Page:Daphne, an Autumn Pastoral.djvu/31



the great open windows of the room night with all her stars was shining. Daphne sat by a carved table in the salon, the clear light of a four-flamed Roman lamp falling on her hair and hands. She was writing a letter, and, judging by her expression, letter writing was a matter of life and death.

"I am afraid that I was brutal," the wet ink ran. "Every day on the sea told me that. I was cowardly too."

She stopped to listen to the silence, broken only by the murmur of insects calling to each other in the dark. Suddenly she laughed aloud.

"I ought never to have gone so far away," she remarked to the night. "What would Aunt Alice say? Anyway he is a gentleman, even if he is a god!"