A cold world, out of doors, spreading all around, with the strangest encounters in it, with understandings and misunderstandings which made the blood run cold, and sent the heart up bounding into high passion and excitement, into feverish resolve and wild daring, and the madness of desperation--and in the very midst a sudden pause, the opening of a door, and then the confused chatter of the children, the sound of the teacups, the lamp which smelled of paraffin, the bread-and-butter,--how laughable it was, how ridiculous, what a contrast, what a slavery, how petty in the midst of all the passions and agitations that lay around!
Presently, Walter, in his boyish ingenuousness, began to feel a little proud that he, so simple as he sat there in the fumes of the household tea, was in reality a distracted yet well-nigh triumphant lover, meaning to put his fortune to the touch that very night, to pledge his new life and all it might bring. They thought him nothing more than a lad to be sent to school again, to be guided at their will, when he was a man and on the eve of an all-important decision, about to dispose of his existence.
He caught Mab’s eyes as this thought swelled in his mind. They were not penetrating or keen eyes; they were blue, very soft, smiling, child-like, lighted up with amused observation, noticing everything. But Walter felt them go through him as none of the other accustomed familiar eyes did. _She_ saw there was something more than usual about him. She would divine when he disappeared that his going away meant something. The family took no heed of his absence--he had gone out to take a turn, they would say; perhaps his father would grumble that he ought to be at his books. But only that little stranger would divine that Walter’s absence meant a great deal more--that it meant a romance, a poem, a drama, and that it consumed his entire life.
The dispersing of the children, the game of play permitted to Horry and the small brothers, the going to bed of the rest, made a moment of tumult and agitation. And in the midst of this Walter stole out unperceived into the clear air of the night. It was clear as a crystal, the sky shining, almost crackling with a sudden frost, the stars twinkling out of their profound blue, with such a sharp and icy brilliancy as occurs only now and then in the hardest winter. The air was so clear and exhilarating that Walter did not find it cold; indeed he was too much excited to be sensible of anything save the refreshment and keen restorative pinch of that nipping and eager atmosphere.