She flushed and the flush rose like a tide of feeling.
A little dizzy, they made their way back to the table.
There were many partners for Horatia that night. She danced as she had never danced before. To the old accuracy and conscientiousness of her steps was added a vigor, a vivaciousness and a pliability that for the moment gave her Rose Hubbell’s gift of motion. She suited herself to each man, but in the dances with Anthony she was more pliable and yet more vigorous than she had ever been.
An evening colored like the autumn with splendid gorgeousness and as transient. The time came when Anthony could stand it no longer.
“Haven’t you had enough of this? Will you come for a ride? And then I’ll take you home.”
Her crisis was upon her and a fear overtopped by courage filled her.
They stopped to tell Maud and Marjorie. Maud’s benignant glance jarred Horatia, but Anthony did not even see it. Nor did he catch the look of half-worry, half-confidence which his sister gave him. All that he felt was Horatia’s hand upon his arm.
Silently they drove through the night, bewildered by the vastness of this thing they had brought upon themselves. They turned from the highway into a country road and there Anthony stopped the car at the beginning of a wooded path they both knew, magical now in the dim moonlight.
“Let’s walk a bit.”
But they had not walked far before he slipped his arm through hers and turned her to him. Gently he drew her closer until her head was near his shoulder. Even then he could only say her name at first, lovingly, longingly, brokenly, and then—