after Cain killed Abel, and as if all of humanity's remainder was huddled in affright away from the awful spaciousness of Creation.     

       The night Ralph Hagadorn started out for Echo Bay—bent on a pleasant duty—he laughed to himself, and said that he did not at all object to being the only man in the world, so long as the world remained as unspeakably beautiful as it was when he buckled on his skates and shot away into the solitude. He was bent on reaching his best friend in time to act as groomsman, and business had delayed him till time was at its briefest. So he journeyed by night and journeyed alone, and when the tang of the frost got at his blood, he felt as a spirited horse feels when it gets free of bit and bridle. The ice was as glass, his skates were keen, his frame fit, and his venture to his taste! So he laughed, and cut through the air as a sharp stone cleaves the water. He could hear the whistling of the air as he cleft it.     

       As he went on and on in the black stillness, he began to have fancies. He imagined himself enormously tall—a great Viking of the Northland, hastening over icy fiords to his love. And that reminded him that he had a love—though, indeed, that thought was always present with him as a background for other thoughts. To be sure, he had not told her that she was his love, for he had seen her only a few times, and the auspicious occasion had not yet presented itself. She lived at Echo Bay also, and was to be the maid of honor to his friend's bride—which was one more reason why he skated almost as swiftly as the wind, and why, now and then, he let out a shout of exultation.     

       The one cloud that crossed Hagadorn's sun of expectancy was the knowledge that Marie Beaujeu's father had money, and that Marie lived in a house with two stories to it, and wore otter skin about her throat and little satin-lined mink boots on her feet when she went sledding. Moreover, in the locket in which she treasured a bit of her dead mother's hair, there was a black pearl as big as a pea. These things made it difficult—perhaps impossible—for Ralph Hagadorn to say more than, “I love you.” But that much he meant to say though he were scourged with chagrin for his temerity.     

       This determination grew upon him as he swept along the ice under the starlight. Venus made a glowing path toward the west and seemed eager to reassure him. He was 

 Prev. P 8/61 next