When he spoke of his car Enslee said: "By the way, if you're motoring up you might bring Mrs. Neff and Alice. The old lady's old car has got the sciatica or something."
So Forbes brought Mrs. Neff along, and Alice. Mrs. Neff had much to say of his wealth. And now that she knew Persis to be out of the running, she had evidently entered Alice for the Forbes stakes. Forbes could feel the idea in the air, and he was exceedingly embarrassed.
He was embarrassed more by his arrival at the country home. The great hill was as bleak as the granite bridge. The trees were shaggy with snow. The house was part of the winter, as white as an igloo. The statues were oddly distorted with icicles and snow; they looked very cold—especially the Cupid in the temple—a windy and forlorn white kiosk where a naked child suffered exile. It struck him as pitifully appropriate to the Enslee menage that Love should be left out in the cold.
Persis received him now in her quality of owner and housewife, with a flock of servants everywhere. He found her in the living-room, surrounded by guests, chattering and lounging and sprawling. He had not seen her since he left her that night in Paris.
She gave him her hand and a few commonplace words, but their eyes embraced and their lips were tremulous with unspoken messages and ungiven kisses.
Her manner warned him, and her apparent neglect of him gave him the cue of his behavior. But there were brief collisions when it was possible to murmur a word or two before one of the numerous other guests drifted up and ruined the tête-à-tête. He pleaded ruthlessly for a meeting; she pleaded for discretion above all things. She reminded him of the great difference between the condition of their former visit and the present. With only a few about them before, they had narrowly escaped discovery; what chance had they now?
As the dinner-hour approached, and the others went up to dress, Forbes lingered, and Persis sat with him a moment in the embrasure of that drawing-room window where they had once held rendezvous. The mystery was gone from it, and the poetry. But they seized each other in one swift embrace of arms and lips. Even this was broken just in time to escape the sight of the butler, who entered to ask a question as to the wines for the dinner.
Persis gave her orders with an impatience that could hardly have escaped the man's notice. She felt a little extra effort at impassivity in his manner, and was sure that he suspected her of more than a hospitable interest in Forbes. She could not resent an unexpressed intuition, but she felt humbled and shamed and afraid.
When the butler was gone she repeated her warning to Forbes, but he took her in his arms again. Her mind told her that she must not go on risking, go on registering faint impressions in the minds of servants and of guests; but her heart would not defer entirely to her intelligence.
Forbes was taciturn at the dinner. Mrs. Neff could not provoke him to vivacity. She noted that his gaze returned constantly to Persis, and that when her look came down the board to him it softened strangely.