ANICE HAD INSISTED THAT SHE meet him at a downtown hotel and had pleaded frankly that she could not bear to have him see the shabby, down-at-heels building in which she had felt herself lucky to find “just a tiny room, and it’s drab and ugly, but at least it’s got a roof and a bed—and that’s a lot nowadays!”
She had been waiting for him when he came into the big, well-filled hotel lobby. A very pretty girl with cornsilk yellow hair beneath a tiny flower hat, her exquisitely white, creamy skin revealed at throat and arms by a filmy black lace and chiffon dress that was perfect, as any woman would have told him, for a summer dinner in town.
He had tucked her almost lovingly into his expensive, low-slung coupe and had turned the car toward Fifty-ninth Street.
“Have you any preference as to a dining spot?” he asked, smiling warmly down at her, happier than he had been in a long time.
“Goodness,” she told him, smiling deprecatingly, “how would the likes of me know anything about a suitable dining spot for anyone like you?”
“I thought we might drive down to the shore,” he suggested eagerly. “I telephoned my house and asked them to have dinner for us on the terrace. I thought you might like a swim, perhaps. And anyway, it will be much cooler than any place in town, and I can guarantee the food; my cook is a gem of purest ray serene!”
For just a moment there was the tiniest possible gleam in her eyes, but her white lids were lowered and he did not catch it. Then a moment later she was saying, “Oh, that will be marvelous!”
Pleased, he said, “Good, I’m glad you don’t mind.”
“Mind? I’m just ever so flattered that you think me worthy,” she told him simply.
“See here, my dear, you mustn’t be so humble!” he said quickly, unbearably touched by her guilelessness, her utter honesty. “No girl so beautiful, so alluring as you, need ever feel humble under any circumstances whatsoever.”
“But I’m such a nobody, Mr. Rutledge, and you’re—well, you’re such a very important somebody!” she told him.
“But even if that were true, your beauty and charm would more than balance the scales,” he answered her.
She smiled bewitchingly and her eyes thanked him.
She exclaimed with child-like happiness at the beautiful homes, and the pretty little towns through which they passed. At last the car rolled through tall stone pillars and along a smooth driveway bordered by trim flower beds and there was a glimpse of the house—solid, substantial, very handsome, with a view of the blue sound beyond—and she cried out in frank delight.
“Oh, it’s beautiful, like—oh, like something in a movie,” she told him eagerly. “I never dreamed I’d ever be a guest at such a place.”
Her artless pleasure soothed him. After all, his wealth and the luxury and beauty it could buy was an old story to Letty. She accepted without question, without thought, all the things he could offer her. She was accustomed to them; anything else would have shocked and repelled her. And so he had been denied the pleasure of showering her with expensive, extravagant trinkets by which a wealthy man demonstrates his ability to provide more than adequately for the woman he loves. But he would not be denied that with this lovely creature.
Dinner on the terrace, the deft maid and the rather awe-inspiring butler, the view of the sound as the stars twinkled out and the moon rose, soft and amber-colored, the scent of dew-wet flowers from the garden—all evidence of the great wealth that surrounded her. It enchanted Anice, and her eyes glowed with happiness as Kenyon watched her with deep pleasure.
“This will make a lovely ‘pretend,’” she said at last, when coffee had been served and the butler and the maid had departed.
“A ‘pretend?’” asked Kenyon, a little puzzled.
She gave a shy little laugh and said, “Oh, I suppose it will sound terribly silly to you, Mr. Rutledge, but—well, when you are poor and lonely, you sort of make up games to amuse yourself. I pretend—oh, all sorts of things, like that I’m beautifully dressed and going to a marvelous party. Then, going to the movies alone don’t seem so dull. And after this, when I have my dinner at a cheap, grubby little restaurant, I can remember tonight, and pretend that I’m having dinner with you again in this lovely, lovely place.”
“This is only the first time, my dear. We’ll have dinner together many times, and in many places hereafter,” said Kenyon rashly.
She hesitated, and in the light of the hurricane candles on the table, he saw that her color had deepened and her eyes were lowered.
“I’m afraid you’re just pretending now, Mr. Rutledge,” she told him gently. “But it’s nice of you, and thank you.”
Kenyon hesitated. Of course, he knew the thought that was in her mind. In less than two weeks he would be married to Letty, and while he might occasionally take a pretty girl like Anice to dinner it would be in some spot where he could be reasonably sure that neither his own nor Letty’s friends would be likely to see him. Definitely it would not be in his own home!
He didn’t like the prospect. It made him suddenly restive, and he stood up, held out his hand to her and said, smiling, “Now that the moon is up, shall we have a look at the garden? I like it best at this time of the evening.”
“I’d love it,” she said radiantly, and slipped her hand shyly in his.
They crossed the terrace and went down shallow steps of fieldstone that matched the paving of the terrace. At the bottom, a path branched. One fork proceeded through a shoulder-high hedge of magnificent box shrubs that surrounded the garden, protecting it from the winds off the sound; the other went on to the driveway.
Kenyon and Anice walked through the small white gate set in the boxwood hedge, and Anice caught her breath at the sight of the formal sunken garden, thinking that it must require the constant care of five hard-working men to keep it perfect. Anice’s eyes went swiftly over it, and she drew a deep hard breath.
“It’s like fairyland,” she told him, her voice hushed by awe. She walked ahead of him down the path, a golden-topped, misty, black-clad figure, bending yearningly above an especially lovely plant, touching the lilies with a gentle fingertip as though caressing the cheek of a baby. Beyond the formal garden were the roses; more than a hundred varieties were in bloom, all the finest of their kind as befitted the garden of a man of Kenyon’s wealth. He looked about him and it seemed to him that he saw the lovely expanse of dewy, exquisitely scented blossoms for the first time—through the eyes of this lovely girl.
She looked up at him and the white moonlight showed him her face so clearly that he caught the shimmer of tears in her eyes and the soft trembling of her rose-red mouth.
“I shall never forget this,” she told him softly, her voice a little husky. “I’ll never be lonely or tired again. Because when things sort of—well, gang up on me, I’ll remember this and pretend I’m here again, seeing it all.” She broke off and made a little effort at control and managed a smile. “I love flowers so! Grannie’s little house was shabby and ugly, but she always had the most beautiful flowers! I’ve missed them so! I’ve a pot of red geraniums I bought when I first came to New York—I take them with me wherever I go. But they need sunshine and there isn’t any in my room. I wonder—oh, please don’t laugh at me! But I know they are not happy on my windowsill, without sun. If I brought them out here, would you let your gardener tuck ‘em somewhere out of sight, where they’d have sun and be happy?”
Kenyon said, “You precious angel!” And then she was in his arms, and he was holding her close and hard against him, and she had tilted back her head and offered him her soft, exquisite mouth. Kenyon set his mouth on hers, and felt a little shock of such exquisite ecstasy that for a moment it shook him badly. He had never known anything like this—a girl whose soft young mouth was flower-like in its silky smoothness, untouched by lipstick, fragrant with its own exquisite scent free from the taint of cigarettes or alcohol.
It was a kiss of such magic enchantment that he lost count of time. He forgot everything except that perfect moment; the perfect girl held close in his arms. He sensed dimly that he had found a girl who was an innocent virgin—and the wonder of that stunned him for a long moment.
It was Anice who broke the kiss, and turned swiftly away from him and leaned her trembling body against the old sun dial that had been imported from Italy many years before.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she told him at last, in a small, shaken voice. “Now I can’t ever get you out of my heart.”
“I don’t want you to, Anice—I want your heart for always, just as you will have mine,” he told her swiftly, and drew her, resisting ever so little, back into his arms. “Anice, my dearest, don’t you understand? I want to marry you!”
She was still for a moment, almost rigid. She was shocked speechless; she could not believe her ears. But Kenyon was going on swiftly, “I know what you’re thinking—that I’m a … well, a cad and a bounder and all that for asking you to marry me when I’m engaged to Mrs. Lawrence. But this thing that has happened to us, Anice—it’s too wonderful for us to lose. I love you. I’ve never loved anyone before. We—well, we’re mated! It would be unthinkable that we should let anything keep us apart. You’ve said you love me.”
“Oh, I do, I do,” she breathed ecstatically, and kissed him shyly.
“And I adore you, so we’re going to be married,” said Kenyon eagerly.
For a moment she was still in his arms, and then she drew a little way from him and looked up at him, her eyes starry through the bright shimmer of her tears.
“You’re sweet, darling, and I’m perfectly mad about you,” she told him unsteadily. “But she’ll never let you go—no woman could! I know that if you were engaged to me, I’d kill anybody who tried to come between us!”
Kenyon laughed fondly at that. She was like a kitten offering its tiny growl in the hope that the menace would be afraid of it and it need not be afraid of the menace.
“Mrs. Lawrence will understand when I tell her,” he began.
But Anice shook her golden head, on which the silver-white moonlight lay like a caress.
“No woman could be that generous,” she told him sweetly. “And anyway, dearest, I couldn’t hold you to this. I mean, it’s a marvelous night and the moonlight is so soft and the scent of the flowers. And I’m here and I’m a girl and you’re a man. It’s only natural that you should make the mistake of believing yourself in love with me. Tomorrow you’ll feel quite different.”
“I’m not a callow schoolboy, my darling,” Kenyon told her firmly. “I know my own mind. I’m in love with you, and nothing on earth is going to stop me from marrying you.”
She caught her breath and swayed a little as his arms caught her close, and with her tear-wet cheek against his, she said huskily, “Oh, if it were only possible—but we mustn’t. I’m just nobody at all, and you’re … you’re rich and famous and—well, just terribly important.”
Kenyon’s mouth on hers stopped the words, and he said swiftly, “You’re the only really important person in the world, darling, to me. And you’re going to marry me, as quickly as it can be arranged.”
She smiled tremulously and shook her head a little.
“They won’t let us,” she told him unsteadily.
Puzzled, he frowned. “They?”
“Mrs. Lawrence and Phyllis,” she answered him quietly.
“Mrs. Lawrence has too much pride to insist on marrying a man who is in love with someone else!” he told her firmly. “And as for Phyllis—Miss Gordon—what’s she got to do with it?”
Anice looked down and one slim finger traced a numeral on the weathered old sundial.
“She’s in love with you and she hates me, and she will do everything in her power to keep you from marrying me,” she told him huskily.
“That’s absurd!” said Kenyon, and caught her close to him in jealous arms. Suddenly he said, with new inspiration. “See here, darling, why don’t we just elope, right this minute? Without saying anything to anybody?”
Anice caught her breath, and for a moment she dared not let him see her eyes. Did she dare? Could she risk it? It would be the perfect solution. Once she was married to him, no matter what Phyllis tried to tell him, she would be secure. And anyway, Phyllis could not tell him anything that would really matter. Phyllis knew that Anice was a decent girl, a nice girl; she did not drink or smoke, nor did she have lovers.
“Wouldn’t it be just wonderful if we could?” she whispered at last as though the prospect were so radiant she dared not even contemplate it.
“Won’t it be wonderful, you mean!” said Kenyon with a boyishness he had not felt for years. “Come on—what are we waiting for? We’ll drive down to Elkton and be married.”
“But—but I’m wearing a black gown and … well, I haven’t anything else,” she protested.
Kenyon laughed. “That’s one of the best things about it. You’ll come to me empty-handed and I can shower you with all the lovely things you deserve. I’ve always wanted to buy tons of beautiful things for a girl who’s never had anything. And to find a beautiful girl I love, who will appreciate and enjoy the things I can buy for her—why, precious, it’s going to be perfect!”
Hand in hand they went swiftly up the garden path and to the drive, where the car waited. There she hesitated just a moment, and asked him anxiously, “You—you won’t be sorry, later on? You won’t feel I took advantage of you because of the moonlight, and because I love you so much?”
“You precious silly!” He caught her and held her close and said, his voice a little rough, “Darling, all my life I’ve gone hungry for a love that would be real and lasting. I’ve found it, and it’s made me the happiest man that will ever draw breath. Sorry? Life won’t be long enough for me to be grateful to you—for loving me and letting me marry you.”
“Oh,” she said when he had kissed her. “Oh, my darling!”
But he seemed to find no inadequacy in the words, as he lifted her in his arms as though she weighed nothing and tucked her into the car.