"Sometimes. The colour of it and the unexpectedness. He believed the word didn't have any definite plan, but just wandered along the road and picked up adventures. And he loved that. He said God made a new earth every day and he rather fancied a new heaven oftener. But he got so dead tired at the end, homesick for the underground…. I wonder …"
The little woman was looking past him, straight into an evocation of a vanished presence that was so real, so nearly tangible, that Hugh was forced to lay violent hands upon his absurd impulse to glance over his shoulder "I wouldn't let him," she said, in a tone the young man had never heard before.
"You mean …"
"I couldn't bear it. I made him promise me that he wouldn't. I can't tell you that. We talked for a long time and the night was full of doom. He was tired then, but that wasn't all. He felt what was coming—the Shadow … and he was in terror. What he dreaded most was that it might change him in some way, make him something beastly and devilish—he who had always loved whatever was lovely and merciful and of good report."
Hugh got up with a shudder. "Hush!" he said, sharply. "It's too ghastly. Don't tell me any more about it." He wandered across the room, pulling a leaf from the azaleas, stopping at the window for a long look out. The wind was blowing some riotous young clouds over the sky like inarticulate shouts. There was an arrogant bird in the elm; there were pert crocus-buds in the window-boxes. The place was full of foolhardy little dare-devils who trusted their fate and might never find it out. After all, that was the way to live—as long as one was allowed. He turned suddenly with his whimsical smile. "I look out o' window quite a bit," he explained, "well, because of my aunt Maria." When he sat down again in the Sheraton chair Mrs. Shirley shifted her story to the plane of the smile.
"I don't know how late it was when Madame Normand popped her head out of the balcony door."
"'Who was then surprised? It was the lady,' as dear old Brantome says?"
"It was everybody. The company had gone and Mélanie the bonne was putting out the candles.
"'Miss Stewart and I have just discovered that we are very nearly related,' said he.
"'But how delightful,' said Madame, thoroughly annoyed."