CHAPTER XIII.
He woke tired out, as well he might be, after spending half the night in the pursuit of young Joy personified in Miss Poppy Grace, young Joy, who, like that little dancer, is the swiftest of all swift things.
Rickman carried into this adventure a sort of innocence that renewed itself, as by a miracle, every evening.

His youth remained virgin because of its incorruptible hope.

He almost disarmed criticism by the gaiety, the naivete of the pursuit.

She was always in front of him, that young Joy; but if he did not overtake her by midnight, he was all the more sure that he would find her in the morning, with the dew on her feet and the dawn on her forehead.

He was convinced that it was that sweet mystic mouth of hers which would one day tell him the secret of the world.