There was no sound in the forest at all--not the cry of a bird, not the rustle of snow falling from a branch--but there was something deeper and remoter than sound, the approach of night. There was a change on the face of the forest--an effective silence which was not blankness--a voiceless expression of attention as the Newcomer settled into his place. Fanny looked up and saw the labyrinth of trees in the very act of receiving a guest.
"Oh, what wretched earnest I am in," she thought, suddenly chilled. "And it can only have one end--parting." But she had a power to evade these moods. She could slip round them and say to herself: "I am old enough--I have learnt again and again--that there is only one joy--the Present; only one Perfection--the Present. If I look into the future it is lost."
She heard the returning car far up the forest drive, and in a moment saw the gleam of its two lamps as they rocked and swayed. It drew up, and Stewart put out the lamps, ever remembering that their logs were stolen. There was still light enough by which they could pack the car with wood. As they finished Stewart caught her arm: "Look, a fire!" she said, pointing into the forest. Through a gap in the trees they could see a red glow which burst up over the horizon.
"And look behind the trees--the whole sky is illumined--What a fire!" As they watched, the glare grew stronger and brighter, and seemed about to lift the very tongue of its flame over the horizon.
The cold moon it was who had come up red and angry from some Olympic quarrel and hung like a copper fire behind the forest branches. Up and up she sailed, but paling as she rose from red to orange, from orange to the yellow of hay; and at yellow she remained, when the last branch had dropped past her face of light, and she was drifting in the height of the sky.
They drove back to the village and down to their isolated villa, and here on the road they passed ones and twos of the Section walking into supper.
"How little we have thought out your evasion!" whispered Stewart at the wheel, as they drew up at the door: "Get out, and go and dress. I will take the car up to the garage and come back."
Fanny slipped in through the garden. What they called "dressing" was a clean skirt and silk stockings--but silk stockings she dared not put on before her brief appearance at supper. Stuffing the little roll into her pocket she determined to change her stockings on the boat.