There they lay in the glow of the peach-blossom
taffeta. The dogs pressed round him, tossing their heads,snuffling at his pockets.
Then he had gone behind acounter; had sold cheap watches; then he had taken a wallet
toAmsterdam. Without that world, how, Rosalind wondered, that winter could she
havelived at all?
It was not the name she would havechosen. She was
so far off at first that one could not see her clearly.
It was onlyErnest, turning his key in the door.
Then, silently, the enormously high door opened. There were the black rabbits and
the red; there were theenemy rabbits and the friendly. Reginald Thorburn, for
example,fitted the part of the Squire to perfection. He paused; struck a match, and
twitchedagain. He was slim, lissome, witheyes like licked stones. The Duchess opened
her heart, her private heart, gaped wide.
Sheunbolted the door of the game room as Wing, the
keeper, drove the cartover the cobbles. And she held out her handwhich came through
the slit of her white glove.
Lappin, Lappin, King Lappin, she
repeated.
For as she gazed, her lips moved; now and then she
smiled.
Beads ofperspiration stood out on the mens
foreheads. Under the mermaid, under the spears, she lay buried.
The grey mist had thickened in the
carriage.
In rushed three great hounds andstood panting. In
another moment he was sound asleep and snoring.