Philip’s desk was close to an open window that looked across the verandah and over the garden hedge to the fir plantation on the other side of the white road.
A shaded lamp filled the room with shadows.
Philip, taking stock of scattered mental store, his pen poised between his fingers, feels the restfulness of the quiet night scene, which his eyes unconsciously record.
Then with a flash comes the first sentence, and words flow in a steady, unruffled current. The work becomes then a joy, almost an intoxication, and there is no thought of the battle to be fought later with the printed page.
The grandfather clock, bought in the High Street in the Old Town, strikes hour after hour. Still Philip’s pen flies over the paper, and sheet after sheet of manuscript is tossed on the growing pile, till at last dawn comes, and the pen is dropped, and Philip, with a weary smile, puts out his lamp and throws himself dressed upon his bed, to fall into a deep sleep.
And through this night Eweretta has lain sleepless, thinking of him, sure of his everlasting love, hoping with that hope which comes mercifully to the young to carry them with wings over the rough places in life’s road to the lands that always look so fair far off.
CHAPTER XIII
A JUDGMENT BY APPEARANCES
Phyllis Lane had become very exasperated. The Colonel’s irritability was phenomenal since that particular evening on which he had been rejected. He took his daughter severely to task for flirting with Dan Webster, and expressed devoutly his wish that his daughter was safely married, and to a man strong enough to keep her in order.
Miss Phyllis would toss her head saucily when she heard all this, and answer with playful banter.
She was exasperated, all the same.