s strode
out into the water and cast with a long curve of his line; cumulus
clouds, whose pure white was shaded with a delicious golden tone, were
baronial above; and out on the sky-line the steamers raced by.

Round them was the warm intimacy of the dune sands; beyond was
infinite space calling to them to be big and unafraid.

Talking, falling into silences touched with the mystery of sun and
sea, they confessed youth's excited wonder about the world; Carl
sitting cross-legged, rubbing his ankles, a springy figure in blue
flannel and a daring tie; while Ruth, in deep-rose linen, her throat
bright and bare, lay with her chin in her hands, a flush beneath the
gentle brown of her cheeks, her white-clad ankles crossed under her
skirt, slender against the gray sand, thoughtful of eye, lost in
happiness.

"Some day," Carl was musing, "your children and mine will say, 'You
certainly lived in the most marvelous age in the world.' Think of it.
They talk about the romance of the Crusades and the Romans and all
that, but think of the miracles we've seen already, and we're only
kids. Aviation and the automobile and wireless and moving pictures
and electric locomotives and electric cooking and the use of radium
and the X-ray and the linotype and the submarine and the labor
movement--the I. W. W. and syndicalism and all that--not that I know
anything about the labor movement, but I suppose it's the most
important of all. And Metchnikoff and Ehrlich. Oh yes, and a good
share of the development of the electric light and telephone and the
phonograph.... Golly! In just a few years!"

"Yes," Ruth added, "and Montessori's system of education--that's what
I think is the most important.... See that sail-boat, Hawk! Like a
lily. And the late-afternoon gold on those marshes. I think this salt
breeze blows away all the bad Ruth.... Oh! Don't forget the attempts
to cure cancer and consumption. So many big things starting right now,
while we're sitting here."

"Lord! what an age! Romance--why, there's more romance in a wireless
spark--think of it, little lonely wallowing steamer, at night, out in
the dark, slamming out a radio like forty thousand tigers
spitting--and a man getting it here on Long Island. More romance than
in all the galleons that ever sailed the purple tropics, which they
mostly ain't purple, but dirty green. Anything 's possible now. World
cools off--a'right, we'll move on to some other planet. It gets me
going. Don't ha