Part 21 (2/2)
”How silly! I'm an iceberg! I never get excited!” she declared.
”Well then, how would you like to be Queen of the next Mardi Gras?”
Myra Nell gasped faintly in the darkness, and sat bolt-upright.
”You--you're joking.”
”That's no answer.”
”I--I--Do you mean it? Oh!” She was out of the hammock now and poised tremblingly before him, like a bird. ”Honestly? You're not fooling?
Norvin, you dear duck!” She clapped her hands together gleefully and began to dance up and down. ”I-I'm going to scream.”
”Remember your promise.”
”Oh, but Queen! Queen! Why I'm dreaming, I _must_ scream.”
”I gather from these rapt incoherences that you'd like it.”
”_Like_ it! You silly! Like it? Haven't I lived for it? Haven't I dreamed about it ever since T was a baby? Wouldn't any girl give her eyes to be queen?” She seemed upon the verge of kissing him, perhaps upon the nose, but changed her mind and went dancing around his chair like some moon-mad sprite. He seized her, barely in time to prevent her from crying the news aloud to Bernie, explaining hastily that she must breathe no word to any one for the time being and must first win her brother's consent. It was very difficult to impress her with the fact that the Carnival was still a long way off and that Bernie was yet to be reckoned with.
”As if there could be any question of my accepting,” she chattered.
”Dear, dear! Why shouldn't I? And it was lovely of you to arrange it for me, too. Oh, I know you did, so you needn't deny it. I hope you're to be Rex. Wouldn't that be splendid--but of course you wouldn't tell me.”
”I can tell you this much, that I am not to be King. Now I have already spoken to Bernie--”
”The wretch! He never breathed a word of it.”
”He's afraid he can't afford it.”
”Oh, la, la! He'll have to. I'll die if he refuses--just die. You know I will.”
”We'll bring him around, between us. You talk to him after I go, and the next time I see him I'll clinch matters. You'll make the most gorgeous of queens, Myra Nell.”
”You think so?” She blushed prettily in the gloom. ”I'll have to be very dignified; the train is as long as a hall carpet and I'll have to walk this way.” She ill.u.s.trated the royal step, bowing to him with a regal inclination of her dark head, and then broke out into rippling life and laughter so infectious that he felt he was a boy once more.
The girl's unaffected spontaneity was her most adorable trait. She was like a dancing ray of suns.h.i.+ne, and underneath her blithesome carelessness was a fine, clean, tender nature. Blake watched her with his eyes alight, for all men loved Myra Nell Warren and it was conceded among those who wors.h.i.+ped at her shrine that he who finally received her love in return for his would be favored far above his kind. She was closer to him to-night than ever before; she seemed to reach out and take him into her warm confidence, while he felt her appeal more strongly than at any time in their acquaintance. Of course she did not let him do much talking, she never did that, and now her head was full of dreams, of delirious antic.i.p.ations, of splendid visions.
At last, when she had thanked him in as many ways as she could think of for his kindness and the time drew near for him to leave, she fell serious in a most abrupt manner, and then to his great surprise referred once again to his affair with the Mafia.
”It seems to me that my joy would be supreme to-night if I knew you would drop that Italian matter,” she said. ”The consequences may be terrible and--I--don't want you to get into trouble.”
”I'll be careful,” he told her, but as she stood with her hand in his she looked up at him with eyes which were no longer sparkling with fun, but deep and dark with shadows, saying, gently:
”Is there nothing which would induce you to change your mind?”
”That's not a fair question.”
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