"We go duck-shooting to-morrow," called out Cardross after him.
Hamil halted in the doorway to protest, but the elder man waved him away; and he went to his room to change riding-clothes for flannels and sponge the reek of horse and leather from his person.
The beach was all ablaze with the brilliant colours of sunshades, hats, and bathing-skirts. Hamil lost no time in getting into his swimming-suit; and, as he emerged, tall, cleanly built, his compact figure deeply tanned where exposed, Portlaw, waddling briskly toward the ocean, greeted him with the traditional: "Come on! it's fine!" and informed him furthermore that "everybody" was there.
CHAPTER VIII
MANOEUVERING
Everybody seemed to be there, either splashing about in the Atlantic or playing ball on the beach or congregated along the sands observant of the jolly, riotous scene sparkling under the magnificence of a cloudless sky.
Hamil nodded to a few people as he sauntered toward the surf; he stopped and spoke to his aunt and Colonel Vetchen, who informed him that Virginia and Cuyp were somewhere together chastely embracing the ocean; he nodded to old Classon who was toddling along the wet sands in a costume which revealed considerable stomach; he saw Malcourt, knee-deep, hovering around Shiela, yet missing nothing of what went on around him, particularly wherever the swing of a bathing-skirt caught his quick, handsome eyes.
Then Cecile stretched out an inviting hand to him from the water and he caught it, and together they hurled themselves head first into the surf, swimming side by side out to the raft.
"It's nice to see you again," said the girl. "Are you going to be agreeable now and go about with us? There's a luncheon at twoyour fair friend Virginia Suydam has asked us, much to our surprisebut after that I'm quite free if you've anything to propose."
She looked up at him, pink and fresh as a wet rose, balanced there on the edge of the rocking raft.
"Anything to propose?" he repeated; "I don't know; there's scarcely anything I wouldn't propose to you. So you're going to Virginia's luncheon?"
"I am; Shiela won't." She frowned. "It's just as it was two years ago when Louis Malcourt tagged after her every second. It's stupid, but we can't count on them any more."
"Doesdoes Malcourt"
"Tag after Shiela? Haven't you seen it? You've been too busy to notice. I wish you wouldn't work every minute. There was the jolliest sort of a dance at the O'Haras' last nightwhile you were fast asleep. I know you were because old Jonas told mother you had fallen asleep in your chair with your head among a pile of blue-prints. On my way to the dance I wanted to go in and tie one of Shiela's cunning little lace morning caps under your chin, but Jessie wouldn't go with me. They're perfectly sweet and madly fashionablethese little Louis XVI caps. I'll show you one some day."
For a few moments the girl rattled on capriciously, swinging her stockinged legs in the smooth green swells that rose above her knees along the raft's edge; and he sat silent beside her, half-listening, half-preoccupied, his eyes instinctively searching the water's edge beyond.
"Ihadn't noticed that Louis Malcourt was so devoted to your sister," he said.
Cecile looked up quickly, but detected only amiable indifference in the young fellow's face.
"They're-always together; elle s'affiche à la fin!" she said impatiently. "Shiela was only eighteen before; she's twenty now, and old enough to know whether she wants to marry a man like that or not."
Hamil glanced around at her incredulously. "Marry Malcourt?"
But Cecile went on headlong in the wake of her own ideas.
"He's a sort of a relative; we've always known him. He and Gray used to go camping in Maine and he often spent months in our house. But for two years now, he's been comparatively busyhe's Mr. Portlaw's manager, you know, and we've seen nothing of himwhich was quite agreeable to me."
Hamil rose, unquiet. "I thought you were rather impressed by Shiela," continued the girl. "I really did think so, Mr. Hamil."
"Your sister predicted that I'd lose my heart and senses to you" said Hamil, laughing and reseating himself beside her.
"Have you?"
"Of course I have. Who could help it?"
The girl considered him smilingly.
"You're the nicest of men," she said. "If you hadn't been so busy I'm certain we'd have had a desperate affair. Butas it isand it makes me perfectly furiousI have only the most ridiculously commonplace and comfortable affection for youthe sort which prompts mother to send you quinine and talcum powder"
Balanced there side by side they fell to laughing.
"Sentiment? Yes," she said; "but oh! it's the kind that offers witch-hazel and hot-water bottles to the best beloved! Mr. Hamil, why can't we flirt comfortably like sensibly frivolous people!"
"I wish we could, Cecile."
"I wish so, too, Garret. No, that's too formalGarry! There, that ends our chances!"
"You're the jolliest family I ever knew," he said. "You can scarcely understand how pleasant it has been for me to camp on the edges of your fireside and feel the home-warmth a littlenow and then"
"Why do you remain so aloof then?"
"I don't mean to. But my heart is in this business of your father'sthe more deeply in because of his kindnessand your mother'sand for all your sakes. You know I can scarcely realise itI've been with you only a month, and yet you've done so much for mereceived me so simply, so cordiallythat the friendship seems to be of years instead of hours."
"That is the trouble," sighed Cecile; "you and I never had a chance to be frivolous; I'm no more self-conscious with you than I am with Gray. Tell me, why was Virginia Suydam so horrid to us at first?"
Hamil reddened. "You mustn't ask me to criticise my own kin," he said.
"No," she said, "you couldn't do that.... And Miss Suydam has been more civil recently. It's a mean, low, and suspicious thing to say, but I suppose it's becausebut I don't think I'll say it after all."
"It's nicer not to," said Hamil. They both knew perfectly well that Virginia's advances were anything but disinterested. For, alas! even the men of her own entourage were now gravitating toward the Cardross family; Van Tassel Cuyp was continually wrinkling his nose and fixing his dead-blue eyes in that direction; little Colonel Vetchen circled busily round and round that centre of attraction, even Courtlandt Classon evinced an inclination to toddle that way. Besides Louis Malcourt had arrived; and Virginia had never quite forgotten Malcourt who had made one at a house party in the Adirondacks some years since, although even when he again encountered her, Malcourt had retained no memory of the slim, pallid girl who had for a week been his fellow-guest at Portlaw's huge camp on Luckless Lake.
"Virginia Suydam is rather an isolated girl," said Hamil thoughtfully. "She lives alone; and it is not very gay for a woman alone in the world; not the happiest sort of life.... Virginia has always been very friendly to mealways. I hope you will find her amusing."
"I'm going to her luncheon," said Cecile calmly. "It's quite too absurd for her to feel any more doubt about us socially than we feel about her. That is why I am going. Shall we swim?"
He rose; she clasped his offered hand and sprang to her feet, ready for the water again. But at that instant Malcourt's dark, handsome head appeared on the crest of a surge close by, and the next moment that young gentleman scrambled aboard the raft, breathing heavily.
"Hello, Cecile!" he gasped; "Hello, Hamil! Shiela thought it must be you, but I was sceptical. Whew! That isn't much of a swim; I must be out of condition"