Madcap Part 59

"To Trevelyan M--"

But she put her fingers over his lips before he could finish.

"Don't Philidor. Wherever I went, I should not go to Trevvy." She laughed. "He cast me off, you know."

"Cast _you_ off?"

She nodded. "He heard that story at Rood's Knoll after I had gone.

The next day he came to my house in town. I saw him. He wore a woe-begone expression and silently presented a clipping from a paper."

She laughed again. "He looked like a virtuous undertaker presenting a bill, long overdue, for the interment of some lightly mourned relative.

He asked me if the story were true. I said it was--and he went out of the house--casting not even one longing, lingering look behind!"

"But it _wasn't_ true."

"That's just the point--but he thought so. Would _you_ have believed me that kind of a girl? You could have, you know, and didn't." She sighed happily, and sank back into his arms. "I think I don't want people to be _too_ excellent, Philidor. Just human--"

"Were you"--he hesitated a moment--"were you engaged to him, Hermia?"

She gazed at him wide-eyed.

"Never," she a.s.serted, and then repeated, "Never, never, never!"

"But the newspapers--"

"O Philidor! How could I have been engaged to Trevvy when I--I was already engaged to you?"

"Engaged."

"Yes, promised. After the forest at S?es I knew it then. I could never have loved anyone else. Why, Philidor, you held me like this, and kissed me--"

"You loved me then--and before--?"

She hesitated demurely.

"Yes--before."

"Before, Alenon?"

"Y--yes."

"Before Verneuil?"

She smiled and nodded.

"Here--at Vall?cy?"

"Before that."

"You adorable child! Pa.s.sy?"

"Yes?"

He was now really astounded. What she added astounded him still more.

"I think it began before 'Wake Robin'?"

"Thimble Island?"

She stammered. "I--I think it really began in your studio."

"In New York?"

"You interested me--and you snubbed me so completely. You were so impolite, John Markham. I was curious about you. You were like no man I had ever met. You told me the truth. I didn't like it, but I respected you for telling it. When I went away I remember wanting to see you again. AT Thimble Island--"

"Yes?"

She hid her face in his breast and the words came slowly.

"My visit to--to Thimble Island--I--I knew you were there. My m--motor _didn't_ miss fire, Philidor?"

He raised her head and made her look at him. Even in the wan light her face was rosy with her confession. But she laughed joyously.

"I wanted to snub you for being so rude to me. Alas! I ended by--by scrubbing your floor."

"Diana of the Tubs! How you scrubbed!"

"I liked it. You were very nice at Thimble Island, Philidor." She paused a moment. "Then Olga came--and the others. She quite owned you, then, didn't she?"

"No," he replied slowly.

"I don't think I really liked Olga's face-powder on your coat, dear."

He was silent.

"I knew you didn't love her. You couldn't. She wasn't your sort."

More silence.

"You didn't care for her, did you?" jerkily.

He looked down into her eyes tenderly but made no reply. She sighed but asked no more questions. And, when he knew that she understood the meaning of his silence, he took her head between his hands and made her look at him.

"Isn't it enough for me to say to you that I love you better than all the world, dear, that I am yours--wholly and indivisibly--my past, my future--"

"Oh, I am content," she whispered quickly. "Your past--shall be what you have made it. I'm not afraid. But your future--"

She caught one of his hands in both of her own and held it to her heart. "That is mine."

There was a silence rich with meaning. The stream, the whispering boughs, the rising breeze in the tree-tops joined in the soft chorus of their nuptial-song. The night fell, shrouded in mystery. Behind them over their shoulders a new moon rose, a harbinger of good fortune, but they did not turn to look at it. It could not foretell them a fortune that was already theirs. Its light flowed through the shadows, paling the silhouette of the leaves against the afterglow, bathing them both in liquid silver. He told her many of the things that she already knew, but each reiteration had a new meaning and a new delight. The same immortal questions and answers, ever new, ever mystifying. The touch of hands, of eyes, the physical contact, outward tokens of the spiritual pact made already, the welding of the bonds which were to make them one! The moments of their more intimate confessions past, he told her of the friends.h.i.+p of Mrs. Hammond and what she had done to set the story right, but she did not seem to hear him. Her gaze was upon the pale rim of light along the hill-top beyond, a gaze which looked and saw nothing beyond the rosy aura of her thoughts.