On which I fell guiltily silent, and so did Pelleas. It is one of the hardships of life that it is impossible to grieve with the loser and rejoice with the winner of the same cause.
When, some time after we five had lunched alone on the veranda, Viola and Our Telephone waved our car down the drive, Pelleas and I were not less disposed to silence. Running slowly through the grounds Hobart Eddy glanced back at us, and,
“Well?” he asked gravely.
Pelleas and I looked away over the lawns and said nothing.
“You’ve still got me on your hands, fairy god-people,” said Hobart, and smiled angelically and quite without a shadow in his eyes.
“I know,” muttered Pelleas then; “we seem to be miserable at this kind of thing.”
And it did seem as if the path of In-the-Spring had eluded us.
Suddenly, with a great wrench, Hobart brought the car to a standstill. “Look! Look there! By Jove, there it is! Look at it go!” he cried like a boy. “What is it—O, I say, do you know what it is?”
We, too, had seen it—the joyous rise and curve of the wing of a scarlet tanager, flashing into flight, skimming a lawn, burning from the bough of a far sycamore.