Athalie Part 64

And surmises something of what remains unseen. And imagines more, perhaps.... I wonder if you love me--enough."

"Dearest--dearest--"

"Let it remain unsaid, Clive. A girl must learn one day. But never from the asking. And the same sun shall continue to rise and set, whatever her answer is to be; and the moon, too; and the stars shall remain unchanged--whatever changes us. How still the woods are--as still as dreams."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She suddenly sat upright, resting one slender hand on his shoulder."]

She lifted her head, looked at him, smiled, then, freeing herself, sprang to her feet and stood a moment drawing her slim hand across her eyes.

"I shall have a tennis court, Clive. And a canoe on Spring Pond....

What kind of puppy was that I said I wanted?"

"One which would grow up with proper fear and respect for Hafiz," he said, smilingly, perplexed by the rapid sequence of her moods.

"A collie?"

"If you like."

"I wonder," she murmured, "whether they are safe for children--" She looked up laughing: "_Isn't_ it odd! I simply cannot seem to free my mind of children whenever I think about that house."

As they moved along the path toward the new home he said: "What was it you saw in the woods?"

"Children."

"Were they--real?"

"No."

"Had they died?"

"They have not yet been born," she said in a low voice.

"I did not know you could see such things."

"I am not sure that I can. It is very difficult for me, sometimes, to distinguish between vividly imaginative visualisation and--other things."

Walking back through the soft afternoon light the girl tried to tell him all that she knew about herself and her clairvoyance--strove to explain, to make him understand, and, perhaps, to understand herself.

But after a while silence intervened between them; and when they spoke again they spoke of other things. For the isolation of souls is a solitude inviolable; there can be no intimacy there, only the longing for it--the craving, endless, unsatisfied.

CHAPTER XXIII

Over the garden a waning moon silvered the water in the pool and picked out from banked ma.s.ses of bloom a tall lily here and there.

All the blossom-spangled vines were misty with the hovering wings of night-moths. Through alternate bands of moonlight and dusk the jet from the pool split into a thin shower of palely flashing jewels, sometimes raining back on the water, sometimes drifting with the wind across the gra.s.s. And through the dim enchantment moved Athalie, leaning on Clive's arm, like some slim sorceress in a secret maze, silent, absent-eyed, brooding magic.

Already into her garden had come the little fantastic creatures of the night as though drawn thither by a spell to do her bidding. Like a fat sprite a speckled toad hopped and hobbled and scrambled from their path; a tiny snake, green as the gra.s.s blades that it stirred, slipped from a pool of moonlight into a lake of shadow. Somewhere a small owl, tremulously melodious, called and called: and from the salt meadows, distantly, the elfin whistle of plover answered.

Like some lost wanderer from the moon itself a great moth with nile-green wings fell flopping on the gra.s.s at the girl's feet. And Clive, wondering, lifted it gingerly for her inspection.

Together they examined the twin moons shining on its translucent wings, the furry, snow-white body and the six downy feet of palest rose. Then, at Athalie's request, Clive tossed the angelic creature into the air; and there came a sudden blur of black wings in the moonlight, and a bat took it.

But neither he nor she had seen in allegory the darting thing with devil's wings that dashed the little spirit of the moon into eternal night. And out of the black void above, one by one, flakes from the frail wings came floating.

To and fro they moved. She with both hands clasped and resting on his arm, peering through darkness down at the flowers, as one perfume, mounting, overpowered another--clove-pink, rocket, lily, and petunia, each in its turn dominant, triumphant.

Puffs of fragrance from the distant sea stirred the garden's tranquil air from time to time: somewhere honeyed bunches hung high from locust trees; and the salt meadow's aromatic tang lent savour to the night.

"I must go back to town," he said irresolutely.

He heard her sigh, felt her soft clasp tighten slightly over his arm.

But she turned back in silence with him toward the house, pa.s.sed in the open door before him, her fair head lowered, and stood so, leaning against the newel-post.

"Good night," he said in a low voice, still irresolute.

"Must you go?"

"I ought to."

"There is that other bedroom. And Mrs. Connor has gone home for the night."

"I told her to remain," he said sharply.

"I told her to go."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted you to stay--this first night here--with me--in the home of my youth which you have given to me again."

He came to her and looked into her eyes, framing her face between his hands:

"Dear, it would be unwise for me to remain."

"Because you love me?"

"No." He added with a forced smile: "I have put on armour in our behalf. No, that is not the reason."

"Then--may you not stay?"

"Suppose it became known? What would you do, Athalie?"

"Hold my head high ... guilty or not."

"You don't know what you are saying."