And as the amateur astronomer, pleased with so responsive a glow, began the tracing of the fantastic imagery of the constellations, detailing the story of each vague similitude, he marked the sudden dawn of a certain enchantment in his interlocutor's mind, the first subtle experience of the delights of the ideal and the resources of fable. It exerted upon Dr. Kane a sort of fascinated interest, the observation of this earliest exploration of the realms of fancy by so keen and receptive an intelligence. The comet, the telescope, the crowd, were forgotten, as with Hoxon at his elbow he made the tour of the court-house yard, from point to point, wherever the best observation might be had of each separate sidereal etching on the deep blue. For a time the crowd casually watched them with a certain good-natured ridicule of their absorption, and the telescope maintained its interest to the successive wights who peered through at the comet still splendidly ablaze despite the light of the gibbous moon. The ranks of young people promenaded up and down the brick walks and the grassy spaces. Elder gossips sat on the court-house steps, or stood in groups, and discussed the questions of the day. Gradually disintegration began. The clangor of the gate rose now and then as homeward-bound parties passed through, becoming constantly more frequent. Still the shifting back and forth of the thinning ranks of the peripatetic youth went on, and laughter and talk resounded from the court-house steps. At intervals the telescope was deserted; the motionless trees were bright with the moon and glossy with the dew. The voice of guard-dogs was now and again reverberated from the hills. The languid sense of a late hour had dulled the pulses, and when Justus Hoxon turned back to earth it was to an almost depopulated scene, the realization of the approach of midnight, and the sight of Theodosia sitting alone in the moonlight on the steps of the east door of the court-house, waiting for him with a touching patience, as it seemed to him at the moment.
"Air you-uns waitin' fur me, 'Dosia, all by yerse'f?" he demanded hastily, with a contrite intonation.
"I 'pear to be all by myse'f," she said, with a playful feigning of uncertainty, glancing about her. She gave a forced laugh, and the constraint in her tone struck his attention.
"I 'lowed ez Wat war with ye," he said apologetically. "Air ye ready ter go over ter yer cousin Anice's now?"
He was standing leaning against one of the columns of the portico, his face half in the shadow of his hat and half in the moonlight.
She sat still upon the steps, looking up at him, her upturned eyes taking an appealing expression from her lowly attitude. She was silent for a moment, as if at a loss. Then suddenly her eyes fell.
"'Pears ter me ter be right comical ter hev ter remind ye o' what I promised ter tell ye 'lection day," she said.
"Why, 'Dosia," he broke in vehemently, "I hev axed ye twice ter-day, an' I didn't ax ye jes' now 'kase ye hed been hyar so long alone, an' I wanted ter take ye ter yer cousin Anice's ef so be ye wanted ter go." He stopped for a moment. Then, with a change of tone, "Ye can't make out ez I hev been anything but hearty in lovin' ye—nearly all yer life long!" His voice rang out with a definite note of conviction, of assertion.
Reproach was an untenable ground. She desisted from the effort. Her eyes wandered down the street that lay shadowy with gable, and dormer-window, and long chimneys, in sharp geometric figures in the moonshine, alternating with the deeper shadow of the trees. There were no lights save a twinkle here and there in an upper window.
A flush rose to his pale cheeks. His heart was beating fast with heavy presage. He hesitated to demand his fate at so untoward a moment. He took off his hat, mechanically fanning with its broad brim, and gazing about him at the slowly dulling splendor of the moonlight as the disk tended further and further toward the west. The stars were brightening gradually, and within the range of his vision flared the great comet, every moment the lustre of its white fire intensifying. He only saw; he did not note. His every faculty was concentrated on the girl's drawling voice as she began again, hesitating, and evidently at a loss.