“Get out, then, and don’t fuss. What the devil are you going to do out there in the dark?”
Joan Gildersedge was kneeling on the window-seat, peering up through the casement, the candle-light glimmering on the gold in her hair.
“The sky streams stars,” she said.
“Damn the stars!”
“They are splendid.”
“The sun’s a useful fellow; the stars, idle devils, a pack of loafers debauching round the moon. They don’t ripen the crops or fruit. Talk common-sense.”
“The moon’s better than candle-light, father.”
“Rot! you can’t tote up figures by moonlight.”
Joan Gildersedge abandoned the philosopher to his ledger and took refuge amid the yew-trees, sombre under the stars. The trees seemed to whisper to her cheering natural lore, a calm optimism that baffled care. Before her stretched an unkempt, dusky lawn, rank grass running riot to the very curb of a low, red-brick wall. Beyond, the dark swell of a hill leaped southward to the cliffs, and below shone the subastral silver of the sea.
The girl leaned against a great pine whose boughs arabesqued the sky. A quiet breeze came, sighed, and played about her face. She stood there motionless in the half-gloom, her hands hanging listless, her eyes glimmering under the dusky coronal that swept her forehead. The solitude seemed to symbolize the solemn calm of the Universal Spirit, a soundless sympathy that enveloped the world.