Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/512

 turned and cast a backward glance at him, who stood stock-still where they had left him, staring after them, dumfounded. Miss Allen looked at him and then came flying back, running, her light dress fluttering. What did she want? What was she going to do, with that shining, tremulous, mirthful face? Livingstone felt afraid of her, as if, like a swift bolt of summer lightning, she might strike him through and through.

What she did was to take his face in her two hands and give him a hearty kiss on each cheek. "Dear Mr. Livingstone!" she said (or was it "poor"?)

Livingstone had the impression, from the expression of her face, that she would have kissed a cab-man with equal fervor, and that Crittenden would have watched her do it with the same fatuous look he had now.

They went down together into the vaulted darkness and desolation of the ruined palace. Livingstone, leaning on the wall high above, saw them emerge together into the Forum and step off over the ancient flagged paving. And still hand in hand! Mr. Livingstone had by this time thought of an adequate comparison. They were as sentimental as a couple of Rogers statuettes!

Looking up, they saw him leaning there. They waved their hands and called up some laughing greeting to him. But he could not understand what they said, because they were too far away from him.

Hand in hand in the fierce, literal brightness of the noonday sun, they trod their new path over the ancient stones.