The Happiest Time of Their Lives | Page 4

money at all." There was a
pause, and he went on, "I suppose you know that when I was sitting
beside you just now I wanted most terribly to kiss you."
"Oh, no!"
"Oh, no? Oh, yes. I wanted to, but I didn't. Don't worry. I won't for a
long time, perhaps never."
"Never?" said Miss Severance, and she smiled.
"I said perhaps never. You can't tell. Life turns up some awfully queer
tricks now and then. Last night, for example. I walked into that
ballroom thinking of nothing, and there you were--all the rest of the
room like a sort of shrine for you. I said to a man I was with, 'I want to
meet the girl who looks like cream in a gold saucer,' and he introduced
us. What could be stranger than that? Not, as a matter of fact, that I
ever thought love at first sight impossible, as so many people do."
"But if you don't know the very first thing about a person--" Miss
Severance began, but he interrupted:
"You have to begin some time. Every pair of lovers have to have a first
meeting, and those who fall in love at once are just that much further
ahead." He smiled. "I don't even know your first name."

It seemed miraculous good fortune to have a first name.
"Mathilde."
"Mathilde," he repeated in a lower tone, and his eyes shone
extraordinarily.
Both of them took some time to recover from the intensity of this
moment. She wanted to ask him his, but foreseeing that she would
immediately be required to use it, and feeling unequal to such an
adventure, she decided it would be wiser to wait. It was he who
presently went on:
"Isn't it strange to know so little about each other? I rather like it. It's so
mad--like opening a chest of buried treasure. You don't know what's
going to be in it, but you know it's certain to be rare and desirable.
What do you do, Mathilde? Live here with your father and mother?"
She sat looking at him. The truth was that she found everything he said
so unexpected and thrilling that now and then she lost all sense of being
expected to answer.
"Oh, yes," she said, suddenly remembering. "I live here with my
mother and stepfather. My mother has married again. She is Mrs.
Vincent Farron."
"Didn't I tell you life played strange tricks?" he exclaimed. He sprang
up, and took a position on the hearth-rug. "I know all about him. I once
reported on the Electric Equipment Company. That's the same Farron,
isn't it? I believe that that company is the most efficient for its size in
this country, in the world, perhaps. And Farron is your stepfather! He
must be a wonder."
"Yes, I think he is."
"You don't like him?"
"I like him very much. I don't love him."

"The poor devil!"
"I don't believe he wants people to love him. It would bore him. No,
that's not quite just. He's kind, wonderfully kind, but he has no little
pleasantnesses. He says things in a very quiet way that make you feel
he's laughing at you, though he never does laugh. He said to me this
morning at breakfast, 'Well, Mathilde, was it a marvelous party?' That
made me feel as if I used the word 'marvelous' all the time, not a bit as
if he really wanted to know whether I had enjoyed myself last night."
"And did you?"
She gave him a rapid smile and went on:
"Now, my grandfather, my mother's father--his name is Lanley--(Mr.
Lanley evidently was not in active business, for it was plain that Wayne,
searching his memory, found nothing)--my grandfather often scolds me
terribly for my English,--says I talk like a barmaid, although I tell him
he ought not to know how barmaids talk,--but he never makes me feel
small. Sometimes Mr. Farron repeats, weeks afterward, something I've
said, word for word, the way I said it. It makes it sound so foolish. I'd
rather he said straight out that he thought I was a goose."
"Perhaps you wouldn't if he did."
"I like people to be human. Mr. Farron's not human."
"Doesn't your mother think so?"
"Mama thinks he's perfect."
"How long have they been married?"
"Ages! Five years!"
"And they're just as much in love?"
Miss Severance looked at him.

"In love?" she said. "At their age?" He laughed at her, and she added: "I
don't mean they are not fond of each other, but Mr. Farron must be
forty-five. What I mean by love--" she hesitated.
"Don't stop."
But she did stop, for her quick ears told her that some one was coming,
and, Pringle opening the door, Mrs. Farron came in.
She was a very beautiful