Dance of the Years Read Free Page A

deported. However, like most country people, her instinct was to seize rather than to explode, so she stepped to one side and gave Galantry a brief bob.
    â€œThis way,” she said to Shulie, and her voice betrayed nothing whatever.
    The girl did not move, so Galantry got up and led her to the door. She went with him quite docilely, without glancing behind her. On the threshold of the dark hall there was a momentary hitch, but Miss Holding suddenly flounced out her skirts, and all but swept the gypsy from the room by sheer force of the draught.
    Groats was not a large household at the time. With the departure of Galantry’s elder children much of the bustle had gone from the place, but there was a sizable kitchen-full of inside servants.
    As Dorothy drove Shulie up the broad, shallow stair to the parlour, where she proposed to install her while she collected herself, she held all the household personalities in her mind. There was Donald the coachman, and Richard, the Master’s own man, his wife Estah, who was the cook, Peg her scullion, and Sarah the young chamber-maid.Richard had been silent and hang-dog for days, so he had already been told in confidence no doubt. Estah would be ruled by him in this as in all else. Donald, Dorothy could manage—he was a good soul, stolid and slow thinking. Peg mattered less than nothing, being scarce better than a gyppo herself, but Sarah might make trouble.
    Sarah was young, sly and quick-witted, quite capable of taking advantage of a situation breathing disruption. It was quite possible that she would get hold of this creature, coax her, pet her, sponge on her, and range herself on the destroying side. Very likely Sarah would have to go.
    It was typical of Dorothy that she should have reacted in this intensely practical way, even when in a condition of shock. Her concern was the preservation of the house and all it contained or stood for. She had noticed some of the unrest of the hour with deep animal misgiving. She did not think much about outside things, but she felt them, and when they threatened her castle, she was the first to smell the smoke.
    Unrest was abroad, danger, excitement; all bad things for a home.
    She knew well enough what was going on—Change. Change deep and irrevocable. Change as inescapable, as relentless and as painful as the change from youth to middle age. She hated it and feared it and dreaded it, and knew it would come.
    In the parlour the candles guttered as the door swung gustily, and the two women went in. It was a pretty room and not without elegance. Red silk damask flowed round the windows, and picked up the strawberries on the chintz and the blush in the heathen signs on the carpet. To Shulie it looked like a great half-full trunk of treasures with the lid shut down.
    Dorothy stepped forward to take a spill from the mantelshelf with which to light the rest of the candles, which were prudently kept dark whenever the room was not in actual use, and while she was so occupied she had to take her eyes off the girl. She still barred the way to the door though, and in the moment the gypsy passed her she caught a glimpse of the frightened face and wild outdoor eyes.
    Shulie made no noise at all, she went like a shadow. Not out of the house, but down the stairs, across the hall, and into the library to Galantry again. Once there she stood very close to him. She was shaking violently, and the pulses at the hinges of her jaws showed clearly and piteously.
    Old Galantry, who was a cold man for all his passions, felt once again the life in her, and a flood of unusual tenderness brought colour to his thin face. As he put his arm round her, it occurred to him that he was holding her up so that she could not hide
under
his chair. The notion amused him, but it also touched some nearly atrophiedflame of generosity very deep in him, and shook for once into glorious youthful uncertainty, the merciless boredom of his self-knowledge. His gratitude to Shulie