And so the danger moment was evaded,—young Oldershaw warm with pride, Palgrave sullen and angry. They made a trio which had its prototypes all the way back to the beginning of the world.
It did Palgrave no good to crouch ignominiously on the step of the car which Oldershaw drove back hell for leather.
The bridge tables were still occupied. The white lane was still across the sea. Frogs and crickets still continued their noisy rivalry, but it was a different climate out there on the dunes from that of the village with its cloying warmth.
Palgrave went into the house at once with a brief "Thank you." Joan waited while Harry put the car into a garage. Bed made no appeal. Bridge bored,—it required concentration. She would play the game of sex with Gilbert if he were to be found. So the boy had to be disposed of.
"Harry," she said, when he joined her, chuckling at having come top dog out of the recent blaze, "you'd better go straight to bed now. We're going to be up early in the morning, you know."
"Just what I was thinking," he answered. "By Jove, you've given me a corking good evening. The best of my young life. You ... you certainly are,—well, I don't know how to do you justice. I'd have to be a poet." He fumbled for her hand and kissed it a little sheepishly.
They went in. "You're a nice boy, Harry," she said. There was something in his charming simplicity and muscular strength that reminded her of,—but she refused to let the name enter her mind.
"I could have broken that chap like a dry twig, too, easy. Who does he think he is?" He would have pawned his life at that moment for the taste of her lips.
She stood at the bottom of the stairs and held out her hand. "Good night, old boy," she said.
And he took it and hurt it. "Good night, Joany," he answered.