It’s to be our day, Teddy.”
The gate swung to behind them with a clang. He looked back and saw his father, framed in the window; then the palings of the next-door garden shut him out He was alone with her. It was as though with the clanging of the gate he had said “good-by” to childish things forever.
The world shone forth to meet them, romantic with frost and lacquered with ice. It was as though the sky had rained molten glass which, spreading out across trees, houses and pavements, had covered them with a skin of burning glory. Eden Row sparkled quaint and old-fashioned as a Christmas card. The river, which followed its length, gleamed like a bared saber. Windows, in the cliff-line of crooked houses, were jewels which glittered smoothly in the sunlight In the park, beyond the river, black boughs of trees were hieroglyphics carved on glaciers of cloud. Chimneys were top-hatted sentinels, crouching above smoldering camp-fires. Overhead the golden gong of the sun hung silent At any moment it seemed that a cloud must strike it and the brittle boom of the impact would mutter through the heavens. It was a world transformed—no longer a prison swung out into the void in which men and women struggled, and misunderstood, and loved and, in their loving, died.
Vashti felt for his hand. He wanted to take it and yet—— If he did, people who didn’t understand would think him nothing but a little boy. What he really wanted was to take her arm; he couldn’t reach up to that “Don’t you want to hold it?”
He laughed shyly and slipped his fingers softly into hers.
As they passed Orchid Lodge, standing flush with the pavement, she glanced up at the second story, where the line of windows commenced.
“The people who live there hate me. They’ll hate me more presently. I can’t blame them.”
She hurried her steps. Drawing a breath of relief, she whispered, “Look back and tell me whether anybody saw us.”
He looked back. Two figures were emerging from the doorway—one excessively fat, the other so lean that he looked like a straight line.
“Only the murd—— I mean Mr. Sheerug and Mr. Hughes. I don’t think they saw us.”