Not since early boyhood had Jimmy descended stairs with such a rare burst of speed. He negotiated the nasty turn at the end of the first flight at quite a suicidal pace. Fate, however, had apparently wakened up again and resumed business, for he did not break his neck. A few moments later he was out on the terrace, bearing a cloak which he had snatched up en route in the hall.
“I thought you might be cold,” he said, breathing quickly.
“Oh, thank you,” said Molly. “How kind of you!” He put it round her shoulders. “Have you been running?”
“I came downstairs rather fast.”
“Were you afraid the boogaboos would get you?” she laughed. “I was thinking of when I was a small child. I was always afraid of them. I used to race downstairs when I had to go to my room in the dark, unless I could persuade some one to hold my hand all the way there and back.”
Her spirits had risen with Jimmy’s arrival. Things had been happening that worried her. She had gone out onto the terrace to be alone. When she heard his footsteps she had dreaded the advent of some garrulous fellow-guest, full of small talk. Jimmy, somehow, was a comfort—he did not disturb the atmosphere. Little as they had seen of each other, something in him—she could not say what—had drawn her to him. He was a man, she felt instinctively, she could trust.
They walked on in silence. Words were pouring into Jimmy’s mind, but he could not frame them. He seemed to have lost the power of coherent thought.
Molly said nothing. It was not a night for conversation. The moon had turned terrace and garden into a fairyland of black and silver. It was a night to look and listen and think.
They walked slowly up and down. As they turned for the second time Molly’s thoughts formed themselves into a question. Twice she was on the point of asking it, but each time she checked herself. It was an impossible question. She had no right to put it, and he had no right to answer. Yet something was driving her on to ask it.
It came out suddenly, without warning.