And Alma. Almost, she tiptoed through these months. Not that her
scorching awareness of what must have crouched low in Louis' mind ever
diminished. Sometimes, although still never by word, she could see the
displeasure mount in his face.
If she entered in on a tete-a-tete, as she did once, when by chance she
had sniffed the curative smell of spirits of camphor on the air of a
room through which her mother had passed, and came to drag her off that
night to share her own lace-covered and ivory bed.
Again: upon the occasion of an impulsively planned motor trip and
week-end to Lakewood, her intrusion had been so obvious.
"Want to join us, Alma?"
"O--yes--thank you, Louis."
"But I thought you and Leo were--"
"No, no, I'd rather go with you and mama, Louis."
Even her mother had smiled rather strainedly. Louis' invitation,
politely uttered, had said so plainly: "Are we two never to be alone.
Your mother and I?"
Oh, there was no doubt that Louis Latz was in love and with all the
delayed fervor of first youth.
There was something rather throat-catching about his treatment of her
mother that made Alma want to cry.
He would never tire of marveling, not alone at the wonder of her, but at
the wonder that she was his.
"No man has ever been as lucky in women as I have, Carrie," he told her
once in Alma's hearing.
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