"I meant to... but I couldn't," said Emily.
"Why not?" asked Teddy as if he had a perfect right to ask it.
"Because I didn't love him," answered Emily, conceding his right.
Laughter... golden, delicious laughter that made you suddenly want to laugh too. Laughter was so SAFE... one could laugh without betraying anything. Ilse had come... Ilse was running down the walk. Ilse in a yellow silk gown the colour of her hair and a golden-brown hat the colour of her eyes, giving you the sensation that a gorgeous golden rose was at large in the garden.
Emily almost welcomed her. The moment had grown too vital. Some things were terrible if put into words. She drew away from Teddy almost primly... a Murray of New Moon once more.
"Darlings," said Ilse, throwing an arm around each of them. "Isn't it divine... all here together again? Oh, how much I love you! Let's forget we are old and grown-up and wise and unhappy and be mad, crazy, happy kids again for just one blissful summer."
II
A wonderful month followed. A month of indescribable roses, exquisite hazes, silver perfection of moonlight, unforgettable amethystine dusks, march of rains, bugle-call of winds, blossoms of purple and star-dust, mystery, music, magic. A month of laughter and dance and joy, of enchantment infinite. Yet a month of restrained, hidden realization. Nothing was ever said. She and Teddy were seldom ever alone together. But one felt... knew. Emily fairly sparkled with happiness. All the old restlessness that had worried Aunt Laura had gone from her eyes. Life was good. Friendship... love... joy of sense and joy of spirit... sorrow... loveliness... achievement... failure... longing... all were part of life and therefore interesting and desirable.
Every morning when she awakened the new day seemed to her like some good fairy who would bring her some beautiful gift of joy. Ambition was, for the time at least, forgotten. Success... power... fame. Let those who cared for them pay the price and take them. But love is not bought and sold. It is a gift.
Even the memory of her burned book ceased to ache. What did one book more or less matter in this great universe of life and passion? How pale and shadowy was any pictured life beside this throbbing, scintillant existence! Who cared for laurel, after all? Orange blossoms would make a sweeter coronet. And what star of destiny was ever brighter and more alluring than Vega of the Lyre. Which, being interpreted, simply meant that nothing mattered any more in this world or any other except Teddy Kent.
III
"If I had a tail I'd lash it," groaned Ilse, casting herself on Emily's bed and hurling one of Emily's treasured volumes... a little old copy of the Rubaiyat Teddy had given her in high school days... across the room. The back came off and the leaves flew every which way for a Sunday. Emily was annoyed.
"Were you ever in such a state that you could neither cry nor pray nor swear?" demanded Ilse.
"Sometimes," agreed Emily dryly. "But I don't take it out on books that never harmed me. I just go and bite off somebody's head."
"There wasn't anybody's head handy to bite off, but I did something that was just as effective," said Ilse, casting a malevolent glance at Perry Miller's photograph which was propped up on Emily's desk.
Emily glanced at it, too, and her face Murrayfied, as Ilse expressed it. The photograph was still there but where Perry's intent and unabashed eyes had gazed out at her were now only jagged, unsightly holes.
Emily was furious. Perry had been so proud of those photographs. They were the first he had had taken in his life. "Never could afford any before," he had said frankly. He looked very handsome in them, though his pose was a bit truculent and aggressive with his wavy hair brushed back sleekly, and his firm mouth and chin showing to excellent advantage. Aunt Elizabeth had gazed at it, secretly wondering how she had ever dared make such a fine-looking young man as that eat in the kitchen. And Aunt Laura had wiped her eyes sentimentally and thought that perhaps... after all... Emily and Perry... a lawyer would be quite a thing to have in the family, coming in a good third to minister and doctor. Though, to be sure, Stovepipe Town...
Perry had rather spoiled the gift for Emily by proposing to her again. It was very hard for Perry Miller to get it into his head that anything he wanted he couldn't get. And he had always wanted Emily.
"I've got the world by the tail now," he said proudly. "Every year'll find me higher up. Why can't you make up your mind to have me, Emily?"
"Is it just a question of making up one's mind?" asked Emily satirically.
"Of course. What else?"
"Listen, Perry," said Emily decidedly. "You're a good old pal. I like you... I'll always like you. But I'm tired of this nonsense and I'm going to put a stop to it. If you ever again ask me to marry you I'll never never speak to you as long as I live. Since you are good at making up your mind make up yours which you want... my friendship or my non-existence."
"Oh, well." Perry shrugged his shoulders philosophically. He had about come to the conclusion anyhow that he might as well give up dangling after Emily Starr and getting nothing but snubs for his pains. Ten years was long enough to be a rejected but faithful swain. There were other girls, after all. Perhaps he had made a mistake. TOO faithful and persistent. If he had wooed by fits and starts, blowing hot and cold like Teddy Kent, he might have had better luck. Girls were like that. But Perry did not say this. Stovepipe Town had learned a few things. All he said was:
"If you'd only stop looking at me in a certain way I might get over hankering for you. Anyhow, I'd never have got this far along if I hadn't been in love with you. I'd just have been a hired boy somewhere or a fisherman at the harbour. So I'm sorry. I haven't forgotten how you believed in me and helped me and stood up for me to your Aunt Elizabeth. It's been... been"... Perry's handsome face flushed suddenly and his voice shook a little... "it's been... sweet... to dream about you all these years. I guess I'll have to give it up now. No use, I see. But don't take your friendship from me too, Emily."
"Never," said Emily impulsively putting out her hands. "You're a brick, Perry dear. You've done wonders and I'm proud of you."
And now to find the picture he had given her ruined. She flashed on Ilse eyes like a stormy sea.
"Ilse Burnley, how dare you do such a thing!"
"No use squizzling your eyebrows up at me like that, beloved demon," retorted Ilse. "Hasn't no effect on me a-tall. Couldn't endure that picture no-how. And Stovepipe Town in the background."
"What you've done is on a level with Stovepipe Town."
"Well, he asked for it. Smirking there. 'Behold ME. I am a Person In The Public Eye.' Never had such satisfaction as boring your scissors through those conceited orbs gave me. Two seconds more of looking at them and I'd have flung up my head and howled. Oh, how I hate Perry Miller. Puffed up like a poisoned pup!"
"I thought you told me you loved him," said Emily rather rudely.
"It's the same thing," said Ilse morosely. "Emily, why can't I get that creature out of my mind! It's too Victorian to say heart. I haven't any heart. I don't love him... I DO hate him. But I can't keep from thinking about him. THAT'S just a state of mind. Oh, I could yell at the moon. But the real reason I dug his eyes out was his turning Grit after having been born and raised Conservative."
"You are Conservative yourself."
"True but unimportant. I hate turncoats. I've never forgiven Henry IV for turning Catholic. Not because he was a Protestant but just because he was a turncoat I would have been just as implacable if he had been Catholic and turned Protestant. Perry has changed his politics just for the sake of getting into partnership with Leonard Abel. There's Stovepipe Town for you. Oh, he'll be Judge Miller and rich as wedding-cake... but... ! I wish he had had a hundred eyes so that I could have bored them all out! This is one of the times I feel it would be handy to have been a bosom friend of Lucrezia Borgia."