In the evening Lucilla sat down to the piano, to play some of Beethoven's sonatas to her husband. It was a lovely moonshiny summer night, and some of the windows stood open, letting in the fragrance of jessamine and tobacco, and a quantity of tiny moths and gnats.
Mr. Thornley, having taken his coffee and his cigarette upon the verandah, lying all along on a bamboo easy chair, stayed there to listen and doze in obscurity, with his handkerchief thrown over his bald head to keep off the mosquitoes.
For a few minutes Mr. Dalrymple stood behind his hostess; but, finding that she played from memory, and therefore did not want leaves turned over for her, he left the piano, and crossing the room, stooped down to Rachel as she sat in a low chair dreamily fanning herself.
"Rachel," he whispered, "is the lapageria in blossom now?"
"I don't know, Roden—I don't think so," she replied.
"Shall we go and see?"
She rose at once, and they went together into the curtained alcove and through the noiseless swing door.
"Where is our seat?" he said, taking her hand as soon as they were alone, and leading her down the dim alleys, over-arched with fern trees, and filled with broken shadows of the gigantic fronds. "I hope it is in the same place."
It was in the same place, but the place was stiller and darker than it used to be—built all round and about with gnarled masses of cork, feathered in every crevice with maiden hair, and roofed with drooping leaves.