PPROVE of me, Jerry? Do I look all right?”
Mrs. Darrell revolved slowly and anxiously before her husband. There was a mirror in the dressing room, which, one might have supposed, could have told a woman rather more, anent her personal appearance, than the heavy, near-sighted man just then adjusting his white tie for the evening. But Mrs. Darrell, unlike ordinary women, knew how little a looking-glass really counted, when one came down to it. Lying things were mirrors, she had found; liars at their very best, giving a woman back the fairest or the ugliest of her according to her own capricious mood—or a defect in the lighting!
Being also unusual in that she honestly cared only for the opinion of the man she loved, she depended very little upon mirrors, especially at crucial moments such as this, when she was preparing to welcome her husband's friends and relatives for the first time. She looked at him.
“Is—is that lock of hair supposed to hang down over your left ear like that?” he inquired doubtfully.
Leila had taken some pains with that effectively drooping tress, but she merely said:
“Like it better pinned up, Jerry?”
“I think so. Would look a bit less odd,” her spouse pronounced judicially. “I don't like odd things, you know, dearest.”
“I know,” she said, suddenly humble. “Yet I'm odd! I wonder why you like me? Look at me, and my hair again, Jerry.”
He fumbled for his rimless glasses, failed to find them, and then it was not really tact but because even his near-sightedness could not ignore the obvious, that he said: “It would be a pity to hide your ear, anyway. You've very pretty ears, Leila!”
“Oh, you old darling!”
She flung herself into his big, kind arms, and he patted her gently. He was devoted to his wife, but he never could get used to her breathless, deep, desperate devotion to himself. On the honeymoon it had been startling, but pleasant. It was pleasant enough now, but an intensity of emotion which grew instead of subsiding conservatively. Darrell was a brave man enough, but his wife, in her strange, still, yet vivid moods sometimes almost frightened him. So he patted her gently, still marveling deeply as she clung to him at the ruthless yet restrained ardor of this strange vital thing which he loved, and which, mysteriously but indubitably, he had made love him.
Close against his breast she whispered:
“I'll do it all over again, Jerry!”
“Do what all over again? Your hair? Oh, it looks all right enough now, but it won't if you rumple it on my shirt front. And look at my tie. It's ruined for to-night. I'll have to put on a fresh one.”
“Do,” said Leila, laughing as she surveyed the very crooked bow which he had originally achieved. “It's a mercy, dear, that you have to. And this time, angel, I'll tie it. Where, oh, where, Jerry, did you learn to tie white ties?”
Jeremy Darrell, for all his well-known “slow ways,” was not in the least stupid, and the obvious rejoinder did come to his lips—but stopped there—“Where did you?” But he genuinely loved Leila, and accepted her and all concerning her with absolute trust and simple, confident delicacy. So he kissed her hand, somewhat clumsily, and merely said: “Sure to be better now you've done it. Guess I'll stroll outside, and see if the hampers and things have come down from town all right—eh?”
“Do! I'll attend to the lock of hair you don't like, and then go out on the porch to wait. I do look really nice, Jerry?”
“Bully!”
“D'you think they'll like me—your friends?”
“They'd better,” her liege lord remarked, with the proprietary scowl she loved. She laughed again, and again looked deep into his eyes, that eager, almost terrible love of hers flaming in her gaze. Then she turned quickly away, and began to busy herself with her hair at the dressing table.
“Jer-ry!” she cried, just as he was almost out of the room. “Love me?”
“You? Love you? Me? Rather!” returned Jeremy Darrell, with a supreme and rather beautifully confident tranquility. Then he departed, with his heavy step and the bulky carriage that was not without dignity.
Leila smoothed her hair. She, too, could see the smoldering fire in her own eyes. It did not startle her, but it sobered her queerly. “I love him so!” she whispered voicelessly to herself. “What should I do if I were to lose him? What would I do to keep him? What would I” She sat very still, staring at the brilliant yet relentless charm of her own face. She had never loved any one very much before; she did not know what it might mean, in time, to love like this. She had an idea that it might prove troublesome under complicating conditions.