Wiggie stopped playing bunches and began to whisper a desperate French appeal—
“Ma chandelle est morte,
Je n’ai plus de feu:
Ouvre-moi la porte,
Pour l’amour de Dieu!”
Dandy said “Don’t!” quite suddenly, without in the least meaning to, and, without in the least meaning to, he got up and came to her.
“Are you hankering to help the tram-horse, too?” he asked, and she lifted her eyes with a laugh.
“Nothing so unselfish, Wiggie dear! But that song always makes me shiver. The door is so fast and so hard. It is bolted and barred, with iron knobs as big as mushrooms, and nothing gets under it but the draught of one’s sighing.”
“My door isn’t like that!” Wiggie said quickly. “It’s as fine as thistledown and as thin as air, but it keeps you out all the same. You can see through it all the dearness within, but—it keeps you out! If it were hard, you could hammer the ache out of your heart, and lay your cheek against the mushroom knobs for pity. But you cannot bruise your fists on gossamer, and the web of it blows weakly pitiless against your cheek.”
“But it’s not for you to hammer at doors,” he added presently. “They fly open all along your road!”