"When you get to my age, Gregg, you'll have something else to do besides consult your intuitions. The fact is, you want all these[Pg 108] wonderful things to happen. You have a flair for the unexpected, like all children and adolescents. But I tell you, the Clockwork man is a myth, and I think you ought to respect my opinion.""That was what the makers did for man," resumed the other. "Life had become impossible, and it was the only practical way out of the difficulty. You see, the makers were very clever, and very mild and gentle. They were quite different to ordinary human beings. To begin with, they were real."
This sitting, though full of sparkle, was but brief, for Keeling was sure that his guests presence would be more welcome to his wife and daughter than it was to him, and before long he conducted him to the drawing-room where Alice happened to be sitting at the piano, dreamily recalling fragments of Mendelssohn (which she knew very accurately by heart) with both pedals down. She{60} had been watching the door, and so when she saw it opening, she looked towards the window, so that Mr Silverdale was half-way across the room to the piano before she perceived his entrance. Then, very naturally, she got up, and under threat of Mr Silverdale instantly going home if she did not consent to sit down again and continue, resumed her melodies. He came and sat on a low stool close to her, clasped one knee with his slim white hands, and half closed his eyes."Wh'--who is that?" responded a musical voice. "Why, is that Mr. Smith?" as if I were the last person in the world one should have expected to see there. The like of those moments I had never known. I saw her eyes note the perfect fit of my uniform, though neither of us mentioned it. I tried to tell her that Lieutenant Durand was Ned Ferry and that I was now one of his scouts, but she had already heard both facts, and would not tell me what her father had said about me, it was so good. Standing at the veranda's edge a trifle above me, with her cheek against one of the posts and her gaze on her slipper, she asked if I was glad I was going with Ned Ferry, and I had no more sense than to say I was; but she would neither say she was glad nor tell why she was not."Some of our boys attacked by a rabbit," I suggested, but still hearkened.Ferry lay in bed with three pillows behind him and his sheathed sword across his lap. "Good-evening, Richard," he said, "you are returned just in time; will you please hand me my two pistol' from yonder?--thank you." He laid one beside each thigh. "Now please turn the head of my bed a little bit, to face the door--thank you; and now, good-bye. You hear those footstep' there in the room behind? she is dressing to go; the other ladies they are helping her. Richard, I place them in your charge; have them all ready to get into her wagon at a moment's notice, with you on your horse--and you better take that Jewett horse, too; he came to-day."The Doctor scarcely heard this. He had[Pg 134] turned aside and stooped down in order to rewind the engine of his car. When he looked up again he beheld an extraordinary sight.He turned to Norah.
