His sigh of relief was inaudible. He meant to woo her and win her but he was very tired and a part of his brain still reverberated to the echoes of his creative energies. “Nothing would give me more pleasure than an evening of music except to dine alone with you and enjoy a good dinner once more. By the time a tray reaches the third floor things are lukewarm and tasteless. Shall we go in?”
The long narrow dining-room was at the front of the house, rather somber, with its tapestries and Jacobean furniture, but lit with long red candles as slender as reeds. Topper had been left in charge of the manor and they were served by a trim maid. Gita, at the head of the table in a shining yellow gown with a jeweled sunflower (Bylant’s wedding-gift) at her breast, was a grateful and refreshing figure after his incarceration, and he felt as he would toward any beautiful woman who had never stirred his pulses; although they talked of intimate things. Gita purred like a contented house-cat restored to the warmth of the hearthstone, her eyes dwelling affectionately on the bland and hungry gentleman opposite.
“You’ve no idea how I’ve missed you!” she exclaimed as their eyes met and smiled. “But of course you forgot my existence.”
“Ah—well, I must be rude and confess that I did. But I am sure you understand.”
“Of course I do. And I never resented it even when I wanted to talk to you more than anything else in the world.”
“I once told you that you would make a model wife—and, I remember, you retorted that you hated the word, and substituted partner.”
“Oh, I’m used to hearing myself called your wife and don’t mind a bit. Words only mean what you put into them, anyhow. To most foreigners, for instance, all our words mean nothing.”
“Quite true. What have you been doing with yourself?”
“Lunching with Polly at some restaurant in Park Avenue or with Elsie at The Sign of the Indian Chief, or with both of them here; going to the opera, matinées, concerts, parties, dinners, walking, shopping—getting summer things—enjoying myself every minute.”
“Not a bit tired of this gay life?”