"I am afraid he wouldn't. And, after all, you are engaged to him,
Nancy."

"Of course I am, but he is not my jailer. He does as he pleases and I do
as I please."

"In my day lovers pleased to do the same thing."

"Did they? I don't believe it. They just pretended, and there is no
pretense between Anthony and me"--she stooped and kissed me--"they just
pretended, Elizabeth, and the reason that I love Anthony is because we
don't pretend."

After that I felt that I need fear nothing. Nancy and Anthony--freedom
and self-confidence--why should I try to match their ideals with my own
of yesterday? Yet, as I laid my book aside, I resolved that Olaf should
know of Anthony.

I had my opportunity the next day. Olaf came over to sit in my garden
and again we had tea. He was much pleased when he knew that Nancy and I
would be his guests on Wednesday.

"Come early. Do you swim? We can run the launch to the beach--or, better
still, dive in the deeper water near my boat."

"Nancy swims," I told him. "I don't. And I am not sure that we can come
early. Nancy and Anthony usually play golf in the morning."

"Who is Anthony?"

"Anthony Peak. The man she is going to marry."

He hesitated a moment, then said, "Bring him, too." His direct gaze met
mine, and his direct question followed. "Does she love him?"

"Of course."

"It is not always 'of course.'" He stopped and talked of other things,
but in some subtle fashion I was aware that my news had been a shock to
him, and that he was trying to adjust himself to it, and to the
difference that it must make in his attitude toward Nancy.

* * * * *

When I told Nancy that Anthony had been invited, she demanded, "How did
Olaf Thoresen know about him?"

"I told him you were engaged."

"But why, Elizabeth? Why shout it from the housetops?"

"Well, I didn't want him to be hurt."

"You are taking a lot for granted."

I shrugged my shoulders. "We won't quarrel, and a party of four is much
nicer than three."

As it turned put, however, Anthony could not go. He was called back to
Boston on business. That was where Fate again stepped in. It was, I am
sure, those three days of Anthony's absence which turned the scale of
Nancy's destiny. If he had been with us that first morning on the boat
Olaf would not have dared....

Nancy wore her white linen and her gray-velvet coat, and a hat with a
gull's wing. She carried her bathing suit. "He intends, eviden