His emotions, evidently, were not quite
normal.
He listened. The night was very still. The stars, like a shower of
golden rain arrested in full flight, paused in a flock and looked at
him, but in so deliberate a way that he was conscious of being looked
at. It was rather a delightful sensation, he thought; never before had
they seemed so intimate, so interested in his life. He was aware that
a friendly relationship existed between him and those far, bright,
twinkling eyes. "Hm" he murmured softly once again, then heard a sound
of wings rush whirring past his face, and next a chattering of birds
somewhere overhead among the heavy eaves. "So I'm not the only one
awake," he thought, and, for some odd reason, felt rather pleased
about it. "Sounds like swallows. I wonder!"
But he saw no movement anywhere; no wind stirred the ivy on the wall,
the limes were motionless, the earth asleep. Even the stream beyond
the laurel shrubberies ran silently. Dimly he made out the garden
lying at attention, the flower-beds like folded hands upon its breast;
and further off, the big untidy elms in pools of deeper shadow, their
outlines blurred as dreams blur the mind.
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