A very warm intimacy developed rapidly between the four friends, and every evening for nearly two weeks found them joyfully, even riotously, making merry together in the Cloud Cote. As Eveley had prophesied, Lieutenant Ames was hopelessly lost from the first, and Marie yielded herself very readily to the charm of an ardent wooing.
But with Eveley, Marie was different, more quiet, less demonstrative, sometimes plainly listless and absent-minded. Eveley ascribed the change to her newly developed interest in Lieutenant Ames, and patiently awaited the outcome of the ripening romance. For Eveley had a deep-seated sympathy with every appeal of love.
For many weeks she had received no word from Miriam Landis. Although she had passed in an hour from all connection with their daily plans, yet she was never far from their thought. Even without their tender and sympathetic memories, they could not have forgotten her, for her husband was a frequent and always tumultuous visitor in the Cote.
He invariably began talking before he was through the window, and his first words were unfailingly the same.
“I can’t stand it, Eveley, I simply can’t stand it. You’ve got to do something about it.”
Again and again he came with this appeal, always overlooking the fact that Eveley had no faintest idea of Miriam’s whereabouts, for, true to her word, she had kept her hiding-place unknown to them all.
Then for several weeks he did not come, and Eveley felt that perhaps he was reconciled, and had returned to his old pursuit of secluded ballroom corners. But Nolan assured her of the injustice of this. Lem had forsaken all his former haunts, and had become a recluse, brooding alone in his deserted home.
“It will do him good, even if it does not last,” Nolan said. “Almost any one would grieve for a woman like Miriam for a few months.”
“Perhaps it is permanent this time, and there will be a reconciliation, and both live happily ever after,” said Eveley, with her usual buoyant faith in the cheerful outcome.
Gordon Cameron she had seen only once since Miriam’s departure, and that was when he came at her request to receive Miriam’s message. He had listened quietly, while she repeated the words of her friend.