"Cyril, will you drive me home?" Lilian says to him hurriedly in the hall, while they are being finally cloaked and shawled. As she says it she takes care to avoid his eyes, so she does not see the look of amused scrutiny that lies in them.
"So soon!" he says, tragically. "It was an easy victory! I shall be only too charmed, my dear Lilian, to drive you to the other end of the world if need be."
So they start and drive home together placidly, through the cool, soft night. Lilian is strangely silent, so is Cyril,—the calm beauty of the heavens above them rendering their lips mute.
"Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest; till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length—
Apparent queen!—unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw."
The night is very calm, and rich in stars; brilliant almost as garish day, but bright with that tender, unchanging, ethereal light—clear, yet full of peaceful shadow—that day can never know.