'They are rather bright, yes,' said the other, disappointed. 'The air here is so very clear.' And they went up the creaking wooden stairs to supper in the Wistaria Pension as naturally as though the years had lifted them behind the mountains of the past in a single bound— twenty-five years ago.
CHAPTER XIII
Near where yonder evening star
Makes a glory in the air,
Lies a land dream—found and far
Where it is light always.
There those lovely ghosts repair
Who in sleep's enchantment are,
In Cockayne dwell all things fair—
(But it is far away).
Cockayne Country, Agnes Duclaux.
The first stage in Cousinenry's introduction took place, as has been seen, at a railway station; but further stages were accomplished later. For real introductions are not completed by merely repeating names and shaking hands, still less by a hurried kiss. The ceremony had many branches too—departments, as it were. It spread itself, with various degrees, over many days as opportunity offered, and included Gygi, the gendarme, as well as the little troop of retired governesses who came to the Pension for their mid-day dinner. Before two days were passed he could not go down the village street without lifting his cap at least a dozen times. Bourcelles was so very friendly; no room for strangers there; a new-comer might remain a mystery, but he could not be unknown. Rogers found his halting French becoming rapidly fluent again. And every one knew so much about him—more almost than he knew himself.
At the Den next day, on the occasion of their first tea together, he realised fully that introduction—to the children at any rate— involved a kind of initiation.
It seemed to him that the room was full of children, crowds of them, an intricate and ever shifting maze. For years he had known no dealings with the breed, and their movements now were so light and rapid that it rather bewildered him. They were in and out between the kitchen, corridor, and bedroom like bits of a fluid puzzle. One moment a child was beside him, and the next, just as he had a suitable sentence ready to discharge at it, the place was vacant. A minute later 'it' appeared through another door, carrying the samovar, or was on the roof outside struggling with Riquette.
'Oh, there you are!' he exclaimed. 'How you do dart about, to be sure!'
And the answer, if any, was invariably of the cheeky order—
'One can't keep still here; there's not room enough.'
Or, worse still—