She started back, but a flame of delight went over her.
“There!” she said. “Did you see that?”
“It lightened,” said the policeman. She was looking at him almost angrily. But then the clean, fresh animal look of his skin, and the tame-animal look in his frightened eyes amused her; she laughed her low, triumphant laugh. He was obviously afraid, like a frightened dog that sees something uncanny.
The storm suddenly whistled louder, more violently, and, with a strange noise like castanets, she seemed to hear voices clapping and crying:
“He is here! He’s come back!”
She nodded her head gravely.
The policeman and she moved on side by side. She lived alone in a little stucco house in a side street down the hill. There was a church and a grove of trees, and then the little old row of houses. The wind blew fiercely, thick with snow. Now and again a taxi went by with its lights showing weirdly. But the world seemed empty, uninhabited save by snow and voices.
As the girl and the policeman turned past the grove of trees near the church, a great whirl of wind and snow made them stand still, and in the wild confusion they heard a whirling of sharp, delighted voices, something like seagulls, crying:
“He’s here! He’s here!”
“Well, I’m jolly glad he’s back,” said the girl calmly.