dreading the ordeal.
“Not yet,” he said quickly, “not till our man comes. Then I’ll just give the tip to the best man to ask them to come upstairs. You leave that to me. I’ll attend to it all. You’ve had enough worry.”
“You are so kind!” she murmured, beginning to walk along by his side again.
He laid his hand gently over hers that rested on his arm.
“I’m glad if I can help. And by the way, I told this Mr.
Becker to come to the side entrance and ask for me, and I took the liberty of asking the butler to keep an eye out for him and let me know at once.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what I should have done without you!”
“I am honored to be allowed to help,” he said, glad that she had not taken away her hand from his touch, although he was not quite sure she was aware of it, she seemed so distraught. “As far as I am concerned,” he went on brightly, “if it weren’t that you are taking such a beating, I’d be having the time of my life!”
Sherrill gave him a quick convulsive laugh that seemed very near to tears.
“Oh, if it weren’t all so very terrible,” she responded wistfully, “I’d think it was almost fun, you’re being so splendid!”
“You’re a brave girl!” said Copeland almost reverently.
They had reached the end of the garden walk.
“I suppose we ought to go back in there,” said Sherrill with a little shiver of dislike. “They’ll be wondering where we are.”
They turned and walked silently back a few steps, when suddenly a bevy of young people broke forth hilariously from the house, swinging around the corner from the front piazza and evidently bound for the garden.
“Oh!” said Sherrill, shrinking back. “We’ve got to meet them!”
“Isn’t there someplace we can hide for a minute until they have passed?” asked Copeland with a swift glance at their surroundings. “Here, how about this?” and he swung aside the tall branches of privet that bordered the path around the house and the hedge.
Sherrill stepped in and Copeland after her, and the branches swung together behind them, shutting them in together. There was not much space, for it happened that the opening in the hedge had been near the servants’ entrance door, and the hedge curved about across the end, and at the other end it rose nearly twelve feet against the end of the side piazza where they had come out. It made a little room of fragrant green, scarcely large enough for them to stand together in, with the ivy-covered stone wall of the house behind them.
There in the sweet semidarkness of the spring night, where even frail new moonlight could not enter except by reflection, and with only a few stars above, they stood, face-to-face, quietly, while the noisy throng of guests trooped by and rollicked down to the garden.
Sherrill’s face was lifted slightly and seemed a pale picture made of moonlight, so sweet and sad and tired and almost desperate there in the little green haven. Copeland, looking down suddenly, put out his arms and drew her close to him, just as a mother might have drawn a little troubled child, it seemed to her. Drew her close and held her so for an instant. She let her head lie still against his shoulder, startled at the sweetness that enwrapped her. Then softly she began to cry, her slim body shaking with the stifled sobs, the tears coming in a torrent. It was so sweet to find sympathy, even with a stranger.
Softly he stooped and kissed her drenched eyelids, kissing the tears away, then paused and looked down at her reverently.
“Forgive me!” he said tenderly in a low whisper. “I had no right to do that—now! I’m only a stranger to you! But—I wanted to comfort you!”
She was very still in his arms for a moment, and then she whispered so softly that he had to bend to hear her: “You aren’t a stranger, and—you do—comfort me!”
Suddenly above their heads there arose a clatter inside the window of the butler’s pantry.
“Quick, get those patty shells! The people are coming out to the dining room. We must begin to serve!”
Dishes began to rattle, trays to clatter; a fork fell with a silvery resonance. The swinging door fell back and let in another clatter from the kitchen. Hard cold facts of life began to fall upon the two who had been so set apart for the