She broke away from "The Spring Song" and swung into "D'ye Ken John
Peel with His Coat So Gay?" It was Martin's favorite air. How often
she had heard him shout it among the trees on his way to meet her
out there on the edge of the woods where they had found each other.
It was curious how her thoughts turned to Martin that night.

She left the piano in the middle of a bar. "One cigarette," she
said, and held out a silver box.

Palgrave's hand closed tightly over her slim white arm. In his
throat his heart was pumping. He spoke incoherently, like a man.
"God," he said, "you--you take my breath away. You make my brain
whirl. Why didn't you come out of your garden a year ago?"

He was acting, she thought, and she laughed. "My arm, I think," she
said.

"No, mine. It's got to be mine. What's the good of beating about the
bush?" He spoke with a queer hoarseness, and his hand shook.

She laughed again. He was trying his parlor tricks, as Hosack had
called them one night at the Crystal Room, watching him greet a
woman with both hands. What a joke to see what he would do if she
pretended to be carried away. He might as well be made to pay for
keeping her up. "Oh, Gilbert," she said, "what are you saying!" Her
shyness and fright were admirable.

They added fuel to his fire. "What I've been waiting to say for
years and never thought I should. I love you. You've just got me."