“Haven't you anything better to do?” He seemed surprised. As lovely as she was, there had to be a dozen suitors waiting in the wings. “No boyfriends, no great loves?”
“I think I'm immune.”
“Now, that's an intriguing thought. A vaccination you've had, perhaps?” He teased and the music changed, but they stayed on the floor as Harrison Crockett watched. He was not displeased. “Tell me about this fascinating immunity of yours, Miss Crockett.”
She sounded matter-of-fact as they danced. “I think I've lived alone with my father for too long. I know what men are like.”
Armand laughed aloud. “Now, that's a shocking statement!”
“No, it's not.” But she laughed too then. “I just meant that I know what it's like to run his house, pour his coffee in the morning, walk on tiptoe when he comes home from the office in a bad mood. It makes it difficult to take any of the young cubs seriously, they're so full of romance and ridiculous ideas. Half the time they have no idea what they're saying, they've never read a newspaper, they don't know the difference between Tibet and Timbuktu. And ten years from now, they'll come home from the office just as disagreeable as Daddy, and they'll snap at their wives over breakfast in just the same way. It's hard to listen to all that romantic gibberish and not laugh, that's all. I know what comes later.” She smiled up at him in a matter-of-fact way.
“You're right, you've seen too much.” And he was sorry really. He remembered all the romantic “gibberish” he had shared with Odile, when she was twenty-one and he was twenty-three. They had believed every word they'd said and it had carried them for a long time, through hard times and into rugged, ghastly countries, through disappointments and a war. In a way, because of her life with her father, Liane had lost an important piece of her youth. But undoubtedly, in time, someone would come along, perhaps someone not quite so young as the rest, and she would fall in love, and then the complaints over the morning coffee would be outweighed by what she felt, and she would be carried off on her own cloud of dreams.
“Now what are you thinking?”
“That one of these days you'll fall in love, and it'll change all that.”
“Maybe.” But she sounded both unconvinced and unconcerned. The dance ended and Armand escorted her back to her friends.
But something strange had happened between them during the weeks of her debut. When Armand saw her again, he looked at her differently than he had before. She seemed more womanly to him all of a sudden, and it didn't really make sense to him. But the rest of the girls at the parties had all been so girlish, such children. In comparison, Liane was so much more grown-up, so much more poised. He felt suddenly awkward with her, less comfortable than he had before. He had taken her for granted for a long time, assumed somehow that she was just a very charming child. But on her twentieth birthday she looked more mature than ever, in a mauve moiré gown that turned her hair to spun gold and turned her eyes to violet as she smiled at him.
Her birthday came just before the summer, and Armand was almost relieved when she went to Lake Tahoe for the summer months. She was no longer helping him at the Consulate, he was on his feet now, and he didn't want to take advantage of her. He saw Liane only when her father gave a dinner party, which was still very rare. And by sheer force of will Armand managed to stay away from Lake Tahoe until the end of the summer, when Harrison absolutely insisted that he come up for the Labor Day weekend, and when he saw her, he sensed instantly what Harrison had known for so long. He was deeply and passionately in love with the girl he had known since she was scarcely more than a child. It had been a year and a half since Odile died, and although he still missed her terribly, his thoughts were now invaded constantly by Liane. He found himself staring at her all through the weekend, and when they danced on a warm summer night, he led her back to the table quickly, as though he could not bear to be that close to her without pulling her deeper into his arms. And oblivious of what he felt, she cavorted near him on the beach, her long, sensuous limbs cast across a deck chair on the sand. She rattled on as she had in years past, and told him funny stories, and she was more enchanting than ever, but as the weekend drew to a close, she began to sense his mood and his eyes upon her, and she grew quieter, as though being drawn slowly into the same spell.
When they all returned to town, and Liane to college, Armand fought himself for several weeks and then finally, unable to bear it any longer, he called her and berated himself afterward for doing so. He had just called to say hello and see how she was, but she sounded strangely subdued when he called her, and he worried instantly that something might be wrong. Nothing was, she assured him in gentle tones, but she was feeling something she didn't quite understand and wasn't sure how to handle. She felt guilty toward Odile, and unable to talk to her father about the confusing emotions she felt. She was falling in love with Armand as desperately as he was falling in love with her. He was forty-five years old and she was not yet twenty-one, he was the widower of a woman she had loved and respected deeply, and she still remembered her parting words: “Take care of Armand for me … Liane … he will need you …” But he didn't need her that much anymore, and surely Odile had never meant for Liane to take care of him like that.
What ensued was an agonizing three months. Liane could barely keep her mind on her studies, and Armand thought he would go mad at his desk. They met again at a Christmas party given by her father, and by New Year's both of them had given up the fight. He took her to dinner one night, and afterward, in an agony of tension and emotion, he told her all that he was feeling, and was stunned when her emotions cascaded out with the same force as his. They began seeing each other weekly, on weekends, and kept to quiet haunts so as not to become the center of gossip around town, and at last Liane told her father, expecting some resistance, and possibly even fury, but what she got from him instead was delight and relief.
“I wondered when you two would finally realize what I've known for two years.” He sat looking at her, beaming, as she stared.
“You knew? But how could you? I didn't … we didn't …”
“I'm just smarter than both of you, that's all.” But he approved of the way they had proceeded. They had each felt out their emotions with caution and respect for the past. He knew that neither of them took the matter lightly, and he wasn't even bothered by the difference in their ages. Liane was an unusual young woman, and he couldn't imagine her happy with a man her own age. And to her, the twenty-four-year span between them mattered not at all, although Armand had expressed some concern about it in the beginning. Now he didn't give a care to something so minor as that. He adored her. He felt as though he had been born again, and he rapidly proposed marriage. On her twenty-first birthday they announced their engagement. Her father gave a lovely party, and life tasted like a dream, until two weeks later, when Armand received word that his term in San Francisco had come to an end. He was being moved on to Vienna as Ambassador. And like it or not, it was time to go. He and Liane discussed a precipitous marriage, but her father intervened. He wanted her to complete her final year in college, which meant waiting another full year until they could be married. Liane was crushed, but she was anxious not to disobey her father, and the two lovers agreed that they would survive the next year somehow, with visits when they could, and letters each day in between.
It was a difficult year for them both, but they managed, and on the fourteenth of June 1929, Armand de Villiers and Liane Crockett were married at old St. Mary's in San Francisco. Armand had left Vienna a month, for the “wedding of the year,” as the San Francisco papers called it, and they both went back to Europe for a quick honeymoon in Venice, before returning to Vienna, where Liane would then be Ambassadress. And she stepped into those shoes with extraordinary ease. Armand tried to make everything easy for her, but she scarcely needed his help. After her years with her father, and the six months of helping Armand after Odile's death, she knew what to do.