Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/81

 if people are a bore to you be quite frank and say so."

"I shall be delighted," said Harkness.

"Good. My name is Crispin."

"Harkness is mine."

They walked in together.

He had, as he walked into the hall, an overwhelming sense that everything that was occurring to him had happened to him before, and it was only part of this dream-conviction that Crispin should pause and say:

"Here they are, waiting for us," and lead him up to the girl who, half an hour before, had been with him in the little gallery. He had even a moment of protesting panic crying to the little imp whose voice he had already heard that evening: "Let me out of this. I am not so passive as you fancy. It is a holiday I am here for. There is no knight errantry in me—you have caught the wrong man for that."

But the girl's face stopped him. She was beautiful. He had from the first instant of seeing her no doubt of that, and it was as though her voice had already built her up for him in that dim room.

Straight and dark, her face had child-like purity in its rounded cheeks, its large brow and wondering eyes, its mouth set now in proud determination, but