"HELLO, KITTY!"
"Where's Mrs. Simmons? Where's my bride?" demanded old Peter Simmons almost before he crossed the threshold, and then he saw her on the stairs. "Hello, Kitty!" He met her at the foot of the stairs with outstretched hands. "You don't look a day older than you did fifty years ago. And you don't act half as old. Aren't you ashamed of the way you've been running about the country?" He gave her a little shake before he kissed her.
"You need stronger glasses, Peter, dear, if you think I don't look older than I did when we were married. Goodness knows I don't feel as old! I should say I didn't! Then I was eighteen on the outside and felt at least seventy on the inside, and now I'm sixty-eight on the outside, and I don't feel more than eighteen on the inside. But I look sixty-eight. Yes, Peter, I do, and you look seventy-one. Perhaps a person can cheat old Time on the inside, but he can't do it on the outside. There are tattle tales here—and here." And her finger touched the wrinkles which separated old Peter Simmons' two grizzled eyebrows and the lines which ran from the corners of his nose to the corners of his mouth. "You didn't have those when you married me, Peter Simmons!"
Old Peter Simmons laughed as if it were a huge joke to have wrinkles on his golden wedding day. "I've a lot now that I didn't have when I marriedyou, old lady. Well, we've had fifty pretty fair years together, haven't we?" He looked down at her fondly. "Want fifty more?"
Granny never hesitated the fraction of a second. "Mercy, no!" she declared quickly. "That would be far too much of a good thing, a regular gilding of a beautiful lily. Just a few more years, Peter, dear, and we'll be through. We've earned our rest."
"Rest!" roared old Peter. "What does a flighty young thing like you want of a rest? I heard of your scandalous doings, Mrs. Simmons, running off in the middle of the night, being locked up by the government. I came very near letting you celebrate your golden wedding by yourself." He pinched her cheek. "But Dick Cabot told me a man couldn't do that." He roared again as he remembered the worried face Richard had worn when he told him that he must, he simply must, be on time for his own golden wedding; he couldn't leave Granny to go through that alone. "So I came back."
"You didn't come empty handed?" demanded Granny quickly. "Don't tell me you came empty handed, Peter Simmons?"
"No, I didn't do that. I didn't dare. I was afraid you would run away again, and I need you in this big old house. The only way to keep somewives is to give 'em trinkets." He bent to kiss Granny again before he put his hand in his pocket. "I hadn't any idea what you wanted." His eyes twinkled. "You wouldn't tell me——"
Granny watched him eagerly, anxiously. "I did tell you," she interrupted. "We've talked it over together a hundred times since our silver wedding. You know we have. You didn't forget, Peter?" Her voice told him that she could forgive almost anything but his failure to remember what they had planned first on their silver wedding day.
"Twenty-five years is a long time for a man to remember a little thing like a golden wedding present," went on old Peter Simmons in a teasing voice, and he winked at Rebecca Mary over his wife's head. "I haven't lost it, have I?" He was feeling in all of his pockets. "I was sure—Dick saw that I had—— No, here it is!" And from one of the many pockets he took a long envelop.
Granny gave a little scream which made the decorators draw closer. They were all interested in Granny's golden wedding present for Granny had made the gift seem so important.
"And here's mine," she said, and she took a long envelop from the pocket of her skirt. It was tied with yellow ribbon while old Peter Simmons' longenvelop had a practical rubber band around it. Granny fairly thrust her envelop into her husband's hands and snatched his from him in a way which was quite inexcusable in any one, in even a bride of fifty years. "Peter, you never——you did! If this isn't the greatest! You old darling!" And she laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks.
Old Peter looked at what was in his envelop, and he laughed, too, until the tears stood in his eyes. "You didn't trust me, old lady!" He shook his head at Granny. "You thought I had forgotten!"
"I did!" Granny frankly admitted her thought. "You just the same as told me you had forgotten when you kept asking that foolish question—'What do you want?' I didn't trust you, and I made up my mind that I shouldn't be disappointed even if I had to carry out alone the plan we made together so I went down to Judge Graham yesterday and had him fix things up. I was so afraid that you'd give me a diamond necklace or a string of pearls." She sighed happily because he hadn't given her either diamonds or pearls.
He stopped in the middle of another laugh, and looked at her with a funny expression as if he wasn't sure, not at all sure. "H-m," was all he said.
"H-m," replied Granny. "Why did you pester me so if you remembered?"
Old Peter finished his interrupted laugh and had another one before he pulled her gray hair as he undoubtedly had pulled her brown hair in the days when she was eighteen on the outside and felt seventy on the inside. "Because I like to tease you, old lady. You go up in the air quicker than any one I ever knew, and I like to see you rise. It's meat and drink to me. You always come down gracefully. I must say that for you," he added admiringly.
"Not this time," she told him honestly. "I didn't land gracefully this time, Peter. You got the better of me all around. But whoever would have imagined that when I ran away from you I should run right into you?"
"It was Fate," old Peter told her emphatically. "And it means that you can't get away from me, no matter where you run."
Granny kissed his brown wrinkled cheek. "Yes," she said soberly. "I guess that's what it means. And I'm glad of it!" she went on firmly, "I could go farther and fare worse even if you are the biggest tease on earth, Peter Simmons!"
Young Mrs. Simmons and Judy Bingham and Sallie Cabot could bear the suspense no longer.They had heard so much about the golden wedding present which Granny wished to receive that they just had to see it.
"What did father give you, Mother Simmons?" Young Mrs. Simmons was an impatient spokeswoman. "What did she give you, Father Simmons?"
"Yes, what did you give her?" Sallie Cabot drew Rebecca Mary into the ring around Granny and old Peter Simmons.
Joan did not wait to be drawn, she ran in herself for she, too, was eager to see what Granny had wanted so much that she had run away from old Mr. Simmons so that he would be sure to give it to her. It was a funny way to obtain a present. Joan did not understand the method. Perhaps she would if she could see the gift.
Granny was laughing so that she could scarcely tell them what it was. So was old Peter Simmons.
"You see, dears," began Granny, breaking a laugh in two and wiping the tears from her eyes, "we felt older twenty-five years ago than we do now, didn't we, Peter? And we wanted to do something for the world that had been so good to us. We had had twenty-five as perfect years as a man and woman could have together, and we wanted to show that we appreciated them. Peter thought of a trade school,and I thought of a children's home because women naturally think of children, you know, and then we had an inspiration. I don't remember which thought of it first, do you, Peter?"
"I expect you did," old Peter suggested handsomely.
"Well, perhaps I did, but it doesn't matter, for when two people live together for twenty-five years they grow to think the same things. Yes, they do, Rebecca Mary, as you'll see some day. I often catch myself thinking of contracts. But this time we thought of a home for old couples. We were so sorry for the old couples who couldn't grow older together that we decided that we'd give them a home when we had been married fifty years and were an old couple ourselves. A home for friendless old couples. We shouldn't wait until we were dead and some one would look after it for us. We'd do it ourselves and get to know some of the old couples. That was why we bought Seven Pines, wasn't it, Peter? And that was why I wanted to take you to Seven Pines, Rebecca Mary. I wanted to go there to stay for a few days before my golden wedding. We've talked and planned a lot about it, and I was a silly old fool to let Peter tease me with his question. I should have known you, Peter, but perhapsit was because it meant so much to me that I was frightened to death for fear you had forgotten or changed your mind. But you hadn't for—— See!" She held up the envelop old Peter had given her, and her face was radiant as she told them what was in it. "Here is the deed all ready for me to sign for the Katherine Simmons Home for Old Couples."
"And here," old Peter Simmons held up the envelop which had been given to him, "here is the deed for the Peter Simmons Home for Old Couples all ready for me to sign. We'll have to compromise on the name, Kitty, and merge it into the Simmons Home."
"Is that all the present is?" Joan had never been more disappointed in her life. She could not join in the chorus of admiring approval. But she could understand why Granny cried. She would want to cry if old Peter Simmons gave her an old home for old people. There was only one thing which would make it right to Joan, and she pulled Granny's sleeve. "Will you give the old couples young hearts, Granny?" she whispered eagerly.
"We'll try," Granny whispered back. "That's exactly what we are going to try to do, Joan, to make tired old hearts younger. The world would be so much happier if there were not so many oldhearts in it. You keep yours young, Joan, as long as you live," she advised quite confidentially. "Bless my soul!" she exclaimed as she heard a machine puff up the driveway. "Is that young Peter with our jailor? I've been so taken up with our golden wedding presents, Peter, dear, that I never asked how your experiment worked. Was it a success?"
"It was a big success." Old Peter Simmons looked as if he was more than satisfied with the way the great experiment had worked. "We've given it every sort of try out and it can't go wrong. If we hadn't made sure of that I couldn't have come to your golden wedding, Kitty. I should have had to send my regrets." He winked at Rebecca Mary and tickled Joan under her chin. "Some day, Miss Wyman," he told her more soberly, "you will be proud to remember that you were a prisoner at Riverside when Befort's big idea was worked out."
"What will it do?" Joan wanted to know at once. "What can you do with my father's idea, Mr. Simmons?"
Mr. Simmons tickled her under her chin again. "That would be telling," he whispered with a great show of secrecy. "And then you wouldn't be curious any longer. There is only one way to keep people interested and that is to keep them guessing," hewent on with a twinkle. "If you knew what to-morrow was going to bring you wouldn't care whether you had a to-morrow or not. You'd never want to go to bed to-night."
"I'm not going to bed to-night, anyway not until the old people do. Granny said I needn't, that I could stay up until the last minute of the golden wedding!" Joan drew herself up with proud importance. "But I'll tell my father what you said about the way to keep people interested, and I'll tell Miss Wyman, too," as if she thought old Peter Simmons wanted his recipe circulated as rapidly as possible.
Old Peter Simmons chuckled. "You may tell your father if you want to, but I rather think that Miss Wyman knows. The knowledge is born in some girls. That's what makes them such a puzzle to us men. How about it, Miss Wyman?" he said teasingly to Rebecca Mary. "You don't need to be told, do you?"
Granny's golden wedding celebration was a very informal affair although many important people came to offer their congratulations and to ask Granny where on earth she had been and to tell her how much she had been missed. Although she had been married at noon Granny had chosen to have her party in the evening, and July the twenty-second offered her a wonderful evening, cool and pleasant as a July evening can be occasionally.
Old Peter Simmons was continually leaving his place beside Granny to draw Rebecca Mary into a corner and ask her if she thought that Granny really was satisfied to have a home for old couples for her golden wedding present or if Rebecca Mary thought Granny would rather have had something more personal.
"I always have given her something personal," he explained, "ever since the Christmas when she gave me a carpet sweeper. For years before that I'd showered her with rugs and library tables and a brass bed and other household furniture. She saidthen she guessed the house was mine as much as it was hers and it was only fair for me to take my share of the stuff. And she was right. But that made me suspicious ever after. And now—of course, she planned this aged home herself, but women do change and you heard what she said. Do you think she would rather have had a string of pearls?" Granny had given old Peter Simmons something to think of when she had said she was so afraid that he was going to give her pearls or diamonds for a golden wedding present.
"What is that about pearls?" And there was Granny herself. She had followed them to ask old Peter Simmons why he couldn't stand beside her and say thank you when people told him how lucky he had been to have had her to live with for fifty years instead of rushing off into corners with Rebecca Mary. "Indeed, I do want that Simmons Home for Old Couples," she declared when old Peter Simmons had stammered "Why." "I should have been broken-hearted if you had brought me anything but that deed. Pearls!" she sniffed scornfully. "What would I do with a string of pearls? I should only put it away for young Peter's wife."
"But young Peter hasn't any wife!" objected Joan, who, of course, was at Rebecca Mary's elbow.
"He will have some day," laughed young Peter, who had been drawn to the little group in the corner. "Won't he, Rebecca Mary?"
Rebecca Mary was furious because she colored when Peter asked her if he wouldn't have a wife some day, and she was more furious when she stammered in her answer. Why should she always be so horribly self-conscious? If she had known how charming she was as she colored and stammered she wouldn't have been so angry.
"Most men have," was all she said.
"Not all men," insisted Joan. "There's my father. He hasn't any wife."
"He has had one, and one is enough for any man," Peter told her.
"I don't think it's enough for my father. He always wants two of everything, roast beef and ice cream and handkerchiefs and pencils and—and everything," she declared, and Peter pulled her hair and asked her how she dared to compare a wife to roast beef before he went away to dance with Doris.
Rebecca Mary looked across the room at the man who wanted two of everything. He was standing by the window, and he wore the absent-minded detached expression which Rebecca Mary and Granny had seen him wear at Riverside. Only a part of FrederickBefort was at that moment at Granny's golden wedding party. But as Rebecca Mary looked at him he raised his head and their eyes met. Rebecca Mary blushed again. Oh, dear, wouldn't she ever overcome that silly conscious habit? But she just had to blush as she remembered that she had thought he was a spy. The absent-minded expression slipped from Frederick Befort's face as all of him came to the party, and he started toward Rebecca Mary. She turned away quickly. She couldn't speak to him. She was glad to have Sallie Cabot stop beside her, although Sallie Cabot's words were far from quieting.
"What have you done to my Cousin Richard?" Sallie demanded with a laugh. "I used to say he was like a piano, grand, upright and square, but lately he has quite a ukelele look. What have you done to him?"
Rebecca Mary blushed a third time as she involuntarily looked at Richard as he stood talking to two most important men. She couldn't detect any ukelele look, she thought indignantly. He looked as he had always looked, perfectly splendid, to her. What did Mrs. Cabot mean? But Mrs. Cabot drifted away, she did not wait to explain, and Rebecca Mary was left alone with her question.
She felt rather forlorn and neglected for it was a long time since she had been left alone. There had been a young man to ask her to do this and another young man to ask her to do that. But now young Peter was dancing with Doris and Wallie was talking to Martha Farnsworth and George was in a corner with Helen Lester. So they had been devoted to her at Riverside just because she was the only girl there. She had known that all the time, she told herself, but it did hurt a bit to have it proved so conclusively. But there was one thing she did have, she thought stoutly, and that was the memory of the good time she had had at Riverside. That couldn't be taken from her—ever! And as if the memory of a good time had soothed the little feeling of neglect which had hurt her she slipped out of her corner and made herself very pleasant to the people she found neglected in other corners. Many eyes followed Rebecca Mary as she moved here and there, for she wore a new crisp organdie frock with pink ribbons exactly where pink ribbons should be and tiny blue forget-me-nots tied in with the pink rosebuds. It was a very charming frock and Rebecca Mary was very charming in it. Young Peter told her so as soon as his dance with Doris was finished.
"Rebecca Mary," he said sternly, "I hope you are as good as you are good looking."
Rebecca Mary laughed and then she sighed. "I'm not," she said with a little quiver of her lower lip. "At least, I'm not good, Peter. I'm envious and jealous and all sorts of horrid things."
"Glad of it." Peter did not seem at all shocked to hear how horrid she was behind her good looks. "If you weren't a few of those things you wouldn't be down here with me. You would be up in the blue sky tuning your harp. I like a girl, especially a pretty girl, to be human."
"I guess I'm awfully human." And Rebecca Mary sighed again.
"Who is calling you names?" And Wallie and George stopped to ask her what she had meant by running away from Riverside and leaving them without a girl to play with. They never could tell her how they had missed her—every hour.
"Pooh," laughed Rebecca Mary. "You were too busy with your great experiment to miss me for a minute."
They pretended to be cut to the quick by her doubt of their veracity, and Rebecca Mary was once again the center of a merry chattering group. It was such fun to laugh and joke with them again.She hoped they had missed her. And then she caught her breath with a frightened little gasp for Frederick Befort was coming toward her again, and this time he did not look as if he could be evaded.
"May I speak to you?" he asked Rebecca Mary with a serious directness which made Peter and Wallie and George murmur a few words and drift away, although Rebecca Mary did try to clutch Peter's sleeve.
Rebecca Mary did not wish to be alone with Frederick Befort for a minute. She was so afraid that he knew that she had locked him in Major Martingale's office at Riverside, that she had taken him for a spy. She had avoided him all day, and she would have avoided him now if it had been possible. She was very uncomfortable as she went with him to the porch and dropped down among the pillows of the swinging seat. Her heart was beating so loud that she was sure he would hear it.
Frederick Befort stood in front of her and looked down at her. He did not say a word. Rebecca Mary shivered among the cushions and tried to say something.
"It is a lovely golden wedding, isn't it?" she said, and she could have slapped herself when she heard her voice shake.
Frederick Befort drew himself up, clicking his heels together in the way which had roused Rebecca Mary's suspicions, and looked straight into her eyes.
"Miss Wyman," he said very formally, "I beg that you will honor me by becoming my wife?"
"Wh-a-t?" Rebecca Mary slipped from among the cushions and stood staring at him with wide-open-startled eyes. She had expected him to berate her for taking him for a spy and he had asked her to marry him. She had never been more astonished in her life. She dropped weakly back among the cushions.
"You touched my heart at once by your kindness to my little Joan," Frederick Befort went on swiftly, and his voice was like a caress as he took her hand and raised it to his lips. "Whenever I think of Mrs. Muldoon I am in such a rage that it is well that she is not near me. What would have happened to my little girl if it had not been for your heavenly sweetness and generosity!" He shivered as he thought of what might have happened to Joan.
Rebecca Mary shivered, too. "Oh," she gasped faintly. She couldn't say another word. She could only stare at him with big unbelieving eyes.
"And always you were kind to every one," Frederick Befort went on in that soft low voice whichwas so like a caress. "Kindness means much to me now. I have seen so much—unkindness. To-morrow I go to Washington with Mr. Simmons and Major Martingale to make a report on our work at Riverside, and then I must go home. I did not think I ever would go back. I thought I was through with empires and kings. I wanted to live where a man could be himself and not just one of a pattern. But I have a duty over there, I must go back. May I come for you first, and will you go with me and Joan to my poor changed Luxembourg? Will you?" His grave eyes searched her face.
Rebecca Mary kept her eyes on the fingers which fumbled so nervously with an end of pink ribbon. It couldn't be true that this man, who had once been to her like the prince in the fairy tale, really had asked her to marry him. She must be dreaming. Countess Ernach de Befort! That didn't sound a bit like Rebecca Mary Wyman. She couldn't make it sound like Rebecca Mary Wyman. And then she remembered that he never once had said a word which is usually mentioned in a proposal of marriage. With a relief so great that it almost choked her, Rebecca Mary understood that Frederick Befort had asked her to marry him because she had been, as he had said, heavenly kind to Joan, and not because heloved her so that he could not live without her. Rebecca Mary believed firmly that love is the only reason for marriage. And she did not love Count Ernach de Befort. There had been a time when he had fascinated her, when she had dreamed that perhaps he might some day ask her to marry him, but that time was past, and anyway fascination was not love. She tried to think how she could tell him that it wasn't without hurting his—his pride, for she felt that she had done him an almost irreparable injury in questioning his honor. Oh, she never could be grateful enough to Richard Cabot if he hadn't told Frederick Befort that she had questioned his honor. Perhaps it was the thought of Richard which gave her courage to raise her eyes to the grave face above her.
"I'm—I'm so sorry," she stammered, and she put her little hand on his sleeve. "But you don't really want me. It's just for Joan. You don't care for me and—I don't care for you. You know you don't really care?"
Frederick Befort drew his heels together again and bowed ceremoniously over the small white hand he had taken from his sleeve. "I, too, am sorry," and his voice sounded sorry, so sorry that just for a second Rebecca Mary thought she might have beenmistaken. "But if I cannot have your love I hope always to have your friendship?"
"You shall!" she promised quickly, glad that she could give him something that he wanted. "You shall always have my friendship—you and Joan."
He raised her hand to his lips again and went away, taking with him the only chance Rebecca Mary ever would have to be a countess.
Richard passed him as he came looking for Rebecca Mary, and he stopped to regard him with suspicion. "What did he want? Did he ask you to marry him, Rebecca Mary?" he demanded so anxiously that Rebecca Mary could not resent the question.
"He was just telling me how grateful he was for what I did for Joan." Rebecca Mary quite truthfully translated what Frederick Befort had said to her, and which she had been clever enough to understand. "I couldn't marry him," she went on quickly. "We belong to different countries and—and everything. Once I thought I should like to," she confessed with an adorable blush. "It would have been so romantic to be a countess. He has taught me a lot about—about Luxembourg and things, but he doesn't want me to marry him. He is just grateful for what I did for Joan, you know."
"I LOVE YOU, REBECCA MARY"
The jealousy died out of Richard's face and in its place was an eager expectation. "Well, I love you, Rebecca Mary," he said quickly. "I care for you a lot. Could you—do you care for me?" He took her hands and lifted her to her feet so that she stood before him.
And Rebecca Mary confessed that she did, that she cared a lot for him, she had ever since that day at the bank.
"You were always so—so good to me," she murmured as if she just had to have a reason.
"Good to you!" Richard choked as he took her in his arms and kissed her. "Good to you, sweetheart! How could a man be anything but good to you? I want to be good to you all the rest of your life!"
Through the open window they could hear Granny's voice; evidently she was giving a toast for she said—"To all those who keep their hearts young for they shall live forever!"
"That means me," Joan said shrilly. "For I have a young heart, and I'm going to keep it young forever."
"That means us, too," Richard whispered, his lips very close to Rebecca Mary's pink ear. "Our hearts are young, aren't they?"
"Yes." Rebecca Mary spoke dreamily, for she feltas if she must be in a dream world. She couldn't be wide awake and be in Richard's arms. "As long as we have love in our hearts they can't grow old."
"I'm going to live forever!" Joan danced out to tell them her news. "Granny said I should. Are you, dear Miss Wyman? Do you like the golden wedding? I'm disappointed in it," she confessed loudly. "It's just like any grown-up party. I don't see exactly why Granny wanted it so much."
"Oh, don't you, miss?" And there was Granny. "It wasn't like any grown-up party to me, not a bit! You just have one wedding, Joan, and then you'll understand why I've wanted fifty. You understand, don't you, Rebecca Mary?" She put her arm around Rebecca Mary and hugged her after her keen eyes had searched Rebecca Mary's tell-tale rosy face.
"But Miss Wyman hasn't had one wedding." Joan didn't see why Rebecca Mary should understand so much more than she could.
"No, but Miss Wyman is engaged," Granny told her as if it were a great secret.
But every one heard her, and every one was astonished. No one was more astonished than Rebecca Mary unless perhaps it was Richard.
"Rebecca Mary engaged!" Young Peter couldn'tbelieve it. "That wasn't fair, Rebecca Mary, not to tell a fellow."
"What is she engaged to?" asked Joan jealously, although she didn't understand what being engaged meant.
Granny told them that, too, before Rebecca Mary could open her mouth.
"To a four-leaf clover. Aren't you, Rebecca Mary?" And then she told them what had happened to Rebecca Mary the afternoon when she went to the Waloo for tea, that some one had thrust a four-leaf clover into Rebecca Mary's hand. Consequently by all the laws of romance Rebecca Mary was engaged to that some one.
"But who was it?" Joan expressed the curiosity which was on every face.
"I wish I knew!" Rebecca Mary had quite forgotten the mystery of the four-leaf clover in the greater mystery of Richard's love.
"Don't you know?" Richard asked in a queer sort of a voice. Was he jealous?
She shook her head. No, she didn't know. She never had known where that clover leaf had come from but it had brought her luck. Yes, it had! And she would keep it to her dying day. But she should like to know who had given it to her.
Richard laughed. "Granny," he said, "come and confess."
"Granny!" What had Granny to do with it? A gray-haired old Granny was not according to the laws of romance.
Granny realized that, and she made her explanation apologetically as if she understood that it might not be wholly satisfactory.
"You were such a dear scowling thunder cloud that afternoon that I was sorry for you. It seemed such a wicked waste of a perfectly good girl that I simply had to offer a little first aid. Richard and I talked you over"——
"Richard!" Rebecca Mary remembered very vividly how curiously Richard had regarded her over his sandwich.
"And we decided, I did at least, that you needed a little mystery in your life. You looked as if you had been fed entirely too long on stern reality. It was easy enough to diagnose your case, but we didn't know how to get the prescription to you until we were all jammed together at the door. I had the clover leaves in my corsage bouquet, old Peter Simmons had sent them to me, and I made Richard push one into your hand. He didn't want to do it. He said it was silly and impertinent." Oh, the scorn inGranny's soft voice. "But I have a very persuasive way with me at times," she added as Rebecca Mary stared at her, her mouth and eyes all wide open. "I told him if he didn't do it I should, and I'd tell you that he did it."
Rebecca Mary swung around to look at Richard. "Then you—you——" but words failed her. It was so altogether as she wanted it to be.
"Yes, I did," admitted Richard with some shame, for there are those who might think it unseemly for a bank vice-president to slip four-leaf clovers into the hands of strange scowling girls. "Granny has, as she said, a very persuasive way with her. I never before did such a thing," he explained unnecessarily. "And I shouldn't have done it then if I hadn't been so sure that she would make her threat good." His voice sounded as if even yet he could not understand how he had let Granny coerce him. "I'll never do it again," he promised with a rare twinkle in his eyes. "But I did do it that afternoon. Are you sorry?"
Rebecca Mary looked from him to Granny and then back at him again. But before she could find breath with which to tell him that she was anything but sorry Granny said slowly, as if she were still visualizing the Waloo tea room:
"You were with such a dear looking woman that afternoon."
"Yes," dimpled Rebecca Mary, all flushed and sparkling at the astonishing news she had heard. "My insurance agent. She was trying to persuade me to take out a policy," she giggled.
"And did you?" Joan always wanted to know whether one did or didn't.
"Did I!" Rebecca Mary drew a deep breath as she thought of the policy she had taken out and the long record of payments she had made on it. "I should say I did!"
"That's all very interesting," Richard broke in after she had told them a little more about her memory insurance and they had laughed and trooped away again, "but it interrupted a question that I wish to ask you. What I want to know is, are you going to marry me?" He put the question in his best vice-presidential manner, although there was a twinkle in the far corner of his eyes.
Rebecca Mary laughed and twinkled, too. The old negative phrase never came near her lips. Her cheeks were as pink as pink and her eyes were like stars as Richard's arm slipped around her shoulders and drew her closer.
"Will you marry me, sweetheart?" he asked heragain, very gently this time, not a bit like a bank vice-president.
Rebecca Mary caught her breath. She put up her hand and clutched the edge of his coat with trembling fingers as if to keep him near her until she could answer him. Her eyes crinkled and the corners of her mouth tilted up. My! but she was glad that Cousin Susan had told her what she should say.
"Y-yes," she stuttered, half laughing, half crying. "Y-yes, thank you!"