“No; Father felt badly early in the evening and went to bed without my seeing him. Did you stay at the club all night?” again she colored. “I was awake when you came in this morning.”
“You were!” Richards smiled wryly. “And I thought you asleep and did my best not to awaken you. At the club I met Sandy Nichols, and he asked me to run over to Baltimore and try out his new Pierce Arrow—he was my pal in the A. E. F., you know,” he interpolated. “We expected to be back before midnight, but we first lost our way owing to a detour, and then the car broke down on the return trip. I tried to telephone, but Central declared the house would not answer.”
“Mother had the phone disconnected; she insisted it disturbed Father.” Judith’s spirits were returning, and the glance she gave him was full of mischief. “You have no idea how worried I was.”
“Judith!” Richards held her face between his hands and gazed straight into her eyes. “Judith, you weren’t jealous?”
Slowly, slowly her eyes fell before his ardent look and the rich color mantled almost to her brow. “Yes, I was,” she confessed, and holding her in close embrace, he kissed her tenderly.
“Judith,” he said, “never doubt my loyalty to you—my devotion.” He stopped, hesitated, and his voice grew even lower. “You are my life—my religion.”
“Joe!” Startled by the intensity of his manner, Judith stood up. “You must not exalt me. I am an ordinary mortal, subject to error.”
“No.” Richards rose and faced her, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. “In my eyes you can do no wrong.”
Richards stood tall and straight before her, his six feet two of sturdy manhood matched by her slender willowy figure, for Judith was above the usual height for women. Maud, the parlor maid, who had come in search of Mrs. Hale, felt a sympathetic thrill as she noted the rapt expression of the lovers and stole away without disturbing them.
“Joe,”—Judith slipped her hand inside his and gave it a gentle squeeze—“this is the first really happy moment I have known since I regained my senses in my boudoir on Tuesday night, or rather Wednesday morning. I do not understand how I came to faint.”