She argued it out with herself again and again, always coming back to the same decision that she must not go, yet something drew her continually. After all, why was it wrong? She would likely never see him again, and in any other situation in life she would have stopped to watch, even to ask questions of a stranger about a great wonder like an airplane.
She was so deep in her thoughts that she forgot the wonders of her luxurious bathroom and took her shower as unconcernedly as if she had had a silver nozzle spraying hot water over her every day since she was born.
She put on a plain little cotton gown with blue flowers trailing over it and cute pockets and a belt. The blue of the flowers took its color from her eyes, or vice versa.
And when she was dressed, she knelt down by her bed and prayed. Then she put her little Testament in one of the pockets and slipped out her door and softly down the stairs.
The morning was fresh and sweet, and she walked all around the house again, seeing how it looked by daylight and taking in its handsome battlements. She walked through the garden, too, stopping to smell the roses and to watch a bee take his fill of honey, and then she dropped down on a stone bench half hidden by great lilac bushes and took out her little Testament. The bench was not a great way from the garden gate, and when the plane started, if it really started—for she had her suspicions that perhaps he was only jesting with her—she would slip to the garden gate and watch it fly away. There would be no harm in that, and he likely wouldn’t see her at all.
So she watched the house from her lilac hiding place and read her Testament quietly. No one came out, and the house was still. There was no sound as yet even from the servants’ quarters.
The dew of the morning was on all the flowers about her, and the sweetness of their fragrance was in the air. She drew deep breaths of it and wondered how she could put it all on paper for Aunt Hannah. Somehow she must manage to convey the breath of the morning and the pearl in the mist on the mountains so that Aunt Hannah could see and smell it.
It was just then that the voice spoke behind her.
“So you did come after all. I knew you would. I was sure you wouldn’t fail me.”
“Oh, but I didn’t—I wasn’t!” she breathed in consternation. “I’m just here—” she began to try to explain.
“Yes, you didn’t, but you did!” he insisted with his pleasant grin as he appeared around the lilacs dressed in his flying togs. “I say, anyway, you’re here, and that’s the important thing. What are you presumably doing?”
“Just reading,” said Amory, closing her Testament and slipping it into her pocket. “I thought if you did fly, I’d like to see you start,” she explained shyly.
“You mean you meant to see me, but you didn’t intend I should see you. Is that it? Well, I’m not sure that’s quite fair, but I’ll take the will for the deed. However, now you’re here, I intend to show you my bird. There really is no point to your not looking it over now we are both here, and it is broad daylight. Come on.” He reached out a hand and grasped hers, bringing her to her feet, and she had no choice but to follow unless she wished to make a scene. Embarrassed, she hastened her steps, anxious to get quickly beyond the garden gate and out of sight of the house.
“Now,” said he, dropping her hand as they approached the plane, “I’ll show you first how the engine works. Suppose you get in. I can show you better from inside.”
“Oh, no!” she said, shrinking back.
“You don’t trust me,” he said gravely, looking down with sudden challenge in his eyes. “You think I would run away with you against your will. But I’m a gentleman, truly. At least I try to be.”
“No!” she protested, a flood of color in her face. “I didn’t think that! I’m sure you would not do anything like that. But I would not like anybody from the house to see me in there. It might be very much misunderstood.”
“I see,” said the young man pleasantly. “That’s true, too, but you must remember we are not strangers. I’ve met you before. I’ll take the next opportunity, when I get back, to let that be known, too, whether you are here or whether you are not here, so there’ll be no chance of more misunderstandings.”
“But that’s not quite true.” She smiled. “We are strangers.”
“No,” said he solemnly, yet with a twinkle in his nice blue eyes, “you are quite mistaken. I met you out here last evening, and we were formally introduced by yourself then. But of course, I had really met you once before.”
She looked at him startled, half puzzled.
“You don’t remember? Why, think! Weren’t you looking out of a window when I came up on yonder terrace yesterday at teatime? I looked straight into your eyes and you into mine, and we knew right then that we were friends, that we had been friends for a long time, only we hadn’t found each other yet. Isn’t that so? It took me half the night thinking it over to locate your eyes, but when I remembered you looking out of that window, I knew at once. Now, take that for what it’s worth. When I get back I’m going to pursue the subject, but we haven’t time now. We’re friends. That’s settled, isn’t it?”
She smiled assentingly in spite of inward qualms of conscience. Wasn’t this just the kind of flirting that other girls did? The thing she had always despised so? But how could she help it without being prudish? Well, he would be gone in a minute, and she would get back into the house and forget it. But he was nice and pleasant and not at all silly in the way he looked at her. Perhaps it was just his line of talk. She would take it as that and not make a fuss.
“Now, we must get to work. I haven’t much time. I ought to have been off an hour ago, but I wouldn’t go till you came.”
“Oh,” she protested, “you shouldn’t have waited. I’m sorry—”
“Yes, I’m sorry we haven’t more time, too.” He smiled. “But we’ll make a lot of what we have. Now, see this wheel? See this lever?”
He went forward with a rapid explanation of the mechanism of his machine. He took her around it and explained the principle of its going, and how it was made thus and so, and why; and then, as if it had been a lesson he was reciting rapidly because he had promised and wanted it over, he turned to her with a smile.
“Well, I’ve got to hop off,” he said. “I’m due in New York before noon. When I come back, will you take a spin with me?”
Amory looked troubled. “You forget, I’m only here as a sort of—servant—in the house. I’m not here socially. I don’t see how I could, thank you.”
“But you’d not be afraid?”
“Oh, no, I’d love it. But I know it would not be expected of me.” She looked into his eyes, and he found a satisfying trust there that pleased him, for he answered it with his nice grin.
“All right, sister! I’ll fix that part so your conscience won’t be hurt. Now, listen! There’s a proposition on for me to make a trial trip to Siberia by way of Alaska. It’s never been done, and I think I can do it. Nobody here knows this, and I don’t want it known till it comes off, if it comes off. But if it doesn’t fall through, I shan’t come back here till I’ve made it. See? And I had a fancy I’d like you to know and wish me good luck. I knew when I looked into your eyes yesterday that you were one I could trust. You see now why I had to work fast and be a little cavemannish about it, don’t you? You know I might not come back at all, sister, in which case you won’t be the least little bit worse off than before. But I’d like your farewell and good will, if you don’t mind.”
Amory lifted eyes that were suddenly troubled, and a silent question sprang into them, but her lips did not speak.
“What is it, little one?” he asked gently. “You look as if you wanted to say something.”
“Oh,” she said desperately, “I was wondering— But perhaps you will not like me to say it—”
“Say on, sister, I won’t mind anything you say. What is it?”
Amory struggled with her own reticence, and then looking bravely up again she said, “I was wondering if—if you knew God, and
the Lord Jesus? It seems such a terrible chance you are taking, going off up into the clouds above strange unknown perils, unless you have Him.”
The young man looked at the girl gravely, intently, all the grin gone now from his pleasant lips.
“And you think that would make a difference?” he asked seriously.
“Why, of course,” she said with conviction and a wistfulness about her mouth that made him wonder.
At last he spoke, gravely. “I have never considered God,” he said, and his eyes were thoughtfully upon hers. “I have never been sure that there was a God!”
“But you can know there is!” she said gravely. Then after an instant, she said, “It would be nice to know—if anything happened—that you were His—that you were saved!”
He considered this a moment thoughtfully.
“Do you think,” he asked, looking deep into her face with an almost tender light in his eyes, “that if I were ‘saved’ as you call it, and I ‘went West,’ that you and I would meet again?”
“Why, surely!” said Amory, a sudden light like joy in her face. “But there’s more than that, you know,” she added wistfully. “There’s God. We shall be with Him! And that will be—wonderful!”
This time the silence was long while the young man looked earnestly into her face. At last he spoke again.
“It seems to be well worth looking into.” His face had a look of purpose in it.
“Well, I must go!” he said again after a moment, and there was regret in his tone. “I’m sorry. I wish I had known you sooner. Perhaps things would have been different with me. But I’ll not forget what you have said. Now, aren’t you going to give me some keepsake, a sort of mascot—perhaps you would call it talisman—to take with me? How about that little book? Is it something you wouldn’t like to part with?”
Amory looked down at the Testament sticking out of her trifling little blue pocket.
“No, I would like you to have it!” she said eagerly. “But it’s not very new. It’s rather worn, I’m afraid.”
“Then I will go on wearing it,” he said, smiling.
She held it out to him, and he enfolded her hand and the book in both of his for just an instant’s warm clasp.
“But you haven’t told me your name, little girl,” he said, looking down into her face earnestly. “I shall need to know your name.”
“It is Amory,” she answered simply, like a little child. “Amory Lorrimer.”
“What a beautiful name!” he said. “I like it. Good-bye, Amory, until I come again. And when you think about me, call me Gareth, please. It was the name my mother always called me.”
Then suddenly, he lifted his right hand from her clasp and stooping, he reverently kissed the tips of her fingers as they lay with the book in his other hand.
“I’m wearing your book over my heart,” he said smiling, as he straightened up and put the little book inside his jacket. “Perhaps it will bring me good luck. I suppose you would call it ‘safety.’ Think of me, little Amory. Will you promise?”
“I will pray for you!” she said, with eyes that were shining with unbidden tears.
He gave her another quick look as if he longed to say something more, then changing his mind, he suddenly sprang into the cockpit and started up his engine.
The sound of its throbbing brought Amory to her quick senses. Somebody in the house would surely hear that! She must not be seen out here. She suddenly backed to the hedge, which was only a few feet away and where she was at least sheltered for the moment from any curious eyes.
The great bird was running down the airstrip away from her now, and already the stranger had become a stranger once more. She marveled as she saw it rise from the earth so confidently, like a creature born to air, not earth. She could barely make out the young man’s figure now, he was so far away. It made her feel so small and insignificant standing there against the hedge, her arms outspread to flatten herself as much as possible out of sight.
He was circling now and coming toward her again, rising as he came, and suddenly he was just above her, leaning over smiling, and something fluttered down from his hand like a white bird. He waved and pointed to it and circled away, going up and up into the blue, and the white fluttering thing came down just above her and fluttered into her face. Breathlessly she put up her hands and caught it, a soft silken something, and held it close, but she kept her eyes on the great bird that was throbbing away into the blue distance over the mountains.
It all seemed a dream as she looked and remembered the things he had said. Yet he had been talking to her, and even now her little Testament was riding up there in the sky above his heart! One hand stole down into the little empty trifling pocket. How strange it seemed! One moment here, the next moment gone! And perhaps gone so far!
“Oh, God, keep him!” she prayed softly in her heart and thrilled to think she might keep on praying for him. There was nothing wrong in that.
So she stood breathlessly, flattened against the green wall of the hedge, watching, till the great bird became a mere speck over the mountain and finally was lost in the light of the horizon.
Then, and not till then, did she take down the soft silken thing that she had caught to her heart as it fell, and looked at it.
It was a silk handkerchief, fine and clean, as if it had just been unfolded. It had a blue border the color of his eyes, and its texture was delightful to touch. It spoke of wealth and luxury. And he had dropped it down for her to keep because she had given him her book. There was something knotted in one corner. Ought she to keep it? Oh, but what else could she do? She could not take it into the house and explain where it came from and how she came to be in possession of it. But quick alarm came now to warn her. The sound of the engine might have roused the house. They might come out at any minute, and how foolish she would feel to be found there holding a man’s silk handkerchief in her hands!
She stuffed it swiftly into the empty pocket, holding her hand down over it carefully. Then she started down along the hedge. There would be a way out of this field somehow without going back to the house through that garden gate.
She walked on for some distance till at last she reached a little woods on the upper edge of the airstrip, which seemed to extend along the back of the Whitney property, and she finally entered the grounds once more through a break in the hedge a good way above the garages.
Anxious not to meet anyone, feeling almost guilty because of her clandestine meeting with the departed guest, she hurried breathlessly to the back entrance and succeeded in regaining her room without meeting any of the family or guests, though she just escaped coming face-to-face with the golden-haired Diana, who was coming out on the terrace as Amory slid into the doorway of the back hall.
Up in her room she locked her door and fell on her knees beside the bed. So much seemed to have happened since she had left that room that morning, so very much. It seemed as if the whole universe was turned upside down for her. She wanted to laugh and she wanted to cry, but she wanted most of all to pray, and the words were choked in tears in her throat. All she could say was, “Oh, Father, keep him safely. Save him, and keep him safely.”
When she grew calmer she got up from her knees and took out the handkerchief, examining it more carefully. With excited fingers she unknotted the corner. Pinned safely inside was a pair of little silver wings, evidently a prize for some deed of valor. On the back was his name, Theodore Gareth Kingsley, and a date.
She looked long at it, holding it in her hand, pinning it on her dress just for a moment to see how it would look, studying the fine engraving, wondering at herself, trembling at herself lest somehow she had done the wrong thing.
Again she chastised herself. Nothing like this had ever come into her life before. For years Will Hazard had seen her home from prayer meeting, and Frank Burton had carried her books from school, and Sam Thomas had taken her to the Rayport High School games, and several boys had called upon her often, sometimes alone, sometimes togethe
r. But to have a stranger pick her up in this astonishing way seemed all wrong. It was not according to the bringing up of Aunt Hannah and Aunt Jocelyn. She had always felt that such things would not happen to a good, decent girl. Yet this had happened to her. Was she wrong to keep these little silver wings? Ought she perhaps to fling them away in the grass and let some other girl find them and bring them into the house someday, thinking their friend “Teddy” had lost them? But no, he had put the wings into her hand to keep. They were evidently something he cared for, as much perhaps as she cared for the little Testament that her own dear mother had given her on a birthday long ago, before that mother went home to heaven. Perhaps she should not have given her Testament away, yet when he asked, she had felt a heaven-sent urge to give it to him. It was God’s book. It might show him the way to God.
Some girls might have given that book coquettishly, but not Amory. She was serious in all that she did, and the book meant so much to her own heart that she could not lightly give it to anyone.
A clamor suddenly arose outside the window, and in new alarm, Amory quickly wrapped her treasures away, the pin fastened firmly in the handkerchief, which she wrapped in a bit of paper and placed in the inner pocket of her suitcase. No one in this house should ever see them. She would not even write to the aunts about it, for they would never understand. Perhaps, when she was back home and time had made this thing more plain, she might tell them what had happened and get their judgment on her own actions. But no, she was not sure Aunt Hannah would understand even then. They would be grieved, the aunts, and think she had soon departed from their upbringing. They would be afraid to have her away from them a day lest the birdman would steal her and spirit her away.
So she locked away her treasures and went to the window to see what the outcry was about.
It was Caroline who had started it.
“Ted isn’t in his room, Mother! I knocked and knocked, and then I opened the door a tiny crack and nobody was there. Christine says she heard him go down the back stairs quite early. I’ll bet he has gone out to that old plane! I’ll bet he’s taken a fly without any of us along. And I told him it was my turn first, because he promised the last time he was here! If he has taken anybody else, I’m off him for life. Is anybody missing? Where’s Di? Oh, there you are! And Susanne? Well, then maybe he’s gone alone, the pig!”