. I shall not pretend any more. I'd rather lunch with you than be
President of this Republic."

The butler pro tem. seated her.

"You see," she said, "a place had already been laid for you." And with
the faintest trace of malice in her voice: "Perhaps your butler had his
orders to lay two covers. Had he?"

"From me?" he protested, reddening.

"You don't suspect _me_, do you?" she asked, adorably mischievous. Then
glancing over the masses of flowers in the center and at the corners of
the lace cloth: "This is deliciously pretty. But you are either
dreadfully and habitually extravagant or you believe I am. Which is it?"

"I think both are true," he said, laughing.

And a little while later when he returned from the basement after
admitting Mr. Quinn, the plumber:

"Do you know that this is a most heavenly luncheon?" she said, greeting
his return with delightfully fearless eyes. "Such Astrakan caviar! Such
salad! Everything I care for most. And how on earth you guessed I can't
imagine.... I'm beginning to think you are rather wonderful."

They lifted the long, slender glasses of iced Ceylon tea and regarded one
another over the frosty rims--a long, curious glance from her; a straight
gaze from him, which she decided not to sustain too long.

Later, when she gave the signal, they rose as though they had often dined
together, and moved leisurely out through the dim, shrouded drawing-rooms
where, in the golden dusk, the odor of camphor hung.

She had taken a great cluster of dewy Bride's roses from the centerpiece,
and as she walked forward, sedately youthful, beside him, her fresh,
young face brooded over the fragrance of the massed petals.

"Sweet--how sweet!" she murmured to herself, and as they reached the end
of the vista she half turned to face him, dreamily, listless, confident.

They looked at one another, she with chin brushing the roses.

"The strangest of all," she said, "is that it _seems_ all right--and--and
we _know_ that it is all quite wrong.... Had you better go?"

"Unless I ought to wait and make sure your maid does not fail you....
Shall I?" he asked evenly.

She did not answer. He drew a linen-swathed armchair toward her; she
absently seated herself and lay back, caressing the roses with delicate
lips and chin.

Twice she looked up at him, standing there by the boarded windows.
Sunshine filtered through the latticework at the top--enough for them to
see each other as in a dull afterglow.