"I hear a car now!" he exclaimed.
"It's his!" she answered. "I heard the siren when his chauffeur sounded it going out of the garage. It's different from any others that pass along this road. Good-bye for a little while, dear. You're so kind to me! Wish me luck."
"I wish Somerled luck," he said, trying to laugh, as he turned and marched quickly off toward the house.
Aline quite understood. He meant that Somerled would be lucky to get her. That was nice of him, and like him, too, for Basil was as gallant and chivalrous to his sister as a lover. Yet—she was sorry that he hadn't wished her luck in so many words.
She walked toward the gate. The car had stopped.
V
Mrs. Keeling's place, lent to her much-admired authors, had a very pretty gate. It was approached from the garden way, through an arbour thickly hung with roses and honeysuckle. It seemed to Aline West, as she went alone to meet Somerled, that night distilled a special perfume in the dew-filled cups of the flowers, sweet as unspoken love. She felt that she was on the threshold of happiness. It was the first step that counted. If she met Somerled in the right spirit, with the right word and the right look ... in this perfumed star-dusk and stillness, when they had not seen each other for days ... and he knew she had been waiting here for him, thinking of him ... and he saw that she had put on the dress he liked so much on shipboard, the one she had worn the last night, when he told her his life-story ... might not the thing that she desired happen? She encouraged herself by saying, "Why not?" and reminding herself that she was an attractive woman. Lots of men had been in love with her—not the right ones, but that was a detail. Why not Ian Somerled? He was a man, after all, like others.
He was at the gate already ... she almost ran.
"Hail, the conquering hero!" she cried to him, laughing.