'Yes, Elise?' He tried to rise, but she pressed him back and sat on the arm of the huge chair, looking down at him with a face that was glowing with excitement. Her eyes were like jewels of fate lit from within by some magic flame, and a mutinous lock of hair fell on the side of her face, almost touching the crimson lips. There was so much magnetism in her beauty, such a heaven in the unconquered warmth of her impetuous being, that Selwyn gripped the arms of his chair to help to restrain the mad impulse to grasp her in his arms and smother those lips and the flushed, satin cheeks in a tempest of kisses.
'Yes, Elise?' he repeated, clearing his throat.
'Listen, Austin. I can't stay inside any longer. I think my blood is on fire. Will you come with me to the village?'
'At eleven o'clock?'
'Yes. The news from London will reach the village first, and I want to be there when it comes. We shall have to hurry if we are to make it in time.'
'I'm at your service, Elise.'
'Right-o. I'll let the mater know. I'll just run upstairs and put something easy on, and I'll meet you at the front of the house. You had better change too.'
A few minutes later she joined him on the lawn. They had just reached the road which led to the porter's lodge, when, without a word of warning, she grasped his hand, and, half-running, half-dancing, pulled him forward at a rapid pace. With a laugh he joined in her mood, and, running side by side, they sped along the drive, while startled rabbits leaped across their path, and melancholy owls hooted disapprobation. As if the fumes of madness had mounted even to the skies, dark flecks of cloud raced headlong across the starry heavens.
They were mad. The world was mad. He wondered whether his brain might be playing some prank, and this absurd thing of two young people laughing and running to discover whether or not a nation was at war would prove a pointless jest of unsound imagination.
'Come along,' she cried. 'You're dragging.'