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Delagarde was in no condition to tolerate idiotic questions. Seizing her by the shoulders, he pulled her round to face him. “Maidie, don’t trifle with me! You are going to bed, if I have to pick you up and carry you there.”
He picked up her candle and thrust it into her hand, then retrieved his own and began to draw her towards the door.
“But why can I not have a pencil?” Maidie pleaded, resisting. “It is not much to ask.”
“Oh, good God!”
Releasing her, Delagarde moved back to the escritoire and made a rapid hunt through the contents of the drawers, holding his candle close. He found a pencil and handed it to her.
“There! Now, come.”
Clutching the indispensable pencil, Maidie allowed herself to be guided into the hall and up the stairs, talking all the while.
“You cannot imagine how frustrating, Delagarde. I had just located my comet again—for it has moved considerably and I have not had an opportunity to change its path in the charts since I saw it through Sir Granville’s telescope—and then I dropped the pencil. I have an idea it must have fallen through the railing because I crept about on my hands and knees and searched thoroughly.”
“On your hands and knees on the cold stone floor of the balcony? Exactly what any doctor must recommend!”
“But I promise you I did not notice the cold in the least. I was trying to hold the configuration in my head.”
“Well, you may write it down, but then you are to go to bed.”
She halted at her bedchamber door, turning with her candle held up. “It is no use now. I have forgotten it. I must hope the telescope has not shifted in my absence.”
“Maidie—” he began on a warning note, and paused as she smiled at him all at once.
“Would you like to see it? The comet, I mean.”
He was about to veto the suggestion in no uncertain terms, and insist upon her shutting up the telescope and going to bed, but Maidie opened her door, and grasping his wrist in a markedly unselfconscious manner, drew him into the room.
“Do look, Laurie! It is the most beautiful thing.”
He found himself quite unable to repudiate her. Perhaps it was the lingering effects of the wine, but he felt delightfully elated by her amiability. Not to mention her repeated use of his name, which caused warmth to expand in his chest. There was a chill in the air of the room, which he had no hesitation in ascribing to the wide-open balcony doors. Maidie seemed not to notice it, but released him and went quickly across to seat herself on the stool before her telescope, setting the candle and pencil down on the whatnot beside her.
Delagarde hesitated by the still-open door. He retained enough sanity to know this was extremely improper, but he must make sure she left off star-gazing and went back to bed. He did not want her death on his conscience. It must, he supposed, be the liquor, for there was something disturbing about the whole proceeding.
“You do realise,” he said, unusually casual, “the nature of this invitation of yours is quite shocking.”
Maidie turned on the stool. He could not see her face properly from here, but her voice was free of embarrassment. “What do you mean?”
“Come, come, Maidie. This is your bedchamber, and we are unchaperoned. If you get into the habit of inviting men to star-gaze with you, your reputation is unlikely to survive it.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, returning to her telescope. “But you are not a man.”
“I beg your pardon? Let me tell you I take strong exception to that remark, ma’am.”
Maidie giggled. “Oh, well, you know what I mean.”
“Yes, and you know what I mean. You in your dressing-robe, alone with a bachelor, at a disastrously late—or, if you will, disastrously early hour. I must have taken leave of my senses.”
Intent upon her telescope, Maidie did not acknowledge this. He doubted she had even heard him. He watched her put her eye to the piece, and then moved to the dresser where a candelabrum stood. He lit the candles from his own and a fresh light sprang up into the room.
Maidie looked round. “Oh, shade that, if you please. Or put it further away.”
Delagarde saw she had extinguished her own candle, and complied. Then he went to stand behind her, looking up into the night sky. It was indeed sparklingly clear, and the stars shone brightly. He wondered how Maidie managed to distinguish her comet from all the others. She rose from the stool and he looked down at her face. It gleamed palely in the starlight, plainly lighting her features. It dulled her bright hair, the curls falling untidily about her face, and made of it a halo which caressed her cheeks. A kind of hush fell over Delagarde’s mind. He spoke, low-voiced.
“Show me your comet.”
Maidie ushered him on to the stool, and he looked through the telescope’s eye. At first he could only make out a fuzz of light, but at Maidie’s instruction, he looked to one side and caught the shape of the comet in the periphery of his vision. At least, he took her word for it being a comet, for to his untutored eye it appeared only as a large blob. She talked. He listened, and looked. After a while, it began to make more sense, and he admitted to a certain fascination.
