"You blessed child," Mary said with a catch in her voice, "you mustn't
be so humble--it's enough to spoil any man."
"Not Barry," Leila said; "he loves me because I am so loving."
Oh, wisdom of the little heart. There might be men who could love for
the sake of conquest; there might be men who could meet coldness with
ardor, and affection with indifference. Barry was not one of these.
The sacred fire which burned in the heart of his sweet mistress had
lighted the flame in his own. It was Leila's love as well as Leila
that he wanted. And she knew and treasured the knowledge.
It was when Mary left that she said, with forced lightness, "You'll be
going soon, and what a summer you will have together."
It was on Leila's lips to cry, "But I want our life together to begin
now. What's one summer in a whole life of love?"
But she did not voice her cry. She kissed Mary and smiled wistfully,
and went back into the dusky room to dream of Barry--Barry her young
husband, with whom she had walked in her little yellow gown over the
hills and far away.
And while she dreamed, Barry, in Jerry Tuckerman's big blue car, was
flying over other hills, and farther away from Leila than he had ever
been in his life.
It was as Mary had feared. Barry's strength in his first resistance of
Jerry's importunities had made him over-confident, so that when, at the
end of the month, Jerry had returned and had pressed his claim, Barry
had consented to lunch with him.
At luncheon they met Jerry's crowd and Barry drank just one glass of
golden sparkling stuff.
But the one glass was enough to fire his blood--enough to change the
aspect of the world--enough to make him reckless, boisterous--enough to
make him consent to join at once Jerry's party in a motor trip to
Scotland.
In that moment the world of work receded, the world of which Leila was
the center receded--the life which had to do with lodgings and
primroses and Sheffield trays was faint and blurred to his mental
vision. But this life, which had to do with laughter and care-free
joyousness and forgetfulness, this was the life for a man who was a man.
Jerry was saying, "There will be the three of us and the chauffeur--and
we will take things in hampers and things in boxes, and things in
bottles."
Barry laughed. It was not a loud laugh, just a light boyish chuckle,
and as he rose and stood with his hand resting on the table, many eyes
were turned upon him. He was a handsome young American, his beautiful
blond head held high. "You mustn't expect," he said, still with that
light laughter, "that I am going to bring any bottles. Only thing I've
got is a tea-caddy. Honest--a tea-caddy, and a Sheffield tray."