But the pleasure of being proved right loses half its keenness if one has to carry about that knowledge unuttered and unshared, and Rose was realizing this after the first pleasure in Madame Arnold's revelations had become a little subdued by much contemplation. She longed to triumph openly over Willy. He had been so very sure that he was right in regarding Mrs. Darrell as a scheming adventuress and in trying in every way to shield and exculpate Sonia MacKenzie.
The more she considered the matter, the more she felt that Willy had really been insufferably superior about his circumstantial evidence, and absurdly obstinate in the stand he had taken; and, looking at the question from all sides, she determined to give him a much-needed lesson,
She was sure that if Madame Arnold knew all the circumstances she would be the last person to bid her forego such sweet revenge. Therefore she again approached that lady, and with all the grace and graciousness of manner of which she was mistress presented to her a little plan she had, so beguilingly that Mrs. Darrell-Arnold consented to it at once.
She—Rose—said that she had so enjoyed their companionship, brief though it had been, that she could not bear to let Madame Arnold go without some small celebration of the event that meant so much in her new friend's life. And she greatly wished to arrange for the following evening—since the Arnolds would be leaving early the next morning—a small party in her sitting room, just the same little group that Mrs. Darrell-Arnold was accustomed to meet; and she begged that upon this occasion she might be allowed to announce the happy ending to this charming romance.
Again Madame Arnold was much moved. She thought it a charming plan, and gladly accepted for both Monsieur Arnold and herself; and she had no objection at all to Miss O'Hara's making the announcement. In fact, she preferred that she should do so.
So Rose, delighted with the success of her plans, and gloating over the discomfiture of Willy Gaines, informed Miss Hodgkins that she would have a small party the next evening, and requested her to make arrangements about the flowers and the supper at once.
Then she hastened to invite in person Mrs. and Miss Mayhew, Sonia MacKenzie, Phil Wodeburn, and Willy Gaines. These, with Monsieur and Madame Arnold and herself, comprised the party.
In those days the star of Venus must have been in the ascendant, for that evening, while Monsieur and Madame Arnold sat under the eyes of the hotel, murmuring tender speeches with what discretion they could summon, Willy Gaines, finding Rose so joyous and even kind, proposed to her for the thousand and oneth time, and Phil Wodeburn proposed to Vivien Mayhew for the first.
These two had been sitting in a dim, shadowy nook of one of the long porches, where the honeysuckle clambered up the railing and gave out its sweetness to the, soft, mild night. An unusual silence had fallen between them, and suddenly he had turned, and, without any preliminary speeches, had bluntly asked her to marry him.
She had not answered him at once, and the moon had slipped behind a cloud; but had there been more light he would have seen an entirely different person from the one to whom he had become so accustomed that he had begun to think his life incomplete without her. Instead of the daring and accomplished sportswoman, the merry girl, ready for any adventure in any kind of weather, was a woman who had paled and saddened, and who looked at him with a great wistfulness in her eyes.
“We couldn't help but be happy,” he was arguing earnestly. “Every taste, every inclination, we have is in common. We like to do exactly the same things, and we understand one another perfectly.”
“You have forgotten that I am older than you,” she said gently, all the jesting tones gone out of her voice.
He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “Surely you wouldn't—you couldn't—let that stand between us?”
“Oh, I like you so much,” she cried distressedly. “I am so sincerely fond of you. I appreciate so thoroughly all your clean, high-minded qualities; but there”
“Nonsense!” he said almost roughly. “Vivien, this doesn't sound a bit like you. Are you trying to hedge, to let me down easy, because you don't care for me?”
“I wish that were it.” She spoke so low that the words were almost breathed. “Phil,” resolutely, “I've got to tell you something. I've been sailing under false pretenses. I am already married.”
“What!” he exclaimed hoarsely. “What!” He seemed stunned for a moment or two, and then he leaned forward eagerly, and opened his lips to speak.