“Stuart, don’t you ever get tired?” she cried pitifully.
He muttered: “Dead tired,” and closing his eyes, allowed himself to relax entirely to her comforting touch, the soft coolness of her presence; as if establishing the memory of a second against which, in future turmoil and stress, he might lay his cheek, and find rest.
“Merle.”
“Yes, dear?”
He said nothing, but still pleaded; and bending down her face to his, she found their lips clinging together.
After he had gone, Merle sat awhile, wondering how much of what had passed must be told to Peter. Loyalty, and the compact they had made: whatever happened, to keep the path unblocked between them, demanded an exact account of events. But that compact had been formed in alliance against a hard and ruthless Stuart of their imaginings. Her instincts were all to protect the boy who had come to her in his trouble. He had come to her—the thought was charged with sweetness. And here she experienced a pang of pity for the girl, the other girl, who looked like being the one left out. But Peter’s anger at the morning’s episode had been hot; she would not have known how to handle him with the gloves his soreness demanded. Peter didn’t like gloves.
... For an instant, Merle contemplated treachery.
No. It was popularly supposed that two girls couldn’t be square with one another, where a man was in question. Hers to disprove the theory. A secret unshared by Peter would, moreover, be an insult to the spirit of the trio; the first menace to its continued existence. Merle hesitated no longer, but sat down at the escritoire, and wrote her letter; a letter which omitted nothing, not even the final embrace—though she winced at the thought that Peter might possibly misconstrue it to something more of man and woman, less of child. Then she rang the bell and gave orders for the missive to be taken at once to the post.
... Up the hushed staircase, and into the vast shadowy bedroom. Had Stuart’s head really lain on her lap? Or was he but one of the fantastic crowd who had been abroad that night in Lancaster Gate; sliding the banisters, playing hide-and-seek in the passages, smashing the china—while the white-haired châtelaine of the house took wine with the King of the Hellenes’ minister.