He gave a sigh of relief as they passed from the heated atmosphere of the house into the cool darkness without. The stars were still visible, but faint tokens of the coming dawn were already to be seen in the eastern sky. The stillness was delightful after the noise of the music and dancing, which had so jarred upon him; but he realized now how great the strain had been, and even out here in the quiet night it seemed to him that shadowy figures were being whirled past him, and that Blanche’s eyes were still seeking him out.
“You are very tired?” asked Sigrid, slipping her arm into his.
“Yes, tired to death,” he said. “It is humiliating for a fellow to be knocked up by so little.”
“I do not call it ‘little,’” she said eagerly. “You know quite well it was neither the heat nor the work which tired you. Oh, Frithiof, how could that woman dare to speak to you!”
“Hush!” he said sadly. “Talking only makes it worse. I wish you would drive the thought out of my head with something else. Say me some poetry—anything.”
“I hardly know what I can say unless it is an old poem that Cecil gave me when we were at Rowan Tree House, but I don’t think it is in your style quite.”
“Anything will do,” he said.
“Well, you shall have it then; it is an old fourteenth-century hymn.” And in her clear voice she repeated the following lines as they walked home through the deserted streets:
“Fighting the battle of life,
With a weary heart and head;