do you make of it?"

      "Nothing yet – except a million different little romances."

      "Of course, you'd do that anyway. But what scientific inference do you draw? Here's a thing that looks like a hammock lying on the ground. One end seems to be lifted; perhaps that is a hand. Well, what about it?"

      "I'm going to find out."

      "How?"

      "By – fishing," said Sayre quietly, rising and picking up his rod.

      "You're going back there in hopes of – "

      "In hopes."

      After a silence Langdon said: "You say she was unusually pretty?"

      "Unusually."

      "Shall I – go with you, William?"

      "No," said Sayre coldly.

      III

      SAYRE had been fishing for some time with the usual result when the slightest rustle of foliage caught his ear. He looked up. She was standing directly behind him.

      He got to his feet immediately and pulled off his cap. That was too bad; he was better looking with it on his head.

      "I wondered whether you'd come again," he said, so simply and naturally that the girl, whose grey eyes had become intent on his scanty hair with a surprised and pained expression, looked directly into his smiling and agreeable face.

      "Did you come to fish this pool?" he asked. "You are very welcome to. I can't catch anything."

      "Why do you think that I am out fishing?" she asked in a curiously clear, still voice – very sweet and young – but a voice that seemed to grow out of the silence instead of to interrupt it.

      "You are fishing, are you not? or at least you came here to fish last evening?" he said.

      "Why do you think so?"

      "You had a net."

      He expected her to say that it was a hammock which she was trailing through the woods in search of two convenient saplings on which to hang it.

      She said: "Yes, it was a net."

      "Did my being here drive you away from your favourite pool?"

      She looked at him candidly. "You are not a sportsman, are you?"

      "N – no," he admitted, turning red. "Why?"

      "People who take trout in nets are fined and imprisoned."

      "Oh! But you said you had a net."

      "It wasn't a fish net."

      He waited. She offered no further explanation. Sometimes she looked at him, rather gravely, he thought; sometimes she looked at the stream. There was not the slightest hint of embarrassment in her manner as she stood there – a straight, tall, young thing, grey-eyed, red-lipped, slim, with that fresh slender smoothness of youth; clad in grey wool, hatless, thick burnished hair rippling into a heavy knot at the nape of the whitest neck he had ever seen.

      The stiller she stood, apparently wrapped in serious inward contemplation, the stiller he remained, as though the spell of her serene self-absorption consigned him to silence. Once he ventured, stealthily, to smack a mosquito, but at the echoing whack there was, in her slowly turned face, the calm surprise of a disturbed goddess; and he felt like saying "excuse me."

      "Do they bite you?" she asked, lifting her divine eyebrows a trifle.

      "Bite me! Good heavens, don't they bite you? But I don't suppose they dare – "

      "What?"

      "I didn't mean 'dare' exactly," he tried to explain, feeling his ears turning a fiery red, and wondering why on earth he should have made such a foolish remark.

      "What did you mean?"

      "N – nothing. I don't know. I say things and – and sometimes," he added in a burst of confidence, "they don't seem to mean anything at all." To himself he groaned through ground teeth: "What an ass I am. What on earth is the matter with me?"

      She considered him in silence, candidly; and redder and redder grew his ears as he saw that she was quietly inspecting him from head to foot with an interest perfectly unembarrassed, innocently intent upon her inspection.

      Then, having finished him down to his feet, she lifted her eyes, caught his, looked a moment straight into them, then sighed a little.

      "Do you know," she said, "I ought not to have come here again."

      "Why?" he asked, astonished.

      "There's no use in my telling you. There was no use in my coming. Oh, I realise that perfectly well now. And I think I'd better go – "

      She lingered a moment, glanced at the stream running gold in the afternoon light, then turned away, bidding him good-bye in a low voice.

      "Are you g-going?" he blurted out, not knowing exactly what he was saying.

      She moved on in silence. He looked after her. A perfectly illogical feeling of despair overwhelmed him.

      "For Heaven's sake, don't go away!" he said.

      She moved on a pace, another, more slowly, hesitated, halted, leisurely looked back over her shoulder.

      "What did you say?" she asked.

      "I said – I said – I said – " but he began to stammer fearfully and could get no farther.

      Perhaps she thought he was threatened with some kind of seizure; anyway, something about him apparently interested her enough to slowly retrace her steps.

      "What is the matter, Mr. Sayre?" she asked.

      "Why, that's funny!" he said; "you know my name?"

      "Yes, I know your name."

      "Could – would – should – might – " he could get no farther.

      "What?"

      "M-might I – would it be – could you – "

      "Are you trying to ask me what is my name?"

      "Yes," he said; "did you think I was reciting a lesson in grammar?"

      Suddenly the rare smile played delicately along the edges of her upcurled mouth.

      "No," she said, "I knew you were embarrassed. It wasn't nice of me. But," and her face grew grave, "there is no use in my telling you my name."

      "Why?"

      "Because we shall not meet again."

      "Won't you ever let me – give me a chance – because – you know, somehow – seeing you yesterday – and to-day – this way – "

      "Yes, I know what you mean."

      "Do you?"

      "Yes. I came back, too," she said seriously.

      A strange, inexplicable tingling pervaded him.

      "You came – came – "

      "Yes. I should not have done it, because I saw you perfectly plainly yesterday. But – somehow I hoped – somehow – "

      "What!"

      "That there had been a mistake."

      "You thought you knew me?"

      "Oh,