* * * * *
It was four o'clock in the morning. The last guest had gone, the
domestics had retired to their subterranean retreat, and the musicians
had all been booked through to Saffron Hill in one cab.
The dawn was just breaking over the house-tops on the other side of the
square, and the sky was bathed in a curious heather-coloured light--a
sure sign of a wet day to come, said hill-bred Robin. We stood out on
the steps,--Kitty, Dolly, Robin, and I,--and Kitty put her arm round her
sister's waist. I knew she was thinking of the absent Dilly.
Behind us, in the hall, Master Gerald, completely surfeited with about
sixteen crowded hours of glorious life, lay fast asleep on a settee.
I looked curiously at Dolly as she leaned on her sister's shoulder. She
was half a head taller than Kitty, and as she stood there, rosily
flushed, in the dawn of her splendid womanhood, she might have stood for
the very goddess whose first rays were now falling on her upturned face
and glinting hair.
Then I looked at Robin, towering beside her, and suddenly I felt a
little ashamed of myself.
For to tell the truth I had been very unhappy that evening, and I had
been looking forward in a few minutes' time to unburdening myself to
Kitty about recent events. But as I surveyed Dolly and Robin, curiously
alike in their upright carriage and steady gaze, I suddenly realised
that such a pair could safely be trusted to steer their own course; and
I decided there and then not to communicate even to Kitty--my wife and
Dolly's sister--the knowledge of what I had seen that night.
Kitty turned impulsively to her sister.
"After all, I've still got _you_, Dolly," she said.