She would not have been forty-three had she not attached a quivering importance to the trappings of her romance; the delicious sense of secrecy and guilt; Napier's perfect play of indifference in the presence of others; amused appreciation of their susceptibility to his skilful management, so that again and again they snatched an apparently accidental meeting undisturbed. Most of all, she enjoyed making the elaborate excuses necessary to retire early to her room. Then came the lonely hour or two of anticipation—wild restlessness exulting in the foreknowledge that it would be soothed—that it could be soothed ... presently.
Oh, destiny and Trix Worley, you were astoundingly gracious to give me this little room in which I can be alone to think of my lover....
Her ears at strain to catch sounds of the party retiring to bed.... The last door closed.... Then vigil at the window which dropped barely six feet down to the paved courtyard.... Till his figure showed a dim blur in the sultry moonless night——Till she could throw on a cloak, and join him.
"Like the first bite off a great warmly flushed apricot," he murmured, kissing her throat.... Yes, she had been right in her surmise that the dark man could make love most wonderfully....
It was good, too, when, tumbled and dew-soaked, she slipped back to her white-and-pansy shelter, to repeat over and over again each new love-line he had given her—add it on to the old—the building of a song.
And that she took such intense pleasure in these trivial outward symbols of her rejuvenation, was it not convincing proof that youth must still be hers? Was it not the essence of youth—of extreme youth even?... Or else, Kathleen, was it age pursuing youth around a circular course, to a point where they almost touched?
But she was glad that her heart could still beat, and her cheeks flush, and her lips lie, for folly's sake. Too glad. The fever and glory of her nights must surely have been absorbed into the very walls of the room, so that the sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, returning later on, would marvel at the queer hot thoughts that vaguely disturbed her peace, as a-sprawl upon the chintz counterpane, she read her favourite "Little Woman." ...
Whereas Kathleen came to know Napier better with the flight of days, he never expressed any curiosities with regard to her. Either he made love to her, brilliantly—or else talked, brilliantly, about himself, his past achievements, his schemes for the future, the reputation he had among his fellow-men for an uncanny flair in the choice and management of the wily automobile. "They all say: 'Go to Kirby! Kirby knows! He understands the nature of cars!'——Well, it comes to just that; there's not an engine, good or bad, that I can't coax into putting out its best. Heard of Thesiger?"—mentioning a famous millionaire banker—"He said to a pal of mine: 'I'd no more think of buying a new make of car without first taking Kirby's advice——'"