Gwenna, thrilled by this message which she had caught by a method older and less demonstrable than Marconi's, realised: "He heard _that_, just now; that boy wanting to kiss Leslie.... He's thinking, now, that he might kiss me."
The boy scarcely at arm's length from her thought a little confusedly, "I say, though.... Rotten thing to do...."
The girl thought, "He would like to. _What_ is he waiting about? We shall have to go directly----"
For the sky outside had been swiftly paling. Now that pure pallor was changing to the glow of Abyssinian gold. Dawn! From the marquee came a louder blare of music; two long cornet notes and then a rollicking tune--The old "Post Horn" Galop--the last dance. Presently a distant noise of clapping and calls for "Extra"! There would be no time for extras, she'd heard. They would have to go after this. People were beginning to go. Already they had heard the noise of a car. His chair creaked as he moved a little sidewards.
He told himself, more emphatically, "Beastly rotten thing to do. This Little Thing would never speak to me again----"
And the girl sat there, without stirring, without glancing at him. Yet every curve of her little body, every eyelash, every soft breath she drew was calling him, was set upon "making" him. What could she do more to make herself, as Leslie called it, a magnet? Love and innocent longing filled her to the eyes, the tender fox-glove buds of lips that could have asked for nothing better. Even if this _were_ the only time! Even if she never saw him again!
Wasn't he going to set the crown upon her wonderful dream of a summer night?
"No, look _here_," the boy remonstrated silently with something in himself; something that seemed to mock him. He lifted his fair head with a gleam of that pride that goes so often before a fall. "Dash it all----"
"He will!" the girl thought breathlessly. And with her thought she seemed to cast all of her heart into the spell....
And then, quite suddenly, something happened whereby that spell was snapped. Even as she thought "_he will_," he rose from his chair.
He took a step to the entrance of their arbour, his shoulders blotting out the glowing light.
And Gwenna, rising too, listened, breathlessly, angrily. He would _not_--she had been cheated. What was it that had--_interfered_? Presently she heard it, she heard what she would have taken for the noise of another of the departing motors.