[Illustration: musical notation.]
A man entered the gate very quietly, paused, then turned into the garden, to soothe his wildly beating heart for a few moments with the balm of scent and sound. Upstairs, behind the shelter of the swaying curtain, a shining figure drew back into the shadow. Smiling, and with an agreeable sense of adventure, Isabel tiptoed down the back stairs, and entered the garden, unheard, by a side door.
With assumed carelessness, yet furtively watching, she made the circuit of the lily-pool, humming to herself. A quick leap and a light foot on the grass startled her for an instant, then she laughed, for it was only Mr. Boffin, playing with his own dancing shadow.
[Illustration: musical notation.]
The sound of the piano had become very faint, though the windows were open and the wind was in the right direction. Isabel stopped at another bush, picked a few full-blown white roses, and sat down on a garden bench to remove the thorns.
"I wonder where he can be," she said to herself. "Surely he can't have gone home again." She listened, but there was no sound save the distant piano, and the abrupt, playful purr of Mr. Boffin, as he pounced upon a fallen white rose.
Isabel put the flowers in her hair, consciously missing the mirror in which she was wont to observe the effect. "He must have gone in while I was coming down," she thought, "but I don't see why he shouldn't have gone straight in when he first came."
She decided to wait until he came to look for her, then as swiftly changed her mind. Rose was still playing.
[Illustration: musical notation.]
Isabel hummed the melody to herself, not noting that she was off the key, and started slowly toward the house, by another path.