Angels' Shoes and other stories

"Buck Brennan was a bit taken in the wind, as he would have said. And that night he woke to a low moaning like the wind, a voice of grief so faint, so uncomprehending, it was not human. He took a light and went to the schoolroom. The girl was there, a bare thing of the night, her eyes luminous as its stars. She was squatting at the foot of the blackboard, making this sound of uncomplaining loss. Brennan knew what she wanted. She wanted her little lucky-bag, and was afraid to touch it. He took it down, looked into it; his clue was not there: unless a little bone collar stud with two or three hairs wrapped around the shank was a clue? The hairs gleamed in the light, reddish—fair. . . . He closed the little smelly thing, and gave it to the girl. Felt, the next instant, her hands, her tears, on his great bare feet! So she was a human being, not unattractive, and wildly grateful. He laid a hand like a lion's paw on her: but she melted from him, and he did not follow. She was not his; like the house, she belonged. . . To what, to whom? To a ghost, a shadow, bringing bright hair and a halo of lilac print, that looked at Buck with the eyes of a fate he might never learn. He went back to the bedroom, looked long at Franca, asleep and smiling. And began to feel that here, perhaps, was all the clue he needed…" 'Angels' Shoes and other stories' is a collection of short stories by Marjorie Pickthall.