"Why?"
"Oh—a—there'll be a kind of lull after the ball, and I'd rather—a—"
"Go out with flags flying? I understand."
She had laid even New York under tribute for her fête. With the help of a chef, a florist, and a decorator, a good deal of money had been spent to astonishingly effective ends, considering the smallness of the space at command. It was hard, even with tons of flowers, to make the old Fort anything but simple and grim; but the more gracious garden, and above all the terraces, lent themselves kindly to flower aisles and arches, and a fairyland scheme of lighting.
The maid was putting the last touch to her mistress's ball-dress.
"That's enough. Now go and ask Mr. Gano to come here a moment."
Val turned a moment later and saw him at the door. The dead black and white of his evening dress gave the fine ivory of his face an added pallor. She looked at him with quickening pulse. No wonder women had found the haunting beauty of that face a troubling memory. As he leaned against the door, fastening a flower in his coat, smiling in at her in the old enigmatic way, she felt suddenly what it would be to her to lose her empire over that restless, homeless spirit. If they were meaning to go on and on, as other people did, how could they hope to escape other people's ending? And she smiled back at him suddenly in a fierce, triumphant fashion. He came forward into the room.
"What is it? Why do you look like that?"
"How do I look?"
"As if—as if—well, I should keep out of your way if I'd done you any wrong."