“Do you really think we are coming to that, Ballard?” asked Evadne, leaning a little closer to him and looking up into his face. “Oh, you do encourage me so! When I look about upon the people who are so tied down by the wishes of others, by old customs, by what is so mistakenly called courtesy, it is so pitiful and seems so hopeless.”
“Yes, it is pitiful,” said Ballard Bainbridge, looking down into Evadne’s vapidly pretty face and laying a possessive hand over her small one that lay relaxed upon his arm. “Certainly pitiful, but not hopeless, my dear Miss Laverock.”
“Oh, call me Vad, won’t you?” said Evadne in a wheedling tone. “I shall think you don’t love me if you call me Miss Laverock so formally.”
“Oh, but I do love you,” said Ballard with a fulsome smile. “I find you are the answer to my heart’s desire. Even in the little time I had with you up on the porch I found myself wondering how I have lived so long without you.” And he slid his arm about her and drew her closer, stooping and laying his hot lips upon hers. This was what Audrey never would let him do.
Slower and slower their footsteps lagged as they exchanged vague views about the world today and what was coming in the future, a future wherein one’s passions and desires should be the only criterion and there should be no more thou-shalt-nots.
Now and again Evadne, clinging to this newfound man, a lover after her own heart, glanced up occasionally to see if Kent was observing her, for she had acquired so cunning a skill in dealing with men, that one never full absorbed her whole consciousness. But Kent was far out of sight, and the other two were just vanishing around the curve of what was called “the Point.”
Jane’s heart was fluttering happily. She told herself she was having a nice time, just like other girls. A young man who was a real gentleman was walking on the beach with her, just as he might walk with any girl. He knew she was only a button girl, and yet he was treating her like a lady, just as if she were any nice girl out for the evening. There wasn’t a tinge of condescension in his manner. He was acting as if she was his equal in every way. And that was the height of courtesy, to forget social separations and just be friendly.
He was holding her arm and guiding her to the firm, smooth places on the beach, walking briskly and calling her attention to the lovely lights on the ocean, to the pathway of moonlight that trailed out across the waves, telling her about a little ship that went curtseying over the billow, explaining what it was, from where it came and where bound.
“It certainly looks like the way to the heavenly city out there, doesn’t it?” he said suddenly, stopping for a moment and gazing across the water over the bright path.
“Oh, it does!” said Jane wistfully. “My, if it really was, I would certainly start walking!”
He was looking down at her, watching the expression on her face there in the moonlight.
“Yes?” he said sympathetically, but suddenly drawing her arm a little closer within his own. “Not just yet, please!” he added. “We—don’t want to spare you so soon. We’re just getting to know you.”
She looked up startled, almost thrilled at the friendliness in his tone.
“Oh! That’s nice!” she said with a faint little smile on her lips. “I—was afraid—perhaps you wouldn’t like it that you found me here, just a client from your business life. You know I hadn’t an idea this was your home I was coming to, or I never would have come. Your sister just befriended me out of the blue and brought me. I never even knew her name till we got here, and even then only her first name. But if I had found out before you came I should have tried to make some excuse to get right up and run away. Especially when I knew there was company.”
“But why? Do you dislike me so?” asked Kent, smiling down into her eyes.
“Oh, no!” declared Jane fervently. “It was just that I thought it might mortify you to find a button girl in your home. It was all very well to be kind to a stranger, a working girl, when it was a part of your business, but you can surely understand why I would not have wanted to force myself upon you socially if I had known. I would have felt it was a discourtesy to you.”
There was something lovely in Kent’s eyes as he met her earnest upturned ones.
“Yes, I understand,” he said gravely, and then slipping the hand that held her arm down to her own hand, he gave it a quick warm pressure like a clasp. “Yes, I understand you, but—I do not feel that way in the least. I look up to you almost reverently, because you were the one who led me to the way of Truth. And I think maybe you will be glad to know that today I’ve made an important decision. You see, I came down from Boston on the train with our new teacher, Pat Whitney, and we talked a lot on the way. He made me see what it is I’ve needed all my life, and gave me a vision of my own heart that was full of sin. I never called it sin before. I thought it was only youth, and good spirits, and a desire to do as others did. But now I think I understand it better. I see all these wild impulses to have my own way and work out my life for my own glory and my own pleasure were really a turning away from God, and what He had planned for my life. And I realize now that that is not the way of happiness. For a long time I’ve been unhappy and dissatisfied, and I didn’t know what was the matter. When I would get what I went after for a time, it didn’t satisfy, and I was restless and full of longing. But tonight I saw what the great trouble was. I needed my Savior. I’ve taken it in at last that it was my sins that made Him have to suffer on the cross.” Kent spoke slowly in a low tone, and as if he had almost forgotten Jane was there, as if for the moment he were in a world apart. Then he drew a deep, satisfied breath. “But now I’ve accepted Him, and a great burden of uneasiness has rolled away from me. My whole outlook on life seems changed. I want Him to have His way with me from now on. Do you know Him this way? Have you ever taken Him as your Savior?”
“Oh, yes,” said Jane softly. “Once a long time ago when I was a little girl my Sunday school teacher talked with me, and I accepted Christ. But that was long ago, and during the years I drifted very far away from Him. My mother was a Christian, but after she died I felt bitter toward God for having taken her away from me. I stopped praying, stopped reading my Bible, until I heard that announcement over the radio and went to see what it was about. But—now—I’ve come back. I told Him so a few nights ago. I think He accepted me and forgave me. I don’t know a whole lot about it all yet. But I want to learn.”
“Then that’s a tie between us that is greater than any social differences,” said Kent gently. “Besides, there aren’t any of those differences, either. Your Scarlett family is just as good as any socialite living. But when one is related to the Lord Jesus Christ, in a tie of blood, it counts far more than mere human rating.”
“Oh! I’m so glad about you! I wanted you to know Him!” said Jane ecstatically.
“Did you—dear!” The last word was breathed so softly it was scarcely audible. Afterward Jane was sure she had only thought it, or perhaps only wished it, and she chided herself for the thought, yet it had seemed so reverent, like a blessing, that she could not feel about it as she would if it had been upon another’s lips.
Kent reached out and caught both her hands and pressed them warmly and close, and then drawing her arm within his own again they walked on together in silence for a few seconds, a brief sweet silence.
It was the sound of other voices that broke the holy quiet between them.
“Did you know that Pat Whitney is preaching near here tomorrow? About two miles above our cottage at a little shore church. Would you like to go and hear him in the morning?”
“Could I?” she asked eagerly. “Oh, I would love to. Will your sister think it is all right for me to go?”
“I’m sure she will,” said Kent. “I’ll see that she does—if she doesn’t,” he added grinning. And then his face grew sober again.
“Do you know who the others are?” he asked with a nod backward and a little anxious pucker to his brow.
“I know their names.”
&nbs
p; “Yes, well, their names are enough. They won’t be in sympathy. Not either of them.”
“I—thought so—! That is, I don’t know the man at all. I hadn’t even met him till you introduced him. The lady was at dinner. She didn’t sound as if she would be.”
“No!” he said thoughtfully.
And then they could hear the others coming nearer, and they swung around to take the homeward way. Arm in arm, talking earnestly, they passed Pat and Audrey, and then a little later Evadne and Ballard.
Evadne waved a hand of greeting and called out to Kent: “How about changing partners, Kennie?”
But Kent merely waved a casual hand in acknowledgment and passed on with Jane, scarcely looking up.
Evadne walked on greatly dismayed and deeply angry. She had not counted on a rebuff like that! She would certainly pay Kent back for his action. Kent belonged to her, body and soul, or so she had for a long time supposed. This had started out as a much-needed discipline for him; she had had no idea he would turn the sword upon herself. Yet with Evadne, a man looked never so interesting as when he was hard to get.
However, the man with whom she was walking now was not to be sneered at. He was far more congenial than Kent ever had been.
And because Ballard saw that his new companion was ready to go to Kent, whom he despised, he roused himself to challenge her interest. And Ballard was attractive. He reflected that this girl was far more to his liking in her ways than Audrey. At least he would enjoy her for the evening, and probably give a salutary lesson to Audrey, who was getting too much out of hand.
So he walked Evadne far down the coast, put her on a local ferry, and carried her to another resort where a noted hotel offered a ballroom and plenty to eat and drink. Evadne danced far into the night, dined and wined to her heart’s content, and was brought back in the wee small hours of the morning, deposited at the door of the cottage and met by Audrey’s mother, though she had hoped to have been met by a repentant Kent. She had planned to shock Kent by her own condition of intoxication, though to tell the truth it took a great deal to put her beyond her own control. But to meet Kent’s mother at that hour, with a thickened speech and the breath of liquor heavy upon her lips was another matter. Mrs. Havenner escorted her to Cousin Evalina’s room, thankful that she had not as yet returned, and then herself lay down, but slept no more that night. Was this the girl who intended to marry her son?
Chapter 19
Meantime Audrey had been walking in a new world, listening to an evangelist.
Pat Whitney was fresh from extensive study in a seminary where the gospel of the Bible was taught in its purity, by lips of holy men as noted for their scholarship as for their spirituality. He had been for four years in close companionship with a body of young men who lived in the consciousness of the constant presence of Jesus Christ, and to whom the Holy Spirit was a real Person of the Godhead. The study of God’s Word had been a delight, and he had no joy greater than to talk about it and impart its meaning to others who did not know all its wonders. Yet he spoke so simply, so humbly, that he gave no sense of being dictatorial.
Audrey had been attracted by him the minute she saw him, and wondered if his attraction was all in his looks, or if in reality here was another Ballard who thought he knew it all and wanted to make everybody bow to this knowledge.
But before they had talked many minutes she was sure he was not conceited, and she had also decided that he had a fine sense of humor, a quality in which young Bainbridge was greatly lacking. When she reached that point she forgot to try to card-index him. She only knew that he was delightful and not the least bit of a pedant.
But they had not gone far before they were talking on the subject that was ever uppermost in his mind, the great wonder and glory of salvation for a lost world. And it was Audrey herself who introduced it, all unaware.
“And you,” she said, “what are you? A businessman? No. I’m sure not! A lawyer? Somehow you don’t look it. A professor? An astronomer? An archaeologist? Not a minister! I have it, a writer! Is that right?”
He smiled.
“You’re wrong,” he said. “I’m not a writer, though there may come a day when I shall want to set down some of the wonderful things I have learned, after I have had more time to put them into practice. No, I’m not any of those great things you have mentioned. I’m just a plain servant.”
She turned an astonished gaze at him, trying to fathom what he could possibly mean.
“A servant of the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said with a ring of pride in his voice, “Whose I am and whom I serve!” he added reverently. “He loved me and gave Himself for me, and now I live to give the good news of Him to others.”
She looked still more puzzled.
“You mean you’re some kind of a missionary?” she asked. “Surely not! You don’t look like any missionary I ever saw.”
He laughed.
“Perhaps you’ve been unfortunate in your missionaries. But no, listen! I’m just a plain teacher of the Bible. You may call me by whatever title you choose. It doesn’t matter. I like to tell people that there is a Savior who will save from sin, and give life and joy and peace and brightness in this dark world.”
“That sounds wonderful!” said Audrey. “Tell me right away how to get that.”
And there, walking by the summer sea in the moonlight, he told her how he had found the Lord, and what He had been to him, and before their walk was ended he had made Audrey long inexpressibly for the peace that he himself had.
It was a bright talk, interspersed by laughter now and then. Audrey soon recognized that here was a strong man going a hard way, and liking it. Happy he was in an eternal joy, and with the constant consciousness of his Lord walking with him! It was the most amazing thing that Audrey had ever heard, and she kept him talking about it by asking many questions, unwilling to pass to other topics.
They came back at last to the wide, inviting porch and found Kent and Jane talking and looking off to the sea. They grouped themselves on the steps and lingered, waiting for the other two who had been in their party at the start. Mrs. Havenner brought out lemonade and tiny frosted cakes. They had a little party, and kept wondering why the others did not return.
The mother had lingered watching her own two, and studying the two strangers, approvingly. She thought of the two who were out and away somewhere, with relief that they were not here.
At last Kent said: “Well, Pat, if you’re going to preach tomorrow it seems to me you ought to have a little sleep. How about it if we turn in now?”
“Preach?” said Audrey, opening her eyes wide. “You didn’t tell me that about yourself!” she accused.
“But did I have to tell everything?” he grinned. “I only tried to answer what you asked. It didn’t really matter, did it?”
“He’s preaching over at Silver Beach Chapel,” explained Kent, “and you won’t get much information about himself out of that, baby sister. He’s got too many other important things to tell.”
“Yes, I found that out,” said Audrey. “But I’m going, of course. What time?”
“Well, Jane and I are walking by way of the beach,” said Kent. “We thought we would start about ten of ten in the morning and take our time. I imagine Pat won’t mind our tagging along. If he does, the beach is wide.”
“Delighted to have the company of all of you,” said Pat happily, his tone including them all, but his eyes smiling down into Audrey’s.
Perhaps if Mrs. Havenner had happened to be out there just then and heard what they said, it might have saved her lying awake and worrying about her son after she had escorted the disheveled Evadne to her room.
But in the morning at breakfast she found out what was going on, and watched the four start out for their walk with relief in her eyes. Later she told her husband and they drove over also to hear the young man preach. But they had not been gone long before things began to happen at home.
Evadne had of course not come down to breakfast, and nothing h
ad been heard from her before the family left for church. Mrs. Havenner instructed her maid to give the lady a cup of good strong coffee if she should appear before they reached home, and she went off thankful that none of the family knew what time this unwelcome guest had come in.
But they had scarcely been gone from the cottage half an hour before a car drew up at the door and deposited Cousin Evalina there and then drove off again.
Evalina gathered up her bags and essayed to go up to her room, but when she entered she was amazed to see a handsome dress of sheer blue material lying in a heap on the floor, and a number of other articles of apparel scattered about.
Indignantly she turned toward the bed and there lay the golden-haired Evadne in a drunken sleep. Evalina had had little experience with drunkenness, but she did know enough to recognize the heavy stupor that enveloped the sleeper, and the strong odor of liquor on her breath. She was indignant beyond words that her room, her room, had been commandeered for such a purpose as this. For any purpose in her absence! Evalina considered that as long as a few of her garments were left behind her, the room was occupied by herself, and belonged to her, and never considered that she was not even an invited guest but had come unannounced and taken possession.
But when Evalina drew nearer to the bed and studied the face of the interloper, she recognized who this girl was. This was Evadne, Kent’s girl, who had run away to Europe and left him.
She had always thought it was somehow Kent’s fault that he had allowed a girl as sophisticated and beautiful as this one to get away from him, after he was practically engaged to her and everybody was expecting an announcement. So her first reaction when she recognized Evadne was triumph, pleasure. So, this girl had come back!
Did Kent know it? Where was Kent? Had he taken her to a dance or a nightclub or something last night and got in late? She cast her eyes about and took in every evidence that could possibly tell her anything. Then she laid aside her own wraps, put her suitcases in the closet out of sight, and tiptoed softly out of the room. She must find the family and get an idea of how the land lay. Perhaps they were wanting her to take the other guest room and let this guest have the one where she lay asleep.