The white figure was still again.
“Oh, I understood!” He picked up the cigar again. “I felt just the same as you did. I knew the ghost that had stood so long between us was suddenly gone. He had moved out of the way, and you could see that I was there. For those next days you were—you were—I was full of hope. Then came word that Bella had broken her engagement.”
“No, that the marriage was postponed.”
He waited a moment, seemed about to speak, and then, instead of saying anything, with a sharp movement he threw his half-smoked cigar across the whitening silver of the path into the inky blotch the shrubbery made. Hildegarde’s eyes followed the flying red light till, against a tree trunk, it fell in a splash of sparks, and was swallowed up in shadow.
“I shan’t forget,” Cheviot went on, still on that low restrained note, “the look in your face as you said: ‘I never thought they were suited to one another. It would never have done.’”
“Did I say that?”
“Yes, and I looked up and I saw the ghost was there again, and presently I saw he wasn’t a ghost any longer, but a real man. An active expectation on your part—”
“No, no.” The voice was less denial than beseeching.
“Yes, a plan.”
The hands that were gripping the wicker chair pulled her quickly to her feet. “Bella!” she called to the white flicker by the dial. “It’s getting late!”