_ PART III. THE ADVENTURE OF LOVE. CHAPTER XXXVII
Long Beach, on the first hot Sunday of May, when motorists come out from New York, half-ready to open asphalt hearts to sea and sky. Carl's first sight of it, save from an aeroplane, and he was mad-happy to find real shore so near the city.
Ruth and he were picnicking, vulgar and unashamed, among the dunes at the end of the long board-walk, like the beer-drinking, pickle-eating parties of fishermen and the family groups with red table-cloths, grape-basket lunches, and colored Sunday supplements. Ruth declared that she preferred them to the elegant loungers who were showing off new motor-coats on the board-walk. But Carl and she had withdrawn a bit from the crowds, and in the dunes had made a nest, with a book and a magazine and a box of chocolates and Carl's collapsible lunch-kit.
Not New York only, but all of Ruth's relatives were forgot. Aunt Emma Truegate Winslow was a myth of the dragon-haunted past. Here all was fresh color and free spaces looking to open sea. Behind the dunes, with their traceries of pale grass, reveled the sharp, unshadowed green of marshes, and an inland bay that was blue as bluing, a startling blue, bordered by the emerald marshes. To one side--afar, not troubling their peace--were the crimson roofs of fantastic houses, like chalets and California missions and villas of the Riviera, with gables and turrets of red tiles.
Before their feet was the cream-colored beach, marked by ridges of driftwood mixed with small glistening shells, long ranks of pale-yellow seaweed, and the delicate wrinkles in the sand that were the tracks of receding waves. The breakers left the beach wet and shining for a moment, like plates of raw-colored copper, making one cry out with its flashing beauty. Then, at last, the eyes lifted to unbroken bluewater--nothing between them and Europe save rolling waves and wave-crests like white plumes. The sea was of a diaphanous blue that shaded through a bold steel blue and a lucent blue enamel to a rich ultramarine which absorbed and healed the office-worn mind. The sails of tacking sloops were a-blossom; sea-gulls swooped; a tall surf-fisherman in red flannel shirt and shiny black hip-boots strode out into the water and cast with a long curve of his line; cumulus clouds, whose pure white was shaded with a delicious golden tone, were baronial above; and out on the sky-line the steamers raced by.
Round them was the warm intimacy of the dune sands; beyond was infinite space calling to them to be big and unafraid.
Talking, falling into silences touched with the mystery of sun and sea, they confessed youth's excited wonder about the world; Carl sitting cross-legged, rubbing his ankles, a springy figure in blue flannel and a daring tie; while Ruth, in deep-rose linen, her throat bright and bare, lay with her chin in her hands, a flush beneath the gentle brown of her cheeks, her white-clad ankles crossed under her skirt, slender against the gray sand, thoughtful of eye, lost in happiness.
"Some day," Carl was musing, "your children and mine will say, 'You certainly lived in the most marvelous age in the world.' Think of it. They talk about the romance of the Crusades and the Romans and all that, but think of the miracles we've seen already, and we're only kids. Aviation and the automobile and wireless and moving pictures and electric locomotives and electric cooking and the use of radium and the X-ray and the linotype and the submarine and the labor movement--the I. W. W. and syndicalism and all that--not that I know anything about the labor movement, but I suppose it's the most important of all. And Metchnikoff and Ehrlich. Oh yes, and a good share of the development of the electric light and telephone and the phonograph.... Golly! In just a few years!"
"Yes," Ruth added, "and Montessori's system of education--that's what I think is the most important.... See that sail-boat, Hawk! Like a lily. And the late-afternoon gold on those marshes. I think this salt breeze blows away all the bad Ruth.... Oh! Don't forget the attempts to cure cancer and consumption. So many big things starting right now, while we're sitting here."
"Lord! what an age! Romance--why, there's more romance in a wireless spark--think of it, little lonely wallowing steamer, at night, out in the dark, slamming out a radio like forty thousand tigers spitting--and a man getting it here on Long Island. More romance than in all the galleons that ever sailed the purple tropics, which they mostly ain't purple, but dirty green. Anything 's possible now. World cools off--a'right, we'll move on to some other planet. It gets me going. Don't have to believe in fairies to give the imagination a job, to-day. Glad I've been an aviator; gives me some place in it all, anyway."
"I'm glad, too, Hawk, terribly glad."
The sun was crimsoning; the wind grew chilly. The beach was scattered with camp-fires. Their own fire settled into compact live coals which, in the dusk of the dune-hollow, spread over the million bits of quartz a glow through which pirouetted the antic sand-fleas. Carl's cigarette had the fragrance that comes only from being impregnated with the smoke of an outdoor fire. The waves were lyric, and a group at the next fire crooned "Old Black Joe." The two lovers curled in their nest. Hand moved toward hand.
Ruth whispered: "It's sweet to be with all these people and their fires.... Will I really learn not to be supercilious?"
"Honey! You--supercilious? Democracy---- Oh, the dickens! let's not talk about theories any more, but just about Us!"
Her hand, tight-coiled as a snail-shell, was closed in his.
"Your hand is asleep in my hand's arms," he whispered. The ball of his thumb pressed her thumb, and he whispered once more: "See. Now our hands are kissing each other--we--we must watch them better.... Your thumb is like a fairy." Again his thumb, hardened with file and wrench and steering-wheel, touched hers. It was startlingly like a kiss of real lips.
Lightly she returned the finger-kiss, answering diffidently, "Our hands are mad--silly hands to think that Long Beach is a tropical jungle."
"You aren't angry at them?"
"N-no."
He cradled her head on his shoulder, his hand gripping her arm till she cried, "You hurt me." He kissed her cheek. She drew back as far as she could. Her hand, against his chest, held him away for a minute. Her defense suddenly collapsed, and she was relaxed and throbbing in his arms. He slipped his fingers under her chin, and turned up her face till he could kiss her lips. He had not known the kiss of man and woman could be so long, so stirring. Yet at first he was disappointed. This was, after all, but a touch--just such a touch as finger against finger. But her lips grew more intense against his, returning and taking the kiss; both of them giving and receiving at once.
Wondering at himself for it, Carl thought of other things. He was amazed that, while their lips were hot together, he worried as to what train Ruth ought to take, after dinner. Yet, with such thoughts conferring, he was in an ecstasy beyond sorrow; praying that to her, as to him, there was no pain but instead a rapture in the sting of her lips, as her teeth cut a little into them.... A kiss--thing that the polite novels sketch as a second's unbodied bliss--how human it was, with teeth and lips to consider; common as eating--and divine as martyrdom. His lips were saying to her things too vast and extravagant for a plain young man to venture upon in words:
"Lady, to you I chant my reverence and faith everlasting, in such unearthly music as the angels use when with lambent wings they salute the marching dawn." Such lyric tributes, and an emotion too subtle to fit into any words whatever, his lips were saying....
Then she was drawing back, rending the kiss, crying, "You're almost smothering me!"
With his arms easily about her, but with her weight against his shoulder, they and their love veiled from the basket-parties by the darkness, he said, quiveringly: "See, my arms are a little house for you, just as my hand was a little house for your hand, once. My arms are the walls, and your head and mine together are the roof."
"I love the little house."
"No. Say, 'I love _you_."'
"No."
"Say it."
"No."
"Please----"
"Oh, Hawk dear, I couldn't even if--just now, I do want to say it, but I want to be fair. I am terribly happy to be in the house of Hawk's arms. I'm not afraid in it, even out here on the dark dunes--which Aunt Emma wouldn't--somehow--approve! But I do want to be fair to you, and I'm afraid I'm not, when I let you love me this way. I don't want to hurt you. Ever. Perhaps it's egotistical of me, but I'm afraid you would be hurt if I let you kiss me and then afterward I decided I didn't love you at all."
"But can't you, some day----"
"Oh, I don't know, I don't _know_! I'm not sure I know what love is. I'm not sure it's love that makes me happy (as I really am) when you kiss me. Perhaps I'm just curious, and experimenting. I was quite conscious, when you kissed me then; quite conscious and curious; and once I caught myself wondering for half a second what train we'd take. I was ashamed of that, but I wasn't ashamed of taking mental notes and learning what these 'kisses,' that we mention so glibly, really are. Just experimenting, you see. And if you were _too_ serious about our kiss, it wouldn't be at all fair to you."
"I'm glad you're frank, blessed, and I guess I understand pretty well how you feel, but, after all, I'm fairly simple about such things. Blessed, blessed, I don't really know a thing but 'I love you.'"
His arms were savage again; he kissed her, kissed her lips, kissed the hollow of her throat. Then he lifted her from the ground and would not set her down till she had kissed him back.
"You frightened me a lot, then," she said. "Did the child want to impress Ruth with his mighty strength? Well, she shall be impressed. Hawk, I do hope--I do hate myself for not knowing my mind. I will try not to experiment. I want you to be happy. I do want to be honest with you. If I'm honest, will you try not to be too impatient till I do know just what I want?... Oh, I'm sick of the modern lover! I talk and talk about love; it seems as though we'd lost the power to be simple, like the old ballads. Or weren't the ballad people really simple, either? You say you are; so I think you will have to run away with me.... But not till after dinner! Come."
The moon was rising. Swinging hands, they tramped toward the board-walk. The crunch of their feet in the sand was the rhythmic spell of a magician, which she broke when she sighed:
"Should I have let you kiss me, out here in the wilds? Will you respect me after it?"
"Princess, you're all the respect there is in the world."
"It seems so strange. We were absorbed in war and electricity and then----"
"Love is war and electricity, or else it's dull, and I don't think we two 'll ever get dull--if you do decide you can love me. We'll wander: cabin in the Rockies, with forty mountains for our garden fence, and an eagle for our suburban train."
"And South Sea islands silhouetted at sunset!... Look! That moon!... I always imagine it so clearly when I hear Hawaiian singers on the Victrola--and a Hawaiian beach, with fireflies in the jungle behind and a phosphorescent sea in front and native girls dancing in garlands."
"Yes! And Paris boulevards and a mysterious castle in the Austrian mountains, with a hidden treasure in dark, secret dungeons, and heavy iron armor; and then, bing! a brand-new prairie town in Saskatchewan or Dakota, with brand-new sunlight on the fresh pine shacks, and beyond the town the plains with brand-new grass rolling."
"But seriously, Hawk, would you want to go to all those places, if you were married? Would you, practically? You know, even rich globe-trotters go to the same sorts of places, mostly. And we wouldn't even be rich, would we?"
"No, just comfortable; maybe five thousand a year."
"Well, would you really want to keep on going, and take your wife? Or would you settle down like the rest, and spend money so you could keep in shape to make money to spend to keep in shape?"
"Seriously I would keep going--if I had the right girl to go with me. It would be mighty important which one, though, I guess--and by that I mean you. Once, when I quit flying, I thought that maybe I'd stop wandering and settle down, maybe even marry a Joralemon kind of a girl. But I was meant to hike for the hiking's sake.... Only, not alone any more. I _need_ you.... We'd go and go. No limit.... And we wouldn't just go places, either; we'd be different things. We'd be Connecticut farmers one year, and run a mine in Mexico the next, and loaf in Paris the next, if we had the money."
"Sometimes you almost tempt me to like you."
"Like me now!"
"No, not now, but---- Here's the board-walk."
"Where's those steps? Oh yes. Gee! I hate to leave the water without having had a swim. Wish we'd had one. Dare you to go wading!"
"Oh, ought I to, do you think? Wading would be silly. And nice."
"Course you oughtn't. Come on. Don't you remember how the sand feels between your toes?"
The moon brooded upon the lulled waves, and quested among the ridges of driftwood for pearly shells. The pools left by the waves were enticing. Ruth retreated into the shelter of the board-walk and came shyly out, clutching her skirts, her feet and ankles silver in the light.
"The sand does feel good, but uh! it's getting colder and colder!" she wailed, as she cautiously advanced into the water. "I'll think up punishments for you. You've not only caused me to be cold, but you've made me abominably self-conscious."
"Don't be self-conscious, blessed. We are just children exploring." He splashed out, coat off, trousers rolled to the knee above his thin, muscular legs, galloping along the edge of the water like a large puppy, while she danced after him.
They were stilled to the persuasive beauty of the night. Music from the topaz jeweled hotels far down the beach wove itself into the peace on land and sea. A fish lying on shore was turned by the moon into ivory with carven scales. Before them, reaching to the ancient towers of England and France and the islands of the sea, was the whispering water. A tenderness that understood everything, made allowance for everything in her and in himself, folded its wings round him as he scanned her that stood like a slender statue of silver--dark hair moon-brightened, white arms holding her skirts, white legs round which the spent waves sparkled with unworldly fire. He waded over to her and timidly kissed the edge of her hair.
She rubbed her cheek against his. "Now we must run," she said. She quickly turned back to the shadow of the board-walk, to draw on her stockings and shoes, kneeling on the sand like the simple maid of the ballads which she had been envying.
They tramped along the board-walk, with heels clicking like castanets, conscious that the world was hushed in night's old enchantment.
As they had answered to companionship with the humble picnic-parties among the dunes, so now they found it amusing to dine among the semi-great and the semi-motorists at the Nassau. Ruth had a distinct pleasure when T. Wentler, horse-fancier, aviation enthusiast, president of the First State Bank of Sacramento, came up, reminded Carl of their acquaintanceship at the Oakland-Berkeley Aero Meet, and begged Ruth and Carl to join him, his wife, and Senator Leeford, for coffee.
As they waited for their train, quiet after laughter, Ruth remarked: "It was jolly to play with the Personages. You haven't seen much of the frivolous side of me. It's pretty important. You don't know how much soul satisfaction I get out of dancing all night and playing tennis with flanneled oafs and eating _marrons glaces_ and chatting in a box at the opera till I spoil the entire evening for all the German music-lovers, and talking to all the nice doggies from the Tennis and Racquet Club whenever I get invited to Piping Rock or Meadow Brook or any other country club that has ancestors. I want you to take warning."
"Did you really miss Piping Rock much to-day?".
"No--but I might to-morrow, and I might get horribly bored in our cabin in the Rockies and hate the stony old peaks, and long for tea and scandal in a corner at the Ritz."
"Then we'd hike on to San Francisco; have tea at the St. Francis or the Fairmont or the Palace; then beat it for your Hawaii and fireflies in the bush."
"Perhaps, but suppose, just suppose we were married, and suppose the Touricar didn't go so awfully well, and we had to be poor, and couldn't go running away, but had to stick in one beastly city flat and economize! It's all very well to talk of working things out together, but think of not being able to have decent clothes, and going to the movies every night--ugh! When I see some of the girls who used to be so pretty and gay, and they went and married poor men--now they are so worn and tired and bedraggled and perambulatorious, and they worry about Biddies and furnaces and cabbages, and their hair is just scratched together, with the dubbest hats--I'd rather be an idle rich."
"If we got stuck like that, I'd sell out and we'd hike to the mountain cabin, anyway, say go up in the Santa Lucias, and keep wild bees."
"And probably get stung--in the many subtle senses of that word. And I'd have to cook and wash. That would be fun _as_ fun, but to have to do it----"
"Ruth, honey, let's not worry about it now, anyhow. I don't believe there's much danger. And don't let's spoil this bully day."
"It has been sweet. I won't croak any more."
"There's the train coming." _