Phœbe gave a deep sigh.
“I think that’s lovely,” she said. “How you embellish my dry skeleton of a tale, darling, covering it with strong muscles and lovely supple skin. We are happy, aren’t we? I wonder if Algernon and Eva were really as happy, even at that moment, as we always are!”
They had come near to the stream that flowed by the bottom of the garden, the bank of which was a tangle of flowers.
“Loosestrife, meadow-sweet, marsh-marigold, willow-herb,” said Philip. “Delicious names, are they not?”
The sound of shrill juvenile voices was heard, and turning a bend in the lane, they came opposite the pool where Philip had thrown the razor-blade. There on the bank were half a dozen small boys in various degrees of nudity, and rosy from their bathing.
“Little darlings!” said Phœbe sympathetically. “What a jolly time they have been having in the water!”
“Willow-herb, marsh-marigold,” murmured Philip mechanically, looking round for the traces of blood on the stream-bank....
He took a firm hold of himself, and managed to walk across the wooden bridge that led to the bottom of the garden with some show of steadiness. But he almost reeled and fell when, looking into the pool, he saw the razor-blade, its encompassing envelope having been destroyed by the water, shining on the pebbly bottom of the stream like tragic Rhinegold.
When they had had tea, he made some lame excuse of studying flowers a little longer and slipped down again to the stream. The boys had gone, and taking off his shoes and socks, and rolling his trousers up to the knee, he waded out over the sharp pebbles to where his doom flickered in the sunshine. With the aid of his stick he propelled it into shallower waters and picked it up. Then, shivering from the brisk water, and tearing his socks as he pulled them over his wet feet, he returned with it to the house in a state of more miserable dejection than Algernon had ever been, even when he sat down on the ruins of the Roman temple, unaware that Eva was just about to come round the corner with April in her eyes.
For the next week Philip carried the razor-blade about with him in a stud-box that during the day never left his pocket, and at night reposed under his pillow. He made several attempts to get rid of it in a way that commended itself to his conscience, which seethed with scruples and imaginary terrors, burying it once in the garden, and at another time throwing it into the ash-bin. But the sight of his terrier digging in the potato patch for a suitable hiding place for his bone, caused him to disinter it from the first of these, and the second entailed a dismal midnight visit to the dust-bin, when, one evening, Phœbe casually alluded to the dustman’s approaching visit.