I brought a warm wrap for Delia, a crimson cloak of mine which, so to say, drew a line about her, defining her prettiness; and in the starlight we set off along the snowless Plank Road, Delia and Abel and I in the tonneau of the machine, and I silent. It had befallen strangely that over this road Delia More and I should be faring in the Proudfits' car, and beside her Abel Halsey as if, for such as he and she, a dream may, just possibly, come back.
"See," she said to Abel, "the sky has gone back up again."
"Yes," Abel assented, "one of the things even the sky can't do is to change the way things are."
"Oh, I know, I know ..." said Delia More.
"I want you to feel that," said Abel, gently. "Things are the way things are, and no use trying to leave them out of it. Besides, you need them. They're foundation. Then you build, and build better. That's all there is to it, Delia."
She was silent, and Abel sat looking up at the stars.
"All there is to it except what I said about the other side of the sky," he said. "And then me. I'll help."
From my thought of these two I remember that I drifted on to some consideration of myself, for their presence opened old paths where were in durance things that did their best to escape, and were disquieting. I thought also of Calliope, of whose story I had heard a little from one and another. And it seemed to me that possibly Delia More's laughter and her wistfulness summed us all up.
When we drew up at the entrance to Proudfit House we all alighted, Calliope and Abel and I to walk home. But while we were saying good night to Delia, the door opened and Clementina Proudfit stood against the light. The car was to wait, she said, to take Mr. Baring, the lawyer, to the midnight train. And then, as she saw her:—
"Calliope!" she cried, "I never wanted anybody so much. Come in and make Mr. Baring a cup of your good coffee—you will, Calliope? Mother and I will be with him for half an hour yet. Come, all of you, and help her."