'Aren't you a little beside yourself, Joe—sort of excited, or something? 'she gasped, proud of her tact and self-control. 'What else could I have said? How could I have put it different?'
'Joan,' he answered gently, 'you should have said, "What is she?" For that would have meant you thought for yourself. It would have meant that you knew you were, and that you knew she was.'
'Original?' said Mrs. Wimble slowly, catching her husband's meaning vaguely, but more than a little disturbed in her mind.
'No,' he answered, 'true. Just as when, years ago—the sunshine lovely and the fields full of buttercups—you wore a yellow scarf, and a wagtail beside a willow pond came so near that——'
'Joe,' she said with a slight flush that was half displeasure yet half flattered vanity,' you needn't bring up that again. We were a bit above ourselves, dear, when that happened. We lost our heads——'
'Above ourselves! Free and real and happy,' he interrupted her, 'that's what we were then. We had wings. We've lost 'em. We were in the air, I tell you.' His voice grew louder. 'And what's more, we knew it.'
He heard his daughter pass down the narrow passage again, singing. He got up and seemed to shake himself. There was again a fluttering in him.
'We certainly were in the air,' murmured his astonished wife.
'You were a glorious yellow wagtail,' he went on, so that she didn't know whether his laughter was in earnest or in play, 'and we were rising—into flight. We've come down to earth since. We live in a hole, as it were. I'm going to get out!'
Joan's little song went past the door and died away towards the kitchen: