CAME the last day. End of the summer, of summer's warmth. End of languid siestas on drowsy beaches, end of balmy moonlight nights, moonlight sails, moonlight picnics; end of intimate whispered half laughing, half serious intimacies _a deux_. To-morrow separation and a man's life to take up again! To-morrow the chill of autumn and the melancholy of drifting leaves. The last partings to take, promises to be solemnly exchanged--heart burnings, bottom dropped out of everything, another milestone to be registered in the scurrying flight of Time!
Mr. Skippy Bedelle and Miss Vivi Balou separated themselves from the unromantic middle-aged crowd around the tennis courts and made their way up the beach to the sheltering swirls of convenient sand dunes. They walked in silence, oppressed by the greatness of their grief, from time to time their shoulders touched in dumb understanding.
"To-morrow!" said Skippy with a gulp in his throat.
He carried a beach chair, four sofa cushions, two rugs, her work-bag, a box of chocolates and a romance they had dipped into.
"Don't!" repeated Miss Vivi, gazing out from under her pink parasol with stricken eyes at the unending sea.
He made a back of the chair, spread the rug and installed her solicitously. Then he camped down not too far away, not too near, pulled his cap over his eyes, locked his hands over his knees and stared out toward the horizon that, somehow, attracts at such moments.
A wind that was already cold played over the frosty waves and sent little scurries of sand twisting along the beach.
"That's the trouble with summer," said Skippy at last.
"Oh why must everything end?" said Vivi wildly.
"Yes. You'll write a letter or two and then heigh ho!"
"Look here, you don't mean that," said Skippy, turning on her.
Vivi's eyes dropped before his righteous indignation.
"Then don't talk that way--especially just now."
"You're going to do wonderful things at school," said Vivi, trying to be brave, "and I'm going to be so proud to think I know you."
"Do you think they'll let you come down to the Andover game?"
"I don't know about the game--but the Prom!"
They ate more chocolates, while Skippy debated how to lead the conversation into the softer strain before bestowing on the object of his affections (for value exchanged, of course) the sacred emblem of the Philomathean Debating Society and bringing forth the Lawrenceville banner which was tightly folded up in his bulging hip pocket.