Tante Jeanne talked furiously and incessantly, her sister-in-law told
her latest dream, and the Postmaster occasionally cracked a solemn
joke, laughing uproariously long before the point appeared. It was a
merry, noisy meal, and Henry Rogers sat through it upon a throne that
was slung with golden ropes from the stars. He was in Fairyland again.
Outside, the Pleiades were rising in the sky, and somewhere in
Bourcelles--in the rooms above Beguin's shop, to be exact--some one
was waiting, ready to come over to the Den. His thoughts flew wildly.
Passionate longing drove behind them. 'You must come up to me,' he
heard. They all were Kings and Queens.
He played his part, however; no one seemed to notice his
preoccupation. The voices sounded now far, now near, as though some
wind made sport with them; the faces round him vanished and
reappeared; but he contrived cleverly, so that none remarked upon his
absent-mindedness. Constellations do not stare at one another much.
'Does your Mother know you're "out"?' asked Monkey once beside him--it
was the great joke now, since the Story had been read--and as soon as
she was temporarily disposed of, Jimbo had serious information to
impart from the other side. 'She's a real Countess,' he said, speaking
as man to man. 'I suppose if she went to London she'd know the King--
visit him, like that?'
Bless his little heart! Jimbo always knew the important things to talk
about.
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