‘And then to the Islands of Delight,’ she murmured more softly still; ‘for there we shall find the lost children of the world—our children, and so be happy with them ever after, like the people in the fairy tales.’
With something like a shock he realised that some one else was walking beside him, talking of things that were real in a very different sense. He had been out walking longer than he knew, and had reached the house again. The autumnal mist already drew its gauze curtains about the old building. The smoke rose in straight lines from the chimneys, melting into dusk. That other place of sunshine and flowers had faded—sea, ship, islands, had all sunk beneath the depths within him. And this other person had been saying things for some minutes....
‘I don’t believe you’ve been listening to a single word, Paul. You stand there with your eyes fixed on vacancy, and only nod your head and grunt.’
‘I assure you, Margaret, dear,’ he stammered, coming to the surface as from a long swim under water, ‘I rarely miss anything you say. Only the Crack came so very suddenly. You were saying that Dick’s niece was coming to us—Joan—er—Thingumybob, and——’
‘So you heard some of it,’ she laughed quietly, relenting. ‘And I hope the Crack you speak about is in your head, not in mine.’
‘It’s everywhere,’ he said with his grave humour. ‘That’s the trouble, you see; one never knows——’ Then, seeing that she was looking anxiously at the walls of the house and at the roof, he dropped his teasing and came back to solid earth again. ‘And how soon do you expect her?’ he asked in his most practical voice. ‘When does she arrive upon the scene?’
‘Why, Paul, I’ve already told you twice! You really are getting more absent-minded every day. Joan comes to-morrow, or the day after—she’s to telegraph which—and stays here for as long as she can manage—a fortnight or so, I expect. She works herself to death, I believe, in town with those poor children, and I want her to get a real rest before she goes back.’
‘Waifs, aren’t they?’ he asked, picking up the thread of the discourse like a thing heard in a dream, ‘lost children of the slums?’
‘Yes. You’ll see them for yourself probably, as she has some of them down usually for a day in the country. One can be of use in that way—and it’s so nice to help. Dick, you know, was absorbed in the scheme. You will help, won’t you, when the time comes?’
He promised; and they went in together to tea.