In another moment she had guessed at their objective, remembering Canterton’s cottage that stood white and new and empty, under the black benisons of the tall firs. Her cottage! She thought of it instantly as something personal and precious, something that was symbolical, something that these pétroleuses should never harm.
“What are you going to burn this time?”
“A new house that belongs to the Cantertons of Fernhill.”
Eve’s sense of humour was able to snatch one instant’s laughter from the unexpectedness of the adventure. What interplay life offered. What a jest circumstances were working off on her. She was being challenged to declare herself, subjected to a Solomon’s judgment, posed by being asked to destroy something that had been created for the real woman in herself.
She was conscious of a tense feeling at the heart, and a quickening of her breathing. The physical part of her was to be embroiled. She heard Lizzie Straker giggling noiselessly, and the sound angered her, touched some red spot in her brain. She felt her muscles quivering.
“Would it be the cottage?”
Her doubts were soon set at rest, for Joan Gaunt turned aside along a broad path that led through a dense plantation. It was thick midnight here, but as the trees thinned Eve saw a whiteness shining through—the white walls of Canterton’s cottage.
For the moment her brain felt fogged. She was trembling on the edge of action, yet still held back and waited.
The whole party hesitated on the edge of the wood, the women and Lawrence Kentucky speaking in whispers.
“Seems all right!”