Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/64

 with him all day was now surely approaching its climax. That excitement had in it the strangest mixture of delight, sensuous thrill and something that was nothing but panicky terror. Yes, he was frightened. Of what? Of whom? He could not tell. But only as he looked across the room at those familiar scenes, at the massive dark tree of the "St. Gilles" with the hot road, the high comfortable hedge, the happy figures, at the adorable face of the donkey in the Rembrandt, at the little beings so marvellously placed under the dancing butterfly in the Whistler, at the strong, homely, friendly countenance of Strang himself, he felt as he had so often felt before, that those beautiful things were trying themselves to reassure him, to tell him, that they did not change nor alter and that where he would be there they would be too.

He took Maradick's letter from his pocket and read it again. Here he was—now what must happen next? He would dress now at once for dinner and then walk in the garden before the light began to fail. Or no. Wasn't he to go down into the town after dinner and to see this dance, to share in it even? Hadn't Maradick said that that was what, above all else, he must do?

And then what was this about a Minstrels' Gallery somewhere? He would have a bath, change his linen, and then begin his explorations. He undressed, found the bathroom, enjoyed himself for