"Sure," said Minga with conviction—"you're feminine and all that, you know—a lot of men stand for that still—take some old blasé clubman and stuff him into a husband."
Miss Aurelia, stunned, let go of the hand; she was as one paralyzed.
"Nighty night," said Minga lightly. "Do you care if I steal an orange? I shan't say good-night to Judgie, I've committed him to bread and water for three days." The girl laughed. "What's that thing they're playing?" She hesitated, nodding her head toward the music-room.
Miss Aurelia thought it must be Dvorak's "New World. The Largo...."
Minga, curly head to one side, listened a moment, then she shivered. "A little too weird and woozy for me," she announced. "I hate Sard's taste in music; I want everything calcium-colored—Fizz," said Minga explanatorily, "and jazz and dizz!" She stood there, a little undetermined, listening and staring at the white moonlight on the water of the river stretched far out below the terrace.
Then Minga looked solemnly at Miss Aurelia. "Do you believe that love is divine?" she asked casually.
"Why," said Miss Aurelia, "why, my dear child, of course I do—it's—I always thought—I—we—sometimes—it is said to be."
But Minga, with a queer little self-conscious laugh, broke away from the gentle detaining hand. She walked up-stairs, whistling; as she passed Dunstan's door, she gave it a decided thump.
Later Sard slowly climbed the stairs to the tower room. The moonlight shone in patches and blocks of shimmering glamor on the floor and across the white bed. The girl stood looking out. She stared strangely with a look of concealed curiosity out to the seat under the enormous shadow of the great flowering horse-chestnut outside of the room where the music had been. All that evening Sard, soberly putting on records, had been conscious of a tall gaunt figure sitting on the rustic seat under the horse-chestnut, its head buried in its arms. Now the seat was empty, but Sard could see a man standing out on the lawn amid a ring of Norway spruce spreading on the sky. It was Colter.