He had
only to step out into the hall after they passed, and make his way
downstairs. A woman's voice from the stairway came to him:
"My dear, you must have left the light burning."
"Unless, it was you," a man's voice answered in good-humoured banter.
"You were the last one in the room."
"But I am sure I didn't!" the feminine tones asserted positively.
The steps passed along the hall, and from behind the folding doors
Jimmie Dale saw an elderly couple enter the front room. Both were in
evening dress--and somehow, suddenly, at sight of them Jimmie Dale
swallowed hard. The old gentleman, kindly, blue-eyed, white-haired, was
very erect, very straight in spite of the fact that he must have been
close to seventy years of age, and with the sweet-faced, old-fashioned
little lady, with the gray hair, who stood beside him, they made a
stately pair--for all that their clothes, past glories like the
furniture, were grown a little shabby, a little threadbare. But with
what a courtly air they wore them! And with what a courtly air now he
led her to a chair, and bent over her, and lifted up her face, and held
it tenderly between both his hands!
"How well you look to-night in your dress," he said, and his blue eyes
shone.
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