"I don't think you're very kind, Girl Blue."

"No?"

"No, I don't! I've got the gloves, by the way."

"Thank you."

"I'll send them to you, care of Charing Cross Post Office, if you like, unless you'd rather I buried them six paces due east of the fourteenth lamp-post on the west side of Edgware Road."

"I think," she said slowly, "I think I may as well take them with me."

"Certainly, madam. Sign, please! But when, dear?"

"Well, I shall be at the Albert Hall next Friday."

"Girl Blue!"

"I don't suppose you're going, but perhaps you could send them by someone who--"

"Under what symbol shall I meet her?"

"Wait a moment! You shall have the seventh waltz--"

"Only seven? Where is he? What is his name?"

"You heard what I said. And we'll meet under--oh, under--"

"Mistletoe," said I. "Good-bye!"

"Good-bye! Oh, Girl Blue, I forgot to say--"

"Number, please!" said Exchange.

"You've cut me off!" I roared.

"Sorry."

A pause. Then:

"Here you are."

"Hullo, dear!" I said.

"Is that the cab rank?" said a man's fat voice.

"No, it isn't," said I. "And you've got an ugly face and flat feet, and I hate you!"

Then I rang off.

CHAPTER XV

ALL FOUND

I had seen her but once before, and that was at the Savoy on New Year's Eve. She had been with her party at one table, and I with mine at another. And in the midst of the reveling I had chanced to look up and into one of the great mirrors which made a panel upon the wall. There I had seen the girl, sitting back in her chair, smiling and fresh and white-shouldered, in a dress of black and gold, her fingers about the stem of her goblet. Not talking, listening, rather, to the words of a man at her side, whose eyes were watching her smiling lips somewhat greedily. He had red hair, I remember, and a moustache brushed up to hide a long upper lip. And, as I looked, she also had looked up, and our eyes had met. There and then I had raised my wine and toasted her--her of the looking-gla.s.s. The smile had deepened. Then she had raised her gla.s.s, and drunk to me in return. That was all. And when Berry had leaned across the table and asked:

"Who's your friend?"

"I wish I knew."

"Pshaw!" said my brother-in-law. "I say it deliberately."

"I drank to a thought," said I. "Believe me." After all, a thought is a reflection. And now here she was, sitting in the gra.s.s by the wayside.

"She's brown, isn't she?" said I.

"As a berry. I like his breeches."

I bowed. "Thank you. And for you,'picturesque' is the word--one of the words. Shall I compare you to a summer's day?"

"I'd rather you collected that cow. She's getting too near the river for my liking. I'm looking after the dears."

"Are you?" said I. "But-"

"But what?"

"'Quis custodiet--'"

The apple she threw pa.s.sed over my shoulder.

Mountains and valleys, swift rivers and curling roads, here and there a village shining in the hot sun, and once in a while a castle in the woods, white-walled, red-roofed, peaceful enough now in its old age, but hinting at wild oats sown and reaped when it was young. Hinting broadly, too. At nights shaken with the flare of torches and the clash of arms, at oaths and laughter and the tinkle of spurs on the worn steps, at threats and bloodlettings and all the good old ways, now dead, out of date, and less indebted to memory than imagination. And then at galleries with creaking floors, at arras and the rustle of a dress; whisperings, too, and the proud flash of eyes, hands lily-white, whose fingers men must kiss and in the eyes mirror themselves. But these things are not dead. Old-fashioned wrath is over--gone to its long home: love is not even wrinkled. Yet again it was before wrath...

I set out to describe the province of Krain, and now I have strayed from the highway up one of those curling roads to one of those white castles, only to lose myself in the thicket of Romance beyond. Perhaps it does not matter. Anyway, it was on the slope of a green meadow all among the mountains of Krain that the girl was sitting, herself unminded, minding her cows. And out of the woods above her a round, white tower proclaimed a chateau set on the shoulder of a hill.

Her dress was that of the country, and yet, perhaps, rather such as Croatian peasants wear. All white linen, embroidered ever so richly, cut low and round at the neck, and with the skirt falling some four inches below her knee: short sleeves, a small, white ap.r.o.n, and over her thick, fair hair a bright red kerchief. But her stockings were of white silk, and small, black buckled slippers kept the little feet.

Clear, blue eyes hers, and a small merry mouth, and a skin after the sun's own heart. It was so brown--such an even, delicate brown. Brown cheeks and temples, brown arms and hands, brown throat. Oh, very picturesque.

I rounded up the cow errant, returned to my lady, and took my seat by her side.

"Thank you," she said. "And now, who are you and what do you want?"

"My name," said I, "is Norval. And I want to know the way to the pageant-ground, and when does your scene come on?"

"It is a nice dress, isn't it?"

She rose and stood smoothing her frock and ap.r.o.n.