an end of languor, and
when the hour of freedom struck, he ran down the weedy garden and raced
upstairs to his attic-chamber, and there attired himself in his best.
These were days when the cheapest of cheap dandies wore paper cuffs
and collars, then newly discovered, and Paul made himself trim in this
inexpensive fashion. He had spent half an hour at his ablutions before
leaving the office, and walked towards his rendezvous all neat and
shining.

May met him at the door with a finger on her lips and a pretty air of
mystery.

'I've had to fib about ee. Uncle Dan saw you run past all wet this
morning, and he asked. I had to tell him something. I said you fell in
trying to reach them watter-lilies. I didn't want your own uncle to know
your wickedness.'

There was not time for more, for Uncle Dan himself appeared at this
moment.

'None the worse for your duckin', eh, Paul?'

'Not a bit.'

'We're goin' to have a bit of music, lad. Come in and sit down, if
you've a mind to it.'

Paul half welcomed and half resented the putting off of the decisive
moment He was in a dreadful nervous flutter, his hopes alternately
flying like a flag in a high wind, and drooping in a sick abandonment of
everything. And May was more ravishing than ever. She had stuck the
stem of a rose in one little ear like a pen, and the full flower itself
nestled drooping at her cheek. There was never anything in the world
more demure than her face and her manner, but the frolic eye betrayed
her mood now and then, and Paul was half beside himself at every furtive
smile she shot at him. A local tenor, the pride of the church choir, was
there, and May and he sang duets together, amongst them 'Come where my
love lies dreaming.' Paul's heart obeyed the call with a virgin coyness,
and his thoughts stole into some dim-seen shadowed sanctuary, some place
of silence where the feet fell soft, and a pale curtain gleamed, and
where behind the curtain lay something so sacred that he dared not draw
the veil, even in fancy. 'Her beauty beaming,' sang the local tenor.
'Her beauty beaming,' May's voice carolled. Heaven, how it beamed! The
boy's emotion choked him. If shame had not lent him self-control, he
would have broken into tears before them all.

The musical hour wore away, and the local tenor had a supper engagement,
and must go. May slid from the room, and soon after her voice was heard
calling 'Paul.'

Paul answered.

'Come here a minute,' she said.