But this time she made an engagement with Neil as openly as if he were Willard, while Natalie listened jealously. She started with him openly from the front door, with her mother's disapproving eyes upon them from the library window, and Neil proudly carrying her snowshoes, all unconscious of the critical eyes. The afternoon began well, but no afternoon with Neil could be counted upon to go as it began. Two hours later, when they emerged from the Everard woods into the Colonel's snow-covered rose garden, they had quarrelled about half a dozen unrelated subjects, all equally unimportant in themselves, but suddenly important to Neil, who now found further matter for debate.
"How should I know? I'm no friend of Everard's. I don't know my way through his grounds."
"What makes you call him Everard, without any Colonel or Mr.? It sounds so--common."
"It's good enough for me. Here, I don't want to go near his house. I hate the sight of it."
"But you can't go back by the path. It's too broken up." Judith plunged into the dismantled rose arbour. "Come on, if you don't want to see the house, take my hand and shut your eyes."
"That's what Green River does," Neil muttered darkly, "shuts its eyes." But he followed her.
"The Red Etin's castle," Judith announced; "you know, in the fairy tale:
"The Red Etin of Ireland, He lived in Ballygan. He stole King Malcolm's daughter, The pride of fair Scotlan'. 'Tis said there's one predestinate To be his mortal foe----
Well, you talk as if the Colonel were the Red Etin, poor dear. Oh, Neil, look!"
Sinister enough, looming turreted and tall against a background of winter woods, its windows, unshuttered still, since the last of the Colonel's week-end parties, and curtainless, catching the slanting rays of the afternoon sun and glaring malignantly, the house confronted them across the drifted lawn.
In the woods that circled the house, denuded of undergrowth, seeming always to be edging forlornly closer to the upstanding edifice for comfort because it was barren and unfriendly, too, the new-fallen snow lay shadowy and soft, clothing the barrenness with grace. Giant pine and spruce that had survived his invasion stood up proud and green under the crown of snow that lay lightly upon them, as it had lain long ago, before the Colonel came. And between woods and house, erasing all trace of tortuous landscape gardening, flower-bed and border and path, as if it had never been, lay a splendid, softly shining sweep of blue-white snow. The Colonel's unbidden guests forgot their quarrel and plunged eagerly across the white expanse.