“He knew what he was talking about,” sighed John. “Unquestionably, at the moment, it would seem the veritable time and place,—the sunniest most desirable time, the sweetest-scented most gorgeous place. But she isn’t here. And, if she were, I’d bet anything the time and place would seem all wrong. The time would jump to about a million of years ahead, and as far the place——”
To tell the truth he hadn’t much idea as to what would happen to the place. His thoughts were hardly what might be termed precisely coherent, but perhaps you can arrive at some kind of a guess at them.
The third thought was neither fair, nor poetical. It was summed up in the one short, pithy phrase,
“Drat the man!”
By which token it will be seen that John had not yet recovered from his Monday’s mood.
Now, I don’t intend to attempt any detailed explanation as to why both John and Father Maloney had found themselves in this curious state of unwilling perturbation after one meeting with David Delancey, but it is very certain that the perturbation had not only arrived, but remained. Of course you will say sagely that it was the man’s personality, and equally of course you will be right. But what was there in his personality to cause this perturbation in two such entirely dissimilar minds? There’s the question! And I, for my part, can find no satisfactory verbal explanation of it. It is one thing to have the explanation in one’s mind, knowing the man; it is quite another to set it forth coherently in words. Therefore I will content myself with your sage remark that it was his personality.
“Drat him!” said John again.
And then he stopped short, looking towards the heather to his right
His attention had been attracted by a curious little mound of stones. Now it is not in the least unusual to see stones lying on a moorland among the heather. But to John’s eye there was something unusual about these stones. They had unquestionably been placed there by human agency; they were not the haphazard arrangement of mere chance.
John went across the heather towards them. They were built up in a small rough circle; a large flat stone formed a kind of roof or lid to them. John bent towards the mound.