Marcia sang at her work--sang not so much because there was peace in her heart as because the gladness about her forced her to forget her pain.
Sylvia sang, too, or rather whistled in a gay, boyish fashion and in company with Prince Hal raced like a young colt up the beach.
Only a day or two more passed before it was possible to get Stanley Heath, warmly wrapped in rugs, out on the sheltered veranda where, like the others, he reveled in the sunshine.
His cheeks bronzed, his eyes became clear and bright, laughter curled his lips. If just around the corner the spectre of trouble loitered, its presence was not, apparently, able to put to flight his lightheartedness. Over and over again he declared that every hour spent in this lotus-eaters' country was worth a miser's fortune.
Sometimes when he lay motionless in the steamer-chair looking seaward beneath the rim of his soft felt hat, or following the circling gulls with preoccupied gaze Marcia, peeping at him from the window wondered of what he was thinking.
That the fancies which intrigued him were pleasant and that he enjoyed his own company there could be no question.
No attitude he might have assumed could have been better calculated to dispel awkwardness and force into the background the seriousness of the two women, whose interests were so inextricably entangled with his own, than the merry, bantering one he adopted when with them.
Even Marcia, who at first had avoided all tête-à-têtes, quivering with dread whenever she found herself alone with him, gradually, beneath the spell of his new self, gained sufficient confidence to perch hatless on the piazza rail beside him in an unoccupied moment and spar with him, verbally.
For he was a brilliant talker--one who gave unexpected, original twists to the conversation--twists that taxed one's power of repartee. The challenge to keep pace with his wit was to her like scouring a long disused rapier and seeing it clash against the deft blade of a master fencer.
Here indeed was a hitherto undreamed-of Stanley Heath, a man whose dangerous charms had multiplied a hundredfold and who, if he had captivated her before now riveted her fetters with every word he spoke, every glance he gave her.