Evanston and his wife were sitting side by side upon the couch
The fireflies still were glimmering in the syringa-bushes, the night voices still were chorusing, but Mr. Carteret was unaware of them. He looked vaguely into the heavens. The Milky Way glimmered from horizon to horizon.
“‘Has the singing nightingale a thought of the grainfields?’”
he began to murmur.
“‘If I love you, oh, my beloved, what are poverty or riches?’”
It was the verse upon the cushion.
He stumbled over a croquet ball in the darkness and brought his eyes down from the heavens.
“Carteret, you’re an ass,” he muttered. He fumbled for his pocket handkerchief and blew his nose. Then wandered on across the lawn till he came to the path that led to the stables, where his motor was waiting. Here he stopped and looked back at the house. The lamplight was still streaming from the library windows, and the silence, save for the night things, was still unbroken. For perhaps a minute he stood and gazed; then he turned and went down the pathway.