Part 45 (1/2)

”What in the world have you been doing with your face?” demanded Diane.

As an afterthought she added: ”Mr. Macdonald is all cut up too.”

”We've been taking ma.s.sage treatment.” Gordon pa.s.sed to a subject of more immediate interest. ”Do I get my congratulations, Di?”

She kissed him, too, for old sake's sake. ”I do believe you'll suit Sheba better than Colby Macdonald would. He's a great man and you are not. But it isn't everybody that is fit to be the wife of a great man.”

”That's a double, left-handed compliment,” laughed Gordon. ”But you can't say anything that will hurt my feelings to-day, Di. Isn't that your baby I heap crying? What a heartless mother you are!”

Diane gave him the few minutes alone with Sheba that his gay smile had asked for. ”Get out with you,” she said, laughing. ”Go to the top of the hill and look at the lovers' moon I've ordered there expressly for you; and while you are there forget that there are going to be crying babies and nursemaids with evenings out in that golden future of yours.”

”Come along, Sheba. We'll start now on the golden trail,” said Elliot.

She walked as if she loved it. Her long, slender legs moved rhythmically and her arms swung true as pendulums.

The moon was all that Diane had promised. Sheba drank it in happily.

”I believe I must be a pagan. I love the sun and the moon and I know it's all true about the little folk and the pied piper and--”

”If it's paganism to be in love with the world, you are a thirty-third degree pagan.”