“I don’t want to kill the time. I should like to keep it alive for ever,” said Cosmo, with a worshipping look at the beautiful lady—a summer-bird of heaven that had strayed into their lonely winter.
“Hold your tongue; you are an idiot!” said his lordship angrily. “—Old and young,” he went on, unaware of utterance, “the breed is idiotic. ’Tis time it were played out.”
Cosmo’s eyes flashed. But the rudesby was too old to be served as he had served the schoolmaster! He was their guest too, and the father of the lady by his side!
The hand of the lady stole to his, and patting it gently, said, as plainly as if it had been her mouth, “Don’t mind him; he is an old man, and does not know what he is saying.” He looked up in her face, and his anger was gone.
“Come with me,” he said, rising; “I will show you what books we have. There may be one you would like another time. We shall be back before the cards come.”
“Joan!” cried her father, “sit still.”
She glanced an appeal for consideration to Cosmo, and did not move. Cosmo sat down again. A few minutes passed in silence. Father and daughter stared into the fire. So did Cosmo. But into what different three worlds did the fire stare! The old man rose and went to the window.
“I must get away from this abominable place,” he said, “if it cost me my life.”
He looked out and shuddered. The world seemed impassable as a dead world on which the foot of the living could take no hold, could measure no distance, make no progress. Not a print of man or of beast was visible. It was like a world not yet discovered.
“I am tied to the stake; I hear the fire roaring!” he muttered. “My fate has found me—caught me like a rat, and is going to make an end of me! In my time nobody believed such things! Now they seem to be coming into fashion again!”