Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/369

 dressed for the ball—the first time they have left my heart! O, false!—false of trust that I am!"

"Why, dearest, that is not fatal, I hope. You reach home to-night—you slip them into some hiding—say in the corner of the wall below the garden"

"Stop: let me think." She picked up her fan again, and behind it her eyes darkened while I watched and she considered. "You know the hill we pass before we reach Swanston? it has a clump of firs above it, like a fin. There is a quarry on the east slope. If you will be there at eight—I can manage it, I think, and bring the money."

"But why should you run the risk?"

"Please, Anne—O, please let me do something! If you knew what it is to sit at home while your—your dearest"

""

The name, shouted from the doorway, rang down her faltering sentence as with the clash of an alarm bell. I saw Ronald—in talk with Miss McBean but a few yards away—spin round on his heel and turn slowly back on me with a face of sheer bewilderment. There was no time to conceal myself. To reach either the tea-room or the card-room, I must traverse twelve feet of open floor. We sat in clear view of the main entrance; and there already, with eyeglass lifted, raffish, flamboyant, exuding pomades and bad style, stood my detestable cousin. He saw us at once; wheeled right-about-face, and spoke to some one in the vestibule; wheeled round again, and bore straight down, a full swagger varnishing his malign triumph. Flora caught her breath as I stood up to accost him.

"Good evening, my cousin! The newspaper told me you were favouring this city with a stay."

"At Dumbreck's Hotel: where, my dear Anne, you have not yet done me the pleasure to seek me out."