"Also," observed Rita, reproachfully, "I posed en plein air for those rainbow sketches of his—and though it was a lonely cove with a cunningly secluded little crescent beach, I was horribly afraid of somebody coming—and besides I got most cruelly sun-burned—"
"Rita! You said you enjoyed that excursion!" exclaimed Ogilvy, with pathos.
"I said it to flatter that enormous vanity of yours, Sam. I had a perfectly wretched time."
"What sort of a time did you have last evening?" inquired Neville, turning from the picture.
"Horrid. Everybody ate too much, and Valerie spooned with a new man—I don't remember his name. She went out in a canoe with him and they sang 'She kissed him on the gangplank when the boat moved out.'"
Neville, silent, turned to the picture once more. In a low rapid voice he indicated to Ogilvy where matters might be differently treated, stepped back a few paces, nodded decisively, and turned again to Rita:
"I've been waiting for Miss West," he said. "Have you any reason to think that she might not keep her appointment this morning?"
"She had a headache when we got home," said Rita. "She stayed with me last night. I left her asleep. Why don't you ring her up. You know my number."
"All right," said Neville, shortly, and went out.
When he first tried to ring her up the wire was busy. It was a party wire, yet a curious uneasiness set him pacing the studio, smoking, brows knitted, until he decided it was time to try again.
This time he recognised her distant voice: "Hello—hello! Is that you, Mr. Neville?"
"Valerie!"
"Oh, it is you, Kelly? I hoped you would call me up. I knew it must be you!"
"Yes, it is. What the deuce is the matter? Are you ill?"
"Oh, dear, no.'"
"What, then?"
"I was so sleepy, Kelly. Please forgive me. We had such a late party—and it was daylight before I went to bed. Please forgive me; won't you?"
"When I called you a few minutes ago your wire was busy. Were you conversing?"
"Yes. I was talking to José Querida."
"H'm!"
"José was with us last evening…. I went canoeing with him. He just called me up to ask how I felt."
"Hunh!"
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Are you annoyed, Louis?"
"No!"
"Oh, I thought it sounded as though you were irritated. I am so ashamed at having overslept. Who told you I was here? Oh, Rita, I suppose. Poor child, she was more faithful than I. The alarm clock woke her and she was plucky enough to get up—and I only yawned and thought of you, and I was so sleepy! Are you sure you do forgive me?"
"Of course."
"You don't say it very kindly."
"I mean it cordially," he snapped. He could hear her sigh: "I suppose you do." Then she added:
"I am dressing, Kelly. I don't wish for any breakfast, and I'll come to the studio as soon as I can—"
"Take your breakfast first!"
"No, I really don't care for—"
"All right. Come ahead."
"I will. Good-bye, Kelly, dear."
He rang off, picked up the telephone again, called the great Hotel Regina, and ordered breakfast sent to his studio immediately.
When Valerie arrived she found silver, crystal, and snowy linen awaiting her with chilled grapefruit, African melon, fragrant coffee, toast, and pigeon's eggs poached on Astrakan caviar.
"Oh, Louis!" she exclaimed, enraptured; "I don't deserve this—but it is perfectly dear of you—and I am hungry!… Good-morning," she added, shyly extending a fresh cool hand; "I am really none the worse for wear you see."
That was plain enough. In her fresh and youthful beauty the only sign of the night's unwisdom was in the scarcely perceptible violet tint under her thick lashes. Her skin was clear and white and dewy fresh, her dark eyes unwearied—her gracefully slender presence fairly fragrant with health and vigour.
She seated herself—offered to share with him in dumb appeal, urged him in delicious pantomime, and smiled encouragingly as he reluctantly found a chair beside her and divided the magnificent melon.
"Did you have a good time?" he asked, trying not to speak ungraciously.
"Y-yes…. It was a silly sort of a time."
"Silly?"
"I was rather sentimental—with Querida."
He said nothing—grimly.
"I told you last night, Louis. Why couldn't you see me?"
"I was dining out; I couldn't."
She sipped her chilled grapefruit meditatively:
"I hadn't seen you for a week," she laughed, glancing sideways at him, "and that lonely feeling began about five o'clock; and I called you up at seven because I couldn't stand it…. But you wouldn't see me; and so when Rita and the others came in a big touring car—do you blame me very much for going with them?"
"No."
Her expression became serious, a trifle appealing:
"My room isn't very attractive," she said, timidly. "It is scarcely big enough for the iron bed and one chair—and I get so tired trying to read or sew every evening by the gas—and it's very hot in there."
"Are you making excuses for going?"
"I do not know…. Unless people ask me, I have nowhere to go except to my room; and when a girl sits there evening after evening alone it—it is not very gay."
She tried the rich, luscious melon with much content, and presently her smile came back:
"Louis, it was a funny party. To begin we had one of those terrible clambakes—like a huge, horrid feast of the Middle Ages—and it did not agree with everybody—or perhaps it was because we weren't middle-aged—or perhaps it was just the beer. I drank water; so did the beautiful José Querida…. I think he is pretty nearly the handsomest man I ever saw; don't you?"
"He's handsome, cultivated, a charming conversationalist, and a really great painter," said Neville, drily.
She looked absently at the melon; tasted it: "He is very romantic … when he laughs and shows those beautiful, even teeth…. He's really quite adorable, Kelly—and so gentle and considerate—"
"That's the Latin in him."
"His parents were born in New York."
She sipped her coffee, tried a pigeon egg, inquired what it was, ate it, enchanted.
"How thoroughly nice you always are to me, Kelly!" she said, looking up in the engagingly fearless way characteristic of her when with him.
"Isn't everybody nice to you?" he said with a shrug which escaped her notice.
"Nice?" She coloured a trifle and laughed. "Not in your way, Kelly. In the sillier sense they are—some of them."
"Even Querida?" he said, carelessly.
"Oh, just like other men—generously ready for any event. What self-sacrificing opportunists men are! After all, Kelly," she added, slipping easily into the vernacular, "it's always up to the girl."
"Is it?"
"Yes, I think so. I knew perfectly well that I had no business to let Querida's arm remain around me. But—there was a moon, Kelly."
"Certainly."
"Why