by Susan Barrie
Melanie did not let him know how great had been her fears that he was to spend a honeymoon with Sylvia at the chalet, but buried her face on his shoulder.
When Dr. Muller came up the mountain path, full of anxiety because he was not certain what had happened, he could see at once by their faces that they had settled the question of their future lives to the complete satisfaction of each other. And he knew that he was very much odd man out. But he was the first of their friends to congratulate them.
Melanie, with a weary face but shining eyes, looked up at him as he clasped her hand and smiled into her face.
“Thank you, Dr. Muller,” she said, and she wished for his sake that the affairs of everybody else in the world could work out as happily as hers had.
That night, when she was lying on a comfortable settee before a blazing fire in the living-room at the chalet, with Trudi fussing around her, Richard—bathed, and shaved, and changed, and his old immaculate, elegant self once more—stood in the doorway.
Trudi vanished discreetly. Melanie looked up and felt the hot color invade her cheeks, while her eyes wavered before his regard. He crossed over and stood beside her, and looked down at her, a quizzical gleam in his eyes.
“It might interest you to know,” he said, “that Miss Gaythorpe flew home to England this morning and renounced all future claims upon me. She left me a little note which states quite clearly that she never wishes to see me again.”
“Oh, Richard!” She looked up at him. “Do you think she—she was upset?”
“Not at all.” He sat down beside her on the edge of the settee. “Only a slight wound to her vanity. But it will probably do her good.”
Looking at him, so debonair, so undeniably good-looking, with an air few men managed to cultivate, Melanie wondered how she would be feeling herself if she had been forced to fly away out of his life like that. But instead of flying away she had him here beside her—and she loved him! Her breath caught in her throat. How she loved him! ...
Richard’s swarthy cheeks darkened a little as if a flush had risen up behind them, and his dark eyes grew darker. He bent over her and took her deliberately into his arms. “Yes, my sweet, I’m all yours!” he said.
THE END
