Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/19

20 "There," said one, with soothing voice and gentle pattings, "you've frightened yourself to death—I knew you would."

But the other said, "She has seen something."

Then said the first, "You promised to tell."

"I will tell," said the girl with the starry flowers and the starry eyes, and freed herself. "I've seen him," she said in a strange little clear voice.

"You haven't! What was he like?"

"Like a . . . I don't know . . . not like anyone real. Like a Greek god . . ." said the child with the gold-flower crown.

And at that Rochester drew back and fled very quickly and quietly across the dewy turf.

He had meant to disclose himself, to beg pardon for his involuntary trespass, to scatter the mists of magic and bring everything back to the nice, sensible, commonplace that frightens no one—but he could not do it now. No man could. What man could walk out of a clump of rhododendrons at midnight into a magic circle of little green lamps and say, in cold blood, to a group of schoolgirls: "I am the Greek god to whom this lady has referred"? It was impossible. The only thing he could do was to go away as quietly and as quickly as might be. He crept along the fence till he found a narrow swing gate and squeezed through it. Then he looked back. The golden lights were gone. All was moonlight and silence. The whole thing might well have been a dream. To all intents and purposes it was a dream. He did not know who the girl was into whose eyes he had gazed—who had gazed into his and thought him a god. He probably would never know, would never see her again.

"Certainly I shall never see her again," he said. He also said: "But I will never marry Miss Antrobus."