He laughed grimly as he reflected upon his meteoric career. In the meantime there was Angela spending as though money came from some eternal fountain! He frowned as he remembered the precious checks that had been 102 paid during the past few months, checks that had reduced his liquid cash reserve to a mere fragment. Though he was unwilling to confess it, it gave him a certain amount of joy to anticipate her fall to earth when she realized that the lavish entertaining must cease—that the source of the magic spring had suddenly dried up.
He took the next train to London, dined at the club, and then prepared to break the news to Angela.
At that moment the adorable Angela was receiving a friend. Hilary Meredith, spotlessly garbed, was lounging in the drawing-room, drinking in the strains of a Chopin Nocturne. Not only were his ears gladdened by romantic music, but his eyes were equally exercised by the radiant figure of Angela, bending over the piano, with the red-shaded lights throwing her bare shoulders into perspective and turning her hair to liquid gold. The nocturne ended, she swung round on Meredith.
“How did you like that, Hilary?”
“Superb—dark avenues on a June night, with odorous breezes and the lap of the sea on the 103 beach below—and you, Angela—always you, dreaming in the moonlight.”
“Don’t be absurd! Why should I dream in the moonlight? And what should I dream?”
He looked at her from under his long eyelashes.
“Of Love, perhaps—who knows?”
She shrugged her shoulders.