"But what one's there for, of course, is to get them to see a little deeper, a little more into the heart of Nature's beauty and wonderful, wonderful tenderness. I wanted to show them the glint of red on the stems of those trees, and the miracle of hush that comes over the world just as the sun goes down...."
Lady Rossiter paused, absorbed in the regretful retrospect of the showman whose curtain has accidentally come down with a run in the midst of his star performer's best turn.
"Well, what happened? Did the sun refuse to go down after all?" was Julian's rather ribald interruption to her thoughts.
"The sun was in the most exquisite blaze of red and gold, and one could only hold one's breath in awe at the most wonderful pageant the world can show, when that Marchrose woman from Culmouth College came crashing through the undergrowth, ringing a bicycle-bell, and with her back—actually, her back—to that sunset!"
"What did you do?" asked Julian, with considerable interest.
Lady Rossiter made the strangely contradictory statement that her sex, when describing the character of a crisis, so frequently appears compelled to proffer.
"I didn't say one word, Julian. I felt that I simply couldn't have spoken. I couldn't help holding up my hand and saying very quietly indeed: 'Ah, hush! Can't you feel that it hurts, somehow, to disturb such a moment as this?' It was such hideous profanity, Julian!"
"Did you tell her so?"
"I could never say anything that would deliberately hurt another," Lady Rossiter made grave reply. "But I laid my hand on that terrible bicycle, and the girl had to keep still for a minute or two."
"Was she angry?"