familiar pose. But she noticed under his nonchalance a repressed satisfaction, the glow of an inner elation in his eyes. [Pg 33] [Pg 34] [Pg 34] I The performance was over and the audience was dispersing. Gull Island, colored to a chromo brightness by the declining sun, had not showed so animated an aspect since the reception for the Spanish ambassador last July. People in pale-tinted summer clothes were trailing across from the open-air theater and massing in a group as gay as a flower garden at the dock. Some of them had gone into the house, taken the chance to have a look at it—when the Driscolls were “in residence” you couldn’t so much as put your foot on the rocks round the shore. Others lingered, having a farewell word with the actors, congratulating them—it was the right thing to do and they deserved it. The committee was very affable, shaking hands with Mr. Bassett the director and Miss Saunders the star, who, in her page’s dress [Pg 35]with the paint still on her face, looked tired, poor girl, but was so sweet and unassuming. The [Pg 35] It had been a complete success. The matrons who had organized it scanned the crowd converging toward the dock and smiled the comfortable smile of accomplishment. The summer home for tenement children could build its new wing and employ that man from Boston who had such modern scientific methods. And the matrons, stiff in the back and unbecomingly flushed after sitting two hours in the sun on the stone seats of the theater, drew toward one another on the wharf and agreed that everything had gone off beautifully and the board should at once write to Mr. Driscoll and thank him for lending the island. The fleet of boats, rocking gently on the narrow channel that separated Gull Island from the mainland, took on their freight and darted off. They started in groups then broke apart. Speed boats that had come from points afar, whizzed away with a seething rush and a crumple of crystal foam at the bow. The launches skimmed, [Pg 36]light-winged, the white flurry of their wakes like
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