Emily seated herself on the veranda at its farthest table from the entrance. “How guilty and queer and—happy I feel,” she thought.
Monsieur Germain brought the dinner card. “I’m sure we can trust to you for the dinner,” she said.
“Bien, madame. It will be a pleasure. And will madame have a refreshing drink while she passes the time?”
“Yes—a little—perhaps—a little brandy?” she said tentatively.
“Excellent.” And Germain himself brought a “pony” of brandy, a tall empty glass and a bottle of soda. He opened the soda and went away. She drank the brandy from the little glass, and then some of the soda. Almost instantly she felt her timidity flying before a warm courage that spread through her veins and sparkled in her eyes. “It is even more beautiful here than I imagined it would be,” she thought, as she looked round. “And I’m glad I got here first and had a chance to get—the brandy.”
When her husband came he found her leaning against a pillar of the veranda looking out into space, an attitude that was characteristic of her. She greeted him with a blush, with downcast eyes, with mischievous radiance.
“I just saw my first star,” she said, “and I made a wish.”
He put his arm round her and his head against hers. “Don’t tell me what you wished,” he said, “for—I—we—want it to come true. It must come true. And it will, won’t it?”
“I’m very, very happy—thus far,” she answered.
They stood in silence, watching Germain and the waiter set a table under the trees—the linen, the silver and glass and china, the candlesticks. And then Germain came to the walk below them and beamed up at them.