Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/277

STEVEIN LAWRENCE, YEOMAN. 265 Steven stopped, of course, and Mademoiselle Barry, with a half bow and a just perceptible increase of color upon her face, walked on with her father and Charlie Wentworth in the direction of their box. "I wanted so much to speak to you!" Katharine repeated; "and—and Dora and I thought perhaps you would not be angry if I interrupted you—just for a minute or two. Will you forgive me?" And before he could answer, her hand, all in a tremble, rested on his arm.

They had never been alone together since they rode back last through the December twilight from the hunting-field; and, involuntarily, the heart of each—here amid the artificial glitter, the brocades, the diamond-dust, the patchouli, of this Parisian crowd—went back to Clithero! To a road across a dusky moorland; to lanes fresh with the Wintry smell of new-ploughed earth; to a shadowy avenue with dead leaves faintly rustling in the boughs above "I thought you never meant to speak to me any more!" said Katharine, very low. And, "How could I tell what answer you would give me if I did?" was Steven's reply. Only this: not another word of explanation; yet they were reconciled.

Dot, who was returning to her box on the arm of Mr. Clarendon Whyte, looked back at them with a friendly little nod and smile, then disappeared in the crowd.

was a brilliant Winter night. Cloudless and white with stars quivered the frozen sky above the lamplit glare, the noisy turmoil of the great city: the atmosphere was intensely clear: a sprinkle of new-fallen snow showed forth in sharpest relief the living phantasmagoria of horses, carriages and men that swept in one ever- changing, ever-monotonous stream across the Place of the Châtelet.

"A different world from Clithero!" said Katharine, after a long silence. "How will you and Dot ever be able to go back to our dull village life after the excitement both of you have been going through here?"

"Dora must answer for herself," was Steven's reply. "The only really happy hour of my Paris experiences will be the one in which I find myself starting back toward Ashcot. You must know this," he added. "You must know pretty well what kind of excitement this shut-in city life can be to me."

They were standing, side by side, upon the balcony of the Châtelet; deserted, now that the performance had begun, by all but themselves; and Katharine's hand had rested, till this instant, upon Steven's arm. She took it hastily away. "Papa and I have been