In this kind of flustered hush, the door was opened and
dinner was announced.
Miss Madden welcomed the diversion by rising with
ostentatious vigour. "I will take myself out,"
she declared, with cheerful promptness leading the way.
Lady Cressage took the arm Thorpe offered her, and gave
no token of comprehending that her wrist was being
caressingly pressed against his side as they moved along.
At the little table shining in the centre of the dark,
cool dining-room, talk moved idly about among general topics.
A thunderstorm broke over the town, at an early stage
of the dinner, and the sound of the rushing downpour
through the open windows, and the breath of freshness which
stirred the jaded air, were pleasanter than any speech.
Thoughts roved intuitively country-ward, where the
long-needed rain would be dowering the landscape with new
life--where the earth at sunrise would be green again,
and buoyant in reawakened energy, and redolent with the
perfumes of sweetest summer. They spoke of the fields
and the moors with the longing of tired town-folk in August.
"Oh, when I get away"--said Thorpe, fervently,
"it seems to me that I don't want ever to come back.
These last few weeks have got terribly on my nerve.
And really--why should I come back? I've been asking
myself the question--more today than ever before.
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