Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/103

 Oh, this must be some dream, a recurrence of some fragment he had read in a forgotten book. Presently she would vanish, his old butler would touch him on the shoulder, he would rub his eyes for a moment, and then go down to the club. The life in the jungles was a dream also—green and rose, like a cloud on the face of a stream. He longed to reach down and touch her, to assure himself that she was real. Here in his house!

She began to read. At the sound of her voice he lowered his pipe and never put it to his lips again that night. Think of her finding his pipe! Sometimes a beautiful line caught his attention; but to-night his ears were keyed to music and not to words.

The French ormolu clock struck twelve—the faithful old watchdog of his childhood. Twelve o'clock! The many times his mother had said: "Time for bed, Jimmiekins!" Doris had finished the last letter and was doing up the packet. "Isn't he wonderful?" she looked up, her eyes full of marvel.

"Very." But he hoped she would not ask him what he thought of this passage or that. He could not remember a single line!