Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/280

 Don looked after him bewildered, by this unexpected arrival, this absurd conversation and this abrupt departure. "Why! . . . He must have followed us!"

"This is our gate, isn't it?" She stepped down into the roadway. "Is the Museum open on Sunday mornings?"

He followed her. "Who is he?"

"Peter Polk."

Don had seen the name on the bill boards. "The play-writer?" "If you wish to call them plays."

"You've"

She interrupted: "I would sooner talk of something pleasant—if you don't mind." As they turned into a by-path, she added apologetically: "I don't want the thought of him to spoil our morning." She raised her veil, tying it round the crown of her hat, took off her gloves, tucked them into her belt and opened her parasol over herself and Don as if deliberately conferring on him the intimacy of smiles and friendship which she had refused to Polk. "Isn't this jolly!"

She was strikingly dressed in shades of brown—even to her parasol, her veil and her russet shoes—and every passer-by paid her the tribute of an admiring stare. She appeared so unconscious of this that Don was free to enjoy it for her, to be flattered for her, and to enjoy also the feeling it gave him of passing, distinguished but indifferent, above the gaze of the world. With the graceful carriage of a stage beauty, she walked untiringly, through the shady windings of the paths, under tall elms, among grey beeches of which the leaves were