"I shall never promise."
"Then I shall keep your fan——"
"Keep it—I have others."
"But you will think about this one, because I have it." There was a note of triumph in his soft laugh.
He kissed her finger-tips and reluctantly released her hand. "The fan is mine, then, until you ask for it."
"I shall never ask."
"Who knows? Some day you may—who knows?" and he was gone.
He could not have chosen a better way in which to fire her imagination. His voice in the dark, his laughing triumph, the daring theft of her fan. Her heart followed him, seeing him a Conqueror even in this, seeing him a robber with his rose-colored booty, a Robin Hood of the Garden, a Dick Turpin among the tuberoses.
The spirit of Romance went with him. The things that Pride had done for her looked gray and dull. She had promised to marry Randy, and felt that she faced a somewhat sober future. Set against it was all that George had given her, the sparkle and dash and color of his ardent pursuit.
He was not worth a thought, yet she thought of