Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/89

 culable antiquity. But tonight the shadows seemed less ominous and the faint whispering of the leaves even friendly. It may have been the light showing from the servants' wing that gave her courage, or it may have been a sudden overwhelming conviction that anything was better than talking to Aunt Henrietta.

"I must not think that," she told herself. "Aunt Henrietta is right. It is evil thoughts that destroy us and make us old. . . . But what difference does it make whether I am old or not? Nothing can ever happen to me. I am thirty-eight years old and nothing has ever happened. I am getting fat and no man would ever look at me even if I had the chance to know one.

"Still," she thought, blushing a little, "that Mr. Winnery did look at me today."

She found herself presently at a spot in the garden where the jasmine climbed over the pitted stone balustrade that overhung the deep valley. A few pale blossoms still gleamed in the moonlight and the fragrance drifted through the still air under the colonnades of trees. The scent came to her vaguely, awakening and sharpening her senses and drawing her thoughts away from herself. Leaning over the balustrade she broke off a blossom and smelled of it, half dreaming. "That Mr. Winnery who was here today. . . . He was polite to me. But I shan't ever see him again."

She turned away and wandered down one of the long allées, but after a few steps she halted and thrusting the jasmine blossom into her hair, patted it smooth again and then set off, following the wall.