"I looked 'way down the Plank Road, on its way to its business of being Daphne Street, and it come to me that neither the one nor the other stopped in Friendship Village. But they led on out, down past the wood lots and the Pump pasture and across the tracks and up the hill, and right off into that sky that somebody was keeping lit up and turned down low. And I said something that I'd thought before:
"'Ain't it,' I says, 'like sometimes everybody in the world come and stood right close up beside of you, and spoke through the walls of you for something inside of you to come out and be there with them?'
"'That's it,' he says, only. 'That's it.' But I see his mind nipped onto what mine meant, and tied it in the right place.
"When we got to Mis' Emmons's corner, I turned off from Daphne Street to go that way, because I'd told her I'd look in that night and see what they'd bought in town. It was late, for the village, but Mis' Emmons never minded that. The living-room light was showing through the curtains, and Insley, saying good night to me, looked towards the windows awful wistful. I guessed why. It was part because he felt as if he must see Robin Sidney and they must talk over together what Alex Proudfit had said to him. And part it was just plain because he wanted to see her again.
"'Why don't you come in a minute,' I says, 'and ask after Christopher? Then you can see me home.'
"'Wouldn't they mind it being late?' he asks.
"I couldn't help smiling at that. Once Mis' Emmons had called us all up by telephone at ten o'clock at night to invite us to her house two days later. She explained afterwards that she hadn't looked at the clock for a week, but if she had, she might have called us just the same. 'For my life,' she says, 'I can't be afraid of ten o'clock. Indeed, I rather like it.' I told him this, while we was walking in from her gate.
"'Mrs. Emmons,' he says, when she come to the door, 'I've come because I hear that you like ten o'clock, and so do I. I wanted to ask if you've ever been able to make it last?'
"'No,' she says. 'I prefer a new one every night—and this one to-night is an exceptionally good one.'
"She always answered back so pretty. I feel glad when folks can. It's like they had an extra brain to 'em.