"Have a girl who loves a marble god--then some day she meets a man--and the god is afraid he will lose her, so he wakes to life and says, 'If you love this man, you will have to accept the common lot of women, you will have to work for him and obey him--and some day he will die and your soul will be rent with sorrow. But if you love me, I shall be here when you are forgotten, and while you live my love will demand nothing but the verses that you read to me and the roses that lay at my feet.'"
Geoffrey gave her an eager glance. "Jove, there's more in that than a joke. Some day I shall get you to amplify your idea."
"I'll give it to you if you promise to write the book here. There's a balcony room that overlooks the river--and nobody would ever interrupt you but me, and I'd only come when you wanted me."
Marie-Louise's breath was short as she finished. To cover her emotion she caught up the wreath which she had made in the morning, and which lay beside her.
"I made it for you," she told Geoffrey, "and now that I've done it, I don't know what to do with it."
She was blushing and glowing, less of an imp and more of a girl than Richard had ever seen her.
Geoffrey rose to the occasion. "It shall be a mascot for my new book. I'll hang it on the wall over my desk, and every time I look up at it, it shall say to me, 'These are the laurels you are to win.'"
"You have won them," Marie-Louise flashed.
"No artist ever feels himself worthy of laurel. His achievement always falls short of his ambition."
"But 'Three Souls,'" Marie-Louise said; "surely you were satisfied?"
"I did not write it--the credit belongs to Mistress Anne. Your wreath should be hers."
But Marie-Louise's mind was made up. Before Geoffrey could grasp what she was about to do, she fluttered up the steps, and dropped the garland lightly on his dark locks.
"To the Victor--the spoils," she told him, smiling.
Richard felt out of it. He wanted to get away, and he knew that he must find Eve. Eve, who when he met her would laugh her light laugh, and call him "Dicky Boy," and refuse to listen when he spoke of Crossroads.
The path that he took led to a little tea house built on the bank, which gave a wide view of the river and the Jersey hills. He found Winifred and Tony side by side and silent.