said Cradock, bringing the punt alongside, with a dexterous flick of his paddle. ‘How’s that for an ancient mariner?’
That small but determined hero-worshipper, Molly Cradock, buttressed about with many cushions at the other end of the punt, gave a little wriggle of pure ecstasy.
‘Splendid!’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry our voyage is over. Shall we go into the house, or will you sit here and tell me some more?’
‘I don’t think we’ll go into the house,’ said Cradock. ‘I’m coming to lunch to-morrow, remember, and I never was one to overwork a welcome.’
‘I’m sure you couldn’t ever do that,’ said Molly. ‘Will you come and sit beside me?’ She made room for him, deferentially.
‘Thank you,’ replied Cradock. ‘I can just squeeze in, I think. There! Hallo, I’m sitting on something.’
‘It’s my autograph book,’ said Molly, retrieving the ubiquitous volume. ‘I was going to ask you to write your name in it. Will you, some time?’
‘Rather! Any old time.’
Molly wriggled again. In the space of a few hours this fascinating stranger had taken complete possession of her heart; and she realised with rapture, in some instinctive fashion of her own, that she in her turn exercised some kind of humble sway over him. Else, why should he now be reclining here, with his arm linked in hers, in a punt in a backwater, obviously well content to be where he was, when he might have been the centre of a gay group at the fireworks?
The hero lit a cigar.
‘This,’ he announced, turning his gaze towards the stars, ‘is bliss!’ Then he looked down upon the adoring face of his companion, pinkly illuminated by the swinging lanterns.
‘Molly,’ he said, ‘do you know what you are?’
‘No. Do tell me!’
‘An oasis.’
Molly’s brow puckered.
‘That’s something shady, in a desert, isn’t it?’
Cradock smiled, perseveringly.
‘Shady is a rather misleading term, Molly—especially applied to you. The shade you cast is a healing shade, always. You’re a human oasis—something very rare, and soothing—’
‘O-o-oh!’ breathed Molly.
—‘And refreshing—that a traveller, if he is lucky, may encounter just once or twice in his journey through—the wilderness.’
‘Has your journey taken you through the wilderness much?’ inquired Molly, deeply intrigued.
The wanderer shrugged his shoulders, philosophically.
‘I suppose it has, most of the time. I’m not kicking; one takes the rough with the smooth. It’s chiefly a matter of luck, and how one begins.’
‘Of course, it doesn’t do to begin wrong,’ agreed Molly, nodding a wise head.
‘No. But sometimes, early in life, before we are able to see very clearly ahead—when we are young, and impulsive—’
‘I’m terribly impulsive, Mother says.’
‘—we take a step which carries us off the green path, and points us straight for the wilderness. And before we know where we are, we find ourselves right in the middle of it. And some of us never get back.’
‘Has that happened to you?’ asked Molly, in grave concern.
‘I’m afraid so, Molly.’
‘I’m dreadfully sorry.’
‘Thank you!’
There was silence again. Plainly Molly was thinking: and who knows what fantastic lion-and-mouse schemes tumbled in review through that eager little brain? Presently she asked:
‘Are you sure you can’t get back? I mean, couldn’t you get some one to help you?’
Cradock sighed.
‘Who could?’ he said. ‘Who would?’
Molly made the inevitable suggestion.
‘Why not talk to Mother about it? She’s wonderful at helping people.’ She waited, a little apprehensively. Had she been too forward? No, all was well: he was smiling again.
‘Your mother knows all about it already, Molly,’ he said.
Molly’s face cleared.
‘Oh, I forgot! You’re old friends, aren’t you? Of course, Mother has given you all the help she can already.’
‘Yes—I suppose she has.’
Molly edged a little closer.
‘Captain Conway,’ she said shyly, ‘would anybody fresh be any use?’ Then, with a rush: ‘Would I be any use? You said something just now about stepping suddenly off the path—into the wilderness—at the beginning. Would you mind telling me? I mean, how did it happen?’
‘I married.’
Molly, of course, was prepared for this.
‘The wrong woman,’ she remarked, in a hollow voice.
‘Yes. No, no, Molly; what am I saying? That’s not fair. Perhaps I ought to say she married the wrong man.’
‘How noble you are!’ remarked Molly, with absolute sincerity. ‘But didn’t she—love you?’