He seemed all impulse, sparkling to the novelty of the idea.
“Well, but———” She hesitated.
“I’ve got one—a beauty, a monster! I noticed the wind was getting up yesterday. Come!”
He pulled at her hand; she obeyed him, not quickly. She put on her hat, a plain straw, a thick jacket, gloves. Kite-flying in London seemed an odd notion. Was it lively and entertaining, or merely silly? Which ought it to be?
Eustace shouted to her from the tiny hall.
“Hurry!” he cried.
The wind yelled beyond the door, and Winifred ran down, beginning to feel a childish thrill of excitement. Eustace held the kite. It was, indeed, a white monster, gaily decorated with fluttering scarlet and blue ribbons.
“We shall be mobbed,” she said.
“There’s no one about,” he answered. “The gale frightens people.”
He opened the door, and they were out in the crying tempest. The great clouds flew along the sky like an army in retreat. Some, to Winifred, seemed soldiers, others baggage-waggons, horses, gun-carriages, rushing pell-mell for safety. One drooping, tattered cloud she deemed the colours of a regiment streaming under the stars that peeped out here and there—watching sentinel eyes, obdurate, till some magic password softened them.