Part 10 (2/2)
They went. Homeward bound the conversation perched on stilts; seemed artificially out of reach; a reserve had sprung up between them. Both were making obvious efforts to be natural. Masters was appreciative of the fact that his own were a sickly failure.
At her gate she a.s.sumed merriment; a transparent, fraudulent kind of mirth. Said laughingly, one hand on the latch, the other ready to place in his:
”And now, Mr. Prophet, what of the morrow? Think you will it hail, rain, wind or snow?”
It was not infectious, that merriment of hers. She had fallen on the first subject in Valapuk: the weather. Staple of English intercourse, how many can deny it a debt of grat.i.tude? Common ground--a national heritage whereon we can disport ourselves at ease.
”Rain, I am afraid.” He looked round. ”Those banks of clouds augur badly.”
”You are not a comforting sort of prophet! a.s.sumption of your correctness means confinement to the house all day.”
”Yes.”
He looked at her as he answered. The glance made it hardly a laconic reply.... She stretched out her hand. With the light in her forget-me-not eyes full on, said:
”Good-bye.”
Taking her hand--his retention of it was for a period considerably longer than is considered quite good form in Mayfair--he asked:
”If a wet day--to-morrow, you know--I shall not see you at all, shall I?”
Those eloquent lashes of hers helped her speech as she replied:
”It may clear in the evening, as it did to-day. I may not take Gracie out in the damp. But, unless it rains, I shall take my own walk in the evening.”
Even a smaller mercy would have made him thankful. He enquired eagerly:
”At eight o'clock?”
The fringes lifted, giving him what he extravagantly labelled a glimpse of Heaven. In the moonlight he saw all the glory of her eyes, as she answered:
”Yes.”
He had never thought it possible that room could be found for so delightful a tone in a woman's voice, as was in Miss Mivvins' utterance of that one-syllable word.
”If you should find me walking on the parade at that time,” he suggested, ”you--you would not be displeased?”
She looked at him again. What she read prompted her to think him deserving some little reward. Casting her eyes down to her hand, which he was still holding, and lowering her voice too, till it was almost a half-whisper, she said:
”What--what would you think if I said that----”
She hesitated--stopped. Quite eagerly he endeavoured to help her on; interjected:
”Yes?”
”That I might be disappointed if I did not see you?”
<script>