The Moth Decides: A Novel — Reading Notes

ere 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.

"Louise!" he whispered.

You might have thought it some mere passing sibilance of wind. But you could not be expected to know Leslie's voice as she knew it.

The girl slipped softly out of bed. She did not want to rouse her sister. Hilda was sleeping with her. Hilda had given her own room to Aunt Marjie.

When Louise stepped out on to the bare cottage floor, her feet encountered cool little hillocks of sand, the residue of sundry bed-time shoe dumpings. One could not live up here beside Lake Michigan without coming to reckon sand as intimately and legitimately entering into almost every phase of existence. Indeed, she trod on sand more or less all the way across to the single little window; then dropped lightly on to her knees before the window and peered down through the screen.

"I'm awake, Leslie," she whispered.

And the lad who had been eagerly gazing at this very window, vacant till now, smiled faintly, nodded, and made motions signifying that he would wait for her in the little rustic "tea-house." However, his smile was very brief; and his manner, as he went away toward the specified rendezvous, was manifestly dejected.

When Louise turned back from the window, Hilda was stirring. Hilda lifted herself up on to an elbow and welcomed her sister with bright eyes.

"Who's out there?" she asked.

"Sh-h-h! It's Les. Go back to sleep, Hilda."

"Is he going with you?" the younger girl persisted.

"Only part of the way."

"Why doesn't he go all the way?"

"Because I would rather go alone," replied the older girl with a quite fascinating fusion of firmness and mystery.

But the manifest dignity of this response was slighted by Hilda, who merely remarked, in an unemotional yet still significant tone: "Oh, I see."

"Well, isn't it natural?"

"Isn't what natural, Lou?"

"Isn't it natural I should want to be alone when I meet Lynndal?"

"Oh, yes! I didn't just stop to think how it would be."

"Not that it would really matter about Les," the other continued, slipping quickly into her clothes. "Les is only a boy, after all."

"Oh, do you think so, Lou?"

"Why, of course. Leslie isn't more than twenty, if he's _that_," she concluded rather doubtfully, twisting up her dark hair and fixing it loosely in place.

"Oh, he is!" protested Hilda as vigorously as whisper-talk would allow.

Louise had turned away from the larger mirror in the dresser and was trying to focus the back of her head with the aid of a small hand mirror, as women do who are particularly concerned about appearing at their best. She looked across oddly at her sister, who in turn blushed, lowering her eyes.

"Well, then, as you say. You seem to be pretty sure."

"Les told me he was," cried Hilda, as though vaguely to shift some sort of responsibility.

Louise relinquished the mirrors and sat down on the edge of the bed for the purpose of tying her shoes. "Listen, Hilda," she said; "you ought to go straight back to sleep. It's only four o'clock. Papa would be mad if he heard us."

"Oh, but he can't," replied Hilda, with the air of one who knows very accurately the acoustic properties of the house in which she dwells.

"But Aunt Marjie might," the other suggested.

"Oh, she wouldn't tell. Aunt Marjie's a sport! Besides," she added, as though to place the matter altogether beyond dispute, "listen!"

Both girls did. They gazed in silence toward the three-quarters partition beyond which Aunt Marjie was established. It was quite true. There were unmistakable dulcet sounds from that direction. Aunt Marjie had warned them she was a heavy sleeper. She had not deemed it urgent to be more specific.

"Safe!" admitted Louise, with a sigh of mock-relief, adding, however: "Even so, you ought to go back to sleep."

Hilda dropped on to her pillow, seeming without comment about to comply. But she was right up again with an earnest question: "Where's he now?"

"Sh-h-h! He's waiting for me outside."