An Unconventional Confidence
by
The Girl in Black-and-Yellow ran frantically down the grey road under the pines. There was nobody to see her, but she would have run if all Halifax had been looking on. For had she not on the loveliest new hat–a “creation” in yellow chiffon with big black choux–and a dress to match? And was there not a shower coming straight from the hills across the harbour?
Down at the end of the long resinous avenue the Girl saw the shore road, with the pavilion shutting out the view of the harbour’s mouth. Below the pavilion, clean-shaven George’s Island guarded the town like a sturdy bulldog, and beyond it were the wooded hills, already lost in a mist of rain.
“Oh, I shall be too late,” moaned the Girl. But she held her hat steady with one hand and ran on. If she could only reach the pavilion in time! It was a neck-and-neck race between the rain and the Girl, but the Girl won. Just as she flew out upon the shore road, a tall Young Man came pelting down the latter, and they both dashed up the steps of the pavilion together as the rain swooped down upon them and blotted George’s Island and the smoky town and the purple banks of the Eastern Passage from view.
The pavilion was small at the best of times, and just now the rain was beating into it on two sides, leaving only one dry corner. Into this the Girl moved. She was flushed and triumphant. The Young Man thought that in all his life he had never seen anyone so pretty.
“I’m so glad I didn’t get my hat wet,” said the Girl breathlessly, as she straightened it with a careful hand and wondered if she looked very blown and blowsy.
“It would have been a pity,” admitted the Young Man. “It is a very pretty hat.”
“Pretty!” The Girl looked the scorn her voice expressed. “Anyone can have a pretty hat. Our cook has one. This is a creation.”
“Of course,” said the Young Man humbly. “I ought to have known. But I am very stupid.”
“Well, I suppose a mere man couldn’t be expected to understand exactly,” said the Girl graciously.
She smiled at him in a friendly fashion, and he smiled back. The Girl thought that she had never seen such lovely brown eyes before. He could not be a Haligonian. She was sure she knew all the nice young men with brown eyes in Halifax.
“Please sit down,” she said plaintively. “I’m tired.”
The Young Man smiled again at the idea of his sitting down because the Girl was tired. But he sat down, and so did she, on the only dry seat to be found.
“Goodness knows how long this rain will last,” said the Girl, making herself comfortable and picturesque, “but I shall stay here until it clears up, if it rains for a week. I will not have my hat spoiled. I suppose I shouldn’t have put it on. Beatrix said it was going to rain. Beatrix is such a horribly good prophet. I detest people who are good prophets, don’t you?”
“I think that they are responsible for all the evils that they predict,” said the Young Man solemnly.
“That is just what I told Beatrix. And I was determined to put on this hat and come out to the park today. I simply had to be alone, and I knew I’d be alone out here. Everybody else would be at the football game. By the way, why aren’t you there?”
“I wasn’t even aware that there was a football game on hand,” said the Young Man, as if he knew he ought to be ashamed of his ignorance, and was.
“Dear me,” said the Girl pityingly. “Where can you have been not to have heard of it? It’s between the Dalhousie team and the Wanderers. Almost everybody here is on the Wanderers’ side, because they are Haligonians, but I am not. I like the college boys best. Beatrix says that it is just because of my innate contrariness. Last year I simply screamed myself hoarse with enthusiasm. The Dalhousie team won the trophy.”