Earlier in the evening they had finished hanging the presents on the
Tree; but then an interruption had followed: the children had broken
profanely in upon them, rending the veil of the house mysteries; and
for more than an hour the night had been given up to them. Now the
children were asleep upstairs, already dreaming of Christmas Morn and
the rush for the stockings. The servants had finished their work and
were gone to their quarters out in the yard. The doors of the house
were locked. There would be no more intrusion now, no possible
interruption; all the years were to meet him and her--alone. For Life
is the master dramatist: when its hidden tragedies are ready to utter
themselves, everything superfluous quits the stage; it is the
essential two who fill it! And how little the rest of the world ever
hears of what takes place between the two!
A little while before he had left the room with the step-ladder; when
he came back, he was to bring with him the manuscript--the silent
snowfall of knowledge which had been deepening about him for a
year. The time had already passed for him to return, but he did not
come. Was there anything in the forecast of the night that made him
falter? Was he shrinking--_him_ shrink? She put away the thought
as a strange outbreak of injustice.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65