of all initiative, allowed her to do as she would.
'But, please, Uncle Paul,' she went on with vast gravity, 'I want you to be serious now. I've something to say to you, and that's why I'm not in bed when I ought to be. All the other Sprites are about too, you know, so be very careful how you answer.'
The big man allowed himself to be led away. He felt his armour dropping off in great flakes as he went. No light is so magical as in that mingled hour of sun and moon when the west is still burning and the east just a-glimmer with the glory that is to come. Paul felt it strongly. He was half with the sun and half with the moon, and the gates of fantasy seemed somewhere close at hand. Curtains were being drawn aside, veils lifting, doors softly opening. He almost heard the rush of the wind behind, and tasted the keen, sweet excitement of another world.
He turned sharply to look at his companion. But first he put the hood back, for she seemed more human that way.
'Well, child!' he said, as gruffly as he could manage, 'and what is it you have stayed up so late to ask me?'
'It's something I have to say to you, not to ask, she replied at once demurely. There was a delicious severity about her.
After a pause of twenty seconds she tripped round in front of him and stared full into his face. He felt as though she cried 'Hands up' and held a six-shooter to his head. She pulled the trigger that same moment.
'Isn't it time now to stop writing all those Reports, and to take off your dressing-up things?' she asked with decision.
Paul stopped abruptly and tried to disengage his hand, but she held him so tightly that he could not escape without violence.
'What dressing-up things are you talking about?' he asked, forcing a laugh which, he admitted himself, sounded quite absurd.
'All this pretending that you're so old, and don't know about things—I mean real things—our things.'
He searched as in a fever for the right words—words that should be true and wise, and safe—but before he could pick them out of the torrent of sentences that streamed through his mind, she had gone on again. She spoke calmly, but very gravely.
'We are so tired of helping to pretend with you; and we've been waiting patiently so long. Even Toby knows it's only 'sguise you put on to tease us.'
'Even Toby?' he repeated foolishly, avoiding her brilliant eyes.
'And it really isn't quite fair, you know. There are so very few that care—and understand—'
There came a little quaver in her voice. She hardly came up to his shoulder. He felt as though a whole bathful of happiness had suddenly been upset inside him, and was running about deliciously through his whole being—as though he wanted to run and dance and sing. It was like the reaction after tight boots—collars—or tight armour—and the blood was beginning to flow again mightily. Nothing could stop it. Some keystone in the fabric of his being dropped or shifted. His whole inner world fell into a new pattern. Resistance was no longer possible or desirable. He had done his best. Now he would give in and enjoy himself at last.
'But, my dear child—my dear little Nixie—'
'No, really, Uncle, there's no good talking like that,' she interrupted, her voice under command again, though still aggrieved, 'because you know quite well we're all waiting for you to join us properly—our Society, I mean—and have our a'ventures with us—'
She called it 'aventures.' She left out all consonants when excited. The word caught him sharply. Nixie had wounded him better than she knew.
'Er—then do you have adventures?' he asked.
'Of course—wonderful.'
'But not—er—the sort—er—I could join in?'
'Of course; very wonderful indeed aventures. That's what Daddy used to call them—before he went away.'
It was Dick himself speaking. Paul imagined he could hear the very voice. Another, and deeper, emotion surged through him, making all the heartstrings quiver.
He turned and looked about him, still holding the child tightly by the hand ....
Behind him he heard the air moving in the larches, combing out their long green hair; the pampas grass rustled faintly on the lawn just beyond; and from the wood, now darkening, came the murmur of the brook. On his right, the old house looked shadowy and unreal. There stood the chimneys, like draped figures watching him, with the first stars peeping over their hunched shoulders. Dew glistened on the slates of the roof; beyond them he saw the clean outline of the hill, darkly sweeping up into the pallor of the sunset. There, too, past the wall of the house, he saw the great distances of heathland moving down through crowds of shadows to the sea. And the moon was higher. 'There's seats in the Blue Summer-house,' the voice beside him said, with insinuation as well as command.
He found it impossible to resist; indeed, the very desire to resist had been spirited away. Slowly they made their way across the silvery patchwork of the lawn to the door of the Blue Summer-house. This was a tumble-down structure with a thatched roof; it had once been blue, but was now no colour at all. Low seats ran round the inside walls, and as Paul stood at the dark entrance he perceived that these seats were already occupied; and he hesitated. But Nixie pulled him gently in.
'This is a regular Meeting,' she said, as naturally as though she had been wholly innocent of a part in the plot. 'They've only been waiting for us. Please come in.' She even pushed him.
'It may be regular, but it is most unexpected,' he said, breathless rather, and curiously shy as he crossed the threshold and peered round at the silent faces about him. Eyes, he saw, were big and round and serious, shining with excitement. Clearly it was a very important occasion. He wondered what an 'irregular 'meeting would be like.
'We waited till mother was away,' explained a candid voice, speaking with solemnity from the recesses.
'And till Madmerzelle had to go to the dentist and stay to tea,' added another.
'So that it would be easier for you to come,' concluded Nixie, lest he should think all these excuses were only on their own account.
She led him across the cobbled floor to a wooden arm - chair with crooked and shattered legs, and persuaded him to sit down. He did so.
'There was some sense in that, at any rate,' he remarked irrelevantly, not quite sure whether he referred to the children, or Mademoiselle, or the chair, and landing at the same instant with a crash upon the rickety support which was much lower than he thought it was. The joints and angles of the wood entered his ribs. He lost all memory of how to be sedate after that. He began to enjoy himself absurdly.
Silvery laughter was heard, followed immediately by the sound of rushing little feet as a dozen small shadows shot out into the moonlight and tore across the lawn at top speed. China and Japan he recognised, and a cohort of furry creatures in their rear.
'Now you've frightened them all away,' exclaimed the voice that had spoken first.
'Doesn't matter,' replied the other, who evidently spoke with authority; 'Uncle Paul was in before they left. They saw the introduction. That's enough. So now,' it added with decision, 'if you're quite ready we'd better begin/
Paul grasped by this time that he was the central figure in some secret ceremony of the children,
