ROUND THE CORNER
I
Lady Dawn was the first to recover her composure. "Why, Terry, I thought you were in bed!"
"I was."
Terry's eyes shifted from Lady Dawn to Tabs. They were startled and misty with sleep. She seemed only half-awake. Her hand rested on the door as if ready for retreat. Her square little face was flushed; her gold, bobbed hair was flattened where it had pressed against the pillow. She was clad in a filmy negligée; her bare feet had been pushed hastily into slippers and peeped out rosily from beneath the hem. She looked immature—the way she had in days gone by when he had tiptoed to her bedside through the darkness to feel her tight little arms leap stranglingly about his neck. She had been really a tiny girl then. Why couldn't she have stayed like that always? Why need she have roused in him this torturing desire which she did nothing but rebuff?
"I was asleep. I heard voices. I thought——"
What had she thought? How much had she seen
and heard? How long had she been standing there?
Tabs attempted to bridge the awkward silence. "I drove down from London." Then he added, "That was last night."
None of them had stirred. Lady Dawn advanced from the window into the pool of lamplight. "I think I know what you thought—that something was wrong. It was. I nearly fainted. If it hadn't been for Lord Taborley—— But come inside. Why do you remain standing there?"