They do not have to wait very long. After a mazourka comes a waltz, and Cecil is made supremely happy.
"How utterly bewitching they look!" says a low, melodious voice at Floyd Grandon's side. "How tall Cecil has grown in a year!"
"A year!" he repeats. Yes, it is a year ago that his old life ended, and how much has been crowded in that brief while.
"You are a wise man," madame says, in an indescribable tone. "You have not forced your bud into premature blossoming. There might be a decade between Laura and your wife."
"I wonder if Laura had any real girlhood?" he remarks, musingly.
"Why, yes, at fourteen, perhaps. That is the way with most of us. But hers, not beginning so soon, will have the longer reign. How lovely the river looks to-night! I should like to go down on the terrace," she adds, after a moment.
"I am at your service," and he rises.
They cross the lawn amid groups sauntering in the moonlight, keeping time to the music, if they do not dance. The whole scene is like enchantment. They stroll on and on, down the steps and then over the broad strip of grass. The cool air blows up along the shore, and with the tide coming in every ripple is crested with silver. Over at the edge of the horizon the stars dare to shine out amid the silence of the rocks and woods opposite, making a suggestive, shadowy land.
"'On such a night,'" she quotes, with a smile that might beguile a man's soul.
"We could not have had anything more beautiful. And I owe a great deal of the perfection of the scene to you, since the season was in other hands. Allow me to express my utmost gratitude."