My heart beat so fast that I couldn't speak: the sight of their wonderful dancing had gone to my head like wine, but Annabel was differently affected.
"Get up, you silly children," she said, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes; "I never saw such a wild pair as you are in my life! But you must take off the Guild garments now and put them back in their proper heaps, or else we shall never get all the things sorted and packed in bundles."
I went out of the hall and down the passage to the library, the dance had affected me more than I would allow anybody to see. It had made me feel young again, and I knew that young was what I must never—for Fay's sake—allow myself to feel. If I did it might weaken my resolve to play the role of the devout lover.
"What a wonderful thing Youth is!" I said to myself. "Nothing but Youth could have danced such a dance as that." And then I tried to imagine Annabel and myself dressed up in Guild garments and springing about the old hall till the world grew young again; but even my imagination—which is generally supposed to be fairly rosy—bucked at this. Such a thing was unimaginable.
"No," I added, with a sigh, "I was quite right. Miracles do happen nowadays, but not that particular one: there is no setting the dial ten degrees backward."
CHAPTER VII
THE GIFT
"I am afraid Fay is very ill: Dr. Jeffson is most anxious about her," said Annabel to me, as I came in rather late for luncheon one foggy November day. I had been busy all morning looking after various matters on the estate, as I had spent the three preceding days in London, and work at home had accumulated in my absence.
My heart stood still for a second, as hearts have a habit of doing at the sudden announcement of bad news, and a cold wave of sick misery seemed to engulf me. Then out of the engulfing wave I heard my voice saying: "What is the matter with her? I saw her just before I went to town, and then she had nothing but a slight cold."
"It wasn't slight at all, Reggie; it was a very heavy cold, and she, being young and foolish, didn't take proper care of it, with the consequence that it went from her chest down to her lungs, and now she is in for a sharp attack of pneumonia."