Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/180

168 was in that road that I knew so well, that road by which I went to Hampstead. A little higher up on the left hand side was the concrete pillar; the memory of which and its accompaniments made me smile, as, now moving on, I glanced at it.

Then I stood looking in the Hampstead pool at in-numerous small up-leaping crescents of moonlight, as from a rain of moonlight only turning to colour as it struck. Sadness came to and grew of me, sadness almost of tears, thoughts of that past that was no more. I turned and set off homewards. The walking invigorated me.

By the time I had got to Dunraven Place, I was almost happy. I let myself in, and entered the library with an elastic step. The lamp was turned low, casting a tender rose-tinted shadow into the air. My supper was laid out, fruits and bread. The scene, colour and scent of it all pleased me. The tender rose-tinted shadowy light, the mellowed silver of the knives and forks, the subdued colour of the rich-bound books and costly ornaments around me. There were two letters on my plate.

'Two letters?' I thought, 'Who the devil should write to me?'

I lay back in the soft chair; reached to some grapes (I was a little hungry), and the plate with the letters on it: put them on the table-cloth just under the lamp, and, eating grapes, observed them.

'One blue, stiff, and with two stamps. A double weight of nonsense probably. The other—… Rosy. Yes, that's her handwriting. What does the child want? I have not seen her for …' (I took up her letter and looked closer at the address.) 'How long? Three weeks? Well, up you go on to the table-cloth! … Good! Scientific, quite! Miss Rosebud can wait a little … And now for you, my mystery of blue paper double-stamped. Who the devil are you, and what the devil do you want?… You rip up tenaciously.… An enclosure. Two. What's this? A cheque-book. And you, oh foreign-papered' A sudden suspense was in me before I knew of it. I opened the foreign-papered letter of four sheets, and