Mr. Milford was leaning forward in his seat to examine something that had to do with the shifting of the gears, and he answered while he investigated, without looking up.
“Yes, but she couldn’t remember where the letter was from, so we’re not much wiser than we were before, except that we know for a certainty that Dan was alive and well less than two months ago. At least Uncle Dan’l believes it is Dan. The woman calls him Dave, but Uncle Dan’l vows they’re one and the same.”
Having adjusted the difficulty, Mr. Milford, with a good-bye nod to Georgina, started on down the street again. Georgina stood looking after the rapidly disappearing car.
“Well, no wonder Uncle Darcy looked so happy,” she thought, recalling his radiant face. “It was knowing that Danny is alive and well that made it shine so. I wish I’d been along. Wish I could have heard every thing each one of them said. I could have remembered every single word to tell Richard, but he won’t remember even half to tell me.”
It was in the pursuit of all the information which could be pumped out of Richard that Georgina sought the Green Stairs soon after breakfast next morning. Incidentally, she was on her way to a nearby grocery and had been told to hurry. She ran all the way down in order to gain a few extra moments in which to loiter. As usual at this time of morning, Richard was romping over the terraces with Captain Kidd.
“Hi, Georgina,” he called, as he spied her coming. “I’ve got a new game. A new way to play tag. Look.”
Plunging down the steps he held out for her inspection a crystal paperweight which he had picked up from the library table. Its round surface had been cut into many facets, as a diamond is cut to make it flash the light, and the spots of color it threw as he turned it in the sun were rainbow-hued.
“See,” he explained. “Instead of tagging Captain Kidd with my hand I touch him with a rainbow, and it’s lots harder to do because you can’t always make it light where you want it to go, or where you think it is going to fall. I’ve only tagged him twice so far in all the time I’ve been trying, because he bobs around so fast. Come on, I’ll get you before you tag me,” he added, seeing that her prism hung from the ribbon on her neck.
She did not wear it every day, but she had felt an especial need for its comforting this morning, and had put it on as she slowly dressed. The difficulty of restoring the eggs loomed up in front of her as a real trouble, and she needed this to remind her to keep on hoping that some way would soon turn up to end it.
It was a fascinating game. Such tags are elusive, uncertain things. The pursuer can never be certain of touching the pursued. Georgina entered into it, alert and glowing, darting this way and that to escape being touched by the spots of vivid color. Her prism threw it in bars, Richard’s in tiny squares and triangles.