"Any more wild-eyed, pray, than the facts in the case?—than what Bellamy has done in leasing space in the same studio with a woman whom he has every reason for wishing to avoid, if one can believe a word he says! Cindy: don't tell me you believe Bellamy Druce ever left New York, his home and his friends, to come out here and muck about Hollywood because he likes it, or because he's discontented with having been no better than a drone all his life long and wants to redeem himself by doing something worth-while? If that's his motive, in Heaven's name! what made him pick out the motion-picture business?"
"It is funny," Lucinda confessed. "I don't pretend to understand...."
No more did she. But the seeds of suspicion that conversation planted took root readily and flowered into a dark jungle of strange, involuted fancies in which fears ran wild until Lynn Summerlad came home to charm them all asleep. Lucinda only needed to see him, indeed, to forget her troubles altogether and become once more the voluntary thrall of a species of intoxication as potent to her senses as a drug.
The Lontaines had arranged a supper party at Santa Monica in Summerlad's honour for that night, but considerately had neglected to preface it with dinner. So the lovers had the hours till eleven to themselves. At seven Summerlad called, finding his way unannounced to Lucinda's sitting-room. She went to his arms with a cry of joy, buried her face on his shoulder, clung to him as if she would never let him go.
"I've missed you so, Lynn, I've missed you so!"
He seemed startled and unmistakably affected by the artlessness of this confession, and held her close, comforting her with all the time-old and tested responses of the lovers' litany, with a tenderness in his voice more deep and true than he had ever sounded in the most impassioned moments of his wooing.
"But, my dearest girl! you're trembling. What is it? Tell me...."
"It's so wonderful to have you back, Lynn. Don't ever leave me for so long again."
"You tempt me to," he laughed indulgently. "I think you've learned to love me better while I've been away than you did in all the while that I was here!"
She answered with an odd little laugh of love and deprecation: "I really think I have...."