CHAPTER XI

Sheltered beneath the powerful pen of Banneker, his idyll, fulfilled, lengthened out over radiant months. Io was to him all that dreams had ever promised or portrayed. Their association, flowering to the full amidst the rush and turmoil of the city, was the antithesis to its budding in the desert peace. To see the more of his mistress, Banneker became an active participant in that class of social functions which get themselves chronicled in the papers. Wise in her day and her protective instinct of love, Io pointed out that the more he was identified with her set, the less occasion would there be for comment upon their being seen together. And they were seen together much.

She lunched with him at his downtown club, dined with him at Sherry's, met him at The Retreat and was driven back home in his car, sometimes with Archie Densmore for a third, not infrequently alone. Considerate hostesses seated them next each other at dinners: it was deemed an evidence of being "in the know" thus to accommodate them. The openness of their intimacy went far to rob calumny of its sting. And Banneker's ingrained circumspection of the man trained in the open, applied to _les convenances_, was a protection in itself. Moreover, there was in his devotion, conspicuous though it was, an air of chivalry, a breath of fragrance from a world of higher romance, which rendered women in particular charitable of judgment toward the pair.

Sometimes in the late afternoon Banneker's private numbered telephone rang, and an impersonal voice delivered a formal message. And that evening Banneker (called out of town, no matter how pressing an engagement he might have had) sat in The House With Three Eyes, now darkened of vision, thrilling and longing for her step in the dim side passage. There was risk of disaster. But Io willed to take it; was proud to take it for her lover.

Immersed in a happiness and a hope which vivified every motion of his life, Banneker was nevertheless under a continuous strain of watchfulness; the _qui vive_ of the knight who guards his lady with leveled lance from a never-ceasing threat. At the point of his weapon cowered and crouched the dragon of The Searchlight, with envenomed fangs of scandal.

As the months rounded out to a year, he grew, not less careful, indeed, but more confident. Eyre had quietly dropped out of the world. Hunting big game in some wild corner of Nowhere, said rumor.

Io had revealed to Banneker the truth; her husband was in a sanitarium not far from Philadelphia. As she told him, her eyes were dim. Swift, with the apprehension of the lover to read the loved one's face, she saw a smothered jealousy in his.

"Ah, but you must pity him, too! He has been so game."

"Has been?"

"Yes. This is nearly the end. I shall go down there to be near him."

"It's a long way, Philadelphia," he said moodily.

"What a child! Two hours in your car from The Retreat."

"Then I may come down?"

"May? You must!"

He was still unappeased. "But you'll be very far away from me most of the time."

She gleamed on him, her face all joyous for his incessant want of her.

"Stupid! We shall see almost as much of each other as before. I'll be coming over to New York two or three times a week."

Wherewith, and a promised daily telephone call, he must be content.

Not at that meeting did he broach the subject nearest his heart. He felt that he must give Io time to adjust herself to the new-developed status of her husband, as of one already passed out of the world. A fortnight later he spoke out. He had gone down to The Retreat for the week-end and she had come up from Philadelphia to meet him, for dinner. He found her in a secluded alcove off the main dining-porch, alone. She rose and came to him, after that one swift, sweet, precautionary glance about her with which a woman in love assures herself of safety before she gives her lips; tender and passionate to the yearning need of her that sprang in his face.

"Ban, I've been undergoing a solemn preachment."

"From whom?"

"Archie."

"Is Densmore here?"

"No; he came over to Philadelphia to deliver it."

"About us?"

She nodded. "Don't take it so gloomily. It was to be expected."

He frowned. "It's on my mind all the time; the danger to you."

"Would you end it?" she said softly.

"Yes."

Too confident to misconstrue his reply, she let her hand fall on his, waiting.

"Io, how long will it be, with Eyre? Before--"

"Oh; that!" The brilliance faded from her eager loveliness. "I don't know. Perhaps a year. He suffers abominably, poor fellow."

"And after--after _that_, how long before you can marry me?"

She twinkled at him mischievously. "So, after all these years, my lover makes me an offer of marriage. Why didn't you ask me at Manzanita?"

"Good God! Would it possibly--"

"No; no! I shouldn't have said it. I was teasing."

"You know that there's never been a moment when the one thing worth living and fighting and striving for wasn't you."

"And success?" she taunted, but with tenderness.

"Another name for you. I wanted it only as the reflex of your wish for me."

"Even when I'd left you?"

"Even when you'd left me."

"Poor Ban!" she breathed, and for a moment her fingers fluttered at his cheek. "Have I made it up to you?"

He bent over the long, low chair in which she half reclined. "A thousand times! Every day that I see you; every day that I think of you; with the lightest touch of your hand; the sound of your voice; the turn of your face toward me. I'm jealous of it and fearful of it. Can you wonder that I live in a torment of dread lest something happen to bring it all to ruin?"

She shook her head. "Nothing could. Unless--No. I won't say it. I want you to want to marry me, Ban. But--I wonder."

As they talked, the little light of late afternoon had dwindled, until in their nook they could see each other only as vague forms.

"Isn't there a table-lamp there?" she asked. "Turn it on."

He found and pulled the chain. The glow, softly shaded, irradiated Io's lineaments, showing her thoughtful, somber, even a little apprehensive.

She lifted the shade and turned it to throw the direct rays upon Banneker. He blinked.

"Do you mind?" she asked softly. Even more softly, she added, "Do you remember?"