What reply was there but the one I made?
“You poor fellow,” she went on, and it seemed as if there were a soft pressure from her fingers. “You poor fellow. But—I tell you what we will do. We will watch the dancing together—as often as I can steal away. And we will have a long talk by ourselves, if-if——”
“If what?” I asked.
“If Edith doesn’t mind!”
“Damn Edith!” was on my tongue, but politeness, rather than common sense, transmuted the sentence. “Oh, Edith won’t mind,” I declared, with conviction. And thereat we both laughed—though why, I am not sure. But all at once we seemed to know each other much better. And then the lights of the clubhouse came into view across the lawn, and we turned into the big gates.
During the passage of the driveway I devised an explanation. It was intended to salve my conscience for not plumping out the truth. The Lord alone knows what I intended should ensue. One thing only was clear to me—-we would have that “long talk to ourselves,” if it could be contrived. So it was agreed between us that I was to come up to the dancing floor as soon as I had stabled the automobile and put on evening clothes. Our exact meeting place was a vague locality described by her as “wherever Edith is.”
With that understanding we parted at the door of the clubhouse. I heard an attendant direct her to the ladies’ dressing room, and him I commissioned to have her trunk conveyed where she might wish. As she disappeared within the doorway her hat brim gave me a saucy little nod of farewell.
When I was in my room the enormity of my offense and the absurdity of my position were forced upon me. Here I was impersonating another man and under promise to meet my victim in the very presence of the wife of the man I impersonated, perhaps face to face with the man himself. There could be no explanation, no palliation of the trick I had played, which would allow me to retire with a resemblance of countenance. Who would credit my statement of innocence, even was I willing to throw the burden of the mistake on the shoulders of—Margery? Margery! I pronounced the name aloud, but in a whisper, and liked the sound of it so well that I said it again.
Then I realized that I was standing in front of my shaving mirror, one hand clasping a collar, the other a tie, and that the glass reflected an expression positively disgusting in its rapture. I chucked the collar into a corner and sat down on the edge of the bed to think it out. At the end of twenty minutes I was where I had started in. But my mind was made up. At least she should not find me a coward. I would do exactly as I had promised.
I shaved and dressed. Half an hour later I was standing in the doorway of the dancing floor trying to discover where “Edith” was.