She kept up, as always, her desultory correspondence with Langley. Her letters to him were idle, half-caressing, half-mocking, and with an occasional plaintive note. In late July she became rather unusually plaintive. Why didn’t Jim come and rest a week at the Lake? She was bored and alone. He must be tired. She had a motor at her disposal and he knew what lovely drives there were around Christmas Lake. She wrote on, saying that if he wanted to come and bring Horatia or if Horatia wanted to come alone, she would play duenna gladly. And urged Horatia’s coming further.
Jim usually pigeonholed Rose’s letters until she had written three or four demanding an answer. Then he wrote very briefly. But he re-read this letter and laid it down beside him, and several times in the day he referred to it and sat thinking. Late in the afternoon he began an answer.
“Dear Rose—It would be very pleasant to bring Horatia to Christmas Lake and you have a way of making the place sound very cool and alluring. She undoubtedly needs a rest and there are some shadows under those pines that induce rest.” He stopped and from his smile he must have been visioning Horatia in those blue shadows—with him, away from all her relatives and friends and the subtle hostilities to her lover—— He did no more work, but early in the evening went up the steps of the Williams house looking young and jubilant.
There were guests and it was half an hour before he could get Horatia by herself. They went out through Maud’s tiny formal garden to a deep hammock and sat there. A million stars swung above them.
“I have a plan,” said Jim. “Will you let me kidnap you for a couple of weeks? Bob can run the office for a little while and we could vacation together.”
“You have only to throw me on your horse,” said Horatia. “I’ll be the most willing lady you ever kidnapped. But where shall we go?”
“Just to a very large, conventional resort—do you see? But one that all the money and nonsense and stupidity in the world hasn’t spoiled—where there are lovely places to tell you how much I love you. To Christmas Lake.”
“I’ve never been there. Everyone says that it’s heavenly. But, Jim, isn’t that where Rose Hubbell is?”
“That’s one of the advantages,” said Jim, eagerly, and yet there was a little damper on his eagerness even as he spoke. “She would be a sort of chaperon—only we wouldn’t have to bother about her too much.”
“I see—did she suggest it?”