Part 16 (1/2)

”Is he kissing her?” asked Howard.

”No--not yet. But I'm sure he will as soon as we have turned the corner.” She said nothing for a moment or two, her glance straight ahead and upon vacancy, he admiring the curve of her cheek at the edge of its effective framing of fur.

”But we are not----” She spoke in a low tone, regretful, pensive, almost sad. ”We are not like them.”

”Oh, yes we are. But--we fancy we are not. We've sold our birthright, our freedom, our independence for--for----”

”Well--what?”

”Baubles--childish toys--vanities--shadows. Doesn't it show what ridiculous little creatures we human beings are that we regard the most valueless things as of the highest value, and think least of the true valuables. For, tell me, Lady-Whom-I-Love, what is most valuable in the few minutes of this little journey among the stars on the good s.h.i.+p Mother Earth?”

”But you would not care always as you care now? It would not, could not, last. If we--if we were like those people on the bench back there, we'd go on and--and spoil it all.”

”Perhaps--who can say? But in some circ.u.mstances couldn't I make you just as happy as--as some one else could?”

”Not if you had made me infinitely happier at one time than even you could hope to make me all the time. At least I think not. It would always be--be racing against a record; we both would be, wouldn't we?”

Howard looked at her with an expression which transfigured his face and sent the colour flaming to her cheeks. ”That being the case,” he said, ”let us--let us make the record one that will not be forgotten--soon.”

During the month he saw her almost every day. She was most ingenious in arranging these meetings. They were together afternoons and evenings.

They were often alone. Yet she was careful not to violate any convention, always to keep, or seem to be keeping, one foot ”on the line.” Howard threw himself into his infatuation with all his power of concentration He practically took a month's holiday from the office.

He thought about her incessantly. He used all his skill with words in making love to her. And she abandoned herself to an equal infatuation with equal absorption. Neither of them spoke of the past or the future.

They lived in the present, talked of the present.

One day she spoke of herself as an orphan.

”I did not know that,” he said. ”But then what do I know about you in relation to the rest of the world? To me you are an isolated act of creation.”

”You must tell me about yourself.” She was looking at him, surprised.

”Why, I know nothing at all about you.”

”Oh, yes, you do. You know all that there is to know--all that is important.”

”What?” She was asking for the pleasure of hearing him say it.

”That I love you--you--all of you--all of you, with all of me.”

Her eyes answered for her lips, which only said smilingly: ”No, we haven't time to get acquainted--at least not to-day.”

She was to start for Florida at ten the next morning. Mrs. Carnarvon was going away to the opera, giving them the last evening alone. Marian had asked this of her point-blank.

”You are an extraordinarily sensible as well as strong-willed girl, Marian,” Mrs. Carnarvon replied.

”I can't find it in my heart to blame you for what you're doing. The fact that I haven't even hinted a protest, but have lent myself to your little plots, shows that that young man has hypnotized me also.”

”You needn't disturb yourself, as you know,” Marian said gaily. ”I'm not hypnotized. I shall not see Mr. Howard again until--after it's all over.

Perhaps not then.”