“A man, I think. His boots made such a noise, stamping over my head.”
“One of those wretched touring bicyclists probably. He will perhaps only stop the night. Any luggage?”
“I saw none. That rather helps the bicyclist theory. But then, I saw no bicycle. Oh! I do hope, though, that it is all right. We don’t want anyone else here, do we?”
She came a little nearer to him, unconsciously, as she spoke. “We”—she enjoyed using the pronoun. Together they walked down the espalier-bordered path of the inn garden; and, as they turned in under the porch, she raised her arm and broke off a rose and put it, somewhat obtrusively, and a little against his will perhaps, into the artist’s button-hole.
It was all done in the sight of Jane Anne, who came rushing downstairs from the upper rooms as they entered, looking, somehow, very busy and excited. It was Jane Anne, not Dorothy, who for some reason or other brought in the lamp to them that evening, setting it down heavily, so heavily that Mrs. Elles, looking up, saw that the girl’s hands were trembling with nervousness.
But through some unaccountable swing of the mental pendulum Phœbe Elles was to-night so nearly absolutely happy that she did not waste a thought on the causes of the young woman’s excitement, or that other problem, the possible duration of the mysterious visitor’s stay. Tourists might—and would—come and go, she and Rivers were there it might be for ever. For ever! Yes, she felt to-night as if that might really be, and life remain for ever a fairy tale. The prince was here, in the enchanted castle, in willing bonds to the enchanted princess, and so far, no dragons—or other princesses contested him with her.
She sat in the low window seat and leaned back against the sill, her hands idly clasped behind her head, and closed her eyes now and then, and felt so happy that she smiled without knowing it. She had bidden truce to her eternal self-consciousness for once.
Rivers looked up now and then, but there was no apprehension in his eyes. He did not see her—he was in another world—a world where neither Phœbe Elles, nor any other woman, could follow him. That could not be helped, but meantime his physical presence sufficed the woman who adored him. Her tense nerve fibres were momentarily relaxed, she was soothed and lulled into a state of happy acquiescence in the present order of things. It had been very hot all this August day, but now the cool airs of evening were just beginning to qualify the dry heat that had been so intense as to blister the window shutters, and make the air seem to dance on the distant skyline of the moors. Mrs. Elles was very lightly dressed, her thin muslin shirt showed the rosy skin of her shoulder that rested against the jamb of the window frame, half in, half out. She deliberately inhaled the sweet aromatic smell of the jessamine and the phloxes that grew under the window, and the mild breath of the cows that leaned over the fence. There were people in the garden, she could hear their whispering voices.
“Lovers probably,” she thought—“the landlady’s sons courting their lasses. How sweet it all is!”
After half an hour’s steady work, the painter became restless. Perhaps he remembered the advent of the presumed cyclist, and if he did, it worried him. He seemed to be listening once or twice to vague sounds heard in the passage outside, then he began to walk about. Once he brought up sharply in his walk in front of the stack of umbrellas and travelling gear in the corner of the room, and stood there. She happened to be looking out into the garden just then, or she would have thought this terribly ominous, and all her peace of mind would have been destroyed. When he came back to the table, he looked at the drawing and shook his head. That gesture escaped her too. Then he left the room and she saw him stroll deviously up the garden and look over the gate into the fields. When he came back, she had not moved or in any way modified the picture of restful contentment she presented. He looked at her—a puzzled look—then he said: