Part 14 (1/2)

Myra leaned over, and smiled into his adoring eyes.

”How can I go?” she whispered, tenderly.

Jim Airth took both her hands in his. His eyes blazed up into hers.

”Myra,” he said, ”when shall we be married?”

Myra's face flamed, just as the soft white clouds had flamed when the sun arose. But she met the fire of his eyes without flinching.

”When you will, Jim,” she answered gently.

”As soon as possible, then,” said Jim Airth, eagerly.

Myra withdrew her hands, and mounted two more steps; then turned to bend and whisper: ”Why?”

”Because,” replied Jim Airth, ”I do not know how to bear that there should be a day, or an hour, or a minute, when we cannot be together.”

”Ah, do you feel that, too?” whispered Myra.

”Too?” cried Jim Airth. ”Do _you_--Myra! Come back!”

But Lady Ingleby fled up the stairs like a hare. She had not run so fast since she was a little child of ten. He heard her happy laugh, and the closing of her door.

Then he unbarred the front entrance; and stepping out, stood in the suns.h.i.+ne, on the path where he had seen his Fairy-land Princess arrive.

He stretched his arms over his head.

”Mine!” he said. ”Mine, altogether! Oh, my G.o.d! At last, I have won the Highest!”

Then he raced down the street to the beach; and five minutes later, in the full strength of his vigorous manhood, he was swimming up the golden path, towards the rising sun.

CHAPTER XIV

GOLDEN DAYS

The week which followed was one of ideal joy and holiday. Both knew, instinctively, that no after days could ever be quite as these first days. They were an experience which came not again, and must be realised and enjoyed with whole-hearted completeness.

At first Jim Airth talked with determination of a special licence, and pleaded for no delay. But Lady Ingleby, usually vague to a degree on all questions of law or matters of business, fortunately felt doubtful as to whether it would be wise to be married in a name other than her own; and, though she might have solved the difficulty by at once revealing her ident.i.ty to Jim Airth, she was anxious to choose her own time and place for this revelation, and had set her heart upon making it amid the surroundings of her own beautiful home at Shenstone.

”You see, Jim,” she urged, ”I _have_ a few friends in town and at Shenstone, who take an interest in my doings; and I could hardly reappear among them married! Could I, Jim? It would seem such an unusual and unexpected termination to a rest-cure. Wouldn't it, Jim?”

Jim Airth's big laugh brought Miss Susie to the window. It caused sad waste of Susannah's time, that her window looked out on the honeysuckle arbour.

”It might make quite a run on rest-cures,” said Jim Airth.

”Ah, but they couldn't all meet _you_,” said Myra; and the look he received from those sweet eyes, atoned for the vague inaccuracy of the rejoinder.

So they agreed to have one week of this free untrammelled life, before returning to the world of those who knew them; and he promised to come and see her in her own home, before taking the final steps which should make her altogether his.