"Never mind how I know," she said cryptically. "These things aren't withheld from me. They wouldn't be from you if you could empty your mind of self for even a moment."
No reinforcement to hope is really insignificant. Nelly had glowed at the eerie assurance. She was recalling it now, and smiling over poor Les's unearthly manner, when the hairy head under her hand moved convulsively. Perseus uttered a wild, strangling bark. A man was standing on the opposite side of the fireplace, looking at the pretty group of girl and animal—the dog asleep, the girl dreaming.
"Hello!" he said cheerfully.
IV
AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS
He was a big man, and in his long hairy coat he looked a giant. After the first glance the girl's first wild fear vanished. Burglars and murderers don't wear fur coats in business hours, nor hold goggles in their hand. Perseus, too, having given the alarm, had gone over to the stranger, and was sniffing at him in a way that suggested recognition. The unknown slapped his lean flank.
"Hello, Perse! You don't get any fatter, old man."
As he unwound a great woollen scarf from his neck, a fair, pleasant face, rather damp and weather beaten, emerged. She recognized her chatty friend of La Palèze immediately.
"I'm sorry if I startled you," he said, "but they told me Miss Barbour was in the hall, so I walked in. Were they pleasant dreams?"
Even in the red firelight the color on the girl's cheeks deepened perceptibly. "How can I slip past him?" she said to herself and then aloud: "If you don't mind waiting, I'll go and see whether my cousins are back. My uncle is at Shrewsbury."