But Judith did not go up-stairs.
After nearly an hour spent in the drawing-room, she left her elder cousins engrossed in whist, saying that she was going up until time for supper. She went to the foot of the stairs, then half-way up, to where the stairs made a turn, and stood for a time, listening. Everything was quiet above. In the dining-room the men were still talking, and the drawing-room was silent except for an occasional remark. Smothered by the intervening walls, the music and the stir in the ballroom seemed distant.
Judith listened to the conclusion of a waltz, then to the chatter on the veranda—until it was drawn back again into the ballroom by the less rhythmic measure of a square dance. Then she crept down, went quickly through the hall and out to the veranda.
Baird was there, waiting for her. He sprang up from a bench. "I hoped you'd come!" he said. "I didn't like to go in and ask for you."
They stood for a moment. "Have you been enjoying yourself?" Judith asked.
"No, you didn't come back."
Judith laughed softly. "You are not polite to my party, suh."
"Never mind." He touched her bare arm. "Where can I get something to put around you?"
"My cape is in the hall—behind the stairs—and my overshoes.... It is so warm—we might go down to the walk."
"Down to the terraces," Baird said with the quickness of the man alert to every advantage.