As for Cicely's part of it, I know she had been thrilled when Henry read her the first ten stories. She had read more than the Sunbury girls; and she saw more in his oddities than they were capable of seeing. To fail in any degree to conform to the prevailing customs and thought was to be ridiculous in Sunbury. But she had no more forgotten the jeers that had followed Henry from this very carriage as he chased his hat down Simpson Street the preceding day than had Henry himself. Nor had she forgotten that Herbert de Casselles had been one of that unkind group. And as she certainly knew what she was about, despite her impulsiveness, I prefer to think that her action was deliberately kind and deliberately brave.
'Come to dinner,' said Madame Watt shortly but with a sort of rough cordiality. 'Seven o'clock. To-morrow evening. Informal dress. All right, Watson.'
Cicely settled back, her eyes bright; but gave Henry only the same suddenly impersonal little nod of good-bye that she gave Herbert de Casselles.
The footman leaped to the box. The remarkable carriage rolled luxuriously away on its rubber tyres.
Henry turned, grinning in foolish happiness, on the young man in the frock coat who had not been asked to dinner.
'Walking up toward Simpson, Herb?' he asked.
'Me--why--no, I'm going this way.' And Herb pointed hurriedly southward.
'Well--so long!' said Henry, and headed northward.
The warm sunlight filtered down through the dense foliage. Birds twittered up there. The church procession moving slowly along was brightly dressed; pleasant to see. Henry, head up, light of foot, smiling easily when this or that person, after a moment's hesitation, bowed to him, listened to the birds, expanded his chest in answer to the mellowing sunshine, and gave way, with a fresh little thrill, to the thought:--
'I must buy a frock coat for to-morrow night.'
|It was mid-August and twenty minutes to eight in the evening. The double rows of maples threw spreading shadows over the pavement, sidewalk and lawns of Hazel Avenue. From dim houses, set far back amid trees and shrubs, giving a homy village quality to the darkness, came through screened doors and curtained 'bay' windows the yellow glow of oil lamps and the whiter shine of electric lights. Here and there a porch light softly illuminated a group of young people; their chatter and laughter, with perhaps a snatch of song, floating pleasantly out on the soft evening air. Around on a side street, sounding faintly, a youthful banjoist with soft fingers and inadequate technique was struggling with _The March Past_.