A. E. W. Mason

“ Feversham caught his breath like a man in pain. But the girl's eyes were upon his face, and he sat still, staring in front of him without so much as a contraction of the forehead. But it seemed that he could not trust himself to answer. He kept his lips closed, and Ethne continued:—
"You see I can put up with the absence of the people I care about, a little better perhaps than most people. I do not feel that I have lost them at all," and she cast about for a while as if her thought was difficult to express. "You know how things happen," she resumed. ”

“ Well, such friends—they are few, no doubt, but after all only the few really count—such friends one does not lose, whether they are absent, or even—dead."
"Unless," said Feversham, slowly, "one has made a mistake. Suppose the face in the crowd is a mask, what then? One may make mistakes."
Ethne shook her head decidedly.
"Of that kind, no. One may seem to have made mistakes, and perhaps for a long while. ”

“ What did these persistent questions matter, since the feathers had come, since her ring lay flickering and winking on the table? "Yes, I think what you were saying rather compelled me."
"I remember," said Ethne, interrupting him rather hastily, "about seeing much of one another—afterwards. We will not speak of such things again," and Feversham swayed upon his feet as though he would fall. "I remember, too, you said one could make mistakes. You were right; I was wrong. One can do more than seem to make them. ”

“ Durrance has sent me a present—a Guarnerius violin."
The door opened, and a thin, lank old man, with a fierce peaked face like a bird of prey, came out upon the steps. His face softened, however, into friendliness when he saw Feversham, and a smile played upon his lips. A stranger might have thought that he winked. But his left eyelid continually drooped over the eye.
"How do you do?" he said. "Glad to see you. Must make yourself at home. If you want any whiskey, stamp twice on the floor with your foot. The servants understand," and with that he went straightway back into the house. ”

“ I foresaw every hedge, every pit, every treacherous bank."
"Yet you rode straight," interrupted Ethne. "Mr. Durrance told me so."
"Did I?" said Feversham, vaguely. "Well, perhaps I did, once the hounds were off. Durrance never knew what the moments of waiting before the coverts were drawn meant to me! So when this telegram came, I took the chance it seemed to offer and resigned."
He ended his explanation. He had spoken warily, having something to conceal. However earnestly she might ask for frankness, he must at all costs, for her sake, hide something from her. But at once she suspected it. ”

“ There's a tree on the other side of the wall as convenient as the letter-box. I used to run down the half-mile of avenue at night."
"There might have been thieves," exclaimed Feversham.
"There were thorns," said Ethne, and turning through the gates she drove up to the porch of the long, irregular grey house. "Well, we have still a day before the dance."
"I suppose the whole country-side is coming," said Feversham.
"It daren't do anything else," said Ethne, with a laugh. "My father would send the police to fetch them if they stayed away, just as he fetched your friend Mr. Durrance here. ”

“ One goes along in a dull sort of way, and then suddenly a face springs out from the crowd of one's acquaintances, and you know it at once and certainly for the face of a friend, or rather you recognise it, though you have never seen it before. ”

“ Feversham had not given a thought to that matter. The message was all in all, the men who had sent it so unimportant. But Ethne reached out her hand and took the box from him. There were three visiting cards lying at the bottom, and she took them out and read them aloud.
"Captain Trench, Mr. Castleton, Mr. Willoughby. Do you know these men?"
"All three are officers of my old regiment."
The girl was dazed. She knelt down upon the floor and gathered the feathers into her hand with a vague thought that merely to touch them would help her to comprehension. ”

“ I know him. When danger came his way, it found him ready, but he did not foresee. That was my trouble always,—I foresaw. Any peril to be encountered, any risk to be run,—I foresaw them. I foresaw something else besides. ”

“ Then very carefully he put the feathers into his breast pocket. Ethne at this time did not consider why. She only thought that here was the irrevocable end.
"We should be going back, I think," she said. "We have been some time away. Will you give me your arm?" In the hall she looked at the clock. "Only eleven o'clock," she said wearily. "When we dance here, we dance till daylight. We must show brave faces until daylight."
And with her hand resting upon his arm, they passed into the ballroom. ”