Dinner that night had been rather a silent affair at Kent's, as well as at Madame Bernard's. Being absorbed in his own thoughts, Allison did not realise how unsociable he was, nor that the old man across the table from him perceived that they had reached the beginning of the end.
When Allison spoke, it was always of Isabel. Idealised in her lover's sight, she stood before him as the one "perfect woman, nobly planned," predestined, through countless ages, to be his mate. Colonel Kent merely agreed with him in monosyllables until Allison became conscious that his father did not wholly share his enthusiasm.
"I wish you knew her, Dad," he said, regretfully. "You'll love her when you do."
"I'm willing to," answered the Colonel, shortly. "I called on her this afternoon," he added, after a brief pause.
Allison's face illumined. "Was she there? Did you see her?"
"Isn't she the loveliest thing that was ever made?"
"I'm not prepared to go as far as that," smiled the Colonel, "but she is certainly a very pretty girl."
"She's beautiful," returned Allison, with deep conviction.
The Colonel forebore to remind him that love brings beauty with it, or that the beauty which endures comes from the soul within.
"Just think, Dad," Allison was saying, "how lovely she'll be at that end of the table, with me across from her and you at her right."
The Colonel shook his head, then cleared his throat. "Not always, lad," he said, kindly, "but perhaps, sometimes—as a guest."
Allison's fork dropped with a sharp clatter on his plate. "Dad! What do you mean?"
"No house is large enough for two families," repeated the Colonel, with an unconscious, parrot-like accent.
"Why, Dad! We've always stood together—surely you won't desert me now?"
The old man's eyes softened with mist. He could not trust himself to meet the clear, questioning gaze of his son.
"I can't understand," Allison went on, doubtfully. "Is it possible— could she-did-Isabel—?"
"No" said the Colonel, firmly, still avoiding the questioning eyes. "She didn't!"
"Of course she didn't," returned Allison, fully satisfied. "She couldn't—she's not that kind. What a brute I was even to think it! But why, Dad? Please tell me why!"
"Francesca asked me this afternoon if I would come to her and Rose, after the—afterwards, you know, and I promised."
"If you promised, I suppose that settles it," remarked Allison, gloomily, "but I wish you hadn't. I can understand that they would want you, too, for of course they'll be desperately lonely after Isabel goes away."
A certain peace crept into the old man's sore heart. Surely there was something to live for still.
"I hope you didn't tell Aunt Francesca you'd stay there always," Allison was saying, anxiously.
"No," answered the Colonel, with a smile; "there was no limit specified."
"Then we'll consider it only a visit and a short one at that—just until they get a little used to Isabel's being away. This is your rightful place, Dad, and Isabel and I both want you—don't ever forget that!"
When Allison had gone in search of his beloved, the Colonel sat on the veranda alone, accustomed, now, to evenings spent thus. His garden promised well, he thought, having produced two or three sickly roses in the very first season. The shrubs and trees that had survived ten years of neglect had been pruned and tied and would doubtless do well next year, if Isabel—
"I hope he'll never find out," the Colonel said to himself. Then he remembered that, for the first time in his life, he had lied to his son, and took occasion to observe the highly spectacular effect of an untruth from an habitually truthful person.
"He never doubted me, not for an instant," mused the Colonel, "but it's just as well that I'm going. She could probably manage it, if we lived in the same house, so that I'd have to tell at least one lie a day, and I'm not an expert. Perfection might come with practice—I've known it to—but I'm too old to begin."
He was deeply grateful to Francesca for her solution of the problem that confronted him. It had appeared and been duly solved in the space of half an hour. She had been his good angel for more than thirty years. It might be very pleasant to live there, after he became accustomed to the change, and with Allison so near—why, he couldn't be half as lonely as he was now. So his thoughts drifted into a happier channel and he was actually humming an old song to himself when he heard Allison's step, almost at midnight, on the road just beyond the gate.
He went in quietly, closed the door, and was in his own room when Allison's latch-key rattled in the lock. The Colonel took pains not to be heard moving about, but it was unnecessary, for Allison's heart was beating in time with its own music, and surging with the nameless rapture that comes but once.
Down in the moon-lit, dream-haunted garden, Allison waited for Isabel, as the First Man might have waited for the First Woman, in another garden, countless ages ago. Stars were mirrored in the lily-pool; the waning moon swung low. The roses had gone, except a few of the late- blooming sort, but the memory of their fragrance lingered still in the velvet dusk.
No music came from the quiet house, for Rose had not touched the piano since That Night. It stood out in his remembrance in capitals, as it did in hers, for widely different reasons. Only Isabel, cherishing no foolish sentiment as to dates and places, could have forgotten That Night.
With a lover's fond fancy, Allison had written a note to Isabel, asking her to meet him in the garden by the lily-pool, at nine, and to wear the silver-spangled gown. It was already past the hour and he had begun to be impatient, though he was sure she had received the note.
A cobweb in the grass at his feet shone faintly afar—like Isabel's spangles, he thought. A soft-winged wayfarer of the night brushed lightly against his cheek in passing, and he laughed aloud, to think that a grey moth should bring the memory of a kiss. Then, with a swift sinking of the heart, he remembered Isabel's unvarying coldness. Never for an instant had she answered him as Rose—
"Nonsense," he muttered to himself, angrily. "What an unspeakable cad I am!"
There was a light step on the path and Isabel appeared out of the shadows. She was holding up her skirts and seemed annoyed. In the first glance Allison noted that she was not wearing the spangled gown.
She submitted to his eager embrace and endured his kiss; even the blindest lover could not have said more. Yet her coldness only thrilled him to the depths with love of her, as has been the way of men since the world began.
"I don't understand this foolishness," she said, fretfully, as she released herself from his encircling arm. "It's damp and chilly out here, and I'll get wet and take cold."
"It isn't damp, darling, and you can't take cold. Why didn't you wear the spangles?"
"Do you suppose I want to spoil my best gown dragging it through the wet grass?"
"The grass isn't wet, and, anyhow, you haven't been on it—only on the path. Come over here to the bench and sit down."
"I don't want to. I want to go in."
"All right, but not just yet. I'll carry you, if you're afraid of dampness." Before she could protest, he had picked her up and laughingly seated her on the bench at the edge of the lily-pool.
Isabel smoothed her rumpled hair. "You've mussed me all up," she complained. "Why can't we go in? Aunt Francesca and Rose are upstairs."
"Listen, sweetheart. Please be patient with me just a minute, won't you?
I've brought you your engagement ring."
"Oh," cried Isabel, delightedly. "Let me see it!"
"I want to tell you about it first. You remember, don't you, that the first night I came here, you were wearing a big silver pin—a turquoise matrix, set in dull silver?"
"I've forgotten."
"Well, I haven't. Someway, it seemed to suit you as jewels seldom suit anybody, and you had it on the other night when you promised to marry me. Both times you were wearing the spangled gown, and that's why I asked for it to-night, and why I've had your engagement ring made of a turquoise."
Isabel murmured inarticulately, but he went on, heedlessly: "It's made of silver because you're my Silver Girl, the design is all roses because it was in the time of roses, and it's a turquoise for reasons I've told you. Our initials and the date are inside."
Allison slipped it on her finger and struck a match that she might see it plainly. Isabel turned it on her finger listlessly.
"Very pretty," she said, in a small, thin voice, after an awkward pause.
"Why, dearest," he cried, "don't you like it?"
"It's well enough," she answered, slowly, "but not for an engagement ring. Everybody else has diamonds. I thought you cared enough for me to give me a diamond," she said, reproachfully.
"I do," he assured her, "and you shall have diamonds—as many as I can give you. Why, sweet, this is only the beginning. There's a long life ahead of us, isn't there? Do you think I'm never going to give my wife any jewels?"
"Aunt Francesca and Rose put you up to this," said Isabel, bitterly.
"They never want me to have anything."
"They know nothing whatever about it," he replied, rather coldly, taking it from her finger as he spoke. "Listen, Isabel. Would you rather have a diamond in your engagement ring?"
"Of course. I'd be ashamed to have anybody know that this was my engagement ring."
"All right," said Allison, with defiant cheerfulness. "You shall have just exactly what you want, and, to make sure, I'll take you with me when I go to get it. I'm sorry I made such a mistake."
There was a flash of blue and silver in the faint light, and a soft splash in the lily-pool. "There," he went on, "it's out of your way now."
"You didn't need to throw it away," she said, icily. "I didn't say I didn't want it, nor that I wouldn't wear it. I only said I wanted a diamond."
"It could be found, I suppose," he replied, thoughtfully, ashamed of his momentary impulse. "If the pool were drained—"
"That would cost more than the ring is worth," Isabel interrupted.
"Come, let's go in."
He was about to explain that a very good-sized pool could be drained for the price of the ring, but fortunately thought better of it, and was bitterly glad, now, that he had thrown it away.
In the house they talked of other things, but the thrust still lingered in his consciousness, unforgotten.
"How's your father?" inquired Isabel, in a conversational pause, as she could think of nothing else to say.
"I haven't seen him lately. He hasn't been over since the day he called on me."
"Guess I haven't thought to ask him to come along. Dad is possessed just at present by a very foolish idea. They've told you, haven't they?"
"Why, that after we're carried, he's to come over here to live with Aunt
Francesca and Rose, and give us the house to ourselves."
"I hadn't heard," she replied, indifferently.
"I don't know when I've felt so badly about anything," Allison resumed. "We've always been together and we've been more like two chums than father and son. It's like taking my best friend away from me, but I know he'll come back to us, if you ask him to."
"Probably," she assented, coldly. "I suppose we'll be in town for the
Winters, won't we, and only live here in the Summer?"
"I don't know, dear; we'll see. I've got to go to see my manager very soon, and Dad asked me to find out what you wanted for a wedding present. I'm to help him select it."
"Can I have anything I choose?" she queried, keenly interested now.
"Anything within reason," he smiled. "I'm sorry we're not millionaires."
"A big red touring car, with room for four or five people in it?"
"I'll tell him. It would be rather nice to have one, wouldn't it?"
"Indeed it would," she cried, clapping her hands. "Oh, Allison, do persuade him to get it, won't you?"
"I won't have to, if he can. I've never had to persuade my father into anything he could do for me."
When he went home, Isabel kissed him, of her own accord, for the first time. It was a cold little kiss, accompanied with a whispered plea for the red automobile, but it set his heart to thumping wildly, and made him forget the disdained turquoise, that lay at the bottom of the lily- pool.
Within a few days, Isabel was the happy possessor of an engagement ring with a diamond in it—a larger, brighter stone than she had ever dreamed of having. Colonel Kent had also readily promised the automobile, though he did not tell Allison that he should be obliged to sell some property in order to acquire a really fine car. It took until the end of the month to make the necessary arrangements, but on the afternoon of the thirtieth, a trumpeting red monster, bright with brass, drew up before the Kent's door, having come out from town on its own power.
As the two men had taken a brief tour over the wonderful roads of France, with Allison at the wheel, he felt no hesitation in trying an unfamiliar car. The old throb of exultation came back when the monster responded to his touch and chugged out of the driveway on its lowest speed.
He turned back to wave his hand at his father, who stood smiling on the veranda, with the chauffeur beside him. "I'll get Isabel," he called, "then come back for you."
He reached Madame Bernard's without accident and Isabel, almost wild with joy, ran out of the gate to meet him and climbed in. Only Rose, from the shelter of her curtains, saw them as they went away.
"Where shall we go?" Isabel asked. She was hatless and the sun dwelt lovingly upon her shining black hair.
"Back for Dad. He's waiting for us. Do you like it, dear?"
"Indeed I do. Oh, so much! It was lovely of him, wasn't it? He wouldn't care, would he, if we took a little ride just by ourselves before we went back for him?"
"Of course not, but we can't go far and we'll have to go fast."
"I love to go fast. I've never been fast enough yet. I wonder if the
Crosbys have got their automobile?"
"I heard so, but I haven't seen it. I understand that Romeo is learning to drive it in the narrow boundaries of the yard."
"What day of the month is it?"
"The thirtieth. There's less than three months to wait now, darling— then you'll be mine, all mine."
"Then this is the day the Crosbys were going to celebrate—it's the anniversary of their uncle's death. I'm glad we've got our automobile. Can't we go by there? It's only three miles, and I'd love to have them see us go by, at full speed."
Obediently, Allison turned into the winding road which led to Crosbys's and, to please Isabel, drove at the third speed. Once under way, the road spun dustily backward under the purring car, and the wind in their faces felt like the current of a stream.
"Oh," cried Isabel, rapturously; "isn't it lovely!"
"I'm almost afraid to go so fast, dear. If there should be another car on this road, we might collide at some of these sharp turns."
"But there isn't. There's not another automobile in this sleepy little town, except the Crosbys'. It isn't likely that they're out in theirs now, on this road."
But, as it happened, they were. After some difficulties at the start, Romeo had engineered "The Yellow Peril" out through a large break in the fence. The twins wore their brown suits with tan leather trimmings, and, as planned long ago, the back seat of the machine was partially filled with raw meat of the sort most liked by Romeo's canine dependents.
Two yellow flags fluttered from the back of the driver's seat. One had the initials "C. T." in black, on the other, in red, was "The Yellow Peril." The name of the machine and the monogram were strikingly in evidence on the doors and at the back, where a choice cut of roast beef, uncooked, dangled temptingly by a strong cord.
Just before they started, Juliet unfastened the barn door and freed nineteen starving dogs, all in collars suited to the general colour scheme of the automobile, and bearing the initials: "C. T." When they sniffed the grateful odour borne on the warm June wind, they plunged after the machine with howls and yelps of delight. Only Minerva remained behind, having five new puppies to care for.
"Oh, Romie, Romie!" shouted Juliet, in ecstasy. "They're coming! See!"
Romeo looked back for the fraction of an instant, saw that they were, indeed, "coming," and then discovered that he had lost control of the machine. "Sit tight," he said, to Juliet, between clenched teeth.
"I am," she screamed, gleefully. "Oh, Romie, if uncle could only see us now!"
"Uncle's likely to see us very soon," retorted Romeo grimly, "unless I can keep her on the road."
But Juliet was absorbed in the joy of the moment and did not hear. A cloud of dust, through which gleamed brass and red, appeared on the road ahead of them, having rounded the curve at high speed. At the same instant, Allison saw just beyond him, the screaming fantasy of colour and sound.
"Jump!" he cried to Isabel. "Jump for your life!"
She immediately obeyed him, falling in a little white heap at the roadside. He rose, headed the machine toward the ditch at the right, and jumped to the left, falling face down in the road with his hands outstretched, Before he could stir, the other machine roared heavily over him, grazing his left hand and crushing it into the deep dust.
There was almost an instant of unbelievable agony, then, mercifully, darkness and oblivion.