She said it so positively that she put him a trifle on the defensive. "Any normal husband would do that, wouldn't he?" he asked a little challengingly.
She was silent a moment, and then she said, evidently out of a troubled mind and into her typewriter, "Some men aren't equipped to be normal husbands."
He looked at her gravely, his eyes full of love for her. Some day soon he was going to have it out with Mary, he told himself. He would have to. Things couldn't go on with them as they had been. He had called upon her many times now out of office hours, met her mother, taken Mary to the theatre, to art exhibitions, and to concerts and the opera. Always he had avoided making love to her, because he was desperately afraid of losing her through having his intentions misunderstood. He had wanted, on many occasions, to sweep her into his arms, to cover her face with kisses, to claim her for his own, but he was afraid. He could not risk kissing Mary until he was very sure she loved him. Before the Sophie Binner blackmailing episode, he had been optimistic about Mary's feelings toward him. But during the last few months the issue had been cast again into doubt.
Frequently he told himself almost bitterly that if Mary loved him she would be willing to forget utterly anything that had happened to him in the past. But this, in his more rational moments, he knew was asking too much. She was not the sort of girl who rushes blindly into love. Her whole character and training were influences in the opposite direction. Love must come upon her gradually. She must be very sure. Americanized though he was by this time, the very fact that Rodrigo was a man of another country from her own, with other ideals and up-bringing, made the process of falling in love with him for this serious-minded American girl groping and slow. But, once he had won her, he knew that she would be his forever, utterly, without question or regret. That was Mary Drake's way too.
Two weeks later John Dorning announced that he had bought the Fernald house, and he eagerly discussed with Rodrigo furnishing the place according to their high artistic standards. The Italian, on one pretext or another, declined several invitations to go to Greenwich and look over the Fernald property and the married Elise. John was insistent that Rodrigo rush up and congratulate Elise in person, and then just try and deny that John was the luckiest fellow ever born. Elise had been asking for Rodrigo, John said, had urged John to invite him up. Rodrigo smiled benevolently, and declined. He did not, for the time being, wish to face this clever, attractive, and triumphant young lady.
But, at last, when the John Dornings had actually moved into the Fernald house and the rare old furniture and objets d'art, which Rodrigo had helped to select, were installed to the young householder's liking, Rodrigo could no longer decline the invitation to spend a weekend with them without offending his friend.
Elise met them at the Greenwich station in a trim new little sedan. Rodrigo congratulated her heartily, and she gave him very pretty thanks. She was looking exceptionally alluring, lending an exotic distinction even to the tweedy sport clothes she was wearing.
"I am especially grateful to you, Rodrigo—I suppose I may call you that now," she added, "because you were instrumental in bringing John and me together." Rodrigo glanced at her a little sharply, wondering if there was a double meaning in this. But her smile was serene, though those enigmatic eyes were just a little narrower than normal.
"It is glorious out here. I love it," she tossed over her shoulder to him, as he sat, unusually quiet in the tonneau of the moving car beside his bag and golf sticks. And as she swept the car into the newly made driveway of their artistic home of field-stone and stucco, "Aren't we lucky to get this place? It is the first home of my own that I have ever had. I love every stone in it."
Rodrigo admitted to himself that she was giving an excellent imitation of a very happy young bride.