Part 27 (2/2)

CONVERTS OF LOVE

A very warm intimacy developed rapidly between the four friends, and every evening for nearly two weeks found them joyfully, even riotously, making merry together in the Cloud Cote. As Eveley had prophesied, Lieutenant Ames was hopelessly lost from the first, and Marie yielded herself very readily to the charm of an ardent wooing.

But with Eveley, Marie was different, more quiet, less demonstrative, sometimes plainly listless and absent-minded. Eveley ascribed the change to her newly developed interest in Lieutenant Ames, and patiently awaited the outcome of the ripening romance. For Eveley had a deep-seated sympathy with every appeal of love.

For many weeks she had received no word from Miriam Landis. Although she had pa.s.sed in an hour from all connection with their daily plans, yet she was never far from their thought. Even without their tender and sympathetic memories, they could not have forgotten her, for her husband was a frequent and always tumultuous visitor in the Cote.

He invariably began talking before he was through the window, and his first words were unfailingly the same.

”I can't stand it, Eveley, I simply can't stand it. You've got to do something about it.”

Again and again he came with this appeal, always overlooking the fact that Eveley had no faintest idea of Miriam's whereabouts, for, true to her word, she had kept her hiding-place unknown to them all.

Then for several weeks he did not come, and Eveley felt that perhaps he was reconciled, and had returned to his old pursuit of secluded ballroom corners. But Nolan a.s.sured her of the injustice of this. Lem had forsaken all his former haunts, and had become a recluse, brooding alone in his deserted home.

”It will do him good, even if it does not last,” Nolan said. ”Almost any one would grieve for a woman like Miriam for a few months.”

”Perhaps it is permanent this time, and there will be a reconciliation, and both live happily ever after,” said Eveley, with her usual buoyant faith in the cheerful outcome.

Gordon Cameron she had seen only once since Miriam's departure, and that was when he came at her request to receive Miriam's message. He had listened quietly, while she repeated the words of her friend.

”I expected it, of course,” he said at last gravely. ”The pity of it is that her little revolution was so hopeless from the beginning. As long as a woman loves her husband, she can not hope for happiness, nor even for forgetfulness.”

”Oh, she does not love her husband any more,” said Eveley confidently.

”Not a bit. She is over that long ago.”

”That was the whole trouble,” he insisted. ”If she had not loved him, she could have stood it and gone her way. But loving him, the situation was impossible for a woman of spirit and pride. Well, there is always one to pay in every triangle, and this time the bill comes to me. But I had antic.i.p.ated that from the beginning. She is a wonderful woman.”

”Do you think she will go back to her husband?” asked Eveley breathlessly.

”I hardly think so. She might as well, though; perhaps it would be better. She can not be happy without him, and she was certainly not happy with him. It is only a choice of miseries. As long as she loves him, she will suffer for it. I begin to think that one who loves can not be happy.”

”Oh, yes, one can. One is,” a.s.serted Eveley positively.

”Perhaps I should say, when one is married to it,” he added, with a sober smile for her a.s.surance.

Then he had gone away, and when Lem's pleadings had suddenly ceased, Eveley felt that the little tempest would live its life, and die its death, and perhaps Miriam at least would find happiness in the lull that followed.

So it was something of a shock to have her pleasant Sunday morning nap disturbed by Lem pounding briskly upon her window.

”Get up, immediately,” he said in an a.s.sertive voice quite different from his futile and inane pleadings of a short while before. ”Hurry, Eveley, I want you. Dress for motoring, my car is here. I shall wait in the garden--give you ten minutes.”

”He must want me for a bridesmaid for his second wedding,” thought Eveley resentfully, as she hurriedly dressed. But accustomed to obey the calls of friends.h.i.+p, she put on a heavy sport skirt and sweater, and had even pulled her soft hat over her curls before she went to the window.

”I am ready, but I do not approve of it,” she began rather unpleasantly.

”You'd better take a doughnut, or a roll, or an orange, or something, for we have no time for breakfast,” he said in the same a.s.sertive voice. ”She will not be back until afternoon, Miss Ledesma. Sorry if it interferes with any of your plans, but it can not be helped. Get your coat, quickly, Eveley.”

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