The gayety of the others drew them more closely together. Little confidences of thought and feeling--in themselves nothing, in their unforbidden exchange everything--mutual confessions of early impressions each of the other, compliments more eagerly ventured and ignored now rather than resented. Surprise read in each other's eyes, dissent not ungracious and denial that only laughingly denied--all went to feed a secret happiness growing fearfully by leaps and bounds into ties that never could be broken.
The dance with its exhilaration, the plunging of her pulse and her quick, deep breathing, shone in Alice's cheeks and in her eyes. The two laughed at everything; everything colored their happiness because everything was colored by it.
The party drove home after a very late supper, Alice heavily wrapped and beside Dolly in Kimberly's car. Entertainments for the English party followed for a week and were wound up by Kimberly with an elaborate evening for them at The Towers. For the first time in years the big house was dressed en fête and the illuminations made a picture that could be seen as far as the village.
Twenty-four sat at The Towers round table that night. Alice herself helped Dolly to pair the guests and philosophically assigned her husband to Lottie Nelson. Kimberly complimented her upon her arrangement.
"Why not?" she asked simply, though not without a certain bitterness with which she always spoke of her husband. "People with tastes in common seem to drift together whether you pair them or not."
They were standing in an arbor and Kimberly was plucking grapes for her.
"He is less than nothing to me," she continued, "as you too well know--or I should not be here now eating your grapes."
"Your grapes, Alice. Everything here is yours. I haven't spoken much about our difficulties--'our' difficulties! The sweetness of the one word blots out the annoyance of the other. But you must know I shall never rest until you are installed here with all due splendor as mistress, not alone of the grapes, but of all you survey, for this is to be wholly and simply yours. And if I dare ask you now and here, Alice--you whose every breath is more to me than the thought of all other women--I want you to be my wife."
Her lips tightened. "And I am the wife of another man--it is horrible."
He heard the tremor in her tone. "Look at me."