"Good-by," she answered his good-by, and they both laughed a little in a shyness which was a way of delight.
In the days to follow there flowed in the boy's veins a tide of novel sweetness. And now his thoughts eluded one another and made no chain, so that when he tried to remember what, on that first evening, the New Lady and he had talked about, there came only a kind of pleasure, but it had no name. Everything that he had to do pressed upon him, and when he could get time he was away to the meadow, looking down on the chimneys of that house, and swept by a current that was like a singing. And always, always it was as if some one were with him.
There came a night when he could no longer bear it, when his wish took him to itself and carried him with it. Those summer dusks, warm yellow with their moon and still odorous of spring, were hard to endure alone. Since the evening with her, Nicholas had not seen the New Lady save when, not seeing him, she had driven past in a phaëton. At the sight of her, and once at the sight of Elfa from that house, a faintness had seized him, so that he had wondered at himself for some one else, and then with a poignancy that was new pain, new joy, the new life, had rejoiced that he was himself. So, when he could no longer bear it, he took his evening way toward the row of poplars, regretting the moonlight lest by it they should see him coming. And to-night he had with him no verses, but only his longing heart.
He had no intimation of the guests, for the windows at that house were always brightly lighted, and until he was within the screened veranda the sound of voices did not reach him. Then from the rooms there came a babel of soft speech and laughter, and a touch of chords; and when he would have incontinently retreated, the New Lady crossed the hall and saw him.
She came to the doorway and greeted him, and Nicholas looked up in the choking discomfort of sudden fear. She was in a gown that was like her needlework, mysteriously fashioned and intricate with shining things which made her infinitely remote. The incomparable little hands were quite covered with jewels. It was as if he had come to see a spirit and had met a woman.
"How good of you to come again," she said. "Come, I want my friends to meet you."
Her friends! That quick crossing of words within there, then, meant the presence of her friends from the city.
"I couldn't! I came for a book—I'll get it some other time. I've got to go now!" Nicholas said.
Then, "Bettina—Bettina!" some one called from within, and a man appeared in the hallway, smiled at sight of the New Lady, dropped his glass at sight of Nicholas, bowed, turned away—oh, how should he know that her name was Bettina when Nicholas had not known!
This time he did not say good night at all. This time he did not look at his great hand, which was trembling, but he got away, mumbling something, his retreat graciously covered by the New Lady's light words. And, the sooner to be gone and out of the moonlight that would let them see him go, he struck blindly into the path that led to the side gate of the garden. The mortification that chains spirit to flesh and tortures both held him and tortured him. For a breath he imagined himself up there among them all, his hands holding his hat, imagined having to shake hands with them: and somehow this way of fellowship, this meeting of hands outstretched for hands, seemed, with them, the supreme ordeal, the true symbol of his alien state from them and from the New Lady. No doubt she understood him, but for the first time Nicholas saw that this is not enough. For the first time he saw that she was as far away from him as were the others. How easy, Nicholas thought piteously, those people in her house all found it to act the way they wanted to! Their hands must be like her hands....