Page:The Country-House Party.djvu/27

Rh last commands to the servant. Then she went out, closing the door with tenderness that shut monotony and boredom behind her.

Her days seemed a whirl and an amazement after that—she hardly knew how they passed; she seemed to be just hurrying on and on. Upon the white heights her heart cried for summer, and she sped across the world to seek it. She could not tell anything that happened in those days, they were like the first wild rush of the bird, who, finding his cage door unguarded, dashes into freedom, nor pauses until all the intoxication of his rapture is over, and he rests in quiet happiness to sing. It was in a quiet valley somewhere in America she stopped at last in her flight, and there, standing beside a wide river, opened her lips in song. As she sang, a man came out of the wood behind her and stood.

'You!' he said.

And she, without surprise, echoed, 'You!'

He had a dark fierce face, and looked into her eyes with a bold gaze.

'You have not changed a bit,' she said, 'since the long ago.'

'And you,' he answered, 'are more beautiful