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Updated: June 24, 2025
When they were outside in the garden Halcyone spoke not a word. The beds were a glory of spring bulbs, and every bud on the trees was bursting with its promise of coming leaf. Glad, chirruping bird-notes called to one another, and a couple of partridges ran across the lawn. John Derringham took in the lines of Halcyone's graceful person as she walked ahead.
And when he opened them again it was darker, and the moon made misty shadows through the trees, and out of them he seemed to see Halcyone's face quite close to him. It was tender and pitiful and full of love. The hallucination was so startlingly vivid that he almost fancied her lips moved, and she whispered: "Courage, beloved."
"It is, however, delightful to have a neighbor," Miss Roberta exclaimed and then blushed at her temerity. The elder lady frowned; Roberta had always been so sadly effusive, she felt. Men ought not to be flattered so. Mr. Carlyon bowed, and the platitudes were continued, each felt he or she must approach the subject of Halcyone's lessons, but waited for the other to begin.
Carlyon that John Derringham would be of their number. The aunts took in the Morning Post, but until she was eighteen they had rigorously forbidden Halcyone's perusal of it. Newspapers, except one or two periodicals, were not fit for young ladies' reading until they were grown up, they felt.
He unconsciously, during his walk, had dwelt upon the Professor's information as to the view of the old ladies of The Chase, and then Halcyone's silence and stiffness. He felt excluded from the place which he recollected he had held in the child's regard.
My child!" the Professor exclaimed, to gain time, and then he decided to help her out, so he went on: "I am glad to see you, but am very distressed at the news in the paper this morning about John Derringham you may have seen it and I am sure will sympathize with me." Halcyone's piteous eyes thanked him. "Yes, indeed," she said. "What does it mean? Ought not we you to go to him?" Mr.
Anderton" how that word "father" jarred upon Halcyone's sensitive ears! "wished me to come and see you, dear, and hopes you will return with me to-morrow to London, for a little visit to us, that you may make the acquaintance of your brother and sisters." Halcyone had already made up her mind what to do, before she had left her room.
Then those instinctive good manners of Halcyone's came uppermost, inherited, like her slender shape and balanced head, from that long line of La Sarthe ancestors, and she thanked the old man with a quaint, courtly, sweetly pedantic grace. Then she got up to go "I like being here and may I come again to-morrow?" she said afterwards.
"I left this window open for you on purpose. The garden does one good sometimes. You were not lonely, I hope?" "No," said John Derringham; but he would not look at his old master, for he knew very well he should see a whimsical sparkle in his eyes. Mr. Carlyon, of course, must be aware of Halcyone's night wandering proclivities.
John Derringham quivered with discomfort, he hated to feel the whip of his old master's contempt. And he could not explain matters or justify himself there was nothing to be said. The Professor, of course, knew of Halcyone's whereabouts but, after his broad hint of his want of sympathy about their relations, John Derringham felt he could not open the subject with him again.
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