They dined at Marcelle's, not the happiest selection for their first few hours together, for the place was thronged with picture-folk, as it is always of a Saturday, and acquaintances were continually running over to their table to tell Summerlad how glad they were to see him back. Practically the only moments they had alone were when they danced; so they made excuse to leave early, that they might drive to Santa Monica by the most round-about way.
Nothing was wanting to endue that drive with every illusion of a dream. Spring was so well advanced that the night air, windless, was as warm as it would ever be in Summer. There was again a moon, as on that first night when Summerlad had driven Lucinda and the Lontaines home from dinner at his bungalow and on the way had turned aside to show Lucinda from that high place in the hills all the provinces of her new kingdom mapped out beneath her. Summerlad's car, its superb motor in perfect tune, made light of speed laws on lonely roads far from the main-travelled ways that link the towns. On the back seat, snuggled into the hollow of Summerlad's arm, Lucinda rested a long time in contented silence, watching the molten magic of the night fling itself at their faces, dissolve, blend into rushing shadows, and sweep behind, to music of cloven air like fairy laughter. How could she ever have been so stupid as to harbour a thought disloyal to this land of dim enchantment?
"It is too perfect," she murmured at length, "too sweet to last. It can't last, I know it can't!"
"Why not? So long as we love, what's to prevent all beauty lasting?"
"Life. I mean"—it took all her courage to speak of what she had till then purposely kept back—"Bellamy."
Summerlad's arm tightened protectingly around her. "What about him? Has he come back? Been annoying you any way? Tell me about it."
She told him her version of that noon-hour meeting at the studio, Summerlad swearing softly beneath his breath as he listened.
"So you see, my dear—as I said—it can't last. We can't continue to work together in the same studio, with Bel spying on us, or able to do so any time he happens to want to. I'll have to move—you can't, of course, because your contract is with Zinn himself. And I imagine—in fact, I'm sure—the best thing for us both is for me to leave Los Angeles altogether for at least six months."
"Go away from Los Angeles? From me! Linda, you can't mean it."
"Only to make it possible to be nearer to you when I come back, dear. I mean, I must go to Reno, where I should have gone in the first place. If I had, these impossible conditions Bel has brought about could never have been."