There he paused, and gazed straight upwards into the
giddy height above him.
As he stood thus calmly contemplative, a light step sounded on the
pavement close to him, and a low voice spoke.
"Oh, here you are! It's good of you to be so punctual."
He lowered his eyes slowly as if he were afraid of giving them a shock,
and focussed them upon the speaker.
"I am never late," he remarked. "And I am never early."
Then he smiled kindly and held out his hand.
"Hullo, Chirpy!" he said. "It is Chirpy, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is Chirpy. But I never expected you to remember that."
"I remember most things," said Rivington.
His pale eyes dwelt contemplatively on the girl before him. She was very
slim and young, and plainly very nervous. There was no beauty about
Ernestine Cardwell, only a certain wild grace peculiarly charming, and a
quick wit that some people found too shrewd. When she laughed she was a
child. Her laugh was irresistible, and there was magic in her smile, a
baffling, elusive magic too transient to be defined. Very sudden and
very fleeting was her smile. Rivington saw it for an instant only as she
met his look.
"Do you know," she said, colouring deeply. "I thought you were much
older than you are."
"I am fifty," said Rivington.
But she shook her head.
"It is very good of you to say so."
"Not at all," smiled Rivington. "You, I fancy, must be about twenty-one.
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