Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/199

The Heart's Desire "swell guys" go. In time he even grew to be fastidious, for where he could not see carriages and horses and hear music he would not deign to attend.

But as summer came on he found these grew less and less frequent, so one warm afternoon when he found forty broughams blocking the Avenue and a strip of red carpet covering the pavement, he knew that the season was not yet altogether over.

A couple of policemen guarded the gateway and two footmen stood on the wide stone steps beside the open doors. The low buzz of talk and an occasional strain of music came from the big cool-looking house. It was a wonderful scene to Teddie, who wormed his way up toward the policemen and stood by the great stone gate-pillars, with his freckled nose thrust through the iron rods of the fence, watching the shifting panorama with wistful and unwearying eyes.

As the afternoon slipped away the crowd began to come out from the house. Three times did one of the fat policemen, who kept guard at the gateway, pull the child away by 187