next day heaven opened to us—a heaven, as does not always happen, of some one’s else making. our dear avis knight, fancying that lawrence was looking rather worn, persuaded him to shift the world to other shoulders while he went off for golden apples, and he agreed to a cruise in the yacht. whereupon, avis begged that pelleas and i bring nichola and spend at little rosemont the month of their absence. the roses were in full bloom and avis said prettily that she longed to think of us alone there among them. really, to have inherited north america would have been nothing to this; for little rosemont is my idea of a palace and i think is by far the most beautiful of the long island country places.
therefore pelleas and i went in town to fetch various belongings and nichola. or i think i should say to approach nichola, that violent and inevitable force to be reckoned with like the weather and earthquakes.
“whatever will nichola say?” we had been wondering all the way on train and ferry, and “whatever will nichola say?” we put it in a kind of panic, as pelleas turned the latch-key at our house.
we went at once to the kitchen and as we descended the stairs we heard her singing low, like a lullaby, that passionate serenade, com’ è gentil, from don pasquale. her voice is harsh and broken and sadly alien to serenades but the tones have never lost what might have been their power of lullaby. perhaps it is that this is never lost from any woman’s voice. at all events, old nichola reduces street-organ song, and hymn, and aria di bravura to this universal cradle measure.
when we appeared thus suddenly before her she looked up, but she did not cease her song. she kept her eyes on us and i saw them light, but the serenade went on and her hands continued their task above the table.
“nichola,” i said, “we are invited to a most beautiful place on long island to stay a month while our friends are away. we are to take you, and we must start to-morrow. the house has one hundred and forty rooms, nichola, and you shall be my lady’s maid, as you used.”
“and nothing to do, nichola, but pick roses and sing,” pelleas added, beaming.
our old serving-woman pinched the crust about a plump new pie. on the board lay a straggling remnant of the dough for the guinea goat. nichola always fashioned from the remnant of pie-crust a guinea goat which she baked and, with a blanket of jelly, ate, beginning at the horns. once in her native capri there had appeared, she had told me, a man from west africa leading a guinea goat which she averred could count; and the incident had so impressed her that she had never since made a pie without shaping this ruminant quadruped. whether there really ever was such a goat i do not know, but nichola believed in it and in memoriam molded pie-crust goats by the thousand. she has even fried them as doughnuts, too; but these are not so successful for the horns puff out absurdly.
“a hundred and forty rooms, nichola,” i said, “and you shall be my lady’s maid.”
“yah!” nichola rejoined, interrupting her song rather to attend to pricking the pie-crust with a fork than to reply to us; “don’t look for no lady-maiding from me, mem. i’ll be kep’ busy countin’ up the windows, me. when do we start off?” she wanted to know.
nichola evidently believed us to be jesting. later when she found that our extravagant proposition was the truth she pretended to have known from the first.
we were in the midst of our simple preparations, when a wonderful thing occurred to pelleas. i was folding my gown of heliotrope silk in its tissues, the gown with the collar of mechlin which is now my chief finery, when pelleas came in our room.
“etarre,” he said, “you know what day comes next week. and now we shall spend it at little rosemont, alone!”
i knew what he meant. had we not previously talked of it and mourned that it was not possible to us to celebrate that day alone, as we had always dreamed that one’s golden-wedding day should be spent?
“our wedding day—our golden-wedding day,” i said.
pelleas nodded. “as if they have not all been golden,” he observed simply.
there was in every fern a nod for our good fortune as on that next afternoon pelleas and nichola and i drove up the avenue at little rosemont. and at the very park entrance, though of course we did not know that at the time, a part of our adventure began when the gate was opened by that brown, smiling young under-gardener karl, with honest man’s eyes and a boy’s dimples, who bowed us into the place like a good genie. as we returned his greeting we felt that he was in a manner ringing up the curtain on the spectacle but we did not forecast that he was also to play a most important part.
in the great hall all the servants were gathered to welcome us, an ensemble of liveries and courtesies in which i distinguished only mrs. woods, the housekeeper, very grave, a little hoarse, and clothed on with black satin. we escaped as soon as possible, pelleas and i not having been formed by heaven to play the important squire and his lady arriving home to bonfires and village bells and a chorus of our rent roll. but once safely in the lordly sitting room of our suite, with its canopies and a dais, and epergnes filled with orchids, i had but to look at pelleas to feel wonderfully at home. it is a blessed thing to love some one so much that you feel at home together in any place of deserts or perils or even lordly rooms filled with orchids.
on that first evening we were destined to chance upon another blessed thing of the same quality. after our solitary dinner in the stately dining-room, pelleas and i went wandering in the grounds, very still in the hush of june with june’s little moon lying on the sky. little rosemont is a place of well-swept lawns, and orchards then newly freed from the spell of their bloom; it is a place of great spaces and long naves, with groves whose trees seem to have been drawn together to some secret lyre. the house is a miracle of line and from its deep verandas one sees afar off a band of the sea, as if some god had struck it from the gray east. and everywhere at that glad season were the roses, thousands and thousands of roses—ah, fancy using figures to compute roses quite as one does in defraying debts. though indeed as pelleas frivolously said, “‘time brings roses’ but so does money!” for many of those assembled were from persia and cashmere and i dare say from lud and phut. i think that i have never had an experience of great delight at which a band of familiar, singing things was not present; and when i remember the month at little rosemont it is as if the roses were the musical interludes, like a greek chorus, explaining what is. they hang starry on almost every incident; unless perhaps on that of the night of our arrival, when we are told that nichola in the servants’ dining-hall produced a basket which she had brought with her and calmly took therefrom her guinea goat of the day before and ate it, before all assembled, beginning at the horns!
from the driveway on that first walk pelleas and i looked up to a balcony over which the roses were at carnival. it was the kind of balcony that belongs to a moon and i half suspect all such balconies to be moon-made and invisible by sun or starlight; it was the kind of balcony that one finds in very old books, and one is certain that if any other than a lover were to step thereon it would forthwith crumble away. pelleas, looking up at the balcony, irrelevantly said:—
“do you remember the young rector over there in inglese? the reverend arthur didbin? who married viola to our telephone the other day?”
“yes, of course, pelleas,” said i, listening. what could the reverend arthur didbin have to do with this balcony of roses?
“i’ve been thinking,” pelleas went on, “that next week, on our golden-wedding day you know, we might have him come up here in the evening—there will be a full moon then—” he hesitated.
“yes, yes?” i pressed him, bewildered.
“well, and we might have him read the service for us, just we three up there on the balcony. the marriage service, etarre—unless you think it would be too stupid and sentimental, you know?”
“stupid!” i said, “o, pelleas.”
“ah, well, nichola would think we were mad,” he defended his scruples.
“but she thinks so anyway,” i urged, “and besides she will never know. but mr. didbin—what of him?” i asked doubtfully; “will he laugh or will he understand?”
pelleas reflected.
“ah, well,” he said, “hobart told me that one night when mr. didbin’s train ran into an open switch he walked through six miles of mud to marry a little country couple whom he had never seen.”
and that confirmed us: the reverend arthur didbin would understand. we stepped on in the pleasant light talking of this quite as if we had a claim on moon-made balconies and were the only lovers in the world. that we were not the only lovers we were soon to discover. at the edge of a grove, where a midsummer-night-dream of a fountain tinkled, we emerged on a green slope spangled with little flowers; and on its marge stood a shallow arbour formed like a shell or a petal and brave with bloom. we hastened toward it, certain that it had risen from the green to receive us, and were close upon it before we saw that it was already occupied. and there sat bonnie, the little maid whose romance we had openly fostered, and with her that young karl, the under-gardener, whom we observed in an instant avis could never call faint heart any more.
pelleas glanced at me merrily as we immediately turned aside pretending to be vastly absorbed in some botanical researches on the spangled evening slope.
“bless us, etarre,” he said, smiling, “what a world it is. you cannot possibly hollow out an arbour anywhere without two lovers waiting to occupy it.”
“ah, yes,” said i, “the only difficulty is that there are more lovers than arbours. here are we for example, arbourless.”
but that we did not mind. on the contrary, being meddlers where arbours and so on are concerned, we set about finding out more of the two whom we had surprised. this was not difficult because we had brought with us nichola; and through her we were destined to develop huge interest in the household. nichola indeed talked of them all perpetually while she was about my small mending and dressing and she scolded shrilly at matters as she found them quite as she habitually criticizes all orders and systems. nichola is in conversation a sad misanthrope, which is a pity, for she does not know it; and to know it is, one must suppose, the only compensation for being a misanthrope. she inveighed for example against the cook and the head laundress who had a most frightful feud of long standing, jealously nourished, though neither now had the faintest idea in what it had arisen—was this not cosmopolitan and almost human of these two? and nichola railed at the clannishness of the haughty scotch butler until he one day opened an entry door for her, after which she softened her carping, as is the way of the world also, and objected only to what she called his “animal brogue,” for all the speeches of earth alien to the italian are to nichola a sign of just so much black inferiority. and she went on at a furious rate about the scandalous ways of “reddie,” the second stableman, who, she declared, “kep’ the actual rats in the stable floor with their heads off their pillows, what with his playin’ on a borrow’ fiddle that he’d wen’ to work an’ learnt of himself.” through nichola we also had our attention directed to mrs. woods’ groveling fear of burglars—her one claim to distinction unless one includes that she pronounced them “burgulars.” and too we heard of the sinful pride of sarah mclean of the cedar linen room who declared in the hearing of the household that one of her ancestors was a hittite. where she had acquired this historic impression we never learned nor with what she had confused the truth; but she stoutly clung to her original assertion and on one occasion openly told the housekeeper that as for her family-tree it was in the old testament bible; and the housekeeper, crossing herself, told this to nichola who listened, making the sign of the horn to ward away the evil. it was like learning the secrets of a village; but the greatest of these realities proved to be bonnie mclean, daughter of her of hittite descent, and karl, the under-gardener and the genie of the gate. picture the agitation of pelleas and me when nichola told us this:—
“yes, mem,” she said, “them two, they’re in love pitiful. but the young leddy’s mother, she’s a widdy-leddy an’ dependent on. an’ as for the young fellow, he’s savin’ up fer to get his own mother acrost from the old country an’ when he does it they’re agoin’ to get marrit. but he needs eighty dollars an’ so far they say he’s got nine. ain’t it the shame, mem, an’ the very potatoes in this house with cluster diamin’s in their eyes?”
surely avis did not know this about the young lovers—avis, one of whose frocks would have set the two at housekeeping with the mother from “the old country” at the head of the table. pelleas and i were certain that she did not know, although we have found that there are charming people of colossal interests to whom one marriage more or less seems to count for as little as a homeless kitten, or a “fledgling dead,” or the needless felling of an ancient oak. but it is among these things that pelleas and i live, and we believe that in spite of all the lovers in the world there is yet not enough love to spare one lover’s happiness. so while the moon swelled to the full and swung through the black gulf of each night as if it had been shaped by heaven for that night’s appointment, we moved among the roses of little rosemont, biding our golden-wedding day, gradually becoming more and more intent upon the romance and the homely realities of that liveried household. perhaps it was the story of bonnie and karl that suggested to pelleas the next step in our adventure; or it may have been our interest in “reddie,” whom we unearthed in the stable one afternoon and who, radiant, played for us for an hour and fervently thanked us when he had concluded. at all events, as our day of days came on apace pelleas became convinced that it was infamously selfish for us to spend it in our own way. because heaven had opened to us was that a reason for occupying heaven to the exclusion of the joys of others?
“etarre,” he said boldly, “there is not the least virtue in making those about one happy. that is mere civilization. but there is nobody about us but avis’ servants. and she told us to make ourselves at home. let’s give all the servants a holiday on that day and get on by ourselves.”
“we might let them picnic in the grounds,” i suggested doubtfully.
“with lemonade and cake,” pelleas submitted.
“lemonade and cake!” i retorted with superiority; “the servants of to-day expect lobster and champagne.”
“ah, well,” pelleas defiantly maintained, “i believe they will like your cream tarts anyway.” he meditated for a moment and then burst out daringly: “etarre! would avis care? of course she could never do it herself; but do you think she would care if we let them all come up that night and dance in the great hall?”
i stared at pelleas aghast.
“but they wouldn’t like it, pelleas!” i cried; “servants, in this day, are different. that butler now—o, pelleas, he’d never do it.”
“indeed he would,” pelleas returned confidently; “he’s a fine scot with a very decent bagpipe in his clothes closet. i’ve seen it. i’ll get him to bring it!” pelleas declared with assurance.
“but why—” i quavered momentarily; “and why not?” i instantly went on; “the very thing!” i ended, as triumphantly as if i had thought the matter out quite for myself. “and, if you like, pelleas, i’ll oversee the making of the cream tarts for the whole company!” i added, not to be outdone.
it is amazing what pleasant incredulities become perfectly possible when once you attack them as nichola attacks her guinea goats, beginning at the horns.
so that was why, having broached the subject to those concerned as delicately as if we had been providing entertainment for a minister of state; having been met with the enthusiasm which such a minister might exhibit as diplomacy; and having myself contributed to the event by the preparation of a mountain of my chef d’œuvre, the frozen cream tarts which pelleas appears to think would be fitting for both thrones and ministers assembled, he and i stood together at half after eight on the evening of our golden-wedding day and, in the middle of our lordly sitting room, looked at each other with tardy trembling. now that the occasion was full upon us it seemed a titanic undertaking. i was certain that far from being delighted the servants were alarmed and derisive and wary of our advances; that “reddie” would at the last moment refuse to play upon his borrowed fiddle for the dancing; and that the haughty scotch butler would be bored to extinction.
“o, pelleas!” i said miserably, as we went down the grand staircase, “it’s a terrible business, this attempt at philanthropy among the servants in high places.”
“at all events,” said pelleas brightly, “we are not plotting to improve them. though of course if that is done in the right way—” he added, not to be thought light-minded. pelleas has an adorable habit of saying the most rebellious things, but it is simply because he is of opinion that a great deal of nonsense is talked by those who have not the brains to rebel.
on a sudden impulse he drew me aside to the latticed window of the landing and pushed it ajar. the moon rode high above the oaks; it was as if the night stood aside in delighted silence in this exalted moment of the moon’s full. around the casement the roses gathered, so that the air was sweet.
“ah, well,” pelleas said softly, “i dare say they’ll like it. they must—‘in such a night.’ we’ll leave them to themselves in a little while. the reverend arthur didbin will be here at ten, remember.”
the great honey-tongued clock beside us touched the silence with the half hour.
“pelleas,” i whispered him, “o, pelleas. it was fifty years ago this very minute. we were saying, ‘i will’ and ‘i will.’”
“well,” said pelleas, “we have, dear. though we may yet fall out on a question of angora cats and the proper way to lay an open fire.”
we smiled, but we understood. and we lingered for a moment in silence. let me say to all skeptics that it is worth being married an hundred years to attain such a moment as that.
then as we went down the stairs the dining-room door suddenly burst open with an amazing, eerie clamour; and into the great oak-paneled hall marched the haughty scotch butler in full highland costume, plaid and bare knees and feather, playing on his bagpipe like mad. no peril, then, of his being bored to extinction, nor the others, as we were soon to find. for the bagpipe gave the signal and immediately came pouring from below stairs the great procession of our guests. my old head grows quite giddy as i try to recount them. there were mrs. woods, very grave, a little hoarse, and clothed on with black satin; and the mother of bonnie in brown silk and a cameo pin, as became a daughter of the hittites; and bonnie herself of exquisite prettiness in white muslin and rosebuds; and karl in his well-brushed black; and “reddie,” his face shining above a flaming cravat; and the cook and the head laundress who had entered competitive toilettes like any gentlewomen; and the other menservants in decent apparel; and a bevy of chic maids in crisp finery and very high heels. led by mrs. woods they came streaming toward us and shook our hands—was ever such a picture anywhere, i wondered, as i saw them moving between the priceless tapestries and clustering about the vast marble fireplace that came from the quarries of africa. and to our unbounded gratification they seemed immensely to like it all and not to have lost their respect for us because we were civil to them. then when, presently, we had sent “reddie” and his fiddle up to the pillared musicians’ gallery, they all rose to his first strains and in an instant the scotch butler had led out the crispest and highest-heeled of the maids and they all danced away with a will. danced very well too. it is amazing how tricks of deportment are communicable from class to class. if i were to offer to solve the servant problem i conclude that i would suggest to all employers: be gentlemen and gentlewomen yourselves and live with all dignity and daintiness. though i dare say that i am a very impractical old woman, but all the virtue in the world does not lie in practicality either.
in a little time pelleas slipped away to brew a steaming punch—a harmless steaming punch made from a recipe which my mother, who was a high church woman, always compounded for dining archbishops and the like. bonnie and karl did not dance but sat upon an old stone window seat brought from thebes and watched with happy eyes. and when the punch came in we wheeled it before them and they served every one.
in that lull in the dancing i looked about with sudden misgiving; nichola was not with us. where was nichola, that faithful old woman, and why was she not at our party? she had left me in full season to make ready.
“where is nichola?” i anxiously demanded of pelleas, reproaching myself for my neglect.
pelleas did not immediately answer and when i looked up i fancied that i detected his eyes twinkling. but before i could wonder or inquire came that which it makes my heart beat now to remember. without the slightest warning there sounded and echoed a violent summons on the great entrance doors. nothing could have created more consternation than did the innocent fall of that silver knocker at little rosemont.
i chanced to be sitting near the door and i think that i must have risen in astonishment. i saw pelleas whirl in concern, and i was conscious of the instant lull in the animated talk. then the scotch butler recovered himself and in full highland costume, with bare knees, he sprang to his post quite as if this had been at the head of a mountain pass and threw wide the door.
“upon my word!” i heard exclaiming a fine, magnetic voice, “upon my word, a party. let us blush and withdraw.”
but they came crowding to the door; and there in motor caps and coats stood a gay company of our friends and the friends of avis, and of them madame sally chartres and wilfred; and lisa and her uncle, dudley manners, who were guests near by at chynmere hall; and hobart eddy, whose was the voice that i had heard. they had motored out from town and from places roundabout us and were come to pay us a visit.
“sally!” said i feebly. sally was with hobart eddy who adores her and, his critics say, affects her so-picturesque company to add to his so-popular eccentricities. and with them came a cloud of the mighty, a most impressive cloud of witnessing railway presidents and bankers and statesmen and the like; and all spectators at our party.
“ah, etarre!” sally cried blithely, “this is charming. but—we are not invited.”
“no one is invited,” said i faintly, “we all belong here. ah,” i cried, as the humour of it overcame me, “come in. do come in. the punch is just served.”
they needed no second bidding. in they all marched in the merriest of humours, not in the least understanding the meaning of that strange assembly but with sufficient of moon magic and the swift motion in their dancing blood to be ready for everything. and while pelleas led them away to the billiard room to put aside their wraps, i found hobart eddy beside me. and somehow, before i knew, i was telling him all about the occasion and at his beseeching actually leading him from one to another and soberly presenting him to mrs. woods and the daughter of the hittites and the cook. only to see that elegant young leader of cotillons bowing before the head laundress in her competitive toilette was something to remember.
“and voilà mes enfants, the sweethearts,” he murmured as we halted near the window seat from thebes. there sat bonnie and karl, intent upon each other, she with a flush on her face that matched the rosebuds of her frock. and how it happened i hardly know, save that i was at that moment a distracted old woman and that in matters of romance i invariably lose my head; but i instantly went a little mad and told hobart eddy all about that young endymion and his diana of the tableaux: how endymion’s old mother must be spirited from “the old country” before they might be married; and even how eighty dollars was necessary and how they had only nine. i had just paused breathless when the others came trooping from the den, and sally chartres in white cloth and white curls leaned upon the arm of mr. dudley manners—he is king of some vast part of the mineral or vegetable kingdom at the moment though they modestly call it only a corner—and insisted on meeting every one, on hearing the bagpipe, on listening to “reddie” play, and on being a good angel with a cloud of the mighty at her side.
in the midst of this bewildering business the dining-room doors opened and in came the tall and smiling footmen whose part was to bring up the supper of cold dainties. and even in that moment my heart thrilled with thanksgiving and pride in the contemplation of the one tall footman who bore the tray of those cream tarts of mine. i say it boldly, and pelleas said it first: there never was such a decoction of thick, frozen cream and foamy chocolate in this world of delectables. i could not veil my satisfaction as i saw these set upon the table where the plates were piled, and of a truth they looked so delicious that for an instant it seemed to me the most natural thing in the world that hobart eddy should leap from his place at my side as if he had gone suddenly mad at the sight.
“wait, please!” he cried ringingly, “no one must touch anything yet!”
on which he sprang up the step that leads to the great yellow salon, lighted to enhance the look of festivity, and thus stood directly back of the supper table. he was very handsome, his face alight and glowing, his erect, compact figure drawn to its full height. and before i could even guess what he was about, what had he done, this idol of society, this deviser of the eccentric, but make his friends know in a burst of amazing eloquence all that i had just told him of the love story of bonnie and karl, save their very names.
his friends listened, curious, ready to be amused, and at the last genuinely diverted; and the household of little rosemont listened, bewildered, not knowing what to expect; and as for bonnie and karl and pelleas and me, we four listened and doubted the evidence of our own senses, until:—
“therefore,” cried hobart eddy, “i offer at auction a portion of the contents of this table, especially one fourth of this tray of amazing tarts, as an all-star benefit for these two young people. also, i offer a limited number of glasses of yonder punch—hey, mannie!” he called warningly to mr. dudley manners, who stood with a punch glass in his hand; “drop it down, man!”
“i’m hanged if i do,” said mr. manners, merrily; “i’ll bid five for it first, you know!”
“done!” cried hobart eddy, rapping on the table, “and what am i bid for this first appetizing and innocent confection, this tart, all compact of cream and spices—” so he went on, and i clung to my chair and expected the whole place to crumble away and nichola to call me to breakfast in new york. it was too wonderful.
but it was all true. they were caught in the spirit of the happy hour as if this had been some new game contrived to tempt their flagging interests. they gathered about the table, they bid one another down, they prompted the auctioneer, they escaped to corners with cream tarts—my cream tarts!—for which they had paid a price that made me tremble. and as for our original guests, they were lined up at a respectful distance, but quite frantic with the excitement, for they were all devoted—as who would not have been?—to the two to whom this would mean all happiness. and as for bonnie and karl, scarce able to breathe they sat on the stone bench from thebes and clung to each other’s hands. ah, there never was such an hour. it makes me young to think of it.
so it went on until the last tart of the portion which he had reserved was auctioned to the highest bidder. and hardly had hobart eddy invited the others to the table and paused for breath when the question that had been forced from my mind by the unexpected arrivals was answered: nichola appeared in the dining-room door.
she had made herself splendid in her best frock, a flaming scarlet merino; for nichola has never lost her italian love of colour. on her head she had a marvelous cap of the kind that she can fashion at a moment’s notice from a linen pillow case and a bit of string. and she too bore a tray, a tray of that which had detained her below stairs fashioning it for a surprise, a tray, in short, heaped with tiers and tiers of pie-crust guinea goats.
on these hobart eddy seized with an ardour that was beautiful to see. nichola, frowning terribly, stood back half minded to break into shrill upbraidings. and while i was trying between my tears and smiles to make her know what it was all about, her whole herd of goats was sold off at a price which she afterward told me, privately, was as high as the pope in the vatican could expect for his pie crusts.
they swept the pile of crisp notes and shining coin into a hat and thrust it in the hands of nichola, who stood nearest; and that old woman at their bidding crossed the slippery oaken floor and poured the treasure in the lap of little bonnie, while the daughter of the hittites sobbed on the first shoulder, which chanced to be that of her ancient enemy, the housekeeper.
nichola’s presentation speech was brief and to the point.
“here,” she said, “get marrit.”
bonnie, dear little maid in muslin and rosebuds, stood up with karl, both pink and white to see; and they bowed, and laughed through their tears. ah, there were tears in the eyes of others of us too as we looked; and madame sally chartres and a very gay and magnificent mrs. dane-orvil and the cook formed one group and impartially smiled at one another. some way, a mask had fallen.
with nichola’s words still in our ears the clock chimed quarter after ten, and in the moonlight of the open door appeared on a sudden the eager, concerned face of the reverend arthur didbin, come to keep his appointment with pelleas and me.
at sight of him pelleas fairly beamed.
“why not?” he cried out; “what do these two young people say? why shall they not be married now?”
why not, indeed? the proposition was met with acclamation. they hardly waited for the frightened, ecstatic nod of star-eyed little bonnie before they had the supper table pushed aside—indeed, i do not remember now whether it was the railway president and mr. dudley manners who did most of the work or the scotch butler and the footmen, for they all helped together. and bonnie and karl stood up in the door of the salon, and so did the daughter of the hittites, and hobart eddy insisted on being joint best man with the scotch butler, and the reverend arthur didbin married the two young lovers then and there. i have always held that the license demanded in some parts is unromantic nonsense.
after that there was a blur of adieux, and hobart eddy kissed my hand and even when his machine had been started came running back in the moonlight to get from karl the address of his mother “in the old country” so that he might cable to her and have her rejoicing by next morning. no, never tell me that any man is mere idler and dilettante, for i have seen the heart of one such and hereafter i dare not disbelieve in any one.
they all swept down the moonlit drive, hands waving, motor horns sounding; and the haughty scotch butler in full highland costume stood between two pillars and played his bagpipe to speed them on their way. the door of the tonneau of the last motor had just been hospitably opened with the offer to set down the reverend arthur didbin in the village when that gentleman, his gray hair blowing, hurried to where pelleas and i were standing.
“but,” he said anxiously, “did you not wish me for something? did you not wish—”
at that pelleas and i looked away from each other in sudden consternation and then with one accord smiled and shook our heads. with our assurance he turned away and in silence we watched him down the drive. and after the last motor had disappeared behind the shrubbery pelleas and i lingered alone in the moonlit portal breathing in the roses, and still we did not meet each other’s eyes. but when there was at last no excuse for our waiting there longer i looked up at him shamefacedly enough.
“pelleas,” i faced the truth, but solemnly lest he should imagine that i was not filled with regret at our neglect, “pelleas, we forgot our golden wedding.”
“but there has been a golden wedding all the same,” said pelleas.
however, in fear of what the balcony of roses would think of our defection, we stepped out there for a moment on our way upstairs. and there pelleas said over something that is a kind of bridal song for a golden wedding:—
“my own, confirm me! if i tread
this path back, is it not in pride
to think how little i dreamed it led
to an age so blessed that by its side
youth seems the waste instead!”
we do not think that the balcony itself can have agreed with this, because it was a moon balcony, made for youthful lovers. but roses are like a chorus, explaining what is; and no one can persuade us that these failed to understand.
