On the veranda, again, Countess Betty and Madame Bonnechose were sitting together, folding their hands in their laps and saying reverently, "Ah, la jeunesse, la chère jeunesse."
Only the two children were dissatisfied. Bob and Erika stood on the garden-walk, grumbling because there was no prospect of some amusement: a walk, or a general game.
"If all of them never do anything but get engaged," said Bob, "then of course there's nothing doing. Boris takes possession of Billy as if she was Poland."
"That won't do him any good," remarked Erika, "papa is against the marriage, I know he is."
The sun had set. From the forest and across the meadows came a damp breath that shook the branches of the old fruit-trees. Monotonous and plaintive was the singing of the peasant-girls walking down the dusky country-road.
Bob had achieved his general game. One person stood by a tree and counted, the others hid. Billy ran over to the dense barberry-bush. There it was dark, and one smelled the boards of an old wooden box that stood there, garden loam, and the sourish barberries. Billy was a little breathless, her heart beat so violently, she heard it beat: it sounded like soft steps running, hurry, hurry, toward an unknown goal. A great agitation made Billy shrink and shudder, such an agitation as makes the universally familiar things round about seem strange,--significant and as it were pregnant with secretly, noiselessly advancing events. Billy was ready for any experience. Boris' mellow voice seemed to raze all the barriers with which this child had been solicitously hedged in. Ah yes, to be able to share Boris' life, so full of great feelings and great words--this was what Billy now must have.
"Billy," she heard a low voice in the darkness.
It was Boris. Billy was not surprised; she had felt him so passionately all this time that his presence seemed to her a matter of course.
"Yes, Boris," she answered as softly.
He now stood quite close to her, she detected the strong, sweet perfume he liked to use.