grown bored with the game, Jimmy strolled out of the room. He paused
outside the door for a moment, wondering what to do. There was
bridge in the smoking-room, but he did not feel inclined for bridge.
From the drawing-room came sounds of music. He turned in that
direction, then stopped again. He came to the conclusion that he did
not feel sociable. He wanted to think. A cigar on the terrace would
meet his needs.
He went up to his room for his cigar-case. The window was open. He
leaned out. There was almost a full moon, and it was very light out
of doors. His eye was caught by a movement at the further end of the
terrace, where the shadow was. A girl came out of the shadow,
walking slowly.
Not since early boyhood had Jimmy descended stairs with such a rare
burst of speed. He negotiated the nasty turn at the end of the first
flight at quite a suicidal pace. Fate, however, had apparently
wakened again and resumed business, for he did not break his neck. A
few moments later, he was out on the terrace, bearing a cloak which,
he had snatched up en route in the hall.
“I thought you might be cold,” he said, breathing quickly.
“Oh, thank you,” said Molly. “How kind of you!” He put it round her
shoulders. “Have you. been running?”
“I came downstairs rather fast.”
“Were you afraid the boogaboos would get you?” she laughed. “I was
thinking of when I was a small child. I was always afraid of them. I
used, to race downstairs when I had to go to my room in the dark,
unless I could persuade someone to hold my hand all the way there
and back.”
Her spirits had risen with Jimmy’s arrival. Things had been
happening that worried her. She had gone out on to the terrace to be
alone. When she heard his footsteps, she had dreaded the advent of
some garrulous fellow-guest, full of small talk. Jimmy, somehow, was
a comfort. He did not disturb the atmosphere. Little as they had
seen of each other, something in him–she could not say what–had
drawn her to him. He was a man whom she could trust instinctively.
They walked on in silence. Words were pouring into Jimmy’s mind, but
he could not frame them. He seemed to have lost the power of
coherent thought.
Molly said nothing. It was not a night for conversation. The moon
had turned terrace and garden into a fairyland of black and silver.
It was a night to look and listen and think.
They walked slowly up and down. As they turned for the second time,
Molly’s thoughts formed themselves into a question. Twice she was on
the point of asking it, but each time she checked herself. It was an
impossible question. She had no right to put it, and he had no right
to answer. Yet, something was driving her on to ask it.
It came out suddenly, without warning.
“Mr. Pitt, what do you think of Lord Dreever?”
Jimmy started. No question could have chimed in more aptly with his
thoughts. Even as she spoke, he was struggling to keep himself from
asking her the same thing.
“Oh, I know I ought not to ask,” she went on. “He’s your host, and
you’re his friend. I know. But–”
Her voice trailed off. The muscles of Jimmy’s back tightened and
quivered. But he could find no words.
“I wouldn’t ask anyone else. But you’re–different, somehow. I don’t
know what I mean. We hardly know each other. But–”
She stopped again; and still he was dumb.
“I feel so alone,” she said very quietly, almost to herself.
Something seemed to break in Jimmy’s head. His brain suddenly
cleared. He took a step forward.
A huge shadow blackened the white grass. Jimmy wheeled round. It was
McEachern.
“I have been looking for you, Molly, my dear,” he said, heavily. “I
thought you must have gone to bed.”
He turned to Jimmy, and addressed him for the first time since their
meeting in the bedroom.
“Will you excuse us, Mr. Pitt?”
Jimmy bowed, and walked rapidly toward the house. At the door, he