The Warrens and Mrs. Wilstead had remained in Santa Barbara a week, time enough for Alice to discover that Hepworth was in no apparent need of the consolatory offices of his old friends, that Fuschia Fleming was a most entertaining young woman, and that Hayward Preston's attentions were persistent and his intentions manifest and purposeful.
During the next month, no matter in what part of the state they were and in what hotel Alice and her friends registered, Preston was sure to turn up before the day was over; and to begin at the earliest possible moment his unending argument. Along palm-shaded boulevards, under avenues of pepper trees, in orange groves, on lonely mountain trails, in the shadow of old missions, on surf-pounded beaches, in secluded nooks of great hotels, everywhere and at all times he told his plain, unvarnished tale. He had now asked Mrs. Wilstead to marry him in every resort in California; and had not yet succeeded in winning her consent, and the day of her departure was drawing near. Within two days she would be leaving for New York. It was at Pasadena that Mr. Preston made his last desperate stand.
He and Alice were strolling about the gardens of the hotel; she had not wished to get too far away from the sheltering Warrens, and there Preston was making what he assured her was his last appeal.
She, however, preferred to view his condition of mind and heart in a psychological rather than a sentimental way.
"It is a habit, an obsession," she asseverated, tilting her rose-lined parasol toward the sun so that charming pink reflections fell upon her face. "You have lost sight of the object in the zest of pursuit. It is the game which absorbs you, believe me. The winning would disconcert you. Yes, it's the game. I am convinced that you have lost sight of the goal and all that it entails."
Mr. Preston merely looked at her. "It entails you," he replied simply.
"It entails a great deal more," her speech was as quick as his was slow. "You are, you tell me, exactly thirty-three years old. I, Alice Wilstead," she shut her lips and breathed hard a moment and then gallantly took the fence, "am just thirty-eight."
Not by even the flicker of an eyelash did he show either surprise or dismay. Alice's heart went out to him. She really adored his impassivity; it was so unlike anything she was capable of.
"What has that got to do with my loving you and your loving me?" asked Preston stolidly.
"Everything," she answered deeply, regarding with drooping eyes and wistful mouth a great, fragrant rose which she held between her fingers. "If we could but hold this moment, if neither of us would know further change, why—"
"Then you admit that you could care for me, that you do care for me," he exclaimed with brightening eyes.
"Let it remain at 'could' and 'might,'" with one of her swift smiles. "But under any circumstances, I do not wish to marry any one. Look at my admirable position, rich, free, supposedly attractive, young—a widow, you know, is always a good five or six years younger than either a married or an unmarried woman. One is regarded as a young widow until one is quite an elderly person. Now, really, why should I marry?"
"There isn't any possible reason," agreed Mr. Preston unhappily, "unless you love me, and then there is every reason. But are you not tired walking up and down, up and down these paths? Shall we not sit down on this seat a few minutes?"
She acquiesced. It was a glorious morning and the spot was enchanting with all this fragrant, almost tropical plant life blooming and blowing about them, and Alice, impelled by the softness and sweetness of the air and scene, forgot her adamantine resolutions and lifted her eyes to his in one long and too-revealing glance.
"Alice, Alice"—there were all manner of tender inflections in his usually colorless and unemotional tones—"you can not now deny—"
"Yes, I can," she cried quickly; "I can and I do. Hayward, believe me, it will never, never do. You are looking at the matter from the man's viewpoint, I, from the woman's, and, in cases of this kind, the woman's is the surer, the more safely intuitive."
"Bosh!" Preston's exclamation was calm, but pregnant.
"But consider, consider," she besought him. "Look at us, you are the robust, ruddy, phlegmatic type that will not change in twenty years, and I am exactly your opposite in every respect and that's the reason you like me and therein lies the whole tragedy. I'm nervous, mercurial, emotional, and nothing, nothing brings wrinkles so quickly as vivacity and expression."
"But you haven't any wrinkles."
"Not yet. Care, massage, a good maid and a light heart have kept them at bay. And, oh! gray hair!"
"But you haven't any gray hair," he said, with the same patient obstinacy.
"Not yet, but when they do begin to come, they come all at once. Hayward, I do not deny that I could care for you if I would let myself, but when I realize that for a woman to marry a man younger than herself makes life one long, hideous effort to keep the same age as her husband; oh, it is too frightening! Just think! No matter how much one may long for repose to have to be always up and exercising to keep one's figure; to have to hold on to one's complexion by always sleeping in stifling masks and slippery cold cream; to be always watching the roots of one's hair to see if it doesn't need retouching, and, worst of all, to have to be gay and vivacious and conceal, heaven knows, what twinges of rheumatism under a smiling face."
"You're just talking," said Preston calmly. "Keep on if it amuses you. It doesn't mean anything at all to me. Not at all." His success in life was largely due to the fact that he always kept the main object in view and never permitted himself to be diverted by side issues. "Your personal appearance ten years from now has nothing to do with the matter. We may both be dead ten years from now. There is only one question to be discussed and that is, 'Do you love me?'"
The petals fell from the red, red rose as Alice twisted it nervously in her fingers.
"I think I have given you ample proof of my liking for you," she said at last, "but thelovingis obscured in doubts."
"Forget them, for my sake," he murmured. "Can't you, won't you, Alice?"
"If I could only get away from those mental pictures," she confessed. "They stand between us like a barrier. Just think of arriving at the point where you want to doze after dinner and dream over some nice, slow, old book, with your head comfortably nodding now and then. And the fire flickering and the cat purring on the rug. Lovely, isn't it? And instead, think of realizing wearily that you've got to spend the evening at the opera or playing bridge. And that, of course, means turning yourself at an early hour into the hands of your maid for repairs and decoration. And then you've got to sit upright the whole evening because your stays, which are guaranteed to give you the lithe and willowy figure of youth, will not let you lean back. And you do not dare to smile, because you will crack the kalsomining on your face; neither may you move your head, you are so afraid that the curls and puffs and braids may not be pinned on tight. Oh, it's a dog's life!" she sighed heavily.
"And it's not for you," Preston spoke firmly. "There is nothing coltish about me." Alice laughed, it was so true. "Business is all that very deeply interests me, and amusements bore me very much. I like the after-dinner doze and the fire and cat already. You will probably have more of that kind of thing than you like, if you marry me. Alice, will you not consider?"
"Mrs. Wilstead, Mrs. Wilstead," a page's voice rang through the shrubbery and came nearer and nearer and Alice took from him a thick letter addressed to her in Isabel Hewston's hand and adorned with a special delivery stamp.
"From a dear friend," Alice exclaimed. "Will you excuse me while I look at it? There may be some matter of importance, you know."
In Preston's manner there was no hint of his annoyance. He behaved as well as a man could when interrupted in the most fervent declarations of affection which the limitations of his nature permitted him. He even suggested that he withdraw, and rose, hat in hand. Could complaisance, consideration go further? There were only two days before him, and she had never been so near yielding before.
"Oh, no, no," almost possessively, she stretched forth a hand to detain him. "You have nothing to do but wait, and I shall run through this," touching the letter, "in a moment."
Preston sat down beside her again and lighting a cigarette, smoked and looked out over the brilliant garden before him while she read.
It was evident, Alice discovered this before she had finished the first page, that Isabel Hewston was actuated by no deeper motive than pure, erratic impulse when she placed that special stamp upon the letter. At least so Alice and Preston probably would have agreed and Isabel reluctantly would have admitted it. But the Fates who sit in the background and transmit wireless messages to mortals would have smiled inscrutably and shaken their heads. If Isabel hadn't stuck that stamp on for no reason whatever, and if the page hadn't sought Alice through the breeze-caressed, rose-scented garden and given her the missive at the exact moment he did—but, as Eugene Gresham would say, "What's the use? Why conjecture?" What really occurred was this:
"Dearest Alice," wrote Mrs. Hewston, "how I envy you in that southern paradise while here the weather merely changes from sleet and snow to rain and then back again."
There was a page or two of this and of Willoughby's various ailments and symptoms, and then a long and glowing account of her visit to Perdita Hepworth, and a great deal of minute, enthusiastic description of the gowns that Dita was designing for her.
This Alice read with interest, but greater interest still did she bestow upon the statement that there appeared to be a coldness between Wallace Martin and Maud Carmine, owing, it was said, to the fact that she had ruthlessly criticized his last play, and prophesied accurately its speedy failure.
"It does seem too bad, dear," Isabel wrote next, "that you, away off in California, should have to come in for your share of the gossip which seems so sadly rife this season."
Here Alice clutched the pages and, bending over, bestowed upon them an almost breathless attention. What could Isabel mean?
"It is perfectly stupid, of course," the letter ran, "and I would not think of mentioning it to you except that we have always been frank about such things, and, anyway, you ought to know. There is a rumor about that you went to California hoping to catch Cresswell's heart in the rebound. People now believe that he and Perdita have definitely separated and that you knew this, and, as some one put it to me, so vulgarly too, dear, camped down on his trail. They say now that the incident of the actress was merely to make things easier for Perdita in gaining her freedom, but that soon after that is granted her, Willoughby says that, as those coarse men express it, you will lead Cress to the altar."
"Darn Willoughby!" Alice breathed hard as she muttered the words between her clenched teeth, the vivid scarlet of hot anger suffusing her face. Preston turned quickly to her, throwing away his cigarette, and ceasing to regard the brilliant garden through meditative, half-closed eyes. "What is it?" he asked. "Something has worried you."
"No," she smiled, with an effort, and shrugged the matter lightly off her shoulders, "some mistake about a very trifling matter. It annoyed me for a second, that is all."
For a moment or two neither spoke. Alice was watching the flight of a butterfly that soared in the air until almost out of sight and then came back to drift about a group of tall, white yuccas.
"Hayward, do you still love me as much as you did ten minutes ago?" She smiled charmingly at him, that very, very especial smile of hers, and he, with his rather slow perceptions quickened by love, read capitulation and a real affection in her softened eyes.
"Alice!" And the depth and fervor of his love will be appreciated when it is recorded that he, Hayward Preston, the most conventional of men, deliberately tilted her rose-lined parasol and in the face of the world and before the very eyes of an advancing couple, kissed her.
It was only a day or two after her arrival in New York that Fuschia Fleming, who had been rehearsing the greater part of the night, opened her sleepy eyes in the hotel chamber to find her maid bending above her with a visiting card in one hand and a perplexed expression upon her face.
"I hated to waken you, Miss Fuschia," she said, "but when I saw the name—"
"What is the name?" Fuschia's voice was drowsily indifferent.
"Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth."
"Mrs.Cresswell Hepworth!" Both indifference and sleepiness were things of the past. Miss Fleming sat up in bed with a spring. "She's in the parlor, isn't she? Here, Martha Mary, hustle about. Get me out my gold-colored kimono with the silver wistaria on it, and some yellow stockings and slippers. Tell her I regret having to keep her waiting, late at rehearsal last night. You know the proper thing. Now, go ahead and do your prettiest and then dance back here and help me get into things."
"Certainly no time wasted," reflected the actress standing before her mirror, winding her long ash blonde hair round and round her head. "I dare say it's a case of 'Gur-rl, what have you done with me husband?' There is only one reply to that. I shall draw myself up haughtily and say, 'Pardon, Madame, it was you who first carelessly mislaid him, not I.' Where the deuce are my hair-pins? She'd never come to my apartments with a cat-o'-nine-tails under her golf cape, or a bottle of acid in her shopping bag. Sure-ly not. They always choose the foyer of the theater for such stunts. Oh, Martha Mary," as that person whom Jim Fleming had once designated as a "vinegar-faced-Sue" returned to the bedchamber. "I can find nothing. Everything has crawled under the bed or the bureau. How is the lady dressed for the part? Handsome, dark garments, rich, dark furs, black veil over face, handkerchief handy?"
"The lady is wearing rose-colored cloth and chinchilla," replied Martha Mary literally.
"Rose color and chinchilla. That is a note out, positively frivolous. Oh, dear me! I am only half put together. You get more worthless every day, Martha Mary. Put on all my moonstone rings, for luck. They may save my life."
When Fuschia entered her temporary drawing-room, Perdita Hepworth was standing with her back to her, gazing from the window out upon the bleak wind-swept streets. March was departing with lion-like roars and buffets and striving bravely but vainly to obscure his ugly countenance in clouds of dust. Hearing a slight sound, she turned and saw advancing down the pleasantly warmed, flower-scented room, a young woman whom she instantly likened to a pale but radiant ray of spring sunshine.
This sunshine, yellow kimono, pale yellow hair, a cheek like the heart of a tea-rose, gold-colored silk stockings and slippers, paused between a jar of white lilacs and a basket of hyacinths. The lion-like roars without seemed suddenly all hollow pretense. Spring had come to New York and involuntarily Perdita smiled in greeting.
"Miss Fleming, please forgive this unseemly early call; but you see it is important, this matter I wish to see you about." Perdita thus opened the conversation.
"She can chew up the scenery about me husband all she wishes," said Fuschia to herself, "if she just lets me look at her. Her pictures give no idea of her. She's red roses and music and emotion. She's poetry and romance. My Lord!"
In spite of Perdita's brave attempt, conversation languished. She appeared to be weighing some matter which lay on her mind. At last she looked up with a slightly ironical smile. "You will think I have come on some affair of state, Miss Fleming, the way I am hesitating—"
Fuschia here made a violent mental protest. "Now don't you begin by telling me that I broke up your home, because I didn't. You broke it yourself."
Mrs. Hepworth made an impatient gesture as if at her own unusual lack of adequate expression.
"Do you play cards at all?" she asked, "bridge or—"
Fuschia could not suppress one stare of surprise. "Play bridge!" she murmured, wondering what that had to do with the matter. "No, I have no card sense. Strange, too, for papa has a lot."
"The reason I asked was this," in rather diffident explanation; "I was wondering if you could appreciate what it means to make an unexpected play which takes several tricks—to play trumps in such a way as to make the other players gasp with surprise, to—"
"Oh, I know what you mean," said Fuschia comprehendingly, a light dawning in her puzzled eyes. "You are talking about playing the game. Why, of course, I understand. That's all there is; that's what I'm on this dizzy old planet for."
But although a basis of mutual agreement and understanding was thus established, Dita seemed still to struggle with an unwonted embarrassment.
It was not, however, within Fuschia to prolong a situation of this kind. She bent forward, her elbows on her knees, her fingers covered with moonstone rings clasped lightly in front of her, her eyes full of a thousand twinkles and the upturned corners of her mouth curving almost to her eyes.
"Let's get down to cases, Mrs. Hepworth, man to man. Is it a go?"
Perdita drew a breath of relief and smiled back. She certainly was not one of the few, the very few, who could resist the twinkles in Fuschia's eyes.
"It's a go," she answered; "then man to man, it is this way. You have made it easy, you see, for me to say the things I wanted to, although I did not know in what feminine phrases I might have to clothe them. But you and I are, at present, very much in the public eye. Now every one is waiting to see what our attitude toward each other will be. It is assumed openly by the newspapers, as you probably know, that there is a sort of woman's war on between us. Now, Miss Fleming, I want—"
"Your husband," supplemented Fuschia mentally. "Well, I haven't got him; never did have him; don't want him."
"—to design your stage costumes and to have it so announced," concluded Perdita.
Then she saw a remarkable change come over the dainty, thistledown Miss Fleming. Her mouth became an almost straight line, the gleam in her eyes was almost uncannily shrewd. She gave Perdita's words a concentrated consideration for a few moments and then nodded two or three times, brief, quick, clean-cut little nods.
"Great!" she said succinctly. Then her mouth curled again, the twinkles, like splintered diamonds, came back to her eyes. She flew across the room and threw her arms about Perdita, enveloping her in a momentary and rose-scented embrace. Her enthusiasm was unrestrained. "The advertisement is above rubies," she cried. "No wonder you are such a success."
"Oh, that is no credit to me," replied Dita carelessly. "I have a sort of sixth sense about clothes, you know. It is my one gift. I know the moment I put eyes on any one exactly how she, it is always she, of course, ought to look. I see colors when I look at people. Women often say to me, 'Oh, I can not wear this or that color,' when it is just the one thing they should wear, it is their mental correspondence."
"And how are you going to dress me?" asked Fuschia with intense interest.
"Principally in gold and silver," Dita answered without hesitation. "You have on the right thing now. Most designers would put you in black, because you are so very fair. They would try to make you striking by force of contrast, but not I. You see very few women of your coloring could stand the dazzle of gold and silver. It would completely eclipse them; but you are mentally dazzling. Your personality is strong enough to reduce anything you wear to its proper place. One must take all those things into account in designing, you know. Now you are quicksilver, sunlight, glimmer of day on speeding waters, and we must accentuate that fact; not ignore it and slur it over."
"It sounds fascinating," said Fuschia. "How sweet of you to do this for me."
"For myself, you mean." Perdita rose. "You'll do, my dear. You're new, you're different. New York will be yours whether you can act or not."
A flame went over Fuschia's face and seemed to pass as swiftly as it had come; but instead, it remained, focused in her eyes.
"I can act," she said briefly, "and, look here, New York may accept me on the magnificent advertising I've had and will continue to have; or New York may accept me on the strength of my wonderful gowns designed by Perdita Hepworth. That's all right, that's as it should be. But I'm going to make New York forget my press notices, and your gowns and Fuschia Fleming, and I'm going to make it sit tight and still in its boxes and orchestra chairs and balcony seats and laugh and cry with the heroine on the stage who shall be the realest thing on earth to them for the time. That's the game for me, Mrs. Hepworth. That's all the game I care a hang about."
"Maudie," said Perdita to Miss Carmine, an hour or two later, "I have just secured a new commission, a big one."
"What?" asked Maud with interest.
"Hepworth and Carmine are to design the costumes that Miss Fuschia Fleming will wear in the repertoire of society dramas in which she will appear after two weeks of Shakespearean rôles. Paula Tangueray, Mrs. Dane, you know the lot of them."
"Perdita! The cheek of her. To make such a request under the circumstances."
"Maudie! The cheek ofme," mocked Dita softly.
"You!" astonishment was beyond all bounds now. "You!"
"Yes. Did you fancy—" there were those deep vibrations in Dita's voice which always bespoke some strong emotion, "that I was going to endure the spectacle of Miss Fleming triumphant 'in our midst,' and every one watching to see how I would take it, and predicting that only one course remained open for me and that was with dignity to ignore the incident? Not so. The world will see, and this, amusingly enough, happens to be a fact, that Miss Fleming and Mrs. Hepworth are excellent friends, that Mrs. Hepworth is one of Miss Fleming's warmest admirers, and that she, still speaking of myself, has assisted in Miss Fleming's unparalleled success in New York by designing for her some of the most wonderful costumes ever seen on the stage."
"Unparalleled success!" scoffed Maud. "It is rather early to predict that. New York is like a cat. You never know which way it will jump."
"It will jump Fuschia Fleming's way," replied Dita confidently. "You haven't met her."
"Is she so beautiful then? As beautiful as you?"
"Oh, no," Perdita was smoothing out her gloves on her knee. She shook her head decidedly. "Nothing like. She isn't beautiful at all. She's just a slender creature with rather colorlessblonde cendrehair and blue eyes."
"Oh," Maud was plainly puzzled. "Then what do you mean?"
But Perdita only smiled. "Have you and Wallace made up yet?" she asked with what appeared to the other woman striking irrelevance. "Impertinent, I know; but there's a reason?"
"No-o-o," said Maud reluctantly and evidently wondering if Dita had suddenly lost her mind.
"Then do so at once," advised her business associate. "Do so before he meets Fuschia Fleming."
"From what you say." Miss Carmine's chin was high and haughty. "I see no cause for alarm."
"No?" Perdita tapped the table with her finger-tips, still inscrutably smiling.
Maud rarely permitted herself to become angry, but she did so now. She had never imagined that Perdita could be so aggravating. "Just because Cresswell lost his head about her, you think—" she flashed out.
"He didn't," cried Perdita not with bravado, but with a confidence which Maud realized with surprise was genuine. "I hadn't been with her three minutes before I knew that. But take my advice," again her voice fell to that teasing note. "If you really love Wallace make up your differences with him to-day, to-day, before he, a playwright, meets the actress. Then get a new steel chain, one that he can't chew through, and fasten it securely to his collar."
Early in April Hepworth returned to New York. It was a gentle, smiling April, inclining more to laughter than to tears and striving to obliterate the memories of March. He arrived one evening and wasted no time in communicating with Perdita. The next day in fact was marked by the passage of notes between them, severely businesslike, and yet models of courtesy.
The result of these diplomatic negotiations was that Mr. Cresswell Hepworth, at a suitable hour the following morning, wended his way to his wife's business establishment.
It was a deliciously balmy morning, the rare sort of a day that slips in now and then between April showers and sets one dreaming of the glory of the spring in the silent woody places. The great, roaring canyons of brick and stone floated in a silvery, sparkling mist, and in that atmospheric alembic dreary perspectives assumed an unsubstantial and fairy-like beauty. The little leaves on the trees fluttered in the soft breeze and were so young, so green, so gay that they lifted the heart like tiny wings of joy.
In spite of himself there was the hint of a smile about the corners of Hepworth's mouth and this deepened and deepened until as he rang the bell of his wife's door, he suddenly became conscious of it, and carefully suppressed it.
The sphinx, past mistress of inscrutability of expression, would have paid him the tribute of a flicker of admiration as he entered the reception-room. It was without a suggestion of curiosity or even interest in his eyes that he glanced absently about him; perhaps the long droop of the lids at the corners, which appeared to accentuate his rather weary and listless gaze, was more marked than usual, but this was always so when he was making mental notes and registering his observations with the rapidity and accuracy of a ticker.
He awaited Perdita in her reception-room, that charming apartment, and here, in view of certain events which occurred later, it would be well to give the plan of the first floor.
This room opened from the hall and ran the length of the house with windows at the front looking out upon the street while those in the rear opened upon a strip of garden. There was another door at the lower end of the room, which, with the long room, formed an ell, and terminated the hall.
Dita kept Hepworth waiting a bare moment. Her approach was unkindly noiseless, but nevertheless he heard her, and was on his feet, his eyes meeting hers full as she appeared in the doorway. The conventional banalities of greeting were gone through with ease on his part, grace on hers.
Merciful banalities! They gave him time to consider the change in her, a change which was to him sufficiently striking almost to have trapped him into an expressed surprise, and this change was so subtle that he wondered that it should yet be so apparent. It was not a matter of outward appearance, that remained the same in effect. It was a mental change so animating and vital that Cresswell felt all former estimates of her crumble. Had she always been so, and had he never really seen her until now? Had time and absence in some way cleared his obscured vision? He felt a momentary sense of confusion, a brief mental giddiness, and then he pulled himself together. The first impression was the correct one. She had changed, and thereby had gained, gained tremendously in poise.
But there was no time now in which to analyze impressions.
"So this is the magic parlor where all the ugly women are transformed into beauties." He looked about him as if he had not thought to glance at her surroundings before. "The presence of mere man here seems rather profane, do you not think so? Ah, well, my stay is brief. You have proved, haven't you, that it is not an impossibility after all, to paint the lily and gild refined gold?"
"So few women have any taste," she said carelessly. "And oh, their houses! You should see them when I go over their hideous houses like a devouring flame and ruthlessly order out all their dreadful junk. And the most awful objects are always the most precious in their eyes. I feel so sorry for them. I have always a guilty sense of being a naughty boy robbing a bird's nest, and the poor mother birds stand around and flap their wings and hop and shriek. It's very mournful, but they needn't have me if they don't want me."
He laughed. "And Maud? Is she, too, well and happy?"
Dita lifted her hands and eyes. "That is a very tame way of describing her. Her gowns are dreams this spring, she is considered almost a beauty; people, you see, are gradually forgetting that she was ever 'that plain Maud Carmine who plays nicely,' and Wallace Martin and herself are engaged to be married." A faint, amused smile crept around her mouth at this announcement.
Hepworth looked up with sudden interest. "Indeed! Well, that might have been expected, I dare say, but will it not rather seriously interfere with the business?"
"No," she shook her head. "No, I think not, Maud has no intention of quitting. Wallace's plays are more or less problematical and Maud has invested a good deal of her money in this. It is really paying remarkably well, you know."
"Dita," his voice was low, and he could not conceal the chagrin, the touch of pain in it. "Why have you never touched a cent of your own money, since my departure? I only learned a few days ago that you had not. I can not begin to tell you how it made me feel. It not only distressed but deeply wounded me."
She twisted a little in her chair. "It—it has never been necessary," she said. "We began to make money at once. Really, Cresswell, Maud and I have prospered beyond our wildest dreams."
"But suppose you had not. Is your prosperity the only reason you have not touched it? Would you have done so under any circumstances? That is what I have been asking myself for the past week, and am now asking you."
She flushed uncertainly. "Ah," she said. "I can not answer you that. I can not tell. One never knows what one will do when the pinch comes."
He smiled faintly. "I'll not put any more embarrassing questions to you, but confine myself to perfectly safe topics. You are looking very well."
"I am well."
"And happy? But there, that is hardly a safe topic, is it?"
A sudden light came into her eyes, making them warm and softly bright. She smiled at him with a fresh, almost childlike enthusiasm. "Yes, I'm happy," she said, "happier than I've ever been in all my life. Why, Cresswell, it's been fun, fun. There's been lots of work, and lots of planning, but nevertheless, I've never enjoyed anything so much in my life. Often I go to bed at night tired out, but it's always with a comforting sense of satisfaction. It's all so varied and interesting, you know, but it isn't that that makes me happy." She clasped her hands and looked up at him with an unconscious appeal for sympathy and understanding in her eyes. "It's better than that, better than anything else. It's meant success, think of it, success. Not a horrid, little picayune one either, but a nice, big one."
He leaned forward and looked at her curiously as if he really saw her for the first time.
"Why, Dita," he exclaimed, "has it meant so much to you as that?"
"Indeed, yes." There was ardor, fervor in her answering exclamation. "I can not tell you how much. I believe I was really morbid on the subject. I believed in failure as a real atmosphere always encompassing me. I had all manner of superstitions, beliefs about it. I believed that with all my strength and youth and energy, I was yet doomed by fate to a tomb of inaction. I seemed so futile, so ineffective. With a restless, active brain I accomplished nothing. You see that was such a dreadful experience, my attempt to earn my living before I married you, and I was so ignorant and inexperienced of every condition of life in which I found myself, that it prevented me from striking out boldly, from believing in myself. So I made the fatal mistake of beginning small, and began to paint all those wretched little articles, and it wasn't mymétierat all, Cresswell, really it wasn't, so, naturally, I failed. And," as if it had suddenly occurred to her, "I have found it so interesting to dress Miss Fleming. Designing her costumes has been fascinating."
"That was a very wonderful and a very clever thing of you to do, Perdita." There was a tone in his voice she did not understand. She began to praise Fuschia and he leaned back in his chair listening. She could see the mere gleam of his eyes between his almost closed lids. She wondered if he had really heard one word she had said. In reality he was bestowing upon her such attention and study as he had never dreamed of giving her before. She felt, however, in spite of his apparent indifference, that he was so far in sympathy with her, that she was impelled in spite of herself to continue her confidences.
"Do you know, Cresswell, it's a horrible thing to be considered a beauty. Oh, you may laugh," he could not help his mirth. "I know beauty is supposed to be the heart's desire of every woman; but there are many drawbacks. Every one, without exception, takes it for granted that you are a fool. Your sense is always considered in reverse ratio to your good looks, and then, it's such an uncertain thing. Just when you need it most to console you for the disappointments and disillusions of life, it departs, and horrid things, wrinkles and gray hairs, take its place."
"Perdita! What an absurd creature you are!"
"Ah, Cresswell," her tone was pensive. "You have always been successful. You can not imagine what failure feels like, that deadening, hopeless sensation." She was vehement enough now.
"Can I not?" At last he lifted his drooping lids and looked straight at her. "My dear Dita, I can give you cards and spades on every emotion of failure you have ever felt. I recall one case in particular, where I failed so conspicuously and brilliantly, that I am overcome with surprise at my own stupidity every time I think of it. But as you have been talking that case has reverted again and again to my mind, and it has struck me that there is still a chance that I pursued the wrong tactics."
She drew back wounded. He had then, as she had once or twice suspected, not been listening to a word she said, and how his cold face had glowed at the mere thought of retrieving a business blunder.
Hepworth got up and began walking about the room. "And Gresham, what of him?" he asked presently, breaking the silence which had fallen between them.
"He is quite well, I believe," she was furious at the conscious note which crept into her voice, at the scarlet which flew to her cheek, but one thing she had never been able to endure and that was any evidence of cowardice in herself. She lifted her eyes bravely to his and held them there. "He has been in town since January," she said. "I have seen him very often."
"Ah, painting as brilliantly as ever, I dare say? A genius, Eugene! Unquestionably."
Again silence fell between them, and lasted until she broke it with the constrained question: "Are you—are you going to be here for some time now?"
"No, I shall have to be in London more or less during the summer, but I have some matters which must be attended to first. By the way," as if struck by a sudden thought, "what are your plans for the summer?"
"I have made none. I have not even thought of such things yet. I dare say I shall go somewhere for a bit of a change, but," with a smile, "business is so very brisk."
He laughed and took one or two more turns up and down the room.
"Dita, do you remember that I told you once that you were a remarkably clever woman? Well, I merely wish to call that fact to your attention, and reiterate my statement. Oh, I must tell you, I have a new amulet, a wonder. I will tell you the history of it when you have more time. You have the case in your keeping have you not? And the tray with the one empty space?"
The blood rushed to her face. "I have the case," she said coldly. "It is locked in my safe here. Do you wish it now?"
"No," he shook his head. "Wait until I bring the amulet. May I bring it late Wednesday afternoon? And why not dine with me then? Say you will, Dita. Give the world something to talk of, something to puzzle over." She had never seen him so eager.
She hesitated a bare second. "I will. Yes, I will be very glad to," but lifting her eyes to his: "Are you so sure that one of those amulet trays has an empty space?"
"It had when I last saw it." His voice was unreadable.
"But that is months ago; perhaps you will think differently when you see it Wednesday evening."
There was a flash over his face, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He drew nearer to her as if about to speak, then apparently reconsidered the intention. "I really must not keep you longer," he picked up his hat. "Of course, there are a number of matters to be discussed, but they can wait. We will reserve them for Wednesday evening. Good-by." He held out his hand. She placed hers in it.
"Good-by," she returned.
"Maud," said Dita, walking in upon that young woman, a package of letters in her hand, "a lot of things are happening. Here is a letter, among other things, from Mrs. Wilstead. She says that she is just back from California, and that she needs stacks and stacks of new clothes, and wants our designs. It will be fun dressing her. She is so extremely good looking."
Maud stirred restlessly, frowned, bit her lip, but did not speak.
"Just back from California," went on Dita. "I wonder—I wonder, Maud, if she could possibly have come on with Cresswell?"
"Very probably," said Maud. "In fact, I think nothing could be more likely."
"Why, what do you mean by speaking so mysteriously?" Dita widened her eyes. "Suppose they had? Nothing, after all, could be more natural."
"Nothing, I suppose." Maud was trying hard to be non-committal. "But let her go to some one else. If we take any more people, we shan't get away this summer. We have more on our hands now than we can manage. Yes, let her go to some one else."
"But, Maud," Dita hesitated, "I really think we should refuse some one else and take her. She is an old friend."
"Old fiddlesticks!" cried Maud impatiently.
"Maud! What is the matter with you? A touch of spring fever? Really, I think we must consider her."
"But if I ask you not, Dita"—there were almost tears in Maud's voice.
"But why should you ask me not? This is too bewildering."
"Ah, well," Maud spoke now with the calmness of despair, "since you force me to tell you, I ask you not because Mrs. Wilstead has been constantly with Mr. Hepworth in the West this winter, and the current gossip is that he is only waiting for a divorce to be arranged between you and himself, to marry her."
There was silence for a moment on Dita's part. Her eyes were downcast, mechanically she sorted the letters in her hand. "Then what of the talk about Fuschia Fleming and himself?"
"Oh, they say that she took a back seat when Alice Wilstead appeared on the scene. But really, Dita, this move on Alice's part makes me furious. The idea of her being guilty of such wretchedly bad taste. I have always liked her, been really fond of her, in fact, but this crass exhibition of bad breeding disgusts me. I dare say that she doesn't care so long as she gets results; that is, the benefit of your taste and skill to enhance her waning beauty; but look at the position it is going to place you in, Dita. For number one to design the trousseau for number two is really too absurd. It simply goes beyond all belief. Dita, you must, indeed you must, write her the curtest, coldest of polite notes and tell her that we are entirely too busy to consider her."
"Very well. I'll humor you so far," returned Perdita. "What is it?" turning to a maid who entered with a visiting card. "Ah, Eugene! I asked him to come this morning. I particularly wanted to see him and I don't want you present. There, don't get that stony look of despair on your face, Maudie; think how good I have been all winter, only seeing Eugene once in a blue moon, and then in your company."
"But I want you to keep on being good," pleaded Maud; "especially now."
"I am gooder than you can possibly imagine," laughed Perdita, "but, all the same, I do not wish you tagging about this morning." She smiled teasingly at her puzzled business partner as she left the room.
She went down to meet Eugene in the same room at the same hour she had talked with her husband the day before.
But Eugene was not one to endure for one moment a situation dominated by the shadowy third person. No woman should gaze at him with the remembrance of yesterday in her eyes, the smile of wistful reminiscence on her lips. An hour with him must be a dazzling and kaleidoscopic episode. He would hold it in his hand, and at the bidding of his will, the moments, like bits of colored glass, should revolve and melt and mingle—rainbow arabesques on the background of Time.
"Your meditations, remembrances and regrets for your oratories, my dear," his challenging eyes seemed to say, "but with me you live, you laugh, you thrill responsive to the harp of life; the yesterdays forgotten, the to-morrows unborn."
"Dita!" he caught her hands in his as she entered. His eyes were shining, his head thrown back. He was more vivid than the spring sunshine which fell through the open windows.
"Eugene! You look as if you had just received some wonderful new commission."
"So I have, a commission to love you. That is right, blush. Dita, why do you not always wear rose color? But no, don't listen to me. If it were blue or green, I would be making the same request. Dearest, my eyes drink in, drink up your loveliness. You never, never were so beautiful as you are this morning."
"Eugene, you are mad; too foolish for anything. What is the matter with you?"
"Mad doesn't half express it. May I smoke?" He took her consent for granted, for he was already rolling cigarettes in his deft, supple fingers. "Yes? No? I am delirious with joy. Hepworth is back as, of course, you know. That can only mean one thing; every one says that just as soon as a divorce can be decently arranged, he and Alice Wilstead will be married. The verdict of the world is that he was so angry at your going into business that he flung off to the West. It was the most spectacular of your many caprices and it proved the last straw for him. Blessed last straw!" lifting his eyes devoutly. "And then Alice Wilstead cleverly appeared on the scene and the consoling offices of friendship did the trick."
"Three months ago it was Fuschia Fleming, according to gossip." Her eyes were downcast, her tone expressionless.
"Oh, that," he blew rings of smoke lightly through the air and followed them with gay eyes; "that is a part of the game. That was making evidence for you. It is all arranged that I am to paint her portrait, you know. I have not met her yet, either." He threw his cigarette through the window. "Dita, Dita, how can you sit there so cool and still? When I think that you are actually on the very eve of freedom, I become delirious with joy."
"So sure of the winning, Eugene?"
"Dita!" His face clouded, there was a world of reproach in his voice. "That is a terrible trait in your character, that teasing desire of yours always to fling a little dash of cold water on one's mounting enthusiasms."
"There is another dash coming," she laughed. "I want my amulet, and I want it at once, to-day. I know," anticipating his protestations, "that you returned it to me the afternoon Hepworth left for the West, and I would not see you to receive it in person. Then, my mind was so perturbed and occupied that I didn't think of it again before you sailed, and since your return," a little smile creeping about her mouth, "I haven't thought about it either; but now that the matter has come up between us, please see that I have it to-day, Eugene."
He had looked slightly annoyed while she was speaking, but now he bent toward her with his most charming manner, his most winning smile. "You know my greatest weakness, Dita? I try to overcome it, really I do," in laughing excuse, "but in spite of will or reason those superstitions of mine persist. Alas! They do." He admitted it as a naughty little boy might admit a passion for stealing jam. "And I have tremendous faith in that old charm of yours." He picked up another cigarette from his skilfully rolled little heap, placed as orderly on the table beside him as if they were his paint brushes.
"Ever since I have had it," he went on, "the luck of the high gods has been mine. Princessin, Contessin and high Altessin still clamoring to have their portraits painted. The critics amiable and almost intelligent, money pouring into my coffers and pouring out faster than it comes in—I wish there were such a thing as a money-tight purse—and best of all, ah, best of all, the love of my heart so near, so near." His eyes held the warm glow which changed, irradiated them. "The star of my life comes slipping, wavering through the spaces of the sky and down the purple pathways of heaven to my arms." He leaned forward quickly and almost enfolded her.
"Eugene!" She stood haughty and tall before him. "You assume entirely too much. You have from the beginning. More, much more, than I have ever given you any reason to assume. According to the tradition the amulet can only bring one luck when it is given with the heart's love; and I never gave it to you, Eugene, never. You laughingly filched it one day when I took it off the chain about my neck, that you might look at it more closely. And you are so sure, so sure of me, when I am anything but sure of myself. I have never deceived you as to the state of my feelings. How would that have been possible when I am still so doubtful myself? Ah, those doubts!"
"They are nothing, dearest, nothing. I shall brush them away as I brush cobwebs." He put his hands upon her shoulders and stood gazing deeply into her eyes.
"Ah," she shook her head, and, at the same time, stepped away from him, "I am no more sure that I love you than I was six months ago."
"Never any more sure?" His voice deep and rich as a low-toned bell.
Her black eyelashes lay long on her cheek, where the crimson, the hue of a jacqueminot rose petal, was spreading. "There are moments," she admitted, "times when I am with you that I believe that the magic word has been spoken and that my heart has blossomed in purple and red, that I truly love you, but," she shook her head sighingly, "the moment I am away from you, I know that that is not so; that you haven't said the magic word yet, 'Gene."
"But I know it, that magic word," he whispered, "and I shall awake you, just as the Prince did the Sleeping Beauty. Not with a word at all, dear, but with a kiss." He bent forward, but she had slipped away from him, and before he knew it had put almost the length of the room between them.
"You—you must not talk so to me now, 'Gene," the words were barely breathed, "and," with a desperate clutch at a safe topic, "my amulet. I must have it by to-morrow morning."
There was a flash like fire in Gresham's eyes. A quick scowling change darkened his whole face. He picked up the five or six beautifully rolled cigarettes which yet remained of his neat heap and tossed them out of the window.
"I see it," he cried harshly. "You probably have Hepworth's box of amulets in your keeping. You wish to return it to him, and show him when you do so that your old charm is safe in its place. Oh, I can see the whole scene. He will courteously hand it to you and say, 'Your property, I believe, my dear Perdita.' I can hear his frigid, formal utterance. And you will accept it with that grand, ancestral manner of yours, murmuring, 'Thank you, yes, I regret that I can not ask you to accept it as a small contribution to your collection, but that being out of the question on account of certain traditions which adhere to it, I feel that I must continue to hold it in my possession.' Why not be honest, Dita, and tell him that you have given it to me?"
"Eugene, you are impossible. You go entirely too far." There was no mistaking the displeasure in her voice, and his immediate recognition that it was cold, not hot anger, brought him to himself at once.
"Flower of magnolia!" his voice fell to all those exquisite and heart-touching modulations of which he was master. "I was only teasing. Forgive me. You shall have your bit of glass early to-morrow morning. And until I see you again I shall dream only of the wonderful, beautiful years we shall have together. We shall wander about the world, here, there and everywhere, and I shall paint the glory and color of the universe and you, always you, Perdita, the focus, the center, the heart of all beauty."
Dita had barely finished her breakfast the next morning when the message was brought to her that a lady who refused to give her name but insisted on seeing her at once upon important business awaited her in the reception-room.
Dita hesitated a moment, debating whether or not to rebuke the maid, who must have yielded to the lure of gold so readily to forget her orders, and send back a peremptory request for the lady's name and her business, or whether to yield to her natural and feminine curiosity and grant an interview to this visitor who appeared so desirous of maintaining an incognito.
This brief hesitation proved a loss, however, to the waiting lady, whose method of being announced showed that she hoped to take Perdita by surprise, for Maud Carmine entered at the moment and with some show of indignation in both voice and expression informed Dita that Mrs. Wilstead was the person guilty of strategic entrance.
"Such impertinence!" breathed Maud. "Scrawl a note in pencil, Dita, to the effect that it will be impossible for Mrs. Hepworth to see Mrs. Wilstead. That will show her that her ruse and her bribes have been quite unsuccessful."
In her ardor for Mrs. Wilstead's demolition Maud had forgotten that the last thing Dita could endure was dictation. Now, no sooner had the words of admonition left her lips than, to her chagrin, she saw Dita's chin lifted, Dita's nostrils quiver, Dita's shoulders flung back ever so slightly.
"I think I shall see her." Mrs. Hepworth was on her feet, her voice cool, firm, pleasant, with just that little warning vibration which always meant danger. "You may tell Mrs. Wilstead that I will see her immediately." Her eyes scorched the maid, who hastened to obey, with the impression of an X-ray having been turned on her immaculate white waist, and exposing with startling vividness the crisp, green bill hastily thrust within.
"Come, Maudie," Perdita touched her on the shoulder in passing. "Do not look so downcast. Why do you wish to deprive me of a little legitimate amusement?"
Maud, strong now in tardy wisdom, said nothing, and Perdita's light, quick step might be heard a moment later descending the stairs.
Alice Wilstead turned hastily from her contemplation of the small green yard without the window.
"My dear Perdita!" She came forward with Dita's note of the day before in her hand. "I just received this in the morning's mail, and I lost no time in getting here, I assure you, and making the attempt to see you by hook or crook. I know it's outrageous of me, but I don't understand, and I want to understand. Why is it, my dear, that you have refused to take me? Surely I'm not a hopeless case." She smiled ingratiatingly, and Dita was bound to admit that never had she appeared more attractive. Her piquant face was radiant with happiness, the whole effect of her was of a sort of buoyant joyousness.
Dita's chin was just half an inch higher than when she had left Maud, her smile was sweet and cold and faint, as remote as if it had been bestowed upon a passing acquaintance in Mars, and she remained standing.
Mrs. Wilstead's mental recoil was but momentary. Her cause was good, her motives pure, her courage high. Above everything, she desired the benefits of Perdita Hepworth's genius. They were on sale, to the high bidders, and she did not purpose to be excluded merely because it was to be supposed that she would espouse the cause of her old friend, Cresswell Hepworth, in the event of open differences between himself and his wife.
"I regret, Mrs. Wilstead," Dita's voice matched her smile, "that it will be quite impossible for us to take any one else now. The summer is almost upon us, you see."
Mrs. Wilstead should not be blamed for not seeing. April, as wind and sky portended, was about to burst, not into tears, but into a snowstorm. Alice shivered in her furs.
"Oh, but, my dear child," she begged, "do have some mercy on me. Here am I getting my trousseau. Oh, no wonder you start. I've always said that I never, never either would or could do anything so idiotic as to get married again, and yet here I am not only considering it, but actually committed to a wedding-day. And that is to be so appallingly soon. I tried and tried to put it off a little longer, but he is so impatient."
Dita's mouth had frozen, and the haughty and incredulous gaze which she cast for a brief, indignant moment on Alice would have turned one less bubblingly gay into a pillar of salt. This interview seemed incredible. She had always regarded Alice Wilstead as an especially well-bred woman, but this greed to attain an object at the sacrifice of her self-respect, even decency of feeling, and regardless of the position in which she would place the woman with whom she pleaded, was, to Dita, shocking, insulting, unforgivable. While she waited the fraction of a second to command her voice, Alice spoke again.
"But you seem angry." She was obviously both hurt and bewildered. "What have I done? Surely, you will not fail me now at this most crucial moment of my life. Why, consider, I am going to marry a man five years younger than myself."
Dita caught at a chair, and sat down, the room seemed to whirl about her, she pressed her hand to her brow.
"Alice Wilstead," she said, "what on earth doyoumean?"
"I mean what I say," returned Alice with a touch of acerbity. "I am going to be married. What do you mean?"
"But to whom, to whom?" Dita was all impatience.
"To whom? Why, to Hayward Preston, of course. One of your husband's business associates in the West. Surely you knew that?"
"I wish I had Maud by the throat," muttered Dita irrelevantly.
It was twenty minutes later when Maud put her shocked and disgusted head within the door.
"Dita," coldly surveying the two enthusiasts before her, who sat together in jocund amity, "Mrs. Hewston is out here in a state of great perturbation. Do you wish—"
But she got no further, for Mrs. Hewston, in the superiority of her greater bulk, pushed Maud into the room before her and now stood, the picture of pink and white and plump tragedy, on the threshold.
"Oh, Alice, I am glad to find you here," she wailed, advancing further into the room, while Maud discreetly closed the door, not upon herself, oh, no, but behind both of them. "You are always such a support." She sank into the chair Dita pushed toward her. "It's Willoughby, of course." She drew her handkerchief from her bag and mopped her eyes.
"Perdita Hepworth," she abandoned her spineless attitude and sat upright, speaking with vehemence. "I am more ashamed of being here than I can ever make you understand. But Willoughby!" There was resignation in her uplifted eyes, acidity in the purse of her mouth. "He is the dearest, most lovable fellow in the world," she looked at her listeners suspiciously, but meeting no correction, permitted her irritation a natural outlet, "but he is the most obstinate, stupid mule the Lord ever made."
"What is it now, dear?" asked Alice sympathetically.
"This, and it's quite enough," returned Mrs. Hewston bitterly. "Cresswell Hepworth, your husband," accusingly to Dita, "and may Heaven forgive him, for I never can! dined with us last night and just before he left, Willoughby got to asking him about his plans and Cresswell was telling him that he was due in London before long. 'But how much longer will you be in New York?' asked Willoughby, and Cresswell said, with a queer little smile, 'I can't quite say. There are a number of things to be looked after, among others a duel I may have to fight.'"
The women looked at each other in pale horror. Dita herself ghastly, half rose from her chair.
"I told Willoughby," sobbed Mrs. Hewston, "that it was just one of Cresswell's jokes. You know that odd, dry humor he sometimes shows, but," despairingly, "you also know Willoughby. He tore and snorted and raved and routed all night long. I would rather have had a hippopotamus in my room. And he excoriated you, Perdita. Called her the most dreadful names, really," this to Alice and Maud, confidentially and quite as if Dita were not present. "He said that Cresswell's life was ruined because of the caprices of an ungodly, wanton girl. Yes, Dita, I don't blame you for being angry, but it was worse than that, too. You see, he's got the idea firmly into his head that Cresswell is going to fight a duel with Eugene Gresham and—"
"For goodness sake, let us keep our common sense," said Mrs. Wilstead, laying a detaining hand on Dita's shoulder, noting that Mrs. Hepworth's eyes were turned longingly toward the telephone. "You know perfectly well, Isabel, you know, Maud, and you, also, Dita, that Cresswell Hepworth does not for one moment contemplate anything so crazy. Nothing could induce him to put either himself or you, Dita, into such a position. Such a thing would be entirely against his nature. He would regard it as farcical melodrama, turn from it even in thought with infinite contempt and scorn. The idea of Willoughby thinking such a thing. Just like him. Meddlesome idiot. Ah, I don't care, Isabel, you know he is one. I wish I had him here now."
"He's out there in the motor," wept his wife. "He was afraid I wouldn't come and tell Perdita unless he came with me. But, Alice, you shan't speak of him so, he's the best—"
"He's still there," interrupted Maud, who had gone to peer from the window at Mrs. Hewston's announcement that this watch-dog of Dita's morals waited without, "with his head out of the window looking up at the house. And, oh, Heavens!" falling back against the lintel, "here is Eugene Gresham coming up the steps, and Mr. Hewston is glaring at him until his eyes are standing out of his head. He is purple in the face. Now he is speaking to the chauffeur. Why, they are off, gone like the wind."
Mrs. Hewston fell back limply in her chair. She seemed incapable of speech for a moment. "Alice," she said at last, in awe-stricken tones, "he has gone to tell Cress that Eugene Gresham is here."
"Well, what of it?" snapped Mrs. Wilstead. "Cresswell will only laugh at him and smooth him down. You know that."
"I hope so," breathed Mrs. Hewston. "He seems to amuse Cresswell. Fancy. But then," more understandingly, "he doesn't have to live with him."
Dita's fears calmed by Mrs. Wilstead's essentially common-sense point of view, her confidence was further restored by Eugene's evident ignorance of any plots and plans on Mr. Cresswell Hepworth's part of bringing this triangular situation, involving himself, his wife and the other man, to a fiction-hallowed and moss-grown conclusion.
It was therefore without particular apprehension, at any rate apprehensions of the kind nourished by Mr. Hewston, that she dressed for the dinneren tête-à-têtewith her husband. It was rather with a sense of mounting interest, even excitement.
She wavered in her choice of a gown, scanning with hypercritical eye a dozen or more. White savored of a school-girl simplicity and disarmed her if she chose to be subtle. Blue was unbecoming; sufficient taboo. "Green's forsaken and yellow's forsworn," she murmured ruefully. Black remained, thin, soft-falling gauze, distinguished, distinctive, exquisite in design and effect; above its shadow rose her neck of cream, her hair was the dusk shadow of copper, her eyes were darkly brilliant.
She hesitated at jewels. He had given her so many. Which would go best with her gown? Then she turned away from even the mental contemplation of them with a feeling of distaste. She could not, even to please him, wear his jewels when he and she were almost strangers, when but the details of their final parting remained to be settled. And yet would it not look a bit odd to appear without any ornaments whatever?
She considered the matter a moment, and then smiling a little, she opened the box which Gresham had given into her hands that morning, and which lay upon her dressing-table.
She turned over this old trinket in her hand, and gazed at it, forgetful of the passing time. How impressive Eugene had been when he had returned it to her!