“Oh, where does he learn such things?” said Eve. She thought she was distressed—she meant to be; but there was an undertide of joyousness, which Hollis saw.
“On the contrary, Jackum, I’ll get in,” he answered. “If it’s singing you want, I can sing very beautifully. And I can dance too; looker here.” And skipping across the beach in a Fisher’s Horn-pipe step, he ended with a pigeon’s wing.
Jack, in an ecstasy of delight, sprang up and down in Eve’s arms. “’Gain! ’gain!” he cried, imperiously, his dimpled forefinger pointed at the dancer.
Again Hollis executed his high leap. “Now you’ll come to me, I guess,” he said. And Jack went readily. “You are going for a walk, I suppose?” Hollis went on. “There’s nothing very much in these woods to make it lively.” He had noted the glow of anticipation in her face, and was glad that he had contributed to it. But when he turned to Paul, expecting as usual to see indifference, he did not see it; and instantly his feelings changed, he felt befooled.
Jack made prodding motions with his knees. “Dant! dant!”
“I’ll dance in a few minutes, my boy,” said Hollis.
Paul and Eve went up the beach and turned into the wood. It was a magnificent evergreen forest without underbrush; above, the sunlight was shut out, they walked in a gray-green twilight. The stillness was so intense that it was oppressive.
XIX.
THEY walked for some distance without speaking. “I have just been writing to Ferdie,” Paul said at last.