The Moth Decides: A Novel

When Louise opened her eyes she stared dreamily up at the slight abrasion in the shingle roof through which morning blinked. There were not many of these informal skylights, for the roof was not an old one. But there were a few, as there are likely to be in most summer cottages. When there was a violent downpour one had to hustle around distributing pans and kettles to catch an often ambitious drip. But this morning there was no rain. Louise's pretty face was not in danger of an unsolicited bath. It was a radiant summer dawn.

For a moment she wondered how she had happened to wake so early. The July birds were all chattering in the woods. But why should she waken out of deep slumber unsummoned? Presently, however, the reason for this phenomenon flashed vividly. Downstairs in the cottage living room, on the chimney-piece, stood an old Dutch clock. This clock possessed a kind of wiry, indignant tick, and a voice, when it was time to speak, full of a jerky, twanging spite. Louise could hear the sharp ticking. Then there came a little whirr—like a very wheeze of decrepitude—followed by an angry striking. One, two, three, four. And at the very first stroke she knew why she was awake at so almost grotesque an hour. The remembrance brought its half whimsical shock. In an hour Leslie would be cranking the engine of his little launch, and they would be chugging toward Beulah.

However, even this did not impel the girl to spring out of bed. Indeed, she arose quite deliberately and only after a brief relapse into a dreaminess which was cousin to slumber itself. She allowed her mind to explore, quite fantastically and not a little extravagantly, the probable courses of the day just springing. She knew beyond any question that it was to be a day packed full of importance for her. Yet she proceeded with that air of cool possession which young persons often elect to display when they feel that the reins are snugly in their hands. As she looked up at the tiny point of aurora in the roof, Louise smiled. There was almost no trace left of the old trouble—that well borne but sufficiently poignant wound, which though her own, had added new lines to the Rev. Needham's already pictorial face. Richard? Oh, Richard was almost forgotten at length. This was as it should be. Defiantly, but also a little slyly (because it could hardly be reckoned a good Christian sentiment), Louise wished that Richard might somehow be here now to observe her triumph; above all—for the wound had still a slight sting—to see how finely calm she had learned to be in these matters.

There was a light step outside on the turf of the hillside. One unalert might not have noted it, or might not have known it for a human tread, where there was such a patter of squirrel and chipmunk scampering. But Louise was alert. She might be calm, but she was also alert. And she knew it was no squirrel out there. That was Leslie. He was lingering about under her window, undecided whether he ought to risk pebbles or a judicious whistle by way of making sure she was awake. At the faint sound of his foot she raised her head quickly from the pillow.