to assist with matches while his wife felt round among the jewel cases, opening several in her search. Finally they emerged, Mrs. Janney with the opals which after some straining she clasped round her neck, while Sam closed the door.
As they reëntered the main hall Suzanne came down the stairs, tripping daintily with small pointed feet. She was very splendid, her slenderness accentuated by the length of satin swathed about her, from which her shoulders emerged, girlishly fragile. She was also very much made up, of a pink and white too dazzlingly pure. With her blushing delicacy of tint, her angry eyes and sulkily drooping mouth, Mr. Janney thought she looked exactly like a crumpled rose leaf.
"Where's Miss Maitland?" she said to him, ostentatiously ignoring her mother.
Before he could answer Esther's voice came from the hall above:
"Coming – coming. I hope I haven't kept you," and she appeared at the stair-head.
The dress she wore, green trimmed with a design of small, pink chiffon rosebuds and leaves, was the realized dream of a great Parisian faiseur. It had been Mrs. Janney's who, considering it too youthful, had given it to her Secretary. Its vivid hue was singularly becoming, lending a warm whiteness to the girl's pale skin, bringing out the rich darkness of her burnished hair. Her bare neck was as smooth as curds, not a bone rippled its gracious contours; the little rosebuds and leaves that edged the corsage looked like a garland painted on ivory.
It was a good dinner, but it was not as jolly as Dick Ferguson's dinners usually were. Before it was over the rain stopped and a full moon shone through the dining room windows. Suzanne had hoped she and Dick could saunter off into the rose garden and have that talk about Chapman, but he showed no desire to do so. They sat about in long chairs on the balcony and she had to listen to Ham Lorimer's opinions on the war.
As soon as the motor came she wanted to go – she was tired, she had a headache. It was early, only a quarter past ten, and the night was now superb, the sky a clear, starless blue with the great moon queening it alone. Mr. Janney would have liked to linger – he always enjoyed an evening with Dick – but she was petulantly perverse, and they moved to the waiting car with Ferguson in attendance.
Mrs. Janney settled herself in the back seat, Suzanne, lifting shimmering skirts, prepared to follow, while Miss Maitland waited humbly to take what room was left among their assembled knees. She was close to Ferguson who was helping Suzanne in, and looking up at the sky murmured low to herself:
"What a glorious night!"
Ferguson heard her and dropped Suzanne's arm.
"Isn't it? Too good to waste. Does any one want to walk back to Grasslands?"
Suzanne, one foot on the step, stopped and turned to him. Her lips opened to speak, and then she saw the back of his head and heard him address Esther:
"How about it, Miss Maitland? You're a walker, and it's only a step by the wood path. We can be there almost as soon as the car."
"You'll get wet," said Mrs. Janney, "the woods will be dripping."
Mr. Janney remembered his youth and egged them on:
"Only underfoot and they can change their shoes. Dick's right – it's too good to waste. I'd go myself but I'm afraid of my rheumatism. Hurry up, Suzanne, and get in. They want to start."
Miss Maitland said she wasn't afraid of the wet and that it would not hurt her slippers. Suzanne entered the car and sunk into her corner. As it rolled away Mr. and Mrs. Janney looked back at the two figures in the moonlight and waved good-byes. Suzanne sat motionless; all the way home she said nothing.
CHAPTER IV – THE CIGAR BAND
Esther and Ferguson walked across the open spaces of lawn and then entered the woods. Ferguson had set the pace as slow, but he noticed that she quickened it, faring along beside him with a light, swift step. He also noticed that she was quiet, as she had been at dinner; as if she was abstracted, not like herself.
He had seen a good deal of her lately and thought of her a good deal – thought many things. One was that she was interesting, provocative in her quiet reserve, not as easy to see through as most women. She was clever, used her brains; he had formed a habit of talking to her on matters that he never spoke of with other girls. And he admired her looks, nothing cheap about them; "thoroughbred" was the word that always rose to his mind as he greeted her. It seemed to him all wrong that she should be working for a wage as the Janneys' hireling, for, though he was "advanced" in his opinions, when it came to women there was a strain of sentimentality in his make-up.
On the wood path he let her go ahead, seeing her figure spattered with white lights that ran across her shoulders and up and down her back. They had walked in silence for some minutes when he suddenly said:
"What's amiss?"
She slackened her gait so that he came up beside her.
"Amiss? With what, with whom?"
"You. What's wrong? What's on your mind?"
A shaft of moonlight fell through a break in the branches and struck across her shoulder. It caught the little rosebuds that lay against her neck and he saw them move as if lifted by a quick breath.
"There's nothing on my mind. Why do you think there is?"
"Because at dinner you didn't eat anything and were as quiet as if there was an embargo on the English language."
"Couldn't I be just stupid?"
He turned to her, seeing her face a pale oval against the silver-moted background:
"No. Not if you tried your darndest."
Dick Ferguson's tongue did not lend itself readily to compliments. He gave forth this one with a seriousness that was almost solemn.
She laughed, the sound suggesting embarrassment, and looked away from him her eyes on the ground. Just in front of them the woodland roof showed a gap, and through it the light fell across the path in a glittering pool. As they advanced upon it she gave an exclamation, stayed him with an outflung arm, and bent to the moss at her feet:
"Oh, wait a minute – How exciting! I've found something."
She raised herself, illumined by the radiance, a small object that showed a golden glint in her hand. Then her voice came deprecating, disappointed:
"Oh, what a fraud! I thought it was a ring."
On her palm lay what looked like a heavy enameled ring. Ferguson took it up; it was of paper, a cigar band embossed in red and gold.
"Umph," he said, dropping it back, "I don't wonder you were fooled."
"It was right there on the moss shining in the moonlight. I thought I'd found something wonderful." She touched it with a careful finger. "It's new and perfectly dry. It's only been here since the storm."
"Some man taking a short cut through the woods. Better not tell Mrs. Janney, she doesn't like trespassers."
She held it up, moving it about so that the thick gold tracery shone:
"It's really very pretty. A ring like that wouldn't be at all bad. Look!" she slipped it on her finger and held the hand out studying it critically. It was a beautiful hand, like marble against the blackness of the trees, the band encircling the third finger.
Ferguson looked and then said slowly:
"You've got it on your engagement finger."
"Oh, so I have." Her laugh came quick as if to cover confusion and she drew the band off, saying, as she cast it daintily from her finger-tips, "There – away with it. I hate to be fooled," and started on at a brisk pace.
Ferguson bent and picked it up, then followed her. He said nothing for quite suddenly, at the sight of the ring on her finger, he had been invaded by a curious agitation, a gripping, upsetting, disturbing agitation. It was so sharp, so unexpected, so compelling in its rapid attack, that his outside consciousness seemed submerged by it and he trod the path unaware of his surroundings.
He had never thought of Esther Maitland being engaged, of ever marrying. He had accepted her as some one who would always be close at hand,