She was no longer aware of the children grouped around her. She no
longer saw the fleeting sunshine, or felt the drift of rain in her
face. Something immense and suffocating had closed about her heart.
Her racing pulses had ceased to beat.
A figure familiar to her--a man's figure, unimposing in height,
unremarkable in build, but straight, straight as his own
sword-blade--had bounded from the car and scaled the intervening gate
with monkey-like agility.
He met the child's wild rush with one arm extended; the other--Muriel
frowned sharply, peering with eyes half closed, then uttered a queer
choked sound that had the semblance of a laugh--in place of the other
arm there was an empty sleeve.
Through the rush of the wind she heard his voice.
"Hullo, kiddie, hullo! Hope I don't intrude. I've come over on purpose
to pay my respects."
Olga's answer did not reach her. She was hanging round her hero's
neck, and her head was down upon Nick's shoulder. It seemed to Muriel
that she was crying, but if so, she received scant sympathy from the
object of her solicitude. His cracked, gay laugh rang out across the
field.
"What? Why, yesterday, to be sure. Spent the night in town. No, I know
I didn't. Never meant to. Wanted to steal a march on you all. Why not?
I say, is that--Muriel?"
For the first time he seemed to perceive her, and instantly with a
dexterous movement he had disengaged himself from Olga's clinging arms
and was briskly approaching her.
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