And somebody in that breakfast-room, somebody besides themselves, heard every word they spoke, listened attentively, and understood the meanings they thought they hid so cleverly. They knew, moreover, that he did so.

"Let's pretend," Tim suddenly exclaimed, catching his sister's eye just as it was wandering into the pot of home-made marmalade.

"All right," she said at once, "same as usual, I suppose?"

Tim nodded, glancing across the table. "Sitting next to _you_, Uncle"--he pointed to the unoccupied chair and unused plate--"in that empty place."

"Thank you," murmured the man, still hovering between reality and dream. He said it shyly. It was all too marvellous to ask questions about, he felt.

"It's a lovely morning," continued Judy politely, smiling at the empty place. "Will you have tea and coffee, or milkhot.w.a.terandsugar?" She listened attentively for the answer, the smile of a d.u.c.h.ess on her rosy face, then bowed and handed a lump of sugar to Tim, who set it carefully in the middle of the plate.

"b.u.t.ter or honey?" inquired the boy, "or b.u.t.ter and honey?" He, too, waited for the inaudible reply, then asked his Uncle to pa.s.s the pot of honey _and_ the b.u.t.ter-dish. The Stranger, apparently, liked sweet things best--at any rate, natural things.

They went on with their breakfast then, eating as much as ever they could hold, talking about everything in the world as usual, and occasionally bowing to the empty chair, addressing remarks to it, and listening to--answers! Sometimes they pa.s.sed things, too--another lump of sugar, more drops of honey, a thick blob of clotted cream as well.

It was obvious to them that somebody occupied that chair, so real, indeed, that Uncle Felix found himself pa.s.sing things and making observations about the weather and even arranging a few crumbs of bread in a row beside the other delicacies. It was the right thing to do evidently; acting spontaneously, he had performed an inspired action.

And the odd thing was that the food, lying in the blaze of sunlight on the plate, slowly underwent a change: the sugar got smaller in size, the honey-drops diminished, the blob of cream lost its first circ.u.mference, and even the bread-crumbs seemed to dwindle visibly.

"It's very hot this morning," said Judy after a bit. "The sun's hungrier than usual," and she pushed the plate into the shade. But it was clear that she referred to some one other than the sun, although the sun belonged to what was going on. "Thirsty, too," she added, "although there are bucketsful of dew about."

"And extra bright into the bargain," declared Tim. "I love shiny stuff like that to wear and dress in. It fits so easily--no bothering b.u.t.tons."

"And doesn't wear out or stain, does it?" put in Uncle Felix, saying the first thing that came into his head--and again behaving in the appropriate, spontaneous manner. It was clear that the Stranger--to them, at least--was clothed in the gold and silver of the brilliant morning. There was a delicate perfume, too, as of wild flowers and sweet little roadside blossoms. The very air of the room was charged with some living light and beauty brought by the invisible guest. It was pa.s.sing wonderful. The invading Presence seemed all about them like a spreading fire of loveliness and joy--yet natural as sunshine.

Then, suddenly, Tim sprang up from his chair, and ran to the empty seat. His face shone with keen and eager expectancy, but wore a touch of shyness too.

"I want to be like you," he said in a hushed voice that had all the yearning of childhood breaking through it. "Please put your hand on me." He lowered his head and closed his eyes. He made an odd grimace, half pleasure and half awe, like a boy about to plunge into a pool of water,--then stood upright, proud and delighted as any victorious king.

He drew a long breath of relief. He seemed astonished that it had been so easily accomplished.

"I'm full of it!" he cried. "I'm burning! He touched me on the head!"

"Touched!" cried Judy, full herself of joy and happy envy.

The boy nodded his head, as though he would nod it off on to the tablecloth. He looked as if any minute he might burst into flame with the sheer enjoyment of it. "Warm all over," he gasped. "I could strike a match on my trousers now like Weeden."

Then, while Uncle Felix rubbed his eyes and did his best to see the invisible, Judy sprang lightly from her chair, ran up to the vacant place, put out her arms and bent her face down so that her falling torrent of hair concealed it for a moment. She certainly put her arms round--something. The next minute she straightened up again with triumph and tumult in her shining eyes.

"I kissed him," she announced, flushed like any rose, "and he kissed me back. He blew the wind into my hair as well. I'm flying! I'm lighter than a feather!" And she went, dancing and flitting, round the table like a happy bird.

Then Uncle Felix rose sedately from his seat. He did not mean to be left out of all this marvellous business merely because his body was a little older and more worn. He stretched his arm across the table, missing the cream-jug by a narrow margin, but knocking the toast-rack over in his eagerness. He held his hand out to the empty chair.

"Please take my hand," he said, "and let me have something too."

He went through the pantomime of shaking hands, but to his intense amazement it seemed that there was an answering clasp. A smooth, soft running touch closed gently on his own; it was cool and yielding, delicate as the down upon a robin's breast, yet firm as steel. And in that moment he knew that his glimpse on entering the room was not a trick, but had been a pa.s.sing glimpse of what the children always believed in, hoped for--saw.

"Thank you," he murmured, withdrawing his hand and examining it, "very much indeed. This _is_ a beautiful day."

An extraordinary power came into him, a feeling of confidence and security and joy he had never known before. Yet all he could find to say was that it was a very beautiful day. The commonest speech expressed exactly what he felt. Ordinary words at last had meaning, small words could tell it.

"It's all right?" remarked Tim, in an excited but quite natural tone.

"It _is_," he answered.

"Then let's go out now and do all sorts of things. There's simply heaps to do."

"Out into the sun," cried Judy. "Come on. We'll get into our old garden boots." And she dragged her brother headlong out of the room.

THE STRANGER WHO IS WONDER

II

And Uncle Felix moved forward into the pool of sunlight that blazed upon the faded carpet pattern. It was composed of round, fat trees, this pattern, with birds like goblin peac.o.c.ks flying in mid-air between them. The sunshine somehow lifted them, so that they floated upon the quivering atmosphere; the pattern seemed to hover between him and the carpet. And he too felt himself lifted--in mid-air--part of the day and sunshine.

He closed his eyes; he tried to realise who and where he was; all he could remember, however, went into a single sentence and kept repeating itself on the waves of his singing, dancing blood: "Clock's stopped, clock's stopped,--stopped clocks, stopped clocks...!" till it sounded like a puzzle sentence--then lost all meaning.

He sat down in a chair, but the chair was next to the "empty" one, and from it something poured into him, over him, round him, as wind pours about a bird or tree. He became enveloped by it; his mind began to rush, yet rushed in a circle, so that he never entirely lost sight of it. Another set of words replaced the first ones: "Behind Time, behind Time," jostling on each other's heels, tearing round and round like a Catherine Wheel, shining and dancing as they spun.

He opened his eyes and looked about him. The room was full of wonder.

It glistened, sparkled, shone. A million things, screened hitherto from sight by thick clouds of rushing minutes, paused and offered themselves; things that were commonplace before stood still, revealed in startling glory. They no longer raced past at headlong speed.

Visible at last, unmasked, they showed themselves as they really were, in naked beauty. This beauty settled on everything in golden rain, it settled on himself as well. All that his eyes rested on looked--distinguished....

And, like snow-flakes, words and thoughts came thickly crowding, like flakes of fire too. He s.n.a.t.c.hed at them, caught them in bunches, tried to sort them into sentences. They were everywhere about him, showering down as from a box of cardboard letters overturned in the sky. The reality he sought hid among them as a whole--he knew that--but no mere sequence of words and letters could quite capture this reality.

He plunged his hands among the flying symbols....

In a flash a number of things--an enormous number of things--became extraordinarily clear and simple; they became one single thing. Then, while reason and vision still fluttered to and fro, like a pair of b.u.t.terflies, first one and then the other leading, he dashed in between them. He seized handfuls of the flying letters and made the queerest sentences out of them, longer and faster-moving than the first ones.

"Time _is_ the arch-deceiver. It drives things past us in a hurrying flock. We s.n.a.t.c.h at them. And those we miss seem lost for ever because some one calls out, in a foolish voice of terror and regret, 'Too late!' Yet, in reality, _we_ stand still; the rush of the hours is a sham. We see things out of proportion, like trees from the window of a train, their beauty hidden in a long, thick smudge. _We_ do not move; it is the train that hurries us along: the trees are always steadily there--and beautiful. There is enough of everything for everybody--no need to try and get there first. To hurry is to chase your tail, which some one has suggested does not belong to you. It can never be captured by pursuit. But pause--stand still--it instantly presents itself, twitches its tip, and laughs: 'I've been here all the time. I'm part of you!'"

He turned towards the empty chair and smiled. The smile, he felt, came marvellously back to him from the sunshine and the open world of sky and trees beyond. There was some one there who smiled--invisibly.

"You're real, quite real," the letters danced instantly into new sentences. "But you are so awfully close to me--so close I cannot see you."

He felt the invisible Stranger suddenly as real as that. There was only one thing to see--only one thing everywhere. The beauty of the discovery put reason utterly and finally to flight. But that one thing was hiding. The Stranger concealed himself--he hid on purpose. He wanted to be looked for--found. And the heart grew "warm" or "cold"

accordingly: when it was warm that mysterious antic.i.p.ation stirred--"Some one is coming!"

And Uncle Felix, sitting in the sunlight of that breakfast-room, understood that the entire universe formed a conspiracy to hide "him."

Some one, indeed, had come, slipped into the gorgeous and detailed clothing of the entire world as easily as birds and trees slip into their own particular clothing, planning with Time to hide him, wanting to play a little--to play at Hide-and-Seek. "Let them all look for me!

I'm hiding!..."

Yet so few would play! Instead of coming out to find him where he hid so simply in the open, they built severe and gloomy edifices; invented Rules of the game by which each could prove himself right and all the others wrong.... Oh, dear!... And all the time, _he_ hid there in the open before their very eyes--in the wind, the stream, the gra.s.s, in the sunlight and the song of birds, and especially behind little careless things that took no thought ... waiting to play and let himself be found... while songs and poems and fairy-tales, even religious too, cried endlessly across the world, "Look and you'll find him." There _was_ only one thing to say: "Search in the open; he hides there!"

Everything became clear and simple--one thing, Life was a game of Hide-and-Seek. There were obstacles placed in the way on purpose to make it more interesting. One of them was Time. But everything was one thing, and one thing only; a peac.o.c.k and a policeman were the same, so were an elephant and a violet, an uncle and a bee, a Purple Emperor and a child like Tim or Judy: all did, said, lived one and the same thing only. They looked different--because one looked _at_ them differently.

Smiling happily to himself again as the letters grouped themselves swiftly into these curious sentences, he heard the birds singing in the clean, great sky... and it seemed to him that the Stranger blew softly upon his eyes and hair. The sentences instantly telescoped: "Come, look for me! There is no hurry; life has just begun...." And he barely had time to realise that the entire complicated ma.s.s of them had, after all, only this one thing to say... when the returning children bursting into the room scattered his long reverie, and the last cardboard letter disappeared like magic into empty s.p.a.ce.