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Page 49
CHAPTER XIV
IN SOMEBODY'S BOAT
The moon came silver in the valley and mingled with shadow among the
trees. Owl's-light was nowhere, Kenny said, and the pines stood like
shaggy druids in the silver dusk. The twilight of the moon he called
it. Restless and poetic he begged Joan to help him find the lake down
yonder in the valley. It was gleaming, to his fancy, with fairies'
fire.
They found the lake and somebody's boat. Both were in a lonely glen.
Kenny unwillingly conceded the existence of somebody with a claim upon
the boat stronger than his own.
"But," he went on with an air of inspiration, "somebody is in the world
or he wouldn't be somebody; and the world's my friend. Therefore by
moon-mad deduction somebody's my friend and I may take his boat."
He released the painter, smiling up into Joan's face.
"Beside," he added, "he's either a young dub who doesn't know the moon
is shining or an old cynic who doesn't care."
"Kenny!" said Joan, somewhat shocked by his inconsequent habits of
acquirement. "I'm quite sure we shouldn't."
"Everything in the world you want to do," reminded Kenny, "you
shouldn't. And everything in the world you shouldn't, you want to do!"
He flung his cigarette at a frog.
"The only thing to smoke on such a lake," he said, "is a fairy's pipe.
Come, jewel machree, happiness is the aim of life. And my happiness
for the moment, is to glide forth upon the bosom of that lake with you.
Look, you can even see the gleam of silver shoes where the fairies
dance upon the ripples."
He was indeed moon-mad in mood and irresistible. Joan smiled
compassionately at the pleading of his eyes.
"But, Kenny," she said, holding back, "the aim of life isn't just
happiness. That might be very dreadful. It's just happiness with the
least unhappiness to others."
He stared at her a little startled. It was the sort of thing, he felt
rebelliously, that he should write down in his notebook. Well, it was
no night for notebooks. It was a night, a lake, a boat for lovers.
"Even granting that, girleen," he said, "it's not going to make
somebody unhappy if we take his boat. For he won't know it. And
therefore it will make us happy with the least possible unhappiness to
anybody else. And, after all, it's more likely to be a fairy's boat,
for it's made of quicksilver. Come, mavourneen, come!"
She climbed in unconvinced.
"Lordy! Lordy!" breathed Kenny in delight. "The lake is thatched with
moonbeams!" And he thought of course of the legend of Killarney.
"'Twas a valley like this, Joan," he said, "all rich with fields and
pastures of green and there in the heart of it always was the fairy
fountain covered with a stone to keep the water from rushin' out. And
then came the knight."
His eyes pleaded. He was staging his legend and begging her to act.
"And then," said Joan smiling, "came the knight. I think his eyes were
Irish."
"He saw a maid at the fountain," said Kenny, his eyes tender, "a maid
with a pitcher and her skin was cream and her cheeks were rose and
there were shadows of gold in her bronzy, nut-brown hair. I'm sure she
wore a quaint old gown of blue and silver."
"Kenny!"
"And he liked her," said Kenny stubbornly. "You can't deny him that."
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