Part 42 (1/2)

'It's only like going to sleep,' explained her brother. You'll come back every night in a Starlight Express---'

'Because a Starlight Express takes pa.s.sengers--whether they like it or not. You take an ordinary train, but a starlight train takes you!'

added Monkey.

Mother heard the words and looked up sharply from her knitting.

Something, it seemed, had caught her attention vividly, though until now her thoughts had been busy with practical things of quite another order. She glanced keenly round at the faces, where all sat grouped upon the stone steps of La Citadelle. Then she smiled curiously, half to herself. What she said was clearly not what she had first meant to say.

'Children, you're not sitting on the cold stone, are you?' she inquired, but a little absent-mindedly.

'We're quite warm; we've got our thick under-neathies on,' was the reply. They realised that only part of her mind was in the, question, and that any ordinary answer would satisfy her.

Mother resumed her knitting, apparently satisfied.

But Jinny, meanwhile, had been following her own train of thought, started by her cousin's description of her as 'grown-up.' The picture grew big and gracious in her mind.

'I wonder what I shall do when my hair goes up?' she observed, apparently _a propos de bottes_. It was the day, of course, eagerly, almost feverishly, looked forward to.

'Hide your head in a bag probably,' laughed her sister. Jinny flushed; her hair was not abundant. Yet she seemed puzzled rather than offended.

'Never mind,' Rogers soothed her. 'The day a girl puts up her hair, a thousand young men are aware of it,--and one among them trembles.' The idea of romance seemed somehow in the air.

'Oh, Cousinenry!' She was delighted, comforted, impressed; but perplexity was uppermost. Something in his tone of voice prevented impudent comment from the others.

'And all the stars grow a little brighter,' he added. 'The entire universe is glad.'

'I shall be a regular company promoter!' she exclaimed, nearer to wit than she knew, yet with only the vaguest inkling of what he really meant.

'And draw up a Memorandum of Agreement with the Milky Way,' he added, gravely smiling.

He had just been going to say 'with the Pleiades,' when something checked him. A wave of strange emotion swept him. It rose from the depths within, then died away as mysteriously as it came. Like exquisite music heard from very far away, it left its thrill of beauty and of wonder, then hid behind the breath of wind that brought it.

'The whole world, you see, will know,' he added under his breath to the delighted child. He looked into her queer, flushed face. The blue eyes for a moment had, he thought, an amber tinge. It was a mere effect of light, of course; the sun had pa.s.sed behind a cloud.

Something that he ought to have known, ought to have remembered, flashed mockingly before him and was gone. 'One among them trembles,'

he repeated in his mind. He himself was trembling.

'The Morning Spiders,' said some one quietly and softly, 'are standing at their stable doors, making faces at the hidden sun.'

But he never knew who said it, or if it was not his own voice speaking below his breath. He glanced at Jimbo. The small grave face wore an air of man-like preoccupation, as was always the case when he felt a little out of his depth in general conversation. He a.s.sumed it in self-protection. He never exposed himself by asking questions. The music of that under-voice ran on:--

'Sweet thoughts, like fine weather, Bind closely together G.o.d's stars with the heart of a boy.'

But he said it aloud apparently this time, for the others looked up with surprise. Monkey inquired what in the world he was talking about, only, not quite knowing himself, he could not answer her. Jimbo then, silent and preoccupied, found his thoughts still running on marriage.

The talk about his sister's hair going up no doubt had caused it.

He remembered the young schoolmistress who had her meals at the Pension, and the Armenian student who had fallen in love with, and eventually married, her. It was the only courts.h.i.+p he had ever witnessed. Marriage and courts.h.i.+p seemed everywhere this morning.

'I saw it all with Mlle. Perette,' he informed the party. 'It began already by his pouring out water for her and pa.s.sing the salt and things. It _always_ begins like that. He got shawls even when she was hot.'

He looked so wise and grave that n.o.body laughed, and his sisters even seemed impressed rather. Jinny waited anxiously for more. If Mother did make an odd grimace, it was not noticed, and anyhow was cleverly converted into the swallowing of a yawn. There was a moment's silence.

Jimbo, proudly conscious that more was expected of him, provided it in his solemn little voice.