There was another warm silence. The boy had no idea of starting for his own cottage, nor had Hilda any idea of going to bed. It didn't, for some strange reason, occur to either that the parent Needhams might be waiting up in there, and that the minister, harassed over dim prospects of ruin perceived in the relationship of his daughter and the man who handled the Western interests, was attaining an attitude of really appalling austerity. No, they didn't bother their spoony young heads about any of these things, until all at once the cottage door opened, letting out upon them a flood of light from the living room.
"Hello, papa!" cried Hilda, guiltily and very affectionately. She jumped up.
The Rev. Needham did not say much out on the porch; but when Leslie had crept off, after hurriedly squeezing the girl's hand, and Hilda had been marshalled within, the law was laid down with unusual vigour. Mrs. Needham took it all rather more quietly, primarily because she did not share, in its full poignancy, her husband's alarm over Louise. Of course she was concerned. But the poise of climax was beginning to assert itself. No doubt tomorrow, if a reign of chaos really did set in, Mrs. Needham would rule over the turmoil like a very judge. She would become dominant, as when she went to rescue her daughter from the Potomac. It was perhaps her only complex.
Hilda had just been sent up to bed, rather subdued, but in her heart immensely radiant, when Marjory arrived home. O'Donnell wanted to hang around awhile, but she wouldn't let him. No, she positively refused to linger any longer in the moonlight. She reproved herself a little. She reproved him a little, too. They had already been quite romantic enough for one night. And she hustled him off with a lack of ceremony which went with her years and her temperament. All the same, he managed to steal a glancing kiss. And Eros—who I forgot to say had remained in hiding out there—Eros told himself that this was infinitely better for his purposes than a mere handshake!
When he had gone, she sat down on the steps alone, for a moment. It was so wonderful—life was—and the night. She watched the moon declining over a just-troubled sea. Then abruptly she became conscious of voices in the cottage living room.
"Now, your sister!"
"Well, Alf?"
"She's still out!"
"Oh, Marjory knows the way."
"But at such an hour!"