Most convincing
of all, was Sonny Grandison himself. Forty-one, strong,
experienced, his face could no more conceal what he felt than could
be concealed a lad of twenty's ordinary lad's love. Despite the
control and restraint of forty years, he could no more mask his
soul with his face than could Lee Barton, of equal years, fail to
read that soul through so transparent a face. And often, to other
women, talking, when the topic of Sonny came up, Lee Barton heard
Ida express her fondness for Sonny, or her almost too-eloquent
appreciation of his polo-playing, his work in the world, and his
general all-rightness of achievement.
About Sonny's state of mind and heart Lee had no doubt. It was
patent enough for the world to read. But how about Ida, his own
dozen-years' wife of a glorious love-match? He knew that woman,
ever the mysterious sex, was capable any time of unguessed mystery.
Did her frank comradeliness with Grandison token merely frank
comradeliness and childhood contacts continued and recrudesced into
adult years? or did it hide, in woman's subtler and more secretive
ways, a beat of heart and return of feeling that might even out-
balance what Sonny's face advertised?
Lee Barton was not happy.
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