There was not time for more, for Uncle Dan himself appeared at this moment.
‘None the worse for your duckin’, eh, Paul?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘We’re goin’ to have a bit of music, lad. Come in and sit down, if you’ve a mind to it.’
Paul half welcomed and half resented the putting off of the decisive moment He was in a dreadful nervous flutter, his hopes alternately flying like a flag in a high wind, and drooping in a sick abandonment of everything. And May was more ravishing than ever. She had stuck the stem of a rose in one little ear like a pen, and the full flower itself nestled drooping at her cheek. There was never anything in the world more demure than her face and her manner, but the frolic eye betrayed her mood now and then, and Paul was half beside himself at every furtive smile she shot at him. A local tenor, the pride of the church choir, was there, and May and he sang duets together, amongst them ‘Come where my love lies dreaming.’ Paul’s heart obeyed the call with a virgin coyness, and his thoughts stole into some dim-seen shadowed sanctuary, some place of silence where the feet fell soft, and a pale curtain gleamed, and where behind the curtain lay something so sacred that he dared not draw the veil, even in fancy. ‘Her beauty beaming,’ sang the local tenor. ‘Her beauty beaming,’ May’s voice carolled. Heaven, how it beamed! The boy’s emotion choked him. If shame had not lent him self-control, he would have broken into tears before them all.
The musical hour wore away, and the local tenor had a supper engagement, and must go. May slid from the room, and soon after her voice was heard calling ‘Paul.’
Paul answered.
‘Come here a minute,’ she said. ‘I want to speak to ee.’
Paul stumbled out, blind and stupid. She was standing at the open door with some gauzy white stuff loosely folded over her hair and drawn over her bosom. The July moon was at the full, and low in the heavens.
‘Look at that,’ she said, and Paul looked.