"Now," said Gerald, "it's all over--nothing but niceness now and cake and things."
"It's time we did have our tea," said Jimmy. And it was.
Eliza, once convinced that her chest, though invisible, was not transparent, and that her companions could not by looking through it count how many buns she had eaten, made an excellent meal. So did the others. If you want really to enjoy your tea, have minced veal and potatoes and rice-pudding for dinner, with several hours of excitement to follow, and take your tea late.
The soft, cool green and grey of the garden were changing--the green grew golden, the shadows black, and the lake where the swans were mirrored upside down, under the Temple of Phœbus, was bathed in rosy light from the little fluffy clouds that lay opposite the sunset.
"It _is_ pretty," said Eliza, "just like a picture-postcard, aint it?--the tuppenny kind."
"I ought to be getting home," said Mabel.
"I can't go home like this. I'd stay and be a savage and live in that white hut if it had any walls and doors," said Eliza.
"She means the Temple of Dionysus," said Mabel, pointing to it.
The sun set suddenly behind the line of black fir-trees on the top of the slope, and the white temple, that had been pink, turned grey.
"It would be a very nice place to live in even as it is," said Kathleen.
"Draughty," said Eliza, "and law, what a lot of steps to clean! What they make houses for without no walls to 'em? Who'd live in----" She broke off, stared, and added: "What's that?"
"That white thing coming down the steps. Why, it's a young man in statooary."
"The statues do come alive here, after sunset," said Gerald in very matter-of-fact tones.
"I see they do." Eliza did not seem at all surprised or alarmed. "There's another of 'em. Look at them little wings to his feet like pigeons."
"It's 'Hermes' under the statue that's got wings on its feet," said Mabel, "but----"
"_I_ don't see any statues," said Jimmy. "What are you punching me for?"
"Don't you see?" Gerald whispered; but he need not have been so troubled, for all Eliza's attention was with her wandering eyes that followed hither and thither the quick movements of unseen statues. "Don't you see? The statues come alive when the sun goes down--and you can't see them unless you're invisible--and _I_--if you _do_ see them you're not frightened--unless you _touch_ them."