George cupped her elbow in his palm and turned her toward the dining room, smiling. “Well, then have coffee with me while I have lunch. My breakfast was hours ago, and I’ve been too busy to stop to eat since I got in town.”
A waiter guided them to a corner table. Since it was early
there were few tables occupied as yet, so that they were quite alone as George consulted the waiter about their order.
When he had gone, George looked at her across the narrow space and said, “Well, how have you been? I know that’s a silly question, because you’re lovelier than ever.”
“How’s Marisa? And Eileen?” Kristen asked hurriedly.
“Fine. They’re here in town to announce Marisa’s engagement,” answered George. “They are having a big party, and we hope you and Leon can attend. Marisa says that she wouldn’t consider herself engaged if you weren’t there to drink a toast to them.”
“It’s Ronnie Lansing, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes. They’ve had the thought in the back of their minds since they were children,” George agreed carelessly. “He’s a fine boy, and I’m sure they’ll be very happy. The party is Saturday, and it will probably go on into the morning hours, so if you and Leon care to come out after your show here, we’ll all be very happy.”
“We’ll try to make it,” Kristen answered.
The waiter came, bringing their food. When he had gone, George ignored the food. His eyes, steady, probing, clung to hers.
“The last time I saw you, Kristy, you promised to think very seriously about a question I asked you,” he said gravely. “I promised not to harass you, but after all, a man is human. And so I’ve come to ask whether you’ve been thinking about that question.”
Kristen said softly, “Yes, George. I’ve been thinking. I’m very grateful to you for the compliment you paid me.”
She saw his face grow stiff and cold, and the warmth vanish from his eyes.
“That answers my question,” he cut in. “It’s Westerman, of course.”
“I’m afraid so,” she replied huskily.
A faint flash of a smile touched his face.
“Don’t be afraid, Kristy. It’s the most suitable thing I know of. You are, I’m sure, meant for each other,” he said curtly. “I was a fool to think for even a moment that it could be otherwise. What’s that old cliché—no fool like an old fool?”
“I wish you’d stop calling yourself old, and a fool you’re not,” protested Kristen heatedly, her eyes brilliant. “You’re
one of the most charming, delightful men I’ve ever known, and it’s I who am the fool, not to jump at the chance.”
“You’re very sweet, Kristy,” he told her with that faint smile that was little more than a grimace. “But I think I’ve been prepared for this almost from the beginning. I’ve known, only I was too stupid to admit it, that you were not for me. You’re young, radiantly lovely, very talented. It would be a crime to pen you up at Beau Rivage, and let all your hard work and your ambition come to nothing. So you mustn’t worry about turning me down, Kristy.”
“I—hate hurting you,” she whispered.
Now his smile was a little less a grimace and there was a kindness in his eyes that lifted the edge of the bleakness.
“Why, Kristy, my dear you mustn’t worry about that! I’ve—been hurt before and I daresay I can survive this, though it’s—well, it’s not pleasant,” he said quietly. “But I wouldn’t for the world lay the smallest cloud on your happiness. You must forget that you ever met me.”
“That I couldn’t ever do,” she protested.
“Well, then just remember me as a man who warmed his hands and his heart for a little while in your presence, and will always remember the experience,” said George. “I hope that you will always be happy, married to Leon—and I’m sure you will.”
“Oh,” said Kristen, wide-eyed, “I’m not going to marry Leon. I’m just staying on with The Act, because he has such wonderful plans for it.”
George scowled in surprise.
“You’re not in love with him?” he asked sharply.
Kristen considered that for a moment, wide-eyed, and the color rushing into her startled face.
“Why, yes, I do believe I am,” she confessed with such frank surprise that George could not quite keep the twinkle from his eyes. “I’d never quite realized it—there are so many times when I don’t even like him. And yet somehow, I can’t imagine giving up The Act and never seeing him again.”
“And you’ve just discovered that?” he asked.
“Yes. And that’s crazy, isn’t it? I missed him when I was at Beau Rivage, but I thought it was just being idle, and not having The Act to think about.” Her voice trailed off, and he saw the startled wonder in her eyes. “He’s not the smallest bit in love with me, though.”
“Oh, isn’t he?” George’s tone questioned that.
“Not a bit,” Kristen insisted. “Why, when he auditioned me for The Act, he warned me that there must be no ‘sentimental nonsense’ between us.”
“Kristy, my dear, my dear, how very young you are!” said George, and stood up. “Shall we go now?”
Kristen looked at his untouched food and stammered, “But you said you were hungry.”
“Merely an excuse, my dear, to have a few words with you,” George answered, his jaw set. “Now that I’ve had those words, and know where I stand—well, I really haven’t much time, so I’d better get started. I hope we’ll see you at the party Saturday night.”
As they came out of the dining room into the lobby, Leon was just turning away from the desk with a small sheaf of mail. As he saw them, he stood quite still.
George and Kristen walked toward him, and Leon waited. For a moment the two men eyed each other with a hostile look, and then George said quietly, “Congratulations, Westerman. This is quite a girl you have here.”
And before Leon could manage an answer, George had turned and walked across the lobby.
Leon watched him go, and then he looked down at Kristen, who turned to him then with a faintly tremulous smile,
“He’s really rather a darling, isn’t he?” she said huskily.
“Oh, quite,” Leon agreed curtly. “I suppose he stopped by to arrange for the announcement of your engagement to him?”
“He stopped by to tell me of a party Saturday night to announce Marisa’s engagement,” Kristen answered evenly. “And to get my answer to his proposal.”
“And of course it was ‘yes.’ Only why the congratulations to me?”
“The answer was ‘No, I’m very grateful for the compliment, and thank you, but I’ve decided to stay with The Act.’”
Leon stared at her.
“You threw away a chance to marry a man like Newman, who is as rich as Croesus, just to go on dancing?” he marveled.
She looked up at him, and for a moment he saw something in her eyes that startled him. Then it was gone, veiled
behind an inscrutable expression he could not analyze.
“I always wanted to be a dancer,” she told him. “And with you, I know that I can be a very famous dancer. A career in show business is what I’ve always wanted, and it’s what you offer me. So naturally, I didn’t want to get married to George Newman.”
“I don’t know, Kristy. I’m afraid you weren’t very wise.” He hesitated, frowning.
“Well, for goodness’ sake,” snapped Kristen, her nerves taut. “I thought you wanted me in The Act.”
“I do, of course, Kristen. I want you very much,” he answered.
“I want you very much,”
he repeated as though hearing the words but not quite sure of their meaning.
Suddenly he looked about him at the lobby that was rapidly filling with pre-luncheon guests. And then, his jaw set, Leon cupped Kristen’s elbow in his palm and steered her across the lobby and out into the brilliant sunlight, alive with the song of birds, heavy with the fragrance of luxuriously blossoming flowers and shrubbery, tangy with the salt scent of the sea.
He paused for an instant on the terrace steps and then guided Kristen across the lawn and to the shadows beneath a giant banyan tree, where tables were often spread for tea. But at this hour of the day, it was deserted, and they were out of reach of the eyes or the ears of anyone else.
Here Leon turned Kristen sharply about to face him and said harshly, “Back in New York, you remember I said there must be no sentimental nonsense between us?”
“I certainly do. And I told you you couldn’t ever love any woman as much as you love yourself, so there’s been no sentimental nonsense between us,” she told him hotly.
He was looking at her as though he had never seen her before in his life, and Kristen endured the searching gaze, her head flung up, and sunlight slipping through the giant banyan limbs laying a pattern of shadow on her thin white dress.
“No sentimental nonsense!” Leon said softly, as though he spoke the words aloud for his own ears. “Then why in blazes did I just about go off the deep end when you went off to that fancy plantation of Newman’s? And why did I want to murder you when you told me he’d proposed to you?”
“Did you?” asked Kristen, her voice shaken.
“And like the prize sap I am, I never realized what was the matter with me until just now when you said you’d stay with The Act if I wanted you—and suddenly I knew that I wanted you not just for The Act, but as my wife!”
“Oh, no!” Kristy gasped, incredulous.
He glared at her outraged.
“What do you mean—oh, no?” he demanded sharply.
“I mean you don’t have to marry me just to keep The Act.”
“The blazes with The Act!” he snapped at her. “I want to marry you, Kristy, because I love you!” And he looked as startled at the words as she was.
“I love you!”
he repeated, and again it was as though he spoke the words for his own ears alone. Then he looked down at her, scowling. “Did you hear me, Kristy?
I love you!”
“Well, don’t look so terrified! It’s nothing to be ashamed of, is it?” she asked, her eyes meeting his, a shy wonder dawning there.
“But, Kristy, when did it all happen?” he protested. “I didn’t intend for it to.”
Kristen’s laugh was bubbling.
“Me, either,” Kristen, admitted, abashed.
He seemed to find that hard to take in.
“You mean, Kristy—could you possibly mean that you—that we’re—that you—”
“That I love you, too, Lee. Isn’t it the darnedest thing?” And though she was smiling, a look of shy wonder still was in her eyes. “I didn’t even suspect it until George asked me if I was in love with you. And all of a sudden, just like a flash of lightning, I knew that I was.”
“So help me!” Leon breathed, and his tone made it almost a prayer. “Is this the way it happens, Kristy? All of a sudden—
wham
!”
“Well, I haven’t had a lot of experience,” Kristen admitted, her eyes shining. “But this is the way it seems to have happened to us. It’s sort of fun, isn’t it?”
“Fun?” His tone stressed the inadequacy of the word. “It’s fantastic and wonderful and fabulous.”
“It’s all of that and more—much more!” Kristen told him radiantly.
He was still studying her with that curious regard as though seeing her for the first time.
“Where do we go from here?” he said at last, his voice husky.
“Well, as I said,” Kristen’s tone was deliberately mocking, though the look in her eyes was not, “I don’t know much about this sort of thing. But somehow I seem to get the impression that along about here you’re supposed to kiss me.”
“Kiss you?” he asked as though the thought had not occurred to him before.
“Well, of course if you’d rather not,” she mocked, “but I
do
believe it’s customary.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do,” Leon said in that soft, husky tone. His arms reached for her and found her waiting for him, soft and pliant and very sweet in his arms.
She tilted her face, and Leon looked down into her eyes and then closed his own as though the radiant glory in hers blinded him. But his mouth had no difficulty in finding and claiming her own.
It was the most perfect of moments. The setting, the blossoming shrubbery, the trade winds murmuring through the tall palms, the fragrance of salt and flowers and the song of the birds—no girl could ever have wanted a more perfect setting for the first kiss from her beloved, and Kristen’s heart sang a Caribbean melody as she gave him the stored up sweetness of her kiss.
It was Leon who broke that perfect moment by lifting his head, holding her a few inches away from him and looking down at her with his heart in his eyes.
“I still can’t believe it,” he whispered.
“Can’t you, darling?” she murmured, her voice drugged with the tenderness of this most perfect of moments. “What can’t you believe?”
“That you could possibly prefer me to George Newman,” he said. “It isn’t just because of The Act? Because you want so much to be a great dancer and you think I can help you?”
Kristen drew herself sharply from his arms, and now the color in her face was from anger, not ardor.
“Why, you outrageous creature!” she gasped. “How dare you accuse me of marrying you just to stay in The Act? The heck with The Act. It’s you I’m marrying, and I’d marry you if you were a day laborer.”
Leon nodded soberly.
“I guess maybe I’ve been in show business too long if I can doubt you for even a minute. There’s so much phoniness, so much career madness, so much sacrifice for a crazy ambition—”
“Well, you should know, my sweet!” Kristen reminded him tautly.
“I do. That’s why it scared me for a moment.”
“Well, it needn’t! I can’t imagine how I ever managed to fall in love with you, to begin with. I spent most of my waking hours either hating you like sin—or else not liking you very much. You are a slave driver, you know.”
“I’m a no-good, and you’d be smart if you walked out on me,” Leon admitted with a humility she had never dreamed him capable of showing. “But don’t try it! I’m warning you—don’t try it!”
Kristen laughed and went back into his arms.
“Don’t worry, I have no intention of trying it,” she assured him firmly. “And don’t you try to wiggle out, either or I’ll do something very drastic, I warn you!”
He held her close and looked down at her with an aching, worshipful tenderness.
“You know, being married to you is going to be an awful lot of fun,” he told her.
There was a mocking twinkle in her eyes as she answered demurely. “I hope you’ll always think so. In my family, we marry for keeps.”