"That's all rather fine, I think," said Roddy. "I agree with her a bit. I think most people have got to be run—they just can't run themselves, so you have to put things into them."
"Well, that's just where we differ," she said sharply. "It isn't so. That's where all the muddle comes in. If everyone were just himself without anything borrowed—Oh! the brave world it'd be——"
Then she laughed. "But I'm all wrong myself, you know. I'm as muddled as anyone. I've got all the true, real me there, but all the Beaminster part has slurred it over. But I've got a horrid fear that Truth gets tired of waiting too long. One day, when you're not expecting it, it comes up and says—'Now you choose—your only chance. Are you going to use me or not? If not, I'm going'—How awful if one didn't realize the moment was there, and missed it."
She was laughing, but in her heart that other woman in her was stirring. For a startled, trembling second the wood seemed to flame, the gardens to blaze with the challenge:
"Are you, for the sake of the comfort and safety of life, playing false? Which way are you going?"
She burst into laughter, she caught Roddy by the arm. "Oh! I've talked such nonsense—It's getting cold—we've got to go in. Don't think I talk like that generally, Sir Roderick, because I don't—I——"
She was nervous, frightened. The stars were so many and it was so dark and Roddy no longer seemed a protection.
"I know it's late—Look here, I'm going to run—Race me——"
She tore for her very life out of the little wood, felt him pounding behind her, seized, with a gasp of relief, the lights and the voices—
She knew, with joy, that Roddy was closing the door behind her and that the garden and the stars and the wood were shut into silence.