At dinner that day he was pleasant and cheerful. He joked with the boys on either side of him and asked where they were going for the holidays.
“Ah! Cromer—um—yes, very pleasant. Our little friend will amuse himself hugely at Cromer, no doubt. Sure to over-eat on Christmas Day. Um, yes—and you, Larkin, where do you go?... Ah! Whitby—long way. Yes, able to read your holiday task in the train.”
He sent the servant out to sharpen the carving-knife, and when it was brought back he attacked the mutton in the most furious way, scattering the gravy over the cloth.
After dinner he stood above the playing-fields, watching the clouds sail across the sky. It was a very gray-colored day, but there was the light of the sun behind it, so that everything shone without color but with a transparency as though one should be able to see other lights and colors behind it.
Perrin thought that he had never seen the clouds assume such curious shapes—perhaps they were not clouds at all, but rather creatures of the sky that only his eye could see, just as it was only his eye that could see the other Mr. Perrin. There were birds with long, bending necks, and fat, round-faced animals with only one eye, and stiff, angular creatures with wings and legs like sticks, and then again there were splendid galleons with sails unfurled, and cathedral towers and trees and mountain ranges—they were all very strange and beautiful, and perhaps this was the last time that he would see them.
Then he saw, passing down the path to the right and walking fast in the direction of the road, two figures; another glance, and he saw that they were Miss Desart and Traill—there was no doubt at all that that was Miss Desart in her gray dress, and that man with his swinging stick was Traill.
The sight of them together suddenly roused him to fury; it would be amusing to kill Traill now, there, before Miss Desart. He did not know how he would do it, perhaps he would spring on to Traill's back from behind and strangle him with his hands.
And so, with the other Mr. Perrin at his ear, he followed them down the path.
It was a day of ghosts—even the brown color of the earth of the hill that so seldom left it was gone to-day. It was not a cold day, and one felt that the sun was burning with intense heat in some neighboring place, but gray wisps of mist crept in and out of the black, naked hedges, and, at the bottom of the hill, banks of mist lay, visiting the cottages of the village.
The two figures passed in front of him down the hill and became, like the rest of the day, gray and misty, and he followed them, stealthily, with his hands behind his back. Their heads were very close together, and he could see that they were talking very eagerly. They were discussing, probably, their plans for the holidays, and it pleased him to think that he would make all their plans of no avail. It pleased the other Mr. Perrin also.