Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/92

82 "Darling! No; nor I—. Or more grateful to for leaving us alone in this heaven."

Dimness had fallen on the waters, and her lifted lips met his bending ones.

Trailing late into dinner that evening, Ellie announced that, after all, she had decided it was safest to wait for Nelson.

"I should simply worry myself ill if I weren't sure of getting my things," she said, in the tone of tender solicitude with which she always discussed her own difficulties. "After all, people who deny themselves everything do get warped and bitter, don't they?" she argued plaintively, her lovely eyes wandering from one to the other of her assembled friends.

Strefford remarked gravely that it was the complaint which had fatally undermined his own health; and in the laugh that followed the party drifted into the great vaulted dining-room.

"Oh, I don't mind your laughing at me, Streffy darling," his hostess retorted, pressing his arm against her own; and Susy, receiving the shock of their rapidly exchanged glance, said to herself, with a sharp twinge of apprehension: "Of course Streffy knows everything; he showed no surprise at finding Ellie away when he arrived. And if he knows, what's to prevent Nelson's finding out?" For Strefford, in a mood of mischief, was no more to be trusted than a malicious child.