"Are you going in?" asked Sylvia. Then she, too, heard the subdued whirring of a motor from the front of the house, and she looked at Leila as she turned and recrossed the terrace, walking slowly but erect, her pretty head held high.
Then Sylvia faced the sea again and presently descended the terrace, crossing the long lawn toward the headland, where Siward stood looking out across the water.
Leila, from the music-room, watched her; then she heard Plank's voice, and his step on the stair, and she called out to him gaily: "I am downstairs, thank you. How dared you send me those foolish nurses!"
She was laughing when he came into the room, standing there erect, head high, a brilliant colour in her cheeks; and she offered him both hands which he took between his own, holding them strongly, and looking into her face with steady, questioning eyes.
"Well?" she said, still smiling, but her scarlet under-lip trembled a little; then: "Yes, you may say what you wish--what I--I wish you to say. … There can be no harm in talking about it. But--will you be very gentle with me? Don't m-make me cry; I h-have--I am t-trying to remember how it feels to laugh once more."
Sylvia, lying in the hot sand on the tiny crescent beach under the cliffs, listened gravely to Siward's figures, as, note-book in hand, he went over the real-estate problem, commenting thoughtfully as he discussed the houses offered.
"Twenty by a hundred and two; good rear, north side of the street--next door to the Tommy Barclays, you know, Sylvia; only they're asking forty-two-five."
"That is an outrage!" said Sylvia seriously; "besides, I remember there was a wretched cellar, and only a butler's pantry extension. I'd much rather have that little house in Sixty-fourth Street, where the Fetherbraynes live--next house on the west, you know. Then we can pull it down and build--when we want to."
"We won't be able to afford to build for a while, you know," said Siward doubtfully.
"What do we care, dear? We'll have millions of things to do, anyway, and what is the use of building?"
"As many things to do as that?" he said, looking over his note-book with a smile.
"More! Are we not just beginning to live, and open our eyes, silly? Listen: Books, books, books, from top to bottom of the house, that is what I want first of all--except my piano."
"Do let us have a little plumbing, dear," he said so seriously that for a fraction of a second she was on the verge of taking him seriously.
"Why extravagant plumbing when books furnish sufficient circulation for the flow of soul, dear?" she retorted gravely.