At last her voice broke the golden silence: "I feel enormously happy
to-night. I don't know why."
The observation might seem unnoteworthy to the casual, but it carried
them all around the room again.
"Fortune is good to me," said he, as lightly as he could, "to let me be
with you when you feel like that."
He had never seen her so handsome; the nearness of her beauty
intoxicated him; her voice was indolent, provocative. She was superbly
dressed in white, and on her rounded breast nodded his favor, a splendid
corsage of orchid and lily-of-the-valley.
"Fortune?" she queried. "Don't you think that men bring these things to
pass for themselves?"
They had made the circle on that, too, before West said: "I wonder if
you begin to understand what a power you have of bringing happiness to
me."
He looked, and indeed, for the transient moment, he felt, like a man who
must have his answer, for better or worse, within the hour. She saw his
look, and her eyes fell before it, not wholly because she knew how to do
that to exactly the best advantage. Few persons would have mistaken Miss
Avery for a wholly inexperienced and unsophisticated girl.
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