On Monday, Desboro waited all the morning for her, meeting every train.
At noon, she had not arrived. Finally, he called up her office and was
informed that Miss Nevers had been detained in town on business, and
that their Mr. Kirk had telephoned him that morning to that effect.
He asked to speak to Miss Nevers personally; she had gone out, it
appeared, and might not return until the middle of the afternoon.
So Desboro went home in his car and summoned Farris, the aged butler,
who was pottering about in the greenhouses, which he much preferred to
attending to his own business.
"Did anybody telephone this morning?" asked the master.
Farris had forgotten to mention it--was very sorry--and stood like an
aged hound, head partly lowered and averted, already blinking under the
awaited reprimand. But all Desboro said was:
"Don't do it again, Farris; there are some things I won't overlook."
He sat for a while in the library where a sheaf of her notes lay on the
table beside a pile of books--Grenville, Vanderdyne, Herrara's splendid
folios--just as she had left them on Saturday afternoon for the long,
happy sleigh-ride that ended just in time for him to swing her aboard
her train.
He had plenty to do beside sitting there with keen, gray eyes fixed on
the pile of manuscript she had left unfinished; he always had plenty to
do, and seldom did it.
His first impulse had been to go to town. Her absence was making the
place irksome. He went to the long windows and stood there, hands in his
pockets, smoking and looking out over the familiar landscape--a rolling
country, white with snow, naked branches glittering with ice under the
gilded blue of a cloudless sky, and to the north and west, low, wooded
mountains--really nothing more than hills, but impressively steep and
blue in the distance.
A woodpecker, one of the few feathered winter residents, flickered
through the trees, flashed past, and clung to an oak, sticking
motionless to the bark for a minute or two, bright eyes inspecting
Desboro, before beginning a rapid, jerky exploration for sustenance.
The master of Silverwood watched him, then, hands driven deeper into his
pockets, strolled away, glancing aimlessly at familiar objects--the
stiff and rather picturesque portraits of his grandparents in the dress
of 1820; the atrocious portraits of his parents in the awful costume of
1870; his own portrait, life size, mounted on a pony.
He stood looking at the funny little boy, with the half contemptuous,
half curious interest which a man in the pride of his strength and youth
sometimes feels for the absurdly clothed innocence of what he was. And,
as usual when noticing the picture, he made a slight, involuntary effort
to comprehend that he had been once like that; and could not.
At the end of the library, better portraits hung--his great-grandmother,
by Gilbert Stuart, still fresh-coloured and clear under the dim yellow
varnish which veiled but could not wither the delicate complexion and
ardent mouth, and the pink rosebud set where the folds of her white
kerchief crossed on her breast.
And there was her husband, too, by an unknown or forgotten painter--the
sturdy member of the Provincial Assembly, and major in Colonel Thomas's
Westchester Regiment--a fine old fellow in his queue-ribbon and powdered
hair standing in the conventional fortress port-hole, framed by it, and
looking straight out of the picture with eyes so much like Desboro's
that it amused people. His easy attitude, too, the idle grace of the
posture, irresistibly recalled Desboro, and at the moment more than
ever. But he had been a man of vigour and of wit and action; and he was
lying out there in the snow, under an old brown headstone embellished
with cherubim; and the last of his name lounged here, in sight, from the
windows, of the spot where the first house of Desboro in America had
stood, and had collapsed amid the flames started by Tarleton's
blood-maddened troopers.
To and fro sauntered Desboro, passing, unnoticed, old-time framed
engravings of the Desboros in Charles the Second's time, elegant, idle,
handsome men in periwigs and half-armour, and all looking out at the
world through port-holes with a hint of the race's bodily grace in their
half insolent attitudes.
But office and preferment, peace and war, intrigue and plot, vigour and
idleness, had narrowed down through the generations into a last
inheritance for this young man; and the very last of all the Desboros
now idled aimlessly among the phantoms of a race that perhaps had
better be extinguished.
He could not make up his mind to go to town or to remain in the vague
hope that she might come in the afternoon.
He had plenty to do--if he could make up his mind to begin--accounts to
go over, household expenses, farm expenses, stable reports, agents'
memoranda concerning tenants and leases, endless lists of necessary
repairs. And there was business concerning the estate neglected, taxes,
loans, improvements to attend to--the thousand and one details which
irritated him to consider; but which, although he maintained an agent in
town, must ultimately come to himself for the final verdict.
What he wanted was to be rid of it all--sell everything, pension his
father's servants, and be rid of the entire complex business which, he
pretended to himself, was slowly ruining him. But he knew in his heart
where the trouble lay, and that the carelessness, extravagance, the
disinclination for self-denial, the impatient and good-humoured aversion
to economy, the profound distaste for financial detail, were steadily
wrecking one of the best and one of the last of the old-time Westchester
estates.
In his heart he knew, too, that all he wanted was to concentrate
sufficient capital to give him the income he thought he needed.
No man ever had the income he thought he needed. And why Desboro
required it, he himself didn't know exactly; but he wanted sufficient to
keep him comfortable--enough so that he could feel he might do anything
he chose, when, how, and where he chose, without fear or care for the
future. And no man ever lived to enjoy such a state of mind, or to do
these things with impunity.
But Desboro's mind was bent on it; he seated himself at the library
table and began to figure it out. Land in Westchester brought high
prices--not exactly in that section, but near enough to make his acreage
valuable. Then, the house, stable, garage, greenhouses, the three farms,
barns, cattle houses, water supply, the timber, power sites, meadow,
pasture--all these ought to make a pretty figure. And he jotted it down
for the hundredth time in the last two years.
Then there was the Desboro collection. That ought to bring----
[Illustration: "And he sat thinking of Jacqueline Nevers"]
He hesitated, his pencil finally fell on the table, rolled to the edge
and dropped; and he sat thinking of Jacqueline Nevers, and of the week
that had ended as the lights of her train faded far away into the winter
night.
He sat so still and so long that old Farris came twice to announce
luncheon. After a silent meal in company with the dogs and cats of low
degree, he lighted a cigarette and went back into the library to resume
his meditations.
Whatever they were, they ceased abruptly whenever the distant telephone
rang, and he waited almost breathlessly for somebody to come and say
that he was wanted on the wire. But the messages must have been to the
cook or butler, from butcher, baker, and gentlemen of similar
professions, for nobody disturbed him, and he was left free to sink back
into the leather corner of the lounge and continue his meditations. Once
the furtive apparition of Mrs. Quant disturbed him, hovering ominously
at the library door, bearing tumbler and spoon.
"I won't take it," he said decisively.
There was a silence, then:
"Isn't the young lady coming, Mr. James?"
"I don't know. No, probably not to-day."
"Is--is the child sick?" she stammered.
"No, of course not. I expect she'll be here in the morning."
* * * * *
She was not there in the morning. Mr. Mirk, the little old salesman in
the silk skull-cap, telephoned to Farris that Miss Nevers was again
detained in town on business at Mr. Clydesdale's, and that she might
employ a Mr. Sissly to continue her work at Silverwood, if Mr. Desboro
did not object. Mr. Desboro was to call her up at three o'clock if he
desired further information.
Desboro went into the library and sat down. For a while his idle
reflections, uncontrolled, wandered around the main issue, errant
satellites circling a central thought which was slowly emerging from
chaos and taking definite weight and shape. And the thought was of
Jacqueline Nevers.
Why was he waiting here until noon to talk to this girl? Why was he here
at all? Why had he not gone South with the others? A passing fancy might
be enough to arouse his curiosity; but why did not the fancy pass? What
did he want to say to her? What did he want of her? Why was he spending
time thinking about her--disarranging his routine and habits to be here
when she came? _What_ did he want of her? She was agreeable to talk to,
interesting to watch, pretty, attractive. Did he want her friendship?
To what end? He'd never see her anywhere unless he sought her out; he
would never meet her in any circle to which he had been accustomed,
respectable or otherwise. Besides, for conversation he preferred men to
women.
What did he want with her or her friendship--or her blue eyes and bright
hair--or the slim, girlish grace of her? What was there to do? How many
more weeks did he intend to idle about at her heels, follow her, look at
her, converse with her, make a habit of her until, now, he found that to
suddenly break the habit of only a week's indulgence was annoying him!
And suppose the habit were to grow. Into what would it grow? And how
unpleasant would it be to break when, in the natural course of events,
circumstances made the habit inconvenient?
And, always, the main, central thought was growing, persisting. _What_
did he want of her? He was not in love with her any more than he was
always lightly in love with feminine beauty. Besides, if he were, what
would it mean? Another affair, with all its initial charm and gaiety,
its moments of frivolity, its moments of seriousness, its sudden crisis,
its combats, perplexities, irresolution, the faint thrill of its deeper
significance startling both to clearer vision; and then the end,
whatever it might be, light or solemn, irresponsible or care-ridden, gay
or sombre, for one or the other.
What did he want? Did he wish to disturb her tranquility? Was he trying
to awaken her to some response? And what did he offer her to respond to?
The flattery of his meaningless attentions, or the honour of falling in
love with a Desboro, whose left hand only would be offered to support
both slim white hands of hers?
He ought to have gone South, and he knew it, now. Last week he had told
himself--and her occasionally--that he was going South in a week. And
here he was, his head on his hands and his elbows on the table, looking
vacantly at the pile of manuscript she had left there, and thinking of
the things that should not happen to them both.
And who the devil was this fellow Sissly? Why had she suddenly changed
her mind and suggested a creature named Sissly? Why didn't she finish
the cataloguing herself? She had been enthusiastic about it. Besides,
she had enjoyed the skating and sleighing, and the luncheons and teas,
and the cats and dogs--and even Mrs. Quant. She had said so, too. And
now she was too busy to come any more.
Had he done anything? Had he been remiss, or had he ventured too many
attentions? He couldn't recall having done anything except to show her
plainly enough that he enjoyed being with her. Nor had she concealed her
bright pleasure in his companionship. And they had become such good
comrades, understanding each other's moods so instinctively now--and
they had really found such unfeigned amusement in each other that it
seemed a pity--a pity----
"Damn it," he said, "if she cares no more about it than that, she can
send Sissly, and I'll go South!"
But the impatience of hurt vanity died away; the desire to see her grew;
the habit of a single week was already unpleasant to break. And it would
be unpleasant to try to forget her, even among his own friends, even in
the South, or in drawing-rooms, or at the opera, or at dances, or in
any of his haunts and in any sort of company.
He might forget her if he had only known her better, discovered more of
her real self, unveiled a little of her deeper nature. There was so much
unexplored--so much that interested him, mainly, perhaps, because he had
not discovered it. For theirs had been the lightest and gayest of
friendships, with nothing visible to threaten a deeper entente; merely,
on her part, a happy enjoyment and a laughing parrying in the eternal
combat that never entirely ends, even when it means nothing. And on his
side it had been the effortless attentions of a man aware of her young
and unspoiled charm--conscious of an unusual situation which always
fascinates all men.
He had had no intention, no idea, no policy except to drift as far as
the tides of destiny carried him in her company. The situation was
agreeable; if it became less so, he could take to the oars and row where
he liked.
But the tides had carried him to the edge of waters less clear; he was
vaguely aware of it now, aware, too, that troubled seas lay somewhere
behind the veil.
The library clock struck three times. He got up and went to the
telephone booth. Miss Nevers was there; would speak to him if he could
wait a moment. He waited. Finally, a far voice called, greeting him
pleasantly, and explaining that matters which antedated her business at
Silverwood had demanded her personal attention in town. To his request
for particulars, she said that she had work to do among the jades and
Chinese porcelains belonging to a Mr. Clydesdale.
"I know him," said Desboro curtly. "When do you finish?"
"I have finished for the present. Later there is further work to be done
at Mr. Clydesdale's. I had to make certain arrangements before I went to
you--being already under contract to Mr. Clydesdale, and at his service
when he wanted me."
There was a silence. Then he asked her when she was coming to
Silverwood.
"Did you not receive my message?" she asked.
"About--what's his name? Sissly? Yes, I did, but I don't want him. I
want you or nobody!"
"You are unreasonable, Mr. Desboro. Lionel Sissly is a very celebrated
connoisseur."
"Don't you want to come?"
"I have so many matters here----"
"Don't you _want_ to?" he persisted.
"Why, of course, I'd like to. It is most interesting work. But Mr.
Sissly----"
"Oh, hang Mr. Sissly! Do you suppose he interests me? You said that this
work might take you weeks. You said you loved it. You apparently
expected to be busy with it until it was finished. Now, you propose to
send a man called Sissly! Why?"
"Don't you know that I have other things----"
"What have I done, Miss Nevers?"
"I don't understand you."
"What have I done to drive you away?"
"How absurd! Nothing! And you've been so kind to me----"
"You've been kind to me. Why are you no longer?"
"I--it's a question--of business--matters which demand----"
"Will you come once more?"
No reply.
"Will you?" he repeated.
"Is there any reason----"
"Yes."
Another pause, then:
"Yes, I'll come--if there's a reason----"
"When?"
"To-morrow?"
"Do you promise?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll meet you as usual."
"Thank you."
He said: "How is your skating jacket coming along?"
"I have--stopped work on it."
"Why?"
"I do not expect to--have time--for skating."
"Didn't you ever expect to come up here again?" he asked with a slight
shiver.
"I thought that Mr. Sissly could do what was necessary."
"Didn't it occur to you that you were ending a friendship rather
abruptly?"
She was silent.
"Don't you think it was a trifle brusque, Miss Nevers?"
"Does the acquaintanceship of a week count so much with you, Mr.
Desboro?"
"You know it does."
"No. I did not know it. If I had supposed so, I would have written a
polite letter regretting that I could no longer personally attend to the
business in hand."
"Doesn't it count at all with you?" he asked.
"What?"
"Our friendship."
"Our acquaintanceship of a single week? Why, yes. I remember it with
pleasure--your kindness, and Mrs. Quant's----"
"How on earth can you talk to me that way?"
"I don't understand you."
"Then I'll say, bluntly, that it meant a lot to me, and that the place
is intolerable when you're not here. That is specific, isn't it?"
"Very. You mean that, being accustomed to having somebody to amuse you,
your own resources are insufficient."
"Are you serious?"
"Perfectly. That is why you are kind enough to miss my coming and
going--because I amuse you."
"Do you think that way about me?"
"I do when I think of you. You know sometimes I'm thinking of other
things, too, Mr. Desboro."
He bit his lip, waited for a moment, then:
"If you feel that way, you'll scarcely care to come up to-morrow.
Whatever arrangement you make about cataloguing the collection will be
all right. If I am not here, communications addressed to the Olympian
Club will be forwarded----"
"Mr. Desboro!"
"Yes?"
"Forgive me--won't you?"
There was a moment's interval, fraught heavily with the possibilities
of Chance, then the silent currents of Fate flowed on toward her
appointed destiny and his--whatever it was to be, wherever it lay,
behind the unstirring, inviolable veil.
"Have you forgiven me?"
"And you me?" he asked.
"I have nothing to forgive; truly, I haven't. Why did you think I had?
Because I have been talking flippantly? You have been so uniformly
considerate and kind to me--you _must_ know that it was nothing you said
or did that made me think--wonder--whether--perhaps----"
"What?" he insisted. But she declined further explanation in a voice so
different, so much gayer and happier than it had sounded before, that he
was content to let matters rest--perhaps dimly surmising something
approaching the truth.
She, too, noticed the difference in his voice as he said:
"Then may I have the car there as usual to-morrow morning?"
"Please."
He drew an unconscious sigh of relief. She said something more that he
could scarcely hear, so low and distant sounded her voice, and he asked
her to repeat it.
"I only said that I would be happy to go back," came the far voice.
Quick, unconsidered words trembled on his lips for utterance; perhaps
fear of undoing what had been done restrained him.
"Not as happy as I will be to see you," he said, with an effort.
"Thank you. Good-bye, Mr. Desboro."
"Good-bye."
* * * * *
The sudden accession of high spirits filled him with delightful
impatience. He ranged the house restlessly, traversing the hallway and
silent rooms. A happy inclination for miscellaneous conversation
impelled him to long-deferred interviews with people on the place. He
talked business to Mrs. Quant, to Michael, the armourer; he put on
snow-shoes and went cross lots to talk to his deaf head-farmer, Vail.
Then he came back and set himself resolutely to his accounts; and after
dinner he wrote letters, a yellow pup dozing on his lap, a cat purring
on his desk, and occasionally patting with tentative paw the
letter-paper when it rustled.
A mania for cleaning up matters which had accumulated took possession of
him--and it all seemed to concern, in some occult fashion, the coming of
Jacqueline on the morrow--as though he wished to begin again with a
clean slate and a conscience undisturbed. But what he was to begin he
did not specify to himself.
Bills--heavy ones--he paid lightly, drawing check after check to cover
necessities or extravagances, going straight through the long list of
liabilities incurred from top to bottom.
Later, the total troubled him, and he made himself do a thing to which
he was averse--balance his check-book. The result dismayed him, and he
sat for a while eyeing the sheets of carelessly scratched figures, and
stroking the yellow pup on his knees.
"What do I want with all these clubs and things?" he said impatiently.
"I never use 'em."
On the spur of impulse, he began to write resignations, wholesale,
ridding himself of all kinds of incumbrances--shooting clubs in Virginia
and Georgia and North Carolina, to which he had paid dues and
assessments for years, and to which he had never been; fishing clubs in
Maine and Canada and Nova Scotia and California; New York clubs,
including the Cataract, the Old Fort, the Palisades, the Cap and Bells,
keeping only the three clubs to which men of his sort are supposed to
belong--the Patroons, the Olympian, and his college club. But everything
else went--yacht clubs, riding clubs, golf clubs, country clubs of every
sort--everything except his membership in those civic, educational,
artistic, and charitable associations to which such New York families as
his owed a moral and perpetual tribute.
It was nearly midnight when the last envelope was sealed and stamped,
and he leaned back with a long, deep breath of relief. To-morrow he
would apply the axe again and lop off such extravagances as
saddle-horses in town, and the two cars he kept there. They should go to
the auction rooms; he'd sell his Long Island bungalow, too, and the
schooner and the power boats, and his hunters down at Cedar Valley; and
with them would go groom and chauffeur, captain and mechanic, and the
thousand maddening expenses that were adding daily to a total debt that
had begun secretly to appal him.
In his desk he knew there was an accumulated mass of unpaid bills. He
remembered them now and decided he didn't want to think about them.
Besides, he'd clear them away pretty soon--settle accounts with tailor,
bootmaker, haberdasher--with furrier, modiste and jeweler--and a dull
red settled under his cheek bones as he remembered these latter bills,
which he would scarcely care to exhibit to the world at large.
"Ass that I've been," he muttered, absently stroking the yellow pup.
Which reflection started another train of thought, and he went to a
desk, unlocked it, pulled out the large drawer, and carried it with its
contents to the fireplace.
The ashes were still alive and the first packet of letters presently
caught fire. On them he laid a silken slipper of Mrs. Clydesdale's and
watched it shrivel and burn. Next, he tossed handfuls of unassorted
trifles, letters, fans, one or two other slippers, gloves of different
sizes, dried remnants of flowers, programmes scribbled over; and when
the rubbish burned hotly, he added photographs and more letters without
even glancing at them, except where, amid the flames, he caught a
momentary glimpse of some familiar signature, or saw some pretty,
laughing phantom of the past glow, whiten to ashes, and evaporate.
Fire is a great purifier; he felt as though the flames had washed his
hands. Much edified by the moral toilet, and not concerned that all such
ablutions are entirely superficial, he watched with satisfaction the
last bit of ribbon shrivel, the last envelope flash into flame. Then he
replaced the desk drawer, leaving the key in it--because there was now
no reason why all the world and its relatives should not rummage if they
liked.
He remembered some letters and photographs and odds and ends scattered
about his rooms in town, and made a mental note to clear them out of his
life, too.
Mentally detached, he stood aloof in spirit and viewed with interest the
spectacle of his own regeneration, and calmly admired it.
"I'll cut out all kinds of things," he said to himself. "A devout girl
in Lent will have nothing on me. Nix for the bowl! Nix for the fat pat
hand! Throw up the sponge! Drop the asbestos curtain!" He made pretence
to open an imaginary door: "Ladies, pass out quietly, please; the show
is over."
The cat woke up and regarded him gravely; he said to her:
"You don't even need a pocket-book, do you? And you are quite right;
having things is a nuisance. The less one owns the happier one is. Do
you think I'll have sense enough to remember this to-morrow, and not be
ass enough to acquire more--a responsibility, for example? Do you think
I can be trusted to mind my business when _she_ comes to-morrow? And not
say something that I'll be surely sorry for some day--or something
she'll be sorry for? Because she's so pretty, pussy--so disturbingly
pretty--and so sweet. And I ought to know by this time that intelligence
and beauty are a deadly combination I had better let alone until I find
them in the other sort of girl. That's the trouble, pussy." He lifted
the sleepy cat and held it at arm's length, where it dangled, purring
all the while. "That's the trouble, kitty. I haven't the slightest
intentions; and as for friends, men prefer men. And that's the truth,
between you and me. It's rather rotten, isn't it, pussy? But I'll be
careful, and if I see that she is capable of caring for me, I'll go
South before it hurts either of us. That will be the square thing to do,
I suppose--and neither of us the worse for another week together."
He placed the cat on the floor, where it marched to and fro with tail
erect, inviting further attentions. But Desboro walked about, turning
out the electric lights, and presently took himself off to bed, fixed in
a resolution that the coming week should be his last with this unusual
girl. For, after all, he concluded she had not moved his facile
imagination very much more than had other girls of various sorts, whose
souvenirs lay now in cinders on his hearth, and long since had turned to
ashes in his heart.
What was the use? Such affairs ended one way or another--but they always
ended. All he wanted to find out, all he was curious about, was whether
such an unusual girl could be moved to response--he merely wanted to
know, and then he would let her alone, and no harm done--nothing to
disturb the faint fragrance of a pretty souvenir that he and she might
carry for a while--a week or two--perhaps a month--before they both
forgot.
And, conscious of his good intentions, feeling tranquil, complacent, and
slightly noble, he composed himself to slumber, thinking how much
happier this world would be if men invariably behaved with the
self-control that occasionally characterised himself.
* * * * *
In the city, Jacqueline lay awake on her pillow, unable to find a refuge
in sleep from the doubts, questions, misgivings assailing her.
Wearied, impatient, vexed, by turns, that her impulse and decision
should keep her sleepless--that the thought of going back to Silverwood
should so excite her, she turned restlessly in her bed, unwilling to
understand, humiliated in heart, ashamed, vaguely afraid.
Why should she have responded to an appeal from such a man as Desboro?
Her own calm judgment had been that they had seen enough of each
other--for the present, anyway. Because she knew, in her scared soul,
that she had not meant it to be final--that some obscure idea remained
of seeing him again, somewhere.
Yet, something in his voice over the wire--and something more disturbing
still when he spoke so coolly about going South--had swayed her in her
purpose to remain aloof for a while. But there was no reason, after all,
for her to take it so absurdly. She would go once more, and then permit
a long interval to elapse before she saw him again. If she actually had,
as she began to believe, an inclination for his society, she would show
herself that she could control that inclination perfectly.
Why should any man venture to summon her--for it was a virtual summons
over the wire--and there had been arrogance in it, too. His curt
acquiescence in her decision, and his own arbitrary decision to go South
had startled her out of her calmly prepared rôle of business woman. She
was trying to recall exactly what she had said to him afterward to make
his voice change once more, and her own respond so happily.
Why should seeing him be any unusual happiness to her--knowing who and
what he had been and was--a man of the out-world with which she had not
one thing in common--a man who could mean nothing to her--could not even
remain a friend because their two lives would never even run within
sight of each other.
She would never know anybody he knew. They would never meet anywhere
except at Silverwood. How could they, once the business between them was
transacted? She couldn't go to Silverwood except on business; he would
never think of coming here to see her. Could she ask him--venture,
perhaps, to invite him to dinner with some of her friends? Which
friends? Cynthia and--who else? The girls she knew would bore him; he'd
have only contempt for the men.
Then what did all this perplexity mean that was keeping her awake? And
why was she going back to Silverwood? Why! Why! Was it to see with her
own eyes the admiration for herself in his? She had seen it more than
once. Was it to learn more about this man and his liking for her--to
venture a guess, perhaps, as to how far that liking might carry him with
a little encouragement--which she would not offer, of course?
She began to wonder how much he really did like her--how greatly he
might care if she never were to see him again. Her mind answered her,
but her heart appealed wistfully from the clear decision.
Lying there, blue eyes open in the darkness, head cradled on her crossed
arms, she ventured to recall his features, summoning them shyly out of
space; and she smiled, feeling the tension subtly relaxing.
Then she drifted for a while, watching his expression, a little dreading
lest even his phantom laugh at her out of those eyes too wise.
Visions came to her awake to reassure her; he and she in a sleigh
together under the winter stars--he and she in the sunlight, their
skates flashing over the frozen meadows--he and she in the armoury,
heads together over some wonder of ancient craftsmanship--he and she at
luncheon--in the library--always he and she together in happy
companionship. Her eyelids fluttered and drooped; and sleep came, and
dreams--wonderful, exquisite, past belief--and still of him and of
herself together, always together in a magic world that could not be
except for such as they.