"I'm sick of the very word heiress!" protested Loveland, with complete sincerity.
"That's the new You. And what a very new You it is, when one comes to think of it! Only a few weeks old. But it's the only real one. The other was a shell which has broken."
"You broke it," said Val.
"I cracked it a little, maybe, on the boat; but it took a big hammer to smash it, and now I've swept all the fragments away. There's just the real you and the real me in the world—with the wonderful light from the other side of the moon shining on us two—and Sidney Cremer."
"Oh, Sidney Cremer!" cried Loveland. "He still stands between us."
"No, he doesn't. If you love me you'll have to love Sidney, too, because Sidney Cremer and I are one, and his money is mine; because I earn it, and don't I enjoy it, too! Haven't I enjoyed it for three whole years, since all of a sudden from being a poor girl, dependent on Aunt Barbara, I waked up to find myself a rich one—oh, not rich in your meaning of the word, not rich enough to line castle walls with gold and diamonds, but rich enough to do nice little things for an old Kentucky farm-house, and perhaps even to help restore ancient British strongholds if the lord of them and of my heart will give me so much happiness.
"You—you are Sidney Cremer?" Loveland could only stammer the words stupidly.
"Yes. Are you so surprised that I'm clever enough to make a success with my brain and my pen? I often wondered when you'd begin to suspect—but you never did. And I was wondering, too, whether Sidney Cremer would have to propose to you in the end. It's been great fun keeping my secret from the world, never letting anyone know the real truth except Auntie and the Ashville cousins—though Fanny Milton and lots of other acquaintances thought I was a friend of Sidney Cremer's—perhaps even a poor relation of his. But the most fun of all has been keeping the secret from you till the time was ripe to tell. Do you remember saying the other day, 'Sidney Cremer is everything?' I told you I'd remind you of that some time, and ask if you could say it again. Can you now?"
"Sidney Cremer is everything," repeated Loveland. Whereupon Lesley gave one of her little soft, cooing sighs, and let him take her into his arms.
They were both very muddy and mossy, and rather bruised and shaken, if they had not been too deeply absorbed in the feelings of their hearts to think of the feelings of their bodies. And perhaps a boggy field with no shelter save a motor-car lying rakishly on one side, was a queer place for an engagement between a young English Marquis and a celebrated American novelist-playwright. But for Lesley and Loveland it was perfect. Sidney Cremer's vivid fancy had never created a more enchanting scene for the love-making of hero and heroine. And though, if there had been an audience, it would have seen the stage lit up only with pale rays of wintry sunshine, for the girl and the man it was illumined with ineffable light from the other side of the moon.