There were a great many visitors in the two delightfully quaint rooms,
among whom he wandered disconsolate and admired, jealous of her
scattered smiles, but presently he found himself seated by her side on
a 'cosy corner' near the open folding-doors, with all the other guests
huddled round a violinist in the inner room. How Winifred had managed it
he did not know but she sat plausibly in the outer room, awaiting
newcomers, and this particular niche was invisible, save to a determined
eye. He took her unresisting hand--that dear, warm hand, with its
begemmed artistic fingers, and held it in uneasy beatitude. How
wonderful! She--the beautiful and adored hostess, of whose sweetness and
charm he heard even her own guests murmur to one another--it was her
actual flesh-and-blood hand that lay in his--thrillingly tangible. Oh,
adventure beyond all merit, beyond all hoping!
But every now and then, the outer door facing them would open on some
newcomer, and John had hastily to release her soft magnetic fingers and
sit demure, and jealously overhear her effusive welcome to those
innocent intruders, nor did his brow clear till she had shepherded them
within the inner fold.
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