'
But Rogers missed the compliment, being busy in a corner with Monkey
and Jimbo, playing at mixing colours with startling results. Mother
swam across to her old friend, Mile. Lemaire. For a quarter of a
century these two had understood one another, though never consciously
been 'out' together. She moved like a frigate still, gliding and
stately, but a frigate that has snapped its hawsers and meant to sail
the skies.
'Our poor, stupid, sleeping old bodies,' she smiled.
But the radiant form of the other turned to her motionless cage upon
the bed behind her. 'Don't despise them,' she replied, looking down
upon the worn-out prison-house, while a little dazzle of brilliance
flashed through her atmosphere. 'They are our means of spreading this
starlight about the world and giving it to others. Our brains transmit
it cunningly; it flashes from our eyes, and the touch of our fingers
passes it on. We gather it here, when we are "out," but we can
communicate it best to others when we are "in."'
There was sound of confusion and uproar in the room behind as some one
came tumbling in with a rush, scattering the figures in all directions
as when a gust of wind descends upon a bed of flowers.
'In at last!' cried a muffled voice that sounded as though a tarpaulin
smothered it, and the Woman of the Haystack swept into the room with a
kind of clumsy majesty.
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