"Oh, that made me so happy." She bent towards him, beaming again. "I so love thinking that none of the dull old rules hold for me--that I'm the first one of this sort. What did for other people won't do for me--what happened to them needn't make me afraid. Oh, it's splendid to think it's all new and different because of me!"
She pressed her hands together, and her face, yes, it was like a lamp in the gathering gloom.
"I wonder what you'll do with your life?" said the man, with something very tender in the low voice.
"Do with it? I shall love it so, it will _have_ to be good to me. I shall sing, and I shall travel--go everywhere, do everything. I mustn't miss a single thing--oh, dear no! not a single, single thing." Silence a moment, and then, "There's just one thought troubles me," she said.
"Ah yes, there's always one--when there aren't more."
"Less time than a silly old elephant's got--and here my father's had to put off starting till the spring. I hope I shall be able to wait all that time for him; but sometimes I feel as if I shouldn't."
Sharply, in the silence, a cry rang out. Ethan leaped to his feet.
"It's only the ghost," said Val, quietly.
"I heard it as a child, and called it 'Yaffti.' What the devil is it?"
"Only the clumsy old lightning-rod shrieking in its rusty fixtures when the wind blows."
"I lay on the rug here and listened, and then walked round and round the house in the wind till I found out what it was made the crying sound."
"H'm! So Yaffti turns out to be the spirit of the blast!"
"I was awfully disappointed. I hoped it was a real ghost. Why did you call it Yaffti?"
"Oh, well, what would you call it if you didn't call it Yaffti?"
"I'm forgetting you hate the gloaming. I must go and tell Venie to bring the coal, and--"
"Don't go!" he said, suddenly, holding out a hand.
"Yes, little cousin, I've always been afraid of the dark."
"Val!" The voice seemed to fall on her naked heart, and made it shrink deliciously. "Val!"
Was anything else said? She never knew. She remembered nothing but groping blindly two or three steps, and then suddenly realizing that she was going towards him in the dusk with shaking, outstretched hands. For what? "Oh, God! what am I doing?" She wheeled about with a sharp inward twist of mortification. Blessing the kindly dark, she made for the door.