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Show Shirley did not come and she was really responsible." (To Be Continued) there. When Shirley had refused, it seemed incredible that Elise had come uninvited. She slipped out of her coat, and draped herself her-self over a nearby chair. Her glance rested first on Mark, then Lucy, and last on the small table sitting so cosily by the fire. "What a domestic scene,", she said. "Isn't it?" agreed Mark amiably. ami-ably. "I hope I'm not too terribly in the way," she went on wistfully. "I never dreamed you'd be entertaining. enter-taining. I just felt so lonely on this dear home day, I longed for a glimpse of something real." "Of course I'm frightfully em-barassed," em-barassed," Elise ventured, "dashing "dash-ing in on a party where I wasn't invited. But I never dreamed with dear Ellen gone and all " "Don't be a goat," said Mark angrily. "Anybody can see with half an eye it's only a children's party. Why do you suppose Miss Tredway and I are hiding here?" "I really wondered " murmured mur-mured Elise. She was a little frightened after she had said it; but Mark gave no hint that he had heard, and it made no difference hether Lucy had or not. "Valerie had a birthday a couple cou-ple of days ago," explained Mark. "Ever since Shirley gave her a party, she has trotted about, and she wanted to return a few invitations. invita-tions. No grown-ups allowed. Even she was sitting down to her first meal alone with Mark. It was early September, and summer was still in the air. Lucy wore white, and her eyes were dark under the gold of her hair. It was the purest gold Mark had ever seen. Neither platinum nor honey, but the color of an old burnished bur-nished coin. It lay in smooth waves against her little head, and Mark found himself suddenly longing to touch it. The gold of Ellen's hair had been pale and exquisite, and her eyes a curious, almost purple blue. But the gold on this girl's head was like a crown. Lucy rested him just because she had missed beauty by the merest mer-est fraction. Her skin was delicate and white, and the contrast of her eyes and hair would always set "I only pretended to come for swimming," said Shirley. He jumped in beside Shirley now, and drove with her down to his gates. He had gathered in some mysterious way that she had something more to say to him. Shirley drew up just this side of the lodge, shut off the engine, and sat looking at him. He looked back, his eyes full of admiration. He found he was suddenly untroubled un-troubled by whatever she was going go-ing to tell him. "I gathered there was something on your mind," he said lazily. "Nothing Important." He relaxed more completely. Whatever it was, he was not in for another lecture on the proprieties. proprie-ties. "I didn't want to speak before Valerie, in case you didn't approve of what I was going to say." CHAPTER X Synopsis tu-r Mark Alexander's beautiful beau-tiful wife, Mien, died, her whole family became interested in Valerie, Val-erie, Ellen daughter by a former marriage, and in the trnxt fund left Valerie. All are anxious to adopt Valerie all save Shirley, but Mark will have none of It. Mark hires Lucy Tredway to tutor Valerie and k(wis Lucy in the house, much to Ellse's dismay. Eli.se meets Murk at the office and drives home with him, criticizing criti-cizing Lucy all the way. Mark leaves her at the door and drives on, luilf amused, half disgusted. 0 He turned in at his own gates fooling as If he had escaped from something. He found Shirley, wrapped in the white bath coat, Just getting into her car. Lucy and her a little apart. Taken one by I one, her features were charming. Assembled, they somehow lacked the Intangible quality of beauty. "The modern spirit, I suppose you would call it," said Mrs. Ban-wood Ban-wood to Chiltern. He had just carried car-ried the big sliver tray with its shining coffee service out to the terrace, where Mark and Lucy relaxed re-laxed in long chairs of split bamboo, bam-boo, and watched the tiny crescent " "Wondrous wise you, I mean," he said softly. Shirley smiled at him. "Rather stupid, really. However I just want to give a little party for her. And Lucy, too, of course, if she cares for anything so juvenile. That girl's a wonder, by the way." "I'm glad you think so," said Mark. He wondered if she knew how glad. Vnlnxtn -nrnn fittJ 111. .1. Valerie stood together, In their swimming suits, by the running board. Valorle cried out when she saw him, and ran to kiss him, standing carefully bowed, not to get him wet. "Oh we missed you!" she said. "What do you mean, missed?" he Iaughted. "Compared to the way I missed you, you're a rank gorgeous garden, you must think I'm a good actor," she said. "I think you're a bad actor. That's why I like you such a lot." It startled him to realize he could have almost said "love" even without with-out meaning it. Valerie was filled with alternate shivers of delight and dread at the thought of Shirley's party. She loved to dance, and the prospect of going off alone just to be amused was studendous. She relayed Shirley's Shir-ley's Invitation to Lucy, who wisely wise-ly declined it. Lucy telephoned Shirley when Valerie was out of of the moon. "The world's gone on since your time and mine, if that's what you mean," agreed Chiltern amiably. He knew quite well that she was registering disapproval of affairs on the terrace. And he knew she dared not voice them more expli- outsldor!" "You see," she told Lucy. "I told you he wanted to be here and couldn't." "Did !" he said. He held out a hand each to Shirley and Lucy. It was marvelous to be back where he could breathe. Mrs. Banwood's passion for the radio was now audible on the air. It was pleasant to sit there peacefully peace-fully in the half dark, and listen to the beat of dance music coming from city canyons so many overheated over-heated miles away. The music was a little louder now. It came lilting through the night with its haunting rhythm. Mark got to his feet, and stood in mock formality beside her. citly without encouragement from him, which she would never get. So he smiled blandly and went back to see if there was something more he could do for Mark and Lucy. There was, for they both declined declin-ed a second cup of coffee; and presently he went back to Mrs. Banwood, carrying the tray before him like a sort of shining shield. "A beautiful night," he said table in the dining room, he went back to Lucy by the library fire. The contrast between the laughter laugh-ter of the young mob he had left, and golden-haired Lucy in her peach-colored frock, waiting in the quiet room, struck him so that he stopped in the doorway to enjoy it. He detached himself from the domesticity he had come to take so happily for granted, and looked look-ed at the scene as a stranger might. Lucy glanced up, and caught the slight self-consciousness with which he came toward her. She smiled at him, and everything swung into place again. He pulled out her chair, and Alice came in and began to serve their dinner. Prom the dining room on the other side of the great hall young laughter laugh-ter rose distantly. They were just finishing their coffee, with a very special old liqueur in honor of the day, when to their dismay, the draperies at the library door were pushed back to reveal Elise in slim black velvet, vel-vet, a white ermine cloak off her very bare shoulders. She stood without speaking, her sultry eyes hearing. "You're sweet to ask me," she said, "but I think I shan't come. You'll understand how it is. I've been longing for her to know children her own age. But I didn't know just how to go about it." "I wish you'd told me," Shirley's Shir-ley's voice came back warmly. "I'd love to help, whenever I can. Maybe May-be you'll have lunch with me some day soon. There are some things I might be able to tell you " Something in her tone made Lucy Lu-cy agree eagerly. "I'd love it," she said. "Call me when you want me. And do make it soon." Valerie went off in state, driven driv-en by Catlet. She looked rather like a pale pink cloud in her flesh-colored flesh-colored dancing frock, with a tiny string of pearls about her throat. It wasn't until Chiltern announced an-nounced dinner that Lucy realized "Like to dance this?" he asked. She swung her silver sandals to the terrace flags, and faced him. "Love to, of course," she said. He took her in his arms, and they slid over the smoothly laid floor in silence. Lucy felt she had been waiting all her life just to dance with Mark. She was glad he didn't want to talk. Always, she thought, she would remember this night. She wanted to hold it sentimentally. "Sets one to thinking think-ing of all sorts of things. Youth, and summer " "Humph!" said Mrs. Banwood. Mark looked across to where Lucy rested, arms behind her golden gold-en head. She looked hardly more than the wraith of a girl, for they had turned off the terrace lights, and' there was only the faint gleam of the little moon, and the glimmer of low-hung innumerable stars. Scents drifted up to them on the domestic scene before her. "So there you are," she said at last. Her voice broke a little shrilly shril-ly as she came into the room. Mark got to his feet. He did a mental leap after his vanishing sense of hospitality. The woman was in his house. It was almost as hard to remember as when he was a child, with unwanted guests thrust upon him. Since she had met him at the factory gates, Wide Acres had been mercifully free of Elise. As a matter of fact, he had almost completely forgotten her. She barely nodded to Lucy, who could scarcely believe that she was tight, to let it sink deep, to be able to shut her eyes and live it all over again when it was gone. The night, the bewitching little moon, the scent of roses, and Mark's arms. Just before Thanksgiving, Valerie Val-erie had a birthday. Ten couples were asked for dinner din-ner and dancing. Valerie invited Shirley, too; but she declined, saying she didn't believe in too many adults at a children's party. Lucy was all for putting in a quiet evening in her own rooms, but Valerie's disappointment and Mark's dismay were so real that she changed her mind. She and Mark had their dinner at a small table before the library fire. Valerie quailed a bit at the idea of being left alone with a dinner' party, but Mark and Lucy told her she might as well begin her apprenticeship as a hostess. As she grew used to the idea, she began enjoying it. Mark received the youngsters who overflowed the place. The house was fulfilling itself for the first time, he thought, with a twinge at his disloyalty. When they had found their place cards, and had encircled the old oval with every slightest stirring of air. jThe almost unearthly perfume of roses, and the fragrance of late-blooming late-blooming honeysuckle floated about them. It came over Lucy with a sudden sud-den stab, that she would sometime some-time leave all this for that drab world where there were bills to pay and work to do. Nothing that she did at present was the least like work. Life was just a sort of unbelievable interlude where beauty beau-ty and kindness were like the air they breathed. She was delightfully conscious of Mark, but only as an accompaniment accom-paniment to her thoughts. So she started when he got up and dropped drop-ped .down on a stool beside her chair. "Bored?" he asked. It was a different voice from the family-circle family-circle one he used every day. She looked at him in amazement. "Bored?" she echoed. She thought she could hardly have understood un-derstood him. "Well I just wondered. There are always the village movies, you know." "If you think I could even pretend pre-tend to want movies, with all the pictures the night makes in this |
