The Light Heart by Elswyth Thane Page B

world for me, and it’s much too late to apologize!’
    “Well, I’m s-sorry,” said Phoebe, drooping in the saddle. “Maybe it would be better after all to just ignore the whole thing and avoid each other.”
    “If you talk like that I shall really forget myself,” Oliver threatened, and he was laughing again, because she was so young and so dignified, and so ignorant still of what was before them. Phoebe glanced at him doubtfully when he laughed, confused, but contented just to be in his company, and eager for further revelation.
    “What do you want me to say?” she asked.
    “Whatever you like, in heavens’ name!” he told her firmly. “Will you do that for me? Will you always utter whatever comes into your funny head, and trust me to make some sort of intelligent guess at what you mean and what the answer is?”
    It was what she had done half a dozen times already, with no thought of the pitfalls such a course might present to two people so little acquainted as they were. Even with Miles, she had learned long since, it was dangerous to say the first thing that came into your head, and she and Miles had grown up together. But with Oliver there were no pitfalls. One could relax. One could let go, and coast along on his quick comprehension, his uncanny perception, his embracing good will and indulgence. With Oliver there was no thin ice, it was firm footing all the way. One day of him was all you needed to be sure of that.Phoebe drew a long breath, as though someone had opened a window somewhere inside her.
    “Well, then, to begin with, suppose I meet Maia now,” she said frankly. “I feel as though this would be written all over me if she came into the room.”
    “I’ll try to make sure that you don’t meet her—at least when I am in the same room,” he promised with equal frankness. “You must watch out for Virginia too, she’s pretty quick.” His eyes rested on her, searching, smiling, and kind. “Darling, you do understand me, don’t you. I don’t expect anything of you—and I won’t demand anything. There’s nothing to feel uneasy about, I promise you.” And he could see quite plainly that what he was trying to convey had not even crossed her mind. Such small risks as stolen kisses and perilous meetings at odd hours and dangerous whisperings in corners would never occur to Phoebe. Except when they were alone, she meant to snub him. It was a bleak prospect for a man whose blood was singing in his veins, but clearly Phoebe would not comprehend the possibility of anything else. “You’ll have nothing on your conscience when you go back to Miles,” he added with an inward sigh.
    “Nothing but not loving him,” she said ruefully. “It’s queer—I might never have known that I didn’t. How can I feel that I’ve known you forever, when it’s not yet been a whole day?”
    “They do it with mirrors,” he told her fatalistically. “We aren’t supposed to understand how it happens, we’re just supposed to say Thank you, and take what’s given to us.”
    But we aren’t taking it, thought Phoebe, in her uncompromising way. We’re making up our minds to let it go. Shall we be punished for thinking we know best and doing what we think is right? How do we know it’s best? You’re not supposed to go back on your plighted word, of course. But then why has this other thing happened to us when it’s too late? Surely it was meant for some tiling. Suppose we’re wrong after all, to let it go….
    Meanwhile they left the road, dismounted, and walkedthrough a grassy glade to where the anemones grew beside a stream. Led on by his skilful, sympathetic questions and his attentive silences, Phoebe found herself with all reserves down, telling how she happened to come abroad with her wealthy cousins all of a sudden, as a birthday present, and how Miles had proposed at last just before she left Williamsburg, and how they had bought her a trousseau in New York, and how she hadn’t come to England