CHAPTER VI
THROUGH PURPLE CURTAINS
When Nan made up her mind, she acted with lightning rapidity. She would force Stuart to an avowal of love that would fix their relation beyond disturbance by the little singer. She had too fine a sense of values to permit herself to become entangled in an intrigue.
She could wait, and gain in power for the waiting. Her physician had told her that Bivens's days were numbered. Stuart had waited twelve years in silence; he could wait the few months more of her husband's flickering life.
But on one thing she was determined. Now that another woman had appeared on the scene she would not live in suspense, she must know that he loved her still, loved her passionately, madly as she believed he did. But he must say it. She must hear his voice quiver with its old fiery intensity. She wished this as she had never longed for anything on earth, and for twelve years she had lived in a magic world where she had only to breathe a desire to have it fulfilled.
Stuart had baffled and eluded her on every point when she had thought he was about to betray his passion. Here was something mere money had no power to command. Well, she had other powers. She would use them to the limit. She would no longer risk the danger of delay.
She had no difficulty in persuading Bivens to urge Stuart to visit their country estate in the mountains of North Carolina. The doctor had ordered him there to live in the open air.
The young lawyer refused to go at first, but Bivens urged with such pathetic eagerness he was compelled to accept.
It was a warm beautiful morning the last week in March when he alighted on the platform of the little railroad station on the estate, and took his seat beside Nan in her big touring car. The fruit trees were in full bloom, and their perfume filled the air. The hum of bees and the song of birds he had known in his boyhood thrilled his heart. He drew a deep breath of joy, and without a struggle resigned himself to the charm of it all.