Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/65

 Derek suffered himself to be led by Beulah and her solemn niece, Alma, to the shore. He had no idea what a gorden was, but he liked children, especially dark-eyed little girls. They made him feel weakly good-humored, almost helpless. On the sand three younger girls were bending over a miniature garden, made of bits of water-weeds and flowering grass and intersected by paved walks of broken glass and coloured stones. Derek was amazed at the nice care with which the pattern was laid, and the dainty gestures of the small brown hands as they placed a pebble or were clapped together in delight. He sat down on the sand beside them and began to build a wall around the "gorden." The children pressed about him and ran to fetch little shells to ornament the top of the wall. He caught the smallest in his hands and rolled her on the sands. "Oh, you are a fonny man!" they shrieked. They found a long grey quill from a gull's wing and stuck it in his hair, chuckling, "Now you are an Indian, like us."

Even when darkness came they were not to be ignored. A shaft of light struck through the orchard from a lantern hung by the door of the shack, and a great blaze danced up from the shore where they made a bonfire at the water's edge.

Vale, sitting with his pipe on the porch, could see flames leaping above the crest of the bluff, and he began to feel nervous lest the flying sparks should do damage. Mrs. Machin had driven into Mistwell or she would have gone down to them, he knew. By the screams and shrill laughter he felt sure that the young women and girls were in bathing and had made the fire to warm and dry themselves.

Half-amused, more than a little annoyed, he crossed the lawn, quietly passed through the gate and hid himself in the clump of stunted cedars that overlooked the shore. His nostrils were tickled by a pungent odor that quenched the