Such things as these, together with the strain of the waiting on the unknown, drew us insensibly together—I do not mean Agnes Anne—but just the two of us who were shut off apart in the window-seat. No, whatever her faults and shortcomings (too many of them recorded in this book), Agnes Anne acted the part of a good sister to me that night, and her peaceful breathing seemed to wall us off from the world.
“Duncan?” queried Miss Irma, repeating my name softly as to herself; “you are called Duncan, are you not?”
I nodded. “And you?” I asked, though of course I knew well enough.
“Irma Sobieski,” she answered. And then, perhaps because everything inside and out was so still and lonely, she shivered a little, and, without any reason at all, we moved nearer to each other on the window-seat—ever so little, but still nearer.
“You may call me Irma, if you like!” she said, very low, after a long pause.
Just then something brushed the window, going by with a soft woof of feathers.
“An owl! A big white one—I saw him!” I said. For indeed the bird had seemed as large as a goose, and appeared alarming enough to people so strung as we were, with ears and eyes grown almost intolerably acute in the effort of watching.
“Are you not frightened?” she demanded.
“No, Irma—no, Miss Irma!” I faltered.
“Well, I am,” she whispered; “I was not before when the mob came, because I had to do everything. But now—I am glad that you are here” (she paused the space of a breath), “you and your sister.”