'Even Toby?' he repeated foolishly, avoiding her brilliant eyes.
'And it really isn't quite fair, you know. There are so very few that care—and understand—'
There came a little quaver in her voice. She hardly came up to his shoulder. He felt as though a whole bathful of happiness had suddenly been upset inside him, and was running about deliciously through his whole being—as though he wanted to run and dance and sing. It was like the reaction after tight boots—collars—or tight armour—and the blood was beginning to flow again mightily. Nothing could stop it. Some keystone in the fabric of his being dropped or shifted. His whole inner world fell into a new pattern. Resistance was no longer possible or desirable. He had done his best. Now he would give in and enjoy himself at last.
'But, my dear child—my dear little Nixie—'
'No, really, Uncle, there's no good talking like that,' she interrupted, her voice under command again, though still aggrieved, 'because you know quite well we're all waiting for you to join us properly—our Society, I mean—and have our a'ventures with us—'
She called it 'aventures.' She left out all consonants when excited. The word caught him sharply. Nixie had wounded him better than she knew.
'Er—then do you have adventures?' he asked.
'Of course—wonderful.'
'But not—er—the sort—er—I could join in?'
'Of course; very wonderful indeed aventures. That's what Daddy used to call them—before he went away.'
It was Dick himself speaking. Paul imagined he could hear the very voice. Another, and deeper, emotion surged through him, making all the heartstrings quiver.
He turned and looked about him, still holding the child tightly by the hand ....
Behind him he heard the air moving in the larches, combing out their long green hair; the pampas grass rustled faintly on the lawn just beyond; and from the wood, now darkening, came the murmur of the brook. On his right, the old house looked shadowy and unreal. There stood the chimneys, like draped figures watching him, with the first stars peeping over their hunched shoulders. Dew glistened on the slates of the roof; beyond them he saw the clean outline of the hill, darkly sweeping up into the pallor of the sunset. There, too, past the wall of the house, he saw the great distances of heathland moving down through crowds of shadows to the sea. And the moon was higher. 'There's seats in the Blue Summer-house,' the voice beside him said, with insinuation as well as command.
He found it impossible to resist; indeed, the very desire to resist had been spirited away. Slowly they made their way across the silvery patchwork of the lawn to the door of the Blue Summer-house. This was a tumble-down structure with a thatched roof; it had once been blue, but was now no colour at all. Low seats ran round the inside walls, and as Paul stood at the dark entrance he perceived that these seats were already occupied; and he hesitated. But Nixie pulled him gently in.
'This is a regular Meeting,' she said, as naturally as though she had been wholly innocent of a part in the plot. 'They've only been waiting for us. Please come in.' She even pushed him.
'It may be regular, but it is most unexpected,' he said, breathless rather, and curiously shy as he crossed the threshold and peered round at the silent faces about him. Eyes, he saw, were big and round and serious, shining with excitement. Clearly it was a very important occasion. He wondered what an 'irregular 'meeting would be like.
'We waited till mother was away,' explained a candid voice, speaking with solemnity from the recesses.
'And till Madmerzelle had to go to the dentist and stay to tea,' added another.
'So that it would be easier for you to come,' concluded Nixie, lest he should think all these excuses were only on their own account.
She led him across the cobbled floor to a wooden arm - chair with crooked and shattered legs, and persuaded him to sit down. He did so.
'There was some sense in that, at any rate,' he remarked irrelevantly, not quite sure whether he referred to the children, or Mademoiselle, or the chair, and landing at the same instant with a crash upon the rickety support which was much lower than he thought it was. The joints and angles of the wood entered his ribs. He lost all memory of how to be sedate after that. He began to enjoy himself absurdly.
Silvery laughter was heard, followed immediately by the sound of rushing little feet as a dozen small shadows shot out into the moonlight and tore across the lawn at top speed. China and Japan he recognised, and a cohort of furry creatures in their rear.
'Now you've frightened them all away,' exclaimed the voice that had spoken first.
'Doesn't matter,' replied the other, who evidently spoke with authority; 'Uncle Paul was in before they left. They saw the introduction. That's enough. So now,' it added with decision, 'if you're quite ready we'd better begin/
Paul grasped by this time that he was the central figure in some secret ceremony of the children, that it was of vital importance to them, as well as a profound compliment to himself. The animals formed part of it so long as they could be persuaded to stay. Their own rituals, however, were so vastly more wonderful and dignified—especially the Ritual of the Cats—that they were somewhat contemptuous, and had escaped at the earliest opportunity. It was, of course, his formal initiation into their world of make-believe and imagination. He stood before them on the floor of this tumbled-down Blue Summer-house in the capacity of the Candidate. Strange chills began to chase one another down his long spine. A shy happiness swept through him and made him shiver. 'Can they possibly guess,' he wondered, 'how far more important this is to me than to them?'
'Are you ready then?' Nixie asked again.
'Quite ready,' he replied in a deep and tremulous voice.
'Go ahead then,' said the voice of decision.
A little bell rang, manipulated by some invisible hand in the darkness, and Nixie darted forward and drew a curtain that bore a close resemblance to a carriage rug across the doorway, so that only the faintest gleam of moonlight filtered through the cracks on either side. Then the owner of the voice of authority left his throne on the back wall and stepped solemnly forward in the direction of the candidate. Paul recognised Jonah with some difficulty. He tripped twice on the way.
The stumbling was comprehensible. On his head he wore a sort of mitre that on ordinary occasions was evidently used to keep the tea hot on the schoolroom table; for it was beyond question a tea-cosy. A garment of variegated colours wrapped his figure down to the heels and trailed away some distance behind him. It was either a table-cloth or a housemaid's Sunday dress, and it invested him with a peculiar air of quaint majesty. He might have been King of the Gnomes. On his hands were large leathern gauntlets—very large indeed; and with loose fingers whose movements were clearly difficult to control, he grasped a stick that once may have been a hunting crop, but now was certainly a wand of office.
In front of Paul he came to a full stop, gathering his robes about him.
He made a little bow, during which the mitre shifted dangerously to one side, and then tapped the candidate lightly with the wand on the head, shoulders, and breast.
'Please answer now,' he said in a low tone, and then went backwards to his seat against the wall. His robe of office so impeded him that he was obliged to use the wand as a common walking-stick. Once or twice, too, he hopped.
'But you've forgotten to ask it,' whispered Nixie from the door where she was holding up the curtains with both hands. 'He's got nothing to answer.'
Quickly correcting his mistake, Jonah then stood up on his seat and said, rather shyly, the following lines, evidently learned by heart with a good deal of trouble:—
You've applied to our Secret Society,
Which is full of unusual variety,
And, in spite of your past,
We admit you at last,