Gabrielle, after a bewildered upward glance, of course agreed never to mention the circumstance to Sylvia—indeed, never to think of the poor old soul again. She went cheerfully on toward the pleasant moment of assuming the velvet gown, when Aunt Flora was gone, brushing her rich hair simply back, pleased in spite of herself with her unusual colour, and satisfied with the brown silk stockings and the brown pumps.
Suddenly there was a sound of laughter and voices and sleigh bells under her window, and for a moment she thought, with a sense of panic, that the company had come. She ran to her window and peeped down.
Below was darkness, through which the snow was falling—falling. But a great shaft of light shone out from the side door, and in it she could see the old red sleigh, filled with furry robes, and John on the front seat, already looking like a snow man. Daisy and Sarah and Maria and Etta were teasing John; it was evident that he and the two big horses were about to start off into the storm, and the maids were amused.
But there was no little old woman being bundled into the sleigh. No, though Maria shook out all the rugs and Etta put a great waterproof cover over them, Gabrielle saw nothing of her.
Where was she, then? Had Margret decided to keep her at Wastewater overnight? Odd!——
Odd, mused Gabrielle, slowly finishing her dressing. Odder still to have Margret herself, coming upstairs to take a last look at the waiting rooms, affirm that the poor old lady had gotten off in a great bustle with John, and surely her family was already wild with fright over her disappearance on such a night.
But again things of more vital interest to herself put these little mysteries out of Gabrielle’s head. For when she had gone downstairs, come up again, gone the rounds of the rooms, touching a new cake of soap here, and putting a small log into a stove there; when she had feared that this hall was too warm, and that passage too cold, and when she had stolen at least a hundred glances at her pretty flushed face in various mirrors and admired a hundred times the simple perfection of the velvet gown, Gabrielle really did hear sleigh bells again in the night, voices, laughter again. Then there was a sort of flurry downstairs, and the big front doors opened to a wild rush of wind and night and snow and storm that made the curtains balloon wildly even upstairs, and the lamps plunge convulsedly. Gabrielle heard “Mamma!” in what was of course Sylvia’s voice; then eager greetings and introductions and a perfect babel of voices.
She had been upstairs in the front hall; now, by simply descending, she could follow the company into the downstairs sitting room, which had been made warm and ready for this moment of arrival. Gabrielle in the darkness above stretched a hand for the smooth guidance of the wide balustrade and went down in light flight, like a skimming bird.
She had almost reached the lower level, which was but dimly lighted, when she saw that two persons were lingering in the hall, and stopped short, instinctively fearful that she had disturbed them. One was a woman, dark, furred, slender, and wearing a small, snow-powdered hat. The other was David.
Gabrielle was eighteen in years, but older in many ways than her years. She looked down and saw David, smiling that attentive smile of his, tall, broad, yet leanly built, belted into a brown coat that was not new, saying nothing that she could hear—just looking at this girl—just himself—David——