"I never thought of it," laughed she. "I'm too healthy. You ought to build your romance round some lady with the morbid ideas that go with addled insides—the kind they write novels about—only they call it soul."
He was amused in spite of himself. "It's lucky for you," said he, "that you look like a romance. If you didn't, your way of talking would discourage terribly."
"Is lying the only romance?" said she. "Can't you enjoy the perfume of a flower unless you make a silly pretense that perfume and flower are a fairy queen and her breath?"
She went with him to the retaining wall, gave him her hand, tried to respond to his loving pressure. He got into the boat. His expression in that odorous, enchantment-like dimness thrilled her. The feeling that he was going—leaving her to face the lowering future alone—saddened her, moved her to an emotion very like the love that had so often agitated her in these very shadows. And when he murmured, "Soon—my love!" she echoed "Soon!" in a voice melodious with the meaningless, impulsive sentiment of the moment. It sent him away believing. He pushed off. She watched the boat glide deeper and deeper into the shadow. A few seconds and the darkness had effaced it. She went slowly up the lawn. Before she reached the house, Winchie was again uppermost in her thoughts; to think of Basil involved puzzling over too many problems she was not yet ready to face.
That was one of the years when the warm weather stays on and on; goes for a night, only to return with the morning sun and change the hoar frost on the grass into dew; then in late October or later drifts languorously southward through the dreamy haze of Indian summer. On an afternoon midway of this second and sweeter, if sadder, summer Courtney came out of her sitting room to the balcony to rest a moment and to watch the sun set—a dull red globe like a vast conflagration of which the autumnal mists were the smoke and steam. Winchie and Helen were playing ball on the lawn, with Helen making great pretense of being unable to catch or to hold Winchie's curves and hard straights. Winchie, about to throw, dropped the ball, jumped up and down clapping his hands, made a dash for the veranda, crying "Papa! Papa!" Next she saw Helen, in confusion, turn and go in the same direction, her delicate skin paling and flushing by turns.
In the upstairs sitting room was the seamstress who made a local journal of society gossip unnecessary; as the divorce suit had been begun and was the chief local topic, the less she saw and heard, the more what she'd circulate would sound like pure invention. Courtney went along the balcony to the hall window and entered there. Winchie had just reached the top of the stairs. "Oh, mamma—" he began, all out of breath.
"Yes, I know," said she, laying her finger on her lips. "Let's go down."
And holding him by the hand she descended. Richard and Helen were in the lake-front doorway, Richard talking, Helen obviously nervous. Courtney advanced, her hand extended. "How do you do?" said she with easy friendliness.
"No need to ask you that," replied Dick. "Or the boy, either. How he has shot up!"
"We've had a great summer and fall for growing things," said Courtney. Then to Helen: "Don't let us interrupt your game."