"Men are so queer!" sighed Nancy, drowsily. "We had such a lovely evening—all except Chilly's not being there."
Echo slipped off her gown and drew out the pins from her hair, letting it fall in a shimmering cloud to her waist. Then in the moon-light she drew a deep chair before the open window and began to brush out that wonderful mass of stirring gold that curled and waved about her bare, round shoulders. Below her the garden lay, a mass of olive shadows, wound in cloudy golds and misty greens, sprinkled with moon-dust and drenched with the dizzying scent of roses and honeysuckle. All was lapped in the utter quiet of the night—only the swift wing of a night-bird shook the darker clump of ivy that marked the sun-dial. A long time she sat there, the brush parting and smoothing the bronze mesh with long sweeping movements, gazing into the whisper-haunted gloom and listening to the measured breathing of the girl behind her that seemed to form a rhythmical current for her own thoughts.
All at once in the hush there came the clashing of the gate at the foot of the drive and jovial "good-byes," mingled with a hilarious voice asseverating that its owner had had "the time of his young life."
She bit her lip. "It's Chilly!" she whispered, with a frowning look over her shoulder.
She listened intently. There was the crunch of an uncertain step on the gravel, the sound of a stumble from the porch—then the slamming of the front door.
The dulled sound reverberated through the old house. It roused Nancy and she sat upright in the drift of silken coverlets, her eyes heavy with sleep. "Is it Chilly?"
"Yes. He has just come in."
"Is he—?"
"I'm afraid so, dear."
The younger girl caught her breath. "Oh, I hope your father has gone to bed. He's so hard on him!"