The Key Note

"I suppose our delightful musician friends are leaving on that boat," said Mrs. Lowell. "Shan't we stand at the rail, and wave a good-bye?"

"No, I wouldn't," returned Diana hastily. "Everybody except the right ones will take the greeting to themselves, and – " Indeed, she would not wave to Philip after his cruelty in singing that song! And obeying it so literally as not to manage one word of farewell to her alone!

"Little snob, eh, Mrs. Lowell?" said her father.

The steamer was turning around to leave.

"He is going!" cried Diana's heart. The whole day to have passed with no sign from him! Cruel! Cruel! "You know, Daddy, Mrs. Lowell and I must see something of each other the coming winter if only for Bert's sake. He is related to us."

The passenger boat was passing near now. The yacht felt its waves. Diana turned her eyes toward it in spite of herself. Some people were waving handkerchiefs toward the handsome yacht, and the Captain whistled three times. The yacht replied, and Charles Wilbur stood up and saluted. Diana's heart beat hard and painfully. She looked back at the tea-table.

"Tell us, Daddy, just what relation Mr. Herbert Loring was to you."

"Why, it was this way. My grandmother and his mother were – "

Diana never knew what they were, for the island steamer was moving toward the mouth of the cove. Handkerchiefs were waving from the stern. It receded. It rounded the rocks at the farthest point, and disappeared.

"That is very interesting, indeed," said Mrs. Lowell. "I shall tell Bert. He will be glad and proud of the connection. I have a fine boy there, Mr. Wilbur. I am hoping my husband won't mind my taking such a responsibility." She rose to go.

"You have a good ally in Luther Wrenn," remarked Mr. Wilbur, arranging her wrap.

"Yes, and in you, I hope?"

"Certainly. At your service. A big responsibility awaits that youngster. Let us hope he will grow up to be as clean-cut and simply honest as young Barrison."

"You do like him, don't you?" said Mrs. Lowell with her direct look.

"Very much, so far. I don't know how he may carry sail in the prosperity before him, but so far he seems to be all to the good."

The small boat was summoned for the guest. Bill Lindsay had gone off in the dory that brought him. Diana went alone with her friend to the head of the awninged stairway.

Mrs. Lowell saw the marks of distress in the young face, and she held the girl's hand for a minute. "God bless you," she said, and kissed her lovingly. "Trust Him, my dear," she added meaningly. "He is taking care of you. Claim it and know it. Good-bye."

Diana watched the boat glide toward the shore. "This awful day is nearly over," she thought. "I feel as if my good angel was going away in that boat."

Mrs. Wilbur did not arise for dinner. Diana and her father ate it alone in state. Keen to do her duty and grateful to him for his attitude toward the man whom she must henceforth forget, she had dressed herself in her prettiest gown. At twenty, pensive eyes with shadows about them are not unbecoming, and her father looked across at her admiringly.

"The Count de No-Account or some other titles, should be here to-night, my dear. The moon-goddess is too lovely to beam upon no one more thrilling than her humdrum old daddy."

"As if any one could come up to him," rejoined Diana affectionately. "You remind me of the way Mamma was talking this afternoon, of all the possibilities money opens to a girl, abroad and at home. She did not stop to think what a standard she had set up by marrying you."

Her father nodded slowly, regarding her with a curious smile. "Indeed. So little Mamma was able to sit up with a comforter around her and show you the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them, was she? Well, well. Foxy little Mamma."

Diana blushed violently and busied herself with her salad. "I am sorry we have to sleep in Portland harbor to-night. It won't be quiet for Mamma."

There were no more personalities during the meal. The girl and her father went on deck and watched the sunset together, after which Mr. Wilbur said he would go down and see his wife, and Diana was left alone. She had a deeply cushioned seat moved near the yacht's rail in the stern, and leaned back to watch the cove darken and the lights flash out on the other boats. Her thoughts ran over a résumé of the summer. How long the weeks stretched out in retrospect! How they had fled in passing! Presently, the moon arose over the hill-road. She thought of last evening when their group had welcomed it. Philip had said that night on the rocks that he should not forget that she was as distant from him as that planet, and he had kept his word. Not to see his merry eyes again. Not to see the sensitiveness of his smile when he looked at her. Not to hear him call her a goddess, not to hear him sing except as others heard him.

 
"Only we'll sit upon the daisied grass,
And hear the larks, and see the swallows pass.
Only we'll live awhile as children play,
Without to-morrow, without yesterday."
 

She had heard the song all day, and her heart now felt sick and empty as she sat there, that golden moon beaming down upon her alone, and striking to silver the ripples across the cove. She leaned among her cushions and turned her face aside. Her eyes began to smart, and she closed them. The wind as usual had gone down with the sun, and the awning fringes were but faintly stirred.

Suddenly she felt that the boat was moving. So smooth and silent its motion, that, when she looked up, the yacht was halfway out of the cove. She leaned forward.

"Oh, good-bye," she murmured, and she held out her hands toward the wooded bank. "Good-bye. Oh, good-bye, Isola Bella. I shall always love you, and every blade of grass, and every daisy, and every swallow."

Tears veiled the shadowy woods. She dashed them away, and resisted the sob that rose in her throat. The yacht moved swiftly out into the waves of the summer sea. It was now only the end of the wooded bluff which she could perceive in the moonlight. She leaned back again, and, covering her eyes, relaxed, holding her quivering lip between her teeth.

A neighboring movement made her look up, expecting her father.

Philip Barrison stood there.

She caught her breath. "It is impossible!" she gasped.

"Yes, it is." He took her outstretched hands and sank down beside her. "It is a midsummer night's dream; but I couldn't – I tried, Diana, but I couldn't resist. Your father asked me – said I might come – even at the last minute." At each pause Philip kissed the hands he was holding. "Are you – that is the one vital question – are you glad I came, my goddess?"

The look she gave him in the moonlight made him take her quickly in his arms, and she sank into them with the certainty of the bird that finds its nest.

"I don't know how I dared this, Diana, – dared the future, I mean. How can I be the right one to win the prize of the whole world?"

"Because you are the only man in the whole world for me, and you felt it, and I felt it. Oh, Philip, I won't be so selfish as in the way I have talked to you. I am never going to grudge that others should admire you."

"No, you never will," he answered. "The sparkle of what others may say is like the phosphorescence down there in the unlighted places. The radiance and glow filling my whole being now is an eternal thing. I can't believe it yet, it will take me a long time to believe it, but, oh, my beautiful one, I wish, I do wish you were a poor girl!"

She lifted her head from his breast, looking at him with glorified eyes. "I should be," she said slowly, "if you did not love me – Philomel."

They kissed, and the moon shone down on the beaten foam of the snowy wake in a long, ineffable silence.