“Oh,” she said, lifting her head from his breast, “there’s one more thing to do, before we can be—just us. I promised to save a piece of my wedding cake for somebody.” She smiled. “You can’t guess who!”
“Yes, I can,” he said. “Old Granny Perk!”
XIX. Together
1
AT dawn Felix awoke with a sense of loneliness. The vague consciousness which had remained with him even in sleep of a beautiful and beloved body at his side, was gone; and the hand that he reached out in troubled half-sleep had found no warm and reassuring presence. For an instant it seemed as though the night had been only a dream. He felt a vast desolation, a profound fear. It was as if not this one night only had been taken from him, but the thousand nights and days which lay implicit in it—the lifetime of sweetness and intimacy which it had begun.
Startled awake by the pain of this loneliness, he looked about him. Rose-Ann was not there. The bed was still warm where she had lain, the pillow kept the impression of her head, but she was gone. The white light of the dawn lighted the room, the fire was dying in the grate, a cool little wind swept in through an open window, and one of the leaves of the long French window that opened on the balcony stood ajar. Rose-Ann’s clothing lay folded on a chair at the foot of the bed.
His reason told him that Rose-Ann had slipped out to the balcony to breathe the morning air. But he was still filled with the terror of that waking moment. Moved by an unreasoning fear, he leaped from the bed and ran to the French window. Outside the world was white. On the balcony, in the deep snow, were the imprints of her little naked feet. Still agitated, he followed those footprints where they led around the corner of the house. And then he stopped, and gazed.
She was there, standing unclothed and rosy in the morning wind, in the light of the dawn, leaning over the railing of the porch.
“Rose-Ann!” he called sharply.