Architects -- Fiction; City and town life -- Fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Love stories; Middle West -- Fiction
“Wrong! I was planting tulip bulbs. This was a day when I couldn’t have
played a note or touched clay to save my life. Ever have such fits?”
“I certainly do,” replied Bruce.
Each time he saw her she was a little different--today he was finding
her different indeed from the girl who had played for him, and yet not
the girl of his adventure on the river or the Millicent he had met at
the Country Club party. There was a charm in her variableness, perhaps
because of her habitual sincerity and instinctive kindness. He waited
for her to putt and rolled his own ball into the cup.
“Sometimes I see things black; and then again there _does_ appear to be
blue sky,” he said.
“Yes; but that’s not a serious symptom. If we didn’t have those little
mental experiences we wouldn’t be interesting to ourselves!”
“Great Scott! _Must_ we be interesting to ourselves?”
“Absolutely!”
“But when I’m down in the mouth I don’t care whether I’m interesting or
not!”
“Nothing in it! Life’s full of things to do--you know that! I believe
you’re just trying to psychoanalyze me!”
“I swear I’m not! I was in the depths this morning; that’s why I called
you up!”
“Now----” She carefully measured a short approach and played it neatly.
“Oh, you didn’t want to see me socially, so to speak; you just wanted
someone to tell your troubles to! Is that a back-handed compliment?”
“Rather a confession--do you hate it?”
“No--I rather like that.”
With an artistic eye she watched him drive a long low ball with his
brassie. His tall figure, the free play of arms and shoulders, his
boyish smile when she praised the shot, contributed to a new impression
of him. He appeared younger than the night he called on her, when she
had thought him diffident, old-fashioned and stiffly formal.
As they walked over the turf with a misty drizzle wetting their faces
fitfully it seemed to both that their acquaintance had just begun. When
he asked if she didn’t want to quit she protested that she was dressed
for any weather. It was unnecessary to accommodate himself to her in
any way; she walked as rapidly as he; when she sliced her ball into
the rough she bade him not follow her, and when she had gotten into
the course again she ran to join him, as though eager not to break the
thread of their talk. The thing she was doing at a given moment was, he
judged, the one thing in the world that interested her. The wind rose
presently and blew the mist away and there was promise of a clearing
sky.
“You’ve brought the sun back!” he exclaimed. “Something told me you had
influence with the weather.”
“I haven’t invoked any of my gods today; so it’s just happened.”
“Your gods! You speak as though you had a list!”
“Good gracious! You promised me once not to pick me up and make me
explain myself.”
“Then I apologize. I can see that it isn’t fair to make a goddess
explain her own divinity.”
“Oh-o-o-o,” she mocked him. “You get zero for that!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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