They kissed again and separated, and Mary made ready for bed. She took
off her cap, and all her lovely hair fell about her. That was another
of her contrary ways. She and Constance had been taught to braid it
neatly, but from little girlhood Mary had protested, and on going to
bed with two prim pigtails had been known to wake up in the middle of
the night and take them down, only to be discovered in the morning with
all her fair curls in a tangle. Scolding had not availed. Once, as
dire punishment, the curls had been cut off. But Mary had rejoiced.
"It makes me look like a boy," she had told her mother, calmly, "and I
like it."
Another of her little girl fancies had been to say her prayers aloud.
She said them that way to-night, kneeling by her bed with her fair head
on her folded hands.
Then she turned out the light, and drew her curtains back. As she
looked out at the driving rain, the flare of the street lamp showed a
motionless figure on the terrace. For a moment she peered,
palpitating, then flew into Aunt Isabelle's room.
"There's some one in the garden."
"Perhaps it's Barry."
"Didn't he come with you?"
"No. He went on with Leila and the General."
"But it is two o'clock, Aunt Isabelle."
"I didn't know; I thought perhaps he had come."
Going back into her room, Mary threw on her blue dressing-gown and
slippers and opened her door. The light was still burning in the hall.
Barry always turned it out when he came. She stood undecided, then
started down the back stairs, but halted as the door opened and a dark
figure appeared.
"Barry----"
Roger Poole looked up at her. "It isn't your brother," he said. "I--I
must beg your pardon for disturbing you. I could not sleep, and I went
out----" He stopped and stammered. Poised there above him with all
the wonder of her unbound hair about her, she was like some celestial
vision.
She smiled at him. "It doesn't matter," she said; "please don't
apologize. It was foolish of me to be--frightened. But I had
forgotten that there was any one else in the house."
She was unconscious of the effect of her words. But his soul shrank
within him. To her he was the lodger who paid the rent. To him she
was, well, just now she was, to him, the Blessed Damosel!