Sagaciously Welden answered: “Try me.”
Maud turned away, and with her two hands made a pass in the air. It was as though in some rite known but to herself, she were interrogating the invisible lap of the indifferent gods.
Then, looking suddenly at him, she exclaimed: “I have a great mind to.”
In spite of a gesture meant to stay him, Welden sprang at the girl, caught her in his arms, and pressing his lips to hers, so bent her with the embrace, that she fell backward on the sofa.
At once, freeing herself, she pushed him away.
“Oblige me by sitting where you were.”
As she spoke, she went to the mirror, readjusted her hat, patted her frock. These operations concluded, she turned again.
“We may as well say that we are engaged. In that manner we can be together whenever we like. Come to dinner tomorrow. I will speak to my father tonight, you can speak to him then.”
She moved back. “Don’t kiss me here. Don’t. Now you must go. I have to dress.”
Welden passed from the library into a reception room which adjoined it, and from there to the marble flagging of the hall.
Near the entrance stood a man, an old family servant who had known Welden throughout the year and the day of the siege and who now handed him his hat and stick.
Welden, considering him with laughing eyes, fumbled in his waistcoat and said:
“William, put that in your pocket and don’t be surprised if you hear any news.”
“Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Welden,” the man answered knowingly. “I shan’t be surprised; no, sir.”
Opening the door, he held it open until Welden reached the street.
That night, when some guests had gone, Maud spoke, as she said she would speak, to her father. They were in the drawing room which, after a New York fashion of long ago, was frescoed, furnished in yellow and black, fitted with enormous mirrors and with chandeliers almost as big, equally ancient.
“I am engaged to Gerard Welden.”
General Barhyte, who had taken up an evening paper, put it down and removed his glasses. He had bushy white hair, a white cavalry moustache, and a fierce red face which suddenly could become indulgent.
It became so then. The Weldens had been identified with New York as long as the Barhytes, possibly longer. Welden himself represented all that was locally desirable in addition to the fact that he was personally agreeable, pleasant to the eye, liked by men, admired by women, a man of means, an M.F.H., President of the Swordsmen Club.
These items considered, the general replaced his glasses and looked up at his daughter.
“He is not in business, is he?”
Maud, who had been standing, seated herself on an S in upholstery.
“Well? And you? You are not either.”
For a moment the general considered the point. “That’s another story. I think nowadays a man should have some occupation.”
Maud smiled, displaying the nacre of her teeth. “So do I. He will have me. It will be enough for him.”
“Or for anybody,” laughed the general. “When is it to be?”
“When is what to be?”
“Why, God bless my soul, the wedding, of course.”
From under the girl’s skirt a white slipper, butterflied with gold, moved in and out.
“Oh, not for a long time yet.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
The general laughed again. “That is the best reason in the world. Well, puss, you have my consent and your mother’s money. You have been a good girl and I hope to God that you will be happy. He means to say a word to me, doesn’t he?”
Maud stood up. “Tomorrow. I have asked him to dinner.”
General Barhyte, gathering again the evening paper, nodded. The match was everything he could wish. The more he considered it, the more he was pleased.
The following evening, when Maud had left the table and Welden had said the promised word, that pleasure he expressed.
“I hope,” he added, “that after you are married you will be willing to live here. Why, God bless my soul, the house is big enough for a dozen of you. I always breakfast in my rooms, usually I have luncheon at the Athenaeum, and I have always wanted to dine there.”
“You are very kind, General,” Welden, sitting, smiling and supple, before him, replied. “Personally I shall like nothing better, particularly as my own house has gone the way the rest of New York will go—engulfed by office buildings and department stores.”
“Yes, yes. They are making the town impossible. God bless my soul, if I did not know better, I should think I was in Chicago. But there is Maud looking in. Don’t let me detain you.”
Welden stood up, shook hands with the old gentleman, thanked him again, and followed the girl into the faded splendours of the drawing room.
“I have something for you,” she announced.
From a little box she took a sapphire, flat and oblong. About it was a thin gold band and at one end a clasp. On the band was engraved: Aultre n’auray
.
“ ‘None but you,’ ” she translated as he examined the device which, long ago, a girl wove for a king.
“Now,” she resumed, “if you will put that on the stem of your watch, it will not be offensive, will it?”
“On the contrary. But how odd!”
“I meant it to be. It is a token between us. If you ever change your mind, do not let me see that you have and do not tell me. Send this to me.”
“It will go with me to my grave,” Welden answered.
Drawing her to him, he kissed her, longly at first, then so penetratingly that the
