“Hopkins,” said the man hoarsely. “Hopkins.”
Fifi nodded cheerfully.
“I’ve asked Mr. Hopkins to dinner,” she said.
There was some dignity which Aunt Cal and Aunt Josephine had acquired, living here beside the proud sea, that would not let them show surprise. The man was a guest now; that was enough. But in their hearts all was turmoil and confusion. They would have been no more surprised had Fifi brought in a many-headed monster out of the Atlantic.
“Won’t you—won’t you sit down, Mr. Hopkins?” said Aunt Cal nervously.
Mr. Hopkins looked at her blankly for a moment, and then made a loud clicking sound in the back of his mouth. He took a step toward a chair and sank down on its gilt frailty as though he meant to annihilate it immediately. Aunt Cal and Aunt Josephine collapsed rather weakly on the sofa.
“Mr. Hopkins and I struck up an acquaintance on the beach,” explained Fifi. “He’s been spending the summer down here for his health.”
Mr. Hopkins fixed his eyes glassily on the two aunts.
“I come down for my health,” he said.
Aunt Cal made some small sound; but recovering herself quickly, joined Aunt Jo in nodding eagerly at the visitor, as if they deeply sympathized.
“Yeah,” he repeated cheerfully.
“He thought the sea air would make him well and strong again,” said Fifi eagerly. “That’s why he came down here. Isn’t that it, Mr. Hopkins?”
“You said it, sister,” agreed Mr. Hopkins, nodding.
“So you see, Aunt Cal,” smiled Fifi, “you and Aunt Jo aren’t the only two people who believe in the medicinal quality of this location.”
“No,” agreed Aunt Cal faintly. “There are—there are three of us now.”
Dinner was announced.
“Would you—would you”—Aunt Cal braced herself and looked Mr. Hopkins in the eye—“would you like to wash your hands before dinner?”
“Don’t mention it.” Mr. Hopkins waved his fingers at her carelessly.
They went in to dinner, and after some furtive backing and bumping due to the two aunts trying to keep as far as possible from Mr. Hopkins, sat down at table.
“Mr. Hopkins lives in the woods,” said Fifi. “He has a little house all by himself, where he cooks his own meals and does his own washing week in and week out.”
“How fascinating!” said Aunt Jo, looking searchingly at their guest for some signs of the scholarly recluse. “Have you been living near here for some time?”
“Not so long,” he answered with a leer. “But I’m stuck on it, see? I’ll maybe stay here till I rot.”
“Are you—do you live far away?” Aunt Cal was wondering what price she could get for the house at a forced sale, and how she and her sister could ever bear to move.
“Just a mile down the line… This is a pretty gal you got here,” he added, indicating their niece with his spoon.
“Why—yes.” The two ladies glanced uneasily at Fifi.
“Some day I’m going to pick her up and run away with her,” he added pleasantly.
Aunt Cal, with a heroic effort, switched the subject away from their niece. They discussed Mr. Hopkins’ shack in the woods. Mr. Hopkins liked it well enough, he confessed, except for the presence of minute animal life, a small fault in an otherwise excellent habitat.
After dinner Fifi and Mr. Hopkins went out to the porch, while her aunts sat side by side on the sofa turning over the pages of magazines and from time to time glancing at each other with stricken eyes. That a savage had a few minutes since been sitting at their dinner table, that he was now alone with their niece on the dark veranda—no such terrible adventure had ever been allotted to their prim, quiet lives before.
Aunt Cal determined that at nine, whatever the consequences, she would call Fifi inside; but she was saved this necessity, for after half an hour the young lady strolled in calmly and announced that Mr. Hopkins had gone home. They looked at her, speechless.
“Fifi!” groaned Aunt Cal. “My poor child! Sorrow and loneliness have driven you insane!”
“We understand, my dear,” said Aunt Jo, touching her handkerchief to her eyes. “It’s our fault for letting you stay. A few weeks in one of those rest-cure places, or perhaps even a good cabaret, will——”
“What do you mean?” Fifi looked from one to the other in surprise. “Do you mean you object to my bringing Mr. Hopkins here?”
Aunt Cal flushed a dull red and her lips shut tight together.
“‘Object’ is not the word. You find some horrible, brutal roustabout along the beach——”
She broke off and gave a little cry. The door had swung open suddenly and a hairy face was peering into the room.
“I left my stick.”
Mr. Hopkins discovered the unpleasant weapon leaning in the corner and withdrew as unceremoniously as he had come, banging the door shut behind him. Fifi’s aunt sat motionless until his footsteps left the porch. Then Aunt Cal went swiftly to the door and pulled down the latch.
“I don’t suppose he’ll try to rob us tonight,” she said grimly, “because he must know we’ll be prepared. But I’ll warn Percy to go around the yard several times during the night.”
“Rob you!” cried Fifi incredulously.
“Don’t excite yourself, Fifi,” commanded Aunt Cal. “Just rest quietly in that chair while I call up your mother.”
“I don’t want you to call up my mother.”
“Sit calmly and close your eyes and try to—try to count sheep jumping over a fence.”
“Am I never to see another man unless he has a cutaway coat on?” exclaimed Fifi with flashing eyes. “Is this the Dark Ages, or the century of—of illumination? Mr. Hopkins is one of the most attractive eggs I’ve ever met in my life.”
“Mr. Hopkins is a savage!” said Aunt Cal succinctly.
“Mr. Hopkins is a very attractive egg.”
“A very attractive what?”
“A very attractive egg.”
“Mr. Hopkins is a—a—an unspeakable egg,” proclaimed Aunt Cal, adopting Fifi’s locution.
“Just because he’s natural,” cried Fifi impatiently. “All right, I don’t care; he’s good enough for me.”
The situation, it seemed, was even worse than they thought. This was no temporary aberration; evidently Fifi, in the reaction from her recent fiance, was interested in this outrageous man. She had met him several days ago, she confessed, and she intended to see him tomorrow. They had a date to go walking.
The worst of it was that after Fifi had gone scornfully to bed, Aunt Cal called up her mother—and found that her mother was not at home; her mother had gone to White Sulphur Springs and wouldn’t be home for a week. It left the situation definitely in the hands of Aunt Cal and Aunt Jo, and the situation came to a head the next afternoon at tea time, when Percy rushed in upon them excitedly through the kitchen door.
“Miss Marsden,” he exclaimed in a shocked, offended voice, “I want to give up my position!”
“Why, Percy!”
“I can’t help it. I lived here on the Point for more’n forty-five years, and I never seen such a sight as I seen just now.”
“What’s the matter?” cried the two ladies, springing up in wild alarm.
“Go to the window and look for yourself. Miss Fifi is kissing a tramp in broad daylight, down on the beach!”
III
Five minutes later two maiden ladies were making their way across the sand toward a couple who stood close together on the shore, sharply outlined against the bright afternoon sky. As they came closer Fifi and Mr. Hopkins, absorbed in the contemplation of each other, perceived them and drew lingeringly apart. Aunt Cal began to speak when they were still thirty yards away.
“Go into the house, Fifi!” she cried.
Fifi looked at Mr. Hopkins, who touched her hand reassuringly and nodded. As if under the influence of a charm, Fifi turned away from him, and with her head lowered walked with slender grace toward the house.
“Now, my man,” said Aunt Cal, folding her arms, “what are your intentions?”
Mr. Hopkins returned her glare rudely. Then he gave a low hoarse laugh.
“What’s that to you?” he demanded.
“It’s everything to us. Miss Marsden is our niece, and your attentions are unwelcome—not to say obnoxious.”
Mr. Hopkins turned half away.
“Aw, go on and blab your mouth out!” he advised her.
Aunt Cal tried a new approach.
“What if I were to tell you that Miss Marsden were mentally deranged?”
“What’s that?”
“She’s—she’s a little crazy.”
He smiled contemptuously.
“What’s the idea? Crazy ’cause she likes me?”
“That merely indicates it,” answered Aunt Cal bravely. “She’s had an unfortunate love affair and it’s affected her mind. Look here!” She opened the purse that swung at her waist. “If I give you fifty—a hundred dollars right now in cash, will you promise to move yourself ten miles up the beach?”
“Ah-h-h-h!” he exclaimed, so venomously that the two ladies swayed together.
“Two hundred!” cried Aunt Cal, with a catch in her voice.
He shook his finger at them.
“You can’t buy me!” he growled. “I’m as good as anybody. There’s chauffeurs and such that marry millionaires’ daughters every day in the week. This is Umerica, a free country, see?”
“You won’t give her up?” Aunt Cal swallowed hard on the words. “You won’t stop bothering her and go away?”
He bent over suddenly and scooped up a large double handful of sand, which he threw in a high parabola so that it scattered down upon the horrified ladies, enveloping them for a moment in a thick mist. Then laughing once again in his hoarse, boorish way, he turned and set off at a loping run along the sand.
In a daze the two women brushed the casual sand from their shoulders and walked stiffly toward the house.
“I’m younger than you are,” said Aunt Jo firmly when they reached the living room. “I want a chance now to
