And this time Oliver is really able to smile.

"No, you don't."

"Oh well--but, honestly--well, no, I suppose I don't. And I suppose _that's_ something you know all about, too, you--private detective!"

"Private detective! Why, you poor a.s.s, if you haven't noticed how I've been playing G.o.dmother to you all the way through this house-party--"

"I have. I suppose I'd thank anybody else. Coming from you, though, I can only say that such was both my hope and my expectation."

"Oh, you _perfect_ a.s.s!" Both laugh, a little unsteadily.

"Well, Ollie, what think?" says Ted, finding some difficulty with his words for some reason or other.

"Think? Can't tell, my amorous child. Coldly considered, I think you've got a good show--and I'm very strong for it, needless to say--and if you don't go and put it over pretty soon I'll be intensely annoyed--one of the pleasures I've promised myself for years and years has been getting most disgracefully fried at your wedding, Ted."

"Well, tonight is going to be zero hour, I think." Ted proceeds with a try at being flippant and Oliver cackles with mirth.

"I knew it. I knew it. Old Uncle Ollie, the Young Proposer's Guide and Pocket Companion." Then his voice changes. "Luck," he says briefly.

"Thanks. Need it."

"Of course I'm not worthy," Ted begins diffidently but Oliver stops him.

"They never are. I wasn't. But that doesn't make any difference. You've got to--_n'est-ce pas?_"

"You old b.u.m! Yes. But when I think of it---"

"Don't"

"But leaving out everything else--it seems so d.a.m.ned _cheeky!_ When Elinor's got everything, including all the money in the world, and I--"

"We talked that over a long time ago, remember? And remember what we decided--that it didn't matter, in this year and world at least. Of course I'm a.s.suming that you're really in love with her--"

"I am," from Ted very soberly. "Oh I am, all right."

"Well then, go ahead. And, Theodore, I shall watch your antic motions with the greatest sarcastic delight, both now and in the future--either way it breaks. Moreover I'll take anybody out of the action that you don't want around--and if there were anything else I could do--"

"Got to win off my own service," says Ted. "You know. But thanks all the same. Only when I think of--some incidents of Paris--and how awful near I've come to making a complete fool of myself with that Severance woman in the last month--well--"

"Look here, Ted." Oliver is really worried. "You're not going to let that--interfere--are you? Right now?"

"I've got to tell her." Ted's smile is a trifle painful. "Got to, you know. Oh not that. But France. The whole business."

"But good heavens, man, you aren't going to make it the start of the conversation?"

"Well--maybe not. But it's all got to be--explained. Only way I'll ever feel decent--and I don't suppose I'll feel too decent then."

"But Ted--oh it's your game, of course. Only I don't think it's being--fair--to either of you to tell her just now."

"Can't help it, Ollie." Ted's face sets into what Oliver once christened his "mule-look." "I've thought it over backwards and sideways and all around the block--and I can't squirm out of it because it'll be incredibly hard to do. As a matter of fact," he pauses, "it'll tell itself, you know, probably," he ends, more prophetically than he would probably care to know.

"Well, I simply _don't_ see--"

"_Must_," and after that Oliver knows there is very little good of arguing the point much further. He has known Ted for eight years without finding out that a certain bitter and Calvinistic penchant for self-crucifixion is one of his ruling forces--and one of those least easily deduced from his externals. Still he makes a last effort.

"Now don't start getting all tied up about that. Keep your mind on Elinor."

"That's not--hard."

"Good--I see that you have all the proper reactions. And you'll excuse me for saying that _I_ don't think she's too good for you--and even if she were she'd have to marry somebody, you know--and when you put it, put it straight, and let Paris and everything else you're worrying about go plumb to h.e.l.l! And that's good advice."

"I know it. I'll tell you of course."

"Well, I should _think_ you would!"

Oliver looks at his watch. "Great Scott--they'll be unmasking in twenty minutes. And I've got to go back and cut Juliet out of the herd and take her to supper--"

They rise and look at each other. Then

"Hope this is the last time, Ted, old fel--which isn't any reflection on the last eight years odd," says Oliver slowly, and their hands grip once and hard. Then they both start talking fast as they walk back to the house to cover the unworthy emotion. But just as they are going in the door, Oliver hisses into Ted's ear, an advisory whisper,

"Now go and eat all the supper you can, you idiot--it always helps."

x.x.xI

The parti-colored harlequin and the young Chinese lady in blue silks are walking the Italian gardens, talking about nothing in particular.

Ted has managed to discuss the moon--it is high now, a round white l.u.s.tre--the night, which is warm--the art of garden decoration, French, English and Italian--the pleasantness of Southampton after New York--all with great nervous fluency but so completely as if he had met Elinor for the first time ten minutes ago that she is beginning to wonder why, if he dislikes her as much as that, he ever suggested leaving the dance-floor at all.

Ted, meanwhile, is frantically conscious of the fact that they have reached the end of the garden, are turning back, and still he is so cripplingly tongue-tied about the only thing he really wishes to say that he cannot even get the words out to suggest their sitting down. It is not until he stumbles over a pebble while pa.s.sing a small hard marble seat set back in a nest of hedge that he manages to make his first useful remark of the promenade.

"Ah--a bench!" he says brightly, and then, because that sounded so completely imbecile, plunges on.

"Don't you want to sit down a minute, Elinor?--I--you--it's so cool--so warm, I mean--" He closes his mouth firmly--what a _ghastly_ way to begin!

But Elinor says "Yes" politely and they try to adapt themselves to the backless ornamental bench, Ted nervously crossing and recrossing his legs until he happens to think that Elinor certainly never would marry anybody with St. Vitus' Dance.

"Can't tell you how nice it's been this time, Elinor. And you've been--"

There, things are going better--at least, he has recovered his voice.

"Why, you know how much we love to have you, Ted," says Elinor and Ted feels himself turn hot and cold as he was certain you never really did except in diseases. But then she adds, "You and Ollie and Bob Templar, and, oh, all Peter's friends."

He looks at her steadily for a long moment--the blue silks of her costume suit her completely. She is there, black hair and clear eyes, small hands and mouth pure as the body of a dream and elvish with thoughts like a pansy--all the body of her, all that people call her.

And she is so delicately removed from him--so clean in all things where he is not--that he knows savagely within him that there can be no real justice in a world where he can even touch her lightly, and yet he must touch her because if he does not he will die. All the things he meant to say shake from him like sc.r.a.ps of confetti, he does not worry any more about money or seeming ridiculous or being worthy, all he knows at all in the world is his absolute need of her, a need complete as a child's and so choosing any words that come.

"Listen--do you like me?" says the particolored harlequin and all the sharp leaves of the hedge begin to t.i.tter as wind runs over them at one of the oldest and least sensible questions in the world.