Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (110 page)

The
ready
blush
came
once
more
to
her
cheek.

"Your
pardon,
sir,
if
I
did
mistake
you
for
one
of
those
mincing Frenchies.
Nay,
be
not
offended.
I
have
heard
tell
that
there
is
something
vastly
attractive
about
a
Frenchy,
so,
if
I
made
the
error,
I
     

Oh,
why
does
my
tongue
betray
my
modesty!"

"I
don't
know,
miss.
But
what
about
a
little
walk?"

She
broke
into
a
delightful
little
laugh.

"Sir,
you
speak
a
strange
tongue
and
wear
strange
clothes.
Yet
I confess
I
find
both
to
my
mind.
Doubtless
you
wonder
how
it
is
that you
find
a
young
lady
like
myself
promenading
alone
at
fall
of
evening. Ah,
me,
I
fear
that
Satan
is
enthroned
in
my
heart!
I
am
acting
thus to
punish
my
papa."

Trimmer
made
an
incoherent
noise.

"He
promised
to
take
me
to
Bath,
and
broke
his
promise,"
she continued.
"Oh,
sir,
what
crimes
are
done
to
the
young
in
the
name of
Business!
He
has
not
the
time,
if
I
would
credit
such
a
tale!
So, to
serve
him,
he
shall
hear
that
his
daughter
walked
abroad
at
evening unattended,
like
any
common
Poll
or
Moll.
You
may
walk
with
me a
few
yards
if
it
be
your
pleasure,
sir—but
only
a
few
yards.
I
would not
have
my
papa
too
angry
with
his
Marjory."

From
then
he
had
no
count
of
time.
He
walked
with
her
in
a sort
of
dream-ecstasy,
while
veil
after
veil
of
darkness
fell
over
the fields
of
pasture
and
half-grown
corn.
When
at
last
she
insisted
that the
time
had
come
for
parting
he
stole
a
kiss
from
her,
a
theft
at which
she
more
than
half
connived.
In
a
low
voice
she
confessed
to him
that
she
was
not
so
sure
of
her
heart
as
she
had
been
at
sunset.

Trimmer
walked
back
on
air
to
where
his
shop
stood,
alone
and incongruous.
He
had
learned
the
true
meaning
of
love,
and
was
drunk with
an
emotion
which
hitherto
he
had
scarcely
sipped.
They
had made
an
assignation
for
the
following
evening;
for
he
believed
that he
had
been
fated
to
meet
her,
and
that
his
shop
door
would
let
him out
once
more
into
the
eighteenth
century.

When
he
returned
to
his
shop
he
was
aware
of
one
strange
thing —that
while
it
was
visible
to
him
it
was
invisible
to
others
in
the world
to
which
it
gave
him
access.
He
expected
to
find
a
crowd around
it
on
his
return,
so
queer
and
incongruous
must
it
have looked
to
eighteenth-century
eyes.
But
only
a
rustic
couple
was strolling
in
the
moonlight,
on
the
other
side
of
the
road,
and
as
he crossed
the
threshold
it
must
have
seemed
to
them
that
he
had vanished
into
thin
air,
for
he
heard
a
shrill
scream,
which
ceased
on the
instant
as
the
clock
struck
the
first
beat
of
twelve.