After that she thought not at all, gave herself up to the very ecstasy of emotion. She had danced all her life, but, even as he had predicted, she learned for the first time in this man's arms what dancing really was. It was like nothing she had ever even dreamed of--pure poetry of motion, a curious, rather alarming weaving into one of two vividly alive persons in a kind of pagan harmony, a rhythmic rapture so intense it almost hurt. It seemed as if she could have gone on thus forever.

But suddenly she perceived that she and her partner had the floor alone, the others had stopped to watch, though the musicians still played on frenziedly, faster and faster. Flushed, embarra.s.sed at finding herself thus conspicuous, she drew herself away from Alan Ma.s.sey.

"We must stop," she murmured. "They are all looking at us."

"What of it?" He bent over her, his pa.s.sionate eyes a caress. "Did I not tell you, _carissima_ Was it not very heaven?"

Tony shook her head.

"I am afraid there was nothing heavenly about it. But it was wonderful. I forgive you your boasting. You are the best dancer in the world. I am sure of it."

"And you will dance with me again and again, my wonder-girl. You must.

You want to."

"I want to," admitted Tony. "But I am not going to--at least not again to-night. Take me to a seat."

He did so and she sank down with a fluttering sigh beside Miss Lottie Cressy, Carlotta's aunt. The latter stared at her, a little oddly she thought, and then looked up at Alan Ma.s.sey.

"You don't change, do you, Alan?" observed Miss Cressy.

"Oh yes, I change a great deal. I have been very different ever since I met Miss Tony." His eyes fell on the girl, made no secret of his emotions concerning her and her beauty.

Miss Cressy laughed a little sardonically.

"No doubt. You were always different after each new sweetheart, I recall.

So were they--some of them."

"You do me too much honor," he retorted suavely. "Shall we not go out, Miss Holiday? The garden is very beautiful by moonlight."

She bowed a.s.sent, and together they pa.s.sed out of the room through the French window. Miss Cressy stared after them, the bitter little smile still lingering on her lips.

"Youth for Alan always," she said to herself. "Ah, well, I was young, too, those days in Paris. I must tell Carlotta to warn Tony. It would be a pity for the child to be tarnished so soon by touching his kind too close. She is so young and so lovely."

Alan and Tony strayed to a remote corner of the s.p.a.cious gardens and came to a pause beside the fountain which leaped and splashed and caught the moonlight in its falling splendor. For a moment neither spoke. Tony bent to dip her fingers in the cool water. She had an odd feeling of needing l.u.s.tration from something. The man's eyes were upon her. She was very young, very lovely, as Miss Cressy had said. There was something strangely moving to Alan Ma.s.sey about her virginal freshness, her moonshine beauty. He was unaccustomed to compunction, but for a fleeting second, as he studied Tony Holiday standing there with bowed head, laving her hands in the sparkling purity of the water, he had an impulse to go away and leave her, lest he cast a shadow upon her by his lingering near her.

It was only for a moment. He was far too selfish to follow the brief urge to renunciation. The girl stirred his pa.s.sion too deeply, roused his will to conquer too irresistibly to permit him to forego the privilege of the place and hour.

She looked up at him and he smiled down at her, once more the master-lover.

"I was right, was I not, _Toinetta mia_? I did make you a little bit mine, did I not? Be honest. Tell me." He laid a hand on each of her bare white shoulders, looked deep, deep into her brown eyes as if he would read secret things in their depths.

Tony drew away from his hands, dropped her gaze once more to the rippling white of the water, which was less disconcerting than Alan Ma.s.sey's too ardent green eyes.

"You danced with me divinely. I shall also make you love me divinely even as I promised. You know it dear one. You cannot deny it," the magically beautiful voice which pulled so oddly at her heart strings went on softly, almost in a sort of chant. "You love me already, my white moonshine girl," he whispered. "Tell me you do."

"Ah but I don't," denied Tony. "I--I won't. I don't want to love anybody."

"You cannot help it, dear heart. Nature made you for loving and being loved. And it is I that you are going to love. Mine that you shall be. Tell me, did you ever feel before as you felt in there when we were dancing?"

"No," said Tony, her eyes still downcast.

"I knew it. You are mine, belovedest. I knew it the moment I saw you. It is Kismet. Kiss me."

"No." The girl pulled herself away from him, her face aflame.

"No? Then so." He drew her back to him, and lifted her face gently with his two hands. He bent over her, his lips close to hers.

"If you kiss me I'll never dance with you again as long as I live!"

she flashed.

He laughed a little mockingly, but he lowered his hands, made no effort to gainsay her will.

"What a horrible threat, you cruel little moonbeam! But you wouldn't keep it. You couldn't. You love to dance with me too well."

"I would," she protested, the more sharply because she suspected he was right, that she would dance with him again, no matter what he did. "Any way I shall not dance with you again to-night. And I shall not stay out here with you any longer." She turned to flee, but he put out his hand and held her back.

"Not so fast, my Tony. They have eyes and ears in there. If you run away from me and go back with those glorious fires lit in your cheeks and in your eyes they will believe I did kiss you-."

"Oh!" gasped Tony, indignant but lingering, recognizing the probable truth of his prediction.

"We shall go together after a minute with sedateness, as if we had been studying the stars. I am wise, my Tony. Trust me."

"Very well," a.s.sented Tony. "How many stars are there in the Pleiades, anyway?" she asked with sudden imps of mirth in her eyes.

Again she felt on safe ground, sure that she had conquered and put a too presuming male in his place. She had no idea that the laurels had been chiefly not hers at all but Alan Ma.s.sey's, who was quite as wise as he boasted.

But she kept her word and danced no more with Alan Ma.s.sey that night.

She did not dare. She hated Alan Ma.s.sey, disapproved of him heartily and knew it would be the easiest thing in the world to fall in love with him, especially if she let herself dance often with him as they had danced to-night.

And so, her very first night at Crest House, Antoinette Holiday discovered that, there was such a thing as love after all, and that it had to be reckoned with whether you desired or not to welcome it at your door.

CHAPTER XI

THINGS THAT WERE NOT ALL ON THE CARD

After that first night in the garden Alan Ma.s.sey did not try to make open love to Tony again, but his eyes, following her wherever she moved, made no secret of his adoration. He was nearly always by her side, driving off other devotees when he chose with a cool high-handedness which sometimes amused, sometimes infuriated Tony. She found the man a baffling and fascinating combination of qualities, all petty selfishness and colossal egotisms one minute, abounding in endless charms and graces and small endearing chivalries the next; outrageously outspoken at times, at other times, reticent to the point of secretiveness; now reaching the most extravagant pitch of high spirits, and then, almost without warning, submerged in moods of Stygian gloom from which nothing could rouse him.

Tony came to know something of his romantic and rather mottled career from Carlotta and others, even from Alan himself. She knew perfectly well he was not the kind of man Larry or her uncle would approve or tolerate.

She disapproved of him rather heartily herself in many ways. At times she disliked him pa.s.sionately, made up her mind she would have no more to do with him. At other times she was all but in love with him, and suspected she would have found the world an intolerably dull place with Alan Ma.s.sey suddenly removed from it. When they danced together she was dangerously near being what he had claimed she was or would be--all his. She knew this, was afraid of it, yet she kept on dancing with him night after night. It seemed as if she had to, as if she would have danced with him even if she knew the next moment would send them both hurtling through s.p.a.ce, like Lucifer, down to d.a.m.nation.

It was not until d.i.c.k Carson came down for a week end, some time later, that Tony discovered the resemblance in Alan to some one she knew of which Carlotta had spoken. Incredibly and inexplicably d.i.c.k and Alan possessed a shadowy sort of similarity. In most respects they were as different in appearance as they were in personality. d.i.c.k's hair was brown and straight; Alan's, black and wavy. d.i.c.k's eyes were steady gray-blue; Alan's, shifty gray-green. Yet the resemblance was there, elusive, though it was. Perhaps it lay in the curve of the sensitive nostrils, perhaps in the firm contour of chin, perhaps in the arch of the brow. Perhaps it was nothing so tangible, just a fleeting trick of expression. Tony did not know, but she caught the thing just as Carlotta had and it puzzled and interested her.

She spoke of it to Alan the next morning after d.i.c.k's arrival, as they idled together, stretched out on the sand, waiting for the others to come out of the surf.

To her surprise he was instantly highly annoyed and resentful.