"I know that. Things is very altered since my day," said Mrs. Creddle. "But there's some things——"
"I've no patience with people like you, aunt," said Caroline. "You know everything has changed, and yet you go on expecting girls to be the one thing that hasn't. It isn't common sense."
She was flinging out of the kitchen, when Mrs. Creddle caught her up and put a motherly arm about her. "Good-bye, my lass. You think nobody's felt like you before about a young man, but they have."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I've a bit of a head, but that's all," said Carrie.
After that she went away. But all the same she was a little comforted—real, disinterested love being the one ointment that can soothe tender hearts not yet cauterized by pain.
So the day passed; then the next wore on towards evening, with no sign of Godfrey. And all through the long hours, Caroline sat in the pay-box looking out of her little window—small, set face, very pale, and bright eyes intently watching—like some creature of the wild behind a gap in the thick leafage.
Now it was past sunset. The residents of Thorhaven had taken possession of their town again and the few visitors who remained were sprinkled about inconspicuously among the audience in the concert hall—the dominant factor no longer. Caroline exchanged greetings with many of her acquaintances who emerged from the seclusion entailed by letting rooms or vacating houses, and now shook their feathers like hens coming off the nest with the pleasant knowledge of a nest-egg successfully achieved. "Pretty good season, considering," ran the verdict; but the general mind was a happy one, in spite of a certain feeling of exhaustion. "Pickles!" said Lillie's mother. "I give you my word, Carrie, one lot ate cheese and pickles after the promenade every night to that degree it fair curdles my inside to think of. But as I say, each person's inside is their own. Live and let live, say I." And the good woman hurried on to spend part of the proceeds of this wise neutrality, her Sunday hat still quite like new from lack of use, and a holiday spirit radiating from her rather worn features.
Caroline had responded to all these greetings, but she was glad when the concert began in the promenade hall and only a few stragglers passed through the barrier at long intervals. Once more she was free to resume that silent, intent watch which had occupied nearly the whole day.
But night was coming on fast now—with a heavy ground-swell and a wild streak of orange on the western sky. Caroline never thought once of the sea, and certainly was not conscious of being affected by it—she was, in fact, not aware of it at all. Yet it was just because she did most deeply respond to it that her affair with Godfrey was lifted for her beyond the trivial into those regions where passion really has dignity. That interview of theirs on the cliff top would have been poignant for both if it had taken place in a dingy back sitting-room; but something must have been absent—that unforgettable thrill which comes when beauty is joined to great emotion.
After a while, Caroline saw a woman leave the concert hall to cross the promenade, which already gleamed darkly with rain-drops. As she went through the turnstile she said: "I doubt we shall have a wet night." Then followed a storm of applause from the hall. "There!" added the woman, "I wish I could have stopped for the encore, but I had to get away, though I was forced to squeeze past Miss Temple and her gentleman on my way out. She does look bad, my word! Them that said it was all a tale about her being ill, have only to look at her. Well, good night."