And, stealing fearfully through the grass,
Came out on the other side;
And said, as it took the Heart to keep
And hold and cherish and cleave,—
‘I’m glad I wasn’t too proud to creep.
J’arrive!’”
Harriet glared at him, dragging on her hard gloves in ruthless snatches, but as he finished he lifted his eyes to hers with a smile so full of warm goodwill that her own dropped. Wiggie knew what the ugly room meant to her, and the ridiculous game and the taciturn man, where nobody else had even so much as guessed. But then Wiggie was a magician, so Dandy had said, and magicians don’t count.
Dusk was dropping as they came out of the house, and along the quiet fields had risen the heart-high, ghostly barriers of the mist. A far-off touch of frost was in the air, and the clean smell of a bonfire soared with its faint, pale smoke beyond a distant wall.
“I’ll walk over to Watters with you, if I may,” Lancaster said, groping in the hall for his cap. “I’ve papers for Mr. Shaw.”
“But what about Harriet?” Helwise fluttered. “You must see her home first, Lancelot, and then you might take Mrs. Shaw that crochet pattern she wants for my Deep-Sea Fishermen—or was it the Night-Cap Club? Eight ch., 1 d.c. into sixth ch., back, 2 ch., 1 d.c.—perhaps I’d better write it down. Of course Harriet mustn’t go home alone!”