not very strongly--something else, for an hour. At times the
air seemed choking; and inside of me, but not in my body, I seemed
choking too. I used to think about the Polish forests, and that would
help a little."

She resumed the place at his side, with her silk billowing against his
knee. "This is it," she declared, her face set against the illimitable,
still dark. "I recognized it only a little while ago. I think
unconsciously I came to America hoping to find it; there was nothing at
Annapolis, but here--" she drew a breath as deep, he noted, as her stays
would permit. "It includes you, somehow," she continued; "as if you were
the voice. What I said coming away from the Forge, about dreading you,
was only momentary. I have another feeling, premonition--" she broke
off, her manner changed. "All the Court believes in signs: Protestantism
and vampires.

"It seems unreal here; I mean St. James and all that was so
tremendously important; incredibly stupid--the Princess Amelia's
stockings. But you can't imagine the jealousy. Every bit of it shall go
out of my thoughts. You'll help me, a harmless magic. I'll be as simple
as that girl across the road, with the red cheeks, in a single slip. You
must call me Ludowika; Ludowika and Howat. I'm not so terribly old, only
twenty-nine."

"I am going away to-morrow," he informed her; "I won't be back before
you leave."

A slight frown gathered about her eyes. Her face was very close to his.
"But I don't like that either," she replied. "You were to be a part of
it, its voice; excursions in the woods. Is it necessary, your absence?"

He knew that it was not; and suddenly he was seized with the conviction
that he would not go. It was as if, again, a voice outside him had
informed him of the fact. But if there were no reason for his going
there was as little for his remaining at Myrtle Forge; that was, so far
as Ludowika Winscombe was concerned. He had been untouched by all that
she had said; untouched except for a faint involuntary shiver as she had
spoken of premonition. And that had vanished instantaneously. There was
his duty in the counting house. But he was forced to admit to himself
the insufficiency of that reason; it was too palpably false.

He had not been moved by the intent of what she had said, but his
imagination had been stirred, as if by the touch of delicate, pointed
fingers, at her description of Court--a bed with a silk counterpane ...
behind clipped greenery.