“Yes, I can do it,” he replied, putting his arm around her, not stiffly and gingerly, but holding her so close that his face at times almost touched hers, and he felt her breath stir his hair during the mad waltz across the causeway.
“I should like to go on this way forever,” Elithe said when they stopped at last by the path which led up to her aunt’s cottage. “I have not danced before since I came, and you don’t know how I like it.”
“Shall we try it again?” Paul asked, holding out his arms, into which Elithe went with the eagerness of a child.
There was another turn across the causeway and back, and then, flushed and panting, Elithe said she was satisfied and must go in.
“I hope auntie is asleep,” she continued, “and you’d better not come up the gravel walk. Your boots will make a scrunching and waken her.”
She bade him good-night, and ran lightly on the grass to the side door of the cottage. Miss Hansford was awake, and had been since she heard the clock strike eleven. Elithe would soon be there, she thought, and, getting out of bed, she looked out to see if she were coming. On the causeway at the farther side was some white object moving rapidly, but without her far-see-ers she could not make out what it was.
“Two fools on a tandem wheel, I guess,” she thought, returning to her bed and listening until she heard the key turn in the lock and knew Elithe had come. There was the scratching of a match as Elithe glanced at the clock and then stole noiselessly up the stairs, her heart thumping wildly, when, as she passed her aunt’s door, a voice called out, “Is that you, Elithe?”
“Yes-m,” was the answer, demurely given.
“What time is it?”
“Half-past eleven.”