“Could anything be as likely to do that as—this?” With a glance he indicated her presence beside him.
She made him a mocking bow. “Be careful,” she warned. “Speeches like that smack of disloyalty to your queen. What a pretty girl she is! I congratulated you on your prowess. I must add my congratulations on your taste.”
He returned her bow of a moment since.
“It was all a most unique thing,” she went on. “And to-night at your ball I shall witness the coronation. I can hardly wait to see Damory Court. Do you know, in all these years I never suspected what a versatile genius you were? It’s too wonderful how you have stepped into this life—into the people’s thoughts and feelings—as you have. When you come back to New York—”
He looked at her, oddly she thought. “Why should I go back?”
“Why? Because it’s your natural habitat. Isn’t it?”
“That’s the word,” he said smiling. “It was my habitat. This is my home.”
She was silent a moment in sheer surprise. She had thought of this Southern essay as a quickly passing incident, a colorful chapter whose page might any day be turned. But it was impossible to mistake his meaning. Clearly, he was deeply infatuated with this Arcadian experience and had no thought at present but to continue it indefinitely.
But it would pass! He was a New Yorker, after all. And what more charming than to have an old place in such a countryside—a position ready-made at one’s hand, to step into for a month or two when ennui made the old haunts tasteless? It was worth some cultivation. One must anchor somewhere. Virginia was not so far from the center; splendid estates of Northerners dotted even the Carolinas. Here one might be in hand-touch with everything. And it was no small thing to hold one of the oldest and proudest names in a section like this. One could always have a town-house too—there was Washington, and there was Europe....