"Nonsense!" she cried. "Don't forget the awakening of spring." And buried her face against her mother because she had been outrageous. Persiflage rose. "Skylark, when I become more coherent I'll tell you how wonderful you are." "Zoe dear, hadn't we better drive home?" "Lark. Lark. I cannot go home now, Lilly. Let's have a lark!" Suddenly Bruce caught her by the dancing hands. "Let's celebrate." "Let's!" "We'll dine at Sherry's, dance at the Bilt--" "Lovely! Lovely! I've never been to either!" "No, no, Zoe. Please! Your grandparents at home. Besides, it's war time." "Nonsense! Laugh while we may. Next month this time I'll probably be in the thick of it myself. Let's laugh to-day. Vote her down, Zoe!" "Pl-ease, Lilly." "Your grandparents, Zoe, they don't even know the news yet--" "Lilly, this once. Tippy and Dapples aren't going to be thrilled. They think the whole business rather low, anyway. Besides--there's time--it's my day--Lilly--" "Not Sherry's, then, Zoe--a quieter--" "Immense! I have it! Tarrytown. An opportunity to show you the place before you go. We'll drop this taxi and pick up my car at the garage. How's that, dinner at Tarrytown? Perfect, I'll say." "What a duck of an idea! Oh, la, la, la, la!" And so, quite dumbly, Lilly acquiesced and by easy shift to the tan-upholstered car that ironed out all jolts, and a stiff breeze from the Hudson whirring softly against their faces, they were whirling out along quiet stretches, dusk coming down like a veil. Seated between them, Zoe fell to singing, trilling highly and softly, her head bared to the wind, her tam-o'-shanter on Bruce's lap, and Lilly sitting silently by with lids down against hot eyeballs, and fighting a sense of cross grain. Presently lights began to come out along the river, like the gold eyes of cats. "How cool your fingers are, Zoe. Like the petals of something." "Lilly, naughty man is holding back one of my hands on me." "Lovely hands." "Naughty man." Silence. "Oh dear." "Oh dearest." "That wasn't for you. That was a sigh." "But I stole it." "Cheeky." Giggles. Silence again and they turned off a macadamized road that was prematurely dark with trees and into a lariat of driveway that elicited from Zoe a squeal of enthrallment. Even to Lilly, though she had figured in its purchase, there was something startling in the vast classic whiteness and formal Italian chastity of the house as they flanked it, drawing up under a porte-cochere of Corinthian columns. Through a double row of cypresses turning black, that inclosed a sunken garden, Dante and Virgil might have moved, and yet, Lilly, aching with the analogy which could not conjure, could only call up rather foolishly the three-color magazine advertisement of a low-streamline motor car, drawn up before just such Renaissance magnificence.