For several days after the first of many dinners with the boys, Tootles played her cards with the utmost care.The foursome became inseparable, bathing, sailing and motoring from morning to night.If there was any truth in the power of propinquity, it must have been discovered then.Howard attached himself to Irene whom he found something more than merry and amusing,--a girl of indomitable courage and optimism, in fact.He liked her immensely.And so Tootles paired off with Martin and had innumerable opportunities of putting forward the challenge of sex.She took them all, but with the most carefully considered subtlety.She descended to nothing obvious, as was to be expected from one of her type, which was not famous for such a thing as self-restraint.She paid great attention to her appearance and kept a close watch on her tongue.She played what she imagined was the part of a little lady, toned down her usual exuberance, her too loud laugh and her characteristic habit of giving quick and smart back answers.But in all her long talks with Martin she hinted ever so lightly that she and he had not been thrown together from opposite poles without a reason.She tried to touch his mind with the thought that it was to become what she said it might the night of the accident,--a romance, a perfectly private little affair of their own, stolen from their particular routine, which could be ended at a moment's notice.She tried to wrap the episode up in a page of poetry which might have been torn from a little book by Francois Villon and give it a wistfulness and charm that she thought would appeal to him.But it was not until one more than usually exquisite night, when the spirit of July lingered in the air and the warmth of the sun still lay among the stars, that she made her first step towards her goal.Howard and Irene had wandered down to the water, and she was left with Martin sitting elfishly among the ferns on the bank below the cottage and above the silver lapping water.Martin, very much alive to the magic spell of the night, with the young sap stirring in his veins, lay at her feet, and she put her hand caressingly on his head and began to talk in a half whisper.
"Boy, oh, boy," she said, "what shall I do without you when this dream comes to an end?""Dream again," said Martin.
"Down there in the city, so far away from trees?""Why not? We can take our dreams with us wherever we go.But it isn't coming to an end yet.""How long will it last?"
"Until the sun gets cold," said Martin, catching her mood, "and there's a chill in the air."She slipped down a little so that he should see the light in her eyes.There was hardly an inch between their lips, and the only sound was the beating of her heart.Youth and July and the scent of honeysuckle.
"I thought I was dead when you helped me out of that wreck," she went on in a quivering voice, and her long-fingered hand on his face."I think I must be really dead to-night.Surely this is too sweet to be life.""Dear little Tootles," said Martin softly.She was so close that he could feel the rise and fall of her breasts."Don't let's talk of death.We're too young."The sap was stirring in his veins.She was like a fairy, this girl, who ought never to have wandered into a city.
"Martin," she said, "when the sun gets cold and there's a chill in the air will you ever come back to this hour in a dream?""Often, Tootles, my dear."
"And will you see the light in my eyes and feel my hands on your face and my lips on your lips?"She bent forward and put them there and drew back with a shaking sob and scrambled up and fled.
She had seen the others coming, but that was not why she had torn herself away.One flash of sex was enough that night.The next time he must do the kissing.
Eve and July and the scent of honeysuckle!