Her name was called unmistakably across the lawn, and she rose. “They're all furious,” she announced, without moving further. Her face was pale, immaterial, in the gloom; her wide eyes dark, disturbing. A minute gold watch on her wrist ticked faintly, and—it seemed to Anthony—in furious haste. Something within him, struggling inarticulately for expression, hurt; an oppressive emotion beat upon his heart. He uttered a period about seeing her again.
“Some day you may show me the place where the fall sounds and the owls hunt. No, don't come with me.” She turned and fled.
An unreasoning conviction seized Anthony that a momentous occasion had overtaken him; he was unable to distinguish its features, discover it grave or gay; but, wrapped in the impenetrable veil of the future, it enveloped and permeated him, swept in the circle of his blood's circulation, vibrated in the cords of his sensitive ganglia. He returned slowly to the house: the brilliantly-lit, dancing figures seemed the mere figments of a febrile dream; but the music apparently throbbed within his brain.
Ellie's cool voice recreated his actual sphere. He found their hack, the driver slumbering doubled on the seat. The latter rose stiffly, and stirred his drowsing animal into a stumbling walk. Beyond the illuminated entrance to Hydrangea House the countryside lay profoundly dim to where the horizon flared with the pale reflection of distant lightning.
“Eliza's a sweet,” Ellie pronounced. Anthony brooded without reply upon his opinion. The iron-like collar had capitulated, and rested limply upon his limp shirt; at the sacrifice of a second button his waistcoat offered complete comfort. “I am going to get a new dress suit,” he announced decisively. Ellie smiled with sisterly malice. “Eliza is a sweet,” she reiterated.
“You go to thunder!” he retorted. But, “she's wonderful,” he admitted, and—out of his conclusive experience, “there is not another girl like her in all the world.”
“I'll agitate for the new suit,” Ellie promised.