across from her, laughed and talked and ate, even flirted a little. Yet all the time he saw Hildegarde, telling him her troubles, talking of Harlowe—the look in her eyes in that startled moment!
"We've had a whale of a time," Sally said, as they left the Point behind them.
Sally loved the slang of the day. And it contrasted with her exquisiteness somewhat picturesquely, so that it seemed a whimsical adornment to her conversation rather than a defect.
The sky darkened as they rode home, spreading its deep sapphire from horizon to horizon, and under that spreading sky the countryside was flooded with the silver light of a frigid sunset. And in that light everything seemed touched by magic into an almost supernatural stillness. In the garden, when they came to it, the branches of the trees swept down like frozen, silver fountains; the bushes were a tangle of silver wires; the bronze turtle, caught in solid ice, might have been the remnant of some glacial age.
Then Sally said suddenly: "Look, Merry! Who's that?"
In the midst of the frozen garden, beside the pool, stood a young man. His face was turned to the bay, so that they saw only his profile. He had on gray knickerbockers, and a thick white sweater with the collar rolled up to his ears. He wore no hat, and above the collar of the sweater his hair was a flame of gold. There was a fine red in his cheeks, his face showed beauty and strength, and as at the sound of their voices, he turned, Meriweather received an impression of poise.
