During the progress of this rite, Persis in the adjoining room, looked at the clock, glanced at the window and then paced the floor, for once in her well-disciplined life too nervous to utilize the flying moments. Persis was in the dilemma of a stage manager whose curtain is ready to go up, and whose prima donna is about to appear, while the audience has failed to materialize. To such mischances does one subject one's self in assuming the responsibilities of a deputy-providence.
Then her brow cleared, even while her heart jumped into her throat. The gate clicked, and a lithe figure swung up the path. Persis took her time in answering the peremptory knock.
"Good afternoon, Miss Persis. Mother said that you—"
"Walk in, Thad. Yes, I've a little package to send your mother. Sit down while I look for it."
Would the girl never come! The curtain was rung up, the audience waiting. But the stage was empty. How long a time in Heaven's name did Diantha expect to spend in combing her hair. "I should think she was waiting for it to grow," thought the harassed Persis. Very deliberately she opened and closed every drawer in the old-fashioned secretary, though she knew the upper contained only old letters and the second, garden seeds.
Thad was fidgeting. "If you can't put your hand on it, Miss Persis, don't bother to hunt. I'll drop in again in a day or two."
"Just a minute, Thad. It must be right around here. It can't—ah!"
Persis forgot the ending of the unnecessary sentence. For now Thad
West was at liberty to leave whenever he pleased.
A tall slender figure advanced into the room. Diantha's grace had always made her an anomaly among tall children. Her hair was parted and drawn back simply, after the fashion doubtless designed by earth's beauties, since it is the despair of plain women. The yellow curls, sacrificing their individual distinction, had magnanimously contributed to the perfection of the exquisite golden coil at the back of her shapely head. No one would have looked twice at the plain little lawn, but it proved superior to some more pretentious gowns in that it set off the charms of the wearer, instead of distracting attention from them. The unlooked-for apparition brought Thad West to his feet, and so Youth and Beauty met as if hitherto they had been strangers.
For a long half minute they stood without speaking. "Oh, good afternoon," Diantha said at last, and veiled her eyes from his fascinated stare. Formerly she had treated him with the free-and-easy pertness of a precocious child. Now the exquisite shyness of maidenhood enveloped her. Instinct drew her back from the man's inevitable advance. "I didn't know it was so late," she said to Persis, oblivious to Thad's gasping greeting. "I must hurry."
Thad's sense of confusion was like a physical dizziness. This regal young beauty was the daughter of the woman whose hand he had held surreptitiously the previous evening. With an effort he steadied himself, only to make the discovery that in that hazy moment the world had undergone a process of readjustment. He knew as well as he was ever to know it, that Annabel Sinclair belonged to another generation from his own.