“Getting ready for the barbecue already!” said he, “With that and the games and all, they ought to have enough to keep them busy for one day. Don't you think they'll have to let us go a while? There are still a few finishing touches to put to the new laws I'm going to hand the Council this afternoon for the Folk to hear. Yes, by all means, they'll have to let us go.”
Together they walked back to their bungalow amid its gardens of palm-growths, ferns and flowers. Here they stopped a moment to chat with some good friend, there to watch the children and--parentlike--make sure young Allan was safe and only normally dirty and grass-stained.
They gained their broad piazza at length, turned, and for a while watched the busy, happy scene in the shaded street, the plaza and the playground.
Then Beta sat down by the cradle--still in that same low chair Allan had built for her five years ago, a chair she had steadily refused to barter for a finer one.
He drew up another beside her. From his pocket he drew a paper--the new laws--and for a minute studied it with bent brows.
The soft wind stirred the woman's hair as she sat there half dreaming, her blue-gray eyes, a little moist, seeing far more than just what lay before them. On his head a shaft of sunlight fell, and had you looked you might have seen the crisp, black hair none too sparingly lined with gray.
But his gaze was strong and level and his smile the same as in bygone years, as with his left hand he pressed hers and, with a look eloquent of many things, said:
“Now, sweetheart, if you're quite ready--?”
CHAPTER XXXIV
HISTORY AND ROSES
Allan sat writing in his library. Ten years had now slipped past since the last of the Folk had been brought to the surface and the ancient settlement in the bowels of the earth forever abandoned. Heavily sprinkled with gray, the man's hair showed the stress of time and labors incredible.