Page:Lolly Willowes - 1926.djvu/258

 of course—and she jumped up in her excitement and began to wave her arms—was why he was the Devil, the enemy of souls. His memory was too long, too retentive; there was no appeasing its witness, no hoodwinking it with the present; and that was why at one stage of civilization people said he was the embodiment of all evil, and then a little later on that he didn't exist.

For a moment Laura thought that she had him: and on the next, as though he had tricked himself out of her grasp, her thoughts were scattered by the sudden consciousness of a sort of jerk in the atmosphere. The sun had gone down, sliding abruptly behind the hills. In that case the bus would have gone too, she might as well hope to catch the one as the other. First Satan, then the sun and the bus—adieu, mes gens! With affectionate unconcern she seemed to be waving them farewell, pleased to be left to herself, left to enter into this new independence acknowledged by their departure.

The night was at her disposal. She might walk back to Great Mop and arrive very late: or she might sleep out and not trouble to arrive until to-morrow. Whichever she did Mrs. Leak would not mind. That was one of the