Page:Love Insurance - Earl Biggers (1914).djvu/85

66 evening colors, it was indeed the setting for romance. In the midst of the green palms and blooming things splashed a fountain which might well have been the one old Ponce de Leon sought. On three sides the lighted towers and turrets of that huge hotel climbed toward the bright, warm southern sky. A dazzling moon shamed Mr. Edison's lamps, the breeze came tepid from the sea, the very latest in waltzes drifted out from the gorgeous lobby. Here romance, Minot thought, must have been born.

"Mr. Minot—I've been looking everywhere—"

She was beside him now, a slim white figure in the dusk—the one thing lacking in that glittering picture. He leaped to meet her.

"Sitting here dreaming, I reckon," she whispered, "of somebody far away."

"No." He shook his head. "I leave that to the newly engaged."

She made no answer. He gave her his chair, and drew up another for himself.

"Mr. Minot," she said, "I was terribly thoughtless this noon. But you must forgive me—I was so excited. Mr. Minot—I owe you—"