"We haven't one of our own," said Rosemary. "But there's a nice old lady who lives next door to us, on the top floor, and is very good to Angel and me. She writes stories, and things for the papers, and Angel types them, sometimes. When she's away she lets us use the sitting-room where she writes; and she's away now. Angel and I are going to be there this evening till it's my bed-time; and you can come up with me if you will. Oh, I'm so thankful you don't need to vanish for a little while."
His heart pounding as it had not pounded for six years and more—(not since the days when he had gone up other stairs, in another land, to see an Evelyn)—Hugh followed the flitting figure of the child.
The stairs and corridors were not lighted yet. One economises with electric light and many other little things at a hotel pension, where the prices are "from five francs a day, vin compris."
Rosemary opened a door on the fourth floor, and for a moment the twilight on the other side was shot for Hugh with red and purple spots. But the colours faded when the childish voice said, "Angel isn't here. If you'll come in, I'll go and see if she's in our room."
"Don't tell her—don't say—anything about a fairy father," he stammered.
"Oh no, that's to be the surprise," Rosemary reassured him, as she pattered away.
It was deep twilight in the room, and rather cold, for the eucalyptus and olive logs in the fireplace still awaited the match. Hugh could see the blurred outlines of a few pieces of cheap furniture; a sofa, three or four chairs, a table, and a clumsy writing desk. But the window was still a square of pale bluish light, cut out of the violet dusk, and as the young man's eyes accustomed themselves to the dimness, the room did not seem dark.
He was not left alone for long. In two or three minutes Rosemary appeared once more, without her hat and coat, to say that "Angel" had not yet come back. "But she'll soon be here now," went on the child. "Do you mind waiting in the twilight, fairy father? The electric light doesn't come on till after five, and I've just heard the clock downstairs strike five."
"I shall like it," answered Hugh, glad that his face should be hidden by the dusk, in these moments of waiting.
"Angel tells me stories in the twilight," said Rosemary, as he sat down on the sofa by the cold fireplace, and she let him lift her light little body to his knee. "Would you tell me one, about when you were lost?"