A letter arrived, in Gareth's boldly uncharacteristic calligraphy. She withdrew the sheets lovingly enough from their envelope, as the postman's clattering passage retreated down the street.
"I want to thank you," thus the missive ran. "And I want to do it largely and wonderfully, with an effect of shouts and clarion-calls and crashing thunders, in case you should not understand how big a thing in my life our holiday together has been. And I want to do it delicately, in miniature, with a fairy paint-box, and a flute of reeds, and single raindrops pattering, that you may see how each separate second of your company was in itself perfection. But with all this, I can only just write 'thank you' with sober pen and ink, on plain white paper. And because it is you, you will know.
"Our holiday—yes, but I shall speak the word now according to its derivation: 'holy day.' Holy days, for us, Kathleen!
"I am shutting my eyes—which is why the lines have run crooked—and I can see the silly little wooden ink-pot châlets, the sun striping across the pink pine-stems, the foam and tumble of seven white cascades down the mountainside. I shall always see it; you have dowered the beggarman richly, queen Kathleen.
"Gareth."
The girl perused the quaint, rather formal sentences, with the feeling that just this was needed still to round off the incident completely. He had spoilt nothing, had sweetened still further the aftermath, and added to its fragrance. Well-pleased, she would have replaced the sheets in their envelope, when she noticed that she had overlooked on the last page yet another scribbled line; a postscript:
"When may I see you again?—G.A.D."
And suddenly the human man sprang alive to her. How often she had heard him putting the very same question; how often smiled at the absurd kink in his nature it revealed, a queer incapacity to take leave of her, be it for ever so slight a period of time, without the eager question: "When shall I see you again? When? Where? How?"... Seeking always to let one meeting overlap the next; no trust in chance or in management. "When shall I see you again?" The one phrase touched a spring that set free a whole warm gush of recollections. Of course he should see her again! She was impatient for his coming, wrote to him instantly a summons to visit her the very next evening.
At the far end of the dark narrow hall, was an outjutting ledge, hidden from view by the staircase. It was seated here that Kathleen awaited him, the expectant fire in her red-brown eyes quenched by the sombre lighting, her feet drumming impatiently against the wall, as she wondered if Gareth in North Kensington would be very different from Gareth in Alpenruh. She was guiltily conscious of having slipped on an evening-dress, something soft and clinging in moss-green. Glad, too, that Nelly was not present to comment on the fact.
It was an exciting vigil, listening for the crunch of footsteps, the sharp peal of the bell which would scatter stillness. And all her knowledge of its approach did not prevent a quick jump in her heart at the actual happening. Then she sat motionless, thinking of him on the other side of the door. Presently, muttering to herself, the disagreeable housemaid-in-charge opened to the visitor.