When the golden-rod turned gray, and the leaves red and yellow, and it was time for Latimer to return to his work in the West, he came to say good-by.But the best Helen could do to keep hope alive in him was to say that she was glad he cared.She added it was very helpful to think that a man such as he believed you were so fine a person, and during the coming winter she would try to be like the fine person he believed her to be, but which, she assured him, she was not.
Then he told her again she was the most wonderful being in the world, to which she said: "Oh, indeed no!" and then, as though he were giving her a cue, he said: "Good-by!" But she did not take up his cue, and they shook hands.He waited, hardly daring to breathe.
"Surely, now that the parting has come," he assured himself, "she will make some sign, she will give me a word, a look that will write 'total' under the hours we have spent together, that will help to carry me through the long winter."But he held her hand so long and looked at her so hungrily that he really forced her to say: "Don't miss your train," which kind consideration for his comfort did not delight him as it should.
Nor, indeed, later did she herself recall the remark with satisfaction.
With Latimer out of the way the other two hundred and forty-nine suitor attacked with renewed hope.Among other advantages they had over Latimer was that they were on the ground.They saw Helen daily, at dinners, dances, at the country clubs, in her own drawing-room.Like any sailor from the Charlestown Navy Yard and his sweetheart, they could walk beside her in the park and throw peanuts to the pigeons, and scratch dates and initials on the green benches; they could walk with her up one side of Commonwealth Avenue and down the south bank of the Charles, when the sun was gilding the dome of the State House, when the bridges were beginning to deck themselves with necklaces of lights.They had known her since they wore knickerbockers; and they shared many interests and friends in common; they talked the same language.Latimer could talk to her only in letters, for with her he shared no friends or interests, and he was forced to choose between telling her of his lawsuits and his efforts in politics or of his love.To write to her of his affairs seemed wasteful and impertinent, and of his love for her, after she had received what he told of it in silence, he was too proud to speak.So he wrote but seldom, and then only to say: "You know what I send you." Had he known it, his best letters were those he did not send.When in the morning mail Helen found his familiar handwriting, that seemed to stand out like the face of a friend in a crowd, she would pounce upon the letter, read it, and, assured of his love, would go on her way rejoicing.But when in the morning there was no letter, she wondered why, and all day she wondered why.And the next morning when again she was disappointed, her thoughts of Latimer and her doubts and speculations concerning him shut out every other interest.He became a perplexing, insistent problem.He was never out of her mind.And then he would spoil it all by writing her that he loved her and that of all the women in the world she was the only one.
And, reassured upon that point, Helen happily and promptly would forget all about him.
But when she remembered him, although months had passed since she had seen him, she remembered him much more distinctly, much more gratefully, than that one of the two hundred and fifty with whom she had walked that same afternoon.Latimer could not know it, but of that anxious multitude he was first, and there was no second.At least Helen hoped, when she was ready to marry, she would love Latimer enough to want to marry him.But as yet she assured herself she did not want to marry any one.As she was, life was very satisfactory.Everybody loved her, everybody invited her to be of his party, or invited himself to join hers, and the object of each seemed to be to see that she enjoyed every hour of every day.Her nature was such that to make her happy was not difficult.Some of her devotees could do it by giving her a dance and letting her invite half of Boston, and her kid brother could do it by taking her to Cambridge to watch the team at practice.
She thought she was happy because she was free.As a matter of fact, she was happy because she loved some one and that particular some one loved her.Her being "free" was only her mistaken way of putting it.Had she thought she had lost Latimer and his love, she would have discovered that, so far from being free, she was bound hand and foot and heart and soul.
But she did not know that, and Latimer did not know that.
Meanwhile, from the branch of the tree in the sheltered, secret hiding-place that overlooked the ocean, the sailorman kept watch.
The sun had blistered him, the storms had buffeted him, the snow had frozen upon his shoulders.But his loyalty never relaxed.He spun to the north, he spun to the south, and so rapidly did he scan the surrounding landscape that no one could hope to creep upon him unawares.Nor, indeed, did any one attempt to do so.
Once a fox stole into the secret hiding-place, but the sailorman flapped his oars and frightened him away.He was always triumphant.To birds, to squirrels, to trespassing rabbits he was a thing of terror.Once, when the air was still, an impertinent crow perched on the very limb on which he stood, and with scornful, disapproving eyes surveyed his white trousers, his blue reefer, his red cheeks.But when the wind suddenly drove past them the sailorman sprang into action and the crow screamed in alarm and darted away.So, alone and with no one to come to his relief, the sailorman stood his watch.About him the branches bent with the snow, the icicles froze him into immobility, and in the tree-tops strange groanings filled him with alarms.But undaunted, month after month, alert and smiling, he waited the return of the beautiful lady and of the tall young man who had devoured her with such beseeching, unhappy eyes.
