As she looked proudly down at the hand he had honored with a blow as with an accolade she saw by her watch that it was after six.
“Great Heavens! it’s six and more!” she cried. “Lady Clifton-Wyatt will never forgive you––or me. I’ll take you to her at once.”
“Never mind Lady Clifton-Wyatt,” he said. “But I’ve got another engagement for dinner––with a man, at half past six. I wish I hadn’t.”
They were drifting with the twilight into an elegiac mood, suffering the sweet sorrow of parting.
The gloaming steeped the dense woods, and the romance of sunset and gathering night saddened the business man’s soul, but wakened a new and unsuspected woman in Marie Louise.
Her fierce imaginations were suddenly concerned with conquests of ambition, not of love. So fresh a realm was opened to her that she was herself renewed and restored to that boyish-girlish 145 estate of young womanhood before love has educated it to desire and the slaveries of desire. The Aphrodite that lurks in every woman had been put to flight by the Diana that is also there.
Davidge on the other hand had warmed toward Marie Louise suddenly, as he saw how ardent she could be. He had known her till now only in her dejected and terrified, distracted humors. Now he saw her on fire, and love began to blaze within him.
He felt his first impulse to throw an arm about her and draw her to his breast, but though the solitude was complete and the opportunity perfect, he saw that she was in no spirit for dalliance. There is no colder chaperon for a woman than a new ambition to accomplish something worth while.
As they drew up at the New Willard she was saying:
“Telephone the minute you come to town again. Good-by. I’m late to dinner.”