The fire in Vane's eyes awed Primrose, conquered her curiously, and a treacherous softening of the lines about her sweet mouth almost made a smile.
"And now what next?" commented Polly. "Do you know how we are loitering? Has the place charmed us? I never thought it so fascinating before."
It was to charm many a one, later on, like a little oasis in the great walls of brick that were to grow about it, of traffic and noise and disputations that were never to enter here, and to have a romance, whether rightly or wrongly, that was to call many a one thither at the thought of Evangeline. And so a poet puts an imperishable sign on a place, or a historian a golden seal.
"We were to go somewhere else. And see where the sun is dropping to. It always slides so fast on that round part of the sky."
"Yes, the most beautiful little place, and to get our violets. Betty, when they are all gone we will have long days hunting up queer corners and things. And somewhere—out at Dunk's Ferry—there is a strange sort of body who tells fortunes occasionally—when she is in just the humor. And that makes it the more exciting, because you can never quite know. We will take Patty; we can find all the strange corners."
"Why couldn't we all go? To have one's fortune told—not that I believe in it," and Vane laughed.
"Then you have no business to have it told. And Miss Jeffries runs over the cards and tells ever so many things, and they are really true. You will meet her again some evening."
Gilbert Vane blushed. The fortune he wanted to hear was not one with which he would like a whole roomful entertained.
"It is this way."
Primrose walked on ahead with Andrew Henry.