V His Grandfather’s Courage Made Her Want to Love Him
In the sea again, whither she dragged him after that, far from land, as they looked back at the people on the beach:
“Before you came,” laughed the girl, “I had all the fun to myself. They would follow me with their glasses, expecting me to throw up my arms and call for help. The hotel man actually bought a rope with straps and buckles and things on the end to save me. They used to bring it down every time I went in. Now Bill uses it to pull the trunks up. And no one ever minds us. See, not a soul is looking this way! Brassid, it was lovely of you to come. You are”—she laughed, and by a deft stroke came so close as to touch him—“both my chaperon and palladium. Of course I suppose if we should ever get into trouble I would have to save you. My grandfather was a whaler. But back there they have the most beautiful confidence in you, just because you are a man. I am not pleased with you in that, Brassid. It is false pretence. I shall let you save yourself—remember.”
“I wouldn’t allow you to save me.”
“What! You ungrateful—Brassid! I can swim twice as far as you can. But I’m glad to hear that.”
“When I was taught to swim, my teacher dinned into my ears that I was never to forget when I went out that I had to come back. See?”
For reply she raced away from him.
“My grandfather was a whaler. I wasn’t taught to go back.”
He followed as lustily until he had caught her. They laughed splendidly.
“My grandfather,” he laughed, “the Virginia ranger, you remember, was too proud to call for help when he fought his last fight within a hundred yards of the pickets of his own regiment.”
“Brassid, I love that!” she cried breathlessly, going to his side. “What happened to him?”
“He was killed. But when they found him he had five dead Indians to his credit, while his hands were clutched upon the throat of another.”
“That’s why you adore him, isn’t it? Otherwise you would probably never have heard of him. That is what makes us live in the memories of those who love us—just that one little thing, courage!”
“No. There is another and greater thing,” said Brassid.
She looked up in her questioning way.
He smiled affectionately.
“Love,” said Brassid.
She shook her head:
“Courage.”
“Love,” he insisted.
“Let us put them both together,” she said, “courage and love.”
“Love and courage,” he acquiesced.
“You for love, I for courage.”
Brassid watched her glowing young face and her strong young arms, as they struck out, in a new wonder. He had not yet solved the lovely Sea-Lady.
She went on with dilated nostrils:
“Say, Brassid, that makes me want to love you. An ancestor like that! Oh, it beats the whaler! That’s why I speak so often of him. It needed courage to be a whaler. Brassid, you never were so near winning me—isn’t that what you men call it?—as right now. Go on, Brassid, about your Indian-fighter!”
“My grandfather probably would have won you,” sighed Brassid.
“No; you. You are like him. I knew it from the first. Why didn’t you tell me that at first? You would do as he did—if there were Indians.”
“And what would you do?”
“As your grandfather did, Brassid—if there were Indians.”
He retreated a little from her.
“Maybe I do love love a little, Brassid dear; but I adore the courage that dies without weakening—rather than weaken. I can’t help it. It was born in me. I wouldn’t do it. And if your grandfather had called for help, I should have hated him—and you,” she laughed.
And, after a silence, she said again, as if that was what she had been thinking about:
“Brassid, I love courage more than love.” And again:
“Brassid, your name is Courage.”