"Take up some ginger-nuts, and eat them there," said Luclarion to Hazel.
If it had not been for that, the girl would have hung back, afraid of losing her shop treat.
Hazel knew better than to hold out her hand, at this first essay; she would do that fast enough when the time came. She only walked on, through the sitting-room, to the stairs.
Clean stairs. She had never trodden such before. Everything was strange and clean here, as she had never seen anything before in all her life, except the sky and the white clouds overhead. Heaven be thanked that they are held over us, spotless, always!
Hazel heard the little feet, shuffling, in horrible, distorted shoes, after her, over the steps; pausing, coming slowly but still starting again, and coming on.
Up on the high landing, under the skylight, she opened the door wide into the dormer-windowed room, and went in; she and Desire, neither of them looking round.
Hazel got into the swing. Desire pushed; after three vibrations they saw the ragged figure standing in the doorway, watching, turning its head from side to side as the swing passed.
"Almost!" cried Hazel, with her feet up at the window. "There!" She thrust them out at that next swing; they looked as if they touched the blue.
"I can see over all the chimneys, and away off, down the water! Now let the old cat die."
Out again, with a spring, as the swinging slackened, she still took no notice of the child, who would have run, like a wild kitten, if she had gone after her. She called Desire, and plunged into a closet under the eaves.
The girl in the doorway saw the dark, into which the low door opened; she was used to rats in the dark.
"I don't believe it," says Hazel; "Luclarion has a cut, a great big buff one with green eyes. She came in over the roofs, and she runs up here nights. I shouldn't wonder if there might be kittens, though,--one of these days, at any rate. Why! what a place to play 'Dare' in! It goes way round, I don't know where! Look here, Desire!"
She sat on the threshold, that went up a step, over the beam, and so leaned in. She had one eye toward the girl all the time, out of the shadow. She beckoned and nodded, and Desire came.
At the same moment, the coast being clear, the girl gave a sudden scud across, and into the swing. She began to scuff with her slipshod, twisted shoes, pushing herself.