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"And what special business brings you to Sark, Pixley?" asked Graeme, as they passed through the tunnel of rock and climbed the steep way of the Creux its high banks masses of ferns, its hedges ablaze with honeysuckle and roses, its trees interwoven into a thick canopy overhead, a living green tunnel shot with quivering sunbeams.
Margaret and Miss Penny and Graeme and Pixley thought they had seen dancing before, but dancing such as this it had never been theirs to witness. If it lacked anything in grace and far be it from me to say so it more than made up for all by its inexhaustible energy and tireless enjoyment.
Frank Pixley, Republican precinct committee-man, nor was its dinginess an unharmonious setting for that political brilliant. He was a pock-pitted, damp-looking, soiled little fungus of a man, who had attained to his office because, in the dirtiest precinct of the wickedest ward in the city, he had, through the operation of a befitting ingenuity, forced a recognition of his leadership.
And as he trudged slowly, he kept wondering if she had sent for him. He remembered how Mr. Pixley had led him away from the Hospice at the end of a rope, but at the end of the journey Jan had found Elizabeth and happiness. He lifted his big head and his anxious eyes saw a pitying face as a gentle hand lightly touched his back.
"I wrote, nominally, to inform you of Lady Elspeth's sudden call to Scotland, but actually to tell you how sorely I regretted the sudden break in our acquaintance which had become to me so very great a delight." "And when you got no answer?" "I waited and waited, and then I had a sudden fear that you might be ill. And to satisfy myself I called on Mr. Pixley at his office.
It stood as usual, large and prim and precise, the very acme of solid, sober wealth and assertive moral rectitude. He was strongly tempted to call and ask for Miss Brandt, but it was only ten o'clock in the morning, and the house looked so truly an embodiment in stucco of Mrs. Grundy and Jeremiah Pixley, that he forbore and went on his melancholy way.
And there was no sign or hint of Jeremiah Pixley in her atmosphere nor of Charles Svendt. What could it possibly all mean? Miss Penny Hennie Penny! What a delightfully ludicrous name! And what a delightful creature she was! Miss Penny, unless he had been dreaming, had said they had come to get away from things and people!
He never discussed his affairs with me nor I mine with him, and we had no business together except on purely business lines. If he had to buy or sell he sent it my way, of course, nothing more. You will believe me, Graeme " "Every word, my boy " "We all believe it, Mr. Pixley," said Hennie Penny warmly. "And I know it, Charles," said Margaret. "It is very good of you all," he groaned.
Hurlbut more than distrusted Pixley, yet he felt sure of the other fifty, and if, upon the reading of the bill, Pixley proved false, the bill would not be lost, since there would be a majority of votes in its favour, though not the constitutional majority of fifty-one required for its passage, and it could be brought up again and carried when the absent man returned.
And the shouts of the swimmers came mellowly up to them, and they could see their little limbs jerking like the limbs of frogs. "It is good to be here," said Lady Elspeth enjoyably. "It is very very good to be here. I am very glad we came," said Mrs. Pixley, with a sigh that was not all sadness. Many such days of sheer delight they had, and kept the dark cloud resolutely below their horizon.
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