"I have," said the young man; "too much, some people think."
Lila had been taught that if she accepted presents from young men she put herself more or less in their power.
They whirled noiselessly across Pelham Bridge. Lila had given up in the matter of accepting a present of shoes. In so doing she feared that she had committed herself definitely to the paths that lead to destruction. And when, having tried in vain to get a table at two inns between New Rochelle and Larchmont, the young man said that he would take her to his own home to dinner, she felt sure of it. But she was too tired to care, and in the padded seat, and the new easy shoes, too blissfully comfortable. They had sent her mother a telegram. The young man had composed it. He had told the mother not to worry. "I'm dining out and won't be home till late."
"We won't say how late," he had explained with an ingenuous smile, "because we don't know, do we?"
They had gone to a drug store, and the clerk had bound a soothing dressing on Lila's poisoned hand.
They turned from the main road into a long avenue over which trees met in a continuous arch. The place was all a-twinkle with fireflies. Box, roses, and honeysuckle filled the air with delicious odors—then strong, pungent, bracing as wine, the smell of salt-marshes, and coldness off the water. On a point of land among trees many lights glowed.
"That's my place," said the young man.
"We'll have dinner on the terrace—deep water comes right up to it. There's no wind to-night. The candles won't even flicker."
As if the stopping of the automobile had been a signal, the front door swung quietly open and a Chinese butler in white linen appeared against a background of soft coloring and subdued lights.
As Lila entered the house her knees shook a little. She felt that she was definitely committing herself to what she must always regret. She was a fly walking deliberately into a spider's parlor. That the young man hitherto had behaved most circumspectly, she dared not count in his favor. Was it not always so in the beginning? He seemed like a jolly, kindly boy. She had the impulse to scream and to run out of the house, to hide in the shrubbery, to throw herself into the water. Her heart beat like that of a trapped bird. She heard the front door close behind her.