The Heart of Arethusa Part 4

"A--re--thusa Worthington!"

Her eyes flew open. She screamed; for Timothy had appeared before her as suddenly as though he had come in that clap of thunder.

"Timothy! You nasty thing! You scared me almost to death!"

"What on earth are you doing out here?"

"Picking water lilies!" she replied pertly.

"You must have fallen in then, because I never did see anything just as wet! But I thought you weren't afraid of storms?"

"I'm not. I love 'em."

"Why do you screw up your eyes for when it thunders then?" he asked, teasingly, as at another terrific sound her eyes shut just as tight as before.

But she only made a face at him in reply.

"Does Miss 'Liza know you're out here?" Timothy demanded next.

"She does."

"I'll just bet she doesn't," he contradicted calmly. "You better come go in. You are wet clear through."

"So are you," retorted Arethusa.

"I think you had better come go in," persisted Timothy. "Honest, Arethusa! It's dangerous," he added, quickly, for just as he spoke a great tree in the outer edge of the woodland went cras.h.i.+ng to the ground.

"I shan't go in." She stamped her foot for emphasis. "Run along, Timothy, if _you're_ afraid. _I'm_ going to stay. I love it!"

That implication of fear put him on his masculine mettle at once.

"I'm not afraid," he declared, stoutly. "It's just foolish, that's all.

Come on, Arethusa."

She resented this tone of authority.

"No!" she said, most positively.

"Well, then ... I'll take you," announced Timothy, equally positive.

"I just can't let you tempt Providence this way."

Her eyes blazed dark. "If you so much as dare touch me, Timothy Jarvis, even; I'll ... I'll...." Words failed her.

Timothy regarded her in helpless exasperation. Being very well acquainted with Arethusa and Arethusa's ways, he knew that she would have retaliated in some very real and immediate fas.h.i.+on, had he made a single move to carry out his threat. And nothing he could do along this line would have brought the going in any nearer, for in a scuffle she was quite as strong as he was.

They had been forced to converse in shouts in order to be heard above the noise of the storm through the swaying and bending trees, and the whole affair:--the loud argument which got nowhere, and the subsequent tableau of the girl and himself standing here under the big tree glaring at each other while the fury of the rain lashed against them and the storm dinned about them, suddenly struck Timothy as funny.

He laughed.

"Stop laughing!" screamed Arethusa, angrily.

"I can't help it! You--you look so perfectly funny!" Timothy's mirth pealed forth again.

Arethusa's hair hung about her face in long, wet locks; her eyes, in her white face, were like great, dark pools of wrath; and she had spread her arms out behind her against the tree as if she had gripped it to hold should Timothy attempt force to make her leave her stronghold.

"You look just like a drowned rat, yourself!" she exclaimed furiously.

"And--and you've got a whole pond in your Jimmy!"

So Timothy took off his big Jimmy hat and shook the pool of rain water out of the curved brim.

Had she not been so angry with him, Arethusa might have likened him then to a young river G.o.d instead of a "drowned rat," and the comparison would have fitted much better. And with his blonde head, which the dampness had merely made to wave a little more, for his thickly plaited straw hat had somewhat protected it from a thorough wetting, she might even have called him a young Viking, without any very great misuse of metaphor; Timothy was so thoroughly of the outdoors in his appearance, with all his youthful strength.

His deep blue eyes gleamed with determination as plainly as the grey eyes opposite him gleamed with anger, for Timothy meant that Arethusa should go into the house; and that without much more delay.

But he changed his tactics to accomplish this. Although he was nothing of a weather prophet, he displayed, at times, wisdom rather beyond his years.

"Arethusa, do be reasonable, now," he said, in the most friendly of coaxing tones. "Suppose that tree should be struck; you'd be killed. I would too."

"That wouldn't make very much difference," she replied, naughtily.

But he ignored this interruption. "I might enjoy doing this some other time, Arethusa, when the lightning and thunder aren't so bad. This is the very worst electrical storm we've had this whole summer. And you know that I never do mind being out in the rain, don't you? I've always been quite wilting to play Alpheus for you, whenever you wanted."

(Timothy had studied mythology when he was in Freeport at college.) "But think," he added, much more seriously, "think of poor Miss 't.i.tia.

You can be sure she's just having one fit right after the other with you out here. I call it dirt mean to make her suffer so. And it's not a bit like you to be mean, Arethusa, not a bit."

Arethusa yielded.

The picture Timothy presented of Miss Let.i.tia's distress was all the more sad to contemplate because she knew it, only too well, to be true.

She was getting a trifle tired of it, besides: it was only obstinacy that had kept her out so long. Yet it would never do to have him find that out. She conveyed the intelligence to him that nothing in the wide world but the thought of Miss Let.i.tia and Miss Let.i.tia's unhappiness would ever have dragged her away from the tree, lest he become unduly convinced of the idea that any of his other, and more immediately personal, arguments had influenced.

"And," she added, "I wanted to get real wet, for just once. But I couldn't get any wetter if I stayed. My shoes slosh now."

He agreed with her perfectly. "Without a doubt they do; I can hear 'em.

You were certainly well named Arethusa, you crazy thing!" He tucked her arm in his with an authoritative air, "Let's run for it."

Nothing suited Arethusa better.

They had a glorious race through the wet orchard and brought up with a grand flourish on the back porch, where Mandy greeted their finale with many horrified exclamations and much gesturing.

"Ef Mis' 'Liza wuz to see you! Ef Mis' 'Liza wuz jes' to see you all now!"

"Well, she mustn't," cautioned Timothy. "Stop making so much noise, Mandy, and smuggle Arethusa in."

"I don't really care if she does see me," Arethusa herself announced most recklessly. "I've had so much fun! Listen...." She slapped her wet dress against her, "Doesn't that make a funny sound? And, oh, Timothy, see what a puddle I've made already, just running off me!! Look!"

"Mis' t.i.tia's ben havin' one hystik after anothah, Arethusie, she were so sure you wuz struck w'en we heered that big tree go down in Mis'

'Senath's Woods. An' Mis' 'Liza's...."

"Well, Arethusa! I must say that this is a performance!"