"I'm afraid," he said, "we'll be late for that concert. Unless we can strike Kilgour's habitation and get him to send us on. Shall we try for it? We're—oh, never mind where we are; it's the end of the world, anyhow. Are you tired to death?"
He turned round with the match in his fingers, and looked at her, but it had burnt down; he dropped it, and reaching out, caught her hand, swinging it in his as their horses stumbled on side by side.
"What a cold little hand!" he said, but his grip was warming it through the leather....
The end of the world.... He had used the word so lightly, but it called her back to reason. Another day was over. And perhaps to-morrow the world might end.
CHAPTER IX
The Duchess and her friend Wickes were a trifle anxious, but their faces cleared as the late ones arrived. Two or three rows behind them the village schoolmaster dropped like a shot rabbit into his seat.
"A minute later and we'd have been lost," whispered the Duchess. "It's always a battle to keep him off the platform. Once he is wound up no power on earth can stop him. Twice already he has offered his recitation, proposing to fill the breach."
"Poor devil, what a shame!" said Barnaby. "Why not let him?"
"We did let him—once," said Wickes, and a reminiscent shudder passed down the row. He addressed himself eagerly to Susan.