Aunt Maggie might have explained it. Mrs. Espart laughed outright. "That? Good gracious, I thought you had forgotten that long ago."
"So I had--so I had. I never thought of it again from the day I told you until last Wednesday night--the day Percival came to us. Since then every night..."
She paused before the last words and stopped abruptly after them.
"Well, my dear! You're not putting down to poor Percival what must be the fault of Mr. Baxter's menus, surely?"
Lady Burdon said without conviction: "No--no, I'm not. Still, it began then--and I don't like him now--don't care for Rollo to be so attached to him now--and had words with Rollo about it--and perhaps that was the reason and is the reason. Anyway, do come to dinner to-night--distract my thoughts perhaps--I can't face that nightmare again. It's on my nerves."
Mrs. Espart permitted herself the tiniest yawn, but promised to come; and came, bringing Dora.
So Percival's chance came, or so came, rather, his last opportunity--for he ran it to the final moment. Announcement of the Esparts' carriage brought their evening to an end, and he went down with Rollo to see them off. Baxter's preserved its exclusiveness by preserving its old fashions; the staircase was narrow, so the hall. Mrs. Espart went first, then Rollo. Percival followed Dora.
As she came to the pavement she turned to gather her skirts about her. In the action she looked full at him.
Her skirts seemed to have eluded her fingers and she must make another hold at them. He saw the colour flame where her fair face showed it, swiftly, deeply scarlet in that shade on either cheek. He saw her young breast rise as though that red flood drew and held it--saw her lips part for words, and held his breath to catch her voice.
BOOK OF FIGHTS AND OF THE BIG FIGHT. THE ELEMENT OF COURAGE
Ima asked: "Of what are you thinking, Percival?"
"Of when I shall leave you all--and how."
She replied: "Strange, then, how thoughts run. It was in my mind also."
Stranger how tricks and chances of life go! This trick and that--and this was to be his last night with the van folk. That chance and this--and within a few hours he was to be returned to Aunt Maggie, bade good-by at the close of his visit scarcely four months since. This trick and that, that chance and this, and he was to be put in the way of winning Dora--a way that never had seemed so obscure, never so impossible of attainment as when he came back to Japhra with her "I have not forgotten," at once shouting to him that she loved him and mocking him with the difference between her estate and his.