Frederick opened the door and Nina swept gracefully into the hall. Frances ran eagerly for her cloak, and the others came out more slowly.
On the dark threshold of the porch Morris spoke to Rosamund.
“I want to see you—I want to talk to you,” he said urgently. “Can’t I play to you again—just to you all alone? Though for the matter of that I played that Brahms to you. You did know, didn’t you?”
He spoke with an odd inconsequence that was characteristic of his ardent, eager temperament.
“I thought perhaps you did,” she murmured, not coquettishly, but almost sadly, with a sort of uncertainty in her voice.
“Can’t I come over to-morrow? I must come. Where shall I find you?”
“Where’s Morris?” called Bertha Tregaskis.
“Coming,” he cried, and gave Rosamund one look before dashing into the hall.
She did not speak to him again, but he held her hand for an instant at parting and said “Good-night, Rosamund,” blessing the wonderful privilege of childhood which had allowed him always to use her Christian name.
Only a week and she would have gone away again! But doubt and diffidence were almost equally strangers to Morris, and he wove illimitable dreams into that space of eight days as he drove from Porthlew to Pensevern in the dark of an August night.