his yellow
hair standing out all ways like Struwelpeter's.

Though this startling scene hung but an instant in stillness,
Inglewood had time to feel once more what he had felt when
he saw the other lovers standing on the lawn--the sensation
of a certain cut and coloured clearness that belongs rather
to the things of art than to the things of experience.
The broken flowerpot with its red-hot geraniums, the green
bulk of Smith and the black bulk of Warner, the blue-spiked
railings behind, clutched by the stranger's yellow vulture
claws and peered over by his long vulture neck, the silk hat
on the gravel, and the little cloudlet of smoke floating
across the garden as innocently as the puff of a cigarette--
all these seemed unnaturally distinct and definite.
They existed, like symbols, in an ecstasy of separation.
Indeed, every object grew more and more particular
and precious because the whole picture was breaking up.
Things look so bright just before they burst.

Long before his fancies had begun, let alone ceased,
Arthur had stepped across and taken one of Smith's arms.
Simultaneously the little stranger had run up the steps and taken
the other. Smith went into peals of laughter, and surrendered
his pistol with perfect willingness. Moon raised the doctor
to his feet, and then went and leaned sullenly on the garden gate.
The girls were quiet and vigilant, as good women mostly
are in instants of catastrophe, but their faces showed that,
somehow or other, a light had been dashed out of the sky.
The doctor himself, when he had risen, collected his hat and wits,
and dusting himself down with an air of great disgust, turned to
them in brief apology. He was very white with his recent panic,
but he spoke with perfect self-control.

"You will excuse us, ladies," he said; "my friend and
Mr. Inglewood are both scientists in their several ways.
I think we had better all take Mr. Smith indoors, and communicate
with you later."

And under the guard of the three natural philosophers the disarmed Smith
was led tactfully into the house, still roaring with laughter.

From time to time during the next twenty minutes his distant
boom of mirth could again be heard through the half-open window;
but there came no echo of the quiet voices of the physicians.
The girls walked about the garden together, rubbing up each other's
spirits as best they might; Michael Moon still hung heavily against
the gate. Somewhere about the expiration