“You’ll—you’ll leave me on the platform, won’t you? I mean . . .” The
girl was panting. “Not that I don’t care, dear, but I wouldn’t like
. . .”
“I—I swear,” said the man uncertainly.
Joan’s brain staggered.
“We must—must play the game,” she faltered, half to herself. Suddenly
she caught at his arm. “Oh, Perry, you _will_ be there? You won’t let me
down? If I came out of my sleeper, and you weren’t there . . .”
“I will be there.”
Joan gave a little sob.
Then she looked up.
“I’m an awful funk,” she quavered.
Peregrine rose and put her hand to his lips. He was quite calm now.
“Buck up, my lady,” he said. “The sea’s falling.”
Joan’s world rocked.
The trick had been done. The game was as good as played. The fallen
sparrow was up—spreading its wings. Very soon now it would be out of
sight. Only the decoy would be left—fallen on the ground. Only the
decoy. . . .
Her own words flamed at her.
‘The door’s open—I’ve only got to walk out.’
It was, indeed, ‘the easiest thing in the world.’ One didn’t need any
nerve to step _into heaven_. Besides, he was her man—had always been.
Already they’d lost seven years. . . .
Two figures loomed out of the shadows.
“The only objection to masks,” purred a familiar voice, “is that if a
wife should want her husband she can’t find him.”
With his back to the speaker, Peregrine stood like a rock.
“For my part,” came the reply, “I should call it a virtue.”
A provoking laugh answered him.
As the figures passed on, the mist lifted and Joan saw her path clear
cut. ‘He that hath clean hands . . .’ She was out to rescue, but not to
rob.
“Let’s go and dance once more,” she said quietly. “Then I’ll slip away.”
Peregrine muffled his face, and they passed back into the ball-room, the
slam and stutter of ragtime and the slash of the coloured lights. . . .