Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/288

 She felt his thick, strong arms around her and turned towards him docilely.

'Yes.'

'You know I love you very much...too much. I'm afraid when you realize how infatuated I am you will feel contempt for me.'

'Oh, no. I want you to love me—too much. It is such a soft, comfortable thing to sink back into so much love.'

Body and soul he engulfed her. She felt secure and contented.

'I have always liked the smell of horses,' she said, looking up at him.

'Oh, I forgot I had these dirty old things on; but, Lanice, what is it I have always liked so much? It smells so clean and yet so subtly wicked!'

'It comes in silk envelopes and I got them in Paris.'

On her visits to the Alcotts in Concord, Lanice had often driven or strolled past the four-square yellow house that stood aloof under its elms, bearing upon its door a silver oblong engraved 'Sears Ripley.' She had remembered it as a pleasant place, gardens, paths, long windows with Venetian blinds, wistarias, and within a flutter of ruffled curtains. She had even noticed that there were children, often playing about under the arching elms with a stuffy black pony in a blue halter. This, then, was the place where she would live her life. And when she died the cemetery lay but half a block away. One more weeping willow, one