“Lovely!” said Kerry. “Only we must do our duty here first, you know.”
So Kerry stood smiling and talking to people, told them bits about her father, and her travels, and the foreign lands she had seen, just a dash of color here and there and they were satisfied. They did not really care to hear any connected conversation. They struck her as being filled with a fine frenzy of excitement, doing and saying things that were expected of them, interested in nothing save to whoop it up and keep the mad whirl going.
The orchestra struck up, and the dancing began.
Young Holbrook was watching her.
“You don’t enjoy all this, do you?” he asked, a note of surprise in his eager young voice.
Kerry smiled.
“Why, it’s—different!” she said without enthusiasm. “I’ve not been used to a life like this, you know.”
“But that’s the strange part about it,” he said in a puzzled tone, “just for that very reason I’d expect you to be crazy about it. Weren’t you awfully bored, never seeing life? Weren’t you always wanting to do what other people did? Weren’t you terribly dissatisfied?”
“Yes,” said Kerry, “I was often unhappy, very, and always wondering why I had to live. And I think in those days, perhaps until quite recently, I would have welcomed all this. I would have reached out eagerly for it. But—not now. It—somehow—does not seem real to me. It is—well—just passing the time away and trying to forget one is alive!”
“Gosh!” said the young fellow, casting his eyes avidly over the bright assembly that was now most of it moving excitedly around in couples in time to the music. “Why, that’s what it is of course, just passing the time away! What else could you do? You don’t live but once, and you’re a long time dead!”
“Only once,” said Kerry with an exultant smile, “but it lasts forever! And it means, oh, a great deal! And then—you may not have to die at all, but—whether we live or whether we die—it’s—oh wonderful—! And I’ve just found that out!”
“You mean you’ve found something better than all this?” he said with a sweeping gesture toward the ballroom.
“Yes,” said Kerry, turning bright, wistful eyes upon him. She found herself wishing this nice boy might understand, too. “Why, you see, I’ve just found out we were not put here on this earth just to have a good time. This is a sort of preparation time, a college course, a testing through which we have to pass, to get ready for the life that is to last forever, and is to be so wonderful that we cannot even understand how great it is!”
“Oh, gosh! You don’t mean religious stuff, do you?” asked the boy with a disappointed tone. “I thought for a minute you were talking about something real! You looked so interested!”
“Oh, but I am interested,” said Kerry with a radiant look, “and I’ve only just found out what a marvelous thing it is. No, I don’t think you’d call it religious stuff,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s not what I’ve always called religion. Religion is a kind of system, isn’t it? Something men have thought out for themselves. For instance Confucianism and Buddhism and things like that. This is different. It’s God’s own Word.”
He looked at her a moment in amazement, noted with admiration the eager light in her dark eyes, the lovely flush on her young cheek, the whole flaming beauty of her charming face, and his own look softened with appreciation.
“Tell me about it,” he said softly. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”
But at that instant a group of young men rushed up eagerly and surrounded Kerry.
“Why aren’t you dancing?” they demanded in a breath. “May I have this next dance?
“No, I was here first, Forsythe!”
“No, I was the one that started first—” put in a third.
They clamored around her, and for one brief instant Kerry tasted the honey of popularity. Was it the new dress with its dusky ruffles to her toes? she wondered. She never realized at all her own lovely face set in its frame of red-gold hair, above the new gown, with the dashing green of her shawl trailing over one shoulder. She did not know she made a picture as she stood at the far end of the big dancing floor, a distinguished little figure, the beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother and a great father! She was only annoyed that the conversation had been broken in upon.
“But I don’t dance,” she said brightly and brought dismay upon all three.
“Well, can’t you learn?” they asked eagerly. “We’ll take turns teaching you.”
“She doesn’t care to learn,” said Holbrook coolly, “and we were just going to ride. Miss Kavanaugh wants to see the Hudson by moonlight.”
“What’s the little old idea, Harry, hogging the guest of honor, I’d like to know?” asked the young man they called Forsythe.
“Oh, we’ll be back after a while,” said Harrington Holbrook, withering him with a glance and leading Kerry away.
“Will it be all right for us to run away a little while?” asked Kerry wistfully as she followed him with a worried glance back. “I wouldn’t like to annoy your mother and sister.”
“Oh, sure! They won’t know where you are from now on. They’ll think you’re sitting it out somewhere. All the girls run away for drives. We’ll drop in again during the night. Anyhow Mother is deep in a game in the card room. She wouldn’t know you now if you were introduced.”
Kerry was glad to get out into the fresh spring air and the enchantment of the moonlight. She settled down in pure delight, exclaiming over the beauty of a group of cherry trees just coming into exquisite bloom.
The boy shot the car out into the highway and stepped on the gas. Kerry caught her breath with joy. Why this was like flying. Her experience in automobiles up until then had been mostly confined to city taxicabs.
“Oh, this is wonderful!” she said as they flew along the white ribbon of the highway past sweet-smelling trees in bloom and fresh earth upturned in gardens. She drew long breaths of delight and her eyes shone starry. The boy looked at her with keep appreciation. “Some girl!” he said to himself enthusiastically.
By and by he turned from the highway into a still, sweet lane where there were high borders of hedges, and a silver gleaming of moonlit water ahead.
He parked the car near the edge of a large bluff overlooking the river, and sat back happily.
“Now,” he said joyously, “this is something like!” And he slid his young eager arm around Kerry with an astonishing swiftness and possessiveness, and drew her close to him, at the same time gathering her two hands that lay in her lap.
Kerry sat up with suddenness, and drew her hands away, gently but firmly.
“Oh, please don’t, Mr. Holbrook,” she said earnestly. “I—want to respect you—and myself, too!’
“Whaddaya mean, respect?” asked the boy in a hurt tone. “I didn’t mean any disrespect to you. I’ll say I didn’t! Why, I respect you more than any girl I ever saw, and that’s a fact!”
“Then—please don’t!” said Kerry again firmly.
“But why?” he persisted. “I was just being—friendly—and cozy! Everybody does it nowadays. Do you mean they don’t do it over in Europe?”
“I don’t do it,” said Kerry, and then remembered with a sudden quick flash of condemnation that McNair had held her hand once on shipboard. But that was different! Or was it different? What was there different about it? Why had she felt no condemnation? She must put that away and think about it. Maybe it wasn’t different. Maybe she should have done something about that, too. McNair of course was a stranger, too, and nothing to her—at least—Her thoughts were shipboard now, and not in an automobile at all. But the boy by her side was persistent.
“Do you mean you don’t believe in petting? Why not?”
Kerry hesitated, still wondering why this case was so different from the one on shipboard, arguing it out with herself.
“I think,” she said gravely deliberate, still thinking it out, feeling her way as she spoke, “I think, because it is playing with seri
ous things, real things, that usually—only—come once!”
And then her heart leaped up with a secret she did not dare to face just now, and put away hastily in the innermost secrets of her thoughts.
The boy sat looking thoughtfully out across the silver water to the opposite shore where lights gleamed out from windows, and showed here and there a little settlement.
“Well, perhaps you’re right,” said the boy. “Anyhow I think it’s nice you feel that way. I guess you like a girl better if every fellow hasn’t mauled her. But say, I didn’t mean that the way you thought. I was serious all right. I like you better than any girl I ever knew. That’s right, I do! I knew it the minute I came into the dining room this noon! You certainly are a winner!”
Kerry laughed.
“Why, you hardly know me,” she said brightly, “but it’s nice to have you friendly. Of course I like to be liked. But come, let’s talk about something else. What are all those lights down the river there? Why, they seem to be moving.”
“That’s the Hudson River steamer. It goes up to Albany you know. It will go right past us here.”
They watched the boat as it came nearer, moving like a thing of spirit, its many lights gleaming out and separating until it looked like a moving palace.
“What was that dope you were giving back at the clubhouse?” asked Holbrook at last. “It sounded interesting. If it isn’t religion, what is it? Ethical culture or some of those newfangled cults? I’d like to find out what makes you different.”
“Well,” laughed Kerry, “I don’t know that it has had time to make me different yet; I’m quite new to it. And yet, when I come to think of it, it has made everything different for me. I seem to be another person. It’s as if I was born again into a new world. I look at everything in a different way. I never knew before that God was real, and could be realized in everyday life. I never knew that He made us because He wanted our companionship and help, and that we by sinning had made ourselves unfit for such companionship. I didn’t realize either that I was an utter sinner, and that God loved me so much that He sent His only Son and let Him take my place dying that there might be a way for me to be saved.”
“Waddaya mean, ‘saved’? Whaddaya mean, ‘sinner’? I’ll bet a hat you never committed a sin. I don’t see all this talk about sin. I understand nobody believes in it anymore anyway. It’s what you think is right, that’s the dope. Why, I’ve never done anything very bad. Why should I say I’m a sinner? I’ve lived a pretty decent life. Of course I’ve done some petting, and you think that’s all wrong, but I didn’t mean any harm by it. And I don’t tell rotten stories the way most of the fellas I know do. Of course I got into a lot of scrapes at college, but every fella does that. I don’t call that a sin, do you?”
“I have recently come to know,” said Kerry gravely, “that sin is something we are born with, that is a tendency to sin, and that the great sin, the sin of all sins, is unbelief in Jesus Christ the Savior of the world. Unbelief and indifference. Probably all the other things grow out of that.”
“Belief ? Whaddaya mean belief ? I didn’t know anybody believed in that dope anymore, only perhaps a few old ladies and missionaries.”
“Oh, yes, they do!” said Kerry earnestly, “and really, you know, it is the most wonderful thing to believe in. You just accept it, and it makes you all over. It cures your soul, and makes things different. You are ‘born again.’ That’s what the Bible calls it.”
“The Bible!” said the young collegiate. “But that’s all out of date.”
“No, it isn’t really!” said Kerry. “I’ve tried it. It works, just as it says, and it’s the most wonderful up-to-date book I ever read. Why, it not only tells you all about yourself and fits right into your own experiences, but it tells things that are happening right along every day now, things in politics and history, and the way nations are doing things—!”
“Say! What are you giving me! Trying to string me? My psychology professor in college said—!”
“Yes, I know,” said Kerry, “they do, but he didn’t know. He’d never heard of these wonderful things that are being discovered today. But you see I’m very new at this myself. I can’t begin to tell you about it all. I’m just learning myself. But if you are interested there is a man holding meetings at a little church I went to the other night. He is going to be there another week. He is telling me the most wonderful things about the Bible! I know it doesn’t sound much when I try to tell it, but it’s great. And there is just one thing, I know that Jesus Christ has forgiven men, and that I’m a child of God, and it makes all the difference in the world in my life and how I feel about things!”
They sat there a long time talking, while Kerry unfolded to him the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ. He marveled at her words, objecting now and then as modern youth is taught to do, yet unable to answer her simple faith in the simplicity of salvation.
Suddenly Kerry looked at her watch.
“Mercy!” she exclaimed. “Do you know what time it is? Five minutes of two! What will they think of us? It is Sunday morning, and they will all have gone long ago and will wonder where we are. What will your mother think of me?”
“Oh, no they won’t have left the clubhouse yet. They never do Saturday nights till nearly three. But we’ll get right back now. Gosh, you’re a funny girl. It’s been interesting. I don’t know another girl I would have sat with all this time and listened to her talk religion—excuse me, what was it you called it? Christianity! That’s it. But say, it’s good dope. If it was true it would be some fairy tale to live, wouldn’t it? Of course I’m not saying it is, but that dope about the Jews and the nations of Europe, and the chemicals in the Dead Sea are mighty interesting even if they aren’t true. They certainly are coincidences anyway. What did you say the man’s name was that told all these things? I wouldn’t mind hearing him myself sometime. What do you say we drive down there tomorrow if we can find out when he speaks? The paper might tell. Know what church it was?”
“Why, no,” said Kerry. “I haven’t an idea, but I could find it if I was in town.”
“Well, if you’re on deck in time tomorrow morning we’ll drive down to the city and hunt it up. It’ll be okay with me unless you prefer another nine holes of golf in the morning.”
“Why, I’d love to go to the church if you think your mother and sister won’t mind.”
“Oh, they won’t mind! They have a standing date in bed Sunday morning. They don’t expect anybody around before lunchtime.”
Kerry was much relieved to find that the clubhouse was still in full blast when they returned, and the elder Holbrooks had not missed her.
“You looked as fresh as a rose,” said Holbrook senior as he helped her into the car a half hour later. “You, too, Harry. You usually have too many cocktails aboard Saturday night for your own good and others’ comfort.”
“I hope you haven’t had a dull time, not dancing,” said Mrs. Holbrook apologetically, realizing that she had paid very little heed to her young guest.
“I’ve had a wonderful time!” said Kerry happily. “I’ve seen the Hudson by moonlight!”
“Oh, yes,” said the woman of the world sleepily. “I suppose it is rather a sight when one sees it for the first time. I hope Harry hasn’t been a dull escort.”
“Gosh, Mud, you couldn’t be dull with her! She’s got a mind! She’s no end interesting! She’s not like these poor little saps at the clubhouse!”
“Well, son, I’m glad you can still appreciate a good mind when you meet one,” said the father indulgently. Then turning to Kerry: “You must sleep late tomorrow morning. They all do here. Of course I’m off for a little golf early, but you won’t be disturbed.”
But Harry broke in.
“Oh, gosh, Dad, we’ve already got a date for morning. We’re going for a drive. We’ll be home round lunchtime, but don’t mind if we are late. We’ll get some hotdogs or a milk shake on the way if we are hungry.”
“For mercy sake,
Harry! Don’t go to dragging Miss Kavanaugh around your favorite haunts,” said his mother, stifling a yawn. “She’ll be bored to death. Let her sleep in the morning.”
“Don’t you worry, Mud. We’ve got an understanding all right. Give you my word I shan’t bore her this time.”
As Kerry, in her luxurious bed, half an hour later, sank away to sleep she found herself thinking about the young son of the house. He was a nice, kind boy. Was he really interested in what they had talked about, or just trying to be good company?
Kerry found him waiting for her in the breakfast room next morning at the hour they had agreed upon. Five minutes later his father walked in clad in golf attire.
His face lit up with pleasure when he saw them.
“Well, this is a delightful surprise,” he said. “I expected to have to eat breakfast alone. Are you doing eighteen holes this morning, too?”
It was the son who answered, virtuously and crisply as if he wished to call attention to the fact.
“No, Dad, we’re going to church.”
“Church!” said the father laughing. “You going to church?” He gave a laugh and took it as a joke, but the son’s face was altogether serious.
“Sure, Dad. I mean it.”
Mr. Holbrook’s eyes sought Kerry’s face for an explanation, but Kerry was taking it all quite as a matter of course, and the father sobered instantly.
“Well, I’m sure that’s commendable, especially a nice morning like this. Where are you going? Better choose someplace where they have good music. Remember Miss Kavanaugh has come from Europe where they have the best.”
“We’re going to a church Miss Kavanaugh chose,” said the son importantly. “Somebody from Scotland is speaking there.”
“Ah! I see. Where is it? Fifth Avenue, I suppose.”
“Why, I don’t just know,” said Kerry shyly, “but I am sure I can find it. I went there one night and it’s not far from where I am staying.”
“I see,” said the host, smiling pleasantly. “Well, sorry you’re not to be on the links this morning. We might get Lawson or Rambo and try a foursome. But it’s a nice morning for a drive. Better take the new car, Harry, if you’re going to drive yourself. Mother won’t be wanting it till afternoon.”