Claire nearly broke into a laugh at her own soft and quaint little apostrophe. Like most lonely people who dislike their solitude, she often felt the temptation to soliloquize; especially since her imagination was vigorous, and sometimes loved, as well, to let mount from its wrist the agile falcon of fancy. But a practical bent, as we call it, and a rather sharp sense of the humor of things besides, usually mingled to repress this volatile impulse. As it was, she gave a strong, tired sigh instead of a laugh, and turned her face homeward, though not her steps quite yet, for she still remained standing on the mound beside the water.
"My holiday," she thought, "is over." She did not know that it was just beginning.
Her last action had brought her into abrupt contact with a girlish figure, whose countenance she might have recognized had not the dusk so deepened.
V.
"I was mos' sure 'twas you, Miss Twining," said the new-comer, holding out a hand to Claire, "so I run a little further up the hill, jus' to make reel certain sure."
"Well, you were not wrong, Josie," said Claire, giving her own hand. It did not occur to her that she had been called "Miss Twining" and had answered by "Josie." In this case she took her rights of superiority without thinking; she did not stop to consider their soundness; it had always been to her an accepted fact that she was an alien and an exile, here in Greenpoint, and that the few residents whom she knew must of necessity admit her claim to having existed under better previous conditions. There was no taint of arrogance in this unargued assumption.
"You ain't often out's late's this, Miss Twining," said Josie, with a little burst of laughter. "Are you, now?"
"No, indeed," answered Claire. "I am not often out at all." She sighed again, quite unconsciously. "Well, Josie," she went on, "I must be getting back home. I've been away too long, as it is. You seem to be dressed in your very finest. Does it mean that you are going to enjoy yourself somewhere?"
Josie gave another laugh. "I expect so, Miss Twining," she said, with a touch of mysterious piquancy in her manner. She turned herself quickly about, looking over her shoulder all the while with the air of waiting for some one to appear. Claire watched her closely during the unconscious but significant by-play.