s, behind her, rolled two tears.
"Cookie, oh, Cookie!" And she ran out....
And the first moment? It was like nothing she had dreamed of. Strange,
stiff! One darting look, and then eyes down; one convulsive squeeze,
then such a formal shake of hot, dry hands, and off he had gone with
Felix to his room, and she with Sheila to hers, bewildered, biting down
consternation, trying desperately to behave 'like a little lady,' as her
old nurse would have put it--before Sheila, especially, whose hostility
she knew by instinct she had earned. All that evening, furtive watching,
formal talk, and underneath a ferment of doubt and fear and longing. All
a mistake! An awful mistake! Did he love her? Heaven! If he did not,
she could never face any one again. He could not love her! His eyes
were like those of a swan when its neck is drawn up and back in anger.
Terrible--having to show nothing, having to smile at Sheila, at Dad, and
Mother! And when at last she got to her room, she stood at the window
and at first simply leaned her forehead against the glass and shivered.
What had she done? Had she dreamed it all--dreamed that they had stood
together under those boughs in the darkness, and through their lips
exchanged their hearts? She must have dreamed it! Dreamed that most
wonderful, false dream! And the walk home in the thunder-storm, and his
arm round her, and her letters, and his letter--dreamed it all! And
now she was awake! From her lips came a little moan, and she sank down
huddled, and stayed there ever so long, numb and chilly. Undress--go
to bed? Not for the world. By the time the morning came she had got to
forget that she had dreamed. For very shame she had got to forget that;
no one should see. Her cheeks and ears and lips were burning, but her
body felt icy cold. Then--what time she did not know at all--she
felt she must go out and sit on the stairs. They had always been her
comforters, those wide, shallow, cosey stairs. Out and down the passage,
past all their rooms--his the last--to the dark stairs, eerie at night,
where the scent of age oozed out of the old house. All doors below,
above, were closed; it was like looking down into a well, to sit with
her head leaning against the banisters. And silent, so silent--just
those faint creakings that come from nowhere, as it might be the
breathing of the house. She put her arms round a cold banister and
hugged it hard. It hurt her, and she embraced it the harder. The first
te
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