Throughout the evening while she was laughing and talking with the stream of guests, Marcia kept a sub-conscious notion of Sybert’s movements. She saw him in the hall exchanging jokes with the English ambassador. She saw him talking to Eleanor Royston and bending over the Contessa Torrenieri. And once, as she whirled past in a waltz, she caught sight of his dark face in a doorway with his eyes fixed on her, and she forgave him Eleanor and the contessa. She was conscious all the time of a secret amazement at herself. Sybert had suddenly become for her the only person in the room, and while she was outwardly intent upon what other men were saying, her mind was filled with the picture of his face as he had looked during that silent moment by the fountain. She went through the evening in a maze, conscious only of the approach of the one dance she had with him.

When the evening was nearing its end she was suddenly brought to her senses by the realization that she was strolling down one of the ilex walks with Paul Dessart at her side. She had been rattling on unheedingly, and she scarcely knew how they had come there. Her first instinct was one of self-preservation; she felt what was coming, and she wanted to ward it off. Anything to get back to the crowd again! She paused and looked back at the lighted villa, listening to the sound of the violins rising above the murmur of voices and laughter. For a moment she almost felt impelled to turn and run. Since she had stopped, Paul stopped perforce, and looked at her questioningly.

‘I—I think we’d better go back,’ she stammered. ‘This dance is almost over, and——’

‘We won’t go back just yet,’ he returned. ‘I want to talk to you. You owe me a few moments, Marcia. Come here and sit down and listen to what I have to say.’

He turned into the little circle by the fountain and motioned toward a garden seat. Marcia dropped limply upon it and looked at him with an air of pleading. There was no circumlocution; both knew that the time had come when everything must be said, and Paul went to the point.

‘Well, Marcia, are you going to marry me?’

Marcia sat opening and shutting her fan nervously, trying to frame an answer that would not hurt him.

‘I’ve been patient; I haven’t bothered you. You surely ought to know your own mind now. You’ve had a month—it hasn’t been exactly a happy month for me. Tell me, please, Marcia. Don’t keep me waiting any longer.’

‘Oh, Paul!’ she said, looking back with half-frightened eyes. ‘It’s all a mistake.’

‘A mistake! What do you mean? Marcia, I trusted you. You can’t throw me over now. Tell me quickly!’

‘Forgive me, Paul,’ she faltered miserably. ‘I—I was mistaken. I thought, that day in the cloister——’

He realized that, somehow, she was slipping away from him and that he must fight to get her back. He bent toward her and took her hand, with his glowing, eager face close to hers, his words coming so fast that he fairly stuttered.

‘Yes, that day in the cloister. You did care for me then, didn’t you, Marcia—just a little bit? You let me hope—you told me there wasn’t any other man—you’ve been kind to me ever since. That’s what I’ve lived on this whole month—the memory of that afternoon. Tell me what the trouble is—don’t let anything come between us. We’ve had such a happy spring—let it keep on being happy. We’ve lived in Arcady, Marcia—you and I. Why should we ever leave it? Why must we go back—why not go forward? If you cared that afternoon, you can care now. I haven’t changed. Tell me why you hesitate. I don’t want to force you to make up your mind, but this uncertainty is simply hell.’

Marcia listened, breathing fast, half carried away by the impetuous flow of his words. She sat watching him with troubled eyes and silent lips in a sort of stupor. She could not collect her thoughts sufficiently to answer him. What had she to say? she asked herself wildly. What could she say that was adequate?

Paul, bending forward, his eyes close to hers, was waiting expectantly, insistently, for her to speak, when suddenly they were startled by a step on the gravel path before them, and they both looked up to see Laurence Sybert, cigarette in hand, stroll around the corner of the ilex walk. As his eye fell upon them he stopped like a man shot, and for a breathless instant the three faced one another. Then, with a quick rigidity of his whole figure, he bowed an apology and wheeled about. Marcia turned from red to white and snatched her hand away.

Paul watched her a moment with an angry light growing in his eyes. ‘You are in love with Laurence Sybert!’ he whispered.

Marcia shrank back in the corner and hid her face against the back of the seat. Paul bent over her.

‘Look at me,’ he cried; ‘tell me it’s not true. You can’t do it! You’ve been deceiving me. You’ve been lying! Oh, yes, I know you’ve been very careful not to make any promises in so many words, but you’ve made them in other ways, and I believed you. I’ve been fool enough to think you in earnest, and all the time you’ve been amusing yourself!’

Marcia raised her eyes to his. ‘Paul, I haven’t. You are mistaken. I don’t know how I’ve changed; I can’t explain. That day in the cloister I thought I liked you very much. And if Margaret hadn’t come in, perhaps—I wouldn’t have deceived you for a moment, and you know it.’

‘Tell me you don’t love Sybert.’

‘Paul, you have no right——’

‘I have no right! You said there was no one else, and I believed you; and now, when I ask for an explanation, you tell me to go about my business. I suppose you were beginning to get tired of me these last few days, and thought——’

‘You have no right to talk to me this way! I haven’t meant to deceive you. You asked me if there were any one else, and I told you there was not, and it was true. I’m sorry—sorry to hurt you, but it’s better to find it out now.’

Paul rose to his feet with a very hard laugh.

‘Oh, yes, decidedly it’s better to find it out now. It would have been still better if you had found it out sooner.’

He turned his back and kicked the coping of the fountain viciously. Marcia crossed over to him and touched him on the arm.

‘Paul,’ she said, ‘I can’t let it end so. I know I have been very much to blame, but not as you think. I liked you so much.’

He turned and saw the tears in her eyes, and his anger vanished.

‘Oh, I know. I’ve no business to speak so—but—I’m naturally cut up, you know. Don’t cry about it; you can’t help it. If you don’t love me, you don’t, and that ends the matter. I’ll get over it, Marcia.’ He smiled a trifle bleakly. ‘I’m not the fellow to sit down and cry when I can’t have what I want. I’ve gone without things before.’ He offered her his arm. ‘We’ll go back now; I’m afraid you’re missing your dances.’

Marcia barely touched his arm, and they turned back without speaking. He led her into the hall, and bowing with his eyes on the floor, turned back out of doors. She laughed and chatted her way through two or three groups before she could reach the stairs and escape to her own room, where she locked the door and sank down on the floor by the couch. Trouble was beginning for her sooner than she had thought, and underneath the remorse and pity she felt for Paul, the thing that lay like lead on her heart was the look on Sybert’s face as he turned away.

A knock presently came on the door, followed by a rattling of the knob.

‘Marcia, Marcia!’ called Eleanor Royston. ‘Are you in there?’ Marcia raised her head and listened in silence.

The knock came again. She rose and went to the door.

‘What do you want?’ she asked.

‘I want to come in. It’s I—Eleanor. Open the door. Why don’t you come down?’

Marcia shook out her rumpled skirts, pushed back her hair, and opened the door.

‘Everybody’s asking for you. The ambassador says you were engaged to him for a—— Why, what’s the matter?’

Marcia drew back quickly into the shadow, and Eleanor stepped in and closed the door behind her.

‘What’s the matter, child?’ she inquired again. ‘You’ve been crying! Has Paul——?’ she asked suddenly. Eleanor’s intuitive faculties were abnormally developed. ‘I suppose he was pretty nasty,’ she proceeded, taking Marcia’s answer for granted. ‘He can be on occasion. But, to tell you the truth, I think he has some cause to be. I think you deserve all you got.’

Marcia sank into a chair with a gesture of weariness, and Eleanor walked about the room handling the ornaments.

‘Oh, I knew he was in love with you. There’s nothing subtle about Paul. He wears his heart on his sleeve, if any one ever did. But if you don’t mind my saying so, Marcia, I think you’ve been playing with rather a high hand. It’s hardly legitimate, you know, to deliberately set out to make a man fall in love with you.’

‘I haven’t been playing. I didn’t mean to.’

‘Oh, nonsense! Men don’t fall in love without a little encouragement; and I’m not blind—I’ve been watching you. If you want my honest opinion, I think you’ve been pretty unfair with Paul.’

‘I know it,’ Marcia said miserably; ‘you can’t blame me any worse than I blame myself. But you just can’t love people if you don’t.’

‘I’m not blaming you for not loving him; it’s for his loving you. That, by using a little foresight, might have been avoided. However, I don’t know that I’m exactly the person to preach.’ Eleanor dropped into a chair with a short laugh, and leaned forward with her chin in her hand and her eyes on Marcia’s face. ‘I have a theory, Marcia—it’s more than a theory: it’s a superstition,—that some day we’ll be paid in our own coin. I’m twenty-eight, and a good many men have thought they were in love with me, while I myself have never managed to fall in love with any of them. But I’m going to, some day—hard—and then either he’s not going to care about me or something’s going to be in the way so that we can’t marry. It’s going to be a tragedy. I know it as well as I know I’m sitting here. I’m going to pay for my nine seasons, and with interest. It makes me reckless; the score is already so heavy against me that a few more items don’t count. But I know my tragedy’s coming, and the longer I put it off the worse it’s going to be. It’s a nice superstition; I’ll share it with you, Marcia.’

Marcia smiled rather sorrily. It was not a superstition she cared to have thrust upon her just then. She was divining it for herself, and did not need Eleanor to put it into words.

‘As for Paul, you couldn’t do anything else, of course. You’re not fitted to each other for a moment, and you’ll grow more unfitted every day. Paul needs some one who is more objective—who doesn’t think too much—some one like—well, like Margaret, for instance. In the meantime, you needn’t worry; he’ll manage to survive it.’ She rose with another laugh and stood over Marcia’s chair. ‘It’s over and done with, and can’t be helped; there’s nothing to cry about. But mark my words, Marcia Copley, you’ll be falling in love yourself some day, and then I—Paul will be avenged. Meanwhile there are several years before you in which you can have a very good time. Come on; we must go downstairs. The people will be leaving in a little while. Bathe your eyes, and I’ll fix your hair.’

Marcia went downstairs and laughed and danced and talked again, and once she almost stopped in the middle of a speech to wonder how she could do it. It was finally with heartfelt thankfulness that she watched the people beginning to leave. Once, as she was bidding a group good night, she caught sight of Sybert in the hall bending over the contessa’s hand. She covertly studied his face, but it was more darkly inscrutable than ever. She slipped upstairs as soon as the last carriage had rolled away; it was not until long after the sunlight had streamed into her windows, however, that she finally closed her eyes. Eleanor Royston’s pleasant ‘superstition’ she was pondering very earnestly.