Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/194

184 were speckled with the fallen foliage. From the surface of the lake the lilies, leaf and flower alike, had withered and vanished, and it spread out its cool reflecting plain unencumbered to the sky. All summer it had been clothed in green and ivory and gold; now, by some wayward perversion of things, it unrobed itself at the approach of frost. The birds were already a-bed; occasionally a thrush fluted a little hoarsely from the bushes, but the lawn was empty of its bright-eyed scurriers; they dined early so as not to risk the chance of finding a frozen table after sunset.

But inside the terrace there was no hint of the autumnal; it flared with colour, not the protesting vividness of dying leaves that fruitlessly asserted their vitality, but with the crimson of the banner of summer. The great Syrian curtains and hangings which had been hung there for the Brayton week in July had been brought out again; it was arranged once more as a huge, half out-of-door sitting-room with tables and Persian rugs and groups of chairs. And here, looking out between the brick columns that supported it, Edgar was sitting alone, regarding the sunset with unconscious appreciation, but with only half his conscious attention. He looked rather colourless, a little bleached instead of sunburnt by the summer, and in his eyes one might say there was already something akin to autumn. But though expectancy was still there, the balance trembled; spring still hoped, but long waiting had tired it a little.

Yet it had not tired it so much that he failed to catch the earliest news of a footfall in the drawing-room behind, when to a less listening sense the sound would still have been inaudible. Something of love-quickness still sharpened his senses, and he knew the footfall. Then came the whisper of a skirt, and then came Lucia.

She held an open letter in her hand, which she was still reading, and the habitual radiance of her face was a little dimmed. It was almost impossible for her to look annoyed, so serenely was her flesh and skin laid over her bones, so deliciously was set a little dimple in each cheek, so used to smiles was the fine curve of her mouth, but a shade of perplexity, a hint of complaint, was in her face. Then, raising her eyes, she saw her husband.

"Ah, dear Edgar," she said, "but I was looking for you. It is rather a nuisance; I am in a bit of a hole. I have just heard from Aunt Cathie."

"She is coming to pay us a visit, I hope," said Edgar. "I