Anonumous: The prodigal virgin

“You are being nothing short of horrible!” said the blushing damsel. “I think we had better go back to the house.”

There was genuine amusement in his smile and some touch of incredulity, as well. “You’re almost too good to be true, Maro,” he said. “The funny part of it is, you’re real-all these cute little pruderies, I mean. You launch into philosophy to try to hide a certain confusion over finding yourself in a scant and marvelously becoming bathing suit with a member of your own household. Oh, yes, I know what started you off! And it jars you so obviously even to hear the word ‘leg’ from a man’s lips that I am tempted to follow you about for a couple of days, calling out ‘Leg, leg’ at intervals and watching you blush.”

“I-well, I suppose I do appear prudish,” confessed his newly acquired relative. “I’m beginning to realize that from the way Mildred laughs at me and her friends smile. I guess I’ve drifted behind the times at Grandmother’s house, practically alone with her for the past seven years, ever since our parents died. Mildred was with Uncle Frank and Aunt Josephine, you know, and she had no prim governess bringing her up as I had. I don’t like to feel that I’m different from the rest of you in this lovely little colony on the lake. I’d rather be laughed at gently though, the way Mildred and the other girls do, than to feel that I’m a sort of a wet blanket, to see people constrained when I’m around, not feeling I’m one of them,” the maiden went on, warming to a subject which had evidently preoccupied her.

“I want to be liked, you see, and I don’t want to appear critical. But some of the things said and done all about me do fluster me and I can’t help showing it, I suppose. In our nice eyrie on the cliff over the beach I knew vaguely that times and ways were changing, especially among young people. But I had no idea-why, for instance, Grandmother would certainly have fainted if she’d seen Mildred calmly letting Gerard Crandall stroll into her boudoir while the pedicure man was busy on her feet. But nobody except me seemed to think a thing of it, and you only grinned and winked at me when you saw me get uncomfortable. Yet her legs were bare-and crossed, too-and that Gerry perched on an ottoman right in front of her. And the man had such informal ways of twisting her legs-you see, I can say the awful word now-while he worked on her feet. And I knew, Stanley Cochrane-and you knew-that she had practically nothing on! She’s as nice as a girl can be, my sister, but I can’t accustom myself to such changes in what is thought proper! Grandmother would fully have expected you to take both those men by the neck, knock their heads together and push them out, especially as one couldn’t help seeing how impertinent their eyes were and how they kept trying to see more. And as for Mildred, she would have put her on bread and water, even if she is twenty-two and married!”

“Well, well, well!” ejaculated the smiling Stanley. “We’ve got the young nun to unburden her mind, haven’t we? But what are a few legs, Maro, dear, between friends? It is exactly that preoccupation with concealment, with artificial, silly conventions that made the generations of your grandmother and our parents about as nasty-minded a crew as the world ever saw. The chance view of the lace on a pair of drawers and maybe a bit of girlish skin beneath it would send a fellow into convulsions in those days. And if a male statue wore only a fig leaf the mind of the female observer was instantly at work with dire imaginings of what lay beneath!”

“Stanley, how can you be so gross!” exclaimed the flushed Marion. “Oh, I know you don’t mean to be insulting, that it’s just this new broadmindedness, I suppose you all call it. But that reminds me…”

A new grievance to be discussed with her novel father confessor took her mind from his own offence.

“They’re forever cracking horrid jokes,” she said, “all these young people, married or unmarried. Everybody laughs and then I watch them watching me to see how soon I will catch the wretched point and to see me blush when I do. And I would never see it at all most of the time if it weren’t for their reactions, which force me to see an indecent allusion after a bit. But it makes me feel as if they look on me as backward and stupid, and I’m not stupid, I’m not!” “No, you most certainly are not. You are about the cleverest of the bunch as far as mind goes,” he agreed. “Just wriggle your little toes again, Maro. I like to see them squirm that way in the sand-they’re too cute for words.”

“You’re a horrid great silly yourself!” proclaimed his pretty sister-in-law turning full upon her back and thrusting the dainty toes deeply into the soft sand for concealment. “And why should I be taking you for a confidant in these matters, I can’t think. And another thing-that Gerry Crandall snatched up one of Mildred’s bare feet when he got up to go and he kissed her toes. And she kicked at him with the other foot and, well, she certainly needed bloomers or something at that instant. Of course all this would never have happened if you hadn’t been right there, grinning and taking it as a joke, for she’s devoted to you. You know that very well.”

“You sweet babe!” whispered her companion so low as to make it apparent that he hardly knew he was audible in his exclamation.

The gray and admirable eyes turned swiftly upon him in surprise while the dusky gold of her head lay still. It was clear that Marion had intended an admonition against an exclamation worded too affectionately. But she started when she saw his reddened face glow amid its tan, the brown eyes glow even more noticeably, and the fine lips and the strong fingers none too steady.

“What-what-!” she stammered, stricken into immobility by his visible and inexplicable agitation.

Stanley drew a long breath and passed the back of a sun-bronzed hand over his eyes. “It’s your position, little Miss Innocence,” he remarked. “Your position and the fact that Mildred hardly realized, no doubt, how your lovely body would strain the light mesh of that bathing garment.”

The girl did not comprehend even yet, though she was trembling and flushing under his eyes.

She had raised her round knees and parted them in order to bury her small white feet in the sand when he had too openly admired the toes. Her lithe, well-fleshed, and adorably formed body was encased as in a second skin by the taut garment, whose scantiness was emphasized by the position she had thoughtlessly assumed.

Stricken mute, bewildered by his sudden excitement, she would have lowered her knees and rolled upon her face. But he stayed her with a gentle hand and voice, taking himself under control.

“Lie just as you are, Maro,” he said, “while I itemize for you your offences against the tranquility of a hitherto pure mind, while I show you that you are just a darling white serpent in this Eden, preaching Victorianism but a living, breathing, lovely temptation yourself.”

“Do, please, Stanley, not be that way!” quavered the uncomprehending Marion-beginning, nevertheless, to understand and to blush furiously. “I should never have worn this thing, I realize now. I did tell Mildred so but she said I was a nincompoop and that I mustn’t be so ridiculously modest, especially when I was going to bathe with my brother-in-law.”

“Mildred shall have a case of champagne and five pounds of chocolates,” observed the lady’s husband. “And if she were here this minute she should have something which she would prize much more than those gifts. No, don’t you stir until I have enumerated your faults and my grievances.

“Item: I can see the lower curves of two white and very tempting girlish buttocks emerging from the tense silk of that suit as you lie that way. No-don’t you dare move until I am through I swear to God!