Chapter 1 - Page 2

don't let's talk to-night about going. Aren't we
outside of time and space ...? Smell that guinea-a-bottle stuff
over there: what is it? Stephanotis?"

"Y-yes .... I suppose so. Or gardenias .... Oh, the fire-
flies! Look ... there, against that splash of moonlight on the
water. Apples of silver in a net-work of gold ...." They
leaned together, one flesh from shoulder to finger-tips, their
eyes held by the snared glitter of the ripples.

"I could bear," Lansing remarked, "even a nightingale at this
moment ...."

A faint gurgle shook the magnolias behind them, and a long
liquid whisper answered it from the thicket of laurel above
their heads.

"It's a little late in the year for them: they're ending just
as we begin."

Susy laughed. "I hope when our turn comes we shall say good-bye
to each other as sweetly."

It was in her husband's mind to answer: "They're not saying
good-bye, but only settling down to family cares." But as this
did not happen to be in his plan, or in Susy's, he merely echoed
her laugh and pressed her closer.

The spring night drew them into its deepening embrace. The
ripples of the lake had gradually widened and faded into a
silken smoothness, and high above the mountains the moon was
turning from gold to white in a sky powdered with vanishing
stars. Across the lake the lights of a little town went out,
one after another, and the distant shore became a floating
blackness. A breeze that rose and sank brushed their faces with
the scents of the garden; once it blew out over the water a
great white moth like a drifting magnolia petal. The
nightingales had paused and the trickle of the fountain behind
the house grew suddenly insistent.

When Susy spoke it was in a voice languid with visions. "I have
been thinking," she said, "that we ought to be able to make it
last at least a year longer."

Her husband received the remark without any sign of surprise or
disapprobation; his answer showed that he not only understood
her, but had been inwardly following the same train of thought.

"You mean," he enquired after a pause, "without counting your
grandmother's pearls?"

"Yes--without the pearls."

He pondered a while, and then rejoined in a tender whisper:
"Tell me again just how."

"Let's sit down, then. No, I like the cushions best." He
stretched himself in a long willow chair, and she curled up on
a heap of boat-cushions and leaned her head against his knee.
Just above her, when she lifted her lids, she saw bits of
moonflooded sky incrusted like silver in a sharp black
patterning of plane-boughs. All about them breathed of peace
and beauty and stability, and her happiness was so acute that it