Читать книгу The Complete Works of Algernon Blackwood. Novels, Short Stories, Horror Classics, Occult & Supernatural Tales, Plays онлайн

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She scrambled lightly along the steep bank to his side, and leaned over the railing with him, staring at their reflections in the stream.

'I declare you startled me, child!' Paul exclaimed.

Her eyes met his in the running reflection beneath them. Of course, it may have been merely the trick of the glancing water, but to him it seemed that her expression was elfin and mischievous.

'Did I—really ', Uncle Paul?' she said after a long silence, and without looking up. But woven through the simple words, as sunlight is woven through clearing mist, he divined all the other meanings of the child's subtle and curious personality. It amounted to this—she at once invited, nay included, him in her own particular tree and water world: included him because he belonged there with her, and she simply couldn't help herself. There was no favour about it one way or the other.

The compliment—the temptation—was overwhelming. Paul shivered a little, actually shivered, as he stood beside her in the sunshine. For several minutes they leaned there in silence, gazing at the flowing water.