“Oh, I’m so glad.”
And then, though she had never done anything so mid-Victorian in her life before, she swayed and for the smallest fraction of a second lost consciousness, then woke to the realization that Terry was supporting her and straightened up with protestations that she was all right.
“But why did you, why did he do it? We were going to see something quite wonderful—I think the Indian snake dances are—”
It was Miss Gilchrist, but no one had to answer her, for Mr. Peyton-Russell came in just then to tell them that Miss Mayfield was quite all right.
“Angela’s going to stay with her for a while, but if any of you don’t feel that your nerves are quite ready for bed, come on down to the billiard room. There’s a little drink—real, old-fashioned hot Scotch, waiting for you.”
He was trying hard to be the imperturbable jovial host and perhaps he succeeded for there was a general exodus. Terry looked questioningly at Ruth.
She shook her head. She wanted above everything to get away from them. They would sit over their drinks and gossip discreetly—discuss George, why Pendragon had killed the snake, his sudden return to health, his usurpation of Aglipogue’s place at Gloria’s side. She had not killed the snake but she had gone through all the nervous strain of preparing to kill it—of thinking she had killed it and she was very tired.
Terry walked with her as far as the staircase.
“Tomorrow,” he said, but she did not know what he meant. Yet she slept that night. She was in that state of weariness mental and physical in which one stretches out like a cat, feeling the cool, clean linen like a caress and thanking God for the greatest blessing in all this tired world—sleep.
She woke late with a sense of happiness and relief even before she was sufficiently conscious to remember the events of the past night. It was a wonderful Christmas day—sunshiny and bright. She lay quietly thinking, looking at the holly wreaths at her windows and watching some snow birds on her sill. She wished lazily that she had some crumbs to feed them. She felt very young, almost like a child. It would be nice to be a child again, to get up and explore the contents of a stocking hung before the chimney place in the living-room of a Middle West home. She thought of her mother, as one inevitably thinks of the dead on days of home gathering, and soft tears filled her eyes.