It was then he remembered the ring under the glove.

“But—you are already engaged!” he reminded himself aloud sternly. And then he felt for the ring again. This was the same left hand that had lain upon his arm as they went down the aisle together—galloped down!

Then he sat up sharply, felt the little hand all over, and reached over to the other hand that lay in her lap. It still wore a glove!

He sat back again and drew a breath of relief.

“Where is that ring?” he said.

“Here, in my handbag,” she said, sweetly offering him a tiny scrap made of white beads and gilt. “Did you want it?”

“Was it a joke you were playing?” he accused sternly.

“Oh, no,” she answered lightly. “I told you it wasn’t at all final. I’ve had that ring several days, and I just thought I’d try it out tonight and see if I cared to keep it.”

He hesitated a moment, still holding the little ungloved hand that lay so yielded in his own.

“Then … there is no reason why I may not tell you of my love!”

“Well, I would have to consider that,” said Mary Elizabeth gravely. “It was rather unexpected, you know. But here we are at the hotel. Don’t you think perhaps we’d better get out now?”

John helped her out, thrilling with the thought of touching even the hem of her garment, guarding her flowers, picking up her glove from the cushion, touching her belovedly, his heart pounding away with an embarrassment and trepidation that was quite new to him. John was usually at his ease anywhere, and he had been in the world enough not to feel strange. But he felt like a fool when he thought of what he had been saying, and recalled the keen, bright retaliations.

They hurried through the hall and up the elevator to the big room set aside for the wedding reception, and John blessed the fate that gave him even this silent bit of time more before they had to face the others. He looked down upon her, in her lovely halo hat, and she looked up and smiled, and there was no scorn in her smile as he had feared. Yet she had in no way put herself in his debt. She had held her own. His eyes drank in her delicate beauty hungrily against a time of famine he feared might be swiftly coming. He would never forget her nearness, the soft fragrance that came from her garments, the natural loveliness of her. He tried to summon her name from his memory, where it hovered on the edge of things and evaded him. Was it Helen? But that was not the type of name for such a girl as this.

Then the elevator door clanged back and they stepped into the big room smothered in ferns and palms and flowers, and there in a distant arbor that seemed almost like an orchid-hung hammock in one of his own Florida forests, the bride and groom were taking their places, Camilla smiling up at Jeff so joyously that John’s heart gave another leap. Would such joy ever come to him?

He looked down at the girl by his side, and their eyes met and something flashed from one to the other, a gleam that thrilled them both.

Chapter 2

Come,” said the girl, with a certain possessiveness in her voice, “we must go over and stand by them, you know.” She put her still ungloved hand on his and led him across the room. Behind them the elevator clanged again and opened its doors to let the green-clad bridesmaids surge in with the ushers, and the reception was upon them in full blast. But somehow John didn’t mind. His heart was leaping in new rhythm, and a song was in his heart.

“Hold this for me, please, while I put on my glove,” said Mary Elizabeth, handing over her little pearl purse as if she had been used to having him all her life for an escort.

He took the purse shyly in his bronzed hands. He was not accustomed to holding such trinkets for ladies. Not that he didn’t know plenty of ladies, but he had always shied out of paying them much attention. And yet, he liked the feel of her purse in his hand, and while he watched her putting on the glove so expertly, he grew bold enough to gently prod the purse till he had located the ring, a great ox of a stone, he told himself as he carefully appraised its value. He could never get her a ring like that, he thought to himself dismally in one of the intervals of the passing throng of guests. Even if he succeeded beyond his hopes he couldn’t. That ring had been bestowed by some millionaire of course, and she had been weighing its worth, and perhaps its owner. He frowned so hard that Uncle Warren Wainwright asked his wife afterward if that best man wasn’t a rather stern-looking fellow.