She waited expectantly. Kate had told her story to this man in as many veiled ways as is permitted to a lady; but each time he had looked at her earnestly, as if she had propounded a serious riddle. And always it amused her—at least she smiled gamely—to see how really obtuse this clever man could be. This time, in the darkening night, she could not see his eyes as he bent forward; but she felt his arm tighten and the brotherly pat of his hand upon her own.
“You’re all right, Kate,” he said; and then, “Good old Kate!” which he repeated with great satisfaction. A second later, he asked irrelevantly, “Where are those children?” meaning Gorgas and Leopold.
They peered fruitlessly into the darkness, and even retraced their steps a part of the way down the Valley, but there was no sign of them.
“They have felt the spell of the evening and have tracked off,” Kate suggested. “Didn’t Leopold do that song well? ‘Forty year on when afar and asunder,’” she sang. “It gave me a thrill, I tell you.”
“Me, too,” Blynn pressed his lips together. “And how he felt it! Did you see him straining to keep the tears back? Think what it meant to him, that old parting song of Harrow!”
The floating melody and the words of the song lingered. By association, the thought of Gorgas came into their minds.
“They’ll be home before us,” Kate spoke out. “While we’ve been dawdling along they have probably taken some short cut. It may be Gorgas has dragged Leopold on one of her ‘bee-lines.’”
“Well, well!” Blynn laughed. “At night, too. Gorgas claims that’s to be one of the studies in Top-o’-the-Hill. ‘Cut a straight path,’ she says, ‘like a bee, only bee-ier:
‘Through bush, through briar,
Ice, rain, water, fire;